Cory and Shawn's Miracle Soap: Tuesday's Child is Full of Grace:

An ear-splitting scream shook the Matthews' house early Tuesday morning. Amy grimaced at the eternal shriek as she set a plate full of hot cakes down in the center of the kitchen table. "Would it really be too much to ask for just one quiet morning?" Alan asked, pouring himself a second cup of coffee.

"Apparently so," Amy watched her youngest child thunder down the stairs. "Morgan, was that you screaming?"

"SWAMP THING IS IN THE BATHROOM!" she cried hysterically. "AND HE'S COMING TO GET ME!"

"Oh, sweetheart." Alan pulled Morgan into his lap and cradled her. "Swamp Thing isn't in the bathroom."

"Uh huh, he is, too. I saw him, Daddy!"

"Honey," Amy reached over to stroke Morgan's corn silk hair. "Swamp Thing was a good guy anyway, remember?"

"No, I don't," Morgan insisted, obviously shaken up by something. "I turned on the sink and he oozed out of it. He was all green and slimy."

"Sounds like two you-know-whos let her watch scary movies again," Alan said over his daughter's head.

Amy nodded in agreement. "And those you-know-whos are in trouble."

Eric was the first one downstairs.

"Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad." Eric grabbed for a hot cake with no intention of sitting down. His mother smacked his hand away, pulled a chair out from the table, and pointed for him to sit.

"What's with the squirt?" Eric asked nodding to Morgan whose face was buried in her father's chest. He sat down and again reached for breakfast. Amy handed him a fork and plate.

"It seems your sister had a nightmare last night," Alan said, awkwardly juggling Morgan and his food.

"I did not!" was Morgan's feverent, but muffled, response. "It was real. It happened this morning!"

"Did you let your sister watch a horror film last night?"

"No!" Eric exclaimed. "Absolutely not. Come on, Dad, we watched a Green Acres marathon last night. Cory and I both went to bed before it was over. When would we have had the chance to have watched anything else?"

"Then explain why Morgan woke up screaming this morning?" Amy stuck a napkin between Eric and the shirtsleeve he was about to wipe his mouth on.

"That was her this morning? Man, kid's got some lungs!"

"Morning, wonderful parents of mine," Cory chirped, joining his family. "What's with the squirt?"

Morgan removed her face from her father's shirt long enough say, "I am not a squirt!"

"Okay, sorree!" Cory reached for the hot cakes only to be reprimanded by his mother as Eric had.

"Sit down, use a plate and fork, and use a napkin not a sleeve," Eric said through a mouthful of food.

"And don't talk with your mouth full," Amy finished.

"Yuck, Eric, you just spewed crumbs everywhere!" Cory cried, raising arm in front of his face.

"That's not spewing. This is spewing!" Eric leaned over and showered his brother in hot cake debris.

"Mom!" Cory shouted.

"Eric!"

"Daddy, Swamp Thing is going to eat me!"

With that the Matthews' household erupted into a chaos that Mr. Feeny would have heard had he not already been on his way to school.

As Amy refereed her feuding sons, Alan appeased his daughter by inspecting the upstairs bathroom.

"He's in there, Daddy!" Morgan pointed fearfully at the sink from a safe distance outside of the bathroom.

"Come here, honey, and I'll show you that there's nothing to be afraid of."

"No!" Morgan refused to move.

Alan sighed and went in, making theatrical gestures as he inspected the bathroom so that Morgan could see him. There was nothing unusual about the room, except for a faint putrid odor.

"See, baby, there's nothing."

"Turn on the sink," Morgan demanded, backing up further across the hall.

With another sigh, Alan obliged and turned the facet on. Instead of water, a thin green sludge oozed out of it. It wasn't Swamp Thing, but it was something odd and did it ever stink.

"Oh, man," Alan muttered. "What is that stuff?"

"Amy!" he yelled. "Come here!"

"I told you it was Swamp Thing!" Morgan cried as she ran off to hide in her room.

"Oh, man. Oh, man. Shawn, this is the absolute best idea, we have ever had!"

