Still Someone: I definitely wish I had used a bit more detail to describe that scene at the pond. I'm glad you got the point of that scene though, it was meant to be an awkward reunion for the gang so I wanted it to be quick Gretchen, Mikey, Vince, and Gus weren't in the mood for confrontation and just wanted to get the hell outta there. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

NatalieJ-101: It hurt to me to put Tj in pain like that but it had to be done :( . Glad you enjoyed it, thank you for reviewing.


"Oh cruel world! Who could ever be so heartless as to gruesomely harm and dismantle one of Earth's beautiful and delicate creatures and call it... an assignment?" Mikey dramatically sobbed into Gretchen's shoulder as she collected some items from her locker.

"Don't think of it that way Mikey, it's purpose is to better mankind. It gives students hands-on experience and understanding of anatomy and physiology. Students can take what they learn from this assignment and go on to be doctors and cure diseases. It's an important lesson and the backbone to the middle school science curriculum."

"Are you guys talking about the upcoming frog dissection?" Vince leaned on the locker next to Gretchen's. Gretchen and Mikey nodded.

Ever since Vince found out that Gretchen and Mikey are transferring to different schools, he has been sneaking away from his team mates in between classes to catch up with them. He searches for Gus too but he rarely ever makes an appearance in the halls between classes. The three of them have been speculating reasons as to why they never see him.

Gretchen suggested that he stays in his previous class late to ask his teachers more extensive questions on the material they learned in class that day.

Vince suggested that he might be looking for a faster alternate route much like the gang had to return to class after recess- until 4th grade when it was ruined by that 42 year old snitch posing as a kid who was hired by Skinner and Prickly to foil their plans.

Mikey tried to suggest positive reasons as to why Gus wasn't around but it was clear that he knew something that the others didn't, and he wasn't about to snitch on his friend.

"Man I'm not looking forward to slicing open a frog, that's just gross."

"And Morbid." Mikey muttered.

"But important!" Gretchen didn't want her point to be lost amongst her juvenile friends.

"You probably won't have to deal with all that anatomy junk at your new arts school though Mikey, you can probably just skip the assignment."

"I haven't actually been accepted to any performance arts schools yet. I probably won't hear back from any of them for a couple of weeks, report cards will be issued well before I transfer and I'd rather not have my grades suffer."

"Wow sounds like a real catch 22 buddy."

Gretchen sighed.

"Something up Gretchen?" Vince turned to her.

"Oh It's nothing really." Catch 22 reminded her of Spinelli, it was the last book they read in their secret book club. She struggled to hide the look of sorrow on her face, but she knew she had to. Vince was staring at her unconvinced. " You know Mikey I have heard of a simulator that gives you a seemingly similar experience to frog dissection. Although it is a tad bit expensive."

"We can hold a bake sale." Mikey's attitude took a complete turn, it was nice to see him happy but unfortunately they had to bring him back to reality.

Vince patted Mikey's back. "I hate to break it to you big guy, but I don't think a simple small town bake sale is ganna do the job. Anything involving science is insanely expensive, I can't even imagine how much a simulator would cost. Plus the dissection is on Halloween, that's only four days from now."

"Even if we were to purchase the software for just one computer it would cost..." Gretchen typed some numbers into her Galileo computer. "Egad! It would cost over two grand! Not to mention the necessary operating system updates and the purchase of additional ram... I'm afraid it just doesn't seem feasible Mikey."

"Well if we can't afford the simulator, we're just going to have to start an old fashion protest and free the students and the frogs from the assignment."

"But Mikey it's for science."

"If that is your stance on the matter I'm okay with that Gretchen, but I have to try to save those innocent creatures."

Gretchen sighed again. "Where do we start Mikey?"

Mikey smiled and pulled Gretchen into a hug, he would of squeezed the life out of her if Vince hadn't stopped him.

"I'll help out to, but how exactly are we going to talk the entire student body into failing an assignment?"

"Just start explaining the cause to people they'll join, I'm sure of it."

"You're way to optimistic Mikey" Vince had his arms crossed with a stern look on his face. "Don't ever change."

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"Save the frogs! Save the frogs! Save the frogs!" A voice shouted from the other side of the hallway as Tj and Spinelli left their second period class.

"I wonder what that's about?" Tj turned to Spinelli. She shrugged, the two walked over to the direction of the noise.

There their former best friend Mikey stood on a milk crate holding a megaphone in one hand and a picket-sign reading "Save the frogs", in the other hand.

"Oh I heard Randall talking about this earlier, Mikey is trying to protest the big frog dissection on Halloween."

They stood back and watched his protest. Students were paying him no attention, he put down the picket-sign and began to hand out flyers to each passer by. students either ignored him or crumbled up and discarded the flyers, no one seemed even the slightest bit interested in the cause.

He set the flyers and megaphone and sat to rest on the crate. He held his face in his hands.

He didn't notice Tj and Spinelli walk up to him. "You know there is a football game tonight, I could ask the cheerleaders mention the protest... If you want."

Mikey looked up at her with a small smile. "Really?"

Spinelli nodded.

Mikey handed her some flyers about the protest. "Thank you Spinelli."

"No problem big guy."

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"These stickers came out awesome Spinelli." Tj marveled over a frog sticker that Spinelli made. "Making the frog's skin see through and showing all it's organs is a great way to showcase the cause."

