Author's Note: The song belongs to Bowling For Soup. I love it because it's so true when you think about it.
Chapter Two
Fire Alarm
"We've been here for over five hours right now and still have a long line of people to see. At least we are finally getting a quick break," Jessie groaned. Finally she had taken off her torturing shoes and threw them to the floor in relief. "I'm never wearing heels like these. Especially if they are ones that Danni buys ever again even if they are the cutest things I've ever seen. Her shoe heels are a lot smaller than ours are I bet. I mean look at this heel, it's like five inches tall and I bet hers aren't. No wonder they hurt my feet with this kind of heel, especially if it this tall. Danni was crazy to think of making us wear these even if they are really cute and match our dresses. Now I can finally burn them without anyone complaining about it."
"Forget the shoes for a minute Jessie; and that is not at all five inches tall and Danni's are the same exact thing, but to your first comment: I know what you're thinking, Jessie. We could be halfway to Miami by now to solve some murders if we weren't stuck in here at this stupid reception forever tonight." Mandy looked at Jessie and said: "I'm really anxious to go solve this mystery too and save people's lives before this person kills them too. They may go from one victim to two in hours. Besides, this will be our first real case acting as real agents, which I'm really excited about. We all are very excited and anxious to get started on the mystery as well so we can show the team what we are made of. As if you haven't noticed, Trent and Danni are trying to move the people through the line as fast as possible without being too rude and that's not very easy if you think about it when everyone is wishing you a happy life as a married couple."
Jessie wasn't looking at Mandy though. She was concentrating on something on the wall behind her with an expression of curiosity and wonder. As if she was thinking of something and was deciding whether to do it or not and that usually meant she wasn't supposed to but it might help us in the situation.
"Didn't you hear a word I just said at all to you Jessie?" Mandy asked.
Jessie hummed as an answer to Mandy's question, which always meant no when she did that to answer someone.
"Have you gone crazy? You never ignore us. What are you looking at Jessie?" Mandy turned around and saw a fire alarm on the wall behind her and knew what Jessie was thinking about with her even saying it. "Oh, I get it."
"Right. I was remembering something. Mandy, do you remember when we almost got caught sluffing our junior year because we didn't leave the school while we were sluffing? Danni pulled the fire alarm so the cop wouldn't catch up with us and put us in ISP, though we wouldn't be there for long because we wouldn't be quiet and turn it into a party rather than a punishment. Not to mention he didn't get close enough to see her do that, so he didn't know that it was us either. He probably guessed it was us but we still got away because he had no proof, just a suspicion. We were far enough away that he didn't see or know who we were either, so we got away with sluffing."
"You're talking about the time he saw us in the hall without hall passes and Danni pulled the alarm as we passed it. The hall filled with students, we disappeared into the crowd and got away with it; and boy were we glad we did. We were extremely lucky that time too. No wonder we left the school the other times after that time we nearly got caught."
They both remembered that time as if it was only yesterday that we were being HSR's still in the high school.
The cop was chasing us down the halls no matter how many times we tried to lose him, he seemed to know where we were going and tried to cut us off. We were running as fast as possible done the halls, zigzagging, but he seemed to always know where we were going no matter what we did to get away from him. We didn't want to go to ISP. In School Prison wasn't the funniest place in the world, though we would probably make it more fun than it really was supposed to be. The real reason we didn't want to get caught was because of what would happen if we were caught other than going to ISP. That meant our parents would be called and we would be in deep dark when we got home. I would probably be grounded for a month or put in Juvie for a little while, though I wouldn't be there for very long with my friends.
"Anyone got any brilliant ideas this time to get away from the cop?" I asked as we ran past several classrooms full of students. "I'm clean out of them for this situation at the moment because it's like he has us on radar."
"None right here." Mandy said between gasps. "But we can't stop running or he'll catch up with us and we'll be in trouble with our parents or put in Juvie."
"I got a really good one this time," Kyle said, laughing. "Use the girls' bathroom up ahead. We can hide in there and he'll never know where we disappeared to."
"That is one of the stupidest suggestions you have ever come up with Kyle, and it most likely won't work," Jessie added. "Besides, you're not a girl but a boy, Mr. Brilliant-With-No-Brain. No ideas here Danni, but we've got to do something before he catches us or figures out who we are."
We turned the corner, then I saw the fire alarm ahead. I grabbed it and pulled. The alarm started to ring and people started to move to go outside. "Stop running and join the crowd so it looks like we were in class with everyone else," I whispered to my three friends as students piled into the halls, hindering the cop from catching up with us.
We agreed that the fire alarm was a last resort from then on. We have never used it since. When we sluffed, we left the school to avoid another encounter with the cop. Not to mention everyone agreed that sluffing was healthy every once in a while.
Jessie grabbed the handle of the alarm. "This qualifies as a last resort. Don't you agree, Mandy? Otherwise we'll be here a lot longer than we want to or have to be and we need to get to Miami right now so we can solve the mystery and stop the killing before it gets any worse."
Mandy smiled and nodded as she prepared for the loud noise to ring throughout the building. Jessie pulled and the alarm rang throughout the building, startling everyone else inside. Jessie grinned as she and Mandy ran down the hall on their way out the doors in the crowds exiting with the alarm into the cool summer night air. "Miami here we come!" Mandy said as they hurried over to where we all stood away from the others still leaving the building safely.
