Chapter 5: Everybody Talks

October 1988, Flatbush Central High School, Brooklyn, New York

The following Monday, Luanne was nervous to go to school with her hair like this, but sadly didn't have a choice. She tried to put on a strong face, as she entered through the front door of the school, books in hand.

She couldn't help but feel that everyone was staring at her, like she was a bug under a microscope.

She went straight to her locker and put her books into it, when she felt someone walk up behind her, she closed her locker and turned around, and was face to face with Yancy leaning against the locker looking down to her.

"Hey Luanne…your new hair looks amazing…"

Luanne stared at him blankly. And then a rage boiled inside of her, and before she could even rationalize, she punched him in the stomach.

Yancy exhaled sharply in surprise, and grabbed his stomach.

"You…you dick!" Luanne yelled at him and started crying. She ran to the girls bathroom to sob, and Fry walked up to Yancy.

"Good god, she's…touchy…" Yancy grunted, still in pain from the surprisingly hard punch she delivered straight to his gullet. "All I did was say her hair looked nice!"

Fry stared at Yancy. "Why…why would you say that to her?"

"Because it makes he look really cool? Is that not a good enough reason?"

Fry got angry "Her parents cut off her hair as punishment for going to the dance without their permission!" he could have swore he'd tried to tell Yancy that—not that he ever listened to anything he had to say.

Yancy immediately looked remorseful. "Why didn't you tell me that!"

"I tried to warn you about that, and you didn't even listen!"

Yancy grumbled "great, now she probably thinks I'm a total douchebag."

Fry laughed. "Yeah because its true."

"Shut up!" Yancy groaned "I'm going to make it up to her."

"She probably hates you now." Fry laughed. It felt nice to be on the other side of the jabbing remarks for once.

"Shut up, you dork!"

After first period, Luanne walked out of class, and Yancy started to try and approach her again, but she immediately turned and tried to quickly walk away from him.

"Lulu, wait!" He ran to catch up with her.

"I told you not to call me that!" she said, groaning. "Isn't it bad enough what you said to me earlier!" she was actually really upset with him.

Yancy felt remorse, and decided to drop his tough, aloof guy act for once. "Luanne…I'm sorry. I didn't know."

His shocking sincerity surprised Luanne. "…Hell must have frozen over." she replied.

"No, really…I am sorry. I just…I wanted to compliment you before I…" He trailed off, he wasn't sure if it would even be appropriate to ask her out now, he didn't want to give the impression he was only apologizing to get her to date him.

"Before you what?"

"…I was going to ask you out…but forget it, I don't want you to think I'm being insincere…" He said, almost a little bit shy.

Luanne touched his arm. "This…is the most sincere you've been in the 7 months I have known you."

Yancy blushed slightly at her touching him, and cleared his throat. "Yeah…well…I have to get to class…see you around…"

Luanne held her books to her chest. "Yeah…see you around…"

Later at lunchtime, while entering the cafeteria, Fry overheard a conversation.

"Yancy and Luanne are like, totally going out!" some girl said to her friend, as both stood in line for their turn to get lunch.

"What! No way!" the other girl replied "That's so weird! Yancy is just as weird as his younger brother. He just tries to pretend to be cool." the girl laughed

Fry grumbled at someone calling him weird.

"Pfft, oh shut up Carrie, Yancy is really dreamy." the first girl replied, rolling her eyes.

Fry reacted in disgust to someone expressing attraction to his older brother.

"He has a mullet, Darla. A mullet."

Fry rolled his eyes and decided to switch which lunch line he was in, but saw Luanne. He went up to her.

"Lu…please tell me you aren't going out with my brother." he groaned

"…what the hell?" she reacted with such confusion, her face twisted, that there was no way she could be faking a response like that, causing Fry to sigh with relief.

"Sorry…I just heard some girls talking about you and Yancy."

Luanne narrowed her eyes. "Those are just rumors…All he did was apologize…admittedly, it was surprising how sincere he was, but I'm not going to throw myself into his arms for doing the bare minimum."

Yancy walked up. "Hey Lulu—I mean…Luanne" he said, nervously.

"…Uh…hey?" she said

"I uh…I heard you want to go out with me…" Yancy clearly had heard the same rumors that Fry had.

Fry made a face as if he had just eaten a whole lemon.

"…And where did you hear that?" Luanne raised an eyebrow. Her overly critical and harsh response made Yancy immediately feel embarrassed.

"Oh…I thought…I was just under the impression…they said…nevermind, forget it…" He started to walk away.

"Yancy, get your ass back over here." Luanne crossed her arms.

He turned around. "You…do…?"

"Not a chance."

"Damn."

"I just wanted to tell you not to believe baseless rumors!" Luanne added on. "If I wanted to go on a date with you, I would tell you directly…I mean who communicates through others? That's the stupidest thing a person could do."

"Yeah! Stupider than me!" Fry jumped into the conversation, and Luanne looked at him with concern about the mean thing he'd just said about himself.

"Fry, no." she said gently, touching his hand.

"Uh…less stupid than me?" He corrected himself, nervously, tugging at his shirt collar.

"…That's…worse." she said, blinking. She put her hand on Fry's shoulder. "Don't call yourself stupid."

Fry stared blankly at her for a minute, and immediately changed the subject. "So I heard there's corndogs for lunch today!"

"Fry." Luanne said flatly.

"What?"

"Promise me you won't call yourself stupid anymore!"

"Okay…fine, I promise."

Luanne turned back to Yancy. "And you. Stop believing rumors! Even if you like what the rumors are saying" she crossed her arms.

Yancy grumbled. "Fine…It's not like I wanted to go out with you that badly." He just outright lied.

"Sure." Luanne replied, rolling her eyes just a little. Yancy wasn't a very good liar.

"Can we at least be friends?" Yancy asked her, trying to hide the hopeful glimmer in his eyes.

"Maybe." Luanne replied "But you have to be nicer to your brother."

"That's impossible!"

"I guess so is our friendship" Luanne said, with a smug smirk. Her stomach rumbled. "Anyways I need some grub before lunch period is over." she grabbed Fry's arm and took him over to another lunch line and the two friends got their food and sat together as usual.

Yancy harrumphed to himself, and got his own lunch, and sat elsewhere.

Of course, this wasn't the last time Luanne would be hearing rumors about herself, she'd yet to even hear what people were saying about what they witnessed at the dance, with her and Fry's accidental kiss…but for now, at least she nipped one rumor in the bud.

She could hardly even imagine the idea of being with Yancy. That was ridiculous, and she would never entertain the idea…as far as she knew, for right now…