New Girl - Chapter 3

Allison stood on the sidewalk between her house and Timmy's house, just as the two had agreed on the day before. She was a little early, but that was only so she could stay out of her parents' hair. Just as she had predicted, they nearly killed each other during one of their many feelings arguments. It was better just to get out when they were like that.

She heard a door open, and Timmy walked out his front door with a few notebooks. The one on top was opened to a drawing of two fairies, which Allison knew was really Cosmo and Wanda in one of their disguises. Venus had camouflaged herself as a pin on her goddaughter's shirt.

"Hi, Allison," Timmy said, joining her on the sidewalk.

"Hey, Timmy," Allison said back, then tilted her head to see the notebook. "Very clever," she said, and meant it. She knew Venus would have never though of that.

"We're choc full of 'em!" Cosmo said, with the same old happy tone in his voice. Allison had noticed Cosmo was a bit happier yesterday when Timmy had stopped by to help Allison unpack everything she hadn't gotten around to setting up yet. She could have wished for it all to be done, but this way she got more time with Timmy, which meant more time for a friendship to grow.

The bus pulled up, and Timmy and Allison climbed on. Timmy sat down on the left, in his usual seat, and Allison took the seat across the aisle. "So," she asked. "Where are Chester and AJ?"

"Their stop is next," Timmy explained.

Allison nodded and started whispering to Venus. "How could you fall asleep last night?"

"Um," Venus whispered back. "I soundproofed the cage."

"I really needed you, Venus."

Allison saw Timmy look over, and then start talking to Cosmo and Wanda. "Great! He probably thinks I'm a freak!"

"I'm sorry, kid," Venus said sincerely. "But I was so tired and…"

"Whatever," Allison said. She had no clue what Timmy was thinking, but she knew it wasn't good. At least, that's what she thought was most likely. And it didn't make her happy.

The bus stopped, and two kids walked on and sat next to Timmy.

"Hey, guys," Timmy said, closing his notebook. He knew AJ would notice two blinking fairy drawings.

"Hey, Timmy," his best friends said in unison. Chester looked over at Allison.

"Who's the girl with the blue pin?" he asked.

"Oh," Timmy tried to sound as if Allison didn't matter much, but she did, a whole lot. "That's Allison, my new neighbor."

Allison looked over. "Hi."

"Hi," AJ said, taking over the introductions. "I'm AJ, and this is Chester."

Allison smiled, and then returned to staring out the window.

"Is she okay?" AJ asked, looking at her.

"Is she ever!" is what Timmy wanted to say, but he didn't want his friends to get the wrong idea. As of then, Allison was just a friend, and he didn't think anything would become of the friendship. So Timmy answered with, "I don't know."

"Allison," Venus asked her godchild. "What's with you today?"

"I…I dunno," Allison answered. All she knew was that Timmy and his friends were talking about her, and it bothered her a whole lot. But she didn't know why.

"What is WRONG with me?" she asked herself in thought. She glanced sideways at Timmy. She didn't know why she thought he looked so great that day all of a sudden, but for some reason he did. If Kenny Loggins himself walked by, she wouldn't have noticed.

"Great," she thought sarcastically, "I have a crush on my neighbor!"

Maybe she had given that possibility thought before, but now it dawned on her that there was no maybe about it.

Timmy, AJ, Chester, and Allison walked into Mr. Crocker's room. He looked over at Allison and said, "Well, it looks like there's a new student today."

Timmy looked at Allison, who had one eyebrow raised. It suddenly occurred to him that Venus was with her, and that a pin wasn't the best disguise. Crocker would have seen right through that. Luckily, he was too busy talking to Allison about fairies and asking if she had them to notice her shirt.

The four sat down. Chester was first in the row, then AJ, then Timmy, then Allison.

Timmy bent down and asked his fairies, "Why didn't I warn her about Crocker?" in a desperate voice.

"It's not our fault, Timmy," Wanda said. "You're the one who forgot."

Allison kicked Timmy on the leg. "Would you shut up," she hissed. "I don't want that crazed teacher to notice us. Are you trying to loose Cosmo and Wanda?"

Timmy shut up. She was right; it wasn't fair of him to attract attention to the people around him…the ones with godparents, anyway. Timmy knew Venus meant a lot to Allison, and if Crocker did see her, there was no telling what would happen.

Venus quickly poofed into Allison's pocket before class began..

