NOTE: This was written before "The Void" actually came out. Enjoy this story for what it is.

Janice.

Mr. Small breathed slowly and rhythmically. He was sitting on his desk with his legs crossed and his hands clasped together - humming a steady bit of a calming melody to himself. It was at this time every day that Mr. Small had his daily meditation session. Besides being able to guide all the children with his vast wisdom, it was what he looked forward to the most when coming to work each and every weekday.

He breathed in deeply, savoring the earthy aroma of the inscense that was burning in his office. But before he could exhale, a knock at the door broke his concentration, startling him and causing him to choke on the air. He coughed loudly and got off of his desk to flip the light switch on.

"One minute, please! I'll be right with you."

He stuffed his meditation rug and all his assorted new age paraphanelia into a plastic box under his desk. Normally, he would have put them in a drawer of his filing cabinet, but ever since he was accidentally trapped in one, he had grown to have a severe phobia of both enclosed spaces and filing cabinets themselves. Because of this, the cabinets in his room were always locked up tight, and he usually had to call in for assistance whenever he needed something out of them.

Mr. Small walked over and opened the door, almost tripping over his own two feet in the process. Before him stood a short blue cat with a huge head.

"Oh no..." he muttered, "I mean, hey Gumball! How's my favourite blue cat doing today?"

"Pretty good, I guess." He didn't sound too sure. His head was hanging down and he refused to look at Mr. Small.

"Doesn't sound too good to me. Wanna talk for a while?"

"Well, can't think of any other reason I'd be coming to see you. Which is a shame really, because you're such a great guy."

"No need to disrespect your elders, Gumball. Did you eat lunch? You sound pretty grumpy. Maybe you should go eat and then come see me."

"Actually, the smell of that awful inscense has kind of made me lose my appetite anyway."

"I'm sorry then. Normally I wouldn't even be burning anything at this time. No one ever comes to see me during lunch. It's kind of my private time."

"Are you gonna let me in or what, puffy?"

Mr. Small gritted his teeth, "Fine. Go take a seat."

Gumball did as he was told and plopped himself down onto a child sized seat opposite of Mr. Small's desk. Usually, in order to make the students more comfortable, he sat on his desk and talked to them, but at the moment, he seemed to prefer sitting behind his desk.

"So," he began quietly, "What brings you here today, Gumball Watterson?"

"Well, this might be a little hard to explain to you, honestly. Don't think you've really had any experience with women."

Mr. Small pointed to the door, "Door's right over there Gumball. If you came to see me at this time then you must have something important to talk about."

Gumball sighed whinily, "Ugh, fine. See, there's this girl I really like. Her name is Penny. Penny Fitzgerald."

"Oh, you like the little antlered peanut girl. Yeah, she's pretty cool. Makes good grades, she's super friendly, so physically fit. Probably the most talented cheerleader we have. That's not really saying a lot though, is it?" He said with a cheeky grin, obviously trying to lighten the mood.

Gumball smiled back and shrugged. It was an inside joke among the student body that the cheerleaders were terrible, and by all accounts, they were. Always falling on Carmen's spines or accidentally tearing one of Teri's limbs off. At Elmore Junior High, being a cheerleader was a very dangerous job.

"Yeah, I guess it's not really. I still cheer them all on whenever me and Darwin watch them practice, though. But, just between you and me, it's usually only for Penny."

"How sweet of you. So, how long have you had a crush on Penny?"

"Probably ever since the fifth grade. I had always thought she was one of the nicer girls I've met, but it was that one day that she stood up for me in gym class that made me really start to like her."

"What happened?"

"Well, I don't want to get too into detail, but this kid was picking on me really bad for not being able to do a single chin up. That's almost physically impossible for me, if you haven't noticed."

"I'm sure you could do it if you just tried harder, Gumball."

"My arms wouldn't stop falling off, Mr. Small."

"Oh. Okay, nevermind, finish the story."

"So anyway, Penny comes over and starts calling the kid a wimp for picking on someone much smaller and weaker than him. Normally I would have taken offense to being called weak, but no one had ever stood up for me before like that except for my mom."

"Hm, your mother?"

"Yeah, she's scary when it comes to people messing with me. Once I thought Tina Rex was bullying me, and my stupid sister just had to say that I was being bullied. I mean, it's not that I don't appreciate her honesty, but I think my mom might be a little crazy."

"I remember that very well... Was that the day you and Anais came into my office?"

"Yeah, and when we mentioned who was bullying us you like, wet yourself or something."

"I did not! My colour drained, it's a defense mechanism for my species that enables us to escape the grasp of predators that cannot see black and white!"

Gumball raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Seriously?"

