Author's Note:
Greetings! As a writer and reader, I'm not particularly fond of lengthy author's notes - I'll make my introduction brief and state what is important. This tale explores the return of Missy following her departure on the School at Sea trip portrayed in iReunite With Missy. For all intents and purposes, all canon has occurred up until before the premiere of iSaved Your Life. As for this story's content, trust and betrayal are major themes, along with friendship, manipulation, and the battle between selflessness and selfishness. Enjoy - I appreciate all praise and constructive criticism from readers.
Feet shuffle. Doors slam shut. Silence grips the halls of Ridgeway High as another monotonous Monday begins with the sound of Principal Franklin over the intercom; Carly, Sam, and Freddie enter as he begins the daily announcements:
"Good morning, Ridgeway! Today is Monday November 16th, 2009. It is a day seven in the schedule rotation. Students should already in homeroom - it is 8:15…"
"Looks like that's not happenin…" Sam said with a smirk. Carly and Freddie grunted in frustration as they stormed toward their lockers.
"What's the rush?" Sam asked nonchalantly.
"We're late, Sam! Unlike you, I am not a truant!" Freddie declared.
"Calm down Freddifer. It's not my fault we're late!"
"Yeah it is!" Carly snapped. "You drove us here!"
"So! Freddie's the one who wanted to buy breakfast on the way!"
"Excuse me, Sam! If I'm not mistaken you– "
"Stop!" Carly cried. The feuding duo paused and redirected their undivided attention to Carly, both demanding an explanation for interrupting their budding argument.
"Guys! Could we just calm down and try to listen to the announcements?"
"Why?" Sam snorted, with Freddie following suit.
"I don't know, maybe we'll hear something interesting. You never know!"
"I doubt it…" Freddie muttered.
"Shh!" Carly ordered.
"…In other news, congratulations to the math team for their spectacular performance in their first meet of the year. Fredward Benson led the meet in scoring with 14 points…"
"Nerd!" Sam chortled. Carly giggled too, albeit with some guilt. Freddie shrugged off the girls' teasing and led the trio appropriately to math class.
"To conclude, please also be sure to give a warm welcome to Missy Robinson, who has completed her six month tenure on the School at Sea trip. Have a great day, Ridgeway. Study hard and prosper!"
Sam choked on her latte, drops flying out of her uncapped Skybucks cup. Carly froze in bewilderment, while Freddie spun around to see his friends' faces.
"It's been six months?" Carly cried.
"Maybe we'll hear something interesting…" Sam spat, mocking Carly's suggestion mere moments before.
"It's not her fault she's back, Sam. We just heard about the inevitable..." Freddie stated objectively.
"Why do you always take her side?" Sam whined.
"You have a tendency to be wrong, rude, and brash, that's all" Freddie said with a grin. Folding his arms, he watched in delight as Sam seethed with rage by his suggestion.
"Four words. Moving picture experts group!" Sam said with confidence. She then pointed to Freddie's bicep and winked to remind him of a fair lost bet from long ago.
"That was a fluke!"
"2,718!" Sam cried.
"I guessed the number of fatcakes right too!"
"Guessed? More like calculated! What loser can't find the area of a sphere?"
"It was a cylinder!" Freddie corrected, taking the error personally.
"Does it matter?" Sam reasoned.
"Not now, I guess. Point is, you got lucky in the contest" Freddie finished.
"Nope. Mama's got skill. She knows her fatcakes"
"Could we just head to class?" Carly whined, unwilling to tolerate another verbal skirmish between her two best friends. Shrugging, Sam and Freddie listlessly followed her into Mr. Howard's Geometry and Algebra II class.
"Shay! Benson!" Mr. Howard boomed. "It appears you two are tardy for my class"
"Sorry sir…" the two exclaimed simultaneously. The two exchanged glances and looked towards the floor.
"Well, considering you don't believe punctuality is an integral part of the learning experience, I'm afraid I'm going to have to give you each detention!"
"What?" Carly pouted.
"No!" Freddie objected.
"Well, perhaps I'll spare your worthless hides if one of you could convert 300 degrees for me into radians in less than five seconds!" Mr. Howard challenged.
"Five seconds? Wait what?" Carly questioned. Her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion as she tried to make sense of his demand when Freddie answered confidently:
"5 pi over 3 radians"
Shocked, Mr. Howard's mouth dropped subtly in amazement. Stiffening up, he gave Freddie a far more 'difficult' question.
