Chapter 3: Cool as a Moose

The next day turned out to be a typical day at school for Zack. He narrowly avoided getting busted by Principal Belding for selling his fake doctor's notes, and had to abort that particular scam. Aside from that, he hung out with his friends, ignored his teachers, paid attention to girls instead; it was fine, whatever. When school ended, he headed down to the park, ready to save the planet, and of course, win Nanno's affections while he was at it.

When he arrived, he picked up a litter stick, a pair of gloves, and a garbage bag, then made his way over to Nanno. "Whoa, Nanno, you're here too?" Zack said, acting surprised. "What a coincidence. Guess you care about the planet as much as me, huh?"

Nanno's eyes also widened in apparent surprise. "Oh, hello Zack. I didn't expect to see any familiar faces here. And after a long day of school too. You must be a very civic-minded person, to sacrifice your free-time like this."

Zack smiled. "Looks like you already figured me out. Yeah, I care so much about this community. I just want to do my part, you know?"

But they were interrupted as a wry voice spoke out behind Zack. "Sure Zack, that just sounds so much like you."

Zack spun around. It was Jessie, damn it. Actually, he should have known she would be here. "Hey Jessie." He greeted her with a strained smile. "I guess you decided to put away the textbooks and get your hands dirty with the rest of us for a change."

Jessie smiled back. "Aren't you usually reading magazines on your beanbag at this hour? So nice of you to take a day off from that to come help out here."

Zack and Jessie fake-smile-glared at each other.

"Actually, Nanno invited us, and we were happy to come help clean up the park." Jessie explained.

"Wait, us?" Zack asked, before someone gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder.

"Hey Preppy" Slater greeted as Zack tried to hide a wince. "Fancy seeing you here."

Great, now A.C. Slater was here too. This just got better and better. At this point though, Zack couldn't be damned to ask him why he had agreed to come spend a nice day picking up garbage. Was he interested in Nanno too? Dumb question, of course he was, just look at her!

"Well Slater, let's get started. This park isn't going to clean itself while we stand here gabbing." So Zack and the others set about cleaning up the park.

Twenty minutes later, Zack eyed Slater's trash bag. He estimated the jerk had collected about as much trash as Zack himself, and that wouldn't do. Zack was going to be the hero who cleaned up the park and impressed Nanno, not Slater. He raced to find more trash, but Slater noticed and increased his speed too.

The two kept at it, and Zack saw Slater pick up a bag full of trash from McDonalds; Slater smirked at him. Zack scowled as he went off to look for more trash, knowing all that McDonalds litter put Slater ahead of him by a little. Then Zack saw a trash can. Bingo, work smarter, not harder. Zack was about to put his stick down into the can to pick up some garbage, when he shrugged and grabbed the trashcan's whole bag, taking it out and leaving it empty. There, now he had two bags of trash. This is why he didn't mind competing with Slater; Slater was a little too honest to think up tricks like this.

Zack swaggered away to find Nanno, sure that she would be impressed now. But to his horror, when he found Nanno, she was chatting and laughing with another guy. Oh great, Zack realized bitterly, it was Moose of all people. Dumb jock, he thought spitefully. Still, it could be worse. Moose really wasn't all that bright, so it would be easy enough to trick him if he really was moving in on Nanno. Zack remembered Moose had once asked if a poem was "one of those things where the words rhymed?"

"How's it going guys, you find a lot of litter?" He asked, casually hefting his own two bags.

"Oh Zack, you missed it! A poor boy went flying off one of the swings, and Moose here ran over and caught him just before he hit the ground!" Nanno enthused, smiling at Moose in admiration.

Moose blushed. "Aw, I play football is all, I'm really good at catching and throwing stuff." Moose said proudly.

"And running, you sprinted really fast to catch that kid." Nanno complimented.

"Thanks Nanno, you know, you're real good at catching things too."

"Thank you Moose, but you know you didn't have to pass me that kid." Nanno giggled.

Moose blushed again. "Sorry, I just had football on my mind is all."

"Oh, when don't you?" Zack smiled. "By the way Nanno, is there a place I can set down all this trash? It'll be easier for me to pick up more if I don't have to carry two bags and can get a new one."

