Chapter 1: Club / Put your Hands to the Constellations.
4/1/24: This is the newly revised version of ph0tography, I corrected some errors, added onto certain parts, and added some new scenes and stuff.
Several pamphlets rest in a trash can as a blue cat sighs to himself again. He crumples up another pamphlet into a ball and shoots it into the trash can. It misses again.
"Why did Mom have to make us do this?" He whined.
"I don't know dude," Darwin shrugged.
Gumball recalls the conversation with Mom that morning.
"I just think it would be nice for you to meet some new people," Nicole told Gumball and Darwin, handing them a pile of pamphlets. There had to be at least fifty in there.
"Why can't we just meet them during school?" Gumball asked, trying to get out of it.
"Because clubs will help you find people with the same interests as you," Nicole answered.
"But what if we meet them during school hours," Gumball asked again.
"Just let me know what club you're joining by the end of the day, okay?" Nicole answered, ignoring his question.
"A lot of these clubs are for boring stuff that you can do in school," Gumball pointed out, "why do math club when you can do it in school?" He tossed the pamphlet in the trash. Scored.
He pulls another one from the pile his mother had accumulated. 'QUIZ BOWL' it reads. "Too nerdy," Gumball says. He crumples it up into a ball and shoots it at the trash can. Missed. He pulls out another pamphlet, 'PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB' curiously, he opens it, 'TAKE PICTURES FOR THE SCHOOL PAPER'. He remembers photography as a small hobby he used to have when he was younger, but couldn't get very interested in it because his camera broke and it cost too much to repair or replace.
"Hey, Darwin" Gumball turns to the fish on his left, "do you like taking pictures of stuff?"
"I guess." Darwin slightly nods. Gumball hands the pamphlet to Darwin. Darwin read it.
"Whatever gets Mrs. Mom to get off our butts over joining a club," Darwin says as he places it on the desk.
After surviving their first day of high school, Gumball and Darwin arrive at the classroom posted in the pamphlet. Gumball looks into the room window, the lights are off. He tugs on the door only to find it was locked. Distraught, the two sat against some lockers next to the door and zoned out, wondering if the club was a fraud.
"Hello!" A young feminine voice greets the pair, scaring them. "This is the photography club room, right?"
"U-uh yeah.." Gumball answers.
Gumball is slightly mesmerized by her appearance, glowing a bright yellow with an orange gradient from the middle down, floating less than 6 inches above the ground, with rounded wings, and antlers also glowing a bright yellow.
She leans against the wall in the transition space between the hall and the door. Gumball and Darwin go back to sitting against the lockers.
After a long 5 minutes, the "teacher" finally shows up. A 32-bit frog wearing khakis and a sweater vest jams his key into the door and opens it. The trio follows in, the room is small, containing only 9 desks, a projector, and a front table with 6 identical black cameras on them. The frog introduced himself as Mr Corneille.
"Alright kids, I don't have much time so let me go over the basics." He started, "But before I do, does anyone have any questions?"
Gumball raised his hand. "Yes?" Mr Corneille prompted.
"Why is there like, nobody here?" Gumball asked confused.
Mr Corneille sighed. "The last group graduated..."
Gumball and Darwin realized they were stuck in this club.
A few seconds later, Mr. Corneille started talking about the camera. Gumball and Darwin were noticeably bored trying their best to pay attention, the yellow girl appeared to be invested.
"So yeah every day before school make sure to drop off your SD cards in room 4900 and DO NOT lose them. Also, return after 2nd hour to get them back," Mr Corneille finished.
The three went up front to grab their cameras.
"Also you should all get to know each other!" Mr. Corneille stated as he left the room.
As soon as Mr. Corneille was gone, Gumball surprise-flashed Darwin in the face with his new camera. The yellow fairy sighed and left as the boys goofed off with their cameras.
Gumball and Darwin left the classroom 3 minutes later. The girl was leaning on a locker.
"Come on," The yellow girl started slightly annoyed, "Let's get our passes."
The brothers obeyed, following the girl through the halls and into the office. They all got bright green lanyards with purple tiger stripes that contained their school photo with the words 'Elmore High School Paper' stamped on it in red.
Gumball batted his eye at the ID of the yellow girl. 'PENNY FITZGERALD' it read.
The trio exited the school. Darwin spotted Tobias trying and failing to grind down a handrail on his skateboard and stayed to photograph him. Gumball decided to join his brother.
