Summary: It's the gang's worst nightmare. PCA is closed down. When they're scattered across the country in new boarding schools with unfamiliar people, what will keep them together? The answer is simple: A medium-sized, blue box with four corners.
A/N: This idea just randomly came to me and I loved it!
Disclaimer: I don't own Zoey 101.
Four Corners But Only One Heart
Chapter 1
"Pacific Coast Academy, secretary Amanda speaking."
"This is Superintendent Chatsworth Smith." Superintendent Smith spoke. "I wish to speak to Dean Rivers. It's quite urgent."
"Of course," Amanda answered. "Please hold for a moment as I transfer your call."
Dean Rivers was sitting in his office, playing with his mini pool table. He held the pool stick between his thumbs and index fingers.
"You're going down," he whispered to no one. His speaker phone beeped loudly, startling him and the 3 ball flew off his desk and rolled across the floor and into a crack in the floor.
"Gosh, darn it." He grumbled. "Now I have to order a second new ball." He pushed the button down on his phone. "Dean Rivers speaking."
"Hi, Mr. Rivers." Amanda said to him. "The Superintendent wishes to speak with you via line one."
"Okay, that will be all." He shut the phone off and picked up line 1. "Dean Rivers speaking."
"Hello Rivers." Mr. Smith greeted.
"Oh, Mr. Superintendent, sir!" Dean Rivers greeted as any Dean would: nervously. "I, I haven't gotten a call from you in a while. Is there a problem?"
"Well, now that we're on the subject, yes there is." Mr. Smith answered sadly. "You see, budgets have been slowly dying away, Mr. Rivers. I'm afraid that there is just too much money needed to keep your school going."
Dean Rivers froze. "What do you mean to say?"
"I mean to say," Mr. Smith started. "That your deadline is up. I told you that you must upgrade your school and replace supplies but you have not and – "
"If I may interrupt, sir." Dean Rivers cut in nervously. "I don't feel that's a valid excuse to shut down the school, and so suddenly, too."
"I'll tell you what's a valid excuse," Mr. Smith argued. "You promised the board you'd have enough money a few months ago. We cannot afford to keep your school going on our own. As I've said countless time, you, as the Dean, must contribute."
"I'm sorry, sir." Dean Rivers sighed. "It's just that…recently, my family and I have hit a small setback."
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," Mr. Smith told him. "But I'm afraid that I still have no choice but to close down Pacific Coast Academy, at least until you get yourself back on your feet."
"But sir – "
"My decision is final, Mr. Rivers." He confirmed. "Tomorrow evening I will be sending a few board members to officially shut it down. I expect the school to be emptied by then."
"But what about the kids?" Dean Rivers panicked. "They have no schools to go to."
"I have faxed you a list of boarding schools all throughout the country that have free space. And I have also faxed every parent or guardian with the sad, truthful news. They will pick out the student's new schools. And I have assigned each teacher a new teaching job similar to the one they have." Mr. Smith cleared his throat. "Good day." There was a click heard on the other and the Mr. Rivers shut off the phone. Realization dawned on him that he would no longer be called Dean Rivers.
He leaned on the desk, rubbing his temples, thinking but one thing: How am I possibly going to tell the kids?
"And then what happened?" Lola Martinez asked, taking a sip of her mango Blix. It was the next morning and the gang was sat down for breakfast.
"Well, after the donkey ripped through my basketball shorts," Michael grumbled. "It ate the potato chips that I dropped."
"Can a goat even eat potato chips?" Nicole Bristow was filing her nails, sitting next to Logan, hence his utter disgust.
"Nicole, can you maybe not do that now?" he asked rudely. "You're getting filing dust in my food."
"Actually, Logan," Quinn Pensky cut in. "Nail filing dust is actually a source of fiber and can help along muscle growth!"
"Really?" he asked excitedly, and shoved a spoonful of his cereal in his mouth, dust and all.
Quinn start cracking up. "No!" The whole table erupted in laughter as Logan spit out his food is disgust and wiped his tongue with a napkin.
