A/N: I swear, I'm so tired right now. Half my brain has shut off and I'm pretty sure it was the amusing side. And I have so much to say. This is gonna be really astonishingly boring. Uh, well, let's see here...

First off, the thing I posted for Halloween: I'm not happy with it. Sure, it's funny, but it's really poorly written, and it's been bugging me. I really love that you guys liked it, but I'm gonna take it down. Not permanently, mind you, but I don't like having it there unfinished and in a state I'm not happy with. So, I'm gonna leave it up for a bit longer, and then I'm gonna take it down. Just giving a little warning in case you guys wanna save it or something. Idk, I just know it always annoys the crap out of me when people just randomly take down stories without warning. So, here's the warning. Sorry, guys.

Okay, next, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING. Yes, we've reached this point. I guess I didn't have that much to say after all. But I just wanted to tell you guys thanks. :D Every review where someone tells me I made them smile or laugh makes this entire thing 100% worth it. You guys rock. I'll try to be less of a suck.

~Y'all Sexy Mofos I'm Thankful as Hell for~

acosta perez jose ramiro

metalheadrailfan

Panfla

Nep2uune

writergirl97

NerdilyNi

Myriamj

HAFanForever

Isabella Pataki

Stavros 92

Emily M

Anonymous guests, too!

I swear, some of you guises' reviews nearly made me pee myself. xD Namely, Isabella over there with all your craze, and Nerdilz, as per us.' You guys are great. XD OMG, special shout-out to Emily M, especially! Extra special lurves there. :'D LET ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME! I couldn't get the dopey grin off my face for hours. XD It's reviews like that that'll keep me going for eons, caffeine or no. TY for that. x3

Okaybyettylandallthatlovey'allteeheetomatoesread

Disclaimer: "HEY ARNOLD!" is all Craig Bartlett's doing. Shortman kids are all my doing (I'm still sorry about that). Pamella is Panfla and I's doing.

Dedication: Panfla, SUPREME OVERLORD OF ALL PANS ANYWHERE

Sugar and Sunshine

Air was a magnificent thing, Zack decided. And for two main reasons. For one, it was vital for life, and living so far out in the middle of the woods, he was surrounded by only the freshest. Crisp and new, he breathed in greedily, grinning as he exhaled and knowing the carbon dioxide would only help to produce even more air. Smirking, he thought, 'You're welcome, Earth,' before kicking a rock across the road and watching as it spun and jumped before disappearing somewhere with it's brothers in the grass.

For two, being a man of difficult to tame hair, it was nice to have that windswept excuse now and again. He'd more than abused that little ditty today, with how windy it had decided to be. Typical New York. It felt nice and brisk at the moment especially, the sun already halfway down in that sleepy, lingering state where it peeked over the horizon, as if even it was aware of it's leaving far too early in the day and was reluctant. The trees and grass all reflected it, half orange, half shadow, and Zack knew he needed to get inside quick before he was completely encompassed in black.

Racing up the road at break-neck speed, he made it into his driveway and had to stumble in order to stop. Nearly ramming into the car, he laughed, pushing off of it and stumbling back towards the direction of the door. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he walked up to the door, releasing a quick breath and surprised to find it come out white. Yes, winter was coming, indeed. The air wouldn't be wonderful for long.

As soon as that warm burst of air hit his face from opening the door, he felt a shiver run through his body, dismissing the chill there as he shut the door with care. He stood there a moment, unwilling to take his jacket off just yet, when he heard the distinct sound of giggling. Puzzled, he turned his head, squinting his eyes in the halflit hallway. The giggling came again then, a bit louder, and, feeling mischievous, he carefully reached down to take his shoes off before soundlessly making his way towards the noise.

He found himself just outside the kitchen, and peeked his head around to see what was going on. The smell of chocolate and peppermint hit him in the face like a frying pan, and his jaw ditched his head at the sight before him.

"How many bags of chocolate chips have we used already?"

"Not nearly enough," Amanda giggled, rocking on her feet merrily.

