Breaking The Frail
Klaus Schilling
Abstract
After junior prom, the relationships of Zoey and her friends show microscopic ruptures threatening to make everyone’s life miserable.
Dustin Brooks is on a quest of correcting these wrongs.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Pilot
- 2. Chase Finds Out
- 3. The City Of Destruction
- 4. Flag of the Free
- 5. Back At PCA
- 6. The Flux Generator
- 7. The Old Record
-
8. Neither A Borrower Nor A Lender Be!
- 9. Evil Doorman
- 10. The Way To Tokyo
- 11. Big In Japan
- 12. Cream Pie
- 13. Evil Kiss
- 14. Win A Car
- 15. David R. Couleda
- 16. Fred is dead
- 17. Bullies
-
18. Jackson Colt
- 19. Wedding At PCA
- 20. Repair, Reduce, and Recycle
- 21. Tori Goes To Hollywood
- 22. Lisa’s Ham
- 23. Dingo Terror
- 24. Lessons Of Art
- 25. Wall Of Fame
- 26. Shape Shifters
- 27. The Seal Of Solomon
- 28. Helen’s Picture
- 29. Senior Prom
- 30. Finale
Note
Primary Fandoms. Zoey 101
Secondary Fandoms. Victorious, Drake & Josh, iCarly, Zoey 101, Unfabulous, Ned’s Declassified SSG, True Jackson VP, Big Time Rush
Peripheral Fandoms. Just Jordan, Best Player, Spectacular!, Fairly Odd Movie, Shredderman Rules
Tip
Wikipedia-style buzzword knowledge of the above mentioned shows, most importantly Zoey 101, and their main and recurring cast is required.
Knowledge of the movies, viz. Spectacular!, Best Player, Shredderman Rules, and Fairly Odd Movie, is not required
Genres
Fluff, Family, Friends, Science Fiction, Supernatural, Adventure, Horror, Mystery
Summary
The relationships of Zoey Brooks and her pals, as apparently established at junior prom at “Pacific Coast Academy”, are nowhere near as stable as thought.
The “ships” of Quinn and Logan, of Vince and Lola, and of Michael and Lisa are easily seen as frauds and scams.
Dustin notices this. Over the coming months, he works towards wrecking the fake relationships and establishing decent ones. But he also breaks Zoey’s and Chase’s ship on accident.
His “partner in crime” is new boy Tyler Pearson[tyler pearson]
from San Diego.
But not only those scam relationships turn out as fragile.
Characters and Pairings
A big variety of people from the above shows and movies is involved.
Dustion Brooks – Carly Shay, Zoey Brooks – Olivary Bially[oli biallo], Michael Barret – Wendy Gellar[wendy gellar], Chase Matthews – Addie Singer[addie singer], Lola Martinez – Beck Oliver, Logan Reese – Mercedes Griffin[mercedes griffin], Stacey Dillsen – Eric Blonowitz, Quinn Pensky – “Cal”[cal], Vincent Blake – Shelby Marx[shelby marx], Lisa Perkins – Drake Parker, Dean Carl River – Ms. Park[park], Kazu – Mrs. Lee[lee], Coco Wexler – Joe Braxley[braxley]
Timeline
The story takes off straight after Zoey 101 : Chasing Zoey
Background
This story is also written for prompt I suppose you feel that everything has gone off splendidly and according to plan? of Livejournal community 50 Passages.
This story is also written for Livejournal community 30 Cracks, one prompt per chapter.
[tyler pearson] This “Tyler” is from Drake & Josh : I Love Sushi.
The surname is taken from same actor’s character in another third-party owned show.
You need to distinguish him severely from Big Time Rush‘s recurring character Tyler.
[oli biallo] Oli Biallo only appears in Zoey 101 : Schooldance as Michael Barret’s male dance partner. He is also identified with Jerry Crony, occasional character of Ned’s Declassified SSG
[wendy gellar] Wendy appears only in Drake & Josh : Number One Fan.
The family name is taken from same actress’s character in Camp Rock, a movie not owned by me, either.
This Wendy is identified with a Wendy mentioned casually in Zoey 101 : Lola Likes Chase as a former unrequited crush of Dustin Brooks’s.
[addie singer] Addie Singer, star of Unfabulous, is identified with same actress’s cameo in Drake & Josh : Honor Council, a girl helping Megan Parker to annoy Josh Nichols.
[mercedes griffin] from Big Time Rush : Big Time Party
She is identified with “Missy Meany” from Ned’s Declassified SSG.
[cal] “Cal” is from iCarly : iGo Nuclear.
[shelby marx] from iCarly : iFight Shelby Marx
[park] various cameos throughout second season of True Jackson VP
[lee] from Victorious : Wok Star
[braxley] This identified “Joe the Meachanic” from Zoey 101 : Spring Fling with Braxley from iCarly : iPromote Techfoots
Table of Contents
Hello!
