It said something about Middleton that when the teenage boy in the flying wheelchair landed in the parking lot of Bueno Nacho, the bystanders took more notice of the attractive African-American girl in his lap.
Neither of them were paying attention to the bystanders, however, as they rushed into the restaurant and looked around anxiously. Both sighed and sagged in disappointment when they saw that Kim and Ron weren't at their usual table – or any table, for that matter.
Then they shook it off, turned, and exited.
"Okay," Monique said as they reached the parking lot. "So they didn't feel like any comfort food. Maybe they went straight home."
"Which home?" Felix asked. "You know they didn't split up."
" 'Course not," Monique agreed. "They probably haven't let go since it happened." She snorted, and a momentary, wry grin flashed out. "I do hope they've been doing more than just sitting together, holding hands, and moping. If there's anybody who needs and deserves some pelvic cheerin' up, it's those two."
"Amen," Felix agreed. "Now, which house?"
"Let's try Kim's first," Monique said, the grin gone. "It's – "
"Don't bother," A familiar voice said.
They turned to face the speaker, something that took a bit more effort for Felix.
"Hey, Zita."
"Hey, m'ija," Zita said, nodding to Monique. "Dragon Reaver," She nodded to Felix.
Monique looked quizzically down at her boyfriend.
"It's an Everlot thing," He said.
Monique just shook her head and rolled her eyes. "So why aren't we bothering?" She asked.
"I just came from there," the other girl answered. "I had the same idea you did, only in reverse order. I went to Kim's house, and I sent my boy to Ron's. If either of us found 'em, we'd call. If not, we'd come here." She glanced at the Bueno Nacho building and shuddered. "Which is the only reason I'd ever come here to MexDonald's."
"Aw, c'mon angelita," A less-familiar voice said. Zita's boyfriend – a tall, skinny, bespectacled redhead named Aaron Reilly – entered the parking lot. "You'd come here for me, wouldn't you?"
"No. Blasphemer." She swatted at him lightly, then pulled him down for a kiss. "I'd get you some real food. Now." She let go of him, and her face turned serious. "No luck?"
He shook his head. "Kim's brothers were staying Ron's house," he said. "They said something about a secret mission."
Zita shook her head in disgust. "How's that for timing?" She said.
"Crappy," Felix said, answering the rhetorical question. "But maybe they'll at least get to hit something."
Monique had been silent for a long moment, but now she broke that silence.
"Damn it!" She shouted, clenching her fists and stamping her foot and making everyone jump. "I should've gone with them!"
"You should've what?" Aaron asked when he regained his composure.
"I should've gone with them!" Monique wailed. "I should've done something! Anything! Instead, I just…wimped out again!"
"Honey, if you did, we all did," Felix said, reaching up and stroking her back. "But I don't think that's what happened. It just happened so fast…I don't know about you, but they were out the door before I really understood what was happening. I mean, Ron told me, but I didn't really…"
"Believe it," Zita finished. "It just didn't seem like it could be real. They kicked two heroes outta school – for bein' heroes! What freaky alternate dimension did we fall into?"
The rest of them muttered and nodded in agreement, but then Aaron spoke up again, frowning. "But even if you had gone with them," he asked, "What would it have accomplished? Really? I mean, I'm all for getting suspended for a good cause, but I don't think Burlson would have cared."
"I don't know," Monique shrugged helplessly. "Probably not. But at least it would've shown them – my girl, and her boy, and baldy, too – that they weren't alone, that we were standing with 'em."
"Noble," Another familiar voice said. "But pointless."
Bonnie Rockwaller.
They hadn't paid attention when the car had pulled into the parking lot, and the passengers had gotten out. Why should they? But now Bonnie was coming across the parking lot toward them, with Brick in tow, and was that Tara and Josh straggling behind? Now full attention was being paid.
"Come to gloat Bonnie?" Monique asked angrily. "If you have, you want to be somewhere else."
"You know," Bonnie snapped. "If you'd care to listen to me before you start hissing and spitting, I might just have a real plan for you."
Monique paused. She wasn't quite sure she'd heard what she thought she'd heard. "A real plan?" She asked.
"For making Burlson care," Bonnie said. "That's what you want, isn't it? Or should I just go take care of it myself while you all stand here whimpering about what you coulda woulda shoulda done?"
Felix put a hand on his girlfriend's arm, just in case. Then he looked up at her, and they exchanged nods, and he turned his attention back to Bonnie.
"We're listening," He said.
----
Hours later, Bonnie Rockwaller trudged through her front door. She was more tired than any cheer practice had ever made her – even more than the very first ones for the Pee-wee football team's junior squad – but more satisfied.
She was greeted the instant she stepped in the door by her fluttering, squealing, clearly distraught mother. "Oh, Bon-bon, you're here! At last, you're here! I was getting so worried!"
Bonnie looked at her mother quizzically. "Worried?" She said. "I didn't think I was that late, Mother."
"It's not about being late!" Her mother wailed. "People have been calling! And they've been so angry! They've been saying all sorts of strange things, things that just can't be true, about the sports teams and – "
"Oh, that," Bonnie said, shrugging out of her jacket and hanging it up. "Yeah, that's true."
