iFeel a Change
First chapter of an iCarly series I have worked on previously but took down to improve. I hope you enjoy it.
Important: When I took this down I worked with a beta reader named A Writer's Right to Write, he helped me a lot, improving both the story and my own writing with helpful tips and adding his own style to my work. Sadly, in late September/early October last year he died in a car crash. I have only just now been able to bring myself to finally write and upload this series and wish to dedicate it to his memory
Disclaimer: iCarly belongs to Dan Schneider.
iDiscover a Secret
It was a dull September evening in Seattle. Some break from the dull monotony was being provided however by the hit web show, iCarly. Broadcast from Apartment 8-C in Bushwell Plazza. The show had initially been set up after the two hostesses, Carly Shay and Sam Puckett, had made a joke about one of their teachers and had been forced to find participants for the school talent contest. The teacher had dismissed their choices after a mishap that led to another joke about said teacher, so they showcased the talents on a web show. The show had since become popular and they continued to produce it, providing comedy and various silly stunts to give their audience a laugh. The web hostess of the show, Carly Shay was currently doubled over, laughing at the latest joke. She was a petit young woman with long ebony hair and chocolate brown eyes. She straightened up and smiled over at he co-hostess, Samantha 'Sam' Puckett; she was shorter than Carly, but surprisingly strong. She had a well-developed body with long wavy blonde hair and light blue eyes. Running the camera, as he usually did, their friend Fredward 'Freddie' Benson. He had been close friends with them for a long time; he had also had a crush on Carly since they were in sixth grade. He had short brown hair, brown eyes and a well-toned, slightly muscular physique. The show had gone really well and now they were reaching the finale. The plan was to use the influence of iCarly to try and encourage kids to eat more vegetables, by eating two large pieces of squash on camera. They both held the squash out before biting into it. While Carly had an easy time, when Sam bit into her piece she felt pain. Carly swallowed her piece and turned to Sam.
"Sam you okay?" She asked, worried.
In response Sam spat out the remains of the squash in her mouth and reached into it, pulling something out. Carly stared wide-eyed.
"Oh my god, you lost a tooth."
Sam held the tooth up to the camera. "You see what you get for eating vegetables." She quipped.
Freddie shut off the camera and ended the show.
Immediately they both rushed to Sam.
"Sam, are you okay?" Carly asked.
Surprisingly, Sam didn't seem bothered by the loss of her tooth and simply brushed off their concerns and headed to the large elevator in the studio, really the top floor of Apartment 8-C. She pressed the button, entered the elevator and headed down. Carly and Freddie shared a look, surprised at Sam's lack of concern.
"I can't believe this, Sam's just lost a tooth and she doesn't seem to care." Carly remarked, worried, Freddie shook his head, smiling.
"I'm that this is the first time she lost a tooth with all of the scuffles she's been in."
Carly grinned at him, relaxing even further. "'Scuffles'?" she asked.
Freddie shrugged and smiled back; "Would you prefer if I said 'brawls'?"
"Depends," Carly said, grinning more, "Would we get in a scuffle if I said yes?"
Freddie crossed his arms, smirking. "Watch it, Shorty."
"Hey, I'm taller…" Carly trailed off looking at him surprised. Freddie was a good two or three inches taller than her! "When did you get taller than me?"
"Same time the voice got lower?"
She shook her head as the elevator stopped. "Wow, a deeper voice and a growth spurt? What else are you hiding underneath that new puberty?"
Freddie grinned mischievously. "Want to find out?"
"No," she said teasingly, and he frowned at her.
He shook his head and they headed downstairs after Sam. The two stepped out into the Shay living room, and Freddie shook his head as he took in the sight of it. It had the standard living room stuff like a television, coffee table, couch and chairs, but that was that was really all that was left that was usual. There were her brother's sculptures (such as a robot made out of bottles called, appropriately, Bottle Bot), the multi-coloured stained glass windows, and all sorts of unusual knick-knacks. The room was practically covered head-to-toe in some sort of item leaving the room almost cluttered, but, to Freddie, it always felt like it had a lot of character.
They found Sam sitting at the kitchen table. She was doing the worst possible thing she could do in her current situation, which was also one of her favourite things to do, eating. In this case she was eating a piece of corn on the cob, moaning in pain every time she took a bite. After watching this bizarre spectacle for some time Carly couldn't take it anymore and approached her best female friend.
"Sam, stop that!" She called out.
Sam looked up at her, "What, I'm hungry." She remarked.
"Your tooth just fell out!" Freddie retorted.
Carly nodded. "You can't just eat corn on the cob."
"Aw, what's the big deal?" Sam asked, annoyed. "It's normal for teeth to fall out."
"Yeah, when you're five," Carly said.
