Author's Note: This fic is the result of recently re-watching some of my personal favorite episodes of this awesome cartoon, starting with "Mirror, Mirror on the Ed" (the one where the Eds dare each other to act like one another). Hadn't watched it since I was a kid and I literally cried tears of laughter within the first thirty seconds.
This oneshot centers around my favorite character, Double D. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Ed, Edd n Eddy © Danny Antonucci
It was an ordinary day in the cul-de-sac. Kids were out and about, enjoying yet another lovely summer afternoon, while the Eds were busy concocting yet another one of their infamous scams.
"Hurry up, Double D!" Eddy said, popping his head out of the top window of the fifty-foot high contraption they'd been building for the past few hours.
It was a conglomeration of miscellaneous junkyard items, everything from scrap metal to plywood to a broken kitchen sink. It was meant to be an innovative flying device, part-rocket ship, part-airplane and part-catapult, an invention that would've likely made the Wright brothers weep for ruining the charm of early aviation, although Double D tried his best to ignore that glaring fact. Eddy claimed kids would cough up tons of cash to ride the very first "bouncey flyship," and that was all that mattered to him.
As for Double D, he was safely on the ground, holding up a homemade anemometer to calculate the current wind speed.
"Patience is a virtue, Eddy," he said.
Ed stuck his head out of the window directly below Eddy. "I've got shoes, Eddy!" he said happily.
"He said virtue, not shoes, ya nimrod," Eddy said with a smack to Ed's head that sent it bouncing off the side of the heavy metal flying machine, only to clock Eddy in the face. Eddy reeled back with a yelp of pain, furiously rubbing his newly reddened cheek, while Ed simply erupted into a fit of giggles despite his contusion.
"Charming," Double D said dryly in regard to his friends, all the while jotting down some numbers based on his reading.
Eddy's momentary bout of anger promptly snapped back into sheer eagerness as he rubbed his palms together and grinned.
"Boy, I can't wait to test this baby!" he said. "Just think, after we scam all the kids out of their money, we can sell this ship to NASA, and then we'll be so stinkin' rich we could buy every jawbreaker joint in town!"
"Can we also fly to the sun and try on hats?" Ed asked.
"What are you, stupid?" Eddy asked. "The sun's, like, two hundred miles away."
"Actually, the sun is approximately ninety-three million miles away from Earth," Double D said, "but, seeing as how that's not the worst guess I've heard, I'd have to say that that was a fairly reasonable conjecture on your part, Eddy."
"Blah, blah, blah, enough yakkin' already!" Eddy said impatiently. "We ready to launch this thing or what?"
Double D turned a page of his notepad. "Just a few more quick calculations and we'll be all ready to go."
"Ready to go?" Ed asked in a rush of unrestrained excitement. "Okey-dokey, Double D!"
"Ed, no, wait!" Double D said, a frantic plea, but it was too late.
Ed had ducked back inside and pressed a few buttons, cranking the machine to life. All at once, there was the flickering of awakening electricity, the rapid sputtering of propellers, the shaking of metal objects, and finally, an explosion of parts as Ed and Eddy shot skyward, Eddy's vicious scream tearing through the air, growing softer and softer the higher they went.
And then, silence.
Having cowered back in utter fear for his own physical safety, Double D now peeked up at the sky, shakily releasing the protective grip he had on his hat. He stood up straight as he stared upward, absentmindedly brushing some debris off his arms as he cast a fleeting glance at the completely destroyed ship, now nothing but a mess of broken parts and billowing smoke.
"Well, despite some obvious engineering and constructional issues, the apparatus did manage to launch them to quite an impressive altitude," Double D said. "Perhaps if I make an adjustment to the—"
A tap on his shoulder instantly quieted Double D's vocal musings. He swiveled around, only to see a smiling Jonny standing before him, clutching Plank in one hand and a folded up piece of paper in the other.
"Oh, hello, Jonny," Double D said, a hand raised in friendly greeting. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"A little birdie wanted me to give you this!" Jonny said, presenting Double D with the small piece of paper.
"I see," Double D said as he accepted the note with tentative politeness. "May I ask the reason behind this request?"
"Beats me," Jonny said with a shrug. "All I know is that I've been sworn to secrecy about who it's from, so don't bother asking 'cause I'm not allowed to tell. Anyway, I guess I'll see you later!"
Jonny scurried off, leaving Double D by himself to ponder this strange new development. He looked over the seemingly ordinary piece of paper, folded in fours, a perfectly symmetrical square.