My name is Brooks – Dustin Brooks.
Years ago, I was a student at “Pacific Coast Academy”, California’s most renowned prep school. I was still a middle school boy.
My sister Zoey, a blond Mary-Sue, was already a junior and had just gone through her junior prom.
For a few minutes, I had been there as well.
Zoey’s roomie and best friend, a nerdy girl named Quinn Pensky, had invited me as her prom partner.
I had accepted because of Quinn’s and Zoey’s long-term friendship.
But the whole thing turned out as a fraud.
Quinn had abused me as shamelessly as can be. But she had not done so on her own behalf.
For weeks, Quinn and Logan Reese, a ruthless playbloy, had been dating secretly without anyone else knowing.
I was Quinn’s cover-up date for the begin of the prom.
Logan had got another cover-up girl, a certain Stacey Dillsen.
That young woman was a class mate of theirs. She was easily recognised by her slurred way of talking and her obsessive craft of sculpting with cotton swabs. She had had a crush on Logan.
But this was as absurd and ridiculous as the dating stuff between Quinn and Logan.
Anyways … during the prom ball, Logan admitted surprisingly to being committed to Quinn, and vice versa.
Stacey was consternated. And ran away into a car.
I was deadly upset.
Quinn had gone way too far. She had touched Satan, now she better prepared to either repent in time or to burn in hell!
The night was coming to the end.
I had been sleeping in the shrubberies.
My pal class Ashley Blake[ashley blake]. a younger sister of quarterback Vince Blake, had been staying awake and was going to tell me about the events occurring towards the end of prom night.
Some of the students had decided to hit the hay even ere the rise of some.
Others kept on celebrating.
Along them were aforementioned Quinn and Logan.
Those charlatans have now told their friends, Zoey, Michael, Lisa, Chase, Lola, and Vince, about their engagement.
Most of them were a bit shocked, due to a long queue of past conflicts between Quinn and Logan. But they were happy for the couple, anyways. Or at least they feigned to be happy, in a manner typical for the hypocrisy of high school kids.
Juniors could be so lame.
Lola Martinez and Vince Blake had been a coouple for a few weeks already.
Michael Barret and Lisa Perkins had been hitched since about Christmas of their sophomore year.
Chase and Zoey … well, that was a more difficult subject. basically, they should have been together for fouyr years by now. But they had not really made it there until a few hours ago.
Basically, Lisa “loved” Michael for the sole reason of having been saved by him from a wild race cart.
This was of course an absurd reason, as pointed out by my friend Melanie Puckett.
Her sister Samantha had once been tempted to like a guy named Eric Mosby[eric mosby]
for a similarly stuid reason:
Nosy Mosby had sent various sorts of ham from all over the world to Sam.
She was fatally addicted to that sort of meat and would have died from withdrawal. But she finally recovered from the mistake and trashed the guy.
Lisa Perkins should have done the same.
Michael’s and Lisa’s life was nothing but an endless string of misunderstandings, robbing each other’s nerves.
This was confirmed during prom day.
Michael Barret had been learning to ride a stick-controlled car from an elderly Japanese man called “Mr. Takato” in the way of a Zen sage.
But Lisa refused stubbornly to believe Michael’s story.
Granted, “Mr. Takato” was impossibly what he pretended to be. He may have been a phantom or an android or an angel.
But a girlfriend should be able to trust her boyfriend all the time.
I would not have wanted such a suspicious wench as my girl.
The situation between Lola and Vince was even worse.
Vince had been the quarterback of our football team since his junior year. Anbd he had lead it into the play-offs.
But homeworks and training for the championships were hardly compatible.
Thus Vince had cheated on several tests.
He was caught and denounced by Chase Matthews.
Dean Rivers, our headmaster, had suspended him thereupon.
Vince had gotten back at Chase and some of his friends, beating them up. He was expelled for that deed.
Ashley was the last person to stick up to her brother. Being the perfect actress, she taught him to feign acting nicely and fool their parents, the shrinks, and the school’s board.
One year later, Vince was back in order to get back at Chase.
Ashley still bragged mercilessly with her successful plan. And she announced clearly, “Chase will pay dearly!”
At the moment of Vincent’s return, however, Chase was in England.
Thus our quarterback could not harm him directly.
Alas, Ashley’s demeanour told me one thing:
Her plans had turned out just nicely.
But I did not really know her plans.
Was Vince going to beat up Chase now?
Or was his engagement with Lola, a close friend of Chase, already the sort of punishment sought for by Vince?
Maybe both of them were combined?
I would have warned Chase.
But his return from England just for our prom night was a surprise.
And I fell asleep too early, unable to reach him.
Now I woke up, cornered in the shrubbery, greeted solely by Ashley Blake’s ice-cold grin instead of a warming “good morning!”
