Authors Note:

Second deleted scene! I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 51

The school cafeteria was quite abuzz with students, as typical during the school lunch hour. Double Dee had secured a spot at the boys favorite lunch table, and was currently preparing his lunch. He had removed a wrapped ham and cheese lunch meat sandwich, an apple, a small salad, a few pieces of chocolate, and a bottle of water from his lunch bag, and placed items on an orderly fashion on the smooth surface in front of him. Respectful of table etiquette, the young man was currently awaiting the arrival of his friends prior to consuming his lunch.

A few moments passed, at which point Ed and Eddy approached the table. The two boys had procured slices of pizza and chocolate milk from the lunch line, as they did everyday. In addition, in the interest of the upcoming holiday, the lunch lady had graciously brought in a few boxes of peppermint candy canes to pass out to all of her faithful customers, a prospect that deeply excited Eddy due to his love of sweets.

As the boys took their seat at the table, Eddy decided to initiate a conversation.

"Well Sockhead, looks like you missed out!" said Eddy, "The old hag decided to be nice for once and pass out something good."

Eddy glanced across the table, taking notice of Double Dee's lunch.

"Oh yeah," said Eddy, "Ever since they showed that movie about diabetes in health class, you're watching your 'unnecessary sugar intake'...give me a break!"

"First of all Eddy," said Double Dee, "It is quite rude to refer to the school lunch line attendant as an old hag, especially after she was generous enough to provide you and end with candy canes. And two, while I am being quite cautious regarding my diet as it pertains to my health, I have not completely eliminated sugar from my diet."

At that point, Double Dee scooped up a handful of the chocolate treats sitting in front of him. He proceeded to hold the red and green wrapped treats in the direction of his friend with a smile.

"A counterexample if you will!" said Double Dee, "Please have some of these chocolate treats mother diligently prepared yesterday evening. It is an original family recipe, and I must say they are exquisite."

"Chocolate for Ed! Yum Yum Yum!" yelled Ed as he snatched a few pieces out of Double Dee's hand, shoving them all into his mouth at once.

As Ed enjoyed his chocolates, Double Dee seemed to adopt an expression of concern.

"Ed, um..." said Double Dee, "I must caution you.."

"Now you're talkin' my language," said Eddy as he too took hold of a few of Double Dee's chocolates, shoving them into his mouth in a similar manner, "Thanks Double Dee you're a pal."

Double Dee remained silent as he observed his two friends enjoying his mother's secret recipe, gradually becoming more and more concerned as they did so.

"Oh dear..." said Double Dee as he rose from his seated position and began dashing towards the opposite side of the lunch room.

"Geez, what's up with Sockhead?" asked Eddy, "If he wanted to keep some for himself, he should have said so!"

Ed simply giggled dopily.

"I don't know," said Ed, "But my mouth feels as though my taste buds are being tickled by the spirit of Christmas nestled in a warm blanket in front of the roaring fire!"

"Ed, you crack me up!" said Eddy in a exuberant manner as he slapped Ed playfully on the back, failing to take notice of Ed's watering eyes.

As the boys enjoyed their treats at the table, Double Dee had taken his place at the cafeteria concession stand. The intelligent boy seemed to be in a panic, collecting all of the water bottles he could find within the industrial sized refrigerator as he adopted an expression of distress. His actions were soon interrupted by a playful slap on the shoulder.

"Hey cutie," said the voice of Marie, "Trying hard to stay hydrated I see."

The sudden slap and sound of his his girlfriends voice seemed to jar the teenager out of his water hoarding trance, causing him to turn to face her.

"Hello Marie," said Double Dee, "While I can't stress enough the importance of adequate hydration, I am in fact procuring these bottles of water for Ed and Eddy."

At the sound of the other two Ed boys names, Marie turned towards the lunch table. Lee and May had found their way to the long, brown table and had taken their places on the bench. Lee had opted to sit across from Eddy, and had begun enjoying the small ham sandwich she had made the previous night. May had taken her seat next to Ed, placing the opaque jar containing her "extra credit assignment" on the table next to her as she unwrapped the two hotdogs she had packed for lunch.

"Do I dare ask why?" asked Marie.

