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The gang go on a field trip. Weird humour involved. A nonsensical little story with no plot whatsoever. A response to Ringtailer720's fic challenge.
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Note:
This is a response to Ringtailer720's fic challenge.
Set I: (The Tame Challenge)
1 "And I'm the invisible pink unicorn."
2 "I can't understand why no one has come up with something like this sooner."
3 "Welcome to the 'Wheel of Cheese'."
4"I could have sworn I saw something like this on TV."
5 "You were so scared you wet your pants."
6 "What would the Frizz say if she were here right now?"
7 "Remember when we all got eaten? Good times, good times."
8 "I don't suppose you have any ideas, (Name)."
9 "I bet she could have gotten us out of here, no sweat."
10 "(Name), you're more insane than I thought."
11 "How's about you and I go somewhere a bit more secluded..."
12 "Some say that she was the only one to ever finish the whole thing."
13 "Did somebody say 'Weatherman'?"
14 "Nobody asked your opinion, old lady."
15 "Here's a scary thought: the Frizz gone goth. Real goth; like supergoth even."
I have italicised all the phrases used. Hope you guys enjoy! It turned out way longer than I expected.
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One More Field Trip
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"I'm bored."
"Wanda, you're always bored."
"Dorothy Ann, you're such a pompous know-it-all."
"Don't hate me for being smart!" Dorothy Ann put up her hands.
"That's because you spend an inhuman amount of time poring over books," Carlos told her.
"It doesn't matter." Wanda was, by this time, waving her hands in the air, demanding the other seven teenagers' attentions.
--
At this moment, the eight of them were already in high school, all sixteen plus and seventeen. By this time, their characters were already formed:
Arnold grew to be pretty. Scarily pretty. Prettier than all the girls combined, and Janet, who secretly was jealous that her cousin was prettier than her. Carlos always joked that the story of Snow White had to be changed, since Arnold was so obviously the fairest one of all. He was a nerd and was one of the best students after Dorothy Ann, but that didn't cost him popularity points - among the girls at least, because he was so pretty. He loved rocks, hated conflicts, and although he had lost his spirit of 'no adventure', as he called it, he still tended to be anxious and nervous. But that was okay; seeing the company he was now mixed in, who wouldn't be?
Carlos was what Dorothy Ann's book Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins called a Stealth Overachiever, for he was not known for his academic abilities (though no one could beat Dorothy Ann in a test) but what assumed to be another jock like Ralphie, or rather, a second-tier jock except when it came to speed, which is when he was 'that Mexican Speed Demon' (in soccer, basketball, and most recently, track). But he pointed out that his father was Spanish, and his mother, although Hispanic, was from Colombia, not Mexico. He has since honed his talent at flat jokes.
Dorothy Ann was much the same, but she never tied up her long, glossy golden hair in pigtails (that had ended when she was eleven) and opted for layered shoulder-length hair left untied or in an elegant updo. She was in everything you could possibly imagine: Honour Roll, Volleyball, Walkerville Charity, Young Entrepreneurs, Student Council, etc. etc. She was aiming for National Merit. She wanted to be a Medical Researcher, combining physics - which she loved - and chemistry - something she was good in. She was the principal's darling, the Golden girl of Walkerville.
Keesha was the girls guys loved and girls hated (but wanted to be). She was tall (the tallest, if Phoebe was not counted) and curvaceous, the primeval woman, much like an African princess. Her body was shown to great advantage in leather miniskirts and tight-fitting tops, something her grandmother always lamented, wishing she could be more like Dorothy Ann or Phoebe in her dressing. Keesha was a good student (not an excellent one, like Dorothy Ann or Arnold), and she was shrewd in picking her battles. Her hair, which had always been tied up, was now allowed to run wild, and go into that 'afro hair' from the 70s. It must be said that Keesha single-handedly brought back afro-hair. "Now I can see people are indeed pathetic," she later complained to Phoebe. She dubbed herself the group's shrink.
Phoebe? She was ever the gentle heroine, a Rosalind or Juliet worthy of Shakespeare, never a Boudica or Katherine like Keesha, nor a Portia like Dorothy Ann, and nothing like Wanda, whose likeness was doubt to be seen in Shakespeare's time. Soft-spoken, gentle, much like Austen's Fanny. Her hair was not glossy, like Dorothy Ann's, nor unrestrained and hip, like Keesha's, and definitely not silky and shiny like Wanda's, but a smooth auburn, which suited her kind and loving character. She had set her sights on being an environmentalist.
