It was exhilarating. Sam was running as fast as the wild horses she always saw on the Discovery Channel as a kid. She was jumping distances that were unheard of, from rooftop to rooftop, from branch to branch of the tallest trees. Sam Puckett, the Flying Squirrel. She grinned to herself. Well, if she ever ran away to join the circus, she had an act and a name. This is what freedom feels like. The wind caught her hair and she inhaled a deep breath of it, taking pleasure as it invigorated her muscles. School was the last thing on her mind right now as she explored her newfound abilities. She wasn't sure if it was the cup of coffee she had this morning or all the protein she'd been feeding herself lately but today she just felt… better, stronger, faster.
She found herself on a fire-escape balcony overlooking a familiar alleyway with a welcoming dark-haired boy throwing a ball through a mounted hoop. She swung herself down and jumped onto the retractable metal ladder. Loud switches clicked and gears whirled as the weight of her extended the ladder downwards. The sound of it caught the attention of the crowd loitering the narrow space. "Puckett!" One of them called out jovially, ambling towards her to take her hand and escort her off the ladder. She accepted his help and hopped off the bottom rung with grace.
"Griffin!" she cheered back, bumping her fist against his in solidarity.
Sam and Griffin had an interesting history, to say at the very least. This was the bad boy that Carly had fallen for but found too immature for her tastes. After they broke up, Griffin found that his disposition and sense of humor was more relatable to his ex-girlfriend's blonde friend. At the approval of Carly, they both began dating.
Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Their domineering attitudes constantly fought for command and neither of them could take the other very seriously at all. They were both impulsive creatures that would chase danger without any other thought in their heads. Sometimes it spelled trouble.
Once, they had both gone out together to paint the town red, literally, with spray cans and ski masks in tow. After a night in jail for vandalism, they came to similar conclusions about their relationship. "I think I'm better off dating someone more wholesome, sweeter, someone who could keep me on a tighter leash. You're definitely not the boy-next-door that I might need, Griff." Sam heartbreakingly admitted to him. He nodded his head in acknowledgement, declaring that it was fine because he felt the same way. They broke up on good terms simply realizing that although they were terrible as a couple, they were legendary as friends.
She pulled him aside and pushed him against the brick wall of the alleyway. "Are these the guys you play basketball with?" She whispered to him, holding him close to her conspiratorially. At this move, three guys in jerseys began hooting and hollering. One taller Latino friend of his urged Griffin to, "Get some!" while on the other end of the spectrum, another blonde friend yelled, "What are you doing with a kid like him when you can have a man like me?"
"Hey, shut it guys!" Griffin called out, a little uneasy about the disrespect they were showing Sam. He returned his attention back squarely on her, nodding his head, "Yeah, what about it?"
Her eyes sparkled, "Two on three, you and me vs. them, put five hundred dollars on it."
Griffin didn't know what she was up to and he didn't have a dime to his name at the present time. But the one thing he did know was that that he trusted her. In half an hour, she would make sure he had no regrets about it.
Carly inserted her head into her locker, urging the three aspirins she popped earlier to kick in and ease her migraine. The school hallways seemed impossibly loud today. In every class that Carly tried to pay attention to her teacher, she was distracted by the whispers of her fellow classmates. She couldn't distinguish what anyone was saying at all. It sounded like inane gibberish and it exasperated her headache. But like the good girl she was, Carly decided that she would tough it out and finish the school day before going home to lie down. She checked her cell phone and saw that it was just lunchtime and she still had hours to go before she was relieved of her scholarly burden.
"Darn you, you darn clock, why must you hold so much power over the daily events of my young yet ambition-driven life?" Carly pouted to herself.
A clucking sound resonated behind her. "Dirty mouth Shay, that verbiage was pretty extreme." Carly turned around to see the wry grin of her tomboyish best friend. As per usual, Sam was beaming at her in that way that told her she had recently been up to no good.
"…I know that look. Troublemaker! What trouble have you been making? You must tell me so that we may go unmake it! And… why are your shoes so scuffed up? Its tongue is hanging out."
Sam shook her head while she restlessly passed her weight from foot to foot, "Just breaking them in. Don't worry about it. What we need to concern ourselves with is Freddie. He called me earlier and told me that he was caught in a fight today, we need to find him."
"A fight? With who? Is that fifth-grade redheaded girl beating him up for his lunch money again?" Carly sighed in exasperation.
"Yes. One and the same… if that that fifth-grade redheaded girl goes by the alias of Oscar Abrego, plays defense for the football team and can bench three times her weight."
"Punchbeef Plankchest Abrego!" Carly gasped.
"Is that what you call him? I've always called him Steakface McManMuscle Abrego." Sam noted, comparing the two nicknames.
"Oh god, which hospital is Freddie at? I'll call a cab."
Carly and Sam didn't know what to expect when they rushed back to the iCarly studio after a call from Freddie saying that he survived but that he had holed itself somewhere he thought would be safe. Carly pictured her barely breathing, black and blue best friend laying face down in a puddle of his own blood on her floor. The image Sam's mind had conjured up was of Freddie rocking himself to sleep, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder with his mother puting a diaper on him and pulling up his pants due to his being paralyzed from the waist down. Before they left school, she had already struck a deal with Rip-off Rodney to buy a second-hand wheelchair from him for fifty bucks. So what if it squeaks a little?
"What squeaks a little?" Carly asked, pushing her key into the keyhole and throwing open the door.
"Huh?" Sam asked as she walked in and threw her red and black checkered backpack onto the couch.
"What squeaks a little?" Carly repeated.
