Four days after Sam's dismissal, Freddie's Dorm Room
Freddie was laying down on his bed, his head is buried in a large black hardcover book. Was it math? No, he did that earlier. Was it history, English or even communications? Nope, Freddie had decided to turn his full attention to, "Advanced Basketball: For Dummies". Freddie decided to take a couple of summer classes at the University. However, those classes weren't his main focus. He spent the days in the classroom focusing on his school work but once class was over he spent his nights focusing on the lingo of the game. He would get big, large books by some of the smartest and most revered names in collegiate basketball: John Wooden, Dean Smith, Bobby Knight and Mike Krzyzewski. He dove into these books but he still didn't have a complete understanding of everything he was reading. While reading, however, he came across the offense that the team was using. The 1-4 Offense that UCLA made famous in the 60's and 70's. All of the x's and o's, and lines and arrows; it was to make Freddie's head spin but he slowly read on.
After trudging on like this for another hour he figured that he was getting nowhere. he would call Gibby when he got a chance.
His thoughts and focus on reading came into a sudden halt as he heard a knock on the door. He stopped reading and was hoping that his best guy friend came over for a visit. However, as he opened his door, he saw that his hoping useless. Instead, his "sister" Carly was in his doorway; hands on hips, leering at him, pursed lips, and a raised left eyebrow that Former WWE Wrestler "The Rock" would have been proud of. Never in his life, did Freddie think that he would be afraid of Carly. But the fear in his eyes and the sweaty palms, proved that there was, indeed, a first for everything.
"Hello, Fredward"
Suddenly Freddie thought quickly, Is this Sam in Carly's disguise?
"Uh, Hey… you!" Why in the world I just say that?
"Why haven't you been around lately?"
"Uh," Freddie was stumped. He didn't want to avoid Carly, but the idea of Sam being around lately has been just too much for him to fathom seeing either of them...
"Why haven't you been taking any of our Calls?"
"What in the world happened to you!" Freddie was taken aback at Carly's sudden raise in her voice, "I mean I haven't seen you or heard from you in over a week!"
"OKAY!" Freddie screams. "CALM DOWN AND LET ME EXPLAIN! CHIZ CARLY!"
"HEY! SHUT UP OVER THERE! I'VE GOT A CLASS IN THE MORINING!" Came the voice of one of Freddie's neighbors.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, the two best friends fell back into silence.
Freddie sighs, "I just didn't want to see Sam..." Freddie answers in a squeak of a voice.
"Can I come in? Because we really need to talk."
"Figuring out Samantha Puckett, felt like disarming a high grade bomb. a whole bunch of wires to cut different colors and what not. All seem to have no way of being the line to cut disarming the bomb that is her. So, why try? Why stay around and be the friend she doesn't ever appreciate? Ever? I am still figuring that part out myself. So, get in line..."
A few days later, University of Washington Athletic Department...
Freddie Benson had never felt the adrenaline pumping as he had felt in the past two weeks trying to avoid a steaming mad blonde haired demon, even though the last few days had been spent in his dorm room. He has gotten no end of trying to escape her grasp.
I feel like a spy, infiltrating Fort Knox. Freddie thought, as he took his sneaking around to new levels as today Sam would be talking to the Athletic Director and Dean with Coach Kaplan at the department today. All Freddie wanted to do, was see who made the Basketball team.
Okay Benson, get in, get out and get on with your life. After a few minutes of sneaking around he finally came to his objective, the large bulletin board outside of the Athletic Director's office. It stopped him in his tracks, knowing what could be on that paper. But, he had to look anyway.
So after a taking a huge breath he quickly walked up to the board, and flipped through the list of who made it, and started looking for his name. It didn't take him long to know his fate.
He wasn't on the list...
Suddenly...
POP!
That's great, its starts with an Earthquake, birds and snakes an, aeroplane...
