CHAPTER THREE: A Breakfast Club spin-off

Disclaimer: Don't own them, only wished I did. The idea is an obvious reference to 'The Breakfast Club' including some of the quotes. Also Finn's lecture is based on a teacher's from 'The Breakfast Club.'

Summary: Just my idea of what should have happened during fall semester. Occurs after 'Halloween Dance'. Please R&R.

Thanks to Jeweliana for providing transcripts of the show.

(Montage of the night before: Bella getting showered by flour. Scout and Will throwing eggs at each other. Sean weaving toilet paper through statue. Hamilton and Jake rolling around on floor. Sirens whirling, then the gang frozen in light of police car. Fades to day - library interior. Jake, Hamilton, Will and Scout are sitting on lounges. Finn walks in carrying paper and pens)

Finn: "Morning boys. (hands out paper and pens) While the Edmond High students are serving their detentions outside, cleaning up the mess from last night shenanigans, you four gentlemen will stay in there for the next three hours and fifty-four minutes to think about why you're here. To ponder the error of your ways, you may not talk, and you will not wonder from the vicinities of these walls. Alright people, we're gonna try something a little different today. We are going to write an essay - of no less than a thousand words -describing to me why you are here?"

Hamilton: "Well that's an easy one. Being punished for having a little fun, and (picks up a thesaurus, quickly flicks through it) atrophying hours of our youth, which could have been spent doing something better"

Finn: "Isn't that classified as being overdramatic."

Will: "But Thoreau did say said "How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?"

Finn: "True, but Thoreau didn't have to instil disciplinary actions on adolescences who've vandalised public property."

(Finn leaves)

(Scout close the door when Finn's out of sight. Then sits back facing Jake and Hamilton)

Scout: "This should be interesting. I'm a little unclear as to why are you here Jake? Or is that even your real name?"

Hamilton: "Hey lay off."

Jake: "What is this? Some sort of trial?"

Scout: "No, I'm just curious as to why you would feel the need to pull of a charade of this magnitude?"

(Jake takes legs of coffee table and tenses)

Jake: "When did you start writing for Dawson's Creek? And when did my personal life come into public (pick up the thesaurus) scrutiny?"

(Hamilton puts a comforting hand on her shoulders)

Hamilton: "Come on they're friends and it's a simple enough question."

(Jake relaxes a bit)

Jake: "It's complicated that's all I can say."

Will: "Well lets start at the beginning Jake. What drove to this postcard perfect costal town of New Rawley?"

Jake: "Okay first of all it's Jacqueline, and secondly do you all know the actress Monica Pratt?"

Will: "Yeah, I've seen her in 'Macbeth'"

Jake: "Well, you see I don't, and she doesn't know me, even though she's my mom. She ignores me. (Pause) Always has. I was never as interesting as her work, or her friends, or her."

(Hamilton wraps his arms around her shoulders, as Jake silently sobs)

Jake: "My whole life I'd watch her reinvent herself. Take on new roles. Become somebody different. So that's what I'd do. I always just felt like motherhood was just another role she grew tired of. This was my latest scheme to get her attention, to get her to notice."

Will: "Has she noticed?"

Jake: "Lets just put it this way she was here for the Parent's Weekend Regatta and didn't even realise I was leading a double-life. Racing between the Regatta and the Rawley girl's luncheon."

Scout: "She thinks you go to Rawley girls?"

Jake: "Yeah, (laughs, realising the humour of the situation) I'm currently enrolled there as well"

Hamilton: "Yeah, but she did catch on about us"

Will: (teasingly) "How could anyone not become aware of that. (Growing serious) But I know how you feel Jacqueline. It's like that with my dad. He makes it obvious he doesn't care. He's a jerk. He works at the factory. So, he's a total townie. Treats my mother like crap. Couldn't wait to get the hell away from him. (Pause) That's why I cheated on my entrance exam, I bought it online. I feel so stupid. You know, I shouldn't even have told youse."

Jake: "Oh, Will it's ok, nobody would condemn you for what you did. And it's ok right? Nobody else knows."

Will: "Finn knows. He let me retake the exam."

Hamilton: "It would seem like Finn knows everything"

Scout: (to Jake) "You?"

Jake: "Yeah"

Scout: "How'd that happen"

Hamilton: "It's a long story"

Scout: "Well, we're here for another how many hours"

Hamilton: "Well it all started on the last day of summer semester and . . ."

(Time lapse)

Hamilton: "so I ran after her."

(Scout and Will laughing)

Hamilton: "I don't thinks it was that funny you guys."

Will: (Still laughing) "That sounds more like a freshman's year in college kinda thing."

Hamilton: "Yeah, and now I know why."

Scout: (Still laughing) "So that's why you were with Bella that day?"

Jake: "Yep, Hamilton caught up with us just as we were about to leave."

Hamilton: "Wait, how did Bella know in the first place. You never told me."

Jake: "Call it's women's intuition, esp. I don't know. All I can say is she's one smart cookie."

Will: "I wonder what Bella and Sean are up to right now?"

(Cuts to Bella, Sean and other Halloween pranksters from Edmond High, who were caught the night before cleaning Town Square)

Bella: "Sean, I have something to tell you."

Sean: "Yeah babe, what is it?"

Bella (looks around): "Not here, in private."

(Cuts to them walking down deserted street)

Bella: "It's about me and Scout. (Pause) We're. . we're not brothers and sisters. My father, my real father is John Hughes. He, Charlie and Donna were best friends during High School, and things just spun out of control when she got pregnant and she convinced everyone it's was Senator Calhoun's baby. And know that I know . . ."

