Earth Day

A James and Cindy Story


James Possible-Stoppable sat in his seat at the Auditorium, grumping. When mom came back from her vacation, he'd have to show her his D- on history, and she'd freak.

"Figured out what you're going to say to mom?" Cindy Lipsky asked him, the 13 year old looking over at him from her chair.

"It was dad's fault?"

"Hmmm…that'd work. But you gotta admit, he went to a lot of effort."

"I know…I mean a power point presentation and everything on why the moon landings were faked."

Cindy folded her arms over her T-shirt, and cocked her head, looking at her friend. "And that's why you did it?"

"Well…no. I just wanted to see what Color Mr. Carruther's face would turn when he read it."

"I gotta admit, that was a nice shade of red." She paused. "Was it worth it?"

"I'll tell you after mom gets back."

"Hey, at least they're not fighting anymore." Cindy pointed out. "Well, not physically…all the time, at least."

"True." James grinned, "And since your mom isn't here, you made it out of the house without a jacket! I can't believe she trusted you for that."

Cindy groaned. "She didn't. She put a GPS in my jackets so I wouldn't go out and catch cold—I had to hack all the transmitters."

"wow. What's your mom going to do when you go to college."

"Sigh. She's been talking about home-colleging."

"Wow."

"Attention!" The voice came from the front of the auditorium. It wasn't the voice of Stanley Schumaker, Principal of George Washington Jr. High School….it was…

Principal Bonnie Rockwaller-Flagg? James looked at Cindy. Cindy looked at James. Bonnie looked out over the puzzled audience. "When Mr. Schumaker tried to show his son the proper way to fix a TV, he evidently forgot the part about unplugging it. So for now, since Middleton High has the week off, I'm filling in for him." She looked out over the audience and continued, "And if you give me any trouble, remember that in two years at most, your butts are mine for the next four years. I know you don't want to give me cause to remember your smiling faces."

The room was silent. They'd all heard tales of Mrs. Rockwaller-Flagg from their older siblings in some cases or parents in other cases, and the trembling hands and quavering voices those tales were related to them in were more than enough warning.

"Now, As you know, this Friday we're having our Earth Day presentation….and since nobody seems to be interested in it because it's not something you'll be graded on… " Bonnie paused, "You are now going to be graded on it. Don't worry, you have a whole week to get it done." She got a broad smile on her face, "And I'm inviting your parents, and Superintendent Barkin to see what you do with your new projects!"

A cry of outrage started to sweep the auditorium, quelled before Bonnie's laser like eyes.

"That's better… I'll expect to have you drop off your proposals at the office today after school."


At lunch, Cindy was frowning.

"Stupid Earth Day." She muttered, "We're going to have to do some dumb diorama or something."

"Oh, Cindy….Cindy, Cindy, Cindy…." James aid, "I would have thought better of the daughter of Drew Lipsky."

"What does that mean?" James sighed and shook his head. Cindy looked at him, and raised one hand, pink plasma coalescing around it. "the daughter of Shego Lipsky, asks again…what does that mean."

"Oh, well." James said, "We can do something more exciting!"

"We're not allowed to build any more reactors…at least on school grounds." Cindy said, looking across the lunch yard to the cofferdam of lead, concrete and steel that had been the chemistry lab.

"I told you that you'd under estimated the neutron flow." James said morosely.

"Hey, Mom and me are a lot more tolerant of hard radiation." Cindy paused "But that doesn't…. hey, wait a minute, I have an idea!"

"Only one?" James said, and ducked at the flicked finger bolt of plasma. Other than that, Cindy was ignoring him, as she dug through her back pack (with the bright traffic strips sewn into the back, courtesy of Shego.).

"Here!" She said, pulling out the Middleton Daily. On the front page was a picture of the Middleton Museum, with the headline. "Life of Ages past, Extinct Animals exhibit comes to Middleton."

"And?"

"And I went there with dad last Saturday—they have a Smilodon Populator, and a Mammoth, and a bunch of other extinct animals."

"Okay…" James said, looking at them, "and what are you thinking."

"If we could get some intact DNA, and clone them, we could bring them to the presentation! I mean, what can get more Earth Day than restoring extinct animals?"

"Hey, that's-" James paused, "What about fast growing them, that takes a lot of power." He frowned, "More than you could produce."

"No problem, dad's old lair still has that carbon cycle fusion reactor in it." She shrugged, "And I have the access code, since mom made help her put all the twins' old baby things in it last month."

"And our moms' aren't here…." James said, with a grin.

"And that means the only ones we have to worry about are our dads…" The two looked at each other and then high fived.

"Cool!" They both said. "This is gonna be the greatest Earth Day presentation EVER!"