A plastic fork just missed his middle and index fingers and was perfectly lodged in the bulletin board. He stretched his eyes, his throat dried up and he was scared lifeless as he turned around to meet the glacial stare of Samantha Puckett. Her hands were on her hips and the look on her face was daring him to say anything that would detonate the bomb that she is.
"Hey... You?" Freddie squeaked. Yea, that defused it. His thoughts dripped with sarcasm.
Lenny Bruce is not afraid
"I haven't seen you for almost 2 weeks, and THAT is what comes out?" She asks in a quiet voice. Her eyes, which at one point held a tiny ember, are now ablaze with something akin to a wildfire. It's actually kind of fitting, Freddie thinks idly.
But he wouldn't dare speak, so Sam continued, "You don't take my calls..."
Eye of a hurricane, listen to your self churn...
"You don't reply to ANY of my messages!"
World serves its own needs, dummy serve your own needs,
Feed it off an aux speak, grunt, no, strength, the ladder start to clatter
"You even told Carly, not to tell me where you were!:
With fear fight down height, Wire in a tire
representing seven games, and a government for hire on a combat site
"You spent all of this time avoiding me, and sneaking around corners, and acting like some sort of spy… reject…" She slowly starts to close the space in between them.
Left of west and coming in a hurry
with the fury's breathing...
Freddie hadn't moved since her tirade started. Sam, thinking that she had the upper hand, decided to make her move. In three strides she pounced…
"And, all you say is..." Her voice dropped to a threatening calm.
Down...
"Hey..." she grabbed him by his collar.
Your...
"You?" She says the last part in a harsh whisper.
Neck...
Sam had been waiting for this moment ever since getting suspended. She's been waiting for the day when could just destroy the boy that seems to NOT get out of her damn head of hers; even as today loomed closer and closer.
Today was the day that her fate would be decided. Today she found out if your college career ended. She was scheduled to meet with the coach, the AD, and the Dean. However, while waiting for her name to be called, she saw Freddie looking at the bulletin board. She couldn't, NOT, take advantage of this. This was about her getting the point across that SHE was still in control. This was about putting this dork in his place…
Once and for all.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped
Look at that low playing...
Freddie closed his eyes, waiting for the beating of his life, but there was nothing. Freddie warily opened his eyes.
She seemed to start to fall back...
Fine...
Whew, he sighs...
Then...
Suddenly, she harshly yanks him by the collar; dragging him to a more secluded area, making sure that she could still hear her name being called for her meeting.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common food but it'll do
Pushing him against a wall and pulls out a permanent marker, and puts it up towards his forehead, straight at the temple to be exact.
"Any last words, before your name turns from Fredward Benson, to Sam's bitch?" Her harsh whisper was quiet but it spoke volumes...
To Save yourself, serve yourself,
World serves its own needs,
Listen to your heart bleed,
dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right, right
And as she came closer to brand what she said to him to his forehead…
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light...
The fear of the awaiting embarrassment of it all, well...
Feeling...
it just...
Pretty...
Wasn't there.
Psyched!
He looked closer and saw; not of the strong and feared Sam Puckett, but instead, he saw a tired and distraught Sam. Her voice, now, held less venom. Which, was pretty surprising. What surprised him even more was that he felt more fear when he was talking to Carly earlier that week, than when he was assaulted by Sam.
There really is a first for everything. He thought.
He felt that this may be the only chance he would ever have. He couldn't let an opportunity like this pass him by. So, he just let all of the anger and frustration out.
Its the end of the world as we know it...
"Go ahead Sam," Freddie spat, "Etch 'Sam's bitch' across my forehead. And you know what I'm going to say to the first teacher that asks me about it?"
"What?" She suddenly whispered.
"I'll say 'Samantha Joy Puckett did this to me', And if you think things are bad now… You don't have Principal Franklin to help you out. This is NOT Ridgeway High, This is the University of Washington and with the crap you were dealing with before, you will never… EVER… set foot on this campus again!" Freddie spoke with a certain fire that Sam wasn't used to.