(Slight time lapse)

Sean: "So what you're telling me is you still have feelings for Scott?"

Bella: (with tears in her eyes looking up at Sean)"I've always had. Even when I thought he was my half-brother I'd had this tiny glimmering hope that it wasn't true."

Sean: "But I thought we had something special."

Bella: (tears flowing freely now) "We do Sean. But there's no denying I want to be with Scout. I'm so sorry. I hope you understand but I can't compromise my feelings for Scout and deny what my heart is telling me."

Sean: (hugs her while trying to fight his own tears) "Well I can't stop you from following your heart Bella, I love you too much."

(Cuts back to library)

Scout: "Since we're all spilling our secrets. I have a confession to make. Last summer, I took my dad's '64 Jag for a ride, right? Sideswiped a tree, set it on fire, and told him it was stolen. He collected the insurance money and replaced it."

Hamilton: "Wow, never knew I was friends with such juvenile delinquents. The worst thing I ever did was go down to the groundskeeper's office and steal the lawnmowers, ride them around the lake. Oh yeah there was that time with Jake's bike" (sideway gazes at Jake and they swap secret similes. Scout and Will share confused glances)

Scout: "Ok this is a big one. My dad knew Bella's mom when he was here at Rawley. And .."

Hamilton: "Woah, hold on, don't tell me you two are. ."

Scout: "No, no, well we thought we we're half-brother and sister, until her mom finally told her the truth recently."

Jake: "Wow, that's so Jerry Springer. (See longing look on Scout's face) Your totally in love with her aren't you? (Scout looks up with sheepish simile) Yeah you are."

Scout: "Yeah pretty much."

(Cuts to Jake using a library computer to hack into the school's database with the boys huddled around her. She goes to each of their files erasing their detention records from 1 to nil. Then accesses the New Rawley's Health Department site)

Jake: "Hey Scout, did you ever find out who Bella's real father was?"

Scout: "No.(curious) Why?"

Jake: "Do you want to?"

Scout: "Wait a minute. You can actually hack into New Rawley's confidential hospital records?"

Jake: "Of course. What hospital and birth date?"

Will: "New Rawley General. 27th June."

(Jake starts typing)

Scout: (Just before her last click) "Wait, wait this is wrong. This is violating more than one ethical rule and if Bella doesn't fell obligated to tell me who her biological father is I won't pressure her."

(Jake logs off, screen goes blank)

(Hamilton, Jake, Will and Scout are sitting on a railing inside the library)

Jake: "Will?"

Will: "Yeah?"

Jake: "Are you gonna write your paper?"

Will: "Yeah, why?"

Jake: "Well, it's kinda a waste for all of us to write our paper, don't you think?"

Will: "Oh, but that's what Finn wants us to do."

Jake: "True, but I think we'd all kinda say the same thing."

Will: "You just don't want to write your paper right?"

Jake: "True, but, you're the best at English right?"

Will: (with pride) "Oh, well..."

Jake: "We trust you..."

(Will glances over at Hamilton and Scout who nod in approval)

Scout: "Yeah"

Will: "All right, I'll do it."

Jake: "Great"

(Scout sits down next to desk where Will is writing)

Scout: "Do you think I have a chance with Bella?"

(Will looks up)

Will: "Well there's only one way to find out."

(Will continues writing with Scout deep in thought)

(Cuts to alcove in the library where Jake and Hamilton and presses against the books)

Jake: "You remember the last time we were in here?"

Hamilton: "Yeah that was scary. I thought I was gonna lost you there for a moment"

(Jake reassures she's staying with a kiss)

Hamilton: "You know I love you, more than anything in the world."

Jake: "More than a hamburger and fries?"

Hamilton: (laughingly) "Yes"

Jake: "More than photography?"

(Hamilton pretends to think about it)

Jake: "Hey,"

Hamilton: "Of course, and I mean it, (kisses her softly) your mom doesn't know how lucky she is to have a daughter like you."

(Cuts to later that day, Bella enters Friendly with Scout behind the counter)

Bella: "Scout, hey. How was detention?"

Scout: "A learning experience actually, can you imagine?"

Bella: (laughs) "Yeah, actually I can."

Scout: "And your community service?"

Bella: "Not bad actually (slight pause) except Sean and I broke up."

(Scout's trying to be sympathetic but secretly he's ecstatic)

Scout: "Oh, Bella"

(Bella starts crying. Scout puts a comforting hand on her shoulder)

Scout: "Sean's a jerk, he doesn't deserve a girl like you."

Bella (cuts him off):"No Scout. I broke up with him."

Scout: "Why?"

Bella: "Because when my mom told me that Senator Calhoun wasn't really my dad my shoulders felt lighter. Like a great weight had been lifted of them. I'd realised that I've been carrying around this big secret, and I'd thought it was wrong of me to be having these kind of feelings for the person I'd thought was my brother, I. ."

(Before she could finish Scout kisses her)

(Cuts to Finn walking the ground of Rawley reading Will's finished essay. Montage of scenes from day)

Will: (voice over during Montage) "Saturday, November 1, 2000. Rawley Academy, New Rawley, Massachusetts. Dear Finn, you ask us to write an essay telling you why we're here. What we've realised is that our parents play the biggest influence of our lives. From what we're named to where we go. We're spawns of their essence. But that's where the similarities end. For some of us to succeed in this world we have to conform to their ideals and expectations, or better yet, to escape them. Otherwise we become clones, rather than the individuals we are. Even without their support and encouragement we find ourselves competing in this hard and demanding game we call survival. We can chase their affection and attention forever but it can only led to disappoint when it's not returned. "...and these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds are

immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through... - David Bowie"