The other person made an inhuman squeal and agreed heartily, before the two began ransacking the already open and wrecked cabinets with a vengeance. Cookie sheets, cupcake tins, and cake pans littered the island and counters, flower hanging in the air and clinging to every available surface, chocolates, mints and M&Ms scattered across the counters and floors. Finished and half-eaten cookies were thrown in a pile on one counter, one very big, pink, glass bowl currently filled with a mix of some sort, hopelessly overflowing with chocolate turtles, chips, mints, snickers and Nutella all crushed up and mutilated together into some artery-obliterating, brown version of The Blob.

But perhaps the most eye-catching sight was Pam, her red hoodie balled up and abandoned on top of the refrigerator and leaving her in faded gray-blue capris and a black long-sleeved sparkling peace sign shirt, with gray spots littering it from the flour. She rather resembled a cow with it's colors mixed up, and absolutely would if it weren't for the glittering green eyes and shock of red hair.

"Are you sure there's more?" the fiend dared ask his innocent little sister.

"Definitely! Mom stocked up yesterday for Thanksgiving but bought like eight bags too many of cookie and cake supplies. Dad gave her a whole lecture about it, said she's feeding a boarding house, not a barn," Amanda giggled again, loud and unconstrained, the sound of youth and sunshine. "She hid it really well, though."

"She knew you'd go looking for it," Pam laughed.

"Well, doi," Faith rolled her eyes prettily, grinning as she continued to joyously strip the room of any semblance of a kitchen and made it look more like the sorry remains of Hurricane Sandy. Hurricane Amanda, was more like it.

"I hope I'm not getting you in any trouble," Pam tittered, the grin on her face bespeaking anything but guilt. She raided the breadbox next, frowning as she came across nothing but crumbs and the first and last slices of an old bread loaf.

"Oh, no, I do this every year. Mom never gets mad. It's like a game." She beamed, before inspiration seemed to strike and she perked up like a lightning rod for a split second and flew across the room. Tilting her head down to look under the counter of the island, she lit up, grabbing a bag still layered with tape out from under and holding it up like a trophy. "Found them!"

"Heavens to Murgatroyd, and in under a minute," Pam exclaimed, clapping her hands in leisurely beats as she grinned. "You must be kickass at Where's Waldo."

Amanda made a joke of twirling a piece of sunshine hair around her finger as she said, "Well, I am really good at finding things."

"I should have figured you'd be Hufflepuff. You look like a Hufflepuff." Pam stuck her tongue in her cheek, teeth visible in a grin.

"Oh? Then what are you?"

"Ravenclaw, of course." She flipped a loose strand of hair over her shoulder, returning Amanda's grin. Wandering over to the mixing bowel, she grabbed the giant spoon and began trying to stir the thick chocolate mass the best she could to make room for the new bag, grunting as she mused, "And Ham, too, would be Ravenclaw. He's got the smarts for it." She laid one arm down across the counter, a distant look crossing her smiling face.

Amanda hopped up on one of the stools of the island, swinging it back and forth beneath her as she propped her arms up on the counter. A wide smile graced her face as she asked, "What about Zack?"

The distant look was immediately swept away by a snort. "Either Slytherin or Gryffindor. Probably Gryffindor. You know, good intentioned but," she tapped her head, a sly grin crossing her face, "stupid."

Amanda repelled back from the counter, one eye clenched shut and her tongue stuck out. "Zack could never be Slytherin!" Pam laughed quietly, unsure whether to be amused or pitiful of her faith. The look disappeared from Faith's face the next second, replaced with a look of curiosity as she leaned forward on the counter again, the bag of chocolate chips still clutched tight in one fist. "What about Phil?" As soon as she said it, a wince crossed her features.

"Slytherin," they both flatly stated, both with equal looks of grimness.

Pam shook her head to clear away the thought, grinning once more as she reached a hand across the mountains of cake ingredients. "Now hand that chocolate over, we've got the world record for most fast-acting diabetes cupcakes ever to make!"

Amanda giggled, allowing Pam to snatch the bag out of her hands and attempt to rip it open with vigor. The duct tape still stuck to it presented a problem, however, and she huffed, pulling at the bag with all her might.

"What the heck is going on here?"

The bag exploded down the side, chips falling out of it like a waterfall for a couple seconds before Pam caught her breath and panickedly threw the bag into the mixing bowl.

Zack, having strode purposely into the room, now stood before her with an expression that looked like it didn't know whether it was amused or annoyed. At the last moment, it settled on annoyed and he leveled his stare on her. "Why are you in my house?"

