Wool
"Hey," Carly said to Spencer as her, Sam and Freddie walked into the Shay's apartment after school.
"Hey," Spencer said brightly, looking up from the game of Pac-Rat he was playing on his Pearpad. "Guess who's only ten thousand points away from beating his high score!"
"This is all you did today, isn't it?" Sam frowned.
"No! I got the mail!" Spencer defended, nodding over at the pile of envelopes on the coffee table. "So how was school today you little teeny boppers?"
"Well, you'll be an uncle soon," Carly said simply, heading into the kitchen for a snack.
"What?" Spencer exclaimed, dropping his Pearpad as he jumped to his feet. "You-No! You're not-What? Okay, someone start talking fast!"
"In a week, right?" Freddie said.
"Yeah," Carly nodded. "Which is sort of unlucky, because I have a trig test at the end of next week that I'll need to be studying for, but with the baby-"
"What is going on?" Spencer demanded loudly. "Huh? I need an explanation now while I still have feeling in my legs!"
"Calm down, we're talking about robotic babies," Sam told him.
"Yeah, for health class," Carly explained. "Everyone gets partnered up to raise an imaginary baby together for a week."
"Oh," Spencer said, falling back down onto the couch, relieved. "Hey, you know, I had to do that project too in high school. Except then we used potatoes instead of robot babies."
"Because robots didn't exist back in the stone age?" Sam smirked.
"Did she just call me old?" Spencer gasped.
"So how'd you do with your potato baby?" Freddie asked.
"Oh, well, I got a D- because I accidently might've cooked him into tater tots," Spencer replied sheepishly.
"Nice," Sam grinned.
"Well these babies are going to be a lot harder to take care of than a potato," Carly said. "They're programed to be almost exactly like real babies. They cry, you have to change them and feed them…it's supposed to show us how hard it is to take care of kids."
"I still stay this is a stupid project," Sam mumbled. "And to make it all even worse, I got stuck with a stupid partner…"
"Who's your partner?" Spencer asked.
"Me," Freddie sighed, rolling his eyes.
"Really?" Spencer said. "So you two have to take care of an imaginary baby for a week? Like, you know, parents?"
"Yup," Freddie said glumly.
"Clearly it's the universe's way of punishing me for eating that burger in front of those baby cows at the petting zoo," Sam said.
"Oh come on," Carly said. "You guys don't have it bad at all. Me on the other hand…"
"Who's your partner?" Spencer asked.
"Gibby," Carly muttered.
"Ha!" Spencer laughed.
"It's not funny!" Carly snapped. "I was trying to catch the eye of the cute boy a few desks down from me, but I was completely side swept by stupid Olivia Gonzales who flipped her stupid perfect hair and wooed him in! So Mr. Copland put me with Gibby instead."
"At least you know Gibby will probably at least do some work!" Freddie pointed out. He turned to Sam. "I'm serious, Sam. You better pull your weight with this project. I'm not going to be the one who's stuck taking care of this baby all the time."
"Oh boo-hoo," Sam said. "Like you have anything better to do."
"I happen to have plenty of things I need to do!" Freddie retorted. "I have AV club, math club, young businessmen's club, homework, something you've never done in your life-"
"Well maybe I will be the one taking care of the stupid robot kid the whole time," Sam said, cracking her knuckles. "Because you're about to be on a very painful trip to the hospital!"
"Yeah, violence is always the answer…that's a great lesson to be teaching the kid!" Freddie snapped.
"It's better than you nerding him up!"
"Well excuse me for being an intellectual!"
"Don't you mean intedorkual?"
"Well, at least I've got plenty of experience dealing with children," Carly said, watching her two best friends fight. She took a deep breath. "You guys? You guys, will you please just-No, Sam! Don't put that down his pants!"
….
"So for the next week," the teens health teacher, Mr. Copland, said as he walked around the classroom with a giant box of robotic babies. "You and your partner are responsible for your fake child. You are to treat it as if it was a real baby!"
