Patrick's Secret

Chapter Four

Patrick watched with a blank stare as Sandy paced around. The two were in her Treedome, distressed about their friend Spongebob getting called into work on his day off.

"That cheap crabs is overworking Spongebob," the squirrel said. "He deserved to have a special fun day. Maybe Spongebob should have told him about our plans."

"Or maybe Spongebob can make one day his," Patrick said dully as he sipped his drink.

Sandy was shocked to hear Patrick say that, and smiled immediately. "Patrick, that's even better! You actually said something that made sense!"

The starfish knew that was true, but to not blow his cover, he lowered his head down sadly. "Yeah, I'm sorry."

"No, that's good! We just have to come up with a good reason for Spongebob's availability to adjust."

Patrick knew that his best friend would never ask his boss to have one day off that was only his. He loved his job more than anything. Perhaps if we convinced him to do something exciting on the same day each week, he thought.

The two gave it some discussion, and finally came up with a plan. After Spongebob's shift was over, both Patrick and Sandy met their friend at the Krusty Krab with some exciting news.

"We gave your parents a call," Sandy said to the spongebob, who was happily walking home with his friends, "and they told us you always wanted to take gymnastics."

"Oh yeah!" Spongebob replied in agreement, but then frowned. "But they told me I could do better things."

"Spongebob, you must do it!" Patrick said in a worried tone.

The sponge stopped in his tracks and gave his friends suspicious looks. "What do you mean?" he asked in confusion.

"We decided to sign you and Patrick up for Gymnastics lessons," Sandy said with a smile. "We already had a talk with Mr. Krabs about it, and he agreed to let you have every Thursday off for the lessons."

Spongebob was stunned to hear that his friends spoke with his boss, but he wasn't at all angry. In fact, he was pleased. He smiled again. "Really?"

"And what Mr. Krabs doesn't know won't hurt him," Patrick added.

"Patrick's right, Spongebob!" said Sandy. "We didn't tell him this, but every third Thursday of the month is a day free of gymnastics! So that means on that day we can all do something fun like going to the mountains."

Spongebob gasped in happiness as he folded his hands out in front of him dreamily. He really did have the best friends anymore, and couldn't thank them enough.

For now, though, starting off with a group hug was perfect.