Boilerplate Disclaimer: The various characters from the Kim Possible series are all owned by Disney. Any and all registered trade names property of their respective owners. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.
The complete Code of the West (The Ballad of Waterhole #3) is scattered through the film Waterhole #3. An abbreviated version by Roger Miller (who performed the movie soundtrack) may be found in YouTube. To fill space: the full version of The Ballad of Cat Ballou is heard in Cat Ballou, and Nat King Cole also released it in abbreviated form.
The Code of the West
The code of the west ain't some words on a page
You just naturally know it when you come of age
You eat when you're hungry, you drink when you're dry
You look every man in the eye
Shego's efforts to find work that afternoon were no more productive than her calls the day before and she was in a foul mood at supper than evening.
"Maybe you could fill in for Kim, until her leg heals," Tim suggested.
"That is not practical," Anne told her son. "She's wanted and will need to find a safer place to stay."
"But who'd look for her here?" Tim argued.
Kim spoke up, "And we couldn't afford to pay her properly."
"Then maybe you'll let Tim and me fill in for Kim," Jim suggested. "If we get to skip school to do it."
"You do not get to skip school," their father told them firmly. "And pass the lima beans."
Ron stopped by after supper with Kim's homework and the gossip from school.
"The guys from the TV station figured it was one of the cheerleaders with the rescue this morning, so they were hanging around the high school 'til Mr. Barkin ordered them to leave."
"Good for him," Anne commented.
"No, the good part is that, for some reason Bonnie was late this morning, and she refused to say she wasn't the one who did the rescue – so everyone thinks she saved the kids this morning."
Kim shook her head, "That is so Bonnie."
"Who's this Bonnie?" Shego demanded.
"A nuisance," Kim grumbled.
"And she'll probably be the head cheerleader, now that you're not cheering," Ron told.
"I can still–"
"No," Anne told her daughter firmly. "You will not do anything that might interfere with the healing process."
Shego didn't even attempt to find a job over the weekend. "Villains take off on Saturday and Sunday, at least the ones with any money and sense."
On Sunday Kim practiced getting around with crutches to prepare for her return to class.
During lunch on Monday Tara and the other cheerleaders, with the exception of Bonnie, joined Kim at the table where she sat with Ron and Monique.
"Did Bonnie really do that rescue last week?" Jessica demanded.
Kim gritted her teeth inwardly, "I said I wouldn't say anything about the woman who did the rescue."
"We want to help too," Tara told her.
"Yes," Crystal added. "If Bonnie can help the rest of us can help."
"But nothing dangerous," Hope said nervously, "Is there stuff to do that isn't dangerous?"
"Yeah," Marcella seconded.
"A lot of stuff Kim does to help people isn't dangerous," Ron assured them.
"I think it's great," Kim told them. "You really want to help other people?"
"Well, you've done so much to help others," Tara assured her. "We want to help you."
"I mean, how much can Ron do when he keeps losing his pants?" Liz giggled, and the rest of the squad joined in her laughter.
"Let me call Wade and you can tell him how to get in touch with you and what kinds of things you'd be willing to do. Like Ron said, a lot of stuff isn't dangerous."
"Maybe we could all get those communication thingies!" Jessica hoped.
News of the other cheerleaders offer made it all the more necessary for Bonnie to appear friendly with Kim in their afternoon literature class. Bonnie counted on Kim's claim she would not reveal the name of the person who accomplished the rescue a few days earlier. Bonnie greeted Kim warmly, expressed exaggerated sympathy for Kim's leg, and asked in a conspiratorial whisper, "You still haven't told anyone who rescued the kids, have you?"
"No, Bonnie," Kim sighed.
"Well call me if you need more help," Bonnie assured her. "And I want a communicator too… One in teal to go with my eyes."
Kim didn't pay attention in the lit class the way she normally did. Mr. Williams assumed it was connected with the broken leg and allowed her a day of being distracted. Kim's actual thoughts were more on the lines of, "What kind of mission can I send Bonnie on where she'll fail miserably and publicly?" Some of the missions Kim dreamed of assigning to Bonnie also had a large chance of serious bodily injury, and tempting as the idea might be, in Kim's head, she would not risk actually harming another Middleton cheerleader.
Shego helped Anne in the kitchen. "I feel like I'm overstaying my welcome… Maybe welcome is too strong. My invitation… My being tolerated."
"What do you mean?"
"I figured I'd have a job offer and be out of here after a night. It's been around a week now."
"Nonsense. You saved Kim's life. You're welcome to stay indefinitely."
"Can you drop the saving Kim's life part? It really makes me uncomfortable."
"But you did."
"No I didn't! Look, Kim would have never gotten hurt in the first place if she wasn't trying to stop one of Drakken's crackpot schemes. She was fighting me! If she hadn't… Never mind. The point is; it was my fault."
"Didn't I hear you telling Ronald to, I believe your words were, 'put a sock in it' one time over the weekend when he said something about it being his fault? You told him it was an accident."
"Yeah. Why should he feel guilty? It was my fault."
"I'm going to tell you something a wise young woman once said, put a sock in it, Shego. Kim was hurt in an accident. It wasn't your fault."
"Yes it—"
"If you won't stick a sock in it, I will. Do you prefer cotton, wool, or synthetic?"
"Fine, I'll shut up. But you can't stop me feeling guilty!"
"That's your choice. And…"
Shego waited a few seconds. "And what?"
"It's… Never mind."
"If you're trying to drive me crazy you're doing a hell of a good job."
"I feel safer with you here."
"Safer? With me here?"
"You've always been Kim's most dangerous enemy. If you're here you're not plotting against her."