As soon as they joined us outside, Mandy explained. "Let's go right now while everyone else is distracted by the fire alarm. Jessie and I pulled the fire alarm so we could escape this town. Come on, we've got a mystery to solve as our first time acting as real, official agents."
We all agreed and got in the cars that were waiting for us and drove away without anyone noticing our disappearance until they figured out there was no fire at all and the bride and groom had disappeared, leaving their car in the parking lot still extravagantly decorated. We called our parents on our cells and apologized for abandoning the reception but told them what was going on and they understood saving lives by solving this case was much more important than a reception to us. They couldn't have agreed more with our decision of leaving when we could.
They took over at the reception and told everyone our jobs had gotten in our way of enjoying ourselves and we had to leave rather quickly to catch a flight, which was most of the truth. The rest could wait until we got back from our first ever real case acting as real agents. Then we could explain better than our parents because they didn't know if they should tell them we were now FBI agents or not.
"Jessie, I've got to keep saying this to you and Mandy that that was a very good idea. You're so brilliant to think of pulling the fire alarm and helping us escape our reception. You know, I just wanted to do something really small with just family and the HSR's, but my mom wanted to do something big for me since I'm her youngest and last child to get married," I said from the back of the car were I changed into normal clothes as quickly as I could in the backseat of her car, which wasn't an easy job. I wasn't wearing my wedding dress to Miami unless I wanted to ruin it, which wouldn't sit well with my mom, since it cost one thousand and sixty bucks alone, not counting the accessories and alterations we had to get done. Good thing we had already gotten some regular clothes and set them aside for when we left the reception and had our badges already waiting in the car as well.
"By the way," Kyle called back to me as I continued to try and change with Mandy's help, since the dress looked like it was everywhere and my head was sitting in the middle of a giant white cake. "When we stopped by your house to pick up some of your clothes, I grabbed your iPod from your dresser when I saw it. I wasn't really stealing it Danni, I grabbed because we are still called the High School Rejects and we still have a theme song to sing. We have got to sing it before we go on the case. Everyone in High School knew we had a theme song, since we crashed the popularity contest they call a Talent Show. So we got to let the FBI know too. Don't you all agree?"
They all started to grin, remembering that one time we told the entire school who we were without warning.
"Mrs. Wharton would kill me if I do something like that and I'd lose this spot in here Danielle, so the answer is no. This is where I always sit during assemblies and shows because I do this stuff. This is my place and I don't want to lose it," Ryker Jensen said in the little technical box at the back of the auditorium where he ran all the lights and mikes and other sort of technical things that couldn't be controlled backstage. "She trusts me and only me to do all this in here and I do it every time there is a show or assembly. This is my own personal job to do and I like it."
"Please, Ryker!" I begged from the doorway. "We will owe you big time if you do this for us just this one time. Twenty dollars Ryker, come on. I got it right here." I waved the twenty dollar bill in front of his face.
"Oh, okay, but only this once and because your brother is my friend, but you will owe me big time for this." He took my iPod and the twenty dollar bill as I handed them over. "What's it called again?"
"Play High School Never Ends by Bowling For Soup. It's that simple."
"What should I do other than play the song?"
"Just turn the lights on the stage and leave the rest to me and my friends. It's that easy."
"Okay, I hope this is worth twenty dollars or you are in for big trouble."
At the end of the show, he put it on and then we ran down the aisle, jumped on the stage and started to sing and dance to the theme song. No one could stop us because they were all so shocked. Ryker watched and then started to laugh at everyone who was staring at us, dumbfounded. We had tried out but had not gotten in, being some of the least popular kids in the world. We still announced to the whole school we wanted to tell them we were proud of being called High School Rejects.
We stopped at the airport near the jet, and I hopped out of Jessie's car with my iPod in hand and scrolled down to the letter H and then found the theme song. "Okay now, Jessie, do you have that plug thing?" I asked.
Jessie quickly leaned into her car and hooked my iPod up to the stereo, started the car, and then turned it over to me with a wink.
"Ready everyone?" I asked.
"Ready," They all shouted, eager to do what we had done a million times in High School while we walked the halls.
I pushed play and a very invigorating beat caught everyone's attention. "HEY!" We all shouted as we sang the beginning.
"Four year you think for sure.
That's all you've got to endure.
All the total dicks.
All the stuck-up chicks.
So superficial, so immature.
Then when you graduate.
You take a look around and you say 'hey wait.'
This is that same as where I just came from.
I thought it was over, aw that's just great.
The whole dang world is just as obsessed.
With who's the best dressed and who's having sex.
Who's got the money.
Who gets the honeys.
Who's kinda cute and who's just a mess.
And you still don't have the right look.
And you don't have the right friends.
Nothing changes but the faces, the names, and the trends.
High school never ends.
Who cares?
We just don't care.
We'll never care.
We just don't care.
Hey!
Who cares?
We just don't care.
We'll never care.
We just don't care."
Suddenly the music stopped, startling us all. Hotch stared at us with my iPod in his hand. He had paused it. "It's time to go now and you can do this all later. For now we have a case to solve. Now get on board. Besides, you have permission to get on the jet this time so you don't have to hide in the back."
"Yes! We don't have to hide in the cramped space in the back anymore. It was way too small for my liking." Kyle danced on board and the rest of us followed him after we locked up Jessie's car and hid all valuables in the trunk. We all knew Hotch was right, we could do the theme song after every case if possible . . . and we would, too.