Cory and Shawn's business had tripled from the day before. Those who had used their "miracle" goop where raving about the results and demanding more. The boys were only too happy to oblige.

"Yep," Shawn said propping his feet up against the wall. "We have officially made it. We don't even need Eric anymore!"

"Yessiree," Cory sighed happily, making change for yet another satisfied customer. "I need eight more jars of the stuff."

Shawn lifted the tablecloth and pulled a box out from underneath it. The smile on his face faded significantly. "Uh, Cory?"

"Yeah, what? Hurry up will ya? The people want their miracle goo!"

"Well, the people ain't getting it," Shawn swallowed. "Apparently we forgot one little detail."

Cory turned to face his friend. "What? Shawn? What did we forget?"

"That we might run out." He turned the box upside down and shook it.

"Oh, no." Cory slapped his forehead. "How could we not see that!"

Shawn had no answer to that. The crowd that was gathered around their table was becoming restless.

"Quick, what do we do?" Cory glanced over his shoulder nervously. There were some disgruntled looking seniors in the group.

"Tell 'em we've got to restock, then take the money and head for the border," Shawn suggested.

"You want to flee to Canada?"

"No, Mexico. Canada's, like, a long way off."

"Huh?" Cory was momentarily confused. "Never mind about leaving the country. We'll just close up early and tell everyone to come back tomorrow."

"Okay," Shawn agreed. "Yeah, that might work."

"Hey, kid!" An unhappy looking teenage boy leaned against the table towards Cory. "Where's the merchandise?"

Cory gulped and glanced at Shawn. "Well, Tyler...buddy. It seems that we 've just run out. You'll have to come back tomorrow and get it."

"I already paid for the stuff," Tyler growled, leaning in even closer. "I want the stuff."

"Tyler, Tyler," Shawn said with a charismatic smile. "You understand that we're running an honest business here and well, honestly, we've just run out of supplies and can't restock until tomorrow." He motioned for Cory to hand him the pad of notebook paper that was lying next to the empty cardboard box. "We'll just give you this signed I.O.U and tomorrow you can give this to us and we'll give you what you ordered along with a free jar. How's that?"

The senior eyed the sheet of paper that had been handed to him. After a moment he shrugged. "All right."

"Whew!" Shawn let out a sigh of relief as Tyler departed through the crowd.

"Way to dodge that bullet," Cory commended his friend with a clap on the back.

"Thank you, thank you," Shawn responded. "No encore, please."

"You said it." Cory and Shawn announced to the rest of the crowd their predicament with a promise of new goop with the next day.

"Oh, Mr. Turner." George Feeny hurried to catch up with the English Lit teacher. He had the distinct impression that the young man had been avoiding him lately. "Jonathan."

Jon stopped with his hand on the door to his classroom. "Yes, George?" There was an apprehensive edge in his voice. He was less than happy to see the principal it seemed that his supervisor was always haranguing him about one thing or another where Audrey was concerned. Though was no way Feeny could possibly know about the amount of time that Audrey was spending over at his apartment with him and Shawn, George had the irritating way of knowing just such things anyway. Internally, Jon cringed and braced himself for whatever was about to come.

"I just wanted to remind you about the faculty meeting this afternoon," Feeny answered cheerfully, unaware of the other teacher's worries. He paused a beat then held up his hands in a defensive manner. "And please, spare me the sarcasm this year."

Relief washed over Jon. "Me? Sarcastic?" he quipped, his good mood returning. "Never!"

"Right," The principal turned to go back to his office. "I'll see you there."

Suddenly, he remembered the reason for delivering the personal reminder to Jonathan. "Oh, and bring Miss Andrews with you." he added backing up a few paces.

"Why?"

Feeny gave the younger man a withering look. "So that she can experience the full range of teacher responsibilities by co-leading a club with you."

The English teacher grimaced.

"I thought we were supposed to encourage student teachers in their career choice," he responded. "Not scare 'em off with club duties."

"Just bring her, Mr. Turner." Feeny paused a moment. "I'd ask you not to give her any preconceived notions about faculty meetings, but it wouldn't do any good would it?"

