A/N: Same as it always is, people :) Thanks yayaya19 for reading! Even if you're the only one reading these I'll keep cranking them out!
"Okay, now this weekend you will all have a project to do," Miss Tutweiler told her class on Friday afternoon. The entire class groaned. "Don't worry, it's not too hard! You'll get to work in pairs anyway. It's a family and lifestyle project. You and your partner will be parents to…" Miss Tutweiler dramatically pulled something out of a box, "A sack of flour! On Monday, you will hand it back in and tell the class about your experience. Here are the pairs," Miss Tutweiler said, pulling names out of two hats. "Zack and Lenny, you'll be parents… Either this is Zack's first A or Lenny's first F. Cody and Bailey, you two will do great, as always. Holden and Maria, don't get too much make up on this sack, okay? Woody and Addison…"
"Miss T, why is it that we have to do all this work? You never have to do it," Woody complained.
"Because she did well in school and is a teacher," Cody explained to his roommate.
Woody turned to Miss Tutweiler, "Well, you don't have any kids. Who said you won't learn something from doing this assignment?"
"Well, what do you suggest I do, do the assignment as well?" Miss Tutweiler asked.
"That's a good idea!" Woody said, "I was just going to suggest that you play video games and chill like us all weekend, but that's so much better!"
"I can't do it without a partner," Miss Tutweiler pointed out.
"Ah, Emma, I need your help with something tonight," Mr. Moseby walked into the classroom.
"Miss Tutweiler, I think I found you a partner," Addison said helpfully, raising her hand.
Lenny and Zack were at their desks, their sack of flour between them. Lenny was filling out its "birth certificate". "Hm, is it a boy, or a girl?"
"A girl," Zack answered quickly. Lenny looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, isn't that what every girl wants so they can dress them up like little live dolls? Not that I care and want a daddy's girl or anything."
Lenny rolled her eyes, "I'm cool with it being a girl. So, what's her name going to be?"
"Nellie Marquez Martin Junior," Zack answered excitedly. Lenny gave him a skeptical look. "See? I've always loved the name Nellie, and your last name is Marquez. And since for this to be our child we'd have to be, you know, married, the last name would be mine, Martin… and since your name's already Nellie, it's a junior!"
"You like my name?" Lenny asked Zack, "Weren't you the one making fun of my name?"
"Just write it down already!" Zack pushed her.
"I like Cecilia… can we name her that instead?" Lenny asked. Zack pouted. "Why? Do you want people to think that you named it after me because you like me or something?"
"Cecilia it is!" Zack agreed enthusiastically.
"Aw, Cody, look at our little Albert Einstein Pickett Martin," Bailey cooed.
"He has your eyes," Cody complimented.
"Thank you. He has your cute nose," Bailey replied.
Cody's eyes grew wide, "You think my nose is cute?"
"It's cute on the baby," Bailey answered.
"Can he meet his cousin?" Lenny asked, carrying Zack and her sack over to the other couple.
"He? Who said our little girl is going to be hanging out with a boy at such a young age?" Zack exclaimed incredulously.
Cody looked at his brother, "They're cousins."
Zack looked thoughtful, "Alright. But no other boys. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and baby-proof my room. Nothing is going to hurt our baby girl."
"Wow, you're being a good father, Zack," Bailey said, surprised.
"He freaked when a fly came near her. I think the word you're looking for is overprotective," Lenny told her friend.
Zack held his hands up, "Just trying to help our baby live!" His watch beeped. "Oh, it's time to feed her. We can't have our baby going hungry," Zack warned.
"Wow, I can't wait to see how you handle your own daughter when she becomes a teenager," Lenny commented.
Cody walked into Zack's room, where he was sitting on his bed, looking deep in thought. "Whoa! It's actually clean in here! Hey Zack, you okay? You've been acting really weird since we've got the assignment."
"I'm fine, Cody," Zack told his brother.
"Something's got to be wrong. You baby-proofed your room and are going crazy over it. What's going on?" Cody pressed.
"I can't let Lenny get an F because of me, so I'm working real hard to get both of us an A. Besides, what if Lenny thinks I'm a bad dad?" Zack asked Cody.
"Oh, so you do care about her," Cody said.
Zack scoffed, "No way! I just don't want her spreading rumors about how bad of a man I am."
"Right," Cody said disbelievingly. There was a large thump outside the room and Zack and Cody rushed out to see Mr. Moseby all covered in flour. "What happened?" Cody asked.
"Well, Miss Tutweiler handed me this sack and told me to take care of it like a baby. I was running after her to ask her what this was all about when I tripped and fell," Mr. Moseby explained.
"You can be a little clumsy," Zack commented. "I guess this means you and Miss T failed the assignment – ha!"
Miss Tutweiler walked up right then, "What happened to the baby?"
"Could someone tell me what's going on?" Mr. Moseby screamed.
"Well, we kind of challenged Miss Tutweiler to do the same family life project that we're doing with sacks of flour," Cody began.