"I offered Ed and Eddy a helping of my mother's famous Tabasco chocolates." said Double Dee, "As you know from sampling a piece the other night, each small morsel contains just as much spice as a ghost chili, leaving a single piece intolerable to all but the mightiest of palates."

"Oh yes," said Marie, "Me and my sisters love spicy food, but that honestly was one of the most intense things I ever ate. I really enjoyed it though!"

"Unfortunately," said Double Dee, "Ignorant to the composition of the sweet treats, Eddy and Ed ingested entire handfuls of the chocolates prior to me being able to explain the implications."

"Oh boy," said Marie, "The spice doesn't kick in until a few seconds after you finish eating it. They're in for quite the shock."

Back at the lunch table, Eddy and Double Dee continued to fraternize with their respective girlfriends. After a few seconds, Eddy began tugging at his collar ever so slightly, as sweat began to pour down his face.

"Geez, is it hot in here or what?" asked Eddy.

"Must just you," said Lee.

"I'm fine!" said May in an exuberant manner as she took another bite from her hotdog.

Eddy's temperature continued to rise, his face turning red as a slight tingly feeling began to overcome his taste buds; a feeling he had not felt since he had sampled his brothers "secret Armenian hot sauce" a few summers ago.

"How about you Ed?" asked Eddy as he slowly turned towards his friend.

To Eddy's surprise, Ed was smiling from ear to ear, giggling with a childlike inflection as his eyes watered, and steam poured out of his ears in a cartoonish fashion.

"Ed is feeling HOT HOT HOT!" said Ed, imitating the song lyrics as he continued to giggle, his tolerance and enjoyment for spice well above his stout friends.

As the seconds continued to pass by, the burning insides Eddy's mouth continued to intensify. Eventually, the pain became intolerable, at which point Eddy rose from his seated position. He proceeded to emit a long drawn out scream, flames seeming to emit from his mouth as he began dashing around the table uncontrollably, a trail of cartoonish smoke following him as he did so.

"WATER, WATER!" yelled Eddy, "I NEED WATER!"

"As predicted!" yelled Double Dee as he began running towards the lunch table, with the intent of providing water to his friend. Marie followed close behind, attempting to quell a slight giggle at Eddy's expense.

At that point Eddy ceased run, and began desperately searching for any object in semblance of a bottle of water. Unfortunately, the first object that came into sight was the jar May had retrieved from Double Dee's shed the previous night.

"Gimme that!" yelled Eddy as he snatched the jar from the table.

Eddy wasted no time, and proceeded to open the jar with haste. Unfortunately, the troubled adolescent did not find hydration within the bottle, rather he found an extremely unpleasant sight.

Mays misunderstanding of binomial nomenclature had caused her to retrieve a bottle from Double Dee's arthropod collection, rather than his plant collection. The bottle contained around 100 or so samples of adult and nymph Periplaneta Americana, commonly known as the American Cockroach. To make matters worse, the American Cockroach happened to be the largest species of common roach. Several of the members of Double Dees colony had achieved lengths of around three inches; their large frame, quick movements, and brown exoskeletons were quite unnerving to most.

Eddy was no exception; no sooner than he had breached the lid, several roaches began emerging from the jar. In surprise, Eddy let out a long drawn out yell and flung the jar into the air. This action not only failed to quench Eddys insatiable thirst, but also sent all of the roaches flying into the air as if they were shrapnel from a detonated fragmentation grenade.

Most of the roaches happened to land on the floor, where seemingly in a panic, they began to frantically scurry around the room. Of course, the student bodies reaction was not a pleasant one; many students screamed as they ran towards the doorways to escape the swarm of insects; others simply dropped their lunches, loosing their appetites as they calmly made their exit.

Eddy however remained as still as a statue, for he was faced with a prospect he feared much more than being exposed to a pestilent insect. Upon his inadvertent tossing of the jar, the majority of the adult cockroaches had soared through the air on a parabolic trajectory directly in front of him; a path that unfortunately ended in the exact position that Lee had taken a seat to eat her lunch.

Lee was in the midst of lifting her sandwich to her mouth to take a bite, frozen in place as if she were the subject of a portrait. From behind her glasses, the red heads ice blue eyes slowly panned down towards her forearms, where they came upon an unwelcome sight. Five cockroaches, three adults and two nymphs, had landed on the folds of her green sweater; an additional adult happened to land on her exposed hand, waving its antennae around in a wild manner as is moved across her skin at a rapid pace.

