All together now: *gasp*

An update for the second week running? Almost unheard of!

Yes, my wonderful readers, reviewers, favouriters and followers: I present to you the latest instalment of Beckett! It was originally written for Four Letter, but I thought you awesome people deserved another one of these as I have plenty more in store for that fic...

This happened. Real life. Really. Honestly. A friend of mine had her glue stick stolen by the boy she fancied...I changed it around a bit, but it was adorable :) *happy sigh*

I don't own anything you recognise.

"Class dismissed." As the teacher turned away to clean the board, Kate stood up to shove her books in her bag and her pens in her pencil case. Reaching blindly for her glue stick, the brunette resumed her conversation with Maddison Queller who was standing next to her.

"So Friday. You're still – hey!" Kate swatted the air where her glue stick had been moments before, now held in the grasp of a tall blonde boy. "Give that back!"

"No." The boy stuck his tongue out and waved the stick tauntingly in front of her nose. "You have to ask nicely, Beckett."

"Fuck off, Nicholls," she spat. "I want to go to lunch. Give it here!" 'Nicholls' skirted around her lunge, holding his arm above her head – at six foot he towered over her. Compared to her friends, Kate Beckett was much taller, and had never had to resort to the suicidal solution of high heels. However, the boys in their year were giants, and it was rare that one was under five foot six.

She jumped. And reached. And elbowed. Nothing she did had any effect on the boy holding her glue stick hostage. With a flourish, Nicholls uncapped the stick and pressed it against the ceiling, waiting until it was able to hang there by itself. Kate clenched her jaw.

"Get it down," she demanded, poking his chest forcefully. "Get. It. Down. Now."

"Beckett, Nicholls, Queller. Get going please," Mr Smith interrupted from the front of the room. Kate turned to indignantly face her teacher.

"Sir, he's got my glue stick!" She gestured angrily to the ceiling.

"So, get a ladder," the teacher replied, attention clearly elsewhere. Kate gaped. "Or get out of my classroom."

As the three trooped out, Kate found herself looking back mournfully at her glue stick, stuck hopelessly against gravity. "I'll be back," she promised silently.

"Mom? We're going shoe shopping." Kate stormed into the house and dumped her school bag in the hall, running up to her room to grab her purse. When she got downstairs again she found Johanna leaning against the door frame, watching her in amusement.

"Shoe shopping? What brought this on, Katie?" Kate rolled her eyes at her mother, wrapping her hand around Maddie's arm and pulling her in the direction of the bus stop.

"Bye, Mom."

"Bye, honey."

"Boy," Maddie mouthed at Mrs Beckett with a smile. By now she was used to Kate's spontaneity – although her friend had never had the urge to go out and buy a pair of six-inch stilettos.

"Have fun, girls," was Johanna's parting call, before she disappeared inside the house, shaking her head fondly.

"Kate, what happened to 'death traps that only lunatics would wear'?" Maddie teased as her friend discarded yet another pair of high-heeled boots. "I thought you wanted to be able to walk?"

"Very funny," the brunette deadpanned, running her gaze along the rack in front of her. "Ooh, look at these ones!"

"Last year you were saying that shoes were meant for comfort, not for appearance!"

"Maddie, get it right," Kate retorted, grinning widely. "It's 'comfort before appearance' – they're allowed to look nice, you know." Maddie didn't reply, instead fishing out another pair and tossing them to her companion.

"Try these."

They eventually left the mall, each clutching a bag of shoes in each hand, the pair chattering animatedly as they wandered back to the Beckett household.

"So, Katie," Johanna smirked. "All this for a boy?"

"What?" Kate spluttered, turning beet red and glaring at her (supposed) best friend who tactfully avoided making eye contact. "No! I need the height to get my glue stick!"

"Sure," Maddie taunted with a nudge. "I think it's because he likes you."

"Yes," her mother nodded in wise agreement. "In my day, it was the boy who pulled your pigtails who had the greatest crush on you."

"We're not in your day, Mom! He does not like me!" Kate's tone suggested that the topic was closed, but the other two women knew that the conversation was far from over.

The next day, Kate Beckett was followed by the astounded eyes of the entire male population at her new-found height – and, it seemed, confidence. When she got back to the science lab, the first thing she did was reach up and pluck the still hanging stalactite of a glue stick from the ceiling. Nicholls gazed at her in awe as her slender body stretched and her midriff was exposed by her shirt rising up, but was met with an icy, dismissive glare from Kate and an appraising glance from Maddie as the two girls sat.

The only sign that Maddie was nowhere near as annoyed as Kate was the whisper from blonde to brunette as Smith waited for silence.

"I still think it's a new method of flirting."

Actually, it was our teacher who coined that phrase just there ^^ apparently his ships usually sailed (yes, my biology teacher knows the lingo :D)

Reviews are unicorns, readers!

TTFN

~wolfergirl