Cindy sat still in front of a mirror. She carefully applied a light sheen of lip gloss and the slightest hint of blush. Her blonde hair was meticulously curled into an elaborate French twist. She looked down at her watch and then at her reflection, and sighed. It was such a beautiful day...much like one many years ago…


Cindy's royal blue graduation gown billowed around her as she sat down on her knees. She swung open the door of Locker 3141 and gently collected the contents in her arms, placing them carefully into a cardboard box. A wrench...a few sketches drawn on grid paper...an empty can of purple flurp...a few stray pencils...a pair of stolen plastic goggles. She extracted the unreturned chemistry book last. Wedged between the first and second chapter were a few lab reports from the beginning of the year. Each of them boasted a hundred percent. A lump began to grow in Cindy's throat as she caressed the spine of the book and set it at the top of the box. Looking down at the artifacts she'd amassed, she closed her eyes for a minute, allowing the storm of emotions in her heart a moment of respite. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes, everything snapping into focus. The halls around her seemed distorted now...foreign. She'd gone here for four years. Four years, she'd been at this school, and it wasn't until this moment that she realized how quickly those four years had gone.

Suddenly, a voice called her name, interrupting her reverie."Cindy! Where are you? We have to be outside soon."

It was none other than Libby. Libby looked absolutely breath-taking. She'd worn her hair naturally, letting it fan out into an afro around her head. She'd accented her silver eyeliner with a delicate crystal covered headband, and a touch of purple lipstick. Cindy glanced up at her, her own simple look reflecting her straightforward style. Her hair was let loose, and she was wearing a touch of light green eyeshadow.

Libby regarded her friend with affection. The two had been friends for as long as she could remember. There was no doubt in her mind that despite everything, their friendship would somehow endure the test of time.

"I'm just-" Cindy tried to explain what she was doing, but no words came. Libby looked at the box and understood. She sat down beside her friend and touched her shoulder to offer some modicum of comfort. Cindy rested her head against Libby's shoulder and wept quietly. After a few moments, Libby looked at the clock on the wall across from them. "We should go." She suggested, helping Cindy up.

Cindy nodded and picked up the box. She looked at the newly vacant locker over her shoulder one last time, before she turned to Libby. The two girls walked in unison down the hallway and out to the parking lot, where Cindy placed the box of things in the trunk of her car.

Sharing a small smile, they made their way towards the football field for their final hurrah.


After a long set of speeches by various administrators, Principal Willoughby stood in front of the mic and called the class valedictorian to the front. Cindy caught her mother's gaze in the bleachers and was surprised to see tears in her mother's eyes. Then again, Cindy supposed, so many things had happened this year, that she could hardly discredit the possibility of anything.

She made her way up to the mic and stepped up onto the stool behind the podium. She pulled out a sheet of ruled notebook paper from her pocket. It was folded into fourths, and the faint stain of tears covered the margins.

Voice shaking, she unfolded the sheet and set it flat out on the podium in front of her.

"My fellow graduates, friends," She looked to Libby as she said this, "teachers, faculty, and staff." A slight breeze almost seemed to egg her on. "Over the past four years at Retroville High, we've learned a lot. We've hopefully learned to write good essays and lab reports." She smiled to herself for a second before continuing. "We've learned about Jane Austen, Newton, and Abraham Lincoln. But most importantly…" She took a deep breath before carrying on. "We've learned about ourselves. We've learned about the people we were, the people we are, and the people we want to be."

Cindy brushed a tear away from her eyes as she looked down at her neat handwriting and back up at her peers. "I learned so much this year. Some of you might know that I was partnered with a boy named Jimmy Neutron in my chemistry class."

A few murmurs went through the crowd as students looked up at her curiously.

"We were never friends. We'd never spoken to each other for more than five minutes at a stretch as far as I can remember. But being partnered with him in a chemistry class changed my life. And I know this must sound contrived and…cheesy. Maybe even like some sort of Lifetime movie." She smiled to herself again.

"But sometimes you really do meet people who reshape the way you think, the way you live. Jimmy and I didn't get along at all at first. In fact, I even begged my teacher for a new partner." A few chuckles permeated the crowd.

