Hello, all! Happy Holidays! Hope your holiday season has been great and joyful! I think we're all ready for this trash heap of a year to end, but hey, I got a new job! I have health insurance! So that's kinda cool! Only a few more chapters to go until the movie, and I personally am really excited about that, mostly because the Adam/Jamie confession won't be too far behind it.
Thank you to FallenArcana, Pink Ranger 13, Disneyfan 10, brankel1, and katdovesofia for your lovely comments on the last chapter. Here we go!
"Alright, class," Mrs. Applebee started. "The assignment was to bring in a childhood photo and to share with us your most memorable experience at that age. Who'd like to begin?"
Jamie smiled and raised her hand; the photo she'd chosen was when she was eight and had just gotten her first dog, a golden retriever named Zuko. The dog had sadly died just last year, but she had a lot of memories with him. She and Aiden were now currently in the process of begging their mom to let them get another dog.
"Aisha?"
Aisha smiled and stood up, picking up her photo as she went.
"This is me after my first dance recital," she said. "This is so special because my grandmother, who was sick, was able to come and I made her real proud." Aisha was grinning proudly.
"You look so cute," Kimberly said.
"Yeah, your outfit in that photo is so cute!" Jamie agreed.
Mrs. Applebee smiled. "Jamie, you want to go next?"
"Yeah!" Jamie exclaimed, picking up her own photo and passing Aisha as the Yellow Ranger sat down. She held up the photo, which was of her and Aiden, Zuko when he was a puppy in Jamie's lap.
"This picture is of my little brother Aiden and I when we got our first puppy, Zuko," Jamie said. "It's really special to me because our parents only got us the dog because we promised to take care of him; he was our dog. We walked him, we fed him, and even though he sadly passed last year, we got to learn a lot of really important lessons on how to take care of something like that, but we also had a best friend. Plus he slept on my bed with me, so I was never cold at night."
"Oh, I remember Zuko," Kimberly said, a fond smile on her lips. "Every time I came over to your house, he would bound up to me and greet me. He was a good dog."
"He was the best dog," Jamie agreed with a smile.
"Kimberly, would you like to go next?" Mrs. Applebee asked as Jamie sat back down.
"Oh…" Kimberly trailed off, eyes wide. "Sure! Okay. This is me in my first gymnastics competition. I was kinda bummed, though, because I lost, but you know what? It taught me to be a good sport! And that has helped me a lot."
"Very nice, Kimberly," Mrs. Applebee praised. "You may sit down, now."
Kimberly, smiling, sat down.
"Tommy? You're next."
Tommy stood, made it to the front of the classroom, and turned around his photograph.
"You look so proud of yourself, Tommy," Mrs. Applebee noted.
"Yeah, this is important to me. This shot is of when I learned about dedication and hard work." He smiled proudly.
"Aw, how cute," Aisha cooed.
Next up went Billy, who held up a photo of his younger self working on building a robot of some sort.
"I learned about determination, here," he said, and then he grinned sheepishly. "It took me four hours to get my mom's vacuum cleaner put back together."
"Bet she wasn't too happy," Kimberly said with a smile.
"I was there," Jamie said, "She wasn't." everyone laughed at that.
Next up went Rocky, who also had a photo with a dog. His appeared to have been a German Shepard, bigger than Zuko.
"This is my dog, Buster," the Red Ranger said. "I learned about responsibility here; Jamie, I bet Buster and Zuko would have gotten along great!"
"Yeah, Zuko loved other dogs," Jamie agreed.
Adam was next; his photo showed him working on a car with his dad.
"I like this picture because it shows my dad and me doing stuff together; he loves to work on cars."
Adam was grinning largely at the memory, matching his grin in the photo. Jamie just had to grin, too; he was adorable.
Up next went Bulk and Skull, who's photo was of the two of them together. However, Skull went on and on and on, taking up most of the class time they had left.
"That's when I discovered that Bulk and I were meant to be life-long pals!" He jostled Bulk as he said it, and the bigger bully looked very uncomfortable. Jamie hid a giggle behind her hand, sharing a look with Kimberly next to her.
"No," Bulk said, "No. That's when you stuck a grape popsicle down my back and I decided not to clobber you."
"Exactly my point," Skull said, as everyone laughed.
The two sat down as the class clapped, and the next student went up. She spoke of her experience learning how to ride a horse named Blu.
"Excellent job, everyone," Mrs. Applebee said once the last student sat down. "It was so interesting to hear you talk about the events that helped to make you who you are, today." Suddenly, Billy raised his hand; Jamie couldn't see his face, but based on the expression on Adam's, it couldn't have been good. "Yes, Billy?"