"Well, students, I have your pitiful test results," Crocker said. He looked over at Allison. "Where's your pin?"

"My pocket."

"Really? Or was it really a FAIRY GODPARENT…in disguise?"

"What are you talking about?" Allison said. "I don't even know what a fairy is!"

"Oh, no! He's going to start his big fairy lecture!"

How right Timmy was.

At lunch, Allison sat with Timmy, Chester, and AJ. She thought her new neighbor's friends were pretty nice, and she hoped all three of them would get along okay. The most friends she ever had at a time were two, so three would be a welcome change for her.

"How come you aren't eating anything?" AJ asked Allison.

"Oh, I'm not very hungry." The truth was that her parents had neglected to do the food shopping and she was saving up her money to buy a new set of headphones. She needed at least forty dollars, and right now all she had was twelve.

"Are you sure?" AJ continued questioning. "Because I have some extra—"

"Really," Allison interrupted, "I'm fine."

She liked how AJ was so generous, and she saw how Timmy could pick him for a friend. She was having doubts about Chester, though. His lunch was some Saltine crackers and some dip in a can that smelled like a few dozen bass died and rotted in it a few years earlier.

She switched her attention to Timmy, who had a worried look on his face. It was different from the one at the wedding, though. This time around it was more of an "I-hope-she's-all-right" expression. It then occurred to her that she could have wished for a lunch.

"I wish I could do that now!" she thought, but it was too late for that, and there were too many witnesses. She'd just eat at home. Her parents hardly noticed she was still alive, let alone that she had a godparent.

Besides that, she didn't even know where Venus was. She had checked the pin, and it turned into one that said "Save the Whales". There was nothing blue around her except her pants and AJ's sweater-vest. She saw Timmy's pink milk carton, but there wasn't a single blue anything anywhere. She hoped she wasn't doing anything stupid.

Allison moved to Timmy's seat when Chester and AJ got off the bus on the way home. Timmy was very happy with this gesture, seeing as he liked Allison and all that. They had never been that close together before, and frankly, Timmy liked it.

His happiness soon faded as he noticed Allison didn't look too happy. "Are you all right?"

Allison was silent for a while. Just as Timmy thought she wasn't going to say anything, she burst out, "Have you seen Venus anywhere? I can't find her."

"What happened to the pin?" Timmy asked, getting the idea that Venus was a very complex fairy.

"It's just a regular pin now," she said in a worried voice.

Timmy checked his stuff, and noticed that Wanda had poofed back into a drawing, but Cosmo was no where to be found.

Allison leaned over to look at the notebook. She gasped. "Cosmo's missing, too?"

Wanda looked at Allison. "You mean Venus and Cosmo are…"

She waved her wand and the notebook shut. Wanda had given it a lock and everything.

Timmy sighed. He was so worried about Wanda lately.

"Well, this day just gets more and more interesting."

Timmy looked back up at Allison. "What do you mean?"

"Well, there was the fairy obsessed teacher that nearly drove me to an early grave," she began her list. "Then there was Chester's weird mush in a can that nearly made me sick, and now our fairies are missing."

Timmy had already convinced himself that Chester's dip was the reason Allison hadn't eaten that day. He was worried about her again, this time because he knew there was always the slightest possibility she had an eating disorder.

"Do you have any idea where they can possibly be?" Allison asked.

"I wish," Timmy said. It was a few minutes later when he realized that Wanda didn't grant it. He also noticed that no one granted his wish the last time he said, "I wish," either.

Wanda's mind was running wild. She had always suspected Venus was more than just a friend since the day she and Cosmo met. How could Cosmo see her behind his wife's back?

But still, she knew Cosmo was faithful to her, and he wasn't very likely to see someone else behind her back.

Then again, she wasn't sure.

She had closed the notebook because she didn't want anyone to hear her crying, especially Timmy. She wasn't in the mood to answer, "What's wrong?" then. She wanted to talk to Cosmo about it because she was afraid he wouldn't understand, and maybe admit his undying love to Venus.

Now Wanda was really letting her thoughts get out of control, and she was scaring herself more than helping herself calm down.

Cosmo and Venus were really in Allison's bedroom all day, talking about Wanda and how Cosmo was afraid she didn't love him anymore. Just like when they were younger, Venus was such a great help to him.

When Cosmo saw the bus, he poofed into Timmy's fishbowl. As soon as Timmy walked in, Wanda poofed herself right next to him.