Kathy Rockwaller stared, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, as her daughter calmly turned back to her. "No, Bon-bon…you didn't…you didn't really…"
"Yes I did, Mother," Bonnie answered. "I quit, and the entire cheer squad quit with me. Brick did the same thing with the football team. Now that the word's out, I bet that there won't be a team, club, or activity left by tomorrow. No more Middleton Mad Dogs."
Kathy Rockwaller grabbed her daughter's shoulders. "But…but Bon-Bon…but…why?"
"Did you hear about what happened today?" Bonnie asked. "With Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable?"
"Of course I did," Her mother answered. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I can't have school spirit for a school that would betray its heroes like that, Mother," Bonnie replied, shaking her head. "None of us can."
"But they didn't have any choice," Her mother protested. "So many parents – "
Bonnie had a sudden, awful thought, and she was just as suddenly certain that it was right. In fact, she felt stupid for not having had the thought before. "You weren't one of those parents, were you, Mother?"
Kathy Rockwaller suddenly couldn't quite meet her daughter's eyes. "Of course not," she said.
"Good," Bonnie said. "Because I remember you telling me once, when I was – what, four? – how hard it is to be a good person, because bad people always tried to hurt good people. Kim and Ron are good people, Mother – they've saved the world from the bad people over and over again. They saved us all from some bad people just this spring, remember? So the bad people tried to hurt them, because that's what bad people do. And they tried to hurt us, just because we were there, because that's something that bad people do, too. And some of us did get hurt, but the bad people didn't get to kidnap us like they wanted to, because we drove them away. We killed all of their weird green-goo soldiers and they had to run – and we were able to do that because Kim and Ron showed us how. They led us, and Kim protected us from the bad guy that we couldn't fight. Because that's what good guys – what heroes – do. And the bad people smashed her for it."
Bonnie paused. From the look on her mother's face, you'd think she'd never heard this story before. Maybe it was just that she'd never listened.
"But Kim beat the bad people in the end, because she got better. She was scarred and burned and broken, but She. Got. Better. She came back. But just as she came back – " She swallowed hard. "Somebody hurt her again. Someone took her coming back away from her, and I was there to look in her face and see how much it hurt, and I realized how bad someone would have to be to want to hurt someone that good that much, and – " Her voice broke. "And I would hate to think that you're a bad person, Mother."
Her eyes glistened in the dimness of the front hallway, but that was okay, that was only fair – her mother's were flowing.
"We only ever wanted to protect you," Kathy Rockwaller whispered, forgetting that she hadn't been one of the parents to complain to the school district.
"That's all they ever wanted, too," Bonnie said as she started up the stairs to her room.
----
Bonnie wiped at her eyes as she climbed the stairs and her mother fled weeping. That had been ugly. It had needed to be said, but it had hurt so much. Daddy had always been the one to do it when law needed laying down – Mother was the one for hugs and cuddling and embarrassing pet names. Smothering as she could be, Bonnie hated to disappoint or hurt her – and today she'd done it on purpose.
Had to be done. She didn't want Mother to be a bad person. She was too tired of being one herself.
Still. She felt sick. Right now, she just wanted to go up into her room, throw herself down on her bed and cry for a couple of hours.
Unfortunately, it didn't look like she was going to get to do that, at least not right away. Her sisters were blocking the top of the stairs like guard bitches.
"Are you out of your ditzy little mind?" Connie hissed as Bonnie approached them.
What was this? Were her sisters actually defending Mother? Angry on her behalf? That was a first.
Lonnie picked up where Connie had left off. "This is the girl who always beat you – "
"At everything!" Connie interjected.
Nope. They were focused on something much more important.
"This is the girl who broke our family tradition of winning the talent show!" Connie continued. "And now, when you finally win – "
"Hello! Silver platter!" Lonnie said, holding out her open hands.
"You throw it all away! How can you be so stupid?"
Bonnie looked at her sisters as if she was seeing them for the first time. She couldn't believe what she was hearing – at least Mother had been trying to do the right thing – but she wasn't surprised, either. Always before, her whole life, they'd said "I got the brains, I got the looks, and Bonnie got everything else". Nothing she'd accomplished had ever been good enough. She'd always been less than them.
And it had all been a sham. Looks, brains, whatever they had, there was nothing else to them.
A slow, contemptuous smirk spread across her face.
"What?" Connie demanded.
"What's so funny?" Lonnie added.
"You are," Bonnie said, still smirking. She took the last step and pushed past them. They tried to stop her, but found that they couldn't. Twelve years of ballet and eight years of cheerleading had left her much stronger than they were. They'd never had to work at something so hard, after all. They'd never had a Kim Possible to compete with. They'd had everything handed to them on Lonnie's silver platter.
She shoved them out of her way, and sauntered on to her room. She paused with her hand on the knob and turned her smirk back on them. "You know what?" She said. "I just figured something out. You may have gotten the brains," she nodded to Connie. "And you may have gotten the looks," she said to Lonnie. "But I got the guts."
With that, she entered her room, and slammed the door in their stunned faces.