Back to Basics

Chapter 1 – Classes

Terri and Terry Perry sat patiently in the registrar building as they waited for their turn to be called. Earlier that year, they had been readmitted to the scare program after winning the Scare Games with the rest of their Oozma Kappa brethren. Though, after a month of trying hard to devoting their time to scaring, they found that it wasn't for them. Terri missed his friends in the dancing program and Terry thought he was more successful as an English major.

They finally decided to go to the Registrar building to change their majors once again, finally finding where they truly belonged.

"Next!" a woman yelled. Since there was nobody in front of the Perry brothers, they went up to the woman, a three-eyed monster with horns on the top of her head. "Name?"

"Terry and Terri Perry," they both said simultaneously, something they were used to doing.

"Hold up, I only need one name."

Terry figured that she would need to input them separately since they were doing separate majors. "Alright, Terry Perry… with a y."

The woman nodded. She typed the name into her computer and went through a few processes until she finally made her way to Terry's schedule. She looked at Terry and said with a deeper voice, "Alright, Terry Perry with a y, scare major. What can I do for you?"

"I er- we would like a major change. I would like to be an English major and he would like to be-,"

"Eh," she interrupted. "I don't want to know what he wants. So, you want to be an English major?"

Terry resisted scowling at her for being so rude to him and Terri. He sighed and relieved a bit of his anger. "Yes, ma'm. That's right."

She nodded, not even thinking about how she was acting towards the twins. She typed some data into her computer and continued to look through each of the screens. She let out a very slight and awkward smile and said, "It seems that the English major isn't impacted, so you'll have a good chance of returning to your major. You'll be sent an email with an application that you'll need to fill out and return here by the end of this week. Afterwards, we'll call you to let you know if you can switch majors."

Terry let out a cute smile. "Oh, that's great! Thank you."

"Next!"

Terri and Terry looked at each other before looking back at the woman. "Wait, aren't you going to help Terri with his schedule change? He's doing one, too."

"Sir, one body means one major. I don't care if you have fifty heads, you have to stick with the single major that you were given."

Terry finally gave up on the sincere look and scowled at the woman. "Well, that's ridiculous. We were given separate IDs and separate majors when we were English and Dance majors the last time. As far as I'm concerned, that rule has not changed."

She rolled her eyes. "Then it must have been a mistake. Listen, I have a long line of people waiting, so can you please move along?"

Terry looked around the room and noticed that it was completely empty. Not a single person waiting in line. Terry turned around, prepared to curse profusely at the woman, when he heard a light whimpering coming from his right. Terry looked at Terri and saw that tears were beginning to well up in his eyes.

Terry had a heavy sad look as he softly said, "Oh, man…" He returned his glare to the woman behind the counter and loudly said, "I would like to see your boss. This is outrageous."

The woman rolled her eyes and scoffed as if she was insulted and left to go find a phone to call her boss down to the office.

Terry then looked down to his brother, who was making an attempt to wipe away the tears from his eyes. Terry gently rubbed his head with Terri's, trying to calm him down. "It's okay, Terri. We'll get this all sorted out and you'll be back on the dancing floor with all of your friends in no time."

Terri nodded, the tears beginning to stop. "I know. But I'm so sick of everyone think we're this one person when we're clearly two completely different people."

Terry looked at Terri. "Yeah, but we knew that when we applied to go to college. Our parents warned us about it."

Terri nodded again, a slight smile returning to his face. "Yeah, you're right." There was a lull in the conversation for a moment before Terri said, "I'm surprised that you're actually going back to your English major, though. I thought you would want to do something a bit more… exciting. Like… Music for example. You could play the vighoulin while I'm dancing!"

Terry rolled his eyes. "I already told you a thousand times that there are a bunch of opportunities that can come out of being an English major. Like a teacher for example"

"Yes, Terry," Terri said with less confidence. "You'll make a wonderful teacher of boredom someday. You're first lesson would be how quick you can put your students to sleep."

Terry faked a groan. "Am I going to have to kill you, Terri?"

"That's suicide! Besides, why would you want to kill someone as good-looking as me?"

Terry chuckled. "I don't know. I don't think I would be able to."