"Odd," he said as he delicately unfolded it and began to read the message written on it. "I wonder who could've possibly—"
His eyes suddenly popped wide open, as big and as round as tennis balls. A deep, crimson blush swept over his face. He squeezed the sheet of paper with trembling fingers, staring at the words written to him in scrupulously neat handwriting and a noticeably advanced vocabulary that matched his own:
Dear Edd,
I'm writing you this letter to inform you that I've admired you for a formidably long period of time, but unfortunately, I'm much too reticent to proclaim my feelings to you in person. Therefore, I've decided to express my emotions with written word in hopes that, one day, I'll be able to express them to you vocally. In the meantime, behind the safeguard of complete anonymity, I finally feel confident enough to tell you that, frankly, I think you're a stud.
Cordially,
Your Classified Admirer
"Oh, my," Double D said, his mind blasting into chaotic overdrive.
He didn't even look up when Eddy's screaming voice grew louder, and a shadow on the ground grew wider, until Ed and Eddy crash-landed near Double D, who didn't so much as flinch.
Eddy sat up, spitting out a mouthful of dirt and grass. He was covered in scuff marks, but otherwise miraculously unharmed. Ed chuckled all over again, even as Eddy growled and grabbed him by the shirt, shaking him forcibly.
"Nice going, Ed!" he said. "Now we gotta start over!" He let go of Ed, who thunked back to the ground.
"We flew higher than turtles in the desert," Ed said.
Eddy was already up and about, gathering up as many pieces of the charred remains of their ruined invention as he could. "Yeah, yeah, make yourself useful for once and start re-building, would ya? Double D, go grab your measuring whatchamacallit." When he didn't hear anything, he stopped. "Double D?"
Double D's eyes were still glued to the note, sweat trickling down his scarlet face. He didn't say a word.
"Earth to Double D!" Eddy said. "What's with you?"
"I think he forgot his name, Eddy," Ed said.
"Yo, Double D! Quit standing around and get to work," Eddy said. Still nothing. Frustrated, he dropped all the items he was holding and marched up to Double D, waving a hand in front of his face. "Hello. Sockhead. Since when are you a space cadet like Monobrow over here?"
The note flew out of Double D's hands as Ed popped up between the two of them and said, "I like fries with ketchup and relish."
Double D immediately snapped out of his trance and shifted into panic mode as the piece of paper swayed lazily in the breeze and landed on Eddy's head. Before Double D could reach for it, Eddy snatched it off his head.
"What the heck is this?" he asked, holding the note out at arm's length.
"Eddy, please, I'm begging you, don't read that!" Double D said.
Once again, it was sadly too late. Eddy exploded into howling laughter, tears in his eyes and all.
"Oh, man, this is better than cable!" he said, gasping for air. He looped an arm around Ed's head and pulled him in. "Hey, Lumpy, check it out. Double D's got a secret admirer."
He waved the note in front of Ed's face, and Ed's mouth stretched into a grin as he took the paper and held it upside down. After a few seconds, he wolf-whistled.
"Boy, Double D, you're a real Cleopatra, huh?" Ed asked.
"Casanova, Ed," Eddy said.
"Thank you," Ed said.
"Excuse me," Double D said, at last reclaiming the note with a simple tug out of Ed's hands. "Have the two of you truly lost all common decency that you can't even respect one's personal property?"
"Aw, relax," Eddy said with a dismissive swipe of the hand. "Like we all don't know it was Ed's stupid sister who wrote you that mushy junk."
"Actually," Double D said, "with all due respect to Sarah, I hardly believe she's managed to spontaneously acquire such an exceptionally vast vocabulary of which the author of this note clearly possesses."
"Oh, yeah, loverboy?" Eddy asked, smirking, as though he were initiating a challenge. "If that's the case, what do you say we go ask the obnoxious little brat ourselves just to be sure?"
"What?" Double D said, panic-stricken all over again. "Oh, no, Eddy, please, I'd really much rather prefer not to have to—"
Ed picked up the two of them, heaving them over his shoulders. The note slipped out of Double D's hands, but he quickly stretched his arms and caught it just as Ed took off and said, "Off to the next scene we go!"
Jimmy tossed a pebble on the ground, where a misshapen hopscotch board had been drawn out in colorful chalk by himself and Sarah.
"Wish me luck, Sarah," Jimmy said after the pebble landed.
"You can do it, Jimmy!" Sarah said encouragingly.
As soon as Jimmy hopped onto the first square, Ed barreled though, sending a squealing Jimmy flying into the empty cul-de-sac.
"Come again!" Ed said, setting down a steaming Eddy and a trembling Double D.
