Emerging Compassions

Chapter 30: More Arguing, More Trouble

(Carl's POV)

Jimmy had only just begun to relax after that adventure in Indonesia when Cindy marched up to him and started barking at him, saying, "Jimmy, are you even aware what MONTH it is by now?"

Partially dazed and only half-listening, he shook his head and stammered, "Huh? Uh, what?"

"You know darn well WHAT! It's already May 3, and we've missed 2 months of school! Do you realize what that's gonna look like on our permanent records?" she snapped, slapping him on the side of his face.

"Hey, it's not like I'd actually planned for that to happen to us, Cindy!" Jimmy remarked, returning to reality and sitting forward in his seat, "It was Calamitous who set off that missile that hit my rocket and made us crash into Indonesia! Therefore, it wasn't my fault!"

"Have ya forgotten our encounter with Butch while over there? He's probably gonna blackmail us to the entire school, Neutron!" Libby reminded them, hands on her hips.

"How can we show our faces in school if THAT happens?" I worriedly asked.

"We're gonna have to! It'll be on our permanent records otherwise!" Jimmy informed us firmly, then muttered under his breath to me with a snicker, "And Sheen will most likely have to repeat his senior year..."

Chuckling under my breath, I nodded in agreement. "Yeah."

Sheen seemed to have heard us, because he exclaimed out of annoyance, "Hey! I don't wanna repeat what happened to me in the 4th grade!"

"That may happen if we don't get back to school by tomorrow, Sheen!" Libby told him, furrowing her eyebrows and her hands on her hips.

"Sure thing, babe," he replied, sporting a "cool dude" pose like Nick often used.

"Besides, it's getting late...," Jimmy reminded us, looking at the time on his watch, "It's already 1950 hours."

Stretching with a big yawn, I said, "I gotta get to bed by 9, otherwise I'll be in trouble..."

The rest of us all agreed, nodding simultaneously with random comments. With that, we all retreated to our homes for the night.

The following morning started out normally, with each of us, well, all except for Jimmy, who was almost always late for the bus, waiting at the bus stop patiently, doing our own thing as we waited... A few minutes later, I checked the time on my new watch. It was 7:49am. The bus would be here any second now. I glanced over at Jimmy's place in hopes he made it on time, for once...

Right at that moment, Libby cleared her throat and tapped my shoulder. "Yeah, Libby?" I wanted to know. She just pointed behind me at the approaching figure. I turned to see who it was and saw that it was Jimmy rushing up to us. I just chuckled to myself as I thought, He barely made it this time, cuz here comes the bus... "Just BARELY made it this time, Jim," I told him aloud as he got up to us just as the bus pulled up.

Breathing kinda heavily, he agreed, "Yeah, Carl, for once..."

The bus driver opened the door and we all boarded it and took our usual seats. It sure had been a while since we'd ridden on that thing by then. "I missed you, bus...," I muttered, patting the seat I sat on to my right side. I then looked up to my left and patted the spot next to me as Jimmy passed by, saying, "Wanna sit here, Jim?"

"Sure, Carl," he said, and sat down next to me.

As the bus started to head towards the school, I kept hearing laughing and snickering all around us, combined with some whispering and pointing of fingers. I turned to Jimmy and asked, "Who are they pointing and laughing at, Jimmy?"

His eyes followed the direction the fingers were pointing, and I did, too, and they landed on Cindy and Libby, who sat side by side in the seat across from us, talking about girl stuff.

The snickering, whispering, and pointing continued for the next 5 minutes, and by then, it seemed Jimmy couldn't take it anymore, so he turned right around to face Britney and Nissa, who happened to be sitting behind us. That's when he snapped, "Either stop with the teasing this MINUTE, or you're gonna regret it...!"

That seemed to shut them up!

At that moment, the bus pulled up to the school and stopped at the entrance, opening its doors for us. We all got up and walked out and headed inside the school. That was when the real trouble began...

It seemed that everywhere Cindy and Libby went, teasing and mocking followed them.

"Look at her... What a beeyotch!" came one comment from an observer.

"How many guys have you done it with?" came another in Trigonometry.

By lunchtime that day, those 2 girls looked downright miserable. I couldn't help but feel sorry for them... But they weren't the only ones mocked that day.

As we left the cafeteria to head to our lockers and prepare for our next class, I noticed some teens standing around the bulletin board. I tapped Jimmy's shoulder and questioned, "What are they doing over there, Jim?"

"Let's check it out, Carl," he told me after getting his books for his next class. We headed over there and saw what they were looking at: pictures of the 5 of us from Indonesia while we were wearing things made from plants!

"Hey, Carl," Nick remarked, pointing, "Don't you and your friends belong in the jungle instead of here? You seem to fit right in there, seeing how weird you guys are." He then threw his head back and laughed hysterically as he went to his next class. I just hung my head and blushed while sporting an embarrassed look on my face...

"Who posted these, Nick?" Jimmy demanded after seeing the pictures.

"Butch did," he hollered as he went into his next class.

"Jimmy, I hate being teased...," I muttered, my voice a little shaky.

He laid his arm on my shoulders and reassured me, "Hey, at least we're not being physically beaten..."

"Yeah," I agreed, "At least there's that..."

Throughout the rest of the day, Cindy seemed more and more depressed with each passing minute, although Libby seemed to get over it eventually. She hardly even seemed to pay attention in Physics 101...

Then, at the end of the day, we were packing up our things to head home when Libby came rushing up to us, a worried look on her face.

Jimmy immediately took notice of this and asked, "What is it, Libby? Is everything alright?"

"It's Cindy!" she exclaimed, breathing heavily while holding her books, "She's run away!"