I know, I know, I haven't posted in a while, I'm so sorry! It took me awhile to gather some inspiration. But yea, rest assured the story is NOT dead, regardless of what Mr. Wier says. (I LOVE riding the Mr. Wier's death-obsession train…it is so much freakin' fun!)

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine except bad tuna, which I certainly don't want, and will therefore immediately give away to some alley cats, leaving me with nothing but plot-holes again. Oh well.

~*~

Ch.-4--Freakin' and Leapin'

"Oh my God, Nick! Nick, are you all right?" Lindsey dropped to the ground beside her unconscious boyfriend as the rest of the freaks uncharacteristically leaped off the bleachers en suit (freaks don't leap, sure they may jump up and down a bit, but that's only if really loud music is playing the background or their shoes are on fire.)

"Wo, Linds, what happened?"

"Yea, why is Nick lying on the ground looking like shit?"

"I don't know! He just passed out…"

"What did you say to him anyway? Did you dump him or something?"

"HELLO! There's a half-dead guy sprawled on the ground! Can't you do something productive and go get help instead of asking me stupid, pointless questions?" She was starting to get hysterical with panic.

"Jesus you don't have to be a bitch about it, we're going, we're going…wait, where are we supposed to go?"

"The nurse dumbass."

"Shut up Kim."

"Err-oo, eRoo (::siren noises::), calling emergency medical backup, rescue mission is underway…"

"Not funny Ken, we need the…oh, um, hi, Mr. Rosso!"

"Hi kids…one of you want to tell me what's going on here?"

"Er, nothing! Nick just had some bad tuna at lunch…"

"Bad tuna or bad dope?" The guidance counselor sighed and shook his head, "when will you kids learn?"

The freaks glanced around the circle encasing the senseless Nick, crap crap crap crap CRAP.

Ten minutes later Lindsey was slumped in an uncomfortable brown chair outside the principal's office, staring miserably at a poster that read, "all learning is dangerous, do you dare?" in big, bold letters. Learning? Dangerous? As opposed to peer pressure, drugs, sex, malicious gossip, wild parties--general high-school life? These people needed to put things in perspective. Sure, logarithms and correct punctuation was scary, but it was hardly in the same league as alcoholic acid-addicts having anonymous sex, or, in Lindsey's case, awaiting a meeting with the high school dean.

The rest of the freaks were also scattered about the comfortless furniture gazing at the cheerless décor, well, all the freaks exempting Nick. Rosso-the-Bosso hadn't bought the "bad tuna" lie (although given the cafeteria's notorious reputation, the idea was not entirely out of the realm of possibility), promptly assuming that Nick had overdosed on some contraband narcotics, and insisted on calling 911. Lindsey had tried to explain that Nick really didn't need his stomach pumped; and indeed, by the time the ambulance arrived with blazing sirens, and loaded the still-inanimate-Nick onto a stretcher, he had begun to regain consciousness, and was seriously confused to wake up on a portable cot surrounded by the entire curious student body. On-lookers were gawking and whispering like gerbils--thrilled at the idea of getting out of class to watch a real-live scandal unfold. The principal was squawking orders, certain that the whole thing could only mean one thing; bad publicity and loudmouth concerned parents. The ambulance personals were scratching their heads in confusion; never had a patient recovered before they arrived at the hospital. In the end they carried him anyway, even though he insisted, repeatedly, he was perfectly fine (if a bit dazed). Daniel was grinning and riding the attention train, Lindsey overheard him crow to a bunch of sacred-looking-freshman that, "I was there when he passed out, man, it was totally wild!" Kim wasn't much help with clearing up the miscommunication, as she was rolling around on the floor in stitches, slinging her arms around Ken's neck to keep from falling down. Ken, per usual, looked bored.

Linsdey covered her face in her hands before teachers hollered to their students "to get back to class, there was nothing to see," and the ambulance scurried off, and the principal tried to recover from a near-heart-attack-experience, and Mr. Rosso wagged his finger in the freaks' faces and pointed down the long hall to the dreaded office of doom, where phone calls to parents would be made, and punishment-sentences would be extended unto eternity.

~

"Oh my god, Linsdey, are you all right?" Were the first words out of Jean's mouth, the second being, "are you high?"

"Mom! No!" Mothers--ever the source of humiliation and suspicion.

Harold started to grumble, "I got a call from the principal while I was at work, I was talking to an important customer who buys out our entire stock every year! I had to stop serving him some of the good brandy to pick up the phone! Do you know what would have happened if we lost his business and he went to those dirtbags competitors of ours, with their stupid slogan, 'we'll suSPORT you!'? We wouldn't have anything to eat! And then we'd DIE!"