Ralphie was the most popular guy in school: baseball, football, basketball, ice hockey, etc. You name it, he did it, and a multitude of computer games besides. He still had the gameboy he had as a nine year old, although he now also had found other things to do besides that. It helped that he was good-looking (it must be stressed he was not pretty like Arnold but good-looking in a normal, guy way, as if he were a 1950s, All-American Boy, to Dorothy Ann's Golden Girl status), because most of his teachers were female and couldn't help but go easy on the loveable, if somewhat too easygoing, jock-ish Ralphie, easier than they did with other students. Not that only females were susceptible to Ralphie's charm.
Tim was an introvert like Phoebe; similar to her in character, although the two were not especially close friends. Tim was an artist - that word which conjured magical connotations and a distorted reality. He pretty much floated with the group, like Arnold, but instead of panicking, he would have a laugh out of the situation and/or make a sketch. He was tall (pretty much all the guys in the group were), and was somewhat of a Bohemian, leading to all kinds of speculation about his sex life: gay, straight, bi, twosome, threesome, orgy, you name it, they said he'd had it, although he was only seventeen, partly because he'd been taking Life Arts at fifteen. Yet, looking at him, you could see potential model student - if only he'd stop sketching.
Wanda was a character of contradictions: feminine yet tomboyish, Asian yet unrestrained, but it was to be expected of a character so emotional. She was always up to some mischief, and Carlos and Ralphie were often her partners-in-crime. She was craving for adventure, and wanted to go into geology and scour the world, and she'd often talked to Arnold about a possible partnership, where she could do all the adventuring and bring him the artefacts to analyse (which he heartily approved). As it is, at this point, there was unfortunately nothing for her to do that was worthy of an adventure. Hence, the 'I'm bored'.
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But back to the point: It was one of the last days of summer, and more importantly, what were a group of students so different and diverse doing together? It must be said that taking a left at Arnold's intestines and taking a second right pass Mars (as impossible as it seems) had formed an unbreakable bond between all eight of them, and they frequently hung out together. They were right now in a playground. Dorothy Ann and Tim was sitting on a bench, Carlos, Keesha and Wanda were on the swings, Arnold and Phoebe were see-sawing, and Ralphie was playing his portable stereo and doing the monkey bars when all of a sudden, the song Umbrella began to play.
The girls moaned in disgust.
"Did somebody say 'Weatherman'?" Ralphie shouted, before rapping along with Jay-Z.
"I could have sworn I saw something like this on TV." Keesha folded her hands and looked disdainfully at Ralphie.
Dorothy Ann simply raised her eyebrows and went back to the book, as Ralphie tried to rap accurately along, "You know me, in anticipation for the precipitation that comes with a rainy day, yeah, yeah, rain man's back, with little Miss Sunshine, Rihanna where you at?"
"This is ridiculous! Ralphie's not a weatherman, and he certainly isn't Jay-Z!" Wanda cried. "You know what? Let's play Truth or Dare!"
"Lame!" Keesha cried.
"Not lame!" Carlos said. "I mean, if you remember, we did some wacky things in that game! I mean, remember that time when Phoebe ran at the dead of night, down the street, naked? That was hilarious, man!"
Phoebe's embarrassment at this being recalled was betrayed by a deep flush of red.
"Carlos, you're such a girl. Truth or Dare is a game only girls would play in their slumber parties."
Phoebe, who couldn't act to save her life, went deep red. "That's not all we do!" She attempted to defend herself and the others. "We -"
"Dream up about your dream guys? I remember one time you guys discussed your dream kiss. Wanda's was in outer space with eyes wide open, Keesha's was in Paris, under the fireworks, with nothing but lip contact, Dorothy Ann's was in a library, where she was pinned between the books and her kisser -"
"I wonder what Principal Rhule would say?" Carlos suggested innocently.
"Carlos, you're incorrigible!" Dorothy Ann exclaimed in exasperation.
"Dorothy Ann, you're a library-defiler!"
"Phoebe's was in a waterfall lake, in the water, naked," Tim ended with relish, before Dorothy Ann could say anything.
Arnold fell off the see-saw.
At that moment Ralphie took a break from singing Rihanna's part in a high falsetto, and sauntered towards Phoebe on the see-saw. "How's about you and I go somewhere a bit more secluded..."
Phoebe was now on the see-saw on the ground, and said uncomfortably, "Ralphie, your crotch is in my line of sight."
"Oh come on, Pheebs!" Ralphie said. "You've seen my innards, what's the problem with my crotch? You don't like what you see?" Ralphie ended plaintively.
