Mort and Julien burst between Kitka and Skipper, breaking them apart. They tripped over the couple's feet and sprawled onto the ground.
"Ouch!" Julien groaned.
"Owie…I'm okay!" Mort said. "Sorry!"
Skipper shook his head, Kitka looked furious.
"What's wrong with you?!" She glared at Mort.
Mort squeaked.
"Mort, Julien, I told you to take it slow!" Maurice said, shaking his head.
Private, Kenny, Barry, Rocky, Rico, and Rikki were trying not to laugh. Kowalski watched the scene with amusement.
"Mort?" Kitka said. "What kind of name is that? Isn't that French for 'death'? You're going to be the death of me."
"Actually, it's short for Mortimer." Maurice said, looking a little offended. He helped Julien up.
Mort sprung to his feet. "I gotta pee!" He squealed. He ran to the elevators, followed by Julien.
"Kings go first!" Julien said.
"But I gotta go!"
"So do I!"
"But-"
"No buts, Mort!"
Maurice sighed "Please forgive them." He said. "Sorry, Skipper." He followed them into the elevator.
"Hey, Kitka, are you okay?" Rocky asked.
"Yes, I'm fine. I guess that moment's ruined." Kitka grumbled.
"You can still kiss." Kowalski said. "Make a new moment."
"Well-"
"Hey, have you seen my key?"
They turned to see Fred standing near the doorway.
Kitka looked upset.
"Fred, you're wearing your key." Skipper said.
Fred looked down at the card around his neck. "Oh, I am. Thanks."
He went to eat dinner while Barry, Kenny, and Private sat at a table with food.
"Uh. Why are you staring at me?" Kitka tried to make eye contact with Rikki.
"She's blind." Rocky said.
Rico tapped Rikki's shoulder and the two of them went to join the younger boys for dinner. Rocky and Kowalski headed upstairs to put their things away.
"Let's try again later." Skipper suggested. "I'm hungry, let's have dinner."
"I'm not hungry." Kitka said, eyeing the three younger boys. "I'll see you later."
…
That night, Kowalski decided it was time to talk to Skipper about Kitka.
"Skipper."
He and Private entered the other room. Rico had been playing Solitaire on the computer, but stopped when the other two came in.
"Yes?" Skipper asked, in the progress of putting his clothes away.
"We need to talk to you." Kowalski said.
"What's going on?"
"Er…it's about Kitka, sir." Private said.
"Ah, Kitka. A name of pure beauty." Skipper sighed.
The other three exchanged looks.
"Yeah, about that…" Kowalski muttered.
"What?"
"I'm not sure how to put this gently, so I'll be blunt. We think you should stop dating her."
"What?! Why?" Skipper crossed his arms and glared at Kowalski. "Why should I stop dating her?"
"Have you seen the odd looks she keeps giving me?" Private asked.
"Rude." Rico said.
"She was quite rude to Mort."
"He crashed the kiss!" Skipper said.
Kowalski sighed. "Yes, but he apologized."
"She yelled at him and she's been giving odd looks to me, Kenny, Barry, Ramona, Eggy, Fred, and Mort." Private said. "There is definitely something up."
"Nonsense! You should hang out with her." Skipper said. "You'll see, she's a nice girl. She and Rocky are going shopping tomorrow after school, why would my sister go out with Kitka if she doesn't like her?"
Rico shook his head.
"Alright, Skipper. Have it your way, but don't say we didn't warn you." Kowalski said.
"Warn? Yeah right!" Skipper scoffed. "You're just jealous because Doris doesn't want to date you."
Kowalski turned and left without a word.
"Er, I have to finish a few things." Private said. He zipped into his room to find Kowalski reading in bed. "You know he didn't mean that."
"I know."
"You sure?"
"How do you trust someone you can't tell the truth to?" Kowalski asked. "If I can't trust him with something as simple as telling him we don't like his girlfriend, how do I know I can trust him with anything else?"
"He's our leader. He'll come around eventually." Private said. "Just give it time."
…
They did give it time, three weeks of time.
It was only three weeks until finals and Skipper was desperate. He had fallen behind and finally got slapped with the reality hammer. His teacher approached him to say that he was dangerously close to getting a 'D' in Algebra if he didn't keep up.
