AN: It turns out there's a canon vice principal. You can repress him like I did (I blame Detention girl, she was so annoying that I repressed the whole episode) or you can pretend that he changed his name for reasons unknown. Either way it works.
AN2: A new clue! Both this and the classic have three word titles and the title of this is taken from the classic.
A Little Bad
"What do you mean I have to get a ride with Kevin?" Joe asked. Stella, who was currently half-buried in the recesses of her car trunk, pushed her emergency kit into his chest. Joe caught it and added a "Well?" for good measure.
Stella emerged holding a thermal blanket in her arms. She beat it a couple times to get the dust and random fibers off before throwing it over her shoulder and taking the emergency kit back from Joe. "Just what I said. You have to get a ride from Kevin, I'm staying after school."
"But Kevin drives like an old lady!"
"Nick seems to handle it," Stella said, putting the kit back in place and slamming the trunk closed. Joe jumped back.
"Why can't I just wait around for you?" Joe asked, following Stella into the school.
"Because this is girl business. Now hurry up before you miss Kevin and have to take the bus."
Joe followed her up the steps to the school, preparing another argument.
"Fangirls take the bus," Stella said over her shoulder.
Joe ran back into the parking lot, desperate to find his brother's car amid the quickly departing stream of students.
Stella shook her head with a giggle and continued into the school. She wasn't in a hurry. If she was right she had at least an hour before anything important happened. She planned on spending that time staking out her target's current location and doing some English homework.
With the trip to Washington she was tempted to put off her reading until then. Whenever she went on a trip with the guys she brought along whatever novel she was supposed to be reading, figuring she could use the travel time to catch up. But somehow she always ended up in an argument with Joe or trying to out-logic Nick so he didn't get a big head or comforting Kevin about that squirrel the tour bus may or may not have hit. So this time she would get the reading done early.
She went to her locker to grab her book and had to run through the combination twice when she missed the last number. She muttered angrily at herself, she hated when she did that. This time she turned the dial slowly, not wanting to mess up again. As she did she became aware of someone standing at the end of the hall.
She glanced up and realized it was an adult. The woman wore a baseball cap so Stella figured she was one of the coaches, which would also explain why she looked so familiar. She was looking at the bulletin board next to the administration offices. It was usually where announcements of upcoming events or reminders about rules that were suddenly being broken a bit too often were posted, but now it was filled with Angeletti's warnings. The teacher was probably trying to remember all the new things she was supposed to punish kids for.
The teacher slowly looked up at Stella and gave her a small smile. She returned it, figuring teachers needed support these days just as much as the students did, and closed her locker before heading further into the school to wait out the afternoon.
Macy hurried out of chess practice, not wanting to stay and talk to any of her new teammates. She'd already beaten half of them during the hour long practice and while they'd all taken it well and from her limited prior acquaintances with them she knew they were perfectly nice people, but they were tainted by chess and she really didn't want to think about the game any more than was necessary. When she left the classroom they used for practice though, she froze. Stella was sitting on a blanket on the floor against the lockers, reading Macbeth for English.
"How'd you know?" Macy asked.
Stella looked up sharply. She gave Macy a weak smile and climbed to her feet while Macy's new teammates filed out of the room and down the hall. Once they were gone Stella said, "I had Nick break into your locker. He found a chess set in there."
"Yeah, Mr. Paulson gave it to me. He likes the team to practice whenever they get a chance."
"Okay, I'm kind of confused," Stella said, forcing a light tone. "See, I thought I was coming here to tell my best friend that she's allowed to suddenly do a 180 and start liking things she used to hate, it doesn't matter to me -- you could even decide you've fallen in love with acid wash jeans and Crocs and I will still be your friend. But now I'm thinking my friend hasn't done a 180, which leaves me wondering what she's doing coming out of chess team practice?"
Macy let out an exhausted sigh and in it was all the answers Stella could have wanted.
"This is how Joe got off the hook, isn't it?" Stella asked, her voice hard. "That jerk made you do this to get him out of detention."
"Joe's not a jerk," Macy began.
"I'm not talking about Joe! Joe would never ask you to do this and if he knew you were he'd tell you to stop right now."
"No, Stella!" Macy said, grabbing her friend's hand. "I know the guys wouldn't want me to do this just so they can go to Washington --"
"But it won't just be so they can go to Washington!"
Macy overrode Stella's outburst with one of her own. "If I don't do this he's just going to keep hounding them!"
"And if you do this he's just going to keep making you! Do you really want to play this stupid game for the rest of high school?"
Macy looked away. "Please don't tell them. This sucks, I know, but if I don't do it my friends are gonna be hurt, there's no stopping that."
"We could tell Mr. Lucas--"
"No, we can't. He'll take it to the school board and it'll be my word against Angeletti's and they'll side with him because he's the adult. He won't get fired and then he'll go out of his way to punish the guys. I'm doing this Stella, you can't stop me. Promise me you won't tell them."
Stella looked at Macy a moment before wrapping her in a hug. Macy slowly lifted her arms to return the embrace.