Before his bus would arrive, Gumball inserted the SD card into its slot on the computer. He navigated to where the pictures were. Tens of blurry photographs filled his screen, he selected them all and pressed delete. He took the card out of the computer and put it back into the camera.
As his school day dragged on, he noticed he shared a few classes with Penny, he would try to sneak a look at her every so often out of pure curiosity. Near the end of 6th-period science, she approached him.
"Football game tonight at 8, meet by the fence next to the gate at 7:30. Mr. Corneille needs us to go," Penny told him.
Gumball took a second and nodded. He tried to suppress the thought of it being a date for the rest of the day.
Gumball closed the passenger side door of the family's yellow car. His mother entered and turned the key. The car stuttered for a second before turning on.
Gumball was a little bummed out because his brother couldn't make it. Turned out, fish eyes don't respond well to being directly flashed at point-blank and Darwin was temporarily blinded for the night.
"Are you excited for your first Ducks game?" Nicole happily asked.
"I guess. I'm only there to take pictures though," Gumball responded.
"Hopefully it's better than mine." Nicole groans, "I remember getting puked on by a drunk senior..."
Gumball turned his head to the window to hide a laugh.
The car pulled into the parking lot of the school and to the curb.
"Be safe and text me when it's finished!" Nicole advises her son as he exits the car.
"I will Mom!" Gumball responds.
Gumball approaches the gate, scanning the fence with his eyes as he walks. About 10 feet to the left of the gate, he spots the glowing girl wearing an oversized black Ducks sweatshirt. He waves as he approaches her.
She sighs, "Let's get in line." Gumball follows her to stand in line.
The pair wait in line. "Guess school paper doesn't get you priority into events huh" Gumball thinks. After 3 minutes, they finally arrived at the front of the line. Penny showed her ID and Gumball did the same.
"So where do we, um, sit?" Gumball asks.
"Just follow me," Penny answers.
The pair move into the first row by the field and find an open spot to sit. Penny puts her arms on the short concrete divider wall between the track and stands, and Gumball slightly slouches.
"What's the point of this when the normal media shows up to take pictures anyway..." Penny groaned.
"They do?" Gumball sits up a little.
"See those guys kneeling on the sidelines behind the endzones." Penny points to them.
"Yeah," Gumball reacted.
"They're like, news and stuff. Take pictures and give them to the news and school paper," She says tired.
The crowd erupts into cheers as the Ducks score a touchdown, making the game 6-14. With them trailing by 8. The game continues.
"What's there to do?" Gumball wonders.
"Nothing. Not even that interested in football, Zach," Penny answers.
"It's Gumball," He politely corrects her.
"Wait, then why do they call you Gumball?" She asks as she sits up.
Gumball couldn't respond, he genuinely didn't know.
"I… don't know," He stutters.
"So you don't know why your name is your name?" Penny playfully laughs.
Gumball starts to laugh a little at the stupidity of it.
"I guess my mom just started calling me that instead." He says laughing, "Probably because it would cost too much to have it changed."
Penny's laugh calms down as she takes a deep breath to recenter herself.
As the game neared the half, Gumball got up.
"Where ya going?" Penny asked.
"Concessions," Gumball answered, "You want something?"
"Uhh, a bag of chips and a kola would work." Penny requested as she stood up.
"Alright." Gumball finished.
The two shuffled their way through the first-row crowd and exited the stands. Heading for the fading green-colored concession stand, Gumball pulled $20 from his pocket. Soon enough, they reached the front of the small line.
"Whaddya want kids?" Bomb asked.
"Two kolas, and a bag of chips," Gumball said, placing the $20 on the counter.
Bomb takes the $20 and grabs what they requested. Handing Gumball the change and their food. The two sit on a rounded picnic bench behind the stands.
"You think Mr. Corneille set us up?" Gumball asked, taking a sip of his kola.
"Probably not," Penny responded, "even then, why would he?"
"Well think about it," Gumball began, "why would Mr. Corneille send us to a football game if the media would show up anyways?"
Penny sat silently.
"We don't even have to be here!" Gumball exclaimed, standing up.
"You're right, why be here when other people are doing our job?" Penny said.
The two got up and left, taking their food and drink with them. They headed for the empty field near the parking lot and went into the forest.
"Hey, don't people normally come into the woods during a football game to do illegal stuff?" Gumball pointed out.
"Pff relax," Penny assured, "that's only on the trails. Plus I'm sure nobody knows about the field I'm taking us to."