"But it's not," Sam pointed out.
"No sass, Puckett, or you and Benson will be receiving an automatic F!" the teacher said harshly.
"Sam, please!" Freddie hissed.
"Aw, are you afraid of a little F?" Sam grinned.
"I will pay you ten bucks to stop talking!" Freddie begged.
"Twenty or I'll scream."
"Fine!" He fished out his wallet and crammed a twenty dollar bill into her hand.
"Oh man, isn't this exciting?" Gibby said, shaking Carly's shoulder. "We're getting our first ever box baby! This is just as exciting as when I got my fist Lettuce Field doll when I was a kid…"
"Why were you playing with dolls?" Carly asked slowly.
"Wow, really Carls?" Gibby frowned. "I thought you were a little more progressive than that. Try not to pass on your closed mind to our box baby."
"You can't pass anything on to a robotic baby," Carly said, exasperated as Mr. Copland approached their desks. "It's not real!"
"Congratulations," Mr. Copland said dryly, dropping one of the robotic babies onto Carly's lap. "It's a girl."
"A girl?" Carly repeated, perking up as she held the doll in her arms. "Aw! She's so tiny and cute!"
"Hey, wouldn't it be kind of cool to get a girl too?" Freddie said. "Then she could go on play dates with Carls and Gib's baby, and-"
"For the millionth time, they're robot babies!" Sam moaned. "They can't have play dates! All they can do is cry at random times and somehow pee in a diaper; it can't even understand English! So don't try and be all baby-crazy with this thing when-"
"Alright, Puckett, Benson," Mr. Copland said, finally stopping off at their desks. He pulled out the last robotic baby from the box and thrust it at Sam. "You get a boy."
"Whoa, this thing is…is kind of…real-looking," Sam frowned, examining the baby. "He almost looks…cute."
"Yeah," Freddie nodded. "I mean, I know he is a robot and all, but I wonder if this is what it feels like when you have a real baby…seeing him for the first time. It must be really magical and-"
Just then a loud cry emitted from the baby. Sam quickly tossed him to Freddie, who, luckily, caught him just in time. "Your turn!" she said.
…..
"Oh my God," Carly moaned, gently bouncing her robotic baby on her shoulder. "Please stop crying little Gwendela. You've been screaming into my ear ever since I brought you home from school yesterday and I think I'm about to go deaf."
"Hey, can you control that baby?" Spencer yawned, coming out of his room. "It's eleven thirty on a Saturday; people are trying to sleep."
Carly glared at her brother. "Do you think I enjoy hearing this thing cry? I swear, it must have faulty wiring or something because there is no way it should be this loud."
"Well where's Gibby?"
"I don't know!" she exclaimed. "He was supposed to have Gwendela spend the night with him yesterday, but his cat almost clawed off her head, so now I'm stuck with it!"
"Gwendela?" Spencer chuckled.
"It's a classy name!" Carly snapped.
"Alright, jeesh," Spencer conceded. "Man, you're in a mood."
"Sorry," Carly sighed. "I'm just so tired, and I can't figure out how to get her to stop crying and I haven't even gotten a chance to take a shower so my hairs all greasy and I can already feel a stress pimple forming on my chin, and-"
"Aw, there, there," Spencer said, awkwardly patting his sister on her back. "If it makes you feel any better, when I was taking care of my potato, I was so stressed I missed three straight episodes of Adolescent Power Penguins."
Just then the apartment door opened and Sam and Freddie walked in with their own robotic baby.
"Wow, Carls, you look terrible," Sam commented.
"Thanks!" Carly said miserably. "Wait, how come your baby isn't screaming?"
"Because we just fed and changed him before we came over," Freddie said. "Oh, and now we need to burp him…"
"On it," Sam said, placing the baby over her shoulder and gently patting its back.
Carly frowned. "Um…what?"