"I saw the ambulance leaving, and I was so worried…" Kim's mother piped up, magically producing the façade of being the epitome of a nice, concerned mother.

Kim rolled her eyes and muttered, "yea, right."

"Hey why isn't my mum here?"

"We couldn't reach her Daniel, but rest assured, your parents WILL be notified of the situation."

Daniel grinned, knowing that his parents would hardly care. They were completely oblivious to anything in his life; they still thought he was in middle school and liked PB&J sandwiches and golf (he went through a brief golf-phase in the seventh grade…although he has completely blocked the traumatic memory out of his head, so let's just not mention it to him, shall we? Excellent).

"What exactly is the situation here?" Harold grunted, "if someone doesn't tell me what's going on soon, I'm going to DIE!"

"DIE? Die? Who's died?"

"No one's died Mrs. Miller!"

"Except whatever sanity the world had left," Lindsey sighed.

~

Cindy sniffled and peeked outside the bathroom door; good, the coast was clear. The hallways were unusually silent, even when class was in session there was always a few kids lurking about, trying to take as long as possible "to get a drink of water." But she didn't question the abnormality of it all; she was just relieved she'd be able to get to Spanish class unnoticed.

In fact, for the rest of the week the Sam-Cindy incident had died down to virtual non-existence, and the Nick-incidence reigned supreme. All anyone could talk about was the "OD," even though the only thing Nick had overdosed on was shock. Regardless, everyone, including the administration, were convinced that some "freaked-out junkie" had swallowed a bit too much of his medicine.

Linsdey's parents weren't thrilled with the situation, but were relieved that she hadn't smoked, snorted, swallowed, or otherwise injected anything illegal and dangerous into her system. They refused however, to believe that her friend had just had some rotten fish, and insisted that she never see him again, which was of course completely illogical, something they failed to recognize.

"No, no, no, NEVER!"

"But dad, Nick didn't even do anything! He just passed out!"

"NO! Now be quiet and eat your meatballs."

"I don't even like meatballs…" she grumbled, as Sam deftly swept them onto his plate.

"Harold…are you sure--"

"YES! For the love of god woman, we need some discipline in this house! First Lindsey spends the night with that, that boy (he said the word as if it was disgusting to be a member of the male gender), and then our youngest son gets drunk with that girl, and then this guy passed out at school! I'm noticing a trend here, both our children have been running amok, out all night doing god-knows-what with god-knows-who, before we know it they'll end up DEAD!"

With the pronunciation of the word 'dead' Mr. Wier's fist slammed down onto the table, causing a lone meatball that was perched precariously over the edge of the table to topple over and fall through the wide expanse of space onto the kitchen tiles. A long-buried childhood song arose from its slumber and played in Linsdey's mind; "on top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed. It rolled off the table, and onto the floor, and then my poor meatball, rolled out of the door…" and Lindsey knew, in that instant, she would have given anything to be an escaping meatball.

~

The freaks were hardly freaked out with the situation; their parents grumbled and toted them home, and the principal couldn't technically give them detention since they hadn't done anything wrong, and if anything they found the whole situation hilarious.

Nick actually enjoyed all the fuss about him, as he got to miss school for two days and eat free ice cream and red Jell-O. His father, upon reassurance from many doctors that no, there were no drugs involved, though Nick did seem to have an unusually large thyroid gland, didn't even get that mad. The initial reaction that is pure fear upon hearing that your child is in the hospital took awhile to wear off, and Nick looked forward to the blissful prospect of minimal nagging about going to college or joining the army. That is, however, until he realized what had prompted his fainting in the first place.

"So you're really pregnant?" Nick asked soulfully when Lindsey came to visit (her parents thought she was still in her room writing an essay on Mozart.)

"Yea…but how are you feeling?"

"Pretty good. I like ice cream, even if it is a bit plain."

"I figured," she grinned, "I brought you sprinkles," and tossed the multi-colored specks of artificial flavoring on his bed, "cheers."

"Aww, Linds, thanks!"

"No prob."

"So, like, what are we gonna do, about, you know?"

Lindsey sighed wearily, "that's the thing…I don't suppose you have six hundred dollars?"

~*~

I know this chapter was a bit weird, it was pretty short, we didn't see too much of the geeks, and the whole scene was rather over-dramatic, but then again, such is writer's inspiration. It's so very fickle. Anyhow, the next ch. will be chalk-full of our favorite D&D-playing trio, so stay tuned. More later :)