This is what exam week does to me.

Riley is in this. Deal with it.

Italic is Riley

Bold italic is Sam.

-Phanny

When the universe wasn't picking on Sam's friends, it was picking on her. The situation she had found herself in couldn't possibly be karma – she hadn't done anything wrong (that wasn't for the greater good), she hadn't insulted anybody (not people who didn't deserve it, anyway), and she had done all her homework, unlike Danny and Tucker (okay, she may have let them copy, but not verbatim – that would be wrong).

All of this was what Sam considered "being good," so why was the nasty universe (in the form of Mr. Lancer and, before him, the scheduling people), making her suffer?

The beginning would probably be a good place to start. Sam was in her second semester of her junior year of high school, and she had specifically requested to take an art class, but no, the office decided that she should be in a creative writing class. This was an acceptable solution, she had thought, because she liked writing too.

When she stepped into Mr. Lancer's creative writing class at the beginning of January, she discovered that the scheduling people in the office must have not given her the art class because they hated her. That had to be the reason, because as soon as she walked into the room, she heard it.

"Hi Sam!"

Oh my god.

Elective classes like creative writing were some of the few classes that mixed together students in different grades. Maybe it was just a coincidence, or maybe Riley Matthews had just accidentally walked into the wrong class (she wasn't too bright, so it was possible – probable, even). There had to be some absolutely diabolical reason as to why the girl was in here. Was she following Sam?

Riley was a freshman who had found out about Danny's powers by complete accident, forcing Team Phantom to have to associate with her because if they didn't she probably wouldn't be able to keep her mouth shut. Once she was somewhat "accepted" into the group (she seemed completely ignorant of how begrudgingly the decision was made), she decided that she now had only two goals.

One, become a cheerleader, which she had miraculously done.

Two, be Sam's BFF. This proved to be easier said than done. But, to Sam's growing annoyance, she just kept trying.

Admittedly, she had grown on Sam a little – once she finally realized that the girl wasn't going to go away until Sam graduated, she tried her best to get along with her and put up with her eccentricities (re: refrained from hitting her). This would be fine if Sam only saw her once in awhile.

But she was everywhere.

That's how Sam found herself sitting in front of Riley for the first month of school, thinking that she should be getting award for her incredible amount of patience.

"Hey Sam?"

"Yes, Riley?"

"You wanna hear a funny story?"

"No, not really."

"Awww…why not?"

"I've heard all of your funny stories at least three times, Riley."

"You haven't heard this one."

"Yes I have."

"…huh. I think you're right."

"I often am."

This was a daily conversation. Riley's stories were always significantly un-funny, and it was amazing that, with every telling, they managed to get less funny.

"All right, students," Mr. Lancer said from the front of the classroom one day, "I'm going to assign you partners today, and you'll have two weeks to work on a group story." It was then that Lancer gave same the look. Sam knew the look. She knew what it meant. Lancer was going to make a decision that he knew Sam would not like.

"Partners are as follows…"

He wouldn't do this to me.

"Tara and Brittany…"

I'm a good student.

"Hannah and Max…"

He's gonna do it.

"Sam and Riley…"

Oh god. He did it.

Sam felt so betrayed. He was one of this guy's best students and he goes and pulls this! Not only was she stuck with the girl she dedicated a lot of her time trying to get away from, she couldn't help but panic about what it would do to her grade. Sam didn't like to sugar coat things, so where other people would say Riley "wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed," or "brightest crayon in the box," Sam spoke only the truth. Riley was dumb as a post.

When the bell rang twenty minutes later, Lancer seemed to be expecting Sam to stop by his desk on her way out, looking bewildered.

"I'm not changing your partner, Ms. Manson," he said before Sam could even say a word.

"But—" Sam thought for a moment, "you see, you of all people know I have an A average, here, and Riley's just sort of…average."

"Exactly," Lancer said, and Sam realized that she had given him information to be used against her, "with your help I'm sure can get her first decent grade in this class. I don't want to read any more stories about a zebraleff…thing."

"Zebrelephaffe," Sam corrected automatically, "it's a zebra-elephant-giraffe hybrid." Sam realized what she had just said and her eyes widened. Why do I know that?

"Right, that," Lancer continued, "Ms. Manson, I make my partnering decisions based on observation. You seemed like you could help her out, and are also the least likely to kill her."

"Yeah, well…" Sam mumbled as she wandered out of the classroom, "let's hope you're right about that…"

"So, let me get this straight," Riley paced in front of the couch in her living room on which Sam was currently sitting, "we're partners, but so far you've shut down all my ideas."

"Exactly," Sam said, looking bored out of her mind, "I made it clear when we started – no princesses no ponies, no unicorns, no pegasi, no zebrelephaffes, no candy kingdoms, no octopus banquets, and no princesses riding unicorns, ponies, and pegasi through candy kingdoms to find the rumored zebrelephaffe so that they can lead it to the octopus banquet."

Riley looked surprised that Sam had remembered everything, seeing as she had been looking at Memebase on her laptop all the while Riley was speaking to her, and could only murmur "phooey" in response.

That is, until she started talking again, "well, what do you want to write about?"

Sam's eyes widened. She had been so busy turning down Riley's insane ideas that she hadn't thought of any herself.

"Uh…"

"Exactly," Riley sniffed, "now…about the octopuses…"

"Octopi, and no." Sam said firmly before thinking again, "okay, why don't we just take turns. There's a setting on my laptop that can record voices and type out what it hears. Start telling your story, and then I'll say some of mine, and then we go back to you."

