A Slip of the Tongue

Thanks for all of the reviews so far. I guess I'll continue.

Let's see, where was I?...oh yeah.

J/C, S/L and anybody else I do not own.


Chapter 2

(The very next day...)

Jimmy decided to walk to school today instead of taking the bus. In fact, it had been something he was doing on a regular basis lately. It sort of allowed him to clear his head before the beginning of another school day. Where he could be alone with his thoughts with no distractions. He wanted to impress the whole class with his latest invention, but he really wanted to impress Cindy although he really didn't know why. He just needed time alone to think. About Cindy. About everything. However, today he wouldn't be alone.

"Hey, Neutron!", yelled a certain blond-haired girl running up behind him, "Wait up!"

"Oh, no!" muttered Jimmy to himself. "Oh, hey, Cindy." he said as he kept walking figuring she was up to something. Sure, although they had agreed in principle to be nicer to each other he didn't put anything past her.

"Walking to school again?" Cindy asked as she caught up to him.

"Yeah. It just something I've been doing lately." Jimmy said as he kept his pace.

"So I've noticed..." Cindy caught herself, "Not that I've been noticing you...or anything." Jimmy looked at her out of the corner of his eye at that one.

"So why are you walking to school today?" asked Jimmy.

She didn't want to tell him the real reason why. That she had been spying on him from her window every morning and observed his absence from the bus for the past several days. She really did care about him and was wondering what was going on with him. Besides, she was nosy.

"Well, I thought being such a nice day that I would walk to school. And...I missed the bus."

"Uh-huh." Jimmy muttered. "I've seen you looking out of your window at me every morning when I leave to go to school."

"What?" Cindy shouted, "Why you...Why on earth would I want to look at you, Nerdtron? You've got an ego almost as your head!"

"There you go with the head jokes again. When are you gonna come up with some new material?"

"Hey, I calls 'em as I sees 'em...and I can't help but to see that." Cindy said pointing to Jimmy's head laughing. Jimmy thought about saying something back to her but he didn't feel like getting into another knock-down-drag-out.

"Hey, I thought that we agreed to be more civil towards each other." said Jimmy.

"And I am." said Cindy. "Your the one who started it."

"Am not!" Jimmy shot back.

"Whatever..." Cindy said rolling her eyes. The continued to walk in silence for a minute then Cindy spoke again. "Er, so, what are you gonna show for your presentation today?"

"I'm not gonna tell you. You'll just have to wait and see just like everybody else." Jimmy said confidently.

"Well hopefully it won't blow up the town or send us into another dimension or parallel universe."

"Cindy..." said Jimmy between clinched teeth.

"But that won't happen because for all that to happen it would acually have to work."

"CINDY!"

"Ooops, sorry." said Cindy with a sheepish grin. "I forgot...civil." (Sometimes I just can't help myself.)


(Cut to Ms. Fowl's classroom)

"...and that is why if James Brown and Aretha Franklin had gotten married, Prince, and not Michael Jackson, would be the 'Prince of Soul.' Thank you." said Libby finishing her presentation that she was obviously very proud of.

"Thank you very much for that informative presentation, Libby" said Miss Fowl. "Using your cousins as members of the band was unusual but effective bwaaaaaak."

"Thank you, Miss Fowl." said a smiling Libby.

"Hey, when are we gonna get paid?" asked one of Libby's cousins. "We came all the way from Houston for this."

"Talk to me after school." said Libby in a hushed tone shooing them out of the door.

"Next up, we have Jimmy Neutron."

"Thank you, Miss Fowl." Jimmy said as he got up from his seat and walked up to the front of the classroom with his invention in hand. This was it. Nothing could go wrong. Murphy's Law had no allies here. Not today. He had to show everyone that his inventions did mean something and he had to show himself that all of this self-doubt he was feeling was just a phase he was going through. He had to show Cindy. No, he had to impress Cindy. He wanted to be friends with her but she always kept putting him down and making fun of him. Ok, sure he dished it out too, but that was not the point. If today went of without a hitch, maybe she would call a genuine truce and they could become really good friends. Maybe more. It was worth a shot.

"That was a really cool presentation, Libby." said Cindy as Libby returned to her seat.

"Thanks." said Libby.

"I'll bet Neutron's presentation is gonna be as lame as yours was cool." said Cindy.

"Why do you keep coming down on that boy? It's obvious you like him." Libby said.

"What? No way!" Cindy said blushing a little.