"Now I'm worried that you're gonna murder me or something," Gumball jokingly responded.
Penny laughed a bit and pushed through some taller grass, revealing an open field full of waist-high grass.
"Wow," Gumball said.
"I know right?" She added.
Penny ran straight into the field, "Catch me if you can!" She remarked. Gumball tried to catch up., her glow seemed to vanish in the field. However, after a little bit of running, the exhausted cat collapsed.
"Penny," Gumball panted, "where are you?"
He heard some ruffling coming from the grass. The scared cat sat up and turned his head both ways. The tall grass had muffled her glow. Gumball pulled out his camera, realizing that he could utilize the flash to scare it off. The ruffling grew closer, and Gumball's finger hovered over the shutter button.
"RAH!" Penny shouted, pouncing out of the grass.
At the same time, the camera's flash went off, blinding her and causing Penny to end up landing on top of him with a loud Thud. The two were panting, only made more awkward by the fact that she was on top of him. Gumball's eyes widened as his face turned a bright red. Penny started to laugh and rolled off of Gumball, who caught his breath and started to laugh too. They eventually calmed down and Gumball found it a miracle that there was only a little dirt on his camera.
"Who told you about this spot?" Gumball asked.
"Rachel," Penny answered, "took me out here last summer one night to stargaze."
"That's Tobias' older sister, right?" Gumball responded, "Wonder where she went after I left middle school..."
"Graduated in June and left for college a little over a month ago," Penny answered, "She was sort of like an older sister to me."
"Oh," Gumball responded.
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Starry night for a place like Elmore during this time of year," Penny mentioned.
Gumball pauses for a moment to look up at the night sky. He notices a few dozen white specks scattered across the night sky. He couldn't recall the last time he looked at the night sky.
Penny draws a line with her index finger connecting multiple stars.
"Big Bird constellation." She said with a smile. Gumball nods as he tries to piece together what she connects.
"Is there a story behind it or something?" Gumball asks.
"No," Penny answered.
"So some guy just looked at some stars and said they formed a bird." Gumball chuckled.
"Yeah, I guess." She chuckled.
They went back to gazing in silence, Penny's eyes darted across the sky. She raises her arm again, connecting more specks using her index finger.
"See the stars left of the Big Bird?" Penny said, pointing to the stars.
"Yeah," Gumball responded.
"Little Bird constellation," Penny said the name of the stars.
The pair went back to silently gazing at the dots for a while.
"You know, I haven't used a camera in years. Maybe you could... teach me again?" Gumball nervously asked.
"Sure! Does tomorrow work?" Penny gladly accepted.
"Yeah," Gumball responded.
The sound of cars exiting a parking lot was heard in the distance. Gumball stood up.
"Think the game is over," Gumball stated, "I don't know the way out so..."
Gumball got up, Penny got up a few seconds later.
"Straight through those trees over by the leaning one." Penny said, "Wanna race back?"
Gumball stretched and dusted his sweatshirt, "Bring it on," Gumball responded.
Penny immediately darted through the field and was nearing the forest in no time. Gumball sprinted, attempting to catch up and pass her. Gumball was no more than 4 seconds behind the dim yellow light. Gumball was determined to win, but in the end, he couldn't catch up.
Gumball panted as Penny exclaimed her win. A black car pulled up to the curb and stopped, a wide peanut being the driver.
"That's my dad." Penny said, "I'll see you tomorrow."
Penny waved goodbye to Gumball. Gumball tiredly waved back. Penny opened the passenger door and sat.
"Who is that kid?" Mr. Fitzgerald asked, glaring at the cat.
"Friend from the photography club," Penny responded.
Mr Fitzgerald smirked.
"No, it's not like that!" Penny insisted as her face became red.
Gumball watched as the car grew distant out of the parking lot. He checked his phone, 11:42 PM and 0 notifications. He started his walk home, cursing out his mother in whispers the entire way back.
He pounded on the door to announce his arrival at 12:04 in the morning. His mother answered and she profusely apologized, blaming herself and vowing to never let it happen again. Gumball stayed silent the entire time, he was too tired to care. He dragged himself upstairs. Entering his and his siblings' room, he noticed Darwin upside down in his fish bowl and tiredly laughed to himself. Gumball climbed into the bottom bunk, it felt amazing, and he was out for 8 hours.
First chapter of my first public fanfic finished. next chapter idk when. feel free to critique it nicely. check twitter for updates.