As aforementioned, Chase Matthews had been hankering unhappily after Zoey Brooks for over three years.
A few months ago, my parents moved to England.
I preferred to stay here at “Pacific Coast Academy” because of the weather.
Zoey, on the other hand, had follwed mom and dad.
This had caused Chase to turn horribly depressive and stinky. Finally, he left us head over heels and went to England.
Alas, Zoey returned the same night because of wanting to find out about Chase’s crush.
Thus they had just traded places.
Now. Chase’s return from England should have resolved everything for the two of them.
They seemed like a happy couple.
But, wait!
During Chase’s absence, my sister Zoey had cheated on him with a tall blond rake named James Garrett[james garrett]
.
The guy appeared very nice.
But something was wrong with him.
I had already seen him twice before his arrival here at “Pacific Coast Academy” as a regular student.
And he had always used different names.
James and Zoey went very fast very far.
I don’t even know how far.
Zoey refused to talk about that topic.
I was deemed too young to understand dating stuff.
Zoey was exorbitantly overprotective.
Anyways, Zoey and James had already made plans for the summer break and maybe even later in her life.
But, suddenly, just before prom night, Zoey trashed James withoput a trace of a warning, and without a reason.
Her remorses down to having cheated on Chase may have been the proper cause.
Or so I guessed.
Chase was probably not yet aware of Zoey’s adulterous deeds.
But it was probably just a matter of time.
What were his reactions going to be?
I did not want to tell Chase.
Zoey should have been the one to tell him.
Otherwise, he would be much less inclined to forgive her.
And I did not want Zoey to turn unlucky.
Robert “Scooter” Carmichael[robert scooter carmichael], my roomie, showed up. He had been informed by Ashley. He had always got a crazy fan crush on her.
The little diva abused that mercilessly. Now she made him drag me back to my dorm in order to help me appear normal.
Apparently, the shrubbery had not done much good to my looks.
My head kept on spinning round and round like a record.
Ashley applied some stuff from her makeup set in order to xcover my stains and scratches.
It hurt a bit.
But the sister of the quarterback did not mind. “You look worse than Vince after football training!”
I winced briefly.
Ashley shook her head. “Now you look again like a human. Barruing yiur clothes, of course. Scooter!”
My roomie was forced to dress me appropriately.
My vestments had been tattered badly.
Stumbling across the campus, filled with anger about having been brutally abused by Quinn and Logan, in the middle of the night had apparently not been a good idea at all.
Ashley left my room. She did not want to see a vulgar guy half-naked, and thence she left the remaining drudgery unto Robbie. “Oh, and if you think about warning Chase … it is too late now.”
What exactly did Ashley want to tell me?
I was thoroughly dismayed.
Robbie told me not to move from my place. “You still look like a zombie. Zoey won’t even recognise you.”
I sighed deeply. I could not mess with my sister’s life. I loved her too much.
But she needed to be more honest. As a blond Mary-Sue, she was accustomed to getting away with everything.
But was this going to be good forever?
So all the relationships of Zoey and her friends were basically nothing more than an expression of abuse, hypocrisy, pity, lies, absurdity, and folly.
They were hardly examples to follow.
I swore to be much different from them upon entering high school.
And someone had to teach Zoey and her gang a lesson for their excruciating folly.
But I had to find oout about the meaing of Ashley’s last words.
What had exactly happened to Chase?
A few hours later, I met Chase Bartholomew Matthews over in the lounge.
He greeted me. “Ww, you’ve grown for half an inch.”
I sighed. I felt terribly small for someone having turned thirteen.
But my time for growing was still to come.
Chase made a mentally tortured impression. But he was physically OK.
I asked him.
Chase grunted, “I come back from London, just in order to see one of my former best friend making out with one of my worst enemies.” He must have watched Lola and Vince. “
And what are Zoey and Michael doing about it? Nothing! They even cheer for them. That’s …” He threw up.
Thus were Ashley’s plans.
She had always been boasting with Vince’s impending revenge.
But Logan, Quinn, Lola, Michael, and Zoey had refused to believe those rumours.
Lola had been nothing but a tool for Ashley’s plans. She had never trusted her loverboy’s little sister. But she had been unable to see the hollow base of her relationship.
In other words, juniors were so incredibly terse.
Chase had not yet talked to any of them about his disappointment.
I had to do something about that. And I could not tell him, in his current state, about James Garrett.
Chase would have gone completely insane.
At prom night, the juniors had be dancing with the devil.
Now they were going to face eternal hell.
Who was going to save my sister and her gang from an endless swamp of creeping corruption, perversion, and hypocrisy?
Or were they already lost for good?
I wanted so hard to try to teach them a lesson.
Their relationships were at least fake and evil.
But making them see their deviations was going to be a tough task for anyone.
Was I, a little middle school kid, really up to performing it?
Time was going to tell.