The two brothers laughed with each other. They put all four of their hands together at the center of their stomach and simply waited patiently for the manager of the registrar building. They had already placed the rude situation at the back of their minds.

Shortly after, a slender furry male monster approached the desk and brought his attention to the Perry twins. "Millie tells me that there's an issue with the two of you."

More like an issue with her, Terry thought. "Yes, sir. We were talking to… Millie and she would not allow us to have separate majors like we did before."

The man gave the two a skeptical look. "You two had different majors."

Terry and Terri nodded simultaneously. "Yes, sir. I was an English major and Terri was a Dance major. Check our records. We're telling the truth."

He chuckled. "I didn't think you two were lying. We've been having issues with Millie quite some time now with complaints of being a bit discriminatory against certain monsters." The man looked at the computer and said, "She seems to have Terry Perry set-up as an English major, so that seems correct." He returned his attention to the twins. "Alright, name and requested major?"

Terri smiled, knowing that he was referring to him. "Terri Perry. Terri is spelled with an 'i'. I want to be a dance major."

The manager nodded, his smile fading as he concentrated on the computer screen. After a few moments, he again returned his attention to Terri. "Okay, Terri Perry… you're currently a scare major, formerly a dance major, and you want to be a dance major again?"

Terri gave a jubilant nod. "Yeah, that's right!"

He typed in a few more things before giving the twins a warm smile. "Alright, you two are settled! I apologize with the inconvenience earlier. We'll get that straightened out."

Terry smiled and gave his a simple nod. "Thank you, sir." Terry took both his and Terri's paperwork and exited the registrar building. "That guy was a lot nicer than I thought he was going to be. I was almost afraid he was going to be just mean as that Millie lady."

Terri smiled. "Yeah, thankfully. If he was mean, I was afraid that I was going to have to keep you from crying again."

Terry smirked. "Alright, that's it. When we get back to the Oozma Kappa house, I'm going to have to teach you a lesson about sarcasm against your almighty twin brother."

Terri couldn't help but laugh out loud at the statement, knowing that Terry didn't have the capability nor the motivation to teach him a lesson. He kissed Terry on the cheek and said, "Fine, I'm sorry. I'm just trying to lighten the mood after the crazy couple of weeks that we've been having."

Terry blushed a bit. "Stop it, Terri. You know I hate it when you kiss me. Especially in public." Terry chuckled a bit, hoping that the redness in his cheeks would go away soon. "Besides, everything is fine. You don't have to antagonize me to lighten the mood when there's no unlightened mood to be lightened."

Terri gave a smug face. "That sounded… really confusing. But okay, I'll take your word for it. Let's just go home, hang out with Art and Squishy, and relax for the rest of the day."

"Eh, we can't relax just yet. We're still in the scare program, which means we still need to study for the test in two days."

Terri frowned. "Yeah, I know."

"But hey, if we do well tonight, you know what we get to look forward to tomorrow? Sulley and Mike are coming to visit again. It'll be like an Oozma Kappa reunion."

Terri beamed. "Oh yeah! They're spending the night and everything. They can tell us all about their time at Monsters Inc."

Terry nodded, enjoying Terri's enthusiasm. "That's right. So what are we doing tonight?"

Terri groaned. "Studying…"

"Good. And can you please find something to keep you from snoring all night? I am literally attached to you, and I can't sleep when you do it."

"I'm really sorry, Terry. If I could control it, I promise I wouldn't be keeping you up every night. I mean… that would be mean."

Terry nodded. "I know you don't mean to. I'm just saying. I think I heard Don talking about something that you put in your mouth overnight that keeps you from snoring. I'll have to ask him again."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of it."

Terri and Terry slithered into the Oozma Kappa home and put their backpack onto their bed. Terry unzipped the bag while Terri pulled out their books.

"So… what should we start with?" Terri asked. "Scaring technique or scare history?"

Terry pointed to the Scare History book. "Scare history. Especially since I dozed off in class. Please tell me you took notes."

Terri went through a few pages of his notebook and showed them to Terry. "Yep, all 4 pages of them. My hand was cramping by the end of class."

"Thanks. Let's get to work."