Parents

XX

Monkey Fist decided enough was enough.

Amy had been given a suitable period of mourning for her freakish cuddle creature, at least Monkey Fist thought so, and he was tired of hearing about it. Hadn't Amy already mourned enough when it disappeared the first time? After all, now that it had been sucked into a space time rift yet again, mere seconds before being released, Amy should be getting used to it, shouldn't she?

"There there, Amy." Monkey Fist patted his partner in evil on the back as they sat on her couch. "Things will work out alright."

"Oh Monty, how?" asked Amy. She dabbed at her eyes with the same handkerchief that she had been using to blow her nose. That had to be unsanitary, Monkey Fist thought. "Poor Cuddlesaurus just keeps getting taken away from me by that Flanner girl!"

"Technically, my best guess is that this time it was taken away by some kind of battery problem."

Amy broke into fresh sobs. Consoling others was not one of Monkey Fist's areas of expertise. He was exasperated with Amy. The geneticist had seemed like she was pulling herself together and getting over Cuddlesaurus when she lied to Kim and Ron, but now she was back to her moping. Amy needed a focus, a new obsession.

"See here, Amy, I believe it's time that we forget about the past and look into the future."

"What do you mean?"

"You have both created and lost your living Cuddle Buddies before, correct? So you can create a new one, even better than Cuddlesaurus!" Amy looked skeptical, but Monkey Fist could tell she was listening. "After all, you said yourself that you have a new and improved – what is it that you called it?"

"The Genetic Zipper."

"Yes, that infernal sphere contraption you have down there in your lab. You can make whatever creature you want. Why not create something a little more, shall we say, trainable?"

"You mean something something that can fetch and roll over?"

Monkey Fist got up and paced the living room. "I was thinking of something that could be trained to attack our foes and aid me in my quest to achieve ultimate monkey mastery. Not to mention it could take revenge on that Justine Flanner girl," he said in a blatant attempt to win Amy over. "But yes, fetch and roll over. That is the basic idea."

Amy looked intrigued. "Well, it's true that I can combine all kinds of genome fragments and end up with some very interesting results. Genetic resequencing is such a blast, Monty! It's just like playing with toy blocks as a kid, except you're playing God instead of building a new house for Plastic Polly to have tea parties!"

"Hmm, yes," said Monkey Fist. "That sounds fascinating. Amy, have you thought about creating some kind of new species of monkey? Perhaps a gigantic one, with larger claws?"

Amy shook her head. "For the last time, no. I think we have enough monkeys in this house already, Monty. It's all I can do to keep them from soiling my carpet."

She threw a glare at one of Monkey Fist's minions, which was idly chewing on a banana as it sat on her coffee table. The monkey gave her what appeared to be some kind of obscene monkey gesture. "Still, maybe you're right," she said. "It would be fun to think of a new cutie creation. Another little baby for me to play with! I guess that would make you its daddy, wouldn't it, sweetums?"

Monkey Fist laughed nervously and avoided Amy's question. "Do you still have the DNA that you used to create Cuddlesaurus?"

"Oh yes, it's on ice downstairs."

"You should include that in the mix," said Monkey Fist. He wanted a more controllable creature than what Cuddlesaurus had been, judging by Amy's description, but size and ferocity couldn't hurt.

Monkey Fist watched as Amy giggled and descended the stairs to her laboratory in order to look into her options. It was amazing how quickly she was already beginning to forget about Cuddlesaurus after Monkey Fist had suggested the prospect of making a new genetic hybrid. She seemed so prone to random fixations. Monkey Fist found it hard to relate; he did not fall prey to obsessions and flights of fancy. He spent all his time on his wholly satisfying and legitimate interest in all things simian.

No matter; Amy seemed to enjoy having pets, and as long as Monkey Fist could guide her fixation on a new pet in a direction that proved useful, Amy's obsessive personality would work in his favor. As long as she didn't find a new obsession.

