Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I do not own the Breakfast Club.

After school let out for the day, the Breakfast Club – by some unspoken agreement – went over to Allison's house. Bender's house frankly wasn't safe and the others all had parents that might not approve of one or the other of them and would thus make things difficult but Allison knew that her parents wouldn't be home.

After they had dug through the cabinets to find something to eat, Andy turned to Brian. "So what was Vernon talking to you about earlier? Was it about Saturday?"

Brian looked uncomfortable. "Kind of, yeah."

"How is it 'kind of' about Saturday?" Bender demanded. "It either was or it wasn't."

"Why would he want to talk to you about that, anyway?" Claire asked curiously.

"Maybe he found out about all the pot," Allison suggested. "Or Bender's jailbreak. Or decided to be a responsible adult and get someone who brings a flare gun to school some counseling. I've gone for less."

Bender snorted. "Vernon? A responsible adult? Please."

"It wasn't any of those things," Brian assured them. "It was actually about the essay."

"Essay?" Andy asked blankly. "Oh, right. That. What's wrong? Did he have a problem with the fact that we only wrote one?"

"And by 'we' you mean me," Brian pointed out.

"Well, we did ask you," Claire replied. "You said that you were going to write your essay either way so it just made sense since none of us wanted to do it."

"He did ask about that," Brian confirmed. "I told him that there had been a soda spill earlier but we didn't have enough napkins so we had to use the essay paper."

"Why didn't we just go to the bathroom and get paper towels?" Claire asked.

Allison grinned. "We didn't have permission, of course."

Brian nodded. "Exactly. We only had enough paper left for one essay."

"Did he buy it?" Bender asked skeptically. "He never would have bought it from me."

"Bender, he's never going to believe anything you say," Brian pointed out. "I'm different. Adults want to believe me. They think I'm too nerdy to lie to them."

"If you have it, use it," Andy said approvingly. "And God knows you won't get much out of being nerdy in high school. No offense."

"None taken," Brian assured him. "Vernon didn't really seem to care all that much. I think he suspected that you all took advantage of me and made me write the essay. Besides, that was just busywork. The real point of detention was sitting quietly in the library for hours on end and if we weren't writing the essay, he seems to think that's what we – aside from Bender – were doing."

"If he didn't care then why did he bother to talk to you about it at all?" Claire wanted to know.

"Actually, that wasn't really his problem," Brian corrected her. "He gave me back the essay, you see. Did any of you actually read it?"

There was a chorus of 'no's across the table.

Brian fished into his bag and pulled the somewhat-crumpled essay out before clearing his throat and starting to read. "Saturday, March 24, 1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois. 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was that we did wrong...and what we did was wrong, but we think you're crazy to make us write this essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us... in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at seven o'clock this morning. We were brainwashed."

He took a deep breath and continued. "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong...but we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain and an athlete and a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club."

"Are we really calling ourselves that?" Andy asked. "I mean, that's just what they call the Saturday detentions. Are we the Breakfast Club now?"

"Why not?" Allison asked him. "Do you see anyone else fighting for the name?"

"So what was his problem with that?" Claire asked. "Did he think you were attacking him or something?"

"He probably got worked up over the claim that we were all criminals," Bender theorized. "And secretly, he wasn't surprised. He may hate me more than he hates you but he really just doesn't like or trust teenagers."

"Why did he even become a teacher anyway?" Andy wondered.

Brian shrugged. "I guess he must not have always hated kids. He's been doing this forever. What his real issue was…is this." He passed Allison the essay.

"It says '207' on it," Allison revealed.

"207?" Andy asked blankly. "What, was he grading it? Out of what?"

"It's not a grade," Brian explained. "It's a word-count. It was supposed to be a thousand words and it was barely over two hundred."

"He can't really have expected us to sit there counting words!" Claire exclaimed, appalled.

"He could and he did," Brian said grimly. "Thought you can tell just by looking at it that it's not nearly long enough to be two hundred words."

Bender laughed. "Yeah, maybe you can."

"So what did you do?" Allison inquired, tilting her head to the side and peering at him intently.

"Well, first I got all flustered because adults are always more likely to believe you if you act like you're horribly embarrassed," Brian told them. "Then I told him that I was sorry and that I thought he said a thousand characters."

"Did he really buy that?" Bender couldn't believe it. "Seriously? Smart kids get away with everything."

"It wasn't quite so easy as that," Brian assured him. "He made me stand there while he counted them."

"He counted all of the letters?" Andy asked, stunned. "Did he really have nothing better to do? He should have just let you go or given you another detention."

Brian shrugged. "Apparently he didn't have anything better to do, no. The trouble was that even the character count came in at 887."

"Oh no!" Claire exclaimed, covering her mouth. "What did you do?"

"I told him that I had been including spaces as characters which pushed it up to 1095," Brian said triumphantly.

Claire shook her head. "And you have such an honest face, too!"

