As Carly finished brushing her hair before school in the morning, she logged on to her computer with the few spare minutes she had left. The NEW VIDEO MESSAGE alert caught her eye and she checked her inbox.
"Carly Shay, I know that you think of me as an immature, childish boy. However those days are gone; my birthday is next week and I'll have you know, I am a man now. I would like for you to join me for lunch today. Yes, lunch. I have arranged my schedule at Ridgewood so that our classes will not come between us, my love." Neville informed Carly in his video message right before blowing a kiss. "I put the dishes away last night, mother!"
And then the video stopped.
This can't be happening. Now he goes to my school?! Carly began to panic. This isn't real. It simply isn't real.
She logged off her computer and locked the door behind her at the same time Freddie and Sam greeted her in the hall.
"What's wrong, Carls? You look like you've just seen a ghost," Sam greeted her best friend as she pulled a pork tenderloin out of the pocket of her purple plaid sweater and bit into it.
"Nevel's going to Ridgeway," she told them.
"What?!" Sam shrieked with a mouthful of pork, spitting it out into Freddie's eye.
"Watch it, would you?!" Freddie complained as he flicked the chewed up piece of meat back at its owner.
"Thi ca be!" Sam babbled in disbelief, her words distorted with the amount of food in her mouth.
"Yeah, and the worst part is he wants to eat lunch with me!" Carly added.
"Are you going to?" Freddie questioned.
"...NO!" Carly responded, offended.
"Are you outta your mind?!" Sam screamed as she slapped Freddie with her tenderloin.
"Ow!" he cried from the floor.
"Sam, what have I told you about hitting people with tenderloins?" she mothered her friend.
"Hitting people with tenderloins isn't nice," she answered in a low, shameful tone.
"Like you care!" Freddie retorted right before Sam pulled out a bottle of barbecue sauce from her other pocket and squirted Freddie in the face with it.
"Sam!" Carly scolded.
-Later that day, at Ridgeway-
"Why won't you just tell us what it is already?" Carly begged her friend.
"Because it's a surprise!" Sam responded, slamming her locker.
"We don't do surprises on iCarly!" Carly reminded her friend.
"It's nothing big! We can do everything as planned while we're sitting in a storage container filled with chicken broth!" she assured them, realizing too late that she had slipped.
"...That's your big plan?" Freddie mumbled in disbelief.
"Where are you going to get that much chicken broth?" Carly questioned with a smirk on her face.
"Aah, don't worry about it," she assured them as she handed out a $100 bill to Ripoff Rodney walking past her. Her friends stood there in silence for a few moments.
"Uh-oh, incoming," Freddie warned as the evil, desperate, repelling little boy approached them.
"Oh Carly Shay, I do believe you and I have a lunch date this afternoon. Where shall we sit?" he asked as he uninvitedly escorted her away from her friends, arm in arm.
"God I hate that kid," Sam snarled as she ripped apart her low-fat fat cake.
"Help?" Carly mouthed as she was dragged away by the lovestruck Nevel.
"I'm gonna get that kid," she said, walking off and leaving Freddie alone.
-Later, in the iCarly studio-
"And that's how you go swimming and drink chicken broth at the same time when you're poor!" Sam announced to the camera in Freddie's hands, up to her neck and curled up in a two foot tall clear plastic storange container filled with chicken broth. When Freddie stopped recording, Sam pushed Gibby's face into the tub of chicken broth that sat beside her.
"Hey!" Gibby whined, surfacing from the chicken broth.
"Alright you can leave!" Sam dismissed, dunking her chicken leg in the broth she lay in.
"Let's go, Gibby," Tasha welcomed her shirtless boyfriend with her hand as they left the studio.
"So Freddie, how's that invention of yours coming along?" Carly inquired, still dripping with chicken broth.
"I think it's ready, actually," he answered. "Anyone wanna test it out?"
"Why don't you test it out? It's your invention," Sam butted in, still in her pool of chicken broth.
"Why don't you test out? Or are you too afraid?" he challenged.
"Why should I test out your invention?" she laughed.
"Free bacon."
"Mama's not afraid of anything," she replied, getting out of her makeshift pool and grabbing the bag of bacon from Freddie, "So what am I doing, Fredward?"
"Okay just sit right here," he directed her to a chair hooked up to heavy machinery.
"You're sure this is safe?" Carly worried.
"Of course it is. I invented it," he reminded her as he fooled around with some switches. "I'm setting the target destination to very low, so she should re-appear five feet away from her current location." The low buzz of the invention began. At the touch of a few buttons, Sam disappeared.
A few moments passed. She was still gone.
"Where's Sam?" Carly questioned, panicking.
"Don't worry, she'll be back in 3... 2..." he tried to calm her down, but she still wasn't there.
"Where is she?!" she asked again, angrily, and grabbing him by his shirt.
"Jeez... I... I-"
"I'm going after her," she declared, sitting where Sam was. "Send me to where she is!"
"If you just sit there, it's still on, but-" Carly cut him off.
"But what? Sam's like a sister to me and I'm not just gonna watch her disa-"
Freddie now stood alone in the iCarly studio. Worried, he looked around, waiting for a minute for them to return, his thoughts racing as he anticipated their safe return.
No, Carly can't disappear. If Sam never comes back, why should I care? She'll just torment me if she comes back. But Carly...
Freddie sat down in his invention while it was still running, fearlessly awaiting whatever would happen to him as he would soon be where Sam and Carly were.