When Brian had gone back to school on the Monday he hadn't known what to expect. Well, he'd expected things, actually, but he wasn't sure they were the right things, and he was definitely hoping they weren't. 'Cause, see, what he expected was to be ignored by Claire, ignored by Bender, ignored by Andy, and to have Allison give him the occasional raised eyebrow if he happened to look her way.
So he wasn't expecting much, all in all, no matter what had happened on Saturday. But when he got to school he found that people actually talked to him. Well, people had always talked to him, but these were the Breakfast Club people, and that was different. Claire smiled at him and said hi and occasionally had a conversation if the time and place allowed it, but she didn't go out of her way to do those things, and he could understand that. After all, his friends – because he did have some, no matter what Bender thought of how they socialized – weren't too pleased when Andy came up and greeted him and Brian acted "all chummy", as Lester had put it. So he understood. Bender said a lot more, but he was Bender, and he didn't have a lot to lose, really. Bender talked to him, stopped him in the halls and found him at lunch time, and Brian didn't really think they were productive conversations, but they were conversations none-the-less. Allison did only give him the occasional raised eyebrow, at least until one day when she ushered him over to her as he was walking into the cafeteria.
"What is it?" Brian asked, thinking that something was wrong.
"We're going to sneak into a room," Allison said in a hushed tone of voice.
"I… Uh…I haven't eaten my lunch yet," Brian managed, suddenly aware of how his voice echoed in the empty hallways.
"What is it?" Allison asked, still speaking in whispers.
"Oh, it's…" Brian suddenly realized how loud he was talking compared to her, and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "It's just a sandwich."
"Then eat it on the way." And with that, she grabbed his hand and dragged him off down the halls. Eventually they ended up in an unlit hallway with a dusty locked door in front of them.
"See," Allison said, as if she were presenting something wonderful.
" 'ah, I see, buh watts so push – all 'bout it?"
Allison blinked at him.
Brian swallowed hurriedly and asked again. "I see it…But, um, what's so special about it?"
"It's locked," Allison said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She bent down and began fiddling with the lock.
"What are you doing?" Brian asked, slightly alarmed at the idea of unlocking a very clearly locked door. He glanced quickly behind him.
"Unlocking it," Allison replied, again speaking to him as if he was an idiot for even asking in the first place.
"But, uh, why'd you bring me?" Again, he glanced behind him.
Allison shrugged. "You were there."
"Oh, okay…I'll, um, just keep watch…" He turned to stare out at the hallway just as the lock clicked.
Allison was already halfway through the door by the time he turned around again.
Checking behind him one last time, he almost ran in behind her.
The room was filled with boxes. "They look like old files," Allison said, peering closely at the contents of one of the open boxes."
"There's yearbooks here," Brian said, his curiosity getting the better of him as he lifted one of the cardboard lids.
"And certificates…And old – really old – trophies." Allison was, by that point, exploring further back into the room. "It's all the stuff that isn't important enough to display but someone thought was important enough to keep."
"Can we go now?" Brian asked pleadingly.
"This trophy probably meant a lot to somebody," Allison said, blowing the dust off a gold trophy.
"Well, uh, wouldn't they have it then? Instead of it being in a box in a locked room at the end of a dark hallway?" Brian continued to glance furtively out the door.
Allison just glared at him and continued going through the boxes.
"Maybe we should, uh, get out of here. Because, you know, it was locked so we're obviously not meant to be in here, even if it's just a bunch of old junk, and maybe someone's gonna come and then what are we going to say? That we just had to see what was inside the locked door? That can't look very good. Breaking in just because. Or what if there's something valuable in here and they think we're here to get it, but we don't even know it's there, and-" Allison clamped her hand firmly over Brian's mouth and motioned for him to listen.
There was the sound of footsteps coming from down the hallway, and then a man's voice muttered "That's odd."
Brian and Allison stood perfectly still, her hand still over his mouth.
The door creaked open ominously. "What are you two doing in here?" Asked the teacher, looking genuinely perplexed. "I though they kept it locked." He examined the door knob. "They do keep it locked. Did you ever consider that there was something valuable in here?" He peered at them. "Maybe that's why you came…"
All of Brian's worst fears came flooding at him at once. He was sure this would go on his permanent record. He was sure he wouldn't be able to get into anywhere good with "Breaking and Entering" on his file. He was doomed. His mother would kill him. Curse Allison. Curse the Breakfast Club. Curse –
"There you are," came a loud, arrogant voice from behind the teacher. All three stared.
Bender took two long strides and entered the room, slinging his arm around Allison. He grinned at the teacher. "It's so hard to keep girlfriends nowadays. They're always sneaking off with sexy physics geeks," Bender said, making a flippant hand gesture at Brian and shrugging his shoulders.
Allison glared at him, but Brian looked to the teacher, wondering if he would buy it. Really, they'd been doing nothing wrong in the first place. It wasn't as if a bunch of old papers and trophies were all that important, all in all, so maybe it would just be a mild case of breaking and entering.
The teacher looked at them. "Yes, well…I'll see that this door is locked…You may go." He looked around the room and his gaze landed on the trophy Allison had been holding. "I remember this…" He said, walking over to it.
As the three members of the Breakfast Club left the room, Brian shot Allison another triumphant grin. "I told you it meant something to someone."
Out in the hallway Allison quickly shrugged off Bender's arm.
"Geez Klepto, don't be so touchy. I just saved you two lovebirds from another detention with Vernon."
Allison snorted, but Brian was quick to mutter out apologies. "Yeah, thanks, I mean, I really didn't want it to go on my record, you know, for breaking and entering, because I bet that a lot of the top universities only accept people with a perfect record and-"
"Shut up," Bender said, staring at him.
"Yeah, okay," Brian said.
"Thanks Brian," Allison called out to him as he walked off down the hall.
Brian had never expected much from them, but somehow they'd made him feel like he should have all the same.