Eddy swallowed heavily. The unbearable pain of the spicy chocolates seemed to not phase him anymore, as he was sure he had a much bigger problem to attend to: Lee's wrath.

"Whoops..." said Eddy, expecting Lee's often explosive anger to surface, "Sorry Lee..."

At the conclusion of Eddy's statement, Double Dee emitted a long drawn out sigh.

"I suppose that's what happens when you label your containers with the more unfamiliar binomial nomenclature, rather than the common designation," said Double Dee.

Marie elected not to respond to her boyfriends observation; she remained still, a concerned expression adorning her face as she focused intently on her older sister, who appeared to be developing an expression of extreme distress.

Double Dee lifted his hands to his chest, flaring his elbows out in preparation for jogging toward Lee's position.

"I'll attempt to collect as many specimens as I can, including those that happened to land on Lee's sweater, and hopefull..."

Double Dee was unable to complete his sentence, for he was suddenly tackled to the tile floor by Marie.

"TAKE COVER!" yelled Marie as she fell on top of Double Dee back, as if she were shielding him from an incendiary explosion. She reached her hands towards his head, and proceed to cover his ears with her palms.

At the same time, May slowly removed Rods old Marine Corps from hammer space within her pocket. She placed it on top of her head, and slowly slithered underneath the lunch table for "cover". A few seconds passed, at which point she reached upward, grabbing the absent minded Ed by the collar, and pulling him underneath with her.

In an instant, the ice prison that seemed to have surrounded Lee shattered. The red headed girl suddenly lifted off into the air as if she were a rocket. She remained hovering in the air in a slap stick fashion as her eyes widened with fear, her arms outstretched and shaking furiously to in an attempt remove the roaches.

The most pronounced aspect of Lee's seemingly fearful action was no doubt her tremendous lung power; as Lee launched into the air, she began to let out a tremendously long and unimaginably loud scream in the whistle register (a typical "girly" scream). The sound seemed comparable to that of the traditional steam whistle that signaled the end of a working shift, the pressure wave of which blew Eddy backwards, all the way to the opposite wall of the cafeteria. In addition, every single glass bottle in the room began to shatter one by one, as cracks began to form in the thick glass comprising the large windows lining the walls.

After around 30 seconds of screaming and rapidly flailing her arms, Lee had managed to dislodge the insects from her body. The slim girl slowly calmed her nerves, falling to the ground and assuming a fetal position in the center of the room.

One by one, the Eds and the Kankers rose from their defensive postures, observing their surroundings with awe. The entire cafeteria appeared as if it were a war zone; all of the tables had been scattered, and the floor was peppered with shattered glass. In addition, what seemed like hundreds of roaches scurried around the room, crawling on tables and walls in a quick manner.

Double Dee was of course first to respond to Lee's plight (due to Eddy being plastered to the wall, having taken the brunt of Lee's outburst). The intelligent Ed boy made his way towards Lee, kneeling down towards her while placing his hand on her shoulder.

"My goodness Lee!" said Double Dee, "Are you alright?"

Lee continued to stare forward, rocking back and forth as if she were in a trance. At that moment, her peripheral vision sensed movement in the vicinity of her left side. Her natural instincts caused her to turn towards the source of her visual disturbance, at which point she laid eyes on a large adult roach, munching on a few morsels of food around three feet away from her position.

At the sight of the insect, Lee let out another small shriek and proceeded to lift her body off of the floor. She then began a mad dash towards the cafeteria exit door , disappearing from view into the corridor in a matter of seconds.

As Lee made her exit, Eddy managed to finally regain his senses. As he came to, he witnessed Lee exiting the cafeteria in a state of distress, prompting him to begin a dash in an effort to catch up to her.

"Lee, wait up!" yelled Eddy, "I'm sorr..."

As Eddy approached the doorway, his progress was abruptly ceased by a the appearance of a large mens hand, held out and slightly downward with it's palm out as if to signal stop. Eddy slowly gazed upward, eventually meeting eyes with the school principle, who then pointed in the direction of the cafeteria, signaling Eddy to gaze upon the chaos he he had created.

"Oh boy..." said Eddy as he turned back towards the principle, who signaled the boy to come with him to his office.