Disclaimer: Arthur characters and places are not my own, just the plot of this story.
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Double O Trouble
Chapter One
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"Dora Winifred Read?"
"I didn't do it!"
The guy's brow rose up charily at the respond. He tore his eyes from the attendance sheet and swept over the laughing faces of teenagers to find the brunette sheepishly looking around. This was the first time she'd replied after he had called her name. Usually her hands shot up in the air, but her face stayed down on her desk. If his true purpose of coming to the school was to only teach the class he may had administered his authority as a teacher and made her pay attention earlier on. But to do that could have put him in risk of being discovered. Regardless of his disguise, he still held the strong belief the girl was much clever than the others gave her credit for. Now that he had finaly gotten her attention, however, he tried to don upon a professionally stern appearance. Even though the budding urge to smile burned behind his lips when he met the girls dishevel expression.
"Nice drool work D.W." Tommy Tibbels cackled pointing a finger towards the girl's chin.
The haze of deep sleep finally cleared from D.W. Read's eyes. She quickly whipped the wetness on one side of her mouth and glared at Tommy too tired to shut him up with biting remarks.
"Nice to see you can join us for some Calculus Miss Read. Please, do try to keep the snoring to a minimum of-- none today." The teacher said heartily.
"Your snoring is worse than Tommy's!" Timmy Tibbels exclaimed right before falling into tumbling laughter with his twin brother and the rest of the class. That is, until Tommy realized he had been insulted.
D.W. rolled her eyes at the two boys who started to punch one another and did a double take to the front of the room. She was expecting to see a pregnant woman standing up there, not a man.
"Hey Emily, who's that dude up there and where's Mrs. Kelp?"
The blond arched her back from the sharp poke D.W. administed before irritably turning around to answer her. "That's Mr. Powers. He's been our substitute for the past two weeks while Mrs. Kelp is out due to her new baby."
A frowned seized D.W.'s face. "Really, are you sure?"
Emily rolled her blue eyes and slapped D.W.'s face with her long, curled blond hair as she turned back to face the front of the class.
"I think I would know my own teacher. We all don't have your amazing gift of sleep walking through every class D.W."
"I don't sleep through every class." D.W. informed grudgingly. But she couldn't stay mad for long.
Suddenly Calculus wasn't as a big of a bore as she first thought. All because she had an itching suspicion that this substitute of her's looked too familiar for comfort. Sure she agreed he seemed like any normal teacher, perhaps a little young. He wore a white collar shirt with a gray vest, and tan kakis. He smiled amiably to himself a lot while he read over the attendance sheet. But all of this was irrelevant she felt in why he seemed so familiar to her. There was something else she was missing. Something that she should have caught. Who was this Mr. Powers guy?
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"Isn't he hot!" Vicita Molina exclaimed.
"Whoa, dude how can you think a teacher is hot?" Tommy Tibbles barked spraying the mashed up food in his mouth across the table.
"Ew Tommy, can you keep your food in your mouth?" Emily shrieked dodging the flight of food heading toward her flawless face.
Vicita giggled at the boy's grin to Emily. The junior was infatuated with any boy as they all knew well. Earlier in the school year she had revealed to having a big crush on Tommy Tibbles, the more sensitive of the twins as she had explained to Emily and D.W. Neither Emily or D.W. understood how she could even feel this way about a Tibble, but Vicita was ardent. D.W. felt a little sorry for her long time neighbor and her crush on Tommy, since the dumb jock was too immature to even realize it. But now it looked like Vicita had a new crush.
"Are you jealous Tommy?" Vicita asked batting her eyes girlishly at Tommy.
"What's wrong with your eyes?" Tommy asked her in his typical oblivious way.
Timmy socked his brother in the arm before throwing his blue cap on his head and standing from the lunch table. "Come on Tommy, lets get out of here. I feel the on coming storm of disgusting girl talk."
"I'm telling you guys, I've seen the sub's face somewhere and I have a bad feeling about him," D.W. announced when the twins left before glaring at the tray Miss. MacGrady, the lunch lady, had fixed for her.
"Maybe he's from Mighty Mountain across town." Vicita offered.
"Who cares where he's from. I think you just want to make a mountain out of an ant hill, D.W.," Emily croaked bitterly. "Come on Victia, we have cheerleading practice for Friday's pep rally."
"See you later D.W." Vicitia said before following Emily out of Lake Wood High's cafeteria.
D.W. was too busy trying to remember where it was she had seen the sub's face to notice her friends departure. She was also too busy to notice James MacDonald plunge into the seat beside her.
"Hey Read. How come you're all by yourself?" James asked peering into the girl's brown eyes. She had nice eyes.
"What?" D.W. uttered coming out of her daydream. She almost jump startled when she laid eyes on James and not Emily who had previously been occupying the seat beside her.
"James, where did you come from?" D.W. asked dumbfounded.When James smiled at her she caught herself and looked away.
She was a senior, but she still couldn't forget that one time in preschool where James kissed her simply because Emily had been kissed and D.W. wanted to be too. Preschool was ages ago now and James had changed a lot. He was leader of a band called the Tough Customers. James explained to her once that the name came from his older sister's gang who used to bully D.W.'s older brother's elementary school. Even more of a change in James was how much more confident he had become. In last year's Lake Wood High's yearbook he got voted for being the most wish-for boyfriend in school, even though he wasn't a senior yet. Unlike all the rest of the guys where she could freely be blunt, and over dominating, D.W. couldn't act that way in front of James. She still couldn't understand why.
"Are you going to the pep rally tomorrow?"
D.W. shrugged. "I need a ride and my dumb brother probably won't take me even though he doesn't have classes on Friday."
James smiled at the scowl D.W. made as she thought about Arthur eating up all the chocolate cake Dad baked instead of letting her borrow his car.
"I can give you a ride." James informed her.
"Really," she hadn't been expecting that.
James took a bite of his patty and shrugged. "If you want."
D.W.'s head was nodding before she could even reply. Was this a date? No way. However before she could ask James, he stood up to leave.
"I'll see you around Read."
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"Kate, give me the remote I want to catch The Government's Most Wanted!" D.W. snapped at her little sister as she snatched the remote from her hands.
The younger teen glared at her older sis for a moment, but didn't complain since she was just about to put it to that show.
It was after the second commercial while chomping on some buttered popcorn that D.W. Read got the shock of her life. One moment she was sitting back listening to the host of G.M.W. speaking about the next criminal being a very dangerous genius who was once a spy for the government. The next moment she was choking on popcorn and staring bewildered at the flashing image of a chillingly familiar face.
"How many times does mom tell you to chew your food before you swallow it?" Kate said to D.W. as she slapped her back continually.
D.W. swung around to her little sister and grabbed her wrist. "Oh my goodness, Kate you wouldn't believe this!"
"What?"
"That man they're talking about, the spy, that's my substitute teacher!"
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A/N: Because I love D.W. hope you enjoy this, tell me how you feel thus far.
