Disclaimer: I don't own Jimmy Neutron or any related characters.

Cindy and Jimmy stared at each other. "What is going on?" she nervously asked.

Jimmy was just as confused as she was. "I don't know. But let's get home and find out."

Jimmy grabbed her hand and ran out of the mall. They ran down the street to the bus stop. As the moments went by, Jimmy started pacing around. "God this is ridiculous! Where the hell is the bus?"

Cindy stared at him. "Don't you have something in your watch that can take us home?"

Jimmy stared back at her. "Why yes Cindy, I have a helicopter in my watch. Hop in!" he angrily shouted.

"Hey, you've got a freakin' laser in it!"

Just then the bus rolled to a stop beside them. They rushed into the vehicle and took a seat. Jimmy noticed that the person beside him was listening to a radio.

"Sir, can I please use that?" he asked. The man glared at him. "Please?"

Cindy sighed and thrust ten dollars into the guy's palm. He raised an eyebrow and handed the radio over to Cindy.

Cindy and Jimmy turned it to a news station and each put on one half of the headphones. They listened intently to the report.

"Well that's quite an interesting story there, Tom. Now back to our main story. We've got some new information about the situation at Lindbergh Elementary School. The police are still hesitant to do anything. Retroville has one of the lowest crime rates in the USA, so the local police force is completely unprepared to handle something like this.

As the police stand outside the school, frozen in fear and confusion, we still have very little information about what is going on in the inside. A special task force is being called into the area. There is no telling how long that could take. Police estimate there have been at least two civilian casualties."

Suddenly the radio clicked off. Jimmy noticed that the batteries had died. "Damn it!" he angrily shouted. Several people on the bus stared at him, but Jimmy didn't care. He looked up from the radio to see that they were approaching Retroville. He tossed the radio back to the man, grabbed Cindy's hand, and ran off of the bus.

Jimmy and Cindy stared at each other, both extremely worried. They were about a mile from their houses. Finally Jimmy spoke up. "So what do we do?"

"How should I know?" Cindy nervously shot back.

Jimmy walked into the nearby park, with Cindy close behind. They sat down on a wooden bench. Jimmy buried his head in his hands. "Ok, let's recap. We know there is something seriously wrong going down at school. Two people have died. The police are involved, but they're in way over their heads. We played hooky, so our parents still think we're at the school."

Cindy nodded. "Well I want to know exactly what is going on!"

"Yeah, me too. We better get home and tell out parents we're ok. We can watch the news there and get the whole story."

Jimmy jumped up off the bench, but Cindy wrapped her hand around his arm and pulled him back down next to him. "Not so fast, Jimmy. Our parents think we're stuck in the school in some life-threatening situation. We can't exactly walk through the front door and say hi."

"Well, yeah. We'll have to tell them we didn't go to school today. But we need to know the whole story, and they deserve to know that we're alright."

Cindy gulped. "Jimmy, we'll get in trouble!"

Jimmy stared incredulously at her. "Yesterday you were fearless!"

"Well we weren't planning on admitting to our parents that we were skipping school!" Cindy reminded him.

Jimmy couldn't believe what she was saying. "Cind, there is something really wrong going on at school. The police are in over their heads, they might need our help. Our parents think we could be dead. And you don't want to fix all of that because you're worried about getting in trouble?"

Cindy sighed. "Yeah, you're right." They both got up and started walking back to their homes. Suddenly Cindy stopped in realization. "Neutron, we can't go back home! You say the kids at school might need our help, right?" Jimmy just nodded. "Well do you think our parents are going to let us go rushing in to a life-threatening situation?"

Jimmy rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, no. I guess not. But we'll go anyway. What are they going to do, physically restrain us?"

"No, but they could slow us down. And we don't know how serious the situation at school is. Those few seconds they waste could kill our friends. We can't let them know we're safe."

Jimmy was getting agitated now. It seemed that he was at a dead end. "So what do you suggest we do?"

Cindy walked over to him and plucked a hair off his head. "We use your lab."