Chapter 2: Class Reunion
Fiddleford McGucket was sorting his mail when he found a Backupsmore letter. Upon reading it, he decided to intercom his business partner.
"Fiddleford?" Stanley "Stan" Pines asked.
"Am I interrupting something important?" Fiddleford asked out of consideration.
"Nope." Stan reassured his friend. "I'm just reading some sales reports, Fids. What happened?"
"I've just been invited to a class reunion, Stan." Fiddleford explained.
"Looking forward meeting your High School friends back in Tennessee, Fiddleford?" Stan teased.
"Actually, it's a college class reunion, Stan." Fiddleford clarified.
"Your Backupsmore buddies, then?" Stan asked and then remembered something. "Is Stanford going?"
"I don't know, Stan." Fiddleford answered. "I've just been informed of this reunion and I haven't had news from your brother ever since graduation."
"If you see him, please tell him I said hi." Stan asked.
"Yes, Stan." Fiddleford replied.
"Thank you, Fids." Stan said.
"You're welcome, Stan."
After leaving their son Tate with a reliable person to watch over him, Fiddleford and his wife went to Backupsmore for the class reunion. There, several girls who earlier dismissed Fiddleford as a nerdy-looking guy with a hopeless dream were regretting not taking him seriously. Seeing Mrs. McGucket with him made them even more depressed.
"Oh, Fiddleford Hadron McGucket!" The Dean of Backupsmore University greeted him. "What an honor to have our most illustrious former student back within our walls!"
"Really?" Fiddleford asked in skepticism. "I thought Stanford was the one you held to this regard considering he even received a grant."
"Stanford Filbrick Pines?" The Dean dismissively asked. "That idiot wasted our grant with supernatural nonsense and never showed anything for our faith on him. You, on the other hand, have accomplished the impossible: you made people pick Backupsmore as their first choice."
"Fiddleford?" They heard someone ask. "It's been ages!"
"Stanford?" Fiddleford happily asked. "What's new, old friend?"
"I'm uncovering the mysteries of the universe, Fiddleford." Ford answered. "Unfortunately, my decision not to take a fourth semester of Hyper-Advanced Engineering and Fifth-Dimensional Calculus became a roadblock for my most important project. Well, this is where all my slacking off has landed me."
"Slacking off?" Fiddleford asked in amazement. "Stanford, you used that time for a second semester of Applied Quantum Phase Theory!"
"In comparison to my other Backupsmore semesters, that was slacking off, Fiddleford." Ford explained.
"Have you ever thought about reading the books by yourself, Stanford?" Fiddleford suggested.
"No, but it's a good idea." Ford agreed. "Thank you, Fiddleford."
"You're welcome, Stanford." Fiddleford replied. "By the way, Stan said hi."
"Oh, send my brother a hi from me as well, Fiddleford." Ford dismissively said.
"Brother?" Several people asked in surprise.
"Fiddleford's business partner is my twin brother Stanley." Ford explained and several girls approached him.
"Are you married?" One of them asked with a greedy smile.
"Why did you bother with a grant instead of using whatever you inherited from your parents?" Another one asked, thinking Stan must have had that kind of help to start his fortune.
"Both my mother and my father are alive and Stanley started his fortune without any financial support from either of them." Ford declared and the girls walked away from him. He'd so love to see their faces once he became a multi-millionaire who's even more famous than Stan and Fiddleford together. Ford then resumed talking to his friend. "So, are you and Stanley merely business partners or are you also friends?"
"We're friends, Stanford." Fiddleford answered.
Ford was surprised. He expected both his brother and his college buddies only kept working together out of a mutual need. "What's like needing help from someone without even a High School diploma?"
"I don't mind at all, Stanford." Fiddleford gladly answered. "At first, I was worried that his 'sales pitch' as Stan called it would fail like my past attempts to sell my idea before I met him but it somehow paid off. No offence but I only agreed to start our business partnership because he's the first one who said my idea could sell."
"Yeah, I never thought I'd see personal computers being a success outside Jetson-like cartoons even if I lived long enough to meet their time." Stanford commented and then noticed the woman with him. "Fiddleford, who's your companion?"
"Stanford, this is my wife." Fiddleford explained. "Darling, this is my college buddy and my business partner's twin brother Stanford Filbrick Pines."
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. McGucket." Ford greeted her and was otherwise unsure of how to treat a friend's wife.
"Nice to meet you too, Dr. Pines." She replied.
Fiddleford then showed a photograph of his family. "This is my son Tate. Isn't he cute?"
"He certainly is, Fiddleford." Ford agreed.
"Dr. Pines, you should get to meet him someday." Mrs. McGucket suggested. "He'll likely mistake you for his 'Uncle Stan'."
"Uncle Stan?" Ford asked in shock.
"Stan and I are so friends with each other he became an honorary Uncle to my son." Fiddleford commented.
Ford was secretly resentful. While he understood the friendship between his estranged brother and his college buddy started out of their mutual need as business partners, he couldn't help but feel like Stan was intentionally messing with him. "How sweet. Perhaps I'll visit someday."
End chapter.