"Who could?" Keesha replied snarkily.
"Ouch!" Carlos laughed. "But does that bring back those good ol' memories! Remember when we got eaten? Good times, good times."
"With the Frizz, you mean?" Tim asked. "We've been Frizzled more times than I can count."
"Personally, I approved of the field trips," Dorothy Ann ventured to say. "We had a lot of hands-on, first-hand experience with science. That's something even the best researchers and scientists are unable to do, and we did it when we were nine! I wonder why Ms. Frizzle didn't put her resources to working with, I don't know, leading research teams or governments, or even clandestine organisations for that matter."
"Here's a scary thought: the Friz gone goth. Real goth; like supergoth even," Wanda said, being drawn into memories of 3rd grade.
"And I'm the invisible pink unicorn," Keesha replied. "Never going to happen. She had - and still has, I bet - all of those colourful clothes. Remember the one's with question marks?"
"Oh no," Arnold said, sensing conflict between the petite Wanda and the tall Keesha. He had since got out of the see-saw and was maintaining his distance from Phoebe by sitting on the bench near Dorothy Ann and Tim - the potentially naked girls who he had known since 3rd grade distressed him.
"What's up with the snark, Keesha? Woke up on the wrong side of bed?"
"Gee, sensitive much?" Keesha drawled.
"Okay, time out," Phoebe got off the see-saw and drew herself to her full height of 5'9.
"Phoebe as Juno," Tim sketched hastily. The others weren't even going to ask.
"What would the Frizz say if she were here right now?" Wanda mused.
"How about one more field trip?"
Keesha turned around impatiently and said, "Nobody asked your opinion, old lady."
"Idiot!" Wanda hissed. "Ms. Frizzle! We were just talking about you!"
"My God, Ms. Frizzle, how you've aged!" Tim blurted out.
"So much for tact," Arnold muttered.
It was true, though. At thirty-three, Ms. Frizzle's rich, vibrant red hair (a stark contrast to Phoebe's auburn) was not as rich and vibrant, and was of a more subdued hue. Her clothes were also not as bright or colourful. She seemed to have faded.
"Let's go on the bus, you weasley wimps!" Wanda had reverted to her nine year old self.
"Count me out!" Arnold said. "I don't want to follow the Pied Piper into his den!"
"Come on, Arnold, it'll be fun!" Wanda attempted to pull Arnold on the bus, but failed, as she was so much smaller than he was (although when they were nine, they were the same height).
"Yeah, Arnold. You should come!" Phoebe looked at him with a soft, light-coloured doe eyes.
Arnold found himself on the bus. Liz was smirking; that lizard was just dying to give Arnold a piece of his/her/its mind.
"Please let this be a normal field trip," he whispered to himself, although he knew his wish would be in vain. Especially with Liz's widening smirk.
Some things just wouldn't change.
--
"So, Ms. Frizzle where're we going?" Dorothy Ann asked. "Maybe I can read up on it. I have some of my Encyclopaedia Britannica with me."
"Come on, Dorothy Ann, lay off the books!" Carlos said, from behind her seat, pinking up her tote bag. "Enjoy the ride!"
"Carlos, I need my books!"
"Dorothy Ann, chill. Or I'll pass them to Wanda, who'll gladly burn them!"
"The pleasure's all mine!" Wanda shouted from the front.
"Carlos, it's psychological. I need to know."
"It's true," Keesha said, from the seat opposing Dorothy Ann and Carlos. "It's a perfectionist's -"
"Don't treat me like I'm in need of psychoanalysis, Keesha," Dorothy Ann said sharply.
"Just trying to help," Keesha shrugged.
Suddenly, the door flew open, and Ms. Frizzle said, "See you guys in a while," and jumped out of the bus with Liz, much to the surprise of everyone. They'd had half a mind to yell at her and ask why was she doing such a crazy hare-brained scheme, and would have physically restrained her, but they were all too shocked to move, as if temporarily paralysed.
"No! Wait!" Everyone was shouting. They ran to the front of the bus, when suddenly, there was a screeching and the bus began to plummet.
"Oh bad oh bad oh bad oh bad!" (Keesha)
"What are we going to do what are we going to do what are we going to do?" (Wanda)
"We've been Frizzled!" (Tim)
"I knew I should have stayed at home today!" (Arnold)
(Ralphie - playing gameboy; he still was carrying that ridiculous thing around!)
"(Insert lame joke)" (Carlos)
Silence (Phoebe, followed by Class)
"According to my research, given our altitude - which is only a rough calculation - we'll land with a force -" (Dorothy Ann)
"How do we stop this thing?" Arnold yelled.