"Or, ninety," Freddie added and Sam glared at the two of them.
Carly ignored the glare. "How long has it been since you went to the dentist?"
"I don't know…two…twelve years?"
Freddie and Carly felt their jaws drop at that simple statement. "What?" Carly exclaimed, wide eyed.
"Years?" Freddie asked, shaking his head as if something was in there blocking him from hearing correctly, but Sam nodded.
"You're supposed to go every six months," Carly scolded.
"Yeah, I'll put that on my list of things that'll never happen," Sam said, grinning wickedly before taking another painful bite of corn.
Before any further comment could be made Carly's older brother Spencer came in, Spencer was tall and gangly with long brown hair and brown eyes. He was known for his artistic streak and his fun loving nature. He provided an easy distraction from Sam by asking which shirt he should wear tomorrow, to prison.
The others were shocked until Spencer clarified that he was going to prison to teach art and sculpture work to the prisoners. However Sam drew attention back to herself by commenting on it and Spencer noticing that it was his corn Sam was eating. Carly however yanked the corn out of Sam's hand and managed to convince Sam to finally go to the dentist. Sam agreed but only with the condition that Carly came with her, to which the brunette girl agreed, knowing she'd be needed in case any incidents happened. The next morning, the girls had arrived at the dentist's office and were immediately taken into a room by a dental hygienist. Carly had taken a seat in a nearby chair while Sam was seated in a dental chair, and was made to lay back. The hygienist pulled out a pink piece of paper that she placed on Sam's chest and wrapped around her next with a string.
Sam looked up, excited. "What, are we having ribs?"
The hygienist giggled. "No, see, once the dentist starts drilling your teeth –"
Carly jumped to her feet immediately, and rushed over to try and pin Sam down. Sam was a lot stronger than she looked though, and she wildly flailed around. Had the hygienist not come to Carly's aid, Sam most likely would have escaped…or worse, hurt someone. Sam still tried to escape, but with Carly holding her arms and the hygienist holding her legs, it was just useless flailing until she eventually tired herself out.
Tired, Sam grumpily sat in her chair like a five year old. "Whatis going on in here?" a voice asked from the doorway, and the group turned to see a tall man in a lab coat standing there, tapping his foot. "I could hear you from down the hall."
"Oh, uh, hello, Dr. Wheeler," Carly said awkwardly, giving Sam a warning look before letting go. "This is my friend Sam…She's a little nervous."
"Way nervous," Sam corrected.
"She hasn't been to a dentist since…she's never been to a dentist."
Dr. Wheeler looked put out at that, but managed to say soothingly, "Sam, there's nothing to be nervous about. I've been doing this for years and I know I'm doing. You won't even feel a thing."
Sam glared at him. "I better not," she growled threateningly.
Dr. Wheeler gulped and nodded before turning to Carly. "Why don't you go sit in the waiting room, and I'll go get Sam's teeth all fixed up?"
"Okay."
However, no sooner had she walked down the hall did she hear the hygienist shriek and a series of loud crashes. Carly rushed back into the room, and saw Sam trying to stab the hygienist with a large needle while the dentist lay motionless on the ground. Carly screamed and grabbed, pulling her off as best as she could. She managed it eventually though, and scolded Sam for acting up again.
Some time later Dr. Wheeler came out and told a nervous Carly they were done. Relieved Carly entered the room and saw the dentist's handiwork.
"Wow, her teeth look great."
"I replaced the missing tooth, and filled her three other cavities."
She smiled and patted her friend's shoulder. "You hear that, Sam?
Sam half snorted. "You blurry…" she slurred, giggling. "Pretty blurry girl…"
Carly raised an eyebrow and turned to the dentist. "Why is she so giggly?"
"We had to give her some nitrous-oxide to calm her down," the hygienist explained, snickering.
"Nitrous…?"
"Laughing gas," Dr. Wheeler said bluntly. "She'll be loopy for a little while." He turned to his assistant. "Now come, let's go check her x-rays."
The two teeth doctors walked out of the room, and closed the door behind them. Carly grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to Sam. She took a pair of scissors from the loopy girl's hand. Sam smiled at her and laughed about nothing in particular, and Carly couldn't help but joining her. The blonde was completely out of her mind, saying things like 'I've gotta go to the dentist,' and worrying about her thumb being missing since she couldn't see it with her clenched fist.
Carly took all of it in stride, laughing at Sam's antics; even on iCarly, Sam had never acted this silly.
"What's so funny?" Sam asked drunkenly.
"You!" Carly said, grinning from ear-to-ear. "You're acting all loopy from the gas the dentist gave you!"
"Oh…" Sam suddenly grinned madly. "Hey…"
"What?"
"Come here."
"What is it?" Carly asked moving closer.