XX

Bonnie stared in disgust at the sign that hung over the front of the shop. Comics.

She had no interest in reading comics. From what she could tell, they were stories filled with pages of ridiculous looking characters in outfits that no one would ever wear, whose bodies often bore no resemblance to those of real people. She preferred reading fashion magazines. Still, she was forced to spend time in the comics shop this weekend, despite wanting to be almost anywhere else. Thanks to Larry.

"Enter, milady," said Larry as he held open the door for her. "It's excellent that you had the free time to come and play with us. I think you'll find it quite interesting!"

Bonnie rolled her eyes in response to Larry's comment. As if she had been given a choice. It was true that she had no immediate plans this afternoon – Tara had been hard to get a hold of lately – but she could always hang out with Hope or Marcella or a suitable jock and go to the mall. Anything but stay at home and deal with her sisters. A comic shop, however, was not what she had in mind in terms of avoiding her family.

Inside the store, Bonnie noticed the same group of people who had been there the first time she visited, trying to find someone to team up with her for the Robot Rumble. Like last time, they were gathered around a card table in the back of the store. Larry walked over to the table and beckoned for Bonnie to follow him.

"Everyone, this is Bonnie, my partner in the Robot Rumble. She's my cousin's worst enemy!"

"Hi Bonnie," said Ned.

Bonnie sighed and began to shake people's hands. She already had the displeasure of knowing Ned from Bueno Nacho, and she had been forced to meet most of the people here last time she was in the shop. "Hello, Ned."

"Not Ned. Here, I am known as Varkon of Cerulea!"

"Um, whatever."

Bonnie sat down at the table and looked at the game they were playing. "I guess one of you is going to have to explain how this game of yours works to me."

"You mean you've never played it before?" asked Charlotte. "Um, Larry, I thought we all agreed that we wouldn't be inviting newbies to our games?" Bonnie wasn't sure what the word newbie meant, but she felt a strong urge to hiss at Charlotte.

"Not now, Charlotte!" Larry sat down next to Bonnie after pulling a rule book from behind the store's register area. "Bonnie, we're playing Crypts and Creatures. Essentially, you choose the role of a character in the game, and you go on quests to find hidden treasure and defeat powerful monsters. I have to warn you, Bonnie," said Larry with a gesture to his friends at the table, "sometimes we can get a little rowdy when we're playing this on weekends!"

The other players laughed along with Larry at what Bonnie could only assume was an inside joke. Several snorts punctuated the laughter. "Sometimes we even break out the energy drinks," said Larry. "Oh man, let me tell you, it's a laugh riot after that!"

Bonnie crossed one of her legs over the other and leaned back in her chair as she tapped her fingernails on her knee. She was waiting for the game to get going so she could get the afternoon over with. "So how do I choose what character to play?" she asked.

"It's really up to you. There are a few character creation rules, but you could be a warrior, a thief, a noblewoman, a wizard..."

Bonnie stopped him with a raised hand. "Wait a minute, what did you say?"

"A warrior, a thief..."

"No, you said noblewoman. Could I be a queen?"

The rest of the table shifted uncomfortably as Larry considered her question. "Well, yes, but the spirit of the game is to have a certain equality among the members of -"

"I'm going to be a queen."

Charlotte raised a finger in objection. "Um, I'd like to remind you guys that my character is in fact a minor noblewoman herself. I think maybe there's a conflict of-"

"I'm a queen." Bonnie's green eyes twinkled maliciously. "That means I get to demote you. You're, like, I don't know, a peasant now."

"Let's be nice and play along with our guest," said Larry, stemming Charlotte's next comment. He leaned over to Bonnie with a conspiratorial whisper. "You'll find that I'm sort of the alpha dog here."

"Is that right?" asked Bonnie, intrigued.

She smirked at the sound of Charlotte grumbling while the game began. Saturday afternoons were better spent at the mall, and she couldn't believe that Larry had pulled one over on her by getting her to play such a silly game, but perhaps it wouldn't be that bad. She looked over the character creation rule sheet and wondered what she should name herself. Perhaps Queen Bonnie of Rockwallia. It did have a nice ring to it.

