Thirteen-year-old Jimmy Neutron stood in his backyard, carefully loading supplies into his Hyper Cube for the trip he had planned for him and his friends to Retroville Beach. Or course, he had most everything one could think of to begin with, but it never hurts to double check.
"Let's see," he muttered to himself as he took inventory, "Towels...sunscreen...beach umbrellas...an Ultralord snorkel?" he removed the bright purple snorkel and tossed it aside as someone tapped his shoulder. Turning around, he came face-to-face with Cindy Vortex. She gave him a slightly amused smile.
"When are you gonna learn NOT to let Ultra-Dork near your lab, Jimmy?" she asked with her arms folded.
He blinked at her. Since when did she call him "Jimmy"? He smiled slyly. "Why did you just use my first name?"
Catching her slip-up, Cindy blushed and shifted her gaze to the ground. "Well, um..." she trailed off. "When are we going to the beach?" Cindy asked, quickly changing the subject.
"Whenever Carl, Sheen and Libby get here," he said, looking at his wristwatch. "If they don't come soon, we'll have to go without them," he faked shuddering as he thought of him and Cindy going to the beach...together.
"Oh," she answered quietly. "I'll call Libby to see where they are."
"No need for that," said Libby as she walked up. "Sorry 'bout takin' so long. I had to drag Sheen away from the TV."
"But Puff Mommy, it was the rare, never-before-seen Valentine's Day episode of Ultralord with the special Japanese director's cut!" Sheen complained, shaking slightly from Ultralord withdrawal. Libby gave him a "come on" look, and he stood up straighter.
"Sheen, what have I told ya 'bout those nicknames?" Libby asked.
Sheen looked around. "Um, that they're adorable and you love 'em?" he tried hopefully. Libby sighed and let it go.
"That's why you took so long?" asked Jimmy, raising an eyebrow.
"That and Carl trying to put on sunscreen," Libby said. "Ya know he used the WHOLE bottle?"
Carl frowned. "It's not my fault that I burn easily! Besides, it didn't take that long..."
"Didn't take that long? You were like girls putting on their make-up!" bellowed Sheen. Libby put a hand on his shoulder.
"Okay, okay. Let's just get going before it gets too late," said Jimmy, getting into the hovercar. Sheen, Carl, Cindy and Libby all followed his lead and climbed into the hovercar. Carl, Sheen and Libby took the back seats, leaving Jimmy and Cindy the ones in front.
After about flying for a little while, Jimmy, Carl, Sheen, Cindy and Libby finally reached Retroville Beach, which wasn't too crowded.
"I would've thought it'd be crowded," mused Cindy. "Today's almost perfect."
Carl pulled out a large beach umbrella and went over to the shadiest place he could find. "I think I'll stay out of the sun. My mom said I'm not allowed to get a tan."
Sheen grinned and turned to Libby. "Would you like to go jump the waves, my queen?" he asked, bowing in an over-exaggerated manner.
Libby giggled at him. "Sure, but stop using nicknames." Sheen grinned wider and grabbed Libby's hand and pulled her over to the shoreline. Jimmy and Cindy eyed them as they jumped the waves together. Jimmy was happy for his best friend, while Cindy was wondering why that couldn't be her and Jimmy jumping waves. She shook that thought out of her head as she remembered when they had gotten stranded together. She let herself become lost in her memories as she walked down the beach.
Of course, she remembered that event with great clarity. Jimmy, however, she wasn't as sure about. Cindy hoped he remembered. Goodness knows he remembered everything else. She sat down on a large rock and closed her eyes as she thought of when Jimmy had given her the pearl he had found.
The twin tiki torches blazed as the sun dropped lower in the evening sky, adding to the beauty of the tropical sunset.
"Jimmy," Cindy began with a sigh, "Hasn't this been the best day ever?"
Jimmy looked down a little at the log they were sitting on. "You mean not counting the time NASA let me use the Magellan telescope to view convergence of the trillium and crab nebulas?" he asked hopefully.
"Uh-huh," she replied. 'They actually let him do that?' she thought to herself.
Jimmy smiled. "Definitely."
"And to think, we get to do this everyday," she said, sliding a little closer to him. "No more homework, or chores, or mean people. Just you and me and all the time in the world."
"Cindy? I got you a present," Jimmy said, carefully reaching beside him to pick something up.
Cindy was shocked. "A present? On a deserted island? But how?" Jimmy stopped her from asking any more questions be slipping an oyster into her hands. "Oh...a mollusk. How charming."