"I wanna tell you…a secret…"
Carly perked up at that; she loved hearing secrets. "Okay!"
"Come here."
"I'm already here! What's the secret?"
"I like fried chicken," Sam said dangerously, and Carly slumped over, disappointed.
"It's not a secret that you like fried chicken.
"I know…I got too scared to tell you my realsecret…"
"Just tell me!" Carly demanded, getting excited once again.
"Okay, come here…" Sam commanded, grabbing the brunette's hair to force her head closer.
"I've already come here'd!" she complained in slight pain.
"You know that kid Freddie?" Sam whispered.
"Yes, I know Freddie."
"We kissed," the blonde said bluntly.
Carly's eyes bulged and her jaw dropped. "What?"
"Me and Freddie kissed," she reiterated, and added kissy sounds to get the point across.
Carly slid her chair back, disbelieving. "You and Freddie kissed?!"
Sam shushed her quickly. "Don't tell Carly," she pleaded out of her mind, but unfortunately for her shehad told Carly.
After Sam recovered from the gas they headed back home, Carly was lost in thought. Finally they arrived back at Apartment 8-C and found Freddie waiting for them outside.
"Hey, how'd it go?" Freddie asked casually, Sam smiled and pulled the cotton out of her mouth, showing off her newly cleaned and repaired teeth.
"Great."
"Yeah, great," Carly said tonelessly. "Just great."
The two of them stared at her confused, but she ignored them as she opened the door to her apartment. She ignored Spencer's new sculpture: a giant pair of pants with the fly undone. Instead, she sat on one of the chairs in the living room, looking at the pair bitterly.
"Carls?" Sam asked as she and Freddie stepped in, closing the door behind them.
Carly stared at them for a moment, and narrowed on their lips. "Did you two really kiss?"
They stiffened in shock before Sam turned to glare furiously at the tech producer, and he stepped back terrified. "You told her. You. Told. Her."
"N-No! I…I didn't! I swear!"
"Yeah right –"
"You told me, Sam," Carly said, cutting in.
Sam blinked. "I did? When?"
"When you were all hopped up on loopy gas," Carly said, voice hard, and Sam lowered her head in shame. "You know, I tell you guys everything, so it really makes me feel betrayedthat my two best friends decided to make out and secretly date without telling me!" He voice turned low and hurt. "How could you nottell me?"
"Secretly dating?" Sam asked incredulously. "It was just a kiss, nothing more! It wasn't even a make out!"
"And, we promised we would neverspeak of it again," Freddie added.
"How could you two even kiss in the first place?" she asked, confused and hurt.
"It was during that incident when everyone was giving me a hard time about never kissing anyone," Freddie explained with a sigh.
Carly remembered that incident quite clearly; Sam had gone too far and told on a live broadcast that Freddie never kissed anyone before. She had thought it was sweet that he hadn't just gone and kissed a girl, and, admittedly, she felt a bit smug at the idea he was waiting for her. Unfortunately, everyone else teased him mercilessly for it until he missed a week of school and she had to tell off Sam for going too far. This basically led to Sam telling everyone she never kissed before, and with the threat she issued to tease her about it, the teasing just went away. Sam had gone to talk to Freddie after…She had gone to talk to Freddie alone.
Carly sighed. "I can't believe this; how could you take advantage of Freddie like that, Sam?"
"It's not like that," Freddie said quickly. "It was kinda my idea." She looked at him shocked. "Look, I was really bummed out about the whole thing, and well…I just wanted to get it over with…"
"Why?" Carly whispered.
"Why what?" he asked.
"Why Sam? Why kiss her? You two…don't even really like each other that much."
There was an awkward pause, finally Carly continued.
"I…I thought it was sweet and unique that you were saving your first kiss for someone more special than your average girlfriend."
Sam shook her head, not understand what the big deal was. "Carls, it's not that important –"
"Don't talk to me, Sam," Carly said bitingly. "You'rethe reason Freddie ended up wasting his first kiss! That kiss belonged to someone a lot more important that the girl who abuses him on a daily basis!"
"Whoa, Carly," Sam said, raising an eyebrow. "Aren't you overreacting a bit? You never had a problem with the way I treated Fred-weird –"
"His name's Fredward!" Carly interrupted.
"Whatever," Sam said shrugging. "You never had a problem with how I treated him in the past."
"Well, you shouldn't be hitting your boyfriend!"
"I'm not her boyfriend," Freddie interjected quickly. "We're not dating, and I don't like Sam thatway. She's a…a frenemy at best, and I'm sorry if you feel I wasted my first kiss but the girl I wantedto kiss didn't feel much like kissing me, now did she?"
Carly's mouth suddenly went dry. "No, I guess not, but that doesn't excuse Sam of taking advantage of you."
