Someone mentioned a good point that technically Heidi would be a science geek since she judged the special ed science fair in 'Moss Piglets.' Fair, lol. I think I just took canon Heidi and had always seen her as more of the artsy writer type.
. . .
. .
.
Butters piled his chem and history books into his locker after his morning classes. Grabbing a snack and getting ready for third period as he thought ahead about rehearsal and when he'd have time to cram some studying in for his chem quiz. With two weeks of the usual show schedule taken away, he was a little more stressed about learning lines when he had a large speaking role already.
He gathered his stuff as he tore open a granola bar's wrapping with his teeth. Biting into it as he closed his locker door to come face to face with a fellow student standing abnormally close to him.
"'Sup, Butters."
"Oh! Geez." Butters yelped, reeling from the startling hello. "Heya, Eric."
"You busy?"
Butters considered the time. "Well, I was hoping to get to math early-"
"Cool, so," Cartman took Butters by the shoulder, leading him into a walk as he kept a lookout on his surroundings. "You're doing that stupid gay play with Heidi, right?"
Butters frowned. "Well, I wouldn't call it stupid-"
"Can you do me a favor? And I'll pay you back for it?" Cartman reeled him closer for a whisper. "And keep an eye on her?"
"For...what?"
"She keeps coming up with all these bullshit excuses as to why she can't see me." Cartman explained, before scoffing. "And we all know what that means."
Butters bit into his granola bar. "Not really."
"She's obviously doing it with some guy.." Cartman muttered. "And if she thinks she can keep leading me on, begging for me back, and complaining I don't do enough while she pulls this shit? 'Tuh."
"Cheating?" Butters questioned. "I don't know, Eric. Heidi doesn't seem like the kind of girl-"
"Oh, trust me. She is." Cartman ridiculed. "Probably not the first time she's had the hots for someone while with me"
Butters felt like he knew Heidi well enough to think Eric was being a little absurd. "Haven't her parents been fighting a whole bunch?"
"Yeah, but she always uses that excuse," Cartman said, stopping Butters in their tracks. "You in on this negotiation of ours? Make sure to keep it hush-hush."
"But, doesn't a negotiation mean I get something in return?"
"How about," Cartman stiffened a warning glaze. "Your parents don't find out you're taking more than one club?"
Butters' face whitened.
"'Cuz from what I know they're all up in your grades. If anything could change that, no Spring Play for you, huh?"
Butters wasn't expecting to wake up to this today, but he also learned to understand he shouldn't expect anything less from Eric Cartman.
"Yeah, I..I get it, Eric."
The varsity cheer squad spread out on the gym floor. Prepped in their cheer uniforms with done up hair and spirit makeup in prep of filming their portion of the Winter Pep spirit video. The videographers from the film club were expecting to have their footage by the end of the day. With the squad's practice for the live routine and Pep and sectionals preparations, coach only had today to film the squad with only a bit of practice underway.
The trio of girls sat in their own corner of the gym floor, stretching in advance of doing their routine. Each was adorned in their varsity cheer uniform of a black pleated cheer skirt with silver blue popping out in the divots of the pleats. Their black polyester vests were black based as well with silver blue outlining their ribs in a upward triangular shape up each of their sides. With the school bighorn sheep mascot plastered on the front of the vest.
"I mean, who the hell is she?" Heidi argued, sitting in a butterfly stretch position. Her hair was pulled back in a half French braid finishing in a high straightened ponytail with a thin cheer ribbon tied over her ponytail band in black, white, and silver blue. "I've been doing theatre and cheer forever, and when coach changes the Winter schedule, it's my fault?"
Bebe leaned over to touch her foot with her opposing hand, her legs spread as she loosened her core. Her hair was half held up with the same type of ribbon tied over her ponytail band. "Sounds like projecting."
Wendy stretched her legs in front of her as she adjusted her high, soft ringlet-curled pony and ribbon. "Yeah, you've always made sure to let both know prior."
"I don't know," Heidi sighed. "Maybe because I'm a senior she thought I'd quit one or the other."
"Why would she think that?"
"'Cuz a bunch of the grads last year tailored all their club choices to their college choices," Heidi reminded. She clucked loudly. "What does that have to do with me? Just 'cuz I wanna go into writing doesn't mean I don't like cheer and theatre!"
"Don't worry too much, Hides," Bebe assured. "If she wants to be crabby that's her problem."
"Yeah," Wendy agreed. "You haven't changed anything. She's deciding to be upset with you about it."
Their coach blew the whistle. "On your feet, troops! We're already behind."
"And who's fault is that.." Bebe muttered as they got up. Wendy nudged her in the ribs to shut up.
