Disclaimer: ...The newbies are mine, so Mr. Hughes, if you want 'em, I think we might be able to come up with a suitable trade (...like my Newbies for the rights to Home Alone, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and Pretty In Pink...what say you to that?)

Chapter 26: The Male Room

So, if you're mad, get mad/ Don't hold it all inside/ C'mon and talk to me, now/ Hey,what you got to hide?/
I get angry, too/ Well, I'm a lot like you

"...I can have more intelligent conversations with a chair than I could probably ever have with you, Harrison," Sean retorted.

Nick shrugged and walked over to sit on the chair in front of Sean.

"...I don't remember promising intelligent conversation, so if that's what you heard, then you need to get the mulch from the football field out of your ears," Nick told him.

Sean just huffed, and continued to stare at the ceiling.

"C'mon," said Nick "...you've been alone in a library for long enough that you must have something on your mind."

"OK, one - " Sean began, sitting up " - I don't see why you would even care about what's on my mind, unless you really are bored with Connie, and two...I haven't necessarily been in the library this whole time."

"...Oh yeah, I didn't think those fliers had been there this morning, y'know, on the walls, and the lockers, and the classroom doors - "

"I also stuck a couple in the girls washroom," Sean told him, grinning.

Nick chuckled.

"Nice," he said, "but wait, you never saw Vernon...?"

Sean shrugged.

"...Did you see him at all when you came down here?" Sean asked.

Nick furrowed his brow and thought this over.

"Y'know, come to think of it, I didn't..." he muttered.

"Well, I guess that's good, right?" Sean offered.

"It's weird is what it is..." Nick muttered "..But anyway, we won't care about Vernon right now, y'know why?"

"Oh golly, ya gonna tell me?" Sean drawled.

"Certainly, it's because right now..." Nick said, slapping Sean on the knee "...we're gonna talk about you."

"Why me?" Sean asked.

Nick paused, as if he was thinking about something.

"Y'know, it's funny..." he said "...I hear people ask that question a lot when I'm around."

"Can't imagine why..." Sean muttered.

"Yeah, me neither!" Nick replied, either missing his sarcasm, or just choosing to ignore it.

"So what exactly do you, the posterchild for delinquancy,want to know about me?" Sean asked.

Nick arched an eyebrow.

"...What?" Sean asked.

"I've seen you in this library on this particular day of the week more than a few times...and yet, I'm the posterchild for delinquancy?" Nick asked.

Sean gave him a puzzled look.

"I've never seen you here when I've been here - "

" - The hell you haven't," Nick replied, cutting him off, "you've seen me, I know you have...we've just never bothered talkin' to each other before today."

"...Yeah, because you always just lock the supervisor out of the library when they're off takin' a piss, and then you go to the back of the library and sleep," Sean pointed out.

"Well, at least I'm not at the back of the library takin' a piss," Nick replied, smirking.

Sean chuckled.

"...And, see? You've seen me," Nick pointed out.

"Alright, so maybe I'm a compulsive liar - " Sean retorted.

" - No no no, your ex girlfriend is a compulsive liar, Kyle is a compulsive liar...'course, in his case, it's hereditary," said Nick, mumbling the last part "...but you, my strapping jock - strapped friend, are not a liar, are you?"

"No...I'm worse," Sean muttered.

"How much worse?" Nick asked.

"I'm not a liar...I'm a cheater," Sean told him.

"Drug test, math test, or girlfriend?"

"Girlfriend."

"...Drug test."

Sean's eyes bulged."What?" he asked, shock written all over his face.

Nick smirked.

"...Just kiddin'," he said.

Sean exhaled.

"So you're not only a liar...but you lie about cheating," said Sean.

Nick shrugged. "I'm a complex human being," he said.

"Are you sure?" Sean asked.

"What, that I'm complex...?"

"...No, that you're a human being."

Nick shrugged.

"Well," he said, "I have all the symptoms...I screw up a lot, I have a conscience...just a little one, though, although, it has been said by many a female that I'm so damn good - looking, there's no way I can be considered just mere mortal."

Sean quirked an eyebrow.

"...What?" Nick asked.

"Mother,aunt, or grandma?" Sean asked.

"...Kelly Kapowski."

"...From Saved By The Bell ?"

Nick shifted his gaze from the left to the right, and then looked back at Sean.

"...It's just a coincidence."

Sean smirked.

"...Anyway, I'm the one who's supposed to be doing the questioning right now," Nick told him.

"Says who?"

"Says...the rules."

"What rules?"

"The Nick Harrison Rules Of Detention Demeanor."

"...Demeanor?" Sean repeated.

Nick looked all around the room, then back at Sean.

"Is there an echo in here or something?" Nick asked, "yes, demeanor. My demeanor, being that I should be patient and attentive,even if it kills me, your demeanor being that you have to be cooperative...meaning you cooperate and answer all my questions."

"I could just walk out of the room, y'know," Sean told him.

"...And answer all my questions from the hallway? Why would you wanna do that?" Nick asked, "Then I'd have to yell from the doorway, and you wouldn't hear me anyway, cuz let's just face it, that's the kinda luck we have as a pair out there," Nick said, pointing to the library door "...so you'd be yelling back at me and Vernon, who would be lurking in the shadows or hiding under a rock somewhere, would leap out and catch us with a loud victory cry of 'HAKA NAGA!'"

"Haka - what?" Sean asked.

"You've never heard him doing that?...It's really weird, I think it was something he and the rest of his tribe would yell whenever they caught a pig for dinner, or something," Nick told him.

Sean chuckled, then cringed.

"Ahhh...!" he exclaimed."Thanks a lot, now all I can see is a visual of Vernon in a loin cloth!"

After a moment, Nick cringed, too.

"Ohh, I just got it, too...!" he exclaimed.

They both shuddered.

"...Do you really think Vernon's up to something?" Sean asked."I mean, we haven't heard him, he hasn't been in here to check on us-"

"- So he's either sleeping, hiding...or dead," said Nick.

Sean glanced at Nick.

"Well," he said, with a shrug "...he is kinda...old."

Nick raised an eyebrow, and gave Sean a look that, for once, he could read right away.

It was one of those looks that said...you never know.

So...where in the world is Vernon?

You'll have to wait a bit longer to find out, cuz in the next chapter, we find out what Kyle, Daf, and Connie are up to.

And Connie finds something out about Nick that she may not want to know...

Oh, and the little song stanza at the beginning is from the song "I'll Stand By You" by The Pretenders...originally, but the Carrie Underwood version is also one I recommend.

REVIEW PLEEEEEEEASE!!

- Ace's Buddy