"Cosmo, where were you!" she exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how much you—"

Cosmo interrupted his wife with honesty. "Wanda, I was with Venus and we were—"

"I don't want to hear it!"

"But Wanda," Cosmo said, "I-I wanted to tell you that I, uh—"

"I said I don't want to hear it, Cosmo!" Wanda yelled, and she swam into the castle in the bowl.

"There you go again, you big stupid idiot," Cosmo thought. "Chickening out again because you're afraid of how she'll react! How hard is it to tell her you care?"

"Is everything okay with you two?" Timmy asked, making Cosmo realize he was staring at the fishbowl while he and Wanda were talking…or yelling…or just Wanda yelling and Cosmo trying to say he loved her.

"No," Cosmo said, and he poofed himself back to Allison's house.

"…is that weird at all?" Allison was asking Venus about what happened when she looked at Timmy when Cosmo appeared in her room.

Venus said to her godchild, "We'll resume this discussion later," and then turned to Cosmo.

"What happened?" she asked. "Is everything okay?" She was concerned about her friend. He day he met Wanda, he had told Venus that he loved her, only he thought he was getting sick at first, and Venus had to explain to him what was going on. She didn't even know at first, but it became clearer to her as Cosmo continued listing symptoms.

"Is what okay?" Allison asked. "Why is he here? And where were you two all day?"

"I'll explain later, Allison!" Venus said more sharply than she intended to. She gave an apologetic look and turned to Cosmo once again.

"She hates me," Cosmo said with his head down. "I was a big wimpy jerk and she hates me."

Venus knew Cosmo was over reacting because while she was listening to Allison, she was hearing the conversation between Cosmo and Wanda in her other ear. It took her longer than she had wanted to figure out how to bug Timmy's room, but her plan still worked. Of course, she would never let on that she bugged anything.

"Who hates you?" Allison asked.

Venus chose to ignore her goddaughter. "Cosmo, I'm sure Wanda doesn't hate you. Maybe she's getting the wrong idea."

"She wouldn't listen when I tried to tell her," Cosmo said. His head hung lower.

"Well," Venus said, "then you'll try again."

"It's just…" Cosmo said, "I'm not sure how much time I have."

It suddenly dawned on Venus that Allison was with Wanda all day. "Hey, Allison," she said, "how did Wanda react when she noticed Cosmo was gone."

"I wasn't there then," she answered. Venus recognized her "Wow-you're-including-me-look". "But when Wanda found out you were missing, too, she flipped out on us."

"Terrific," Venus thought, "my best friend's wife thinks I'm having an affair with him!"

"So she missed me?" Cosmo asked Allison.

"I guess," she answered.

Venus was a big reader back in her school days, and she was grateful for all the romance novels she read at the Fairy Academy. The assumption that made the most sense was that Wanda was jealous that Cosmo was supposedly seeing her behind her back.

"Cosmo, you've got to just say it without thinking how she'll react," Venus sad, trying to be sincere and firm at the same time.

"Say what?" Allison asked impatiently.

"You're such a nosey girl!" Venus shouted and to get her to stop asking questions she changed her godchild's head into a giant nose.

"Venus, I'm not sure if I can."

"Well, it's true isn't it?"

"Sure, it's true," Cosmo said. "But I'm afraid that—"

"Just don't be' was the best advice Venus could come up with. She couldn't believe Cosmo was trusting her with marital advice.

Venus thought back to the wedding. "Cosmo," she asked, "why were you staring at me so weird the other day?"

Cosmo's face turned red. "Well, I didn't see you in a while and…yeah."

Venus smiled. Anyone with eyes could see he still loved Wanda. She was just being paranoid that day.

"Just trust me, Cosmo," Venus said. Cosmo thanked her and left, and she turned Allison's face back to normal.

"Just for that," Allison said, 'I wish you were stuck as a canary for exactly twenty-four hours!"

Timmy confronted Cosmo as soon as he saw him come back to the fish bowl. "Where were you?"

Cosmo ignored him and went in the castle.

Timmy sighed. He knew he sounded a bit like Mama Cosma, but he didn't care. If Cosmo was with Venus, he would have hoped Allison was there. He really wanted to know if she liked him, and not as a friend either, more like the way he used to like Trixie.

"Oh well," Timmy said to himself, "I guess I can wait. It probably takes a little time anyway."