"We ended up spending a lot of time together. What a lot of you may not have known was that Jimmy wasn't just talented. He was a genius. We knew him by his occasional headlines...his odd antics. And yet it never occurred to us that his tinkering, his malfunctioning jet packs...all indicated some sort of advanced scientific capability. We, being high school students, took it at face value that he was...well quite simply put, just some geek." More murmuring and head-turning spread through the crowd at this revelation.

Cindy's throat constrained as she pushed through her speech.

"Jimmy and I built a multi-functional robot dog together. For him, the dog was one among many of his amazing inventions. As for me, I didn't even know I could apply the concepts I'd read about in class to something tangible. Jimmy gave me back my creativity...my faith in myself. And we named the dog Goddard."

She took a second to gather her thoughts before she pressed on. "Robert H. Goddard was a scientist best known for his creation of the rocket. Now, we call him the father of modern rocketry, but at the time of his discovery, he wasn't very well known. The man who ushered in the very Space Age was barely acknowledged. Similarly, the boy I became friends with was barely recognized as much more than some kid. He deserved to stand here with me and give a lingo-ridden speech like I know he would have. He deserved for the world to know his name. But as I stand here today and look out at all of you...I would like to emphasize from experience…" She trailed off for a second as she met her mother's eye. "Life is about so much more than acknowledgement and merit. Everyone loves a nice trophy or a shiny medal or a coveted acceptance letter. There's so much more than those things though. There's so much more than all of that. The world is full of possibility, hope, and love. Nothing is in vain and-"

The dam of emotions inside her finally broke. A few teachers moved to comfort her, but she motioned to them that she was fine. She took a few seconds to compose herself.

"We are so full of potential. We are the strength of a thousand stars multiplied times infinity. And so it has come to pass that the die has been cast. We cannot turn back now. We should not turn back now. We are so much more than our GPAS, our social circles, our list of accepted colleges."

She took a final look at the students before her, some with watery eyes, and others with the faint hint of optimistic smiles on their lips.

"I want to say one last thing. A sentiment Robert H. Goddard might have shared. One I know my friend Jimmy believed in." She closed her eyes and laid her pain to rest for the time being. "The sky is the limit."

The crowd exploded in applause. The next few minutes were a blur of hugs, crying, congratulations, rose petals thrown in the air, parents rushing to embrace their beloved children…


Cindy felt tears lace her cheeks. She swiftly brushed them away and stood up in her crimson graduation gown. Her roommate ducked out of the bathroom and smiled at Cindy. "Ready?"

Cindy nodded her head. A thousand infinities were waiting for her beyond these doors.


A/N: So this is truly it, guys. I hope I've managed to make you feel something for these characters. I know that there were a lot of kinks to work out in terms of romance/friendship pacing and characterization in accordance with JN canon and the Keith universe, but I tried my best. There are a lot of plot points I plan to go back and fix, such as the cliff scene, which upon further reflection, I realized was not something that translated particularly well to the world of Jimmy Neutron. However, I don't regret picking Keith to base this story on.

One of the things I really wanted to work with was the idea of Jimmy being overshadowed by Cindy in a sense- Keith offered me a way to incorporate this into a story. The dynamic between Cindy's deserved success and Jimmy's unfair circumstances circled back to one of my personal favorite themes of Jimmy Neutron: Cindy's constant push to academically compete with a genius. Regardless of her intelligence, this proves to be a strain on her, and is clearly unfair for her. We often see her feeling bad about her academic accomplishments on the show because despite how good they might be anywhere else, they're simply not as good as Neutron's. I wanted this story to circle back to that theme of unattainable satisfaction. Jimmy's genius plays a foil to Cindy's hard work and talent in the series, and in this story, his illness plays a foil to his own capability to be better than anyone else his age, Cindy notwithstanding.

That being said, I'm not sure if I carried this story out entirely to my own satisfaction. I certainly have a lot of editing to do, and I'm not completely sure if I'm happy with my execution of my ideas and concepts.

However, I would like to thank everyone who read this story and took the time to leave comments or reviews or constructive criticism. If you haven't seen the movie, please do! My story doesn't do the original justice. Like I said earlier, the music is also great.

A special thank you to quietthinker for all his indispensable advice on this story. As far as stories go, this one won't be a legendary JN classic. But it is my first real multi-chaptered piece of fiction. There are parts of this I'm proud of having written, and other parts that need serious fixing. All in all, I'm just very appreciative of everyone who read and hopefully enjoyed this story.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me a message or let me know via a review. Thank you again, and au revoir for now!