"Tha wa int fu eey!" Logan yelled, still wiping his tongue.
"Last time I checked, eating filing dust, believing that it actually has fiber in it, and then wiping your mouth with Nicole's dust-filled napkin is pretty funny." Zoey Brooks laughed as his eyes widened.
"I du in wa..?" He took the napkin out of his mouth, only to discover it was in fact Nicole's napkin. "Ugh! Nasty! Are you trying to poison me?"
"Nah, man." Chase denied, then smiled like he was about to burn him. "You poison yourself enough my looking in the mirror everyday." Everyone laughed again.
"Well," he crossed his arms and smirked, leaning back in his chair. "At least I don't spend my mornings worrying about when I'm going to tell Z – " Michael stomped on his foot and he yelped in pain. "Ow!"
Zoey looked from Logan, to Chase, then to her cereal. Was he about to say me? I'd better ask Chase later…I mean, what else could he have been saying? Zebra…Zig-Zag…xylophone… Her thoughts were interrupted by Dean Rivers' voice on the loud speaker.
"Attention, PCA, attention PCA." His voice boomed. "There is going to be a school-wide assembly in Assembly Hall in 15 minutes. Please begin to head there. That will be all." The announcement clicked off.
The seven friends stood up and threw their trash out before they started walking over to the Assembly Hall.
"I wonder what he's gonna tell us." Zoey wondered out loud.
"Yeah, last time he had a school-wide assembly, it was to announce his new requirement to join a sports team." Nicole turned a little pale and shivered. "I tried softball and probably lost all the lunch I've eaten in, like, in entire life."
"Thanks for sharing Nicole." Lola frowned. "May I remind you we just ate?"
"Now we'll probably lose every lunch we ever had." Chase added. Michael, being the most up front, opened the door and let his friends in before shutting it again.
The Assembly Hall was by now filled with tons of loud students. 6th graders were running around, trying to hit each other with shoes. Students, big and small, were scrambling around, calling people over, trying to find places to sit for their friends in the dimly lighted room.
"Hey, I think I see seven chairs over there!" Chase yelled over the noise. The gang ran over to the row as fast as they could, aside from Nicole ("I don't do running." She yelled simply.).
They finally reached the row and were about to make their way in when Firewire and his two robot dork friend came in from the other side, making three seats unavailable.
"Hey, dorks?" Logan remarked. "We were here first!"
Firewire snorted. "Here first, LOL!" His friends snorted along with him.
"Okay then." Zoey crossed her arms. "If you don't let us have our seats, I'll just have to tell everyone your real name." She turned to Quinn, who smirked. Firewire's eyes widened.
"You wouldn't." he exclaimed, then turned to his friends. "She's totally JK."
"Am I?" Zoey asked. "It's Wa – "
"Okay, okay, we'll move!" Firewire threw his arms in the air as they piled out fast. Everyone high-fived Zoey except Logan, who was, yes, a jerk.
"I call the aisle seat!" he screamed, immediately sitting down. The whole gang sighed in annoyance and squeezed past Logan. Michael sat next to Logan. Lola sat next to Michael. Chase sat next to Zoey, who was on the other side of Lola, Quinn sat on the other side of Zoey and Nicole sat on the end. After a few minutes of loud chatting, Dean Rivers was on stage, trying to calm his students, who, in fact, would no longer be his students, as of a few announcements from then.
"May I please have your attention, students!" Dean Rivers screamed. Slowly, the Assembly Hall began to uiet down. "Now I suppose you are all in question as to why I've called you heat." There were a few muffled yeah's. "Well, I'm afraid, it's not good news." All eyes were on him now, wondering what happened. "You see, budgets have been going down, and I'm afraid that…that…"
The hall was in complete silence as the next six words came out of Dean Rivers' mouth. Six words that would test the strengths of friendship and the strengths of love of seven friends.
"Pacific Coast Academy is closing down."
A/N: Well, that's the intro. R&R. Also, I updated Written From The Heart yesterday, so give that a read!
x Future Starlet 101 x