[ashley blake] Ashley Blake is from Drake & Josh : Little Diva
[eric mosby] mentioned in iCarly : iSaved Your Life
[james garrett] He is identified with same actor’s cameo as “Denifer” in Zoey 101 : Quarantine, his character Jake Grendl in iCarly : iLike Jake, and with various cameos in Drake & Josh, Ned’s Declassified SSG, and Unfabulous.
[robert scooter carmichael] This identifies Robbie Carmichael from Drake & Josh : Treehouse with “Scooter” from Zoey 101 : Favor Chain.
Table of Contents
Junior Prom was close to our summer break.
We had already made plans for them.
Our dad knew the manager of Hotel Chambrolay[chambrolay]
on Maui, an island belonging to Hawaii.
Zoey was chosen as a life guard during two weeks of the summer. She was entitrled to take one person along with her.
Her first choice had been James Garrett, until their break-up. Honestly said, he had not been officially uninvited.
But nobody took care of this circumstance.
During prom night, she had asked Chase to come with her.
Chase was quite happy about that.
Alas, his joy had been diminisished severely by his knowledge of the relationship between Lola Martinez and Vince Blake.
Thus he had got a reason more to escape to dreamy Hawaii, at least for two weeks.
My summer plans were not that great.
I would have visited mom and dad in London for a few weeks more.
But they would not have had much time for me.
Dad was totally busy with his work.
Mom was a member of a circle of American women in London.
And they had got many social obligations.
This I would have been bored to death without Zoey. I hated British kids.
They spoke with such a stupid accent.
Also, the fourth of July was totally lame in England.
I did not want to miss out on our parades.
There were two choices left for me.
I could have visited my grandparents in Boston[dustins grandparents]
.
Or I could visit uncle Glazer[glazer]in San Diego.
Glazer was a medic of some sort, probably the more quack-like kind of doc.
Or so Zoey believed.
But it was going to allow me to hang out with Robbie “Scooter” Carmichael.
My pal may have been a coward and a creep, but he was fairly nice. And he had got his own treehouse.
I was looking forward to climbing and sleeping in that one.
Thus my choice was clear.
“To Glazer all the way!”
School classes were now over.
We received our reading lists for the summer break.
My homeroom teacher, Mr. Bender, gave me the longest column of books. “Dustin is something special. He may handle them. That’s why the others get less to read.”
That was somewhat flattering, but, of course, also kind of a burden.
I overread the sheet.
But the overhead megaphone interrupted us.
Dean Rivers wished us a good summer break, and he was looking forward to see us again for the fall term.
His voice, on the other hand, was subtly sarcastic, more than just subtly.
He appeared, at first glance, to be a stern yet righteous ruler over the campus.
But this was not always the case.
In fact, he suffered a lot from his terrific wife Tipper, a psychopath.
The latter’s abrasive, intolerant, and latently aggressive demeanour made any of us pupils, well, those unlucky enough to cross her way, vomit for disgust.
And whom was our “worshipped” headmaster gping to take out all of his frustration and dismay caused by his “beloved” wife?
Right, we, the students of “Pacific Coast Academy”, were the “lucky” receivers of the dean’s “good mood” in many a situation.
And I tell you even more. I can’t prove the following.
Nevertheless, it should be considered seriously:
Tipper Rivers keeps on attempting to get rid of her husband the hard way.
Thats’s a really tough accusation.
How did that conclusion make it into my mind?
Well, last year, Tipper had told Coco Wexler, our girls’ dorm adviser, about her husband’s fascination for lions.[tipper and coco]
Coco had been very messy and needed to make up for that. Thus she had decided to slip a live lion into the dean’s office, in order to please her boss.
But Dean Rivers was nowhere near happy about that. He was close to dying from a heart attack.
And, verily, I tell you:
This would have been Tipper’s plain intention!
Did Dean Rivers even consider separating from his evil wife?
This was probably not that easy.
Tipper probably owned his house, his car, his yacht, his tuxedo collection, and so on.
Her white-collar sharks would have been able to tear the unfortunate headmaster alive into pieces during the negotiations for a divorce.
So, thus was the precarious situation of our headmaster.
What was he going to do during the summer break?
Vacations with his wife would not have ended with his survival.
Anything else would just have increased the tension.
He would have returned with even more frustration and horror.
And we, the students, would have been going to pay dearly for those.
Whatever, now I went through my long list.
Zoey was very stern. She used to remind me every day during the summer breaks of my reading duties.
But this was for the better of me.
She didn’t torture me for her pleasure.
That’s why I loved her so much after all.
The final bell rang.
We cheered and left the class room in a completely disorderly manner.
Walked through my dorm, looking into various corners.
Zoey was soon coming to help me cleaning up.
I was a bit too messy for her taste.
And “Scooter” was by no means better.
But we ahd to leave our dorms in an orderly state.