Now, you can ask how on Earth one student got to D in three weeks. Well, it actually started earlier in the semester. He had started neglecting his duties in February, did terribly on the Midterm and actually skipped one of the tests. He was already getting a B average in Algebra, but the midterm took him down as well as his poor performance in class. The teacher told him that he could make it up with extra credit and working harder, but he would still probably get a C+ or B-. Skipper was told that he should get a tutor again, but there was a problem with that. His tutor was Marlene and she wasn't speaking to him as much these days.
Marlene had done a good job of avoiding Skipper, but still refused to explain her behavior. He tried to get her attention by text, email, social media, and in person. She refused to listen to a word of it.
"Please Marlene! I'm begging you!" He said for the hundredth time as they walked back from school.
Marlene didn't respond.
"I'm on my knees now, giving myself up to humiliation so PLEASE! Please, I beg of you to help me!"
Marlene turned to find Skipper on the ground.
"For goodness sake, get up!" She hissed.
Skipper stood up. "Is that a yes?"
"No."
"Please? I swear I'll do anything for you. Anything, I mean it, just name your price."
"Really? Absolutely anything?"
"Yes! Do I need to sacrifice someone? I know where Hans li-"
"NO!"
Skipper looked at her pleadingly.
"The one thing I want you to do, I can't ask of you."
"Why not?"
"Because it goes against everything I've been taught."
"I don't care! Tell me what it is!"
"First, stop shouting. You're drawing unwanted attention." Marlene said.
"Sorry." Skipper cleared his throat. "So, what do you want me to do?"
"Nothing." Marlene sighed. "I'll help you."
"No, there was something you wanted." Skipper said. "I promise I'll do anything for you."
"I'm alright. I just need you to spend more time in the tutoring room. You now have no more time for extra activities. This means you can't be on Facebook, Central Community, watching television, or hanging out with K- other people. Your time is now reduced since there are a precious few weeks left of actual schooling. You're going to need to do extra credit if you want at least a B on your final grade. I'm assuming you want that, correct?"
"Yes, I want it. More than anything, I'll do what you say."
Marlene grinned. "And you're going to bring your math workbook to the Spirit Squad meetings when I'm working on the posters. You're to work on one page a day."
Skipper sighed in relief. "Thank you, Marlene. Seriously, if you need anything else I'll do it."
…
So, that's what Skipper ended up doing. He brought his math workbook every time he met with Marlene, working on the problems while she worked on the posters. Rico and Barry were helping out as well. Barry hadn't officially joined the squad, but he wanted to show Rico that he was sincerely sorry for his actions the previous semester.
Marlene took a break every so often to check Skipper's progress and was happy with him. The only person not happy with him was Kitka.
She hadn't managed to find him and resorted to cornering his younger roommate.
"You." Kitka said as she entered the apartments.
Private froze; he, Ramona, and Kenny were on their way back from the pool. They had been practicing swim lessons. Marlene, Skipper, Rico, Rikki, and Barry were at the Spirit Squad president's house working on posters, banners, and things for next year. Rocky had taken Kowalski to swim practice earlier.
"Hello, Kitka." Private said.
"I know my name." Kitka said.
"Well, then." Ramona said, feeling a little offended.
"Where's Skipper?"
"Er, he's gone to someone's house." Private said.
"That tells me nothing." Kitka snapped. "This is why I don't like kids, they don't tell you ANYTHING at all. Geez!"
"I'm thirteen!" Ramona said.
"We're not kids." Kenny added.
"You don't like kids?" Private asked.
"No, you little snot rags are untrustworthy and-"
She was cut off by a loud squeal.
Mort and Eggy tumbled out of the elevator. They ran up to Ramona, firing questions about science.
"You can't blow Pluto up with a glass of Carbon Monoxide!" Eggy said.
"Can so!" Mort argued.
"You can't even keep Carbon Monoxide in a glass; do you even know what it is?"
"You don't know either!"
"I know you can't keep-"
"LALALA, not listening!"
"What the heck?!" Kitka backed up. "Don't you learn anything in school?"
"I learned the times tables!" Mort said. "Two, four, six, eight, twelve, fourteen-"
"You forgot ten." Eggy said.
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Egg-"
"STOP!" Kitka yelled. "You kids are so immature. You know nothing about anything!"
"Want to test that theory?" Ramona growled.
"I know." Kenny said. "I know things that would make you vomit."
Ramona and Private's jaws dropped. They stared at Kenny who blushed and mumbled something about the weather.
"Yeah right. You need to grow up." Kitka huffed.
"Aww, you need a hug!" Mort squealed. He stretched his arms out and approached her.