"Stop panicking, Arnold!" Keesha yelled back.
"Why did Ms. Frizzle leave?" Wanda wailed. "I bet she could have gotten us out of here, no sweat."
"It's because of Ms. Frizzle that we are even in this mess!" Arnold yelled back.
Suddenly the bus stopped accelerating downwards and began to softly descend.
"I think my stomach was left in the sky," Arnold's face turned green.
"Let's get out of here," Dorothy Ann said, trying to keep her voice calm.
The gang got out - and saw cheese everywhere.
"Is it me, or did we land in Planet Cheese?" Arnold said.
"Who's complaining?" Ralphie asked. He broke off a piece of the cheese-ground and sniffed it.
"Ralphie, don't!" Dorothy Ann cried.
"Yum!" Ralphie swallowed it. "It's tasty."
"That's unhygienic. You could get -" Dorothy Ann began rattling off a name of diseases.
"I think the more important thing is to get back and find Ms. Frizzle," Phoebe said. "I have a feeling we're out of this world."
"With Ms. Frizzle, when has that been a new thing?" Dorothy Ann sighed. "Okay, let's check the bus."
Carlos went under the bus. "Something's not right with the wings."
"Can you fix it?" Phoebe asked.
Carlos shook his head. "No, we need to get something stiff that would hold it in place."
Everyone looked at Dorothy Ann. Her face blanched. "Oh no! Not my -" Encyclopaedia Britannica, she was about to say. "I can't. Carlos, you know I can't!"
"DA -"
"Let me just think about it!"
"Why do you want to get out of here anyway?" Ralphie asked curiously. "This is Planet Cheese! It's like, the coolest place ever!" He picked up a large piece of cheese which was shaped like a circle. "I mean, look at it! What does this remind you of?"
"A large circular piece of cheese?" Phoebe asked.
"It's the 'Wheel of Cheese'!" Ralphie ejaculated. No one bat an eyelid. "Oh, come on," Ralphie said, exasperated. "It's like, the Wheel of Fortune, except it's a wheel of cheese!"
"So, what do you want us to do? Welcome to the 'Wheel of Cheese'?" Keesha asked incredulously.
"I suppose the cheese tastes better than the one on the moon, Ralphie?" Phoebe asked, innocently enough."
"No, actually," Ralphie frowned. "It's stiff, and as hard as a rock."
"We could use that instead!" Carlos snapped his fingers. He snatched the 'Wheel of Cheese' from Ralphie, and stuck it between the gears for the wings.
"Carlos, you're more insane than I thought -" Dorothy Ann began.
"Hey! I'm doing my best here! I don't suppose you have any ideas, DA -" but Carlos was cut off when Dorothy Ann gave him a hug.
"And you'd do that just to save my books!" Keesha cried, mocking Dorothy Ann's attachment to her books.
"What about me, huh?" Ralphie demanded. "I'm your best friend, and you took his treasure -"
"A 'Wheel of Cheese'," Wanda snickered.
"To save a few books. Some best friend you are!" Ralphie folded his hands and frowned.
(Carlos was still a little surprised after the hug.)
"Ralphie, at least the cheese might be melted from the heat of the bus. Then you can have cheese fondue," Phoebe consoled Ralphie.
Ralphie brightened, as Tim snickered.
"Ralphie, that is truly disgusting!" Wanda said.
"Everyone, let's just board the bus," Arnold said. "I don't want to stay a minute longer here than necessary."
"Erm, Arnold, you have cheese on your hand," Keesha pointed out.
"Oh, er, yeah," Arnold gave a sheepish grin. "Since this planet, or wherever we are, is made out of cheese, I thought it'd be cool to analyse the cheese/rock samples. Maybe we could make a new discovery!"
Wanda shook her head.
"Okay, seatbelts everyone," Dorothy Ann said. "Carlos, start up the engine and see whether the bus' GPS system can get up back to Walkerville -"
Carlos obliged, but after turning on the engine, the bus immediately accelerated into the sky at breakneck speed.
"Not again!" Arnold shouted.
"Careful everyone!" Keesha said. "Hold on tight; it's going to be one bumpy ride!"
Suddenly the bus stopped and plummeted down.
The whole class screamed, as the bus swerved into the ocean, before driving up to shore on one of the deserted beaches.
--
The gang got out, dizzily, one by one, with Wanda jumping out first and Ralphie coming out the last.
"Well, this was just like one of the adventures we'd have with the Frizz," Tim remarked to the others.