"There's a dumpster near where you got the bags. Come on Moose, why don't we keep looking for litter and you can tell me about your last game against Valley."

Moose launched into an excited rendition of the game as the two walked off, and Zack groaned in dismay. He was right, Moose was moving in on Nanno. Now Zack would have to think of a way to clear the field so that he would be the one who scored a touchdown.

Later that night, Kelly and Screech were up on Screech's roof again. Having finished studying for the night, they were out gazing at the stars.

"That was really neat Screech, how you extracted a bismuth crystal from Pepto-Bismol! I like those little science experiments anyone can do, I'll have to show my family sometime."

"That was nothing, when I finish my quantum computer I'm going to build a time crystal one day! That's a system of particles that has a pattern which repeats in the fourth dimension, throughout time."

"I have no idea what that means." Kelly smiled. "But I think I can learn a lot from you, and not just science. I'm thinking about being a teacher one day, and you're really good at tutoring. If we keep at it, maybe I'll learn how to make classes fun for my students. Although I'm thinking about teaching history and not science, so I'm not sure I'll be able to use your methods as a teacher."

"Nonsense, the material may be different, but the underlying principles are the same! What makes studying with me so much fun for you?" Screech probed.

"Well, the lessons are hands-on. You show rather than just tell, and use fun metaphors that make science easier to understand and more relatable. I can see science in action. If I end up teaching history, that's not going to happen unless you can conjure up a time machine for me." Kelly joked.

"I'm not sure that project is going to work out." Screech admitted. "But even without a time machine, history can still come to life. You can take students on field trips to museums, or invite veterans from wars long ago to visit your class. Even when you're not doing any special events like that, there's lots you can do! You can have the students form a model UN. They can simulate being ambassadors in the present or in some historical era, even an era from before the UN actually existed, and they can debate current issues. UN or no, they can role-play as the leaders of various nations, and you can present them with choices leaders had to make in the past, and see what they decide and how they would change things, or how things would stay the same, based on what they decided."

"Screech, it may be redundant for me to say this, but you're a genius!" Kelly praised. "I'm only considering being a history teacher, but you're making me excited to start a job I may or may not end up with years from now."

"If you think you'll enjoy it, you should go for it. You could be anything, but for what it's worth, I think you'd be a great teacher Kelly." Screech said seriously.

Kelly smiled so hard it almost hurt, and looked back up at the stars again. It would have been corny to say so out loud, but hearing Screech say it, she actually believed she could do anything she set her mind to.

The day after the cleanup at the park, Moose was walking home from practice, when he heard someone calling out to him from an alley.

"Psst, young man. Come over here, boy." Said a man with an ambiguous ethnic accent and Arabian attire.

Moose headed over into the alley. "Huh? What's up sir?" He asked the mysterious Arab.

"You look like a strapping young lad. Correct me if I'm wrong, but did you not just come from football practice?"

Moose gasped. "How did you know that?" He asked wonderingly.

"Oh, us Muslim sorts have our ways." The stranger chuckled mysteriously. "And I'm here today with a special offer, just for you! Tell me, are you the best player on your team?"

"Well, no." Moose admitted. "My friend Ox is better than me, and A.C. Slater, he's the star of the team."

"Yes, I've heard tale of this A.C. Slater, and his stupid Brillo-like hair." Said the man. "But never mind him. If you're not the best player on your team, that means you have room for improvement, right?" he asked.

"Umm" Moose thought that over in his brain, as the thought had never occurred to him before now.

"Yes my boy, it means you do have room for improvement." The stranger patiently explained. "Luckily for you, I have just the thing." He pulled out a bag of pills.

"These will improve your performance on the field, and possibly in other areas as well. And they can be yours, for only thirty dollars!"

"Oh neat" Moose said. "Oh, but I only have ten dollars on me." He frowned.

"No problem, that's no trouble at all!" the stranger assured Moose. "Special one-time discount for my new friend."

Moose bought the bag of nondescript pills for ten dollars. "Thanks pal. I got to go though, I have a date with this hot Chinese chick from school!"

Moose's new friend made a choking noise, then waved goodbye and skulked back into the alley. Moose smiled, dreaming of soon becoming the star of his football team, and the fawning appreciation of the school's cheerleaders.

