Title: Must Get Out
Rating: PG-13 for language and themes
Characters: Ellie, Spinner, Paige, Ashley, Marco…(pretty much everyone, eventually)
Pairings: Spinner/Ellie, Manny/JT, not sure about any other pairings
Summary: Slight AU. She thinks he's an immature, self-centered pig. He thinks she's a weirdo, gothic freak. What happens when they start to care? Ellie/Spinner shipper fic.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. Don't sue.
A/N: I really shouldn't be working on this. I should be reading 'The Time Machine' and getting my IRP done. But this is way more fun to work on than working on a stupid English project. However, I thought I had this whole story planned out from beginning to end, but I just realized that I really don't. Writer's block should be hitting around chapter 7 or 8, so I apologize ahead of time. Anywho, enjoy the chapter.
[ Ashley, 10-17-03 ]
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Chapter 5: Bygones Have All Gone By
By the time Ellie had arrived at school, the late bell had already rung. She cursed her luck as she made her way to Room 237 for the last class of the day, English.
'Perhaps if I explain to the teacher why I'm late they'll excuse it,' Ellie thought sarcastically to herself as she trudged up the stairs. 'Yeah, I can see it now. 'Oh, hi. Sorry I'm late. I decided to skip third period and go to the mall. Traffic was horrible on the way back. Hope you don't mind.' That'll go well.'
Ellie decided to try her luck and sneak in the back door as quietly as possible, hoping the teacher wouldn't notice. She opened the back door and tiptoed in the classroom. However, she found her attempts to sneak in were in vain, as there was no teacher around to scold her for being tardy.
Her classmates were scattered all over the room, some talking and laughing with their friends, some listening to music, and some throwing paper airplanes at unsuspecting victims. The scene was unreal, looking like it had come right out of a teen movie.
'What the hell?' Ellie thought, taking in her surroundings. She was about to make sure she was in the right room, when she heard someone calling her name. That someone being Ashley Kerwin. Ellie slowly walked over to her friend, barely dodging a paper ball that was targeting her.
"Hey Elle," Ashley said, putting her disc man away.
"Um, hey Ash," Ellie said, wondering if she was delirious. "What's going on?"
"Oh, when we got here the teacher rushed to the bathroom, saying she'd be back in a minute," she shrugged and looked up at the clock hanging on the wall. "It's been at least 15 minutes. I wonder what's wrong?"
"She forgot to take her diarrhea pills, that's what's wrong!" some immature fellow who had overheard them yelled out. Ashley and Ellie both rolled their eyes simultaneously.
"Idiot," Ellie mumbled under her breath. "Well, whatever plague she does have, I'm glad she has it. I thought maybe I'd be 3, at the most 5 minutes late. But 15 minutes? Two of my teachers already hate me, I don't think I need another one wishing death to fall upon me."
"So why were you late?" Ashley asked in a teasing tone. "Get stuck in the janitor's closet again?" Ellie groaned as she brought up one of her not so fond memories.
It was the first day of Grade 9, and Ellie's first day at Degrassi. It was bad enough being at a brand new school where she knew no one, but this brand new school just happened to be huge and Ellie had no clue where she was going. After circling the school many times in search for Room 340, Ellie decided it would just be best to go to the office and ask for a map or something. However, the door Ellie thought was the door to the office turned out to be the door to the janitor's closet. Ellie remembered watching in horror as the door shut and the lock clicked. It was 20 minutes before someone had found her. And although Ellie was thankful that Ashley had finally gotten her out of that god-forsaken closet, she wished she would forget it ever happened and quit reminding her every time she got.
"Fortunately no," Ellie mumbled under her breath. "I skipped third period and went to the mall."
"The mall?" Ashley asked, raising her eyebrow.
"Hey, it wasn't my idea. I was blackmailed into it," she defended herself, "by none other then Spinner Mason."
"Oh really? How so?" Ashley laughed.
"It's not funny! Something was wrong with my car and it wouldn't start, so he said he'd fix it if I drove him to the mall."