"You two are so much alike it's scary." said Libby as she turnd to face Cindy.

"Who's side are you on, anyway?" said Cindy as she continued, "OK, we may have some things in common and I would like to be more friendly towards him, but I don't like him...that much."

"Then why do act the way you do?" asked Libby.

"Well, I do have my reputation to think of." Cindy said coyly.

Libby just rolled her eyes. "Oh, boy."

"If you two are done tawwwwlking, we would like to continue with Jimmy's presentation." said Miss Fowl catching the two girls off guard.

"Sorry. Won't happen again." the both said in unison.

"Please, go ahead." said Miss Fowl motioning to Jimmy.

"Laidies and gentlemen. Behold my latest and greatest invention. I call it the Neutronic Ethnologue Translator 7000." (patent pending). He then held it up so eveyone could see it.

"What does it do?" asked Britney.

"I'm glad you asked. Quite simply..."

"Here we go." said Cindy as she rolled her eyes.

"...it can make the user speak in any language they want." Jimmy continued trying to ignore her."By simply turning the language dial and pressing this button, the traveling businessman, for example, will be able to communicate with anyone, anywhere. Think of someone traveling to a forign country and not being able to speak the language. With this, they won't have to worry about getting lost of feeling alienated. Instead, they'll feel right at home. In fact, this invention is so revolutionary..."

"Hey, Nerdtron" said Cindy, "does that thing have a mute button on it so it can shut you up?" That question made the whole class crack-up leaving Jimmy steaming.

'Oh, That's IT!' he thought to himself. 'It's go time!' So much for being civil. "Why yes it does, Cindy." he said with an evil grin. "Allow me to demonstrate it--on YOU!"

"Hey! Wait a min..." before she knew what hit her a blue electrical shock engulfed her and stunned her. It didn't hurt...much.

"What did you do to me, Neutron?" Cindy asked. Or that was what she had intended to ask. She had mouthed the words but no sound came from her. She couldn't even whisper.

"What was that Cindy? We can't hear you. Can you speak up?" asked Jimmy mockingly cupping his hand around his ear. Now the laughter was directed at her.

Cindy repeated, or rather mouthed the question again in a much more animated fashion waving her arms in the air as if she were in a panic.

"Still can't hear you, Vortex—HA, HA!" Jimmy then turned towards the rest of the class. "Let the record show that for the first time in modern recorded history that voice of Cindy Vortex has been silenced!"

Cindy's face turned beet red from a combination of embarassment and anger and the more the class laughed the more red it became. She then started looking for her notebook but she was so flustered she couldn't remember where she put it. All she found was a pen.

"Libby!" mouthed Cindy as her best friend was laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes.

"LIBBY!" Libby then happend to face Cindy. Her facial expression changed quckly. "Oh, hey, I wasn't laughing at you...although it is pretty funny."

Cindy just rolled her eyes and pointed at the notebook on Libby's desk.

"What do you want?" asked Libby.

'That! I want THAT!' pointing ugently at the notebook.

"You want this?" Libby said picking up the notebook. Cindy shook her head 'yes' and Libby gave it to her. She then started to write something down in it. Something to the effect of..."NEUTRON! YOU"D BETTER TURN MY VOICE BACK ON RIGHT NOW OR I'LL GIVE YOU SUCH A BEAT DOWN THAT YOU WON'T WANT TO INVENT ANYTHING ELSE IN YOUR WHOLE LIFE EVER AGAIN! YOU..." She then proceeded to call him names that can not be repeated here in this forum no matter what language is being used.

She then tried to get Libby's attention again but Libby had been watching her write. "What are you writing, girl?" asked Libby. Cindy just held up the notepad.

'GET NEUTRON'S ATTENTION!"

"Hey, Jimmy."Libby yelled, "Cindy's got something to show you!"

As Jimmy looked over at Cindy she held up the notepad and he read it to himself. She had only intended for Jimmy to see it but Miss Fowl got a good look at it too.

"Uh-oh." thought Jimmy. He knew he was in a slight bit of trouble.

"Jimmy, I think that you should end your presentaaaaaaation now." said Miss Fowl. "And Cindy", she said looking over to Cindy, "I'd like to discuss your bwaaaaaaaak little note after claaaaaaaas." Cindy simply nodded her head but kept her eyes keenly fixed on Jimmy.