Sarah growled with the ferociousness of a wolf as she shot a hand out towards her older brother, squeezing his face like a tube of toothpaste. "Ed, you big idiot! Look what you did to Jimmy!" She turned his head towards the empty street, where a garbled-up Jimmy managed to lift a hand.
"I'm okay, Sarah," he said, waving meekly.
Sarah glared at Ed, fire still in her eyes, while Ed grinned lopsidedly as she finally released him, and his head popped back into its normal shape. Ed picked up Double D, plopping him down in front of Sarah.
"There ya go, Double D," he said.
Double D's eyes bulged. He stiffened, grinning apprehensively and yanking at his shirt collar. Sarah merely stared, hands on her hips and an impatient scowl on her face.
"Yes, well, fine day we're having, isn't it?" Double D said as he backed away. "I should be going now."
"Oh, for crying out loud," Eddy said as he yanked Double D back over and plucked the love note out of his hands, showing it to Sarah. "Did you write this crud or not?"
Sarah smacked the note out of Eddy's hand and looked at it, her face contorting in confusion as she read it. At that point, Jimmy sidled back up to her, rubbing his dented spine. With a shake of her head, Sarah slapped the note into Eddy's chest.
"What is this, some kind of trick?" she asked. "You think I can understand all those big words?"
"Big words scare me more than the inside of the upstairs linen closet," Ed said.
Eddy glanced at the note, rubbing his chin, while Double D cleared his throat.
"Allow me to take that back from you, thank you," he said, gently pulling the note out of his friend's hand and re-folding it into a perfect square. He turned to Sarah and Jimmy. "On behalf of all three of us, I wish to issue the sincerest of apologies for disrupting your pleasant game of hopscotch. Have a nice day."
With that, he walked away, and Eddy and Ed soon followed. After they were gone, Sarah grinned to herself, clasping her hands together and sighing dreamily.
"That Double D really is a stud."
"While I'm ordinarily never one to say 'I told you so,'" Double D said as he walked alongside his two best friends, "I feel as though it's the most fitting response I can think to express in this particular instance."
Eddy wasn't paying him any attention as he kicked at the ground, hands stuffed in his pockets. "I just don't get it. How could someone have a crush on an egghead like you when a total hunk like me is standing right here?"
"I hope you realize, Eddy, that it's precisely those types of remarks that chip away at my self-estee—"
"I'VE GOT IT!" Eddy said, startling Double D nearly half to death as he jumped and clutched a hand to his chest.
"Goodness, Eddy, are you trying to give me heart palpitations?" he asked. "Because, if so, you're succeeding."
"Pipe down already, will ya?" Eddy said. "I just figured out what the deal is with that letter. It's obviously a prank."
"A prank?" Double D repeated, puzzled at first, but, when he saw the pompous grin on Eddy's face, he couldn't help but cross his arms in indignation. "I see, because the idea of someone harboring any sort of romantic feelings for me is simply too far-fetched to believe, is that it?"
The grin dropped from Eddy's face. "Well, yeah."
"You certainly know how to destroy a person's confidence," Double D said. With a disappointed shake of his head, he walked away.
"Fine, Mr. Hotshot, if you're so sure of yourself, who do you think wrote it?" Eddy asked, and he grinned wickedly. "Maybe…Nazz?"
Double D froze mid-stride. He turned around, his face newly ignited in a bright shade of red. In a feeble attempt to compose himself, he straightened his posture.
"W-Why, no, of course not," he said, wringing his hands madly, only to draw one to the back of his neck. "That hardly even occurred to me. Of course, even if it had, for argument's sake, been Nazz who'd written such a meticulous and intimate message, I'd have no way of knowing for sure unless I got a sample of her handwriting and compared the two—"
"I'm on it, Double D!" Ed said, popping out of the hollow opening of a tree bark, some leaves and twigs sitting atop his head.
"Where the heck did you come fro—" Eddy cut his question short with yet another loud yelp as he jumped, narrowly missing getting trampled on by Ed, who eagerly ran ahead and didn't stop.
The two of them stared after him for a beat, before Double D turned to Eddy.
"Shall we?"
"Like we got a choice," Eddy said.
They broke into a sprint.
Nazz was hanging out with Rolf and Kevin, the latter proudly showing off his brand new leather jacket. He flexed his arms.
"Go ahead, give it a feel," Kevin said, grinning slyly as he offered Nazz his bicep.
She giggled, extending her hand towards him. However, Rolf was the one who reached it first, running his palm up and down Kevin's arm.