XX

Brick lay in bed, flipping channels on his television. He had just finished some homework and he was now spending an unusually lazy Saturday afternoon, looking for something to pass the time. He would have liked to watch a repeat of Murderbots, but unfortunately it did not seem to be the right time in the evening to catch one on television. Brick stopped flipping channels at the sound of loud footsteps coming up the stairway outside his room. There was a knock on the door.

"Come in!"

His father poked his head inside. "Hey. What's going on?"

"Not much, just watching some TV."

Mason entered the room. Brick noticed that his father was dressed in his snappy suit and tie; he had not seen his father wearing those in a while. "Oh yeah, you about to go to that parent teacher thing?"

"That's right. I figure I'd better find out what kinda trouble you've been getting into at school lately," said Mason with a laugh. "By the way, Brick - I went out to look for a job yesterday."

Brick smiled. "Seriously?"

"Yep. I suppose it's time for me to shape up a bit. I didn't find anything yet, but I'm getting the ball rolling now, you know?"

"Yeah! That's great." Brick put down the remote and sat up in bed. "Look, pop, about the other day-"

"Hey, don't worry about it," said Mason, knowing what Brick was referring to.

"No, I shouldn't have said what I said." Brick rubbed the back of his neck nervously, trying to think of how to articulate his thoughts. "It's not that I don't want to be like you, dad. I mean, you're one of the coolest guys I know. And I think you raised me well. You've always been there for me when I had stuff I needed to talk about, and you've taught me a lot about how to treat other people.

"I guess it's just that sometimes you get so down on yourself, and it's like you give up or something. Like you keep letting stuff that happened to you hold you back, and I hate seeing that. I didn't want to let things hold me back like that. Sometimes I feel like I'm being made into somebody I don't want to be by people around me, by what my life has been like already, and I wanted to get away from that."

Mason nodded. "I know what you mean, and I don't blame you. I don't want you to have my attitude either, Brick. I want you to have more opportunities than I did. I think you can do anything you set your mind to. I guess for a long time I've been kind of thinking about myself too much, and not enough about how that affects you. But I want you to be happy."

Brick got up from the bed. "You don't have to worry about that, pop. I'm happy most of the time. My life is pretty good. Maybe if I had a car," - Mason grinned at his son's cheekiness - "but I have everything I need."

He pulled his father into a hug. Mason embraced his son and felt a surge of emotions. Gratitude for being so lucky as to have a son like Brick. Regret that he had made so many mistakes in the past, that he had let himself fall into apathy and self-pity instead of thinking about how that affected his son.

"I'm gonna get a job, Brick. I want you to have options when you get out of high school. I don't want you to end up like I did and have nothing to show for it."

"Hey, come on pop," said Brick. "You got me, didn't you?"

Mason patted his son on the back as he broke the hug. "Right again. You're too clever for your own good, Brick. I can see why that Justine girl likes you," he teased.

"You don't have to worry about me, dad. Things are going to work out. And like I said, I have everything I need in my life. You've supported me just fine." Brick pointed at his father's watch. "You're gonna be late to that conference, aren't you?"

Mason checked the watch. "Yeah, I guess I'd better get a move on." He left the room, and was about to walk back down the stairs when he yelled back. "Hey Brick."

"Yeah?"

"What do you say I pick up some Bueno Nacho on the way back from this thing, and we can watch a movie together later?"

"Sounds good."

Brick listened to his father's steps as they grew fainter and finally stopped, punctuated by the front door closing. He was glad that his father had come upstairs to talk to him; Brick had felt guilty about what he had said earlier, and he had finally gotten the chance to make up for it. He always enjoyed his father's company when Mason was not absorbed in his own problems, and he was looking forward to spending the evening with him. As long as Mr. Barkin didn't have anything horrible to tell his father beforehand.