"That's probably why he got away with it," Allison pointed out.

"So we're fine? No extra detention?" Andy asked anxiously. "Because I'm really not looking to waste another Saturday there, even with you guys."

"It's fine," Brian assured them.

"You know, Claire," Bender said conversationally. "I must admit that I'm a little surprised that you're still here with us. You were kind of cagey this morning."

"I'm kind of surprised, too," Claire admitted. "But in a good way. I really wasn't sure if I'd make it."

"It's only been one day," Allison pointed out.

"The backlash wasn't as bad as I feared," Claire replied. "I know that it's hardly over but I feel better about my chances than earlier."

"I don't know, Claire," Andy said thoughtfully. "I can't help think that today was easy. Tomorrow will be easy. They think you're going through a bad-boy phase. In a few weeks or months they're going to expect the phase to end and if it doesn't…well, things might get difficult."

"In a few weeks or months I think our friendship will be on much securer footing," Claire told them. "And so I promise that if I do end up cutting you all out of my life then I won't do it as readily as I could have dropped you today."

Bender rolled his eyes and gestured her way. "My girlfriend, ladies and gentlemen."

"I think that came out wrong…" Claire said slowly.

"We know what you mean," Andy assured her. "You don't want to end up lying to us if things get ugly later and I get that. My popularity comes from wrestling. As long as I wrestle I'll never really be an outsider. Your popularity comes from…fickle…girl…stuff."

Claire laughed. "How very eloquent, Andy."

"Well how am I supposed to understand that kind of thing?" Andy demanded, coloring. "All I know is that it doesn't come from sex since you told us yesterday you're a virgin. Under duress, granted, but you did eventually tell us."

"But we also established that it might come from the absence of," Allison pointed out.

Claire put her hands over her ears. "We are not talking about this again."

"That's what you said two days ago," Bender reminded her.

Claire nodded. "Right and we talked about it then so we don't have to talk about it now."

"Technically we didn't have to talk about it then," Bender countered.

"You know, Claire, you're not the only one whose friends don't understand this," Brian spoke up. "Although my friends aren't horrible people so I don't have to worry about them shunning me."

"What do you mean?" Claire asked. "I'm not going to say that your friends look up to me again because that seemed to annoy you but why would they have a problem with it?"

"It's not like they have a problem, per se," Brian clarified. "They just think that you guys are failing something and need me to help tutor you. And that Andy might be threatening me given what happened last week."

Andy groaned. "Am I never going to live that down?"

"You will eventually," Allison assured him. "I'd give it more than a week, though."

"What did you tell them?" Bender asked curiously.

"I assured them that I had no idea what you were and were not failing – except you're probably not failing shop but if you were I couldn't help – but that I was not tutoring any of you. They didn't believe me but it really doesn't matter," Brian explained, shrugging indifferently.

"To be honest, I'm not sure my friends even noticed that I was being friendly to you, Brian," Claire confessed.

"See? You were all worried and it turns out I don't even register in their world," Brian said faux-cheerfully.

"I'm not sure if it's that so much as the fact that they were a bit distracted by Bender," Claire replied.

Bender struck a pose. "Don't feel bad, Brian, that always happens when a woman has a choice between someone like me and…someone who isn't like me."

"And your friends don't care about Allison or I either?" Andy asked.

"My friends never would have cared about you," Claire reminded him. "And Allison's makeover ensured that they don't have a problem with her, either. Maybe in awhile when she switches back they'll start freaking out on me but I think I have awhile yet."

"Speaking of, how did that go for you?" Brian wanted to know. "Was it weird changing your image completely overnight?"

"It was, a little," Allison admitted. "But I still think people overreacted."

"How so?" Claire asked.

"No one seemed to recognize me," Allison explained. "There's this girl, Marcia, who sits next to me in history. We're always partners whenever the teacher assigns them and today, in history, she asked me if I was new."

"Clearly this Marcia is an idiot," Bender declared.

"She wasn't the only one," Allison confided. "Some of my teachers asked me if I was new, too. One of them actually marked me absent and I had to talk to him about it after class."

"That's kind of sad," Andy said, shaking his head.

Bender laughed. "Says the guy who didn't recognize her despite there only being the five of us there in the library."

"…I would have figured it out eventually even if she hadn't said something," Andy insisted.

"I think that the jury's still out on that one," Bender disagreed.

"But overall it went okay?" Claire asked her.

Allison shrugged. "Why shouldn't it go okay? Why would anybody have a problem with me if they don't actually seem to realize what I looked like last week?"

"You're really going to enjoy the day you decide everyone's gotten used to you and you can freak them out, aren't you?" Brian asked knowingly.

Allison smirked. "Yep. And I plan to credit Claire with my inspiration."

"Don't you dare!" Claire exclaimed, half-laughing.

It was only the first day and there'd be plenty of more days and plenty of more tests but for now they had passed this one, the most important one, and so it looked like they'd be okay.

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