"Do you wanna go to the batting cages? You can break a couple bats and I'll try not to scream."
Macy grinned. "No, I promised Kevin I'd go to the library with him, he should be here by now. Some other time though?"
"Definitely."
They pulled apart and Macy headed down the hall. Stella bent to gather her book and blanket and Macy called back to her, "Hey! You never promised!"
Stella sighed. Macy knew her all too well.
"I promise!" she called down the hallway.
"To?"
"I promise not to tell the guys about you playing chess even though you hate it and they'd want to know!"
"Thank you!"
Macy disappeared around the corner and Stella began folding her blanket up.
"Excuse me?"
Stella turned to see the teacher from before. She winced. "I know I shouldn't be in school this late unless I have a practice or an extra class or something but I had a really good reason. Could you please not turn me in to Angeletti?"
The teacher chuckled. "He can't be that bad."
"Are you kidding? He's a dictator. He reformed the dress code, banned music outside the band room, told the jocks they couldn't bring sports equipment into the hallways unless they were on their way to or from a game or practice, and today I found out that he's threatening to give my friends detention to get my other friend to join a team she hates! The man is evil."
"Really?" the woman said seriously. "Why don't you tell me all about it?"
When Kevin came up the stairs Joe glanced up and gave the trash bag in his hands an extra-harsh twist for good measure before tying it off.
"Look who finally decided to show up," he said.
Kevin paused, looking between his brothers. Their room had gone from messy-but-still-functional to pristine in the hours he'd been gone. Kevin's eyes widened. What if they'd found Mr. Piebald?
"Wha - what's up, guys?" he said cautiously, setting down his backpack near his bed. He wasn't looking at his brothers, but instead at every single corner and shadowed spot in the room, hoping to find his hamster.
"We had to clean the whole room, that's what!" Joe snapped. "Mom wants the house to be all spic and span when we get back from D.C. Nick! You wanna help me yell at --" Joe turned and realized Nick was inside the sound booth, cleaning the windows. "Oh. Well, he can yell at you later. What are you doing under my bed?"
Kevin leapt up. "Nothing!"
Joe rolled his eyes at the absurdly high pitch of Kevin's pronouncement. "Anyway, where were you?"
"I was at the library with Macy."
"Why didn't you tell us? You could have given her the football helmet!"
"Why would I need to give one to her? She already has one."
"Exactly! And she left it here last night!"
Nick opened the door to the sound booth just then and gave Kevin the Lucas brothers' signal for "he's being crazy, just humor him."
"O-kay," Kevin said. "Give me the helmet and I'll give it to her tomorrow."
Joe seethed. "I already put it in my backpack 'cause Mom was getting so freaked that it was still sitting out. I'll give it to her."
Nick chuckled. "You just want the excuse to talk to Stella in the morning."
Though Joe blushed he had the decency to admit, "Since when do I need an excuse?"
"I'm sorry about the helmet," Kevin said honestly while arching his neck for a better view under the couches from where he stood.
"Whatever," Joe said, "as long as you do the rest of the cleaning. That means --" He looked around the room and found there was nothing left to be done, so he shoved the trash bag he held into Kevin's arms. "You get to face the fans outside. Have fun."
Kevin shrugged. He'd done it once before, he could do it again.
"Kev!" Nick called and jogged across the room to punch a few keys on the Stellavator. "Why don't you change into one of your old uniforms first? Stella can't complain if something you're never gonna wear again gets torn apart."
"She totally can," Joe said while Kevin pulled off his shirt.
Kevin didn't pay attention while his brothers debated the depth of Stella's insanity. He was too worried about Mr. Piebald. The poor little guy was probably scared out of his mind after all the banging around that was sure to have happened while the guys cleaned. That meant he was hiding, but where? There were only so many places that ball could fit without being noticed. He knew he should have put him back in his cage before he left to pick up Macy but he'd been so excited and Mr. Piebald liked it so much in there! Plus, Nick and Joe were usually clueless and the room was a mess so there was little chance he'd be noticed rolling around.
He tucked his shirt into his pants, more from force of habit than a desire not to give the fans anything loose to grab onto, and turned to his brothers.
"No way!" Joe said. "Stella would never torture someone with rats like in 1984. The rats would eat the clothes."
"But you admit she'd torture someone for crimes against fashion?"
"It depends on the crime and just how Orwellian the world would have gotten by that point."
"Guys!" Kevin yelled. "If you --" he paused, glanced at Joe, "Did you just say 'Orwellian'?"
"What?" Joe asked, looking between his two brothers. "I know things!"
Nick shook his head. "What did you want, Kev? A last request before you face the fans?"
"If you see anything … weird -- rolling -- around the room, could you just not touch it?"
"Weird?" Joe echoed.
"Rolling?" Nick asked.
"Yeah. Don't touch it. Thanks." Kevin sped down the stairs before they could question him further.
After several seconds a faint squeaking could be heard. Both knew it was most likely the front door but still, better safe than sorry.
"Hey," Nick said, "how about while Kevin's distracting the fans out front we go out back and head anywhere but here?"
"Sounds good to me!" Joe said.
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