"You're supposed to open it," Jimmy told her.
Cindy opened the oyster's shell and her breath caught when she saw what Jimmy's present really was. Inside the oyster sat a perfect white pearl gleaming as the last rays of sunshine hit it. "Jimmy! A pearl! It's beautiful!"
"Aw, it's nothing, really," Jimmy said, trying to sound modest. "While you were out gathering fruit, I decided to open up a few oysters...137, to be exact."
Cindy looked down at the pearl again and smiled at him. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me." She offered him her hand, which he entwined with his own. Both glanced nervously at each other for a moment before smiling. They scooted closer together as they watched the sunset.
Sighing at the memory, Cindy hopped off the rock and walked back up the beach, where Jimmy, Carl, Sheen and Libby were already sitting around a bonfire. The towering flames rose high into the sky. She sat down in-between Jimmy and Libby.
"Hey Neutron," Cindy said sweetly, "Can I talk to you? Over there?" She pointed behind here to an area out of the earshot of the others. Jimmy sighed and nodded.
"So," Jimmy said as they walked, "What did you want to talk about?"
She took a breath before answering. "Neutron, do you remember when we were stranded on that island a couple years ago?" she said with as little hesitation as she could. Jimmy froze in place. He remembered that day. They had been so open with each other...she had been so sweet to him. Did she still have the pearl he had given her?
"Yes, I do," he said. "Why do you ask?"
"I was thinking about that earlier," she shrugged. Jimmy knew this wasn't the full reason she had wanted to talk, so he gently placed his hand on her shoulder and stopped her.
"That's it? Cindy, what did you really want to talk about?" He asked. She nervously dug her toes into the sand and kept her eye glued to the ground as she mumbled something. "What?" Jimmy asked.
"Because I was wondering...why didn't we get along like we did there when we got back home? I liked us getting along! I liked it on the island!" Cindy said suddenly, her voice rising.
Jimmy sighed and sat down, Cindy quickly following suit. "I don't know what happened. We clearly are able to get along, so it would stand to reason that if we WANT to, we certainly should get along," Jimmy analyzed the situation. "I mean, if you want to get along and I want to get along, it should work."
"But, what about what everyone else will say? My mom doesn't like you that much," she confessed. 'I don't know why,' she thought. 'Jimmy's the sweetest boy I've ever met.'
"If we truly want to get along, it shouldn't matter what everyone thinks," he said, running his finger thru the sand.
Smiling, Cindy leaned over and hugged him on impulse. Slightly shocked, Jimmy carefully hugged her back. Realizing what she had just done, she quickly tore out of his embrace and blushed. "Um, sorry..." she said nervously hiding her face.
"Don't be," he said with a half-smile. Looking up in hope, Cindy smiled back, suddenly thinking of everytime she had been interrupted when she had tried to confess that she loved him.
'Now or never,' she thought. "Jimmy, do you remember all those times I tried to tell you something?"
"You're really on a roll with memories today, aren't you?" Jimmy asked. He didn't completely mind listening to her, to be truthful. He rather enjoyed her being nice.
"Neutron, I'm being serious," she said, becoming slightly angry. Everytime she had tried to tell him before, it went wrong. She wasn't going to miss out again.
"Okay, sorry. Yes, I remember those times. How is that relevant to this subject?" Jimmy asked, not picking up on where this was going.
"Jimmy, don't you get it?" Cindy asked. "Don't you know what I've been trying to say? I've been trying to say that I..." she trailed off, her eyes fixated on the sand like it was the inner workings of Big Ben.
"You what?" Jimmy asked, clearly bemused by her behavior.
Sighing, she looked Jimmy straight in the eye. "I-I love you," she said, hiding her face from him, "I know you're probably think I'm weird, but I've wanted to tell you that for a long time. And I'm glad I finally did."
Jimmy sat there, registering what she had just said. "You love me?" He asked, the only thing he could think of to say. She answered by nodding. "Cindy," he began, getting her to look at him, "I love you too." He gently hugged her.
"Let me get this straight," Cindy said, pulling out of Jimmy's embrace, "We both love each other?"
"I'd say that would be the case," Jimmy told her, getting to his feet. He helped Cindy up. "You wanna go back over there? I bet they're wondering what's taking us so long," he said, motioning toward Carl, Sheen and Libby. She nodded as he took her hand and they walked over together.
Summer. Maybe the best thing about it isn't the promise of school-free days, poolside afternoons or endless ice-cream cones. Maybe it's the blossoming relationships between young couples.