Even more, we should not have left anything behind.
The administration tried to let us keep oour dorms from one academic year to the next.
But there was no warranty for that.
Losing something valuable due to that, or due to overly diligent janitors, was no pleasure at all.
Scooter got his luggage done.
Zoey entered. She was totally looking forward to her weeks spent with Chase on Maui. Even while scrutinising my room, she kept on whistling merrily.
I hoped for these vacations to go very well.
Zoey deserved them after having to fix everything for any of her friends during the last four years.
Everything had now been checked and counterchecked.
I hugged Robbie Carmichael before leaving the room. “See you in July!”
He smiled totally. “See you!”
Mrs. Carmichael was already waiting down in the lounge.
Departure days were very chaotic, just as dropping days.
Two thousand kids hustling about at the same time, plus their parents or whoever was responsible for fetching them.
For this avail, it was even more important for me and Zoey to stick closely together.
The hurly-burly in the lounges and out on the campus square was tremendous.
But supreme chaos was sizing the parking lots, almost causing them to burst into smithereens.
We crossed the overcrowded lounge.
Chase was already waiting in order to kiss Zoey for the departure. He was currently just a guest. Only the coming fall was he going to be a regular student here, for one more year. He had given up on a lot in order to return from his even more elitary prep school in Covington near London and to be with Zoey for prom night and for the summer. He owed his father now some thousands of bucks for this stop-and-go.
Suddenly, Zoey’s cellular phone vibrated. She had left it in this mode on purpose.
The noise of the parting students was plain murderous.
Zoey picked up her hand-held device. “Zoey … Lola? Quinn? OK! Right there!” She panted for despair. “Quinn and Lola are stuck in an argument. I have to take care of that.” She sweated. “Stay here and guard our luggage! Will you?”
I nodded solemnly.
Chase moaned, “Quinn and Lola couldn’t spend a minute without Zoey’s intervention.”
“I sighed. ‘Too true!’”
Chase closed his eyes. He started dreaming of ten days at the beach of Hawaii, the moon low in the sky, hand in hand with sarong-wearing Zoey …
Suddenly, James Garrett stumbled in.
I greeted Zoey’s ex-boyfriend.
Like Chase, James had always been nice to me, regardless of his relationship with Zoey.
Chase asked, “who is James?”
I told James, “Chase Matthews, Logan’s and Michael’s former roomie.”
The tall blond rake smiled. “Nice to meet you.”
Chase grinned. “Hi James!”
James asked, “where is Zoey?”
I moaned. “Back any momet. Or so I hope. There’s trouble with Lola and Quinn. They often borrow each other’s clothes without asking. And on departure days, this means mayhem.” I sweated.
James nodded. “Logan and Michael haven’t been much better today. Well, I wanted to ask her … does she still want me to come with her to Hawaii?”
I fainted.
Clueless Chase gasped. “Zoey wanted you to come with her to Hawaii?”
James nodded solemnly.
I should have done everything to prevent James from talking about his weeks as Zoey’s loverboy.
But my blood was freezing inside my veins.
The inevitable happened. “Sure. We have been dating until prom’s eve, you know.”
Chase had not known. Quite the contrary, he felt like backstabbed by a dark ninja wielding chopsticks.
James wondered, “Chase? What’s the matter with you?” He had no clue about Chase and Zoey as a couple. He had known Chase as a good friend of Zoey , as much as of Lola, Quinn, Logan, and Michael. But he had never known about the blossoming relationship between them.
The bushy dork cringed and threw up, covering the floor with a stinky goo. He stammered, “that’s evil! So evil!”
I was still totally unable to talk.
In this moment, Zoey came back.
Chase’s shade changed thrice a second. He thundered at Zoey, “how dare you, you your favourite worst insult for women.”
Zoey was consternated. “Chase?”
Alas, the vicinity odf James told her everything about the reason for Chase’s perverted mood.
Chase yelled again at Zoey.
My sister insisted in having had the intention of telling Chase, but … the usual excuses.
Needless to say, neither Chase nor James were going to spend those summer weeks with my sister on Hawaii. Were they ever going to forgive her silence?
Next year was most likely going to be like hell for them.
I trembled, “sorry, Zoey, I could not …” I felt horibly guilty.
She grabbed me. “That’s not your fault. Just let’s get out of here!”
We grabbed our belongings and slouched out of the lounge.
Zoey rested her head on my shoulders and started weeping. During the last four years, she had often enough to be strong for me.
Now I needed to be strong for her.
She could not ride her car now.
I had to phone mom and dad right away and tell them about the changed situation.
We had to cancel and postpone our flight, and to ask for a room here for another day.
Mrs. Burvich[burvich]
, the responsible boarding manager, was going to be deadly grumpy.
But it had to be.
Needless to say, our whole plans for the summer had been turned upside down and inside out.