"And it looks like we just failed," Miss Tutweiler said sadly.
Zack smirked, "Good thing you follow the rules, otherwise you'd just get another sack of flour from the storage room."
"Ha! I knew you'd have a good idea!" Miss Tutweiler said.
"To the kitchen!" Mr. Moseby said, as if leading a charge.
"Lenny, I think I'll take Cecilia home to watch tonight so that you can get some sleep tonight," Zack said.
"Zack, it's a sack of flour. I highly doubt it's going to start crying in the middle of the night," Lenny replied, "Don't you think you're taking this fathering thing too far? What's up?"
"Nothing's 'up'!" Zack insisted, "I'm just trying to be a good parent. Now you obviously are tense, so I'll take her to my room to take care of tonight. And be happy that you've got a partner who actually wants to pull their weight. Holden and Maria are still arguing about who should take their sack tonight."
Cody watched as Bailey rocked their little Albert to sleep for the night, singing a sweet little lullaby about corn and crops. She's going to be a great mother, he thought. "Now, do you want to take him for tonight?" Cody asked her once she was done.
"Sh!" she told him, "You don't want to wake him up. And sure, I would love to." Cody waved good bye to his son.
The next day the gang went to the deck with their sacks of flour just to find Mr. Moseby and Miss Tutweiler arguing over something. "It's not my fault! I thought you were taking it home!" Mr. Moseby yelled.
"Me? No way, this is all on you. If you hadn't worried so much about your hanky collection and more about your child we would know where it was right now!" Miss Tutweiler replied.
"You lost it again?" Zack asked the two, "Man, how'd the two of your get through high school anyway?"
"Easy, I never had to do this stupid project," Miss Tutweiler replied.
"And I never had a partner as dysfunctional as this," Mr. Moseby explained.
"So, now I'm not only the reason the baby's gone, I'm also dysfunctional, huh?" Miss Tutweiler said.
"I think so," Mr. Moseby said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll go get us another baby."
Bailey rolled her eyes, "I am so happy we're not at all like them," she told Cody.
"Yeah. Maybe we'd make a pretty good couple," Cody said with a grin, waiting for Bailey's reaction. She laughed, so Cody laughed it off too.
"You know who'd really make good parents? Len and Zack," Bailey whispered. Lenny and Zack were currently discussing something about their sack of flour and were occasionally cooing to it.
"Zack's really trying hard to get Lenny an A here," Cody informed, "I mean, he normally does less than half of the project, I've never seen him work this hard, even when we were testing molds and bacteria," Cody shuddered at the memory.
"He really likes her, doesn't he?" Bailey asked.
"I can't tell. I do know that I've never seen Zack work so hard in my life," Cody said, "Not even for Maddie."
On Monday, back in the classroom, the groups presented their assignments. "So we learned not to try to take our sack of flour a bath," Addison was wrapping up Woody and her presentation. Both of their hands were stuck in a rock hard mixture of flour and water that had dried.
"Good work," Miss Tutweiler told them, "I think I can give you both a solid C+, maybe a B." The two tried to give each other high fives, but it failed epically.
Cody and Bailey got up and gave their little spiel. They mainly talked about teamwork and effective communication. Miss Tutweiler awarded them both As. Then Zack and Lenny got up. "We learned a lot about parenting," Lenny started. "We obviously learned teamwork and communication, but I think we learned a lot about ourselves as people. When we really care about someone, or I guess in this case something, our true selves come out. When I first got Zack as my partner, I'll admit that I groaned in disappointment."
"Hey!" Zack exclaimed.
"But I realized as we took care of our sack of flour that he actually cared, sharing the workload, offering to help, even going as far as to be an overprotective father," Lenny said with a smile. "I think that what we learned the most, was who we are."
Miss Tutweiler clapped, "Solid A plus you two. Congratulations Zack! Thank you for returning the sack of flour in one piece."
"So how'd your weekend go?" Woody asked Miss Tutweiler.
"Let's just say it was messy. But I got through it. Here's the sack," she heaved it up onto her desk.
"Wait a second," Woody said, "That doesn't look like the sack you took on Friday."
"Of course… it is!" Miss Tutweiler assured him.
"No…" Woody replied. He got up and licked part of the sack. "This is a sack of sugar, not flour!"
"SUGAR!" Addison screamed, jumping up and grabbing the sack, or at least trying to with her cemented hands. The bag dropped, and sugar spilled out. She dove and began licking the sugar off of her arm.
Later that day Zack was working at the Juice Bar when Lenny came up to him. He gave her her usual, a strawberry-banana. "Zack, I know that you worked extra hard on our project so that I could keep up my As," she said, taking a sip.
"Wh- No I didn't!" Zack protested.
"Don't worry, your secret's safe with me," Lenny told him with a wink. "Thank you," she added, "Maybe we should work on projects together more often."
As she walked away Zack exclaimed, "Man, she's good!"