Slowly picking up speed!

You know, I bet we could start a petition and soon enough I could own Jimmy Neutron. Just throwin that out there

The evening before, Libby's instructions had seemed strange. Cindy had no idea why she should 'be in bed no later than 9:30.' Now they made perfect sense: she had been rousted from her bed by her best friend and her mother, and was now sitting in her kitchen with a seaweed mud mask on her face and her hair, soaked with deep conditioner, up in a shower cap. All before ten on a Saturday morning.

"You do realize that we have about seven hours before I even need to be at the school, right?" she yawned sleepily. It is just ridiculous to wake someone up at seven-thirty, force feed them a grapefruit and herbal tea, then make them recite their introduction for an hour.

"One can never be too prepared Cynthia." He mother was buffing her nails with a file. "Alright, I'm going to fill the tub with hot water, then retrieve the bath oil. Liberty if you would be so kind as to remove the seaweed pack from her face once it is dry; I don't want to risk an allergic reaction."

"Sure thing Mrs. V!" With that, her mother left the room.

"Libby, is all this really necessary? I did have things I wanted to accomplish today."

"Like what? Sulking in your room while you read Jane Austin novels? If anything this will keep your mind off….other things. How did your interview go, by the way? I forgot to call you yesterday afternoon."

"It was satisfactory. Yeah, I looked for you afterwards but they said you didn't come."

"Oh yeah," Libby chuckled, "I had some… business to attend to." She thought she saw a brief smirk appear on her friend's face.

"Libby, what did you-"

"So what did they ask you? Not the dreaded 'if you could go one place in the world…', that always trips people up. You did say 'um' did you?"

"Slow down Colonel Nosenko! No they didn't ask me that and I'm pretty sure I refrained from hesitation. I don't know, they were pretty general questions. One did stand out to me though; they asked what I thought society needed the most."

"And what did you say?"

"More emphasis on education. Not test scores or filling quotas, but the actual learning aspect. You start out life with so much potential and if kids could just be given the chance to flourish if a field that they are passionate about, the drop-out rate would be much lower. You know, teachers are pretty much responsible for the future of every child that they influence. The kids they teach might go on to be a senator or doctor or philanthropist who really makes a difference in the world, and yet they receive disgustingly low salaries while people whose careers serve only as entertainment to the masses-"

Libby interrupted, "I really hope you didn't ramble like this in front of the judges. That would be some serious dockage of points."

Cindy sighed. There was just no getting through to some people.

"Can I take this gunk off my face now?"

Jimmy sat in his room passing the hypercube from one hand to the other, absent mindedly. He had been completely preoccupied by the nonsense of the previous day for the last few hours. He knew what tonight was, but felt severely conflicted about the plan action to take.

It was five thirty and he only had a brief period of time to decide what he was going to do.

"Make it right." Make it right? What does that even mean? I thought we did make it right. It wasn't his fault if girls are so totally crazy that they can't express what they really want. Why was it his job to know what she's feeling every second of every day? If she didn't like the terms of the arrangement, then she should have said something.

Would you have done things any differently if the scenario was reversed? That was really beside the point. Maybe if she had interjected things would be…could be different. No, things can't be different. Do you want them to be? It doesn't matter. They just can't.

Then how the heck am I supposed to 'make it right'?

The door opened and Sheen and Carl entered; their clothing more presentable than usual.

"Alright Jimmy, start up the hover car. Libby-kins wants me to be there by at least 5:45 in order to get her a good seat. She's helping backstage but-"

"I'm not going to that stupid thing, Sheen. There's absolutely no reason to."

"Ok…but here's the thing: neither of us have a ride, so…"

"'Make it right.' What does that even mean?"

"Oh good, still dwelling on yesterday I see."

"Yeah, so what if I am? It's kind of taken a toll on me. You need to get your woman in line, Sheen!"

"Yeah, that's not really how things work in our relationship. I'm more of the 'loyal follower' in this situation..."

"Who does she think she is? Telling me to fix everything; I don't have to fix anything! Maybe I want things to stay as they are!"

"Do you want things to stay as they are?" Sheen caught him off guard.

There was a pause.

"I don't know. But even if I don't, i'd like to make the decision to change things on my own terms. Libby doesn't have the right to tell me to do something like that just because her friends wants me to."

"I suppose that makes sense." Sheen stroked his chin. "As a man, you have the right to do whatever you want when it comes to the ladies."

"Thank you!"

"As much as I care for my Ultra Lady, she did sort of assume that you wanted to be starting something with her home-girl."

"Yeah," Carl said meekly, "Maybe you don't want to be more than friends with Cindy."

"Huh?"

Carl and Sheen exchanged glances. Sheen continued, "Yeah, why would you want to be anything with her."

"Hold on now…"

"I mean, she can be scary and enraged a lot," Carl interrupted.

"And no fun at all. And don't know why Libby is such good friends with her; I'm not even sure if Cindy knows what fun is. You can't have a conversation with her without being insulted or yelled at."

"I think you guys need to-"

"And what do you too have in common, really?" Carl was pushing it. "I just can't see anyone being made happy by Cindy Vortex."

"So Jim, I guess we should tell Libby that she can-"

Jimmy had had enough. "You aren't going to do anything! Who are you to criticize anyone? Yes she might be abrasive and violent sometimes, but Cindy can be sweet and is really smart and… and…"

The two other boys leaned in. "Yes…"

And clever. And hilarious. And absolutely perfect. And he was letting her slip away. He was such an idiot.

He walked over to his dresser and took a pair of slacks and a dress shirt out and headed for the bathroom.

"Give me just a minute."

When he walked out, the two boys silently bumped fists.

"Ow! Sheen, that really hurt."

"Carl," Sheen whispered, "You have to be quiet! Oh man, who would have thought that this actually worked. My lady is so smart!"

Jimmy came back into the room. "Come on guys," he grabbed a jacket from his closet. "We have a pageant to get to. I just need to make a quick stop first."

I don't know about you all, but the suspense is killing me.

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