Zack Morris tucked away his Arab disguise in his closet and put it in his closet next to his Indian disguise. No, the Indian one wasn't a disguise, Zack corrected himself. He actually did have a little Native American ancestry. The feathered headdress and native-style poncho were his birthright.

And wouldn't his Indian ancestors be proud of him today? He had completed phase one of a clever plot, and made ten dollars selling Moose a bag of pills, actually his mom's multivitamins. It was always great when you could make money doing something you love, and Zack loved his schemes and scams. Zack sat down on his beanbag and continued plotting.

If Moose turned his attention somewhere other than Nanno, Zack could just stop right now, and be ten dollars richer and no worse off. But the fact that Moose was apparently seeing Nanno after school only convinced Zack he needed to go ahead with his plan. If Nanno and Moose continued hanging out tomorrow at school, then it would be time for phase two.

But apart from that, Zack had made an important realization today. He could make bank by selling people bogus pills. Who knew?

Thursday after school, the football team was out on the field practicing again, and Zack was watching closely. Moose was certainly more energetic today than usual. He doubted one day of taking multivitamins had any effect whatsoever, so probably Moose took the pills and they had a placebo effect on him.

That was all Zack needed to see. Dressed stealthily in all black, he snuck into the boy's locker room. Not normally the locker room he was interested in sneaking into, but today he had a very special job to do. Moose and Nanno had been flirty all day, and she had even come to watch his practice. So it was time for phase two.

Zack pulled out a pen and paper and wrote a little note. In it, he explained how he (not that he would be signing his name to this, the note was anonymous) knew all about the pills Moose had taken before practice. He knew all about the steroids. Because this was Moose he was dealing with, he also explained that steroids were banned, and that taking them could get him kicked off the team, and suspended from school. Though probably Moose only cared about getting kicked off the team.

Zack then explained exactly what Moose would have to do to earn his anonymous blackmailer's silence. With the note finished, Zack dropped it off in Moose's locker. He went to leave the locker room, but just before he could open the door, the door opened from the other side. Zack's heart leaped in his chest at the intrusion, and then he saw who was on the other side of the door: A.C. Slater.

"I thought I saw you skulking around over here. What's going on Preppy?" Slater asked, glancing around the locker room suspiciously.

Zack stuttered, almost forgetting how to lie in his panic. But then it came back to him.

"This girl I was hanging out with at the Max, Jessica, she said she knew some kids from Valley, and they were planning to sabotage you guys in revenge for their latest defeat. Nice work, by the way. So I thought I'd come by and catch them red-handed." Zack explained, as if he wasn't the one who had been caught red-handed.

"I would be the school hero if I caught Valley trying to sabotage you guys." Zack added, since he knew Slater wouldn't buy this story if Zack wasn't doing something to benefit himself in it. "But I haven't seen them." Zack continued. "They must have been too chicken to show up, or maybe they saw me and I scared them off." Zack finished in a self-congratulatory tone.

Slater stared at him. "Well, if that's all true, thanks Preppy, but just give us a heads up next time, okay?"

"Sure thing Slater." Zack agreed.

Slater walked back out the door, but then he stopped and glanced over his shoulder.

"Oh, and Preppy" he added in a light tone laden with subtle menace. "If you're lying, you should know that if you mess with anyone on my team, I'm going to kick your ass. Got it?"

"I would expect nothing less." Zack nodded seriously.

Slater nodded back, gave Zack one last long look, then headed back to practice.

Zack sighed. "I still got it." He patted himself on the back. He wasn't going to let Slater or anyone else stop him. After seeing Nanno in that tight little black dress, he knew there was no way in hell he was giving up on her. He often couldn't help but imagine her in that dress, and sometimes he liked to imagine her in a bikini as the two of them relaxed on a Hawaiian beach. Someday, he'd make his dream a reality.

A/N:

I felt like this almost wouldn't be a 'Saved by the Bell' crossover if I didn't include at least one reference to Hawaii. The show had a mini-season set in Hawaii, but even before that, the show was virtually littered with references to Hawaii. I'm guessing someone on the writing staff really, really wanted a vacation, or maybe everyone was just obsessed with the place back then. To be fair, it is basically paradise, at least as long as you don't have to live there.