Scale
"Come on, it can't be that bad," Carly said to Sam.
"It is, Carls," Sam groaned over the phone. "I've been sitting here for like, two hours watching a bunch of nerds build toy trains!"
"Hey, one of those nerds is your boyfriend," Carly reminded her. "And it's important that you do this; last time you went to one of Freddie's train club meetings things didn't work out…well. Now that you and him got back together, you need to show Freddie that you're willing to try his activities. I mean he went back to prison with you the other day to apologize to your uncle and cousin about the whole ham situation."
"I know," Sam moaned. "But prison's fun. This is boring."
"Suck it up," Carly said. "Otherwise I'm throwing out all this leftover fried chicken from the dinner Spencer ordered us."
"Okay, okay, I'll behave," Sam conceded. "I'll talk to you later."
"Have fun," Carly said.
Sam hung up her phone and walked over to Freddie and the rest of the Training Bros, who were still huddled around their train tracks.
"Are you guys done with this thing yet?" Sam asked.
"Not yet," Freddie told her looking up from the model he was working on. "But I think we're almost there…"
"Building a one-twentieth scale model of the Mundo Express is time consuming work!" snapped one of the other Training Bros. "You can't rush it!"
Sam made a lunge for the boy but Freddie quickly grabbed her hand and held her back, so Sam simply gave him an evil glare.
"Well…what are you doing now?" Sam asked.
"I'm just adding one last coat of paint to the caboose of this thing," Freddie told her. "And then once it dries, we can-Ah! Butter!" He had accidently spilled some red paint on his shirt.
"Oh no, code blue! Code blue!" one of the Training Bros yelled, blowing his whistle.
"It's just paint," Sam frowned.
"You'd better hurry up and get some club soda on that," the boy standing next to Freddie told him. "My mom has some upstairs."
"Yeah, you're right, my mom would kill me if I came home with paint on my shirt," Freddie said.
"Prison was so much better than this," Sam said under her breath.
"What?"
"Nothing," Sam said quickly. "You need any help, baby?"
"Nah, I'll just scrub it out really quick," Freddie replied. "And then we can all get back to our train; I mean what kind of lame night would it be if we didn't even get to make this baby move?"
"Yeah, so lame," Sam said, rolling her eyes.
Freddie headed upstairs to tend to his shirt, leaving his girlfriend alone with the Training Bros.
"Um, why are you all staring at me?" Sam asked, looking around at the many eyes that were on her.
"Not too many girls come down here," one boy replied, taking a puff of his Asthma inhaler.
"No…really?" Sam said, her voice dripping in sarcasm.
"It's true," another boy answered. "Freddie's the first Training Bro to ever have a girlfriend. We gave him a whole page in our bi-weekly newsletter for that accomplishment."
"Hey! I had a girlfriend!" a boy wearing a blue conductor's hat said indignantly.
"It doesn't count if she has more hair on her upper lip than you," the first boy said.
"So none of you guys have ever had a girlfriend?" Sam asked. "What about those geeky girls from the all-girls math team? The Mathdies?"
"No, they won't talk to us," one of the boys sighed. "They've all got boyfriends from the Chess Team."
"Oh…" Sam said. "Well, you know…eventually some girl will be pathetic enough to wanna maybe not call the cops if you talk to her."
"Wow, that was really nice," the boy said. "Maybe you are a cool girl, like Freddie said."
"Yeah…I was starting to think he was crazy, saying how awesome of a girlfriend you were all the time," another boy nodded. "But maybe's he got a point."
"Um, thanks," Sam said. "So…Freddie really told you guys I was an awesome girlfriend?"
"Pfft, that's all we've been hearing for the past month," the boy replied. "Sam this, Sam that. Sam, Sam, Sam, all the time."
"Really?" Sam said, raising an eyebrow. "What does he say?"
"I don't think we should really be talking about this without Freddie here," another boy said.
"Dude…" Sam said warningly, grabbing the kid's collars. "You gonna start this?"
"No, no of course not!" the boy squeaked. "Tell her!"
"He says things like how much he likes your little nicknames for him," one of the boys told her. "And how you have really soft hair, and that he loves being around you…it's nauseating."
"Oh…" Sam said. "He really says all that?"
"Repeatedly," the boy whose collar Sam had grabbed mumbled. "The way he talks it's like he's found himself a perfect Meya."
The Training Bros all scoffed. "Yeah, right."
"What the chiz is a Meya?" Sam demanded.
"It's sort of this system of how us…intellectuals-"
"You mean nerds," Sam cut him off.
"Fine," the boy snapped. "It's a system that us nerds use to describe our ideal lady."
"What?" Sam frowned. "You've got to be kidding me."