"Can you be sure of that?"
"You wouldn't have brought her home if you were."
Shego opened her mouth to protest the logic, then closed it.
Anne continued, "If you get a job, in crime, Kim may try to stop you. She's in no condition to do that, but I'm worried she would try anyway. I've worried about her being seriously injured for years. Maybe the leg will be the wakeup call for her to be more careful. But I really feel like Kim is safer as long as you stay with us."
"Crazy," Shego thought and went back to dicing avocados for the salad.
The cheerleaders did amazingly well on the small scale missions they were assigned. Tara, who hoped to study veterinary medicine in college, turned out to have a wonderful affinity to animals. She had told Wade to call her in cases involving animals and Wade had crossed his fingers and called her when the call came in for the porcupine in a crawl space. A large and unhappy porcupine in a crawl space under a day care center.
Tara's dad drove her out for the mission. "Stop!" she ordered as they passed a supermarket.
Like all good fathers, Tara's dad listened to his daughter and waited as she dashed in to buy some parsnips.
Dressed in jeans and a stained, old sweatshirt Tara wiggled into the crawl space and coaxed out the porcupine far enough for animal control to slip a noose around the creature and extract it.
"You won't hurt him, will you?" Tara demanded as she carefully fed him another parsnip.
"Nah, take him out into the woods twenty, thirty miles and turn him loose."
The article in the Middleton examiner, talked about Kim almost as much as it talked about Tara. But the quote from Kim contained the information that the other cheerleaders had volunteered to step in to help – although none of them would be asked to perform dangerous missions.
Many of the incoming messages to Kim's websites were guys asking for dates with a cheerleader. Wade began work on a program to filter out jerks. Actually he just needed to tweak an application he had already developed. Kim's motto of 'Anything's possible for a Possible' had always brought in a large number of undesirable and frequently obscene requests.
By the end of the week Wade had designed very basic communication devices for all the cheerleaders. They had only a small fraction of the capabilities of Kim's Kimmunicator, but they would be enough for basic communication and limited data gathering for Wade to analyze.
Bonnie had planned to suggest she be named head cheerleader at a practice session that week, but she decided sympathy for Kim was still running high with the other girls – who were also excited at the prospect of being local heroes – and she decided to hold off the formal vote for another week or two.
Sunday afternoon Kim and Ron were doing homework (or perhaps more accurately Kim was doing homework and Ron was copying her answers) when a call came in from Wade.
"Got an animal call… Too big for Tara."
"What is it?"
"Sassy's up a tree again."
Ron and Kim were working on the kitchen table. Shego, putting away dishes as they worked, asked, "Sassy?"
"Big cat," Kim explained.
"Really big," Ron clarified. "Sassy is a cougar… I'll take it."
"The owner says Sassy is a puma, and she hates boys, remember?"
"Any cheerleader you want to send up after Sassy" Ron wanted to know.
"Bonnie," Kim sighed, "but you're right. I shouldn't send up Bonnie."
"What I want to know," Shego demanded, "is why they let someone keep a mountain lion in—"
"Cougar," corrected Ron.
"Same damn thing," Shego retorted.
Wade's explanation came over the Kimmunicator, "Her nephew is the mayor."
"Okay, that explains it," Shego grunted. "Pumpkin here has gotten the overgrown pussy cat down before?"
"Yes," Kim answered.
"If she can do it, I can do it."
"But Shego," Kim protested, "you might be IDed."
"We'll do it like that cliff rescue. I'll dress up in an outfit like yours, put on the red wig, Ron can drive me up and I'll be in and out so fast there'll be no problem."
"But Sassy is—"
"If you can do it, I can do it."
"Take my Kimmunicator. Wade, she can use my Kimmunicator, can't she? You'll help her?"
"Okay," Wade agreed. "Hey. I have an idea. Maybe I can help if there's a problem."
Shego slipped the device on her wrist. "And how does a voice over this thing help me?" the green woman demanded.
"Don't sell Wade short," Ron commented. "He can do anything."
"Don't confuse me with Kim," Wade reminded Ron.
"Just drive, Stoppable," Shego ordered.
There were a couple police cars near the tree when Ron and Shego arrived.
"Hobble again," warned Ron.
"Well just drive past him."
Hobble jumped out into the middle of the street and waved his arms to stop Ron. Ron honked the horn and drove around him. Hobble shouted curses as Ron drove up to the tree.
"God damn! It really is a mountain lion," Shego said as she stared up.
"Cougar," Ron corrected her.
"And Kim got it down before?"
"Yep."
Shego opened the car door, sprinted the twenty feet to the tree and swung herself up on a low branch. From the top of the tree Sassy growled a warning. "I'm tougher than you," Shego warned.
It wasn't at all clear to Ron whether Sassy or Shego was tougher as they both hit the ground twenty minutes later. The puma looked like it had taken more damage, but it also looked like it was more ready to continue the fight as it snarled and got ready to pounce.
"Sassy! Bad girl," an old woman scolded as she came forward and grabbed the collar around the beast's neck. "Home! Now."
"And Kim has gotten that thing down before?" groaned Shego.
"Yeah… And looked like you do now when she did it," Ron told her, offering a hand to help the green woman to her feet.
There was a shout of "Hold it right there!" as officer Hobble ran toward the pair, his gun drawn and pointed at Shego.
"Gotta run," Shego whispered.
"Wouldn't it just be easier to bust out of jail?" responded Ron.
"Yeah, maybe. Less chance of you getting shot if he goes trigger happy."
Wade's voice came over the Kimmunicator. "Don't try anything. I've got an idea. If this works you… Well, if it doesn't work you can break out of jail."