Sam ws stunned into silence, so Freddie continued, "But I won't"
Sam was thoroughly confused, "Sam, I have every right to be laughing at the fact of how karma just bit you so hard, I have every right to joke at your anger FINALLY catching up to you, but I won't. You know why Sam?"
"Why?" She asked unable to move.
"Because Sam, stooping to your level won't take away the fact that I failed. It won't take away the fact that, at this point, I am not where I need to be, mentally. And you know what else? I won't stoop to your level because that'd make me no better than you. Unlike what you've done with everything in your life… I refuse to give up just because the road got a little rough."
"Samantha Puckett!"
She suddenly heard the sound of the Secretary and finally she had no real choice but to let go of him.
Silently she began to walk to the conference room when she heard Freddie say, "Mark my words, Puckett. I WILL be better than you."
She didn't say a single word as she walked around of the corner and entered the conference room.
Its the end of the world as we know it...
Freddie stood there and couldn't believe that worked. All he could say was...
Its the end of the world as we know it...
"Finally, I have some time alone..."
He stalked back to the safety of his dorm.
And I feel fine...
Sam was sitting at the single chair in the conference room of the Athletic Department building. In front of her, stood the three people that would decide her fate. Coach Kaplan was on the left. On the right, was Athletic Director, David Hoffer and in the middle was the one that would dictate it all. University Dean, Janice Harper. The only person Sam wants to see again soon is Coach Kaplan. She doesn't want to deal with the other two again till that final day in the university as she receives her degree for graduation.
"Samantha Puckett, you are here because of fighting during university sanctioned activity, do you understand the charge?" Said AD Hoffer with his left eyebrow cocked high.
Hmph… fight… hardly. It was one-sided considering the way I smacked that skunk-bag to next week. "Yes" She responded through gritted teeth in all.
"Well," Said Dean Harper as she leaned forward, staring directly into Sam's eyes. "Anything you need to say before you make our verdict?"
"Yes," Sam says lightly and then she clears her throat and sits up straight and stares back with conviction.
"I know what I have done is unacceptable and is grounds for expulsion. I feel, though, that I have to say that I apologize for my unsavory behavior. Also, I want you to know this," She takes a deep breath and continues.
"I will promise you that I WILL keep myself out of trouble and I will be a better person that my team and the university as a whole will be able to respect. I would like to say that I am, honestly, sorry. Not just to the girl that I hit, but also to Coach Kaplan and all of you here today. I would love to have another chance to play for the Lady Huskies and I will understand if I have to be dismissed from the team. I would deserve it because you all took a chance on me that no one else would. If I am reinstated I promise that I will comply with any punishment you hand me. And upon my reinstatement to the team I will give one hundred and fifteen percent." Sam had rehearsed this with Carly from the time that she received notice of this hearing up until this moment. She knows that she needed to approach it in a professional manner or well for a lack of better words...
She would be screwed.
Silence engulfed the room and the three people in front of her would stare back and forth at each other...
"Miss Puckett" Dean Harper would say, "I believe in second chances, and even though you seem to have such a sordid…" She thought about it for a moment. "history. I believe in how sincere you were in your speech and will give you another second chance… on these conditions." Dean Harper looks towards Coach Kaplan in a knowing stare.
"Sam," Said the coach. "You'll have to do a hundred hours of community service in addition to the other conditions that we have already discussed. You will also have to issue an apology to the team and to the player you fought. Is that clear?"
"Yes," Sam again said, through gritted teeth, of course.
"So, even though you are redshirted, you are welcomed back to the team." Sam was finally able to smile. However as she stood to leave the conference room the Dean had a word of caution.
"Miss Puckett, you have been given another chance… be sure not to waste it. Just one more incident and you will be dismissed. Do you understand, Miss Puckett?"
"Yes." She walked out of the room, ignoring the chill that ran down her spine.