"For the love of," Pam swore, sending him a severe look. Becoming acutely aware of Amanda's stare, though, she took a breath and relaxed, forcing a sad excuse for a smile on her face. "Amanda invited me in." Pulling the now goopy, empty bag of chips out of the bowl, she raised an eyebrow at him, scraping the batter off of it with her finger. "You didn't tell me you had a little sister."

"I was afraid you'd try to eat her soul." Shifting his gaze onto Amanda's bright and curious face, covered in flour and flecks of chocolate, he winced. "And lo and behold, I was at least half right. 'manda, what? Don't you know better than to invite strangers into our home?"

Amanda observed him unsurely, a delicate frown curving her mouth. "I was feeding the fish out back with Daddy and Pam came out. Dad said he knew her and it was okay if she came in."

Zack's eyes widened at the same time that Pam smirked, her hand coming up to start mixing in the chocolate chips. "See, Brow, nothing to see here. Run along and go do whatever little Zacks do at this hour."

Zack chuckled under his breath, dipping his head down as his hand came up to wag his finger in her direction. "No, now, see," he strutted across the room, before he came to the end of the island and picked up a shredded bag of old chocolate cooking mints between two fingers, looking like the Tasmanian devil on crack had had it's way with it, "I have trouble believing Dad gave permission for our next door neighbor to trash the kitchen." He raised half his eyebrow, smirking. "Especially not one that looks like a deranged midget clown going for the peace prize by bribing little girls with cookies and misleading t-shirts."

"We'll clean it up, assjack, so roll back the sass," Pam shot back, irritated, her movements becoming jerky as she continued to stir. And with the mussed, scraggly hair and unnaturally wide eyes, she looked the very textbook definition of his description.

Zack eyed her violent movements a few moments silently, before he stated, "You know if you break that bowl, my mom will kill you, right?"

Pam let go of the spoon like it had caught fire and pursed her lips, anger clear in her brow. Zack just clicked his tongue and skipped over to stand behind Amanda, his hands coming up to flatten her pigtails over her ears. "And for the record, you better clean that filth from your mouth with a scrub brush, La-la. Faith's innocent little virgin ears don't need to hear that." Amanda laughed and batted his hands away, craning her head back to look at him with sparkly eyes. He grinned down at her.

Pam stopped short at the sight, surprised for but a moment before she resumed her glaring and humphed, picking up the bowl to go stir it on the counter by the sink. She spoke with her back to him, "I think Amanda can handle a few, well-placed curse words, Zack. It's not like she's going to start using them herself. Don't you know your sister at all?"

"Oh-ho!" Zack guffawed, stepping to the right of Amanda to place a hand on her shoulder with a large grin. "The he-lady spends an hour or two with the little lady and suddenly believes she knows her better than her big brother? The guy who's spent all seven years of her life by her side? Who fed her, changed her, and lulled her to sleep with songs of death by tree-cradle? I carried her for nine months, Pam—"

"That was your mom, Numb-nuts," Pam said, turning her head to look at him with an amused quirk of her mouth.

"Well, it might as well have been me. I had to sit by and watch as my dad rubbed her feet and listen to her call him all sorts of colorful nicknames while he did it. That was painful to watch." Zack shook his head in mock self-pity, picking pieces of cake and cookie from Amanda's hair while she observed this conversation with quiet amusement.

"Is that supposed to be cute?" Pam rolled her eyes, growing very close to getting very angry all over again.

Zack snapped his eyes on her, eyebrow high. "No, this is." He puffed his bottom lip out and made his blue eyes round and moony, slumping his shoulders down. Pam immediately burst into laughter, whirling her head back around to look at her bowl, shoulders shaking slightly from the strain of trying to hide her amusement. She blamed all the sugar. Zack just smirked.

"And for the record," he went on in a purposely pompous tone, sliding around the island with a finger poised in the center of the counter, "I'm more Ravenclaw than you'll ever be." He stuck his tongue out.

Pam burst out in a totally uncharacteristic giggle. "You're about as Ravenclaw as a tomato is a vegetable. It seems obvious, what with all the blue, but in reality? Nope."

Zack sent her a shrewd look, scrunching his features up. "Please, Ginger, I'm a slick-tongued Casanova with the wit of a hundred men rolled into one. If that doesn't scream Ravenclaw, get out."