"Oh my gosh, story time!" Riley said excitedly, "hooray!"

"Don't make me regret this, honey," Sam said dryly, adding the pet name to sound condescending, but the effect was lost on the younger girl.

"Oh, okay," Riley sat down on the chair next to the couch, "Riley Matthews story extravaganza begins…now!"

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful princess named…uhm…Jeri!

Jerry? That's a guy's name. That's not a princess name.

It has only one 'r' and an 'i,' Sam. That makes it feminine!

If you say so…

Anyway, Princess Jeri decided to go for a walk in the candy woods because…I guess she was bored. Being a princess is a boring job, when you think about it. So, as she approached the candy forest to find some fun…

She took a detour to a swamp, where she fell in the mud and ruined whatever insanely expensive pink dress her parents had spoiled her with, and then came a hungry crocodile—

SAM!

I feel like going for realism here. There are crocodiles in swamps!

Our heroine is not getting eaten when we're barely into the story! Don't be all dark and stuff.

Fine. She won't get eaten. She'll lose a limb. Then she'll deal with hardship and grow as a person.

…After losing her left arm to a spontaneous crocodile attack, Jeri continued along the trail, going the right way this time and looking for her woodland friends—

Wait, are her woodland friends also made of candy?

…I AM TELLING THE STORY. As Jeri looked around for her woodland friends—

Because it would be weird if they were. Jeri gets hungry and she just goes and eats a squirrel made of candy…not very princessy.

SUDDENLY Jeri found a woodland friend after many unnecessary interruptions, and it was a friendly llama—

Llamas do not live in the woods. Not in candy woods.

Oh like you know what happens in candy woods!

I know what doesn't happen in candy woods! Llamas don't happen!

Do you want to tell the story?

Yes.

Fine.

Okay, since princess Jeri freaked out from the shock of seeing a candy llama in the candy woods since that's not where candy llamas live, she ran into a tree made of cotton candy and got stuck to it. Forever. When night fell a giant candy spider came down from its web and—

Why do you keep making things eat her?

This is realism! The spider smells the blood from the bleeding stump of her arm and wants to eat her. What else do you expect? You only gave me princesses and candy to work with! I cannot make a brilliant epic with princesses and candy!

So the spider decided not to eat Jeri and instead unstuck her from the tree as a gesture of friendship. But then, for some reason, the giant spider was very cold to Jeri for no reason. Jeri tried her best to be friends with the spider, but the spider just didn't care about her.

…Maybe it wasn't that the spider didn't care about Jeri, maybe Jeri was just a little too clingy and the spider wanted some time away from her. Maybe if Jeri wasn't so loud and annoying all the time, then the spider would like her more.

But Jeri just wanted the spider like her and know that she cared and wanted to be friends! Even though the spider was all gloomy and Jeri was sunshine incarnate, Jeri thought they could get along, but the spider just kept being mean…it made Jeri really sad.

Maybe if Jeri didn't act so sunny all the time then the spider might have realized that Jeri was upset and might have even apologized. But no, Jeri continued to act like nothing was wrong and so the spider didn't know how she felt.

So Jeri decided to calm down a little more and not be so pushy so that the spider would like her more, because Jeri didn't have many friends and really wanted to be friends with the spider so that they wouldn't fight all the time. So Jeri said to the spider, "I won't annoy you as much, and we can be friends!"

And the spider was all, "whatevs."

The End

"Riley," Sam said, her voice strained by pressure, "I know you're a hugger, but this is a vice grip."

Riley, who had had her arms wrapped around Sam in a hug to end all hugs, quickly let go, "sorry. It's just that now that we're friends I feel like hugging you."

"Yeah, well…don't try to choke me," Sam told her absently, looking down at the document her laptop has composed for her from their recording.

"Okay, small problem," she began, "I'm glad we had this little breakthrough in our relationship, but…"

"But what?" Riley had a frightened look on her face. Was Sam going to take her friendship back?

"This story sucks," Sam's eyes scanned the page again, "it was about almost nothing until the end, and most of the page is us fighting."

"So? It's creative! Put our names on it, print it out, hand it in! Not everything has to be perfect."

"I am not handing this mess in," Sam insisted, "let me fix it."

"No," Riley pleaded, "come on…it shows we worked together and Mr. Lancer won't know it was us fighting…he'll just think we're funny!"

"Or demented."

"Oh well. You win some, you lose some."

The day after his assignment was due, Lancer had to read through a lot of awful stories. He judged them on creativity (and some of them were direct copies off of books his students had read with names changed), teamwork (it was painfully obvious on some of them that only one partner had done any work), and how interesting it was (this was a fairly small part of the grade seeing as it was very subjective).

After many substandard papers, Lancer wasn't quite ready for 'Princess Jeri and the Candy Spider.'

As he read the three page mess, his expression growing more and more confused with every word, he realized that he really didn't know how to grade it. It was original, more original than some others, anyway, it was obviously a team effort, and, despite its confusing format, it was pretty damn entertaining. It was even a little heartwarming at the end, and he had noticed that Sam hadn't been nearly as cold to Riley as he was used to seeing.

Still, Lancer still couldn't shake the first thought that came into his mind after he had finished reading it.

"What the hell did I just read?"

It looks like this friendship

*puts on sunglasses*

Got a little bit sweeter.

~YEEEAAAAAHHH!~