"Uh, Mrs. Applebee? That clock seems to be acting rather oddly," the Blue Ranger said.
With their attention now pulled to the clock, everyone noticed how it was spinning backwards, at a really fast rate.
"Oh my goodness, that is rather odd, isn't it," Mrs. Applebee stated. "What should we do?"
"It's like the clock is having a heart attack," Jamie said, leaning back in her seat.
"Yeah, wonder what happened to it," Kimberly agreed.
Glancing over at her friend, Jamie raised her eyebrows, a silent question passing through their gaze. Kimberly looked just as confused as she was, but the question still stood; was this because of something Lord Zedd was doing?
"Hey…" Billy started to say, only to trail off when a bright light surrounded each student. Suddenly, where twenty 16-year-old teenagers had just been sitting, were twenty 11-year-old kids. Even Mrs. Applebee was younger, and none of them noticed it.
"All right, class, who can divide 30 into 900?" the teacher asked, clasping her hands in front of her as she waited. "Kimberly, would you like to come up and show the class?"
"Yes, Mrs. Applebee," Kimberly said, the young girl standing up to go to the board. Writing the equation on the board, Kimberly turned to face the class. "30 goes into 90 three times; 30 times 3 is 90. 90 minus 90 is zero; bring down the zero, and 30 goes into zero zero times. So, the answer is 30." She underlined the 30 in the equation
"Very good, Kimberly," Mrs. Applebee praised, "I can tell you've been studying very hard."
Kimberly smiled wide as she went back to her seat.
"Teacher's pet," Bulk muttered with a roll of his eyes. Skull added to it with kissing noises.
"Grow up, Skull," Aisha defended.
Kimberly sat back down, her foot accidentally popping a balloon the bullies had originally put onto her chair for her to sit on. Shaving cream ended up all over the two bullies, to which everyone laughed.
"Skull, you were supposed to put it on her chair," Bulk complained. "Not under it, you dimwit!"
Narrowing her eyes, Mrs. Applebee stalked to the back of the classroom. "Would someone like to tell me who is responsible for this?!" she demanded. While normally a very sweet teacher, Mrs. Applebee didn't tolerate tomfoolery like this, nor did she tolerate bullying.
Jamie raised her hand shyly.
"Jamie?" Mrs. Applebee prompted.
"Bulk and Skull put a slime balloon under Kimberly's chair," she said.
"Yeah, but it backfired," Bulk admitted, looking down.
"I think I've heard enough," Mrs. Applebee grabbed the two's ears, "You two can spend the rest of the day in Mr. Kaplan's office."
"No fair!" Skull complained.
"Yeah, it was Kimberly's fault!" Bulk added.
"Now, boys!" Mrs. Applebee shoved them forward, and the two foam covered boys exited the classroom. The bell rang, then. "Class dismissed." Everyone began to stand up, excited to leave for the day. "But remember to study for your spelling test tomorrow!"
As students left the classroom, seven stayed behind.
"Are you alright?" Billy asked Kimberly; he too had been the focus of the bully duo that had tried to get Kimberly.
"Yeah," Kimberly answered. "My new outfit, it's ruined." Some of the foam had gotten onto her sparkly pink dress.
Aisha smiled and handed the girl in pink a wet wipe. "Don't worry," she said, "I never leave home without one."
"And my mom's great at getting stains out if it needs a little more help," Jamie offered.
Kimberly smiled at the two girls, quickly using the wipe to get the foam off her dress.
"Come on, guys, let's go to the park," Tommy said. The others agreed, and so to the park they went.
Once they got to the park, the friends seemed to separate into two groups, the boys and the girls, although they stayed pretty close together.
"Hey Kim, Jay, check this out," Aisha said before beginning to jump up and down in a dance of her own making.
"Cool," Kimberly said. "Jamie, you wanna try?"
"I'm not really good at dancing," the girl said, wringing her hands in front of her. The sun shone off the silver sparkles in her gray shirt.
"You can do it, Jay," Aisha encouraged, "I'll show you!" the girl in yellow began to dance again, Kimberly joining in. Soon enough, Jamie joined in too, and the three girls were soon laughing as they danced together.
However, it got interrupted when Bulk and Skull appeared, scaring a couple who was walking through the park taking pictures.
"Those two really gross me out," Kimberly said.
"Tell me about it," Aisha agreed.
"Why can't they just leave people alone?" Jamie asked, crossing her arms.