"So you drove Spinner to the mall because he fixed your car?" Ashley asked disbelievingly, raising her brow once again. "Fifty bucks to have it looked at by a professional is a small price to pay compared to a ten minute drive with Spinner in the seat next to you."
"Well, I would rather that than catch a ride with Cory the Headgear Kid," Ellie said, recalling Spinner's words of consolation. Ashley laughed.
"Why did he have to go to the mall anyway?"
"He had to get a present for Paige," Ellie said with an irritated sigh.
"Figures."
"Oh, and did you know that him and Paige aren't even going out?"
"Yeah," Ashley said with a nod. "Didn't you?"
"No!" Ellie exclaimed.
"God Ellie, like get with the like program," Ashley said mimicking an airhead by twirling the ends of her shoulder length hair. Ellie laughed.
"Sorry, next time I'll try to keep up with the Spinner-Paige gossip," Ellie said, rolling her eyes. Ashley laughed.
Just then, the door burst open and a middle-aged plump woman stumbled in. She had short, curly red hair, with the occasional streak of white. Large glasses with lenses that looked like magnifying glasses covered her eyes and the bags under them. Her blue eye makeup clashed horribly with her bright pink lipstick, making her look quite odd, as if she put her makeup on in the dark. She was wearing red pants and a turtleneck with Christmas trees all over it.
'That's funny, I thought it was September, not December,' Ellie thought, trying to suppress her laughter. She looked over to Ashley so they could share a 'look', but Ashley was sitting there gaping, eyes wide and mouth hanging. Ellie wasn't sure which was funnier, the teacher or Ashley's reaction.
The teacher, seemingly trying to catch her breath, started fanning herself with the stack of papers she was holding. Then, she started taking deep breaths, inhaling through the mouth, exhaling through the nose. And just when Ellie thought things couldn't get any weirder, the woman grabbed a brown paper bag out of her large, polka dotted purse, emptied the food from it, put it up to her lips, and started breathing through it, the bag making a crunch sound every time she inhaled.
The whole class stopped what they were doing and looked at the teacher. She took one last breath through the bag and refilled it with its previous contents. She picked up her bag and the stack of papers she was fanning herself with just second ago, and walked to the desk in the front of the room. She emptied the load in her arms and looked satisfied.
"Ah, that's much better," she said in an annoyingly cheerful voice, and a hint of a British accent. It was then that she noticed that she had about 25 pairs of eyes watching her every move. "Oh, dear me. I'm so very sorry for being late. After I finished up at the lavatory, I got lost on my way back here. This is my first time having a room on the second floor, so I got a bit confused as to where everything was. Although, my husband says I'm too distracted all the time, that's why I'm always getting lost. It's rubbish though, I never listen to a word of it. He's a bit off his rocker himself, if you know what I mean." She let out a hearty laugh.
"Is this really happening?" Ellie heard some kid murmur from behind her.
'Insert Twilight Zone music,' Ellie thought with an amused smirk.
"Well, let me introduce myself. My name is Mrs. Powanowski, but you may call me Mrs. P. And I know you kids are into all that hip lingo, believe me, so am I. But I do request that you don't call me Master P or P-Dawgg. In the classroom, I prefer Mrs. P. Is that okay with everyone?" she asked, looking around for somewhat of an answer. However, the room stayed silent, not a word was spoken. But this didn't faze the woman as she looked pleased enough. She clapped her hands together.
"Great! Now that you know my name, I would love to know yours. So I think it's time to take attendance and tell you where your seat will be," she said happily. All of a sudden, her eyes lit up like Christmas lights.
'Well, at least something matches her shirt now,' Ellie thought with an inward snicker.
"I think I can do both at the same time! Yes, I can tell you where your seat is, and I'll know if you're here or not. Oh, this is wonderful!" she said with a huge smile. She grabbed what looked like the seating chart out of her bag. "Let's see now, Ms. Sandra Abraham. Oh what a lovely name! I used to have a pussycat named Sandra, though we called her Sandy for short. She was so precious…"
Ellie decided that right then would be a good time to tune the crazy woman out, as she babbled on about how 'Sandy' got caught in a tree and they had to call the fire department.