"What?" Freddie asked.
"Nothing," Carly said quickly. "It's just I-I sort of figured at this point you two would be killing each other or something over this project."
"It's actually not as bad as I thought," Sam admitted.
"Didn't you have to wake up a million times to take care of the baby?" Carly asked.
"Only twice," Sam replied. "See, since my mom's off in Vegas and Fredwad's mom's taking care of her sister's growth or something, he just crashed downstairs on my couch last night, so he woke up half the time, and I handled the other half."
"It was actually a very efficient system," Freddie added.
"Well that's fantastic," Carly mumbled bitterly. "But do you guys have any idea what I should do with this screaming kid here? I changed her, I fed her-"
"You're holding her wrong," Sam said, handing her own baby back to Freddie and heading into the kitchen. "You're supposed to hold him like Fredbutt's doing right now."
"I-oh," Carly said, quickly repositioning her baby, and the crying ceased almost immediately. "How'd you guys know to do that?"
"We just figured it out," Sam shrugged.
"Well, at least Gwendela finally stopped crying," Carly sighed.
"Gwendela?" Freddie repeated, trying hard not laugh.
"Well what's your kid named?" Carly demanded.
"Nothing yet," Sam said.
"You guys haven't named your baby yet?" Carly said. "You need to do that by Monday, you know. Why don't you try to figure it out now?"
"Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea," Freddie agreed. "I'm getting sort of sick of just calling the baby 'him'."
"Yeah, I've got nothing to do now," Sam said, stuffing her sandwich she just made into her mouth.
"You should try ," Carly suggested. "That's where Gibby and I found Gwendela's name. Of course, Gibby did want to name her Girlby…"
"Alright, let's do this," Sam said, taking the baby back from Freddie and setting him on her lap. Just then a loud cry emitted from Gwendela.
"Again?" Carly exclaimed. "Now what?"
She grabbed one of the fake bottles their teacher had given them and placed it in the baby's mouth.
"Alright, you ready to get named?" Sam asked her and Freddie's baby.
"What happened to 'it's a robot baby, it doesn't understand English'?" Freddie asked, amused.
"Oh shut up-I mean, be quiet…please," Sam said.
Carly gave her a strange look.
"Well you can't say 'shut up' in front of a baby!" Sam whispered, and Carly couldn't help but laugh when Sam covered the baby's plastic ears as she replied.
"Here we go," Freddie said, typing away on the computer on the kitchen counter. "Here's a list of boy names…What do you think of…Kyle?"
"Eh, no," Sam said. "He doesn't look like a Kyle."
"Yeah, you're right," Freddie agreed, looking down at the baby. "How about…Peter?"
"Nah, kids will call him Peter Pan when he gets older," Sam said.
"Oh, smart, we wouldn't want that," Freddie nodded. "That could hurt his self-esteem."
"Um, you-you guys know that this baby isn't exactly going to get older, right?" Carly pointed out, but her two best friends couldn't seem to hear her.
"Hey, I like Liam," Sam said, looking at the screen.
"I don't know," Freddie said thoughtfully. "I sort of like Henry."
"No, I knew a Henry in Juvie," Sam said. "He almost bit though the bars on his cell."
"Mark then?" Freddie suggested.
"Too common," Sam said. "He's my kid; he needs a spunky name."
"Well he's my kid too," Freddie pointed out. "He needs a sort of…calm name too."
"Well read out more names then," Sam sighed. "And hurry, because we're taking him to the park soon, remember?"
"Oh, right," Freddie said. "Okay, Daniel, Cameron, Jason, Frank, Kurt, William, Rider, Lionel, Brent, Tyler, Raymond, Tucker, Victor, Mathew-"
"Mathew?" Sam repeated.
"You like that one?" Freddie asked.
"Yeah," Sam smiled. "Do you?"
"It's a pretty great name," Freddie agreed. He picked up the baby from Sam's lap. "Do you want to be named Mathew little guy?"