"It's actually quite the ideal system," another boy spoke up. "See, in Galaxy Wars, Princess Meya, the fair beauty of light and purity, is pretty much every nerd's dream girl. So whenever one of us has a lady friend, we compare her to Princess Meya…but so far only Freddie's had a girlfriend out of us…"
"So you compare chicks to a fictional sci-fi princess?" Sam exclaimed. "And you people wonder why you're single?"
"Aw, someone's jealous that they didn't make the Meya rating," one of the boys smirked at her.
"Technically, Freddie never compared her to Meya yet," someone said. "He keeps going on about 'respecting girls'…"
"He just doesn't want to admit that his girlfriend couldn't get the Meya rating," the other boy said, crossing his arms.
"Hey, I could get this stupid Meya rating if I wanted!" Sam snapped, shoving the boy, hard. "I mean…hypothetically, what would some chick have to be like to get this lame rating?"
"She'd have to be able to recite the entire Sky Naut congress assembly," one boy said.
"She'd have to be able to tell the difference between a 1931 rivet and a 1932 rivet!"
"She'd need to know how to bake my favorite pie!"
"And know enough about the recent debate between the Pear Company and Macrocrop to carry on a conversation with me!"
"Alright!" Sam said, cutting them all off. "Jeez! You guys really can't afford to be that picky here with girls!"
"A women of Princess Meya's standards is hard to find," the Training Bro standing next to her said.
"You guys do realize you give pretty much anyone permission to hit you when you say chiz like that, right?" Sam said, rolling her eyes. "But…that's really what nerdy guys like in their girls?"
"Every nerd I've ever met," the boy shrugged.
"Interesting," Sam said thoughtfully. "Alright, you freaks have been somewhat helpful. But now I really feel like I need to give one of you a wedgie."
…..
"Good, Sam, you're here," Freddie said the next day as he heard his apartment door open. "I was just about to put on our DVD and-what's that?"
"Blueberry pie," Sam said, handing him a large, homemade pie. "Your favorite, right?"
"Yeah," Freddie grinned. "What's this for though?"
"Oh you know, thought you'd like some desert," Sam shrugged. She plopped herself down on the couch next to him. "Lou Groundrunner, Barford Gleamer, Tank Oakly, Marvel Lightbeam, Corthwalas Biggleton and Vanderbelt Sanders."
"What?" Freddie said, confused.
"That's the entire Sky Naut congress assembly," Sam replied.
"Well, yeah…" Freddie nodded. "But since when do you know anything about-"
"This," Sam said, interrupting him as she pulled out a picture of a rivet from her backpack. "Is a 1931 rivet, and this one," she pulled out another sheet of paper. "Is a 1932 rivet. You can tell the difference because the 1932 rivet is smaller and is a darker shade of gray than the 1931 model."
"That's-That's right," Freddie frowned, still confused. "But why are you-"
"And I feel that the Pear Company raises some interesting points in their argument that Macrocrop computers fail to keep up with the ever changing demands of consumers in terms of their data software updates and download speeds, but the Pear Company also fails to realize that their constant updates are sometimes a big turn-off to customers, which may account for their recent fall in sales this past month."
"Okay, what the heck is going on here?" Freddie asked. "I think I'm lost or something."
"Well then you better stop being lost, because I just got me a perfect Meya rating," Sam said triumphantly, grabbing a can of soda from the coffee table. "Boom, baby!"
"Meya rating?" Freddie repeated.
"Yeah, you know, that secret nerd scale you and your lame friends rate chicks on," Sam nodded. "I did everything they all said a girl would have to be able to do to get a perfect rating."
"Oh, Sam," Freddie said, rolling his eyes. "Tell me you didn't really think that was serious."
"Your Training Bros all seemed to think it was a big deal," Sam said.
"Yeah, and how many dates have any of those guys had in the past year?" Freddie pointed out. "Look, Sam, I think it's really sweet that you learned all that stuff just to try and be the 'ideal girlfriend' for a nerdy guy, but come on. How stupid is that scale?"
"Um, incredibly stupid," Sam said.
"Exactly," Freddie nodded. "I love you just the way you are, Sam. I don't want some dumb princes Meya girlfriend."
"Really?" Sam said.
"Really," Freddie said as he put his arms around her, bringing her closer to him. "You're perfect."
"And you're getting there…sort of," Sam grinned, kissing him. "But you still need to let all those nuby train guys know that I got that Princess Meya rating."
"What? Why?" Freddie frowned.
"Because do you have any idea how long it took me to bake that pie?" Sam said. "Or to memorize all those Sky Naut names? Besides, if my boyfriend's gonna be in some nerdy club, I want it to at least go on the record that he officially has the bestpossible girlfriend around."
"Fine," Freddie laughed. "I'll tell them."
"Thank you," Sam said, satisfied. "Now go get some forks for this pie, Benson, before I use my hands and get blueberry all over this plastic cover on your mom's couch."