She got her answer just as Bulk and Skull stole the kite Billy and Adam had been flying, quickly getting tangled up in the string as they tried to figure out how to fly it.
"Hey Skull," Kimberly said, "How 'bout a little kiss?" she grinned, knowing about the crush that Skull had on her.
"Skull, she's got cooties!" Bulk warned.
"I like cooties!" Skull answered.
"Come get me!" Kimberly exclaimed.
Taking the challenge, Skull tried to run forward. Unfortunately, he forgot he was tangled up in string with Bulk, and the two ended up on the ground.
"Serves you right," Aisha laughed.
"That's what you get for being a bully," Jamie added.
"What's going on?" Rocky asked as he and Tommy joined them. The boys in red and white both really liked martial arts, and so had been practicing together.
"Bulk and Skull were just learning how to fly a kite," Adam grinned.
The friends all laughed, and Jamie caught Adam's eye. His grin seemed to widen at the sight of her laughing and smiling, which made a blush cover her cheeks.
Jamie was only 11 years old, and gosh darn it if she didn't have her first crush.
…
After finding a ball, the children began to play; there were really no rules to the game, the only object being to get the ball and try to hit another kid with it. None of them threw it hard, not wanting to injure anyone, and when Jamie got a hold of it, she was quick to toss it at Kimberly.
They all laughed and played, an just as Rocky through the ball at Tommy, something gray and tall caught it instead. A bunch of them appeared.
"Woah, who are those guys?" Aisha asked.
"What are they?" Jamie asked.
"And where in the world did they come from?" Kimberly finished.
"A… a… a… another planet?" Rocky asked.
"Everybody stick together!" Tommy exclaimed as the gray things converged on them.
The seven friends tried to stay together as the gray things circled them, Adam clutching the ball; the one that had grabbed it initially had dropped it.
"Where did they come from?" Rocky asked, looking around at them wildly.
"What do you think they are?" Tommy asked, ponytail flailing as he turned his head.
"Maybe we should ask them if they're lost, or something," Billy suggested.
"You know, my mother told me never to talk to strangers," Kimberly said.
"They look pretty strange to me," Jamie said, her eyes not leaving the gray creatures that surrounded them.
"What do they want?" Aisha asked.
"You guys want to play?" Adam asked, offering one of them the ball.
When it hit the ball in an attempt to make Adam drop it, the boy in black quickly backed off, and threw it. The gray thing in front of him dodged it, but it hit the head of the one behind it, and that one fell to the ground.
Taking the attack as it was, the gray creatures began to charge at them, chasing the kids away from each other.
"Hey, leave me alone!" Jamie exclaimed as one chased her. "Hey wait a second!" turning around, Jamie used her best soccer kick, sending the creature to the ground. But it was only when Tommy chucked the ball at one of them, that they discovered that hitting the Z in the middle of their chests made them disappear.
"Hey, cool!" Tommy exclaimed. "Everybody! Hit the Z! Aim for the Z!"
With a grin, Jamie ran for the ball, and managed to kick it into the chest of one of the creatures. It hit the Z, and the creature disintegrated. All of them got one, even Bulk, and once they were all gone, the children collapsed onto the grass, exhausted.
"Hey, great game, guys!" Rocky exclaimed, ever the optimist. The children on the ground all groaned tiredly.
Rocky and Tommy both grinned, the only two to not be completely exhausted after that.
"Let's just promise to never tell our parents about this," Jamie said; her mother would kill her if she found out Jamie had gotten into a fight.
The other children all agreed.
Once they were able to get up, the seven friends headed for the entrance to the park, with Bulk and Skull sneaking around behind them.
Stopping, Tommy turned. "Hey guys, we know you're there," the boy in white said. "If you're scared, why don't you just say so?"
"Who you calling a scaredy cat?!" Bulk demanded, standing up. He and Skull were hiding in a large bush.
"Yeah, we're protecting you!" Skull exclaimed.
Adam shook his head. "Right," he said.
"Smile for the camera!"
"Camera?" Kimberly asked, "Where?" she turned, and found a monster behind them, it's head reminiscent of a camera.
"Hold still everyone!" the monster exclaimed.
"I don't think this is like having our class picture done," Aisha said.
"Now, say cheese!"
"Wait a minute," Billy said, his young brain working a mile a minute.
"Big smile for the picture you'll remember for a lifetime!" a bean of colored light came from the eye on his chest, hitting the seven children.
"Or should I say, remember a lifetime remembered as a picture!" the monster laughed, as a picture fell on the ground. It was of the seven children, and they were stuck. "Now that's still-life photography!"