XX

Justine wiped sweat from her brow as she welded a piece of sheet metal onto her robot. She had made good progress, but with less than a week until the Robot Rumble, Justine had no idea how she could get it up and running effectively. All she knew was that she could not let Bonnie and Larry win the contest. Losing was not an option.

She turned at the sound of the inner garage door opening to find her parents walking in, dressed up as if they were going out. Her father pulled a pair of car keys from his pocket.

"Where are you guys going?"

"What do you mean?" her mother said. "We have to go to the parent teacher event at your school, remember?"

Justine had not remembered. She put down the welding torch and lifted her goggles. "That's tonight?"

"Yes, dear. We'll be back in a little while."

Her parents got into the car and pulled out of their side of the garage into the early evening. As the garage door closed, Justine realized that she hadn't told them about her second detention. Her second detention ever, to be exact. She wondered what exactly Mr. Barkin was going to say to them.

XX

Mason took a look at the refreshments table that had been set up in the school lunch room. There were several kinds of snacks set up on the table, but most of them reminded Mason of some kind of gray goo. Much like the lunch food that he had eaten while he was in school. Some things never changed, Mason supposed. Perhaps the school lunch lady had prepared the refreshments for this event.

Several other tables set up for the parent teacher event displayed pamphlets of information about school programs and lesson plans. Some of the pamphlets detailed new safety measures designed to minimize the threat of sudden dinosaur attacks. Mason noticed a few older pamphlets on the table that he had seen before – perhaps Brick had brought them back from school – about what to do in the event of students being held hostage on a camping trip by mutated amphibians. Mason wondered when someone would ever need to plan for that.

The event seemed to be a kind of meet and greet deal, after which Mason assumed that the teachers would meet with parents in attendance and go into more detail about individual student performances. A podium had been set up at the front of the lunch room, behind which a white projector screen had been pulled down, which displayed the message 'Welcome, Parents' in harsh red and blue lettering.

"Attention, parents!"

Mason watched the front of the lunch room and saw Brick's teacher and former coach, Steve Barkin, clearing his throat as he stepped up to the podium.

"I'd like to thank you all for attending this event. As we all know, our students are our future," - Barkin looked like he was pained to say it - "and, as parents, it is your job to whip them into shape and send them screaming into that future, whether they like it or not!"

Barkin went on a little longer, after which he began to play a slide show of various school functions on the slide projection screen. Mason quickly tuned it out – it was uninteresting boilerplate, and he did not think this portion of the event was too important compared to hearing about how his son was doing in particular. Of course, Brick was fairly open with Mason about school, but Mason wanted to be involved in his son's life.

He noticed a familiar looking woman with bright red hair nearby, standing beside her husband. Mason had seen her once before, and based on the striking similarity to her daughter, he knew it was Anne Possible. He dropped the finger food that he had been trying to eat into the trash, deciding it was not appetizing, and walked over to say hello.

"Hey, Anne and James, right? Remember me?"

"Oh yes," Anne smiled. "Brick's father?"

James Possible shook Mason's hand. "Nice to see you again. It was a pleasure to have Brick over the other day, he's a very well-mannered young man. I guess he's friends with Kim and Ron now?"

"Looks like it," said Mason. "I hope he's not eating you out of house and home?"

"Oh no, don't worry. We have Ron Stoppable over every day, we've learned how to stock up on groceries so we don't run out."

Mason laughed. "I know how that goes." He noticed that Barkin had finished the general presentation and was making the rounds in the crowded lunch room, greeting parents as he went.

"Is he the only teacher here?" he asked.

Anne looked around. "I don't see anyone else. I wonder how long this event is supposed to last?"

Steve Barkin eventually reached Mason and the Possibles, giving them a curt nod in greeting. "Hello there. Welcome to the Middleton Parental Involvement Extravaganza." He looked at Anne and James Possible briefly. "Kim is getting straight A's as always, there isn't much more to say. It would be nice if she could attend class more often, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in her grades."