"We're gonna try to do this quickly and fluently," their coach announced, getting the squad to circle in at the base of the gym's bleachers. Jimmy and the rest of the crew from the Film Club set up their equipment.
"Everyone give an ear to Jimmy Valmer for a second," coach motioned to Jimmy who stepped forward.
"A-Alright, guys! Our idea is to get a few c-cl-clips of you guys doing some stunt-stunts as an opening!"
Some junior girls snickered behind the trio of girls, making them look over their shoulders. Girls a grade below them laughed Jimmy's way as he adjusted the camera and his fellow club members took a look at the video feed over the computer.
"Check out the crip." One of the juniors joked to her friend.
Wendy scowled. "You're being fucking rude."
Some of the cheerleaders took notice of the two juniors, while they just gave a sour look to Wendy who turned her polite attention back to Jimmy.
"Testaburger, Stevens, and Turner," Coach waved forward. "We're gonna have you do a flyer stunt for the opening shot."
Wendy looked around. While she was a flyer, and Bebe and Heidi acted as the base, usually Lola was their back spot in the four-person stunt. "Where's Lola?"
"Our little sweetheart Lola decided to sprain her ankle in a shower accident."
Heidi blinked. You'd think the coach wouldn't mention it so casually. "Is she okay?"
"She will be, but she's at least out as a back spot for now. I know you're used to working with her, but Jessica will fill in for now."
One of the previously snickering girls came to join the trio and Wendy rolled her eyes. Great, the ableist. It didn't help that a girl who was supposed to hold and catch Wendy from falling was also texting on her phone.
"Great, homegirl's on her phone, and we need her to literally thrust Wendy into the air." Bebe felt no remorse in commenting loudly.
"Take it easy, Stevens." Coach commented. "The rest of you grab pompoms and semi-circle around the few. When the camera follows Wendy we want to get a backshot of the rest of you in high v position. Let's do a run-through. Wendy, I want you to do a scale pose when you're up there. I'll count you in."
Heidi and Bebe acted as Wendy's usual side bases, lifting her onto their knees first with arm support before going any level higher. Wendy looked behind her to make sure the junior was ready to help her rise, and yet, she was still on her phone.
Wendy gave a look to the coach. "I'm not going anywhere in the air so long as she's on her phone."
"Jessica Parker. Parker!" The coach called, getting the junior to look up. "Give it here."
She gave a small eye roll, before crossing to hand her phone over to coach.
"Testaburger, relax. No one makes my squad without following safety protocol."
"Yeah, I would never drop you." The junior said with a sickly sweet voice as she returned to her position.
"Watch her try.." Bebe murmured, getting Wendy to nudge her again.
"You realize we're one short. Where the hell is Kyle?"
The basketball team circled up with the halftime clock nearly up. They were two away from getting ahead and beating Greeley High by another shot. Even then, they'd have to hold them off for the second period. They were pretty confident until Kyle suddenly disappeared right after the buzzer went off.
Kenny drank from his water bottle and poured some on the back of his neck in answering Stan. "Bro, no idea."
Stan had to let it slide. "Great job out there."
"Eh," Kenny put his bottle aside on the bench. "Not bad after a while."
"Circle up!" The coach called. Those chugging water came to huddle as the team sought to plan a better strategy going into the second half. "I'm liking what I'm seeing out there. You know the rule of second, we go in harder than they're expecting us to based on first period. Right?"
"Right." The team agreed in unison.
"Right!?"
"RIGHT!"
A redhead popped into the huddle suddenly. "Sorry, sorry, I'm back.."
"Where'd you go?" Coach demanded.
"Parents...working late..dropped Ike off.." Kyle spoke out of breath. Stan looked up from the huddle to see Ike going to take a seat in the crowd. He knew the Brofvloskis said they didn't want to put too much pressure on Kyle, but they seemed to be taking him up on a lot of offers.
"Greeley's gotten better since last year," a junior admitted.
"Guys come on," Tolkien, their newly elected captain encouraged. "We wanna roll into Winter Pep's game knowing Greeley beat us?"
The others snickered.
"Nah." Tolkien looked over his shoulder to the bleachers and back. "And let's give those footballers over there a reason why basketball is the varsity that leads Winter Pep."
Kyle looked over his shoulder as well. During Winter Pep there was typically a basketball game. Something that Cartman, Kevin, and Clyde complained should be a football event, even when the ground outside was too cold by the time it rolled around. Kyle loved it. It gave a little more attention to varsity basketball and didn't make everything football-focused. The three of them sat in the crowd, accompanied a row below by Craig and Tweek. They meant to hang out with Clyde alone but agreed to tag along to the game while Clyde finished up with his other friends.