"Thanks man, but it wasn't really my idea there actually is a type of frog with see through skin called the 'glass frog'."

"Are they really glow in the dark like these stickers?" He peeled the sticker off the paper and stuck it to his football helmet. It was a fairly large sticker and covered the entire top portion of the helmet, with the limbs falling down onto the face mask.

Spinelli laughed. "Nope that was my idea, I'll take the credit for that one. It'd be hard to miss these suckers from the bleachers. So are you sure you can get the team to wear these?"

Tj shrugged. "I can ask. Either way the word about Mikey's protest is definitely going to get out tonight. Did you and the cheer squad-"

"Drill team." Spinelli corrected as she always does when she is in her opinion "wrongfully" called a cheerleader.

Tj rolled his eyes. "Sorry, did you and the drill team come up with a cheer for the protest."

"We did. It isn't great, it's kinda cheesy but it should get the message across."

"Good. Mikey will surely want to talk to us again after we help him out. Maybe we can even invite him out to Kelso's tonight."

"Oh I forgot to tell you, I can't go to Kelso's tonight."

Tj frowned. Going to Kelso's after each football game became a tradition for him and Spinelli, it was one of the few good things that came out of this whomping school year. "Oh."

"We're having a family night. My mom actually suggested that I invite you. We're probably just going to order some pizza and watch the God Father."

"Cool. You and your folks have been spending a lot more time together eh."

"Yeah with Joey back in town and the whole Vito thing going on, we've just been bonding."

"That's good. Any word on Vito?"

"Nope, they can't give us a straight answer. Each guard present at the time of his sentence to the SHU had conflicting stories as to what he did. The warden keeps saying he'll call us back but he never does, and when we try to contact him his secretary says that he just conveniently just stepped out."

"That's insane!"

"Yup, well I have to go put on that skimpy little outfit and cheer for you saps to win, go pass out these stickers will ya?" Spinelli handed him a bag filled with the frog stickers, then unexpectedly pulled him into a hug.

Tj wasn't quite sure why she was hugging him but he wasn't complaining. He didn't hesitate to squeeze her back. When she pulled away he flashed her a smile and turned to the boys locker room. When Tj arrived most of the team was already in the locker room, he stood up on a bench in the center of the room and whistled.

"Hey guys, I don't know if any of you heard of the protest that Mikey Blumberg started but it's a good cause and it could really use the publicity. He is protesting the frog dissection assignment. There are 300 7th graders scheduled to do the dissection on Halloween, If we can get everyone to say no to the assignment we would save 300 frogs lives. So if you are interested in helping out with this selfless cause take a sticker and put it on your helmet." He thought for sure that a few of his teammates would be interested, but no one came forward to get a sticker. It was almost as if Tj had lost his amazing speech making skills.

"I'll take one of those." Vince walked over to him with his hand open.

Tj smiled and handed him a frog sticker.

"For Mikey." As Vince put the sticker on his helmet Lawson and a few other guys lined up to get a sticker.

"Yeah give me one of those things Toad-Weiler"

"They're frogs Lawson." Tj rolled his eyes.

Soon enough the entire team had frog stickers on their helmets and were ready to help out their peer in his protest.

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"Oh shut up at least it got everyone's attention" Spinelli punched Tj in the arm as they walked back to her house.

He continued to laugh, she should have put a little bit more force into the punch. "I didn't realize you had such a way with words Spinelli!"

"Hey I didn't come up with the cheer, it was all Captain Jenna's idea. She and her friends are the only ones allowed to make up cheers for the team."

"Oh... that whomps, so even someone came up with a good cheer-"

"They'd kick you off the team for over stepping their boundaries. It's probably for the best though, I over heard some of the cheers that the Ashleys came up with and they are just awful. All of their cheers have us spelling out 'scandalous'... Which by the way they don't even know how to spell correctly."

"Hey that's not an easy word to spell Spinelli."

Spinelli laughed. Spelling was probably one of Tj's worst subjects in school, he never got higher than a 'C' on a spelling test. While unknown to Spinelli's friends she was receiving all 'A's in that subject.

"Did you see that Vince had one of your stickers on."

"Yeah, even Gretchen was sporting one."

"You gave her one? Did you two talk?"

"No I kinda just passed one to her and to her friends as I was walking by. I was rushing so I could go talk to Mikey. Though I didn't get the change to talk to him either, he was too busy with his friends."

"Understandable. He is planning a grade wide protest, we'll have to give him time I'm sure we'll get to talk to him once it's all over."

"Did you see how long the line was to sign the petition? It was like 40 kids deep. I looked at the list after halftime and we already had 140 signatures on it, that's almost half of our grade."

"That's not even the best part. After the half time performance a couple of football players from Nelson A. Rockefeller middle school were talking about doing the protest when they do the frog dissection next month. I told them that they could come buy the frog stickers from the cute cheerleader in the combat boots." Tj flinched and covered his face anticipating another punch from Spinelli for referring to her as a cheerleader, but oddly enough she remained calm. He looked over at her, she was blushing and looked kind of confused.

"Cute?" She questioned.

Tj gulped. Ooops. Well this is awkward, what does one even say in a situation like this. "Um... TAG YOU'RE IT!" He poked her and ran for his dear life.

Spinelli regained her composure, smiled, and chased Tj back to her house.