"Oh." James looked surprised. "That's it?"

"Pretty much," nodded Barkin. "You could wait for a more involved one-on-one session, but we're having a teacher shortage, and I am handling all sessions. This event may last for days."

James shrugged. "That's a shame. Alright honey, looks like it's time to go home!" Anne was led from the lunch room by her husband before she could object.

"Nice to see you again, Mr. Flagg," said Barkin as he shook Mason's hand. "I have to tell you, your son has been an interesting student lately."

"Oh yeah? Is that good?"

"Yes, I believe so. His attention in class is going up, and he's doing better on his homework – I think he's taking more of an interest in his studies. It could be because he's associating with a different crowd nowadays. Kim Possible and Justine Flanner. And he's around Ron Stoppable more as well, but fortunately that has had no negative effect on his academic performance."

Mason nodded. It was good to hear that his son was making a positive impression.

"I have to say, I was surprised that he quit the football team."

"Yeah," nodded Mason. "I can't pretend I wasn't surprised either. I think he's just having a little trouble figuring out what he wants, is all."

Barkin nodded. "Well, it's a shame. He was a good quarterback. We have a new one now, but he doesn't really compare to Brick. Hopefully the team is going to pull through without him." Barkin noticed another pair of parents nearby. "Ah, if you'll excuse me Mr. Flagg, I wanted to make sure some people were going to stick around so I could speak to them more privately."

Mason shook Barkin's hand again as he left. He thought he heard Barkin refer to the couple he was speaking to as Mr. And Mrs. Flanner; Mason wondered why he would need to talk to them. From what Brick had said, Justine was an excellent student.

XX

Justine sat alone at her dinner table, eating a microwaved TV dinner that she had prepared for herself. It was late, but she had been absorbed in her work on the robot in the garage, and eventually she had been annoyed enough at the slow progress that she decided to take a dinner break.

Justine began to wonder when her parents were going to get home when, almost in answer to her thoughts, the still-broken living room window was crisscrossed by beams of light from a car entering the driveway. The beams illuminated the dark living room, which Justine could see through the kitchen door. The living room window had been covered by a tarp which shifted in the evening breeze – her parents had been too busy to look into hiring a repairman yet. Mottled shadows, born from the car's beams, crisscrossed the room's walls.

The sound of the front door opening reached Justine as she finished her meal. Her parents appeared in the kitchen door. Her mother, in particular, looked displeased.

"Justine."

"Yes, mother?"

"You had a second detention? Why didn't you tell us about this?"

Justine placed her fork and knife down. She had been waiting for their reaction to that. Why she hadn't told them already, she wasn't sure – she knew she had made it worse for herself, but she had just been nervous. "I guess it slipped my mind," she said.

"And for fighting with some girl over that Brick boy? What are we, trailer trash?"

Justine briefly considered making a comment about the gaping hole in the living room wall, along with the tarp-covered window, but decided she did not feel like digging herself a bigger hole.

"Sorry, mom."

"I'm sorry too. But I don't think sorry is enough. We're grounding you – Mr. Barkin said your grades were beginning to slip, too. You need to focus less on this robot nonsense and your boyfriend, and more on your future, Justine."

"What? My future? I'm published in physics journals and you're worried about my future?"

Leona looked taken aback by Justine's tone. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but you've been scaring me with these changes lately. There's nothing more to talk about. And you're not going to that Robot Rumble contest, either."

"Come on! Dad?"

Ted Flanner shook his head. "I agree with your mother, Justine. We have to put out feet down on this one."

Her parents left the room, presumably to go to sleep, and Justine remained at the table. She sat still for several moments before she got up to throw her TV dinner away and put the silverware in the dishwasher. She considered calling her boyfriend, but it was late, and her parents would probably get even angrier if they heard her talking to him now. They hadn't explicitly told her to stop working on the robot, but she knew she couldn't do that either without incurring their anger. So much for a nice dinner break.