"Keep focus, guys," coach said. "I like a thirst for winning, but if you win on account of a bad attitude it's not worth it."
The team players nodded. "So, what can we do? To Intimidate them?" Kenny asked.
"We're gonna dominate defense," Tolkien strategized. "If we have offense stand in the same formation as their defense, they're gonna be focused on blocking each pair. You guys cover. You guys head for the net. We need two on the tall guy who keeps trynna block Kenny."
"I'll help." Stan volunteered.
"Sounds good."
"Ready? Bighorns on three." Coach put his hand in the middle, with the team following. "One, two-"
"BIGHORNS!"
After watching the game, Craig and Tweek decided a trip to Denny's for dinner didn't sound half bad at all. It felt nice bringing Clyde along as well. The three of them used to spend a lot of time there before Tweek and Craig started dating. Back when the trio was, well, only a trio.
Craig chugged down his milkshake. "So, uh," he wiped his mouth. "How're things with Bebe?"
Clyde swirled his fry in a ketchup and mayo mixture, plopping it into his mouth. "Pretty good," he shrugged. "I'm in no mood to be in a relationship so it works."
"And her?"
"Same," Clyde agreed. "We kinda lost interest a while back, but, it's so hot when-"
"Nope, I'm good." Craig repulsed, not wanting to hear about whatever went on between Clyde and Bebe behind closed doors.
Tweek shrugged. "Glad you guys can find mutual grounds, though."
"Yeah," Clyde agreed, still munching on fries. "Hey, what're you guys doing for your senior project?"
Craig rolled his eyes. "Fuck, if I know."
"I'm gonna do a computer project on creating a mobile wallet with merchant payment." Tweek enthused.
Clyde questioned it. "Isn't that basically Apple Pay?"
"Yeah, but different," Tweek figured. "And not with real money. It's just teaching the program to read numbers, basically."
"Sounds complicated," Clyde said. "I just thought I'd do a hypothesis on how far I could edge off the football field and slingshot a melon through the goal."
Craig finished off his milkshake. "If it's physics related, yeah."
"Ugh, never mind."
Tweek looked behind him down the aisle of booths. "Where's my burger? I'm starving."
"Oh my god," Clyde nearly choked on a fry, lifting his phone from a sudden notification. "No shit!"
"What?" Craig questioned.
Clyde snickered turning his phone to show a post from barely a minute ago. "The team is with some Pueblo Central High School kids at Red Lobster."
His friend in blue stared dully at the screen. "So?"
"So, those Pueblo kids' know how to party." Clyde's phone buzzed with a text from Cartman. "Oh, there's Cartman. He's telling me to come."
"Why are Pueblo kids in town?"
"They had a game against Denver South High. Kevin's cousin is on the team." Clyde shoved his keys into his pocket. "Cartman's right, they go hard."
Tweek watched him gather his stuff. "Where..where are you going?"
His friend scoffed. "Red Lobster, duh! I'm not passing on the team partying with Pueblo!"
"So..you're leaving." Tweek concluded. The waiter came by and plopped his burger in front of him, which he just pushed away. "Again."
"Yeah, hey, I'll leave you guys a 20 and we can just split?" Clyde took a bill out of his pocket and threw it to the table. "Bro, I'm getting no sleep tonight! I wonder if Bebe is around."
Tweek sat back in a huff as Clyde texted Cartman and looked up. "What?"
"Pay for your own meal, you ordered extra fries.."
Clyde blinked. "Okay, geez. I'll grab the bill upfront."
"Are you serious?!"
"What-?"
Tweek's palm slammed the table, startling some customers as Craig tried to calm him. His boyfriend just brushed him off. "We can't get a minute in with you before you decide we're boring and go tag along with Cartman and Stoley!"
Clyde paused, before chuckling. "Dude, it's Pueblo-"
"I don't care if it's-it's-!" Tweek panicked in rage. "If it's fucking Kim Kardashian on a yacht with Hugh Jackman and they're both naked!"
"What?"
"If you don't wanna hang out with us anymore," Tweek said. "If you wanna find a different reason to ditch us literally every single time we so much get you to sit down anywhere with us, fine! I'm done."
"Tweek, dude-" his friend tried to ease.
"We get it, Clyde! Go! Have a great time!" Tweek yelped as he ditched for the bathroom. Craig reached a hand after him though Tweek didn't look back in leaving. Craig sighed and looked at Clyde, who was just stiff in his own shock.
Craig rolled his eyes. "I guess we thought you still cared a little bit.."
To be continued...