Three Days Later...
"There is a city called George? What the hell?"
It was a long drive. Two and a half hours long; driving down the stray road on I-43 to a Homeless Shelter in George, Washington. It's a small town, as on Google maps you'd have to zoom in quite a bit to see the city as all, but its there. In the center of the small town there is a homeless shelter that does, weekly, Sunday dinners. This week would be her first of many, as she started to work off her community service hours…
Slowly.
Sam had already apologized to the team, and that went well. But apologizing to the freshman was a bit trickier.
Getting T-Bo to give the girl free smoothies for a year was trickier, still. But it was done. It took some good scare tactics but she is Sam Puckett, she exudes awesomeness.
She's walked up to one of the servers in the homeless shelter and asked "This is the place for hobos?"
The server, looking confused, answered, "Yes it is and how are you young miss?"
"Sam Puckett," She answered, "I got community service here from the University of Washington?"
The Server Smiled "Ah, so you're Samantha-"
"It's Sam." Sam countered coolly.
"Sam," the server amended, "Yes, we will be starting our Sunday dinner soon, It would be nice if you could arrive a little earlier to help prepare..."
"Yea, yea, I'll be here when I want."
"Uh, okay." The server shook his head and gestured behind him, "The kitchen is back that way."
"Thanks, hobo helper."
So, Sam reached the door of the kitchen and suddenly saw her workplace.
The place was a total wreck; dishes all over the place. There were some on the floor, somehow, and very few in the sink. Grime and an unknown smell wafted through the degraded room. At the middle counter stood a chef who was working on her whole menu alone here.
She can't be doing good dishes...
But Sam looked at the dishes that sat on the table. They contained foods that the hobos would be eating. Sam compared the center counter to the rest of the kitchen and it was a different story. The foods looked like a star could eat them.
"Hey!"
Sam finished her analysis of the situation. She came to the conclusion that; even her dorm room wasn't this much of a mess. But, at least, the girl whom she was helping could get things done.
Sam looked towards the other girl, but wasn't allowed to respond before the chef was asking questions.
"You're the help I was looking for?"
"Yup, I'm..."
"No Time!" The chef yelled. "You're my first help since I started a couple of weeks ago! We need to get started now!" She threw an apron at Sam. "Get started on dicing the tomatoes!"
Many hours later, they were finally done with the shelter's Sunday dinner. They brought different dishes out to George's homeless population. When they were finished serving, they looked at the happy faces that were displayed. It gave her a good feeling, that she made those smiling faces.
She was sitting with her partner-in-crime, eating one of the dishes that they made at the end of the Sunday dinner. And, good eats, it was.
"So," Sam said as she was inhaling her lasagna, "I'm guessing you were forced to be in this dump like I was?"
"No," Replied the chef. "I wasn't."
"Huh?"
"I like coming to George. From my school, it's a nice long drive, and the people need a slice of the life they want to have," she sighed, "It gives these people hope for a better future."
Sam nodded in silence.
"So what did you do?"
"I slapped a teammate on my volleyball team, no biggie." Sam shrugged.
The chef raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
"Because, my nub of a friend wouldn't talk to me."
"This nub, as you call it, must be pretty important to ya." The chef replied with a chuckle.
Sam said nothing back.
"Well," The chef sat up and started getting ready to leave. "Will you be back next Sunday? We made a good team."
"Eh, we'll see." Sam smirked through that.
"Well, sorry for the first impressions, I was in the zone. What's your name?"
"Sam, Sam Puckett."
"Name's Diana, but you can call me D."
A/N: So that is chapter 12... So for those who read thanks for your patience and I hope this chapter is up to you guys standards.
And a New story is out called "G-Buddies" I been getting that ready for a while and fell this could be a good one indeed. So look out for that.
So finally I hope you guys review this story and pass it on to others, and most of all...
Stay reading, my friends.
Hartful13
P.S. One more thing...
Read
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