Note: Yes Ladies and Germs, I do get a little Meta in this chapter. Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, creators of Kim Possible, left Disney to work on the 'Penguins of Madagascar' tv show, pretty much killing off any hope of a spin off.
8:
The sun was setting over campus. Junior sat in his dorm in front of the computer, click clicking with his mouse.
"Oh Junior..." Bonnie sang as she opened the door. "Ah, there's my big Lumpy Lug!" She walked over and gave him a hug from behind. "Guess what?" She waved two pieces of paper in front of his face. "I got us tickets to the MC Honey concert tonight!"
Junior whirled around in his swivel chair and squealed with joy. "MC Honey? I LOVE MC Honey!" He paused. "But Bonnikins, it is a school night."
"So what?" Bonnie picked up his jacket and tossed it to him. "Come on. Let's get going before the line for hot dogs gets too long."
Junior caught the jacket. He looked at it a moment, then set it aside. "I am sorry, my Love, but I cannot go with you. I have to study."
Bonnie looked stunned. "Say what?"
"I am writing my speech for class."
Bonnie leaned over with her hands on her hips. "Who are you and what have you done with my Junior?" She demanded.
"I was just going to do a demonstration on how to get a good tan, but then I started reading around all these bad things that the sun can do to you! Did you know that too much tanning can give you cancer?"
"Uh, yeah. Common knowledge."
He went on as if he hadn't heard. "Premature aging, wrinkles, melon-nomy...Who knew something that could make you look so good could be so bad for you? I think now I am going to give my speech on how much better tanning lotion is than sun tanning."
"What about the concert?" Bonnie demanded.
"I am sorry, Bon-Bon, I must stay here and continue to work. But maybe you can stay and work with me..."
"Are you kidding?" Bonnie snapped. "I paid an arm and a leg for these tickets! I'm going with or without you!"
"Ok, it is your choice, my precious Goose Dropping," said Junior absently, picking up his text book and flipping through it. "Just bring me back a t-shirt." Bonnie huffed as she slammed the door shut. "I am a size 3x!" Junior called, not looking up.
As the sky darkened over the campus park, Kim watched the little wispy clouds above her shrink and disappear. She was lying on a red, white, and blue patchwork blanket with her arms behind her head. The top of her hair was touching Ron's as he lay opposite her. A picnic basket was nearby, empty Bueno Nacho wrappers inside it.
"So she just up and left, huh?" Said Ron.
"Yeah. Wade says she took all his money and just split," answered Kim.
"Think'll she be back?"
"Shego? Unlikely." Kim replied. "You do realize what this means now that Shego's gone and Monkey Fist is gone and Drakken's all but retired..."
"The end of an era." Ron finished. He sat up and grabbed his head. "See, I told you everything was going to change, KP!" He shouted. "Why does it have to be this way? Why couldn't our lives go into reruns or something?"
Kim sat up and turned around so she was facing him. "Ron! You act like we were cancelled or something!"
"Stupid penguins..." He muttered, then yelled, "THEY RUINED EVERYTHING!"
Kim looked confused. "I don't know what you're talking about, Ron."
"Lucky you. They're not even funny." He scowled. Rufus poked his head out the picnic basket. Cheese was smeared across his mouth as he pointed a finger down his throat.
"Madagascar! Peh!"
"I do know one thing though," Kim pulled Ron closer. "Without change, we'd be missing out on one very important thing..."
"What's that?"
"This." Kim kissed him.
Suddenly, a rude voice interrupted, "Total grossness! Have some consideration for other people why don't you?" Kim pulled away from Ron angrily.
"Bonnie, what the heck do you want?" She snapped.
"Nothing, I was just on my way to the bus stop and decided to take a shortcut!" She crossed her arms. "I would've taken the long way around though if I had known you two were going to be in Slobbersville!"
"If you don't like it, then leave!"
"Fine! I have a concert to go to anyway!" Bonnie reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a ticket. "I'm seeing MC Honey! Third row seats, Kimmy! What row did you get?"
Kim pulled her knees up to her chin. "I didn't get tickets, Bonnie," she said sullenly. "I need to save money."
Bonnie slapped her head in mock surprise. "You didn't get tickets to see MC Honey? Little Miss Perfect isn't going to the biggest concert of the year?"
"It's a school night, Bonnie!"
