Author's Note of Doom: This chapter's a bit different. How? I did it in Word instead of Open Office. :P Enjoy anyway.

As you could imagine, Mike had me verbally held at gunpoint.

"What the hell, man?!" he shouted, yet loud enough for only me to hear. "I thought I told you to not mess things up! All of a sudden I found out that you two are broken up?! What's the deal with that?!" I was getting mad myself. How was this at all my fault? If what Susie said was true, then it's Crystal's brother's fault. "Dude, we needed her for the skit for the CD. I even tried to get a spare and that didn't even work!"

"Wait wait wait. A spare?" I said, confused.

"Yeah, a spare. You know, that Susie chick. I figured she must be a real firecracker under that quiet side, so I had to see if she'd help us out."

My fists started to clench. "So you tried to set her up with Casey."

"Yeah. And I'm going to try Frankie today. One way or another, we will have our fa…"

I walked away. And as soon as I turned the corner, I punched the wall, hard enough for everyone to stare at me. The pain almost immediately shot back into my arm, leaving my knuckles distorted and leaving me with a bruise on my fingers.

Later that day, as expected, I could see Frankie making his move. He called it the "Carlson Charm". I saw him approach Susie, and he went into making it happen. He'd say "Hi, my name is Alan. What's yours?" I couldn't clearly see what she said, but it looked like "I know. Your friend Mike told me about you. But he said your name was Frankie." I saw the expression on Frankie's face. Keeping it smug, bad, just like he said he'd do.

He seemed to say "That's my stage name. In real life, my name is Alan." He then shook his head, attempting to style it without touching it. I knew what was coming next. I took a look at Mike standing in the lunch line, who was looking at Frankie while moving. He knew what was coming next too. "I've been keeping my eye on you, and I think…" at this point, he'd grab her hand, "--I think that you would be the perfect girl for me." As pissed off as I was, I couldn't help chuckling at this. There was no way that Susie could fall for this.

Then all of a sudden, Susie hugged him. Then I was confused. That was the corniest pick-up statement ever, and she fell for it?!

And then, Frankie keeled over in pain, clutching his… well… lower parts. Susie patted his head and walked away.

Mike sat down next to me and was going to ask if it worked before I cut him off. "The Charm failed. And there's one chance left," I said, smile on my face.

--

"She must be a lesbian or something."

"She's not. Trust me."

"She denies Case… then Frankie… then me? No, no way. Something's up."

What had happened was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen. He started walking up to her, she said no, and he turned right around and walked away. "Ah well, Mike. Guess where you failed, I'll have to…"

"Oh HELL no!" Mike shouted, jumping off of the bench. "Your job is to get back together with Crystal."

"Dude, no. If she doesn't want to be with me, then…" Silence. Susie walked by and waved at me. Mike just blinked.

"…nevermind."

--

After school, I rode by Susie's house, more of Mike's words burning in my mind. "Do it or we'll need to find someone else to write our songs for us." Doesn't matter anyway. I said it in the first chapter; I can get by just doing comics (of which I had three new ones done). Not like being kicked out of the band phased me anyway.

I rang the doorbell. Susie answered the door. "Um… hey Calvin." She seemed to be dressed in a too-long T-shirt and even though I couldn't see it, shorts.

"Wow. Not very conscious of how you look, are you?"

"Whatever, Cal."

"It looks like someone put a cloth over a small tree and drew in the rest with crayon." And like a hot spatula raked across my face, Susie slapped me. Hard.

I licked the inside of my cheek. "Things never change," I said, smirking a bit. "Too bad I knew that after I stopped carrying Hobbes around." I looked around awkwardly. "Is this a… bad time?"

"No, no, Come in," She let me in and closed the door. "Why are you here?"

I fumbled with my words. "Susie, I…"

She folded her arms. "You aren't being sincere." I gave her a quizzical look (Wow, I didn't even know I knew that word). "Calvin… you're the one I'd say yes to…"

"But what?"

"Well…" she took a seat and sighed. "Your heart isn't in it."

"How do you know?" I asked, a little irritable.

"Mike wants you to do this for your band. You don't want to, you'd rather be with Crystal, but you're scared of her brother." Is she a freakin' mind reader or something?

"Oh. Well I…" I stopped. It wasn't worth it. She was 100 right. "Susie, can you at least help me out with this?"

Susie nodded. It was settled. Mike wasn't going to kick me out of the band, and I can still smooth everything out with Crystal.

Things may just get better all of a sudden.