It was approximately 45 minutes later until Ellie's name was finally called. Ellie prayed to anyone who might be listening to her thoughts for Mrs. P to refrain from making any comments about her name.
"Ms. Ellie Nash, you will be sitting right here," she said, pointing to a desk seated directly in the front of the room. Ellie inwardly groaned, but sat down anyway. "Ellie? Oh my, what a unique name! Is that short for anything, dear?"
"Eleanor," she grumbled, wishing the floor would swallow her up before she had to endure any of the crazy woman's ramblings about nothing.
"Oh of course! Eleanor! Hey, did you know that Franklin D. Roosevelt was Eleanor Roosevelt's fifth cousin, once removed?" she asked, not giving Ellie enough time to even contemplate an answer. "Just a fun little fact. Next to Eleanor, Mr. Jonathan Neverland. Oh my goodness, Peter Pan has got to be my all time favorite…"
Ellie sighed with relief. Compared to poor Jonathan Neverland, she got off easy. She could deal with being called Eleanor for the rest of the year, but being reminded of Peter Pan and lost boys every time you draw attention to yourself? Talk about bad luck…
It took Mrs. P another 30 minutes to finally get to Ms. Penelope Zuela. Ellie supposed she must've got caught up in how Jessica Randall had almost the same name as her late great aunt. Although Ellie wasn't sure how alike Jessica Randall and Janet Roslow were.
"…and that's how me and my husband got out of Venezuela, and back home. Oh, that was quite an adventure. Well, now that I know who's here, I want to know a little more about you. So, I'm going to hand out this personality quiz-," Mrs. P started but was cut off by the bell. Ellie and the rest of her confused classmates promptly started packing up their stuff and rushing out the door. Ellie threw her bag over her shoulder and headed over to Ashley, who was packing up her books that she hadn't touched once.
"I think I just might be speechless," Ashley said, taking one last look at Mrs. P before she and Ellie walked out of the classroom.
"That woman is so…" Ellie started, searching for the right word, "eccentric?"
"Oh no, eccentric doesn't even begin to describe her," Ashley laughed, but both Ellie and Ashley knew it was true. When they reached the first floor, the girls went their separate ways.
"Well, I'm off to meet Craig," Ashley told Ellie. "I'll call you tonight, okay?"
"Yeah, bye," Ellie waved, and headed off to the lobby. When she finally reached the lobby, she groaned. There was Lain, standing with Manny, going on and on about something Ellie thought was probably scaring her. Ellie rushed over to the pair and pushed Lain out of the way. She gave Manny a nervous smile.
"Hey Manny! Listen, you'll have to excuse Lain. She isn't so right in the head. She's fallen down many flights of stairs," Ellie said quickly. Manny laughed.
"Oh don't worry, she didn't say anything crazy. She told me you would probably say something like that," Manny explained. "She was just asking about my brother's party."
"Oh, sorry," Ellie said, though not feeling very apologetic. She looked towards Lain, "I thought you were explaining 50 great uses of whiteout or something to her."
"Oh ye of little faith," Lain said with a sigh. "Although, the origins of whiteout are quite interesting. The woman that invented it was the mother of Michael Nesmith from the Mokees." Ellie raised her eyebrow, while Manny gaped at her. Lain just smiled at both of them.
"Anyway," Ellie cleared her throat, "let's go, shall we?"
"We most definitely shall," Lain said excitedly, leading the way to the back door. Ellie rolled her eyes, but followed anyways with Manny right behind her.
"Oh, shotgun!" Lain exclaimed when the trio reached the car.
"Come on, isn't there like a first ride freebie sort of thing?" Manny complained, but her voice was laced with amusement.
"Nope, sorry," Lain said as she opened the door and pushed the passenger seat forward so Manny could get in. "We play by the rules around here." And as soon as Lain shut the door, Ellie stepped on the gas and was out of the parking lot.
"So Manny, where do you live?" Ellie asked, realizing she had no clue where she was going.