SMACK!
The others gasped.
Mort stumbled backwards in shock, and then began bawling loudly.
Ramona, Private, and Eggy began yelling at Kitka angrily. Kenny patted Mort on the back consolingly.
"What did you do that for?"
Kitka turned to see Skipper, Rico, Marlene, Rikki, and Barry standing behind her. All of them were shocked. Rikki's jaw dropped as Barry whispered what happened.
"He was bothering me." Kitka said.
"I can't believe you did that." Marlene said. "Mort just wanted to give you a hug."
"I-uh-well-"
Kowalski and Rocky entered and froze at the scene before them.
"What's going-?"
"How could you do that to a kid?" Skipper asked. "I thought you were…I don't know anymore."
"She hates kids." Eggy said. "She called us stupid and immature."
"She called us snot rags." Private said.
"Skipper, are you going to listen to them?" Kitka said. "They're taking my words out of context."
"I was here, you know." Skipper said. "I'm sorry, it's over."
The younger kids backed away as Kitka's hands balled into fists.
"What's going on here?" Alice had come out of her office. "Hey, you don't live here. Why is he crying?" She pointed to Mort.
"Kitka slapped him!" Ramona said.
"She did WHAT?!" Maurice shouted, having come off the elevator with Julien.
Mort ran to Julien and hugged him. The taller boy didn't object this time.
"Slapping a kid? Even I wouldn't do that." Julien said, shaking his head. "Alice, make her go away."
"No need, I'll take my own leave." Kitka said. She stalked past the group. "Goodbye."
"Bye!" Rocky said
…
The groups eventually explained what happened and they decided that it was for the best that Kitka was gone.
Nothing much exciting happened after that. Well, not until Friday.
…
It was Friday and PARK B was in Math class. They were already starting a little bit of revisions since there were two weeks left and then finals. They would have one week of new material and going over that, then the next week was supposed to be complete revisions for finals. However, that didn't happen.
They were sitting in groups, working on the new material as Mr. Campbell went around helping them.
They heard the first noise about halfway through the lesson. It sounded like something had been dropped. Mr. Campbell dismissed the noise as a desk.
The second noise sounded closer and warbled as if it had been metal. A couple of students thought it might be the dumpsters as it was garbage collection day. Mr. Campbell thought one of the nearby classes might be doing an experiment.
The third noise was a sort of clattering and thumping, followed by a loud door slamming.
Mr. Campbell became worried. He opened the door and peered down the hall, seeing nothing.
"Stay here. I'll be right back." He exited the classroom.
"Hello?" He called.
The students anxiously waited. He had gone out of their range of vision and they were frozen in their desks.
"Hey! Who are you?!"
The students gasped.
BAM! CRASH!
"ARGH!"
A/N: Barry: THE WORST CLIFFHANGER EVER!
Ramona: NO! What's happening?! I feel the same as the 'dying' reviewer! GIVE US THE NEXT CHAPTER!
Private: If it works, I'd say it's the best, but definitely antagonizing. Didn't someone ask for this chapter so they wouldn't 'die'.
Kowalski: I believe they did. And I think we may need to plan a service on grounds of too much suspense.
Skipper: Tactful, Kowalski…
Rico: HAHAHAHAHA!
Kenny: Hey, at least Kitka's out of the picture.
Julien: True, I am gladly to be he-ugh-he-el-ping you.
Rocky: Thank you? Gloria, did you have to baby Mort like that?
Gloria: I just comforted him, poor baby! He got slapped for no reason and he needs love.
Marlene: You're swaddling him…and he has a binky in his mouth…
Mort: I had it from when I was a teeny baby!
Eggy: Again, WHY am I friends with him?
Tammy: Guess what?! I'm getting a cameo soon! What's a cameo?
Maurice: An appearance. But who are you?
Skipper: Don't start…she'll start singing. Penguin Skipper told me about her…
Private: Don't be harsh.
Allie: I want to see chapter-
Barry: NO! No spoilers, you spoily spoilsport of spoilerness!
Allie: I was NOT going to spoil it!
Barry: You were SO going to spoil it!
Allie: I wasn't!
Barry: You were too!
Allie: Was not!
Barry: Was too!
Allie: Was not!
Barry: Was too!
Kenny: And I thought it was just Barry and Ramona who argued this much.
Ramona: I thought so too.
Was not!
Was too!
Was not!
Was too!
Private: Make it stop, please!
Rico: End note!