Mr. Small hung his head in shame. "No, that was a lie. But don't you go telling a bunch of lies, now. That was wrong of me to say."

"Actually that was pretty transparent."

"Fair enough. Maybe we should move back to the topic at hand."

"Sounds like a good plan."

"Do you know if Penny likes you back, Gumball?"

"She does. I'm almost 100% sure of it. But the little voice in the back of my head that tells me to trust my gut and not my heart just speaks louder and keeps telling me that she's way out of my league."

"Well, why not give it a shot? Try asking her out to a party or something."

"I could never do that! It took me so much courage just to come in and talk to someone about this."

"I see. Well, I applaud your bravery Gumball. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?"

"Yeah, there is one thing."

"What's on your mind, Gumball?"

"How did you talk to girls in high school?"

"Me?" This conversation was beginning to feel rather awkward. His love life had not really started until after graduating high school. Sure, he had had crushes and "girlfriends," but nothing like what Gumball was going through. Well, nothing except...

"Therapy session over, good day!" Mr. Small rudely pushed Gumball out the door as quickly as possible, slamming the door shut behind him and locking it as well. Gumball was shaked and confused. What had he done? Was there some invisible boundary between student and teacher that he had just crossed?

"Hey, dude! Everything go alright with Mr. Small?"

The familiar sound of squeaky sneakers alerted him to Darwin's presence. Gumball wasn't really sure what to tell his best friend/brother.

"Uh, it wasn't too bad I suppose. Thought he was going to go into one of his psychotic episodes much earlier like he always does. For most of the session he was pretty mellow, though."

Darwin gave Gumball a look. "Everyone in the lunchroom heard his door slam. They're saying you got into a fight with him. What did you do?"

"What?! A fight? Did they forget who I was talking to? That guy is too wimpy to harm even a fly."

"Don't ignore the question, man. What did you ask him?"

"All I asked was if he had any experience with girls! That's literally all I did, and he totally freaked out like he always does."

Everyone in the general vicinity gasped and dropped what they were holding. All eyes were on Gumball, who could do nothing but stare in confusion.

"What?" he shrugged, "That's what happened. How is that so bad?"

"No one in this school asks Mr. Small about his love life. Don't you know the story?" Tobias said.

"Uh, I guess not."

"Jeez... I thought you were dumb, but not this dumb. Come on, I'll tell you all I know about Janice if you follow me."

"Janice?"

"Shhh! You're right outside his door, man. Don't make him go off again."

"Alright, alright. Lead the way."

Tobias started off towards the end of the eastern hallway, and soon they both ended up on the third floor of the school. No one at Elmore Junior High liked it up here. The floors were creaky and the carpets were stained. The whole place just deserved a complete renovation.

"Hey, aren't we supposed to be in class right now, Tobias? Why are we on the third floor?"

"Shhh! I'll deal with Simian when the time comes. I'm doing this because you're my bro, man," he said, holding out a tiny orange fist for Gumball to bump.

"Why are you shushing me? No one's up here except us."

"Shhhhhh! You can never be too careful up here. Some kids say even some of the desks and pencils are Simian's allies, always listening... Now bump it!"

Gumball sighed and unenthusiastically fistbumped Tobias's hand.

"Great! Now grab this rope and pull as hard as you can."

"Wait, there's another level?"

"Nah, this is the door to the roof of the school. Just pull it."

"Okay... here goes," Gumball yanked the rope hard and pulled with all his might. After a bit of straining, the door finally swung open and revealed a passageway.

"Climb up on this piano, I'll grab your hand and hoist you up onto the roof."

Carefully as possible, Gumball climbed on top of the piano and let Tobias lift him up. The fresh winter air hit him like a truck. The temperature in the third floor of the building was always really cold as since no one ever went up there, there was no real point in running a heater.

"Tobias, please tell me why we had to get up on top of the roof for you to tell me this stupid story."

Tobias shut the door to the third floor and grinned. "Dramatic tension, my friend."

"What?! I, I just, what?! Ugh, you know what? Fine, I'll buy it. Just let me hear the stupid story so we can get this over with."

"Very well. But I warn you Gumball, the story of Janice has been passed down through generations and has scarred countless children. Including myself."

"And you do realize that Mr. Small is only like 40-something, right?"

"Maybe I was thinking of a different story just then."

"Just get on with it already! I'm freezing my paws off."

"Okay, okay, okay! Take it easy, Gumball. I hope the suspense hasn't killed you, otherwise you wouldn't be able to hear the rest of this chilling tale."

"That won't be all he won't get to enjoy!" came a loud, coarse voice from the third floor. The door swung open and an extremely angry looking Miss Simian stood fuming before them.

Gumball glared at Tobias, who could only smile sheepishly.

"I hate you Tobias. I really, really do."