"Um, right. I will now return Cindy's voice and she'll be back to normal." Jimmy then aimed the Ethnologue 7000 (patent pending) at Cindy and pressed the button. That familiar blue stream came out of the device and struck her. However, this time with a lot more force than the first time. So much so that it knocked her out of her seat and sent her flying back about 30 feet knocking her unconscious. The Ethnologue thingy wasn't fairing much better as it began to emit sparks and vibrate in Jimmy's hand causing him to drop it to the ground. But he wasn't concerned about it as much as he was Cindy as he ran towards her. Everyone ran towards her. She was out cold but she was still alive. Everyone had gathered around her. Jimmy came up by her side as she was coming to.

"Give her some air." Said Miss Fowl as she motioned everyone to step back.

"How many fingers do you see?" asked Sheen as he alternated the number of fingers he was holding up.

"Sheen!" snapped Libby.

"Sorry."

"Speak to me, Cindy. Say something." begged Libby

"I'm so sorry. Are you allright?" asked a very concerned Jimmy.

"Hai, daijoubu." (I'm O.K.) said Cindy rubbing her head. She was still kinda out of it. Then she saw Jimmy's face. Everyone looked at Cindy. Then at each other. Then back to Cindy.

"Hey Jimmy, she's talking funny." said Carl.

"I'm really sorry Cindy. I didn't mean for that to happen. Forgive me."

"Yurusanai yo!" (I won't forgive you) yelled Cindy as she got to her feet. " Nyutoron! Yappari kono you na nanika ga okiru de aru koto!" (I knew something like this would happen!) The class just looked at her with mouths agape as if she just grew a second head.

"Minna? Dou shita no? Naze sono you ni mite iru no?" (What happened? Why are you all looking at me?) It was then that Cindy realized what was coming out of her mouth.

"Aaaaahhhh! Nani ga okotte iru? (What's going on here?) Nihongo wa hanasu koto ga dekiru dake yo! Doshite?" (Why can I only speak Japanese?) She then saw Jimmy walking back toward the front of the classroom where the Ethnologue 7000 (patent pending) was laying on the floor. It wasn't broken to pieces but it was still smoking and in obvious disrepair. He picked it up and examined it and confirmed his worst fear. The language dial was stuck on...(gasp) Japanese.

"Nyutoron!" Cindy yelled as she stormed up to Jimmy. "Ima sugu naoshinasai yo!" (Fix this right now!)

"I can't understand you, Cindy."

"OOOO!" growled Cindy as she turned back to face Libby.

"Libby! Sono notobuku wo nagete kudasai."(Throw me that notebook). Libby just shrugged her shoulders unable to understand.

"NO-TO-BU-KU!" she said pointing to a notebook that was near Libby.

"What, this?" asked Libby as she picked it up.

"Sou, Sou." (Yeah) Libby tossed her the notebook. Then she began to write another note to Jimmy but stopped after only three words.

"Chigau..." (Nope) she muttered as she erased the words and started again only to stop again. "Chotto matte..." (Wait a sec) she erased and started once more before she realized something. "Taihen!"(Oh, no!) she gasped.

'Oh no,I can only speak and write in Japanese!' Cindy had a terrorfied look on her face.

"What's wrong with her, Jim?" asked Carl walking up to Jimmy.

"Aperantly, when I was giving her voice back there was a minor malfuction in the Ethnologue causing Cindy to only speak Japanese." Jimmy said as he continued to fiddle around with the Ethnologue thingy.

"COOL!" said Sheen. "Um, Cindy, do you think you could translate all my undubbed Ultralord episodes for me? Well, not all of them maybe about 100 or so. I want to know what they're really saying 'cause I think that when the dub them that..." Cindy cut him off with a look that would have scared the devil himself.

"Well, just think about it." said Sheen as he backed off.

"Don't worry Cindy. I'll just go back to the lab and make the nessecary repairs and you'll be back to normal before you know it."

"Nyutoron. Doushiyo?" (What do I do?) asked Cindy worriedly.

"Uh...yeah. Com'on guys." he said to Carl and Sheen. "To the lab!" and the three of them got out of the classroom with a quickness.

'So much for impressing Cindy.' Jimmy thought as he ran down the hallway.

Meanwhile, Cindy stuck her head out of the door and yelled after him,

"NYUTORON!"


I hoped you liked the second chapter. I tried to write Japanese as best I could but it's been a while since I've been there so I've forgotten a lot. I know that some people who read these fanfics know some Japanese so as with all translations, your milage may vary. Let me know it you want more.