"Hey, he told you it was his idea!"
"Yeah, but he was hurt and sad; he just wanted a way to get it over with so people would stop making fun of him." Carly snorted meanly. "Of course, you dohave that bad habit of taking things that don't belong…to…you…"
Suddenly there were footsteps and Carly spun around, the trio froze when they saw a pair of men wearing orange jumpsuits, escaped convicts. One was a tall black man with brown eyes, five o'clock shadow, and a buzzed black haircut. The other was a short white man with brown eyes, five o'clock shadow, and messy balding light brown hair.
"Who are you, what do you want?" Carly asked, panicked.
One of the men pulled a knife, the other a gun. The African-American man turned to his partner, smirking.
"Look what we have here Maurice, trouble."
"Yeah," Maurice replied with a wide smile, "Okay kids, you wanna live, cooperate."
Knowing they had no choice, despite Sam's unwillingness, they did so and before long the goons had them tied to chairs with duct tape before fleeing.
"Ugh, I can't believe this…Why did you help them?" Sam complained for what felt like the tenth time.
"They had a gun to my head." Freddie replied, Carly was still angry at both of them and said nothing at first. That was until Sam turned to Carly.
"Since we're gonna be here for a while, Carls, you wanna explain exactly what the hell is wrong with you?"
Carly glared at her. "He told them where the duct tape was in exchange for our lives Sam. He saved our lives, how could you be so rude to him when he saved our lives? What is wrong with you? First I find out you took advantage of him, and now you're getting mad at him for trying to protect us? I don't even know who you are anymore."
"The kiss was his idea!"
"He was hurt, Sam! Of course, he was saying completely irrational and stupid things like that! As his…his…whatever you are to him, you should have told him that it was a bad idea! That he should only kiss a girl because he likes her!"
There was silence before finally Sam replied petulantly.
"It was my first kiss too!"
"So, you claim, but I don't even know if I should believe you anymore."
Sam looked insulted. "I wouldn't lie about something like that! I'm not my mom!"
Carly snorted. "No, you just do an amazing impression. I bet you don't even know what you did wrong, do you?"
"I didn't do anything wrong!"
"Get out," Carly said harshly. "Until you can figure out how wrong you were, I don't want to see you."
Sam stared at Carly, startled. "What?" she asked, wide eyed.
"Get out. Don't come back until you know what you did wrong." She snorted in disgust at the duct tape. "And, after this little incident I don't really want to associate with criminalsfor a while anyway, and thieves definitely fall into that category!"
"What did I even steal?!"
"That's a bit too long of a list to count, Samantha."
The blonde huffed at the use of her proper first name. "Fine, you want it that way, cupcake? I'll gladly get out until youget your head screwed back on right, but if you haven't noticed, I can't leave yet."
Carly groaned and shook her head; she looked around; that's when she saw the pair of scissors on the counter. She told Freddie to grab them, and he bounced his chair over to them as best as he could. It didn't take him long to reach them, and he picked them up with his teeth. Expertly, he let them drop into hands, and he began to cut his way out of the tape. He then cut Carly and Sam free, and the two glared at each other.
"There," Carly said bitingly, "you're free so you can get out now."
"Gladly! Call me when you're sane!" Sam yelled, slamming the door behind her.
"Carls…" Freddie said hesitantly and she turned to glare at him. He gulped and took a step back, but she seemed to realize what she was doing and her eyes softened. "Carls…don't you think you overreacted a bit? I mean I know you feel betrayedthat we kept it a secret, but…"
Carly shook her head. "It wasn't that you kept it a secret, it's more the fact that she took advantage of you while you were hurt and alone."
Freddie sighed. "It was just a kiss…but, yeah, I guess you're kinda right. But still…"
"Don't bother Freddie, I don't wanna hear it."
With that she turned away, getting lost in thought.
Carly was startled out of her thoughts when the door slammed open, and she screamed, throwing a frying pan at it out of reflex. Luckily, her aim was off so she ended up just missing Spencer, but he definitely looked scared.
"What is going on?" Spencer asked, frightened, and Carly quickly explained what happened. "Oh man! It's all my fault! They must of snuck into the sculpture we made…I knew that thing was too heavy!"
Carly frowned. "Well, there's nothing we can do now. They know where we live and if we call the cops they'll be back…"
"Well, I doubt the police don't already know," Spencer said reasonably for once. "Two escaped convicts won't exactly go unnoticed…"
"That's true," Freddie agreed and a silence fell.
"So…how did Sam's appointment go?" Spencer finally asked.
Carly huffed and stomped upstairs. "I'm going to take a shower!"
"Was it something I said?" Spencer asked incredulously.
End of chapter, hope you enjoyed it, read and review please.