Was Zoey now going to Maui all alone?
[chambrolay] This branch is mentioned in Zoey 101 : Chasing Zoey.
But there are also branches in Seattle, as per iCarly : iRock The Votes, and near “Pacific Coast Academy” in Santa Monica, as per Drake & Josh : Drake and Josh go Hollywood.
[dustins grandparents] Their residence is mentioned in Zoey 101 : Dance Contest
[glazer] various cameos in Drake & Josh of same actor as Dustin’s dad from Zoey 101 : Pilot
[tipper and coco] this conversation is mentioned in Zoey 101 : Fake Roommate.
[burvich] cf. Zoey 101 : Back at PCA
Table of Contents
The plane had taken off into the azure sky.
Unfortunately, we could not just leave our worries from the last day behind at the airport, for the staff to keep until our return from the summer break.
Zoey was still far from feeling well.
We could not yet talk about Maui.
It could have turned out totally nicely for Chase and my sister.
But then that tall blond idiot had walked in in exactly the wrong moment.
And I had been unable to prevent him from mentioning the secret.
I shuddered for disgust.
Zoey’s life destroyed, her “friends” better did not get away any better!
I started falling asleep on my seat.
My eyes were shut.
A dream was about to start.
I was no longer Dustin, I was now “Dustman”. I was flying with invisile wings all over the campus, strayiing obsnoxious dust ocer all the hypocritically happy couples.
Someone should have made a hero’s toon of this.
“Firewire”, a nerd studying at “Pacific Coast Academy” obsessed with action comics, would have merrily subscribed to those.
Lola and Vince were caught in the middle of a disgusting makeout session. They started coughing from the fine sand in their face and in their mouth.
Ashley had got a hard time undusting them.
I chuckled.
My flight went on.
Michael and Lisa were sitting on a blanket in the meadows, flirting disgustingly with each other.
I unloaded a bad of dust all over Lisa’s new clothes.
The cloud of fine dust was now shaped like Mr. Takato.
Michael and Lisa turned insane. They startled and were now bouncing around aimlessly, just like in a stampede.
I grinned.
There were Quinn and Logan.
What were they going to do?
It was something very disgusting.
I fired a load of mud all over them, like a trebuchet, yelling “Swallow dirt, Quinn! Eat mud, Logan!”.
Quinn and Logan looked like mud slugs.
Stand stood nearby and started cheering with her slurred manner. She even threw cotton swabs on top of them.
The mud would dry sooner or later from the heat of the Californian sun.
Quinn and Logan would be stuck in a prison of cotton swabs and caked mud for good.
I smiled gleefully.
My arms and feet started flailing wildly due to cheerful satisfaction.
I felt poked.
The dream was now over.
Zoey wondered, “Dustin?”
I must have been quite excited even while asleep. I gasped. “Er … nothing! Just a little dream.”
Zoey shrugged. “OK! Should I be worried about your dreams?”
I shook my head. “No, it was a totally normal dream.”
Zoey sighed deeply.
The plane continued its flight from Los Angeles to London.
Only a few hours were left for us in the air.
We got something to eat.
That was not so easy, after all the events.
But at least we were looking forward to see mom and dad again.
The plane had come down from the dirty grey sky, touching the city of destruction.
Dad was picking us from the airport.
London was big.
So was Los Angeles, obviously.
But I was accustomed to California.
London was thus a lot more threatening.
The streets of the city held no love or pity.
The skies above us were always grey, be it from the clouds and mist rolling in from the Atlantic or from the industrial smog brewed together in the merciless industrial plants crowded all over this city.
Dad and mom did not know much about the ugly events during teh last days, leading to Zoey’s bad mood.
I had just told a little bit of it in ordfer to explain our delay.
Of course dad wanted to know more.
Zoey told him the story.
Dad kept on shaking his head. He started talking aboutsimilar things about his pals from his college days.
Neither dad nor mom were hitherto aware of Quinn’s and Logan’s fraudulent deed, abusing me and Stacey.
Thus I was left in peace for the time being.
But keeping this to myself for good would have been hardly possible.
Usually, Zoey and I would have got seperate rooms in our family residence in the outskirts of London.
But Zoey wanted me to stay with her over night, just for safety.
Dad sighed.
From our life at“Pacific Coast Academy”, we were accustomed to bunk beds.
Thus my bed had to be stacked upon Zoy’s.
But that was not much of a big problem.
My luggage was still accomodated in my room.
It was already very late.
Thus we went to sleep right now.
Alas, Zoey’s worries didn’t let her fall fast asleep.
She panted heavily. “Dustin, you remember …you were asleep on our way from Los Angeles to London.”
Of course I remembered.
Zoey continued, “in your sleep, you muttered some defty words agains Quinn and Logan, something having to do with eating dirt, or so.”
I choked. I must have talked aloud while sleeping. “Yeah? I did?”