"Ah, yes, smoother than the hair above Nana's lip," he said.
"Yeah, sure, whatever, dude," Kevin said, shaking him off. "How 'bout you, Nazz?"
"Sure, Kev," she said, but she stopped when something else caught her attention. A friendly smile graced her face. "Hey, look, it's Ed."
Kevin sharply turned his head, and sure enough, there stood Ed, an air-headed look on his face.
"What do you want, Dorkenstein?"
Ed wasted no time as he dug through his pants' pocket and produced a chewed up blue pen. He held it out to Nazz and asked, "Can you teach me how to write?"
By the time Double D and Eddy caught up to Ed, Double D was so out of breath he was quite literally gasping for air. Eddy skidded to a halt, leaving Double D to crash into him. He swiftly collapsed to the ground in a limp pile of skin and bones.
"Curse my embarrassingly weak stamina," Double D said, wheezing, only to gasp again when Eddy grabbed him by his hat and held him up to peer over the fence.
"Look, Double D," Eddy said.
Thanks to the lack of oxygen, however, Double D was momentarily too dizzy to look, made worse by Eddy dangling him by the hat, which he held on to for dear life.
"I feel the need to warn you that I may regurgitate if you don't release me this very second."
Eddy did, and Double D hit the ground. He got to his feet, and when he at last regained his equilibrium, he joined Eddy in looking over the fence. What he saw was Nazz, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration as she wrote something down, while Ed stood close by.
"We should've told him to charge her," Eddy said. "A nickel per word."
"You really do have quite the one-track mind, don't you, Eddy?" Double D said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Eddy asked.
They looked at each other, and all it took was that one second of taking their eyes off of Ed for him to make a surprise entrance, this time by springing up behind them.
"Hi, guys!" he said.
They both screamed. Double D clutched the fence, nails scraping the wood with how tightly he was holding it.
"Please, Ed, I'm far too young to have a heart attack," he said.
"Here ya go, Double D!" Ed said, undeterred in his blind optimism, as he handed Double D a new sheet of paper. "From Nazz. Hold the tomato."
Double D examined the paper to see the alphabet written on it. He gave a pleased smile. "Why, thank you, Ed," he said as he took out the love note, along with his magnifying glass. "You're a good friend."
"I'm also a lump," Ed said.
"You got that right," Eddy said, barking out a laugh.
A clueless Ed joined in on the laughter, while Double D placed both sheets of paper on the ground. He held the magnifying glass to his eye, alternating between the two sheets. After doing this a few times, he frowned.
"Oh, dear. It appears the handwriting is clearly not a match," Double D said, and he sighed forlornly. "Perhaps you were right after all, Eddy. This anonymously-written amorous note may very well be nothing more than a cruel practical joke at my own delicate expense."
"Oh, big surprise," Eddy said. "See, I told ya. Oh well. Better luck next time, huh, Romeo?"
Double D stuffed his magnifying glass back into his pocket and folded up the note once more. "It's unfortunate that Jonny can't reveal to me who wrote the letter, but I suppose it's only fair that I respect the person's privacy."
"Hold on," Eddy said. "You're telling me Baldy has known all along who wrote the letter?"
"As a matter of fact, he's the one who delivered it to me, but, as I said, he asked me not to—AHH!"
Eddy picked Double D up by the shoulders, jostling him. "You mean to tell me we could've saved precious time working on a scam instead of dealing with your stupid problem? Let's go find Jonny and put an end to this thing already!"
"But, Eddy, as I've just informed you, he's been sworn to secrecy regarding who wrote the—"
"Oh, please," Eddy said. "All it takes is a little smooth-talking. Leave it to me, Double D."
"Somehow, your word doesn't instill much confidence in me, Eddy," Double D said, but Eddy was already off to find Jonny with a blissfully unaware Ed in tow.
"You gotta put your weight into it, Plank," Jonny said, sitting on one end of the seesaw at the playground. He was planted on the ground, Plank on the other end, lying flat as a board on the suspended seat.
"Hey there, Jonny-boy," Eddy said as he walked up to him with Double D and Ed behind. "Seesaw, huh? Classic." He flashed his up-to-no-good smile, getting right down to it. "So, listen, about that note you gave Double D earlier—"
"Oh, no, don't you even try, Eddy," Jonny said, wagging a finger. "I've already told Double D I'm not allowed to tell."
"Sure, sure, you're not allowed to tell him, but I doubt the person who wrote it mentioned anything about telling, say, me, right?" Eddy asked.