"Sine squared x, cotangent squared x, divided by one minus sin squared x, all minus one!"
"Uh…" Freddie started. He tilted his head and stared towards his shoes as he mentally simplified the expression. Carly looked on in great awe and greater confusion; Sam had already disappeared.
"Well, Mr. Howard. The expression simplifies to zero. Just like you are"
"Wha? You...you insufferable know it all!" Mr. Howard muttered. Bowing his head in defeat, he motioned Freddie and Carly to their seats. Grinning and nodding in approval, Sam now seated in the back slowly applauded, and the class steadily followed her example until the room was rife with cheers, claps, and whistles.
"What? Puckett! When'd you get here?"
"What's it to ya?" she shot from her seat. "Based on your humiliating defeat at the hands of Benson, I'd say you haven't shown up either" she finished, pointing to her noggin.
Gritting his teeth, Mr. Howard's abandoned his air of professionalism as he resorted to petty insults:
"I hate you!" he shouted.
"Your wife hates you" Sam replied in kind, smiling at the thought of his miserable home life.
As the class once more erupted into a second fit of laughter, Mr. Howard slunk back from the front of the class to his desk. Waiting for his class to calm down, he resumed the lesson once all was quiet and for his sake avoided confrontation and questions without exception for the remainder of the period.
Using his forced passivity to his advantage, a confident Freddie slipped Sam a note:
How'd you get to your desk without Howard noticing?
Reading his note, Sam intently scrawled her message on the back of the folded scrap paper. Finished, she inconspicuously passed him the note:
Luck. Skill. Or maybe the fact Howard was staring you down like a gazelle on the seregenti.
Chuckling at Sam's simile, Freddie beamed and eventually tucked the note into his pocket and watched Howard fumble through the rest of the lesson, still shaken from his embarrassment at his and Sam's hands. Carly had gotten some subtle shots in too, politely correcting a vulnerable Howard whenever he made the slightest of mistakes. Before Freddie knew it, forty minutes flew, and at 9:10 the bell heralded the end of first period. As classes changed, Carly and Sam gave Freddie a friendly parting wave before heading downstairs to English. Returning the wave, Freddie smiled and proceeded to chemistry class on the third floor. Steps from the door, the bell rang indicating class had just begun.
"You're late" Mr. Ford remarked.
"Sorry, you see–" Freddie began apologetically.
"I already marked you absent, Benson. Take a seat."
"There's someone occupying my seat…" Freddie observed.
With a vacuous stare, Mr. Ford looked at Freddie's normal seat, and then slowly returned his gaze back at the boy. Shrugging his shoulders in indifference and mild frustration, he replied:
"Go take the seat in the back"
Nodding, Freddie clumsily forced his way to the back. Heaving his bag onto the ground, he sighed and retrieved his lab manual and homework. Staring towards the front, Freddie dosed off when he heard a female voice and felt a playful poke to the side.
"Hey Freddie" Missy remarked. She inched her seat closer towards him, much to his chagrin.
"Hi Missy" Freddie whispered in mild disgust.
"It was so nice of you to give me that trip – it's too bad I became horribly seasick" she noted.
"Quite sorry about that" Freddie snapped. Without another word, he shifted his attention to the back towards the front. To his detriment, Missy continued the conversation.
"Well, you couldn't have known about my seasickness. It's alright!"
"I'm glad that–"
"No talking" Mr. Ford declared, giving the pair a stern look. Missy, feigning shock, gave Freddie an expression of disapproval and promptly turned away from him.
Rolling his eyes, Freddie shifted his body to the right away from her. Lazily doodling away in the margins of his notes, he overheard the lesson plan for the day being delivered by his unenthusiastic professor.
"We're going to perform an experiment today that proves stoichiometric principles. You're going to need your manuals, a pencil, and a lab partner"
"Mr. Ford?" Freddie inquired. "I've got a question. You see, my table partner is seated with Gibby at the moment?"
"I don't understand how's that's a question…"
"It's not. You see - I just - I'm not exactly sure who my partner is –"
"You're partners with Missy" he noted, motioning towards her with his cold uncaring eyes. Delighted with his decision, Missy beamed and carried their combined materials into the lab across the hall. Defeated, Freddie dragged himself behind her and the class, pining for the period to end.