"My mom's rusty car, Spencer's exacto-knives, Freddie's pocket protector, hobo shopping carts, your adorable yawns?" Sam queried, reacting to the peculiar riddle. "I don't have a clue, you know I'm bad at brainteasers."
"Adorable? Why thank you." Carly responded, looking pleased with herself. A low-pitched keening was heard from upstairs and it effectively put the brakes on her self-satisfied moment. "I'll grab the first aid kit!" Carly called out, scurrying to the bathroom.
"I'll grab a bag of ice," Sam blurted in return, trying to make herself look useful. She opened the fridge and found a drumstick sitting on a plate. Greedily grabbing at it, she chomped into its meaty flesh. Oh chicken little, I thank you for your sacrifice. Gripping the meat tight between her teeth, she shrugged off and removed her hoody. She opened the freezer door and began loading ice cubes galore into her makeshift sack, wrapping and tying the sleeves together before slinging it over her shoulder.
Meeting Carly at the stairs, they both sprinted up and made their way towards the cries of distress. They were not prepared in any way for what they saw through the doorway. Both sets of eyes grew as wide as dinner plates.
"Watch out!" Freddie bellowed as Carly and Sam entered through the doorway. A flying stapler skimmed across the top of their heads as they ducked in unison. They gazed in awe at their completely trashed filming room. It looked as though a tornado had ripped through it. Beanbag chairs and bigger props were floating above the ground aimlessly while smaller objects whizzed through the air like miniature heat-seeking drones. "I can't… I can't control it!" Freddie brayed as he helplessly put his face into the palms of his hands.
"Freddie!" Carly called out in concern as she made her way across the war zone-resembling room. "It's okay. We just need to tie everything down. That's what my dad says the Navy does when things start rocking back and forth." Carly closed her eyes and hugged Freddie tightly to herself, pecking him on the cheek before reaching up and tugging down a blanket that was statically magnetized to the ceiling. She threw it on top of the shaking boy to help get rid of his dizziness and vertigo.
"Heads up!" Sam threw a roll of duct tape at Carly overhearing her advice and taking her instruction. Carly grabbed the trashcan lid floating in the air to shield herself from the speeding objects that whisked through the air while she forced the catapult down onto the floor and fastened it down with a long strip of the silvery material. She looked around the room at all of the heavy objects looking as though they were suspended in water. With a twinge of regret, as much as she would've loved to take a ride around the room on her floating Cadillac model, she prioritized safety first and bound it down.
Sam was lucky enough to have picked up a hockey helmet she found fluttering past her and snapped it on, relieved to know that if anything, at least her eyes would be protected. She placed her chicken drumstick against the wall and sealed the end of it with tape. "I'll be back for you later." When she let it go, it wavered back and forth as if saying goodbye to her.
Sam focused on retrieving and securing the delicate and expensive items. She jumped into the air to save Freddie's laptop before it crashed into the doorway and wrapped tape around it so that is stayed on top of a wooden support beam. Cameras were found and she haphazardly strapped them to herself. Microphones, speakers, remotes and cords were thrown into cardboard boxes, folded shut and flung into the closet. "Ouch!" She constantly had to swat things away. This time, they were pushpins from the iCarly corkboard that were flying towards her.
As Sam and Carly rounded up and put away all of the fragile and heavy items, they scanned across the room at everything they couldn't possibly collect: small items like pencils and marbles and pieces of paper. Sam had grabbed a pool cue and opened up the latch of the tall window to the apartment hoping that like an airplane, the new opening would suck out all of the items like a vacuum. It was to no avail. A very tiny percentage of the circling objects flew out the window. "Movies lie. They're nothing but lying sacks of liary lies!" Sam frustratingly called out.
Carly was at a loss for how to handle the situation. The longer the room was in a state of chaos and disarray, the weaker the duct tape became. The will of the objects were to float upwards and everything they taped down were struggling to break free. Some larger articles managed to escape their binds and crashed into the ceiling. There were holes, big and small, in the walls everywhere.
Carly retreated back to home base at Freddie and began shaking him as he stared at the floor, stupified. The blanket she had put over his head had already glided away. "Freddie, what can we do? Can we move you? What happened? Come on Freddie, please try to stop this. Stop whatever it is you're doing." A shooting pair of scissors caught her on her shoulder and a thin line of blood revealed itself as she yelped in pain and surprise. Freddie looked at her, speechless in horror.
As soon as his gaze met hers, she began lifting off. "Holy smoke!" She began grabbing at the stunned silent boy to use as an anchor but this twisted gravity that pulled her upwards and outward was too strong. "Help! Sam!" Carly was floating towards the open window and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing she could hold onto and nothing she could push herself against.
"Fuzzy navel!" Sam cursed as she dashed towards Carly and leaped into the air. Her fingertips barely grazed their counterpart before they slipped from her grip. Whatever force of gravity that was propelling the brunette was not doing the same for her best friend. Carly was in a wind that was taking her closer and closer to the open window. Sam knew she had to do something and do it quickly before one of the people she cared most about in the world would plummet eight floors onto the hard pavement of the streets of Seattle.
I didn't want to do this. Sorry Freddie. Sam grabbed a flat screen computer monitor that was drifting at eye-level towards her and slammed it into the back of Freddie's head.
Author's Note: How does everyone feel about the Sam/Griffin friendship I inserted in there? I'm not sure whether this is belated or premature but I'm still unsure on which romantic pairing I should feature as a subplot. I do have a few chapters to go before I have to commit because I like my romances slow and well-developed but any suggestions would be welcome.
Thank you to coffeerunt, lozzie15 and rweasley500 for the feedback. I'll keep writing as long as people keep reading and reviewing. ^_^