(AN: Man, am I sorry for the long wait this time. My muse is still on fire—but this time she only wants to write ONE particular story. I know better than to fight her, but I still try to accommodate for my other, orphaned stories. Poor babies. Anyway, here's chapter four!)

O.o.O

SpongeBob stood listlessly behind the grill at the Krusty Krab, looking as depressed as he ever could.

"SpongeBob, hurry up on those orders!" Squidward snapped at his station at the cash register. "We can't wait all day!"

"Coming," said SpongeBob sadly, flipping a few burgers. "How could I already have a bad driving record?" he said softly to himself.

Squidward overheard. "Well, SpongeBob," he said sarcastically, "did you ever think that, just maybe, your getting your driver's license was just a fluke?"

"That's not true!" cried SpongeBob defensively. "I passed that test fair and square!"

"I'm not saying you didn't," said Squidward, smiling and clearly enjoying messing with SpongeBob's head. "I'm just saying that maybe it was just a lucky accident when you actually passed… and in truth, you're still just as lousy of a driver as ever."

"No… no… NO!" cried SpongeBob, tearing at the sides of his head in agony.

"Yes, yes, yes!" retaliated Squidward. "Anytime you actually do something right, it's really nothing but an accident!"

"NOOOOOOOO!" SpongeBob screamed, flung his spatula at Squidward, and tore out of the building, leaving a SpongeBob-shaped hole in the wall.

There was a slight pause throughout the entire restaurant.

"Ow," Squidward finally muttered, pealing the spatula off of his face.

"Squidward!" Mr. Krabs, having heard SpongeBob's screams, barged his way out of his office. "What have I told yeh about sendin' SpongeBob crashing through the walls? It costs LOTS of money to repair them holes!"

Squidward shrugged, although he was still smirking. "What can I say, yanking on SpongeBob's chain adds joy to my otherwise mundane existence."

"But it subtracts money from mine!" shrieked Mr. Krabs. "Yank his chain on yer own time, or yer fired!"

"Yes sir," muttered Squidward, "I will refrain from any chain-yanking on company time."

Mr. Krabs continued to frown at the gap in the wall. "And while we're at it, who's going to do the cooking when SpongeBob's gone?"

"He'll be back soon enough," sighed Squidward. "Why not enjoy the peace and quiet for now?"

Mr. Krabs opened his mouth, probably to say something related to money, when the chimes of the clock interrupted him.

"Uh oh," sighed Squidward.

"Three… THREE THIRTY?" Mr. Krabs suddenly looked horrified. "Oh no! It can't be… not now!"

Squidward raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Mr. Krabs, I thought three-thirty was your favorite time of day because all the kids are out of school and come here for food!"

"Of course, you loony!" cried Mr. Krabs. "But do yeh realize that without our fry cook, THERE'LL BE NO FOOD FOR THEM ALL TO PAY FOR? We'll make no money at all today! WHERE'S THAT SPONGEBOB?"

The sound of the front door being flung open stopped Mr. Krabs's whining temporarily, and he spun around with a hopeful smile, apparently hoping for SpongeBob's return. His smile instantly faded, however, when he saw that it was not SpongeBob, nor was it a student there to buy junk food… although she was a student.

"Hiiiiiiiii Daddy!" Pearl Krabs said sweetly, but with the gleam in her eyes that indicated that she wanted something—namely money—from her old man.

Mr. Krabs clearly picked up on this tone. "Hello, Pearlie," he said nervously, wringing his claws. "What do yeh want?"

"Oh, Daddy," said Pearl, "I don't need a reason to come and visit you! Although, since you mentioned it… Could I borrow fifty dollars?"

"FIFTY DOLLARS?"

Mr. Krabs's shout was so loud that the roof of the Krusty Krab flew off, then crashed back down, a bit askew.

"We're short a fry cook, which means no more customers today, there's a sponge-shaped hole in the wall, and all you can think about is fifty dollars for your selfish needs?" cried Mr. Krabs, only a touch more composed.

"Don't forget about the bill you'll have to pay to fix that roof," remarked Squidward.

"I'm not payin' yeh t'make snarky comments, Squidward!" snapped Mr. Krabs.

"All I want the money for is for this totally coral skirt I saw at the mall yesterday!" said Pearl, glaring at her father. "Are you saying that you're going to deprave me of being the fashion queen just because your fry cook runs through walls?"

Mr. Krabs considered this for a moment. "Well… yes," he finally admitted.

Pearl began to whimper, the precursor to a sob-fest. Squidward pulled out an umbrella. "You… you… you don't love meeeeeeee!" Pearl finally wailed, huge tears spraying from her eyes.

"No, of course I love ya!" cried Mr. Krabs, desperately but fruitlessly trying to dodge Pearl's tears.

"No you don't!" Pearl insisted between her sobs. "If you did you'd understand how important this is to me!"

"Alright, I'm back," said a new voice, still sounding a bit down in the dumps.

"SpongeBob!" cried Mr. Krabs gratefully, grabbing the sponge by the arm and pulling him back towards the kitchen. "Get back in that kitchen and make money–I mean patties!"

"Yes, sir," said SpongeBob sadly.

"And don't yeh be blastin' through any more walls again—I don't care what Squidward tells yeh!" said Mr. Krabs.