"Of course he does, he's totally a Mathew!" Sam chuckled. "So do you want to go to the park now, Mathew? Oh, Fredward! We should take him to the lake to watch the ducks!"
"Yeah, let's just go back to my place really quick and get him a scarf or wool hat something," Freddie said. "It's a little nippy outside."
"Oh, true, he doesn't need to be catching a cold," Sam nodded.
"Yes…because that's possible," Carly said, rolling her eyes.
"We'll see you guys later," Freddie said as him and Sam headed out of the apartment.
"Okay…bye," Carly said. Once they left, she turned to Spencer, who was sitting on the couch. "Alright, you saw that, right?"
"Um, how they're totally in sync as fake parents?" Spencer said. "Yeah, that was pretty obvious. Well, maybe not to them…"
"I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd think they were actually taking care of their own, real child," Carly said. "This is just so…weird. I've never seen Sam this into a school project. Plus she's horrible at taking care of other things! Don't you remember her hamster-"
"Ah! No!" Spencer cried. "My heart still breaks when I hear that story!"
"To think," Carly sighed, sitting down next to Spencer. "Yesterday they were at each others throats. Give them a baby and suddenly they're the happiest people in the world."
"I remember how happy my potato made me," Spencer said happily.
"And then you ate him," Carly chuckled.
"Hey, he tasted good!" Spencer defended.
Suddenly, Gwendela began to cry again.
"Alright, that's it!" Carly snapped, getting to her feet. "I'm dropping this thing off at Gibby's. I'll bring his stupid cat back here if I have to!"
…
At last, the week was over, and the next day, the teens would be handing back in their robotic babies.
"Thank God this week is done," Carly said, rocking little Gwendela in her arms.
"Aw, you didn't have fun taking care of the baby?" Spencer asked.
"Well, I mean, it was sort of nice…the few times she stopped crying," Carly said. "But there's no way I'm ready for a real baby now. Not at all."
"Huh, I like this project," Spencer said approvingly.
"Yeah, well, Sam and Freddie over there are messes," Carly said softly, nodding over to her two best friends who were sitting on the couch, looking through pictures of them and Mathew throughout the week on Freddie's phone.
"Oh, and here's when we took him to the Groovy Smoothie and got him smashed sweet potato," Freddie said, scrolling though his phone.
"He really liked that," Sam said sadly. "Hey, there's when we took him on the carousel in the mall!"
"He enjoyed himself, didn't he," Freddie sighed. "Man, I'm going miss having little Mathew around."
"Yeah," Sam mumbled. "Hey! I got it! Tomorrow in class, I'll steal Mr. Copland's glasses so when he comes to collect Mathew, he won't notice when we actually hand back in a loaf of bread!"
"Sam, it-it's time to let him go," Freddie said gently, patting her shoulder.
"But we've had so little time together!" Sam pointed out.
"Well, we'll always have the memories," Freddie said as he continued to flip through the pictures.
"Unbelievable," Carly said, shaking her head. "Do they honestly not hear themselves?"
"This is so bizarre," Spencer agreed. "I've never seen the two of them like this. They weren't even this nice to each other when they were dating!"
"And you know the second that baby goes back, they'll be back to their usual selves," Carly said.
"What are you two going on about over there?" Sam asked.
"Oh, just commenting on what cute little parents you two have been this past week," Carly chuckled.
"What do you mean?" Freddie frowned.
"Come on, you guys have been acting like-like an actual family," Spencer said.
"We have not!" Sam defended.
"Yeah, in case you forgot, Carly, this is what we were supposed to be doing, for a grade," Freddie said.
"So you guys went on that nice little picnic with your robot baby just for an A?" Carly asked, amused.
"He has a name!" Sam snapped.
"Yeah, we don't call Gwendela a robot!" Freddie agreed.
"Not helping your argument," Carly grinned.