Jonathan pretended to think about the comment. "Nah," he said finally with a twinkle in his eye. "Not. really."

"I thought so. See you at four." With a small smile Feeny turned on his heel and headed back to his office.

"I don't see what's so bad a heading a club, Jon," Audrey was saying as they headed to the teacher's lounge. "Sounds like fun actually."

"You poor child," Jonathan shook his head in mock pity. "You really are new to this teacher thing, aren't you?"

"Oh, stop it," Audrey wrinkled her nose. "It isn't that bad."

"How much you wanna bet," he asked seriously. "Fifty bucks says you'll be begging me to put you out of your misery within a month."

"I'll take that bet, mister," she smirked. "And raise you a trip back home."

"Home?" he grinned. "As in the Big Apple?"

"Uh, huh."

"You got yourself a deal. Be prepared to lose, my dear." Jon held the door to the lounge open for her.

"Darling," she drawled coyly, flipping her hair as she walked pass him. "I don't make bets if the odds aren't one hundred percent in my favor."

"Aren't we cocky," he commented.

Most of the staff was already there when Jon and Audrey made their entrance. Mr. Feeny seemed mildly surprised to see them both in attendance.

Jonathan had just pulled up a chair for Audrey when he felt a hand slip around his arm.

"Hey, Jonny."

Jon turned halfway around. "Oh, hey, Kat." There didn't seem to be anything more he could say.

Katherine Tompkins waited for him say something further, and when he didn't, her attention turned to the redhead nearby. She looked back to Jon with an expectant look.

"Oh, yeah!" Jon turned abruptly nearly tripping on the seat he had retrieved for himself. "Kat, have you met Audrey?"

"Not officially, no," Katherine said smiling sweetly at the student teacher.

"Aud, this is Katherine Tompkins. She's teaches social studies here."

"Nice to meet you finally, Audrey," She said as the girl stood up to take her extended hand. "I've heard so much about you."

"Nice to meet you, too." Audrey liked the social studies teacher immediately. Unfortunately, she could not tell Katherine that she had heard anything at all about her.

Jonathan, caught between the two women, seemed awfully eager to extract himself from the center. "We'd better get seated. Looks like things are about to start."

Katherine retreated to the back of the room, as there was no room to sit with Jon.

"She seems nice," Audrey commented off-handedly as Mr. Feeny took his place at the front of the room.

"Uh, huh." Jon slid a little lower in his seat.

Though she a bit confused by his discomfort, Audrey shrugged to herself and tried to listen to what the principal was saying. The task was made difficult due to Jonathan's quiet running commentary on each club that was brought up.

When the ski club was mentioned, Audrey perked up. Jon shook his head.

"Had that last year," he explained. "No ski club. Bad."

"And we have a special trip designated this year for the sophomore class. A trip to New York City is planned for later this fall. Whoever takes this will have their hands more than full and will, therefore, not have to take on a club as well."

Jon's hand shot up immediately. "We can take that."

Feeny raised an eyebrow. Many thoughts went through his head. Was it really a good idea to let those two loose on the City...together? Of, course it made sense that they head the excursion, as both knew New York well. There was split second of indecision. Then he proceeded. "Yes, that will do quite well."

Jonathan grinned and Audrey was thrilled that things were working out so well. She would be able to return home, see her father, and be with Jon.

Whoops, she thought. Where did that last part come from?

"And of course we will need several chaperones to go on the trip as well," Feeny continued, carefully watching the duos reaction to his next statement. "Miss Tompkins, would you care to go along?"

Katherine looked over at Jonathan. He wasn't looking at her.

"Yes, Mr. Feeny. I think that would be fun."

Jonathan's grin faded slightly. Feeny took note of it.

"Good," he said, pushing his glasses further up on his nose.

The meeting wore on for a long while. Audrey couldn't wait to tell her father that she was going to be coming home soon. Jonathan sat silently besides her, lost in thought. She was disappointed that he didn't seem more excited.

"Everything all right?" she whispered. Her blue eyes shone with concerned.

"Sure," he said. "Hey, you coming over again tonight?"