"Oh, 8279 Borned Court," Manny told her. Ellie's eyes lit up.
"Do you live near Jacob Denner?"
"Well, I used to," Manny sighed dramatically. "Unfortunately, he left for college a week ago. I am so going to miss watching him undress from his bedroom window."
"Whoa, we got a perv in the car!" Lain exclaimed, throwing her hands up. "So, did you take any pictures?"
"No, I should have though," Manny said with a laugh. "So Ellie, you knew Jacob?"
"Well, kind of. I saw his band at a party I was dragged to by a certain someone," she said, noticeably turning her eyes towards Lain. "I didn't know him technically, but I did-"
"She didn't know him at all," Lain cut her off. "She did, however, stalk him." Ellie glared at her.
"I did not stalk him," Ellie defended, "I simply admired from afar. And the only reason I know where he lives is because I was forced into going to another party at his house by the same certain someone."
"Hey, you have me to thank for knowing the object of your obsession exists," Lain said. Ellie, not being able to come up with anything witty, settled for mumbling incoherent obscenities under her breath.
"It's the blue one," Manny told Ellie as she pulled into Borned Court. "Thanks for the ride Ellie, and nice meeting you Lain."
"It's nothing," Ellie replied as Manny stepped out of the car. "Oh hey, do you need a ride in the morning?"
"No, my mom drops me off at school before she goes to work. Thanks for the offer though," she waved at the two girls in the car. "Bye!"
"I'll see you in the lobby tomorrow after school," Ellie called out the window before backing out of the driveway.
"So, anything interesting happen to you today?" Lain asked while amusing herself by rolling the window up and down.
"Well, I suppose the most interesting thing that's happened today was me taking Spinner to the mall," Ellie started and told the whole story as Lain listened intently.
"And then what happened?" Lain questioned as Ellie reached the end of her story.
"I told you, he left with Paige," Ellie said with a sigh.
"So you guys didn't make out?" And as soon as the question escaped Lain's lips, Ellie stepped on the break hard, making both her and Lain thrust forward, their seatbelts preventing them from being sent through the windshield. Luckily for the two teenagers, they were at a stop sign and no cars were behind them.
"What?" Ellie asked, looking at Lain as though she'd grown two more heads.
"Well, it's obvious that you two are madly in love. I was just wondering if you automatically went straight for his pants," Lain shrugged. "But good idea. Wait a little while before you tour his body. You don't want him thinking your in this only for the sex. Wait, are you?"
"Okay, you've said a lot of idiotic things in the past, but this takes the cake," Ellie said, shaking her head. "You actually think I like Spinner? Spinner Mason?"
"Oh, it's obvious," Lain said in a tone of voice that made Ellie want to push her out of the car. "But it's okay if you're in denial right now. There's a word for a situation like this."
"Oh really? And what's that?" Ellie asked with a snort, becoming amused.
"I don't know," replied Lain who, after loosing interest in the window, was currently locking and unlocking the door. "But there's definitely a word for it."
"Unbelievable," Ellie muttered, shaking her head disbelievingly. If Lain heard Ellie's comment, she made no effort to reply and continued locking and unlocking the door. For a moment, Ellie relished the silence, but was only able to do so for no more than ten seconds.
"Oh my God!" Lain exclaimed, making Ellie jumped. "I think I was adopted and I just met my surrogate mother today!"
"You are not adopted," Ellie said flatly. "The first time you brought me over your house, your mother seemed inclined to show me all of your family photos, including those of you being born."
"They must've been fake," Lain said, waving the comment off. "Today, I met my personality twin. I swear we are so alike, it's uncanny. She was so nice, and she even complimented my name! She even had a cousin named Elaine who won the Junior Miss Pie Eating Contest!"
'You've got to be kidding me.'
"Let me guess," Ellie said slowly, closing her eyes, "Mrs. P?"
"Hey, how'd you know?"