At that, Jonny paused, tapping his chin in contemplation with a hum, only to ask, "Say, wait a minute. This isn't a trick, is it?"
"Trick?" Eddy said. "No, no, no. Don't be silly. How could anyone trick a smart guy like you? Think of it more like a loophole. Life's full of 'em. You just gotta know how to read between the lines."
"Hmm…I don't know," Jonny said.
Eddy, growing impatient with Jonny's reluctance to cough up the information he wanted, decided to switch tactics. "Well, fine, if you won't blab, I'll just ask your good ol' buddy, Plank, instead," he said, smirking deviously. "And if he refuses to tell, maybe he'd like to go for a quick ride on a wood chipper."
"No, Eddy!" Jonny said pleadingly. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you! It was…"
"Eddy, please, don't make me do this!" Double D said, shoes scraping along the ground, leaving behind a long trail of dirt as Ed and Eddy pushed him forward, even as he resisted every step of the way. "Have mercy on me, gentlemen, I beg of you!"
"Oh, c'mon, Double D," Eddy said, cheeks red with the exertion from pushing him. "You gotta quit being such a wuss and finally grow a pair!"
"Pardon?" Double D asked, unknowingly sliding up to the front door of the trailer.
Ed pounded on the door with his fist. "Knock, knock, who's there?" he said, and immediately ducked away with Eddy behind a nearby trailer.
A cacophony of giggles rang out from inside the trailer where Double D stood. His eyes widened and his body shook as he broke into a sweat.
"Who's at the door?" Lee asked.
"Answer it, Marie!" May said.
"You answer it," Marie said. "I'm busy!"
There were some random crashes and other raucous noises. When the door opened, May timidly peeked her head out, before opening it all the way.
"Double D?" she said, bewildered.
"May?" Double D said in the same tone.
A strained moment of silence passed between them, one that felt strangely familiar, but before either one of them could break it, May's sisters joined her at the front door.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" Lee asked, an intimidating smirk slithering across her face. "Christmas must've come early this year, huh, girls? Where's the rest of 'em?"
"Who cares?" Marie asked. She stepped right in front of Double D, invading his personal space and grinning at him just as terrifyingly. "What can we do for you, good-looking?"
"O-Oh. Um. Well, you see, I received this mysterious note today, and—"
"Let me see," Lee said, slapping it out of his hand. All three Kanker sisters read the note, brows furrowed, and Lee was the first to laugh. "'Classified admirer.' What a show-off. Whoever wrote this stuff has got themselves a good dictionary."
"Wait," Double D said. "Are you insinuating you're all seeing this note for the first time?"
"What do you think, stud?" Marie asked, letting out a cackle as she looped an arm around him.
"No, wait, please, I—"
He shrieked helplessly as they pulled him inside for his inevitable doom, laughing maniacally.
"Well, this is certainly familiar," Double D said, covered in kiss marks. He attempted to rub them off with a handkerchief as he walked with Ed and Eddy on either side of him. "One would think the feeling of overwhelming shame would lessen after each tyrannical act of the Kanker sisters' unwanted physical affection, but, ironically, it only seems to worsen with each occurrence."
"But, Double D, don't you have a crush on—mmph!"
Double D had pressed his palm against Ed's mouth, successfully silencing him before he could reveal the name. Eddy stared at them skeptically, eyebrow raised, while Double D's nervous chuckle stopped.
"Ed, dare I ask why your mouth feels so…greasy?" he asked, removing his hand and vigorously wiping it with the handkerchief.
"Too much gravy, Double D," Ed said.
"It just doesn't make any sense," Eddy said. "If the Kankers didn't write you that dumb note, who did?"
"You know, Eddy, as perplexed as I am about that very query, I've realized it's probably best we cease our persistence in trying to find out the answer, and instead respect the writer's anonymity, regardless of whether it was nothing more than a mere heartless prank," Double D said. "Besides, I think I've endured quite enough mortification for one day, don't you?"
"So, what, after all that, we don't even get to find out who wrote the stupid thing?" Eddy asked. "What a cop-out."
"I like to think of it more as an open-ended resolution," Double D said. "Perhaps, one day, we'll learn who—"
"Ah, give it a rest, won't ya?" Eddy said. "I'm bored now. Let's go to my place and watch TV."
"I love regularly-scheduled programming, Eddy!" Ed said, wrapping his arms around each of his friends and leading the way to Eddy's house.
"Boy, Plank, you're lucky I covered for you," Jonny said, walking home. "I just hope you've learned your lesson, mister. This is what happens when you let a prank go too far. And all because Double D corrected your grammar? You really are diabolical!"