This happened from time to time.
Zoey wondered, “Dustin? Hello?”
I stammered, “nothing but a crazy dream, really.”
Zoey shook her head. “Uhmm, Dustin, what has Quinn done to you? I understand the thing with Logan. He has been really mean to you a few months ago. Though, he had already had his comeuppance, the anger management stuff and so.”
I sighed. “There’s more to it.”
Zoey panted, “OK, so tell me!”
I would have liked to keep it a secret for a bit longer.
But my sister insisted in talking about it.
I moaned, telling Zoey about the whole bloody mess involving the fake prom dates.
Zoey gasped. “You have been at the junior prom?” She had been hitherto unaware of even this fact.
I nodded, moaning softly.
Zoey felt hit hard by those revelations.
I was definitely not supposed to stay up after midnight.
Zoey would hardly have given me the permit to accompany anyone at all to the junior prom celebrations.
In addition, Quinn had not asked Zoey in advance.
This was a very severe crime.
Her room-mates had to get her prior written consent for any plans with me, such as assisting with my school work, go to dinner together, and stuff.
Most of all, Zoey was, of course, upset by the perverse and disgusting motivations of Quinn and Logan. “Remind me of hitting them on their head with a sledge hammer or something like that, right upon our return to ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ for senior year.”
Unfortunately, the school still had got those excessively stern rules against hitting your roomies with very hard objects on their heads.
Zoey felt now even worse. She should have noticed all this going on.
Usually, plans of Quinn getting me as a company for the prom night would not have escaped from her radar.
But, during the days leading up to the prom, Zoey’s mind had been clouded by the need of brooding about her situation with James.
Thus she had been clueless about me and Quinn. She would otherwise have intervened and prohibited the whole prom date, fake or not.
Now it was even less possible for my sister to fall asleep, inspite of being deadly tired.
Why had I been talking so loud during my merry dream of being “dustman”?
During breakfast, dad and mom had to talk about Zoey’s trip to Hawaii.
My sister had been hired as a bay watch.
But was this task still an option for Zoey in her current mood?
A bay watch was expected to be very responsible.
In a normal mood, Zoey would have been perfect for this.
But during those days, things could have been a lot different.
Zoey asked, “Dustin could come with me.” She would have felt less alone and safer.
That was quite some chunk to swallow.
A few weeks ago, I would have been glad about a trip to Hawaii. I could have visited my nice and hot class mate from there.[mate from hawaii]
But now we had already arranged everything with uncle Glazer.
Robbie and I, we had been totally lookinbg forward to our camp in his treehouse.
Would my presence on Maui have really done so much good to Zoey, anyways?
Rather, I would have been like a heavy iron ball chained to her anle, restricting her possibilities severely.
She would have been responsible for me, as much as for the hotel’s beach guests. She should have rather watched out for some nice and sweet guy of her own age.
This would have allowed her to get over Chase as fast as possible.
Well, that would have been great.
But she should not have run from the frying pan into the boiling water, either.
Her first choice as a company for the days on Maui would have been Lola, anyways.
But the mom of the cute Latina had had other plans for that time.
Lola was forced to tutor someone during the summer break.
Who was Lola’s “victim”?
We did not know yet.
Somehow, I hoped it to be Ashley.
The tween diva had always been a pain in my guts as my partner in class projects. She made me shiver for dismay even now, during the summer break with an ocean inbetween.
Lola would have suffered even worse from her upcoming sister-in-law.
Only then had Zoey decided in favour of James, and later for Chase.
But now it was too late to ask Lola again.
Quinn was probably spending her vacations somewhere in the sun with Logan Reese.
Zoey was not up to seeing her during the summer break, anyways, not after my nightly revelations. Even more, Zoey was hell-bent on leving 101 and moving elsewhere, even at the cost of having to share a dormitory room with Stacey Dillsen.
The latter was weird and annoying, but she had never backstabbed Zoey in the most brutal manner, unlike Quinn.
Zoey sighed deeply. “OK, I will make it there on my own.” She could at least hope for a few other female beach guards and other staff members of her age to hang out with. Zoey was one to make friends quite fast.
This was not too unlikely.
The our time in London was now over.
We had made it together to New York City.
Here, our ways forked.
I was hgoing to take a plane from Kennedy Airport to Los Angeles.
Uncle Glazer was already expecting me. He would also had liked to see Zoey once more.
Zoey, on the other hand, was waiting for a flight to Honolulu.
This had been at that time a cheaper option compared to taking a plane from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
Thus we had to split already on Kennedy’s.
Zoey controlled my luggage for one more time. She was very conscentious doing so. In other words, she had not changed at all, the recent events notwithstanding.
Zoey’s flight was now announced by the tower and the megaphones of the foyer.
Zoey gave me the rest of her fruit cake to finish.
I grinned.