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Man, that took forever. I must apologize for the delay, me and my best friend have been having rocky times, so you'll have to excuse that. Oh, and before everyone is all 'Hey, why is Ellie friends with that slut Manny?', remember that this is AU. In this crazy fic, Manny never became the hoochie mama she is now. She's still the old Manny we all know and, well…like better than the other one. So keep in mind that Manny:
-never came to school with her, as Liberty would say, underpants showing
-never slept with Craig…or half the population of Degrassi (just kidding! sorry Manny fans, I couldn't resist)
-and to completely rid herself of all hoochieness, I took her off the Spirit Squad and on the Volleyball Team. Why the Volleyball Team, you ask? Well, I am a little bias there ^-^
Thank you Reviewers:
Solus Nemo: You have no idea how much your review meant to me. Thank you so much ^-^ And I too have only thought of a few things they haven't down yet. One of them being a sex change O_o Personally, I vote Craig. See how much the Craig fanatics like him after that! Muahahah….ahem…
InFaTuAtEd*cHiK: Thank you for your kind words. I'm glad you're enjoying the story. Thanks for reviewing!
Chocl8chps: Aww, I love you too! LOL! Sorry, there wasn't any Manny/JT in this chapter, but don't worry. We will be seeing them a lot more of them in the future. Thanks for reviewing ^-^
Tears of Stars: Yes, Ellie and Spinner are unknowingly becoming friends. It's so much fun to torture characters through fanfiction ^-^ Thanks for reviewing!
BlueMizuno: Ahh yes, witty is definitely what I was going for. Maybe it's just me, but I've always thought Ellie was somewhat of a smart ass. Thanks for the review ^-^
EvenAngelsFall22: I could stop writing this fic right now and be happy, knowing I made at least one person laugh ^-^ And no, I have no clue who Kendall and Aidan are, but for time's sake, let's just pretend I do. LOL! Thanks so much for reviewing!
Xtreme Nuisance: LOL! Were you in class when you wrote this? Hope you like the new chapter, thanks for reviewing!
PsYcHoJo: Welcome to the Spinner/Ellie ship AKA the Darkside! LOL! Thanks for reviewing!
Ellectra: Oh man, I feel stupid. I'll have to go back and fix that. Thanks for the headsup. And yes I am a wrestling fan. However, I am slowly losing interest in it as it has gotten more and more ridiculous over the past few months. Kurt Angle is the only reason I keep watching. LOL! Thanks for the review ^-^
Emmy-bone-kat: Yep, this story is definitely on it's way to having an actual plot. LOL! Thanks for the review, and I hope you like the next chapter ^-^
X Confused Girl x: *bows* Thank you, thank you very much! LOL! I'm glad you like the pairing ^-^ Thanks for reviewing!
Molly22: I read your story and I love it. So, are you going to update any time soon? *wink hint hint wink* LOL! And don't worry about the whole exclamation thing. Exclamations are great!!!!!!!!!1 Ahem, thanks for reviewing!
Bobby: I'm glad you like it. Thanks for reviewing ^-^
Love-fool: Aww, thanks! I try and keep my stories original and creative, so I'm glad it's working. Thanks for reviewing ^-^
Frankie: Yes, Claire is a bit…irksome. But she'll get what's coming to her sooner or later. And yes, DPS happens to be my favorite movie of all time. However, the Ms. Keating in this story is going to be a mix of the English teacher I had last year and the English teacher I have this year, which should make for an interesting character…I hope ^-^ Thanks for reviewing!
Katiecoos: I do like the old season. Wow, you're from Australia? It must be pretty cool down there…or should I say down under? That's probably the lamest joke I've ever made in my life. Sorry if I'm scaring you. Anywho, thanks for reviewing ^-^
Princess Punky: I hope you have been converted to the Darkside AKA the Spinner/Ellie ship! LOL! Thanks for reviewing!
The Inkblot Faery: I felt compelled to mention Daria in at least one of my fics, just because she kicks so much butt. Thanks for reviewing ^-^
I apologize if half of what is written above is at all incoherent. It's 3 in the morning, my eyes are getting heavy, and I'm drooling on the keyboard. Thank god for the delete key ^-^' Well, I'm going to go to sleep. Farewell.
[ Ashley, 12-6-03 ]