"Except that the Frizz wasn't around and we didn't even find her. I wonder where she is," Phoebe sighed. "Everyone okay?"
"Should think so," Tim returned. "This isn't the first time something like this happened. Besides, it could have been worse, like, the Frizz turning us into animals. That would have been difficult to turn us back into normal."
"Well, it ended much the same, at any rate," Carlos said. "Us normal, although Arnold looked petrified -"
"I wasn't petrified!" Arnold defended himself.
"You were too!" Carlos sounded petulant. "You were so scared you wet your pants."
"What about the bus?" Phoebe asked, ever the peacekeeper. "Ms. Frizzle isn't around; what should we do with it?"
"Well, someone has to take it home," Ralphie interjected. "It might as well be me. I still haven't had my fondue."
Wanda's face darkened and she looked almost guilty. "Ralphie, I need to talk to you in private. I'm afraid it is about your fondue."
--
"Some say she was the only one ever to finish the whole thing," Carlos told Dorothy Ann and Phoebe later.
"Wanda ate the fondue of the 'Wheel of Cheese'? But why? She was disgusted with the idea, wasn't she?"
"With Wanda, you never know," Phoebe said wisely.
The three of them were going over to Ralphie's. It was Ralphie who ended up taking the bus home, sans fondue or 'Wheel of Cheese'. Of course, all the others where there as well. Ralphie had convinced Dr. Tennelli that he was keeping the bus for a friend; which was half-true, because Ms. Frizzle only had to claim the bus and it was hers. Ralphie did not know what to do with an almost dilapidated bus, but he and Carlos had been working on fixing the bus the past three days and now it was as good as new - at least the wings were, at any rate.
Of course, being the lazy summer, the gang were soon out of things to do. Suddenly, Wanda's face brightened. "We have the bus."
"We can go anywhere," it dawned on Ralphie.
"At any time," Dorothy Ann caught on.
"On the Magic School Bus," all eight of them chorused together.
"Where to?" Keesha asked, as they began climbing aboard.
"Anywhere!" Tim said.
"Thank goodness we have the bus then," Phoebe said.
"I can't understand why no one has come up with something like this sooner," Wanda said.
"That's because we didn't have the bus then," Dorothy Ann pointed out.
"We should have stolen it from the Frizz then," Wanda said, perfectly solemn.
Arnold was hoping the adventures would not leave him wounded, maimed, severely handicapped, lost in a foreign place and/or dead or worse.
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Author's Note
I'm sure you guys can recognise these references from popular culture:
Snow White - the fairytale. I think it was Aesop's fables.
Overachievers (DA's book) - It's actually a real book by the same author. I thought it would be a book DA would have. It's interesting; I recommend reading it. Stealth Overachiever is similar to how I think Carlos would be, and DA's long, glossy, golden hair is adapted from the character Julie (the Superstar) in the book. Likewise, Encyclopaedia Britannica is a real book (which I think I have).
Rosalind, Juliet, Boudica, Katherine, Portia - All of them, except for Boudica, are characters in Shakespeare's works; Rosalind (All's Well That Ends Well), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Katherine (The Taming of the Shrew), Portia (The Merchant of Venice). Boudica is an ancient British Queen (Queen of the Iceni) who resisted the Roman settlement in Britain.
Fanny - Fanny is a character from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. She is (I read) the most virtuous and principled of Jane Austen's heroines, and so self-sacrificing. Very Phoebe, in attitude at least.
Tim's artsy, bohemian, life arts thing was inspired by All-American Girl: Ready or Not, by Meg Cabot, where Sam learns about Life Arts
I hate the song Umbrella by RIhanna, because her voice is so nasal (in my opinion only, I don't mean to offend anyone), but I couldn't resist Ralphie from doing A Jay-Z as a Weatherman/Rain-man.
Phoebe running in a nuddy-pants is inspired by the books of Louise Rennison about someone named Georgia and her best friend Jas. Her dream kiss is inspired by the series and movies about Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) and Xena, Warrior Princess (Lucy Lawless). I can't remember which one it was; this was ages ago, but I'm sure there's a scene similar to this.
Dorothy Ann's mentioning of clandestine organisations - This was picked up from She-Spies (TV series), where Cassie says, "Three beautiful ex-cons working for a secret clandestine organisation trying to rid the world of peril.
Juno - Roman queen of the Gods. Beautiful and also, apparently, very grand. When Tim refers to Phoebe as Juno, he refers to her figure.
Well, hoped you enjoyed! Remember to read and review!