"Well," sniffed Pearl, wiping away her last tears, "if what he said to you was anything like what Daddy just said to me, you've got a perfectly good reason to go running through walls."

"Now, Pearl—" Mr. Krabs began, clearly on the defensive, but SpongeBob cut him off.

"No, I have no reason to be running through walls at all!" he lamented. "Squidward's right! I got my driver's license purely by accident! I shouldn't own a boat at all!"

"Nice to see you've finally got some sense knocked into that cubed head of yours," muttered Squidward.

Pearl, however, looked awe-struck. "SpongeBob, did you say you have… a boat?" she whispered.

"Yes, but I don't deserve it!" cried SpongeBob dramatically.

The whale completely ignored SpongeBob's self-defeating comment. "Ooh, SpongeBob, do you know how totally coral you are now that you own a boat? Oh man, if you were in high school, you'd be so coral you'd have your own fanclub!"

"You haven't seen his boat yet," snapped Squidward. "You wouldn't think he's so coral if you saw the piece of junk he drives."

"C—coral?" breathed SpongeBob. "You really think I'm… coral?"

"Of course you are!" said Pearl. "Owning a mode of transportation makes someone automatically coral. That is, if that someone is under the age of twenty-five…"

"…Coral?" SpongeBob asked again, hardly believing it. Never in his entire life had he been called "coral". A nerd? Oh Neptune, yes. A loser? More times than he could count. A weirdo? Hardly a day went by when he didn't hear that one.

But coral?

Never.

"You'll totally have to take me driving sometime," said Pearl. "Maybe to the mall." She shot a nasty look to her father. "Seeing as I probably won't be going there today." With that, she turned around and left the restaurant.

Again, there was silence in the restaurant for a few moments, as SpongeBob was still marveling to himself that someone actually considered him coral, Squidward was giving a bored, slightly irritated scowl, and Mr. Krabs was… well, he was…

He finally spun around and yelled at SpongeBob, "Don't yeh even think about it, boy!" then stormed back to his office, slamming the door behind him.

"Don't even think about what?" SpongeBob asked Squidward.

"Taking Pearl to the mall, I assume," shrugged Squidward. "Although I usually refrain from giving you good advise, I think you should do what he says. Dating the boss's daughter is never a good strategy."

"Dating?" asked SpongeBob, blinking. "I'm not dating her! I'm not even taking her anywhere!"

"Well, if you do take her somewhere in your 'totally coral' boat, then Krabs might think that you do want to date her," said Squidward.

"But I don't want to date her!" said SpongeBob.

Squidward smirked. "I wouldn't say that too loudly if I were you… Krabs might think that you don't think Pearl's good enough."

SpongeBob's eyes grew wide with confusion. "But if I'm not supposed to date her, but I'm also not supposed to act like I don't want to date her, then what do I do?"

"Avoid her," said Squidward. Quickly, he added, "Keep your distance, but don't look like you're trying to keep your distance."

"How do I do that?"

"I don't know! Walk casually! Now would you PLEASE fill those orders that you left unfilled back when you made that hole in the wall?"

"Oh… right."

O.o.O

"It's… it's actually… look… look at this chart…"

"I am looking at it," sighed Karen, sounding bored. "Revenue is going up. The only time you've probably ever seen a chart with an up arrow is in a movie."

"I… I'm actually making money!" cried Plankton. "And I'm not even doing anything diabolical to do that!"

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Karen asked.

Plankton frowned. "No… I actually feel this big diabolical gap. If I don't do something evil in the next few days, I might just snap!"

"Oh goodness, as if you haven't already?"

"Hush!" snapped Plankton. "Now," he said, talking more to himself than to his computer wife, "being evil has never been much of a problem for me, but to be evil now I'd have to find a way to do so that wouldn't drive away customers in the process. How, then, could I accomplish this?"

"How about staging accidents so that SpongeBob—or any other drivers coming by—will crash near your restaurant and come in for food?" said Karen, sounding, as usual, as if she was stating the blatantly obvious. "You know, the idea that you came up with."

"Oh… right," said Plankton, sounding a bit sheepish. "Jeez, are you programmed to show me up at every possible chance?"

"No, that's just part of my own personal charm, darling," said Karen sassily.

"Don't I know it," muttered Plankton.

O.o.O

(AN: A bit short, I know… but the funny thing is, once I started writing this chapter, it came out pretty easily. That may be because I was writing dialogue for characters who, up until now, have had little or no dialogue, ie Squidward, Krabs, and Pearl. And the Plankton and Karen scene was easy too, because Plankton's my favorite character (can't you tell?) and Karen's just too much fun to write dialogue for. Once I finish this piece, I might have to write a little Plankton/Karen piece, just because their interaction is hilarious!

I'm rather surprised at how quickly I'm getting to the punch in this story. I could, theoretically, wrap this story up in just two more chapters, although I'll likely stretch it out to three. Maybe more… who knows? At any rate, if you couldn't tell, this isn't like one of my normal dramatic and angsty longer stories (if you're familiar with any of my non-SpongeBob work). It's purely for fun, and I'm certainly having fun writing it. Hope you're having fun reading it!

Oh yes, and that was a Star Wars reference. If you didn't catch it, then you probably wouldn't understand it anyway.

See you next chapter!)