"That's right. Besides..." Kim knew what Ron was going to say. She shook her head and made a slashing motion across her throat. Ron shrugged innocently. "What? I was just going to say that you've met MC Honey!"
Kim groaned and put a hand over her eyes. "YOU'VE met MC Honey? You...What...EEERGGHH!" Bonnie screamed in frustration. "What is it with you Possible? Why do you get everything?" As the couple watched Bonnie stomp off, Kim sighed.
"Why'd you tell her that, Ron?"
"What?"
"That I'd met MC Honey! Like I need any more problems with her! Trust me, I'm learning that sometimes it's better to let her one up me than try and compete!" Kim began to pick up garbage and put it in the basket. Rufus hopped out and began to help. "I'm so tired of fighting with Bonnie. Maybe I should just change dorms..."
"But then she wins!"
"It's not about winning, Ron." Kim pushed the basket off to the side and stood up. She picked up the blanket and began to fold it. "It's about keeping my sanity. Anyway, I'm going to try and tough out the rest of the semester before I make any major changes. I'd have to fill out a lot of paperwork to switch and that's just not something I want to focus on right now." She smiled. "Besides, as long as she has Junior to keep her busy, things should be ok!"
Junior pushed open the large wooden doors and looked around the library. He walked past fiction, biographies, romance, and history before he reached the front desk. The bored looking Librarian was sitting at a computer, playing mah-jongg.
"Excuse me, Miss Library Lady," he asked. "But where are the books?"
She glared at him. "Think you're pretty funny, don't you?"
"Not especially, but I have been known to give the chuckles..."
"Look, Mr. Comedian," she stood up. "I have been in this library all day! I have stamped and checked and stocked and shelved! I have unfrozen twelve computers! I have written an angry, ten page letter to the dean, chastising him for spending thousands on new Astroturf for the football field, yet not one penny on a computer system that doesn't dial up, then had the computer freeze up on me and lose my letter!"
"Ouchies." Said Junior.
"I am not in the mood for games!" She hollered. There were several "Shhh!"s.
"Oh you shhh!" She snapped at the students who were reading. She turned back to Junior. "Where are the books? Why don't you think about it for a minute then get back to me!"
Junior backed up nervously, then turned and hurried away. "What a crabby lady," he said to himself.
"Don't take it personal," said a nasally voice. Junior looked around the nearly empty library.
"Who said that?"
"Over here!" A chubby hand reached over a monitor in the computer section and waved. Junior decided to see who the hand belonged to.
A tubby twenty something with light brown hair was sitting in front of the screen with several other students. He had large, round glasses that made him look like an owl. He was holding a deck of cards. The student next to him, wearing a stained lab coat, was fishing in the spread out deck between the two computers. "Mrs. Abraham may seem grouchy, but she's just frustrated over the lack of funding that we get here."
"Yeah," the student in the lab coat gave a chuckle. "She spends most of her time just fixing the computers."
"Hey!" Cried a female voice from the end of the table. "I think I may have made contact!" There were cheers. "No, it wants me to try again." Groans.
"I'm Boyd," said Glasses-Boy. "These are my friends, Zach, Josefina, Slate, and Selda. We're the Dial-Up Club."
"Dial-Up Club?" Junior took an empty seat.
"Yeah," said Zach, putting down two Two-of-Spades. "We spend almost every night in the library waiting for the computers to connect so we can do research."
"We're the kids whose parents can't afford to get them a personal computer," said Josefina.
"Oh." Junior felt a strange twinge, as if he has done something wrong for having a rich father who had bought him two computers for each of his four bedrooms at home. What this what they called guilt? If it was, he didn't like it. "So," said Boyd. "You've never been in a library before?"
"No," said Junior. "I want to find out why this Tropic of Cancer was named after the disease."
"It wasn't," said Selda. She had two braided red pigtails and freckles.
"You mean the disease was named after the Tropic?"
"No, the Tropic was named after the constellation that was hanging over it at the time it was named," said Selda.
Next to her, Slate pulled out an inhaler and took a puff. "Selda knows everything," he wheezed.
"Really?" Junior perked up. "Do you know why the sun gives Cancer? I was researching it online, but I do not understand all the big words..."
"Well then, start taking notes..."
"Junior."
"Junior!" Said Selda. She turned away from the still screen. "It all starts with UV rays..."