Tongue firmly in cheek, Pam threw her head back to look at him upside down. "Right, not to mention the fifty-ton ego resting on the world's most colossally inflated head."

With one smooth stride over to stand in the center of the room, a few steps away from the redhead in question, he steepled his fingers under his nose and smirked. "I'm going to go ahead and pull a Phil here." Clearing his throat, he said regally, sticking his nose high in the air for good measure, "I don't have an ego, I simply don't underestimate myself." Flipping his hair back with a jerk of his head, he put on his most la-di-da face he could manage. "I'm capable of things." He swiveled his tongue around in the air, before smirking again. "Many things." He cleared his throat again, letting his hands drop. "Quote-unquote. No exaggeration."

"Oh my God." Pam abandoned her bowl in favor of hiding her face in her hands, looking on the verge of hysterical laughter and trying pathetically to hide it.

"Noble attempt you're making there, Pam Cake," Zack quipped smugly, walking over to get a finger of cake mix and pop it in his mouth. He grinned around it. "You're not helping to make me any humbler with this little display. Just letting you know."

"Did I hear my name?" Phil popped his head into the room, raising an eyebrow. Pam just hunched over further.

"Philly-Willy!" Zack beamed, and grabbed the bowl so he could hold it out to him in gesture. "You did indeed hear your name! Did you know these two have been using up all your precious chocolate turtles for their own nefarious deeds?"

Phil pursed his lips, his brow creasing a moment before he shrugged it off. Shrugged it off. "Eh, I'm getting more tomorrow anyway." He walked further into the room then, inspecting it with a critical eye. "Geez, women strike again. Mom'll have a field day with all this."

"We'll clean it up!" Pam burst out at random, her hands shooting to her sides as she glared at the boy. Phil merely regarded her calmly, eyebrow still raised. Pam faltered the next second, guiltily hanging her head. She mumbled an apology.

Zack was grinning a mega watt smile, of course. Setting the bowl back on the counter, he leaned against it and crossed his arms, eyebrow raised. "Well, you seem in a good mood, Phil. Last time Amanda ate your chocolate turtles, you declared war on all seven continents."

Phil opened his mouth to reply, but Amanda's sudden ear-piercing giggle interrupted him and made him go cross-eyed for a split second before he clenched his eyes shut. One sharp look in her direction made her clam up—albeit she was still grinning far too wide, but he'd let it slide—and a smile graced his features the next moment as he looked back towards Zack. "Substitute teacher today." He smirked darkly. "And tomorrow. And the day after that. Life is good. For once." He folded his arms. "Have I ever mentioned there's an endless supply of tacks in the teacher's lounge?"

"You little bastard—" Zack coughed loudly, trying to cover up the curse word a second too late. Amanda just tilted her head at him with a tiny smirk of her own and he sighed, smiling.

Phil dropped into a deep, dramatic bow, hair flopping over into his face before he flipped it back on his way back up, grinning with sadistic glee. "She never knew what hit her." Sticking his tongue out at Amanda once and earning a giggle, he rolled his eyes and began out of the room. Zack followed shortly after, his voice loud enough for all the house to hear, "Wait up, little man, I want a piece of that action!"

Phil's quieter, scratchy voice followed this with a, "You wish!"

Both Pam and Amanda blinked, before they looked back to each other grimly and said singly, "Slytherin."

Just when Pam was about to turn back around, Zack popped his head back in and pointed a finger at her with slitted eyes, startling both girls enough to make them jump. "Don't you think I'm done here, I'll be back for your ass later." And then he was gone, footsteps loud as they pounded down the hallway and up the stairs.

There was a short moment of silence.

"So," Pam wasted no time in changing the subject, grabbing up the jug of Nutella and a fresh bag of M&Ms from under the sink, "which do we need more of? Nutella, Mmms, or should I break out the fudge?" She held them both up, grinning.

Amanda broke out in an incredulous laugh, bouncing up from her seat with hands flat on the counter as she grinned. "All of the above!"

"Ding ding ding," Pam trilled, already in the process of unscrewing the Nutella. "That was the correct answer!"

Amanda beamed, all sugar and sunshine.

A/N: Thankful for you guys. Really am. :) Thanks for all the smiles, and I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Cheers!