She had to hurry up. “Wait, one thing, Dustin!”
I wondered, “what?”
Zoey grabbed me, pulled me into a hug, and kissed me on the top of myt head. “Be careful, up there in the treehouse!”
I promised, “I will!”
And then she was gone.
I sighed deeply.
[mate from hawaii] identified as the anonymous middle school girl of polynesian or indonesian origin appearing in Zoey 101 : Anger Management
Table of Contents
Dr. Jeff Glazer Brooks, monozygotic brother of the dad of Zoey and me, had taken over for the next two weeks.
I had fallen fast asleep in his car.
It ws a rusty convertible.
Robbie and I would have loved to paint it with squirtable paint.
But now I was dreaming about upcoming national parade.
Upon my command, stars and stripes detached themselves from the waving flags and starting hitting Quinn and Logan, Lola and Vince, Michael and Lisa like showers of meteors with long tails.
I cheered and screamed in my dream.
Uncle Jeff shook his head.
Finally, the old vehicle reached San Diego Belleview.
I yawned upon waking up. I needed to inform my friend Robbie Carmichael on site.
The quack-style medic grinned.
The luggage had to be dealt with.
As aforementioned, Zoey had carefully stuffed my suitcases.
They were now really heavy.
But I was growing a lot during those days. I hoped to be not too large for the treehouse.
The log house in the tree in the back yard of a noble region of uptown San Diego was larger than expected.
The tree was not that tall, though.
As I would be told later on, the house had once been ruthlessly destroyed by careless neighbourhood kids, with the rockets’ red glow.
Zoey had urged me not to wear his best church pants when playing in the trees.
Robbie circumspected the ladder leading up to the tree house.
I wondered, “aren’t you exaggerating?”
Robbie sighed. “Sometimes, the evil neighbour boys, Drake and Josh, are at odds with each other. And then one of them sleeps in my treehouse. Their sister Megan knows that. She mischievously damages the ladder in a way not visible to the unwary, time after time, adding snall fissures and ruptures using a mini chainsaw. And those idiots fall for it.”
I cackled. “They fall … literally … I guess?”
Robbie roled on the ground laughing. “Oh, they do! Especially Josh does. His head is enough often stuck between two scales, though. It’s really big.”
I understood now Robbie’s fear of saws.
Robbie was done scrutinising the scales. “OK, today, it’s safe.”
I sighed. “Zoey insists in using safety cushions, though.” I took some of them from my bags.
Robbie beamed. “They are cool!”
I explained, “Zoey has designed them. Quinn had added the airbra mechanism.[airbra]”
Robbie wondered, “why don’t I get any?”
I sighed. “We should have asked Zoey before the vacations. They need to be tailored for your individual proportions.”
Of course, my phase of growth propulsion was also acceleratingmy need for new clothes.
Zoey had got a hard time putting up with it.
But now we reached the very log house itself.
It could be barred from the inside, but it could not be locked from the outside.
I took a quinnocular[quinnocular]. “This will allow us to see through things, but only at plain daylight.”
“Scooter” cheered. “That wuill be cool!”
We accomodated within the small building.
I aimed with the quinnoculars at the naighbours’ mansion. “I haven’t yet understood the structure of the family. It seems to be very dysfunctional.”
Robbie explained, “‘dysfunctional’ just puts it mildly. There are Mrs. Parker and Mr. Nichols. Both o them already live in their second or third, if not more, marriage. And ut is full of catastrophes and misunderstandings, kind of like between Michael and Lisa. just worse.”
I shuddered for excruciating disgust.
Robbie continued, “Mrs. Parker has got two kids from a former marriage, Drake and Megan.”
I already knew Drake somewhat.
He was a renowned rock guitarist, pretty popular throughout California. He had once even performed at “Pacific Coast Academy”.[drake at pca]
Zoey had sponsored his concered by desihgning the outfit for future concerts of Drake’s band.
The girls of their generation fell for Drake just like flies.
The Parkers were also related remotely to Carly Shay, the host of Dustin’s favourite web show.
Megan and Carly looked pretty much alike.
Robbie continued, “then there is Mr. Nichols and his son Josh.”
I had sometimes seen Walter Nichols on weather channels. “Walter is lame. I totally prefer Bruce Windchill[bruce windchill]
.”
Robbie preferred Bruce, too. “At least he may be relied on. And his hair is so cool!”
I applauded. “Nicole Bristow could be his daughter.”
Nicole was a former room pal and best friend forever of Zoey. She was obsessed with hair styling and with cute boys. But she had left “Pacific Coast Academy” prematurely.
Robbie chuckled. “Nicole is cool!” He started swooning.
I calmed him down.
Robbie continued, “Drake and Josh are like five or six years older than Megan. But she tortures them all the time and calls them ‘boobs’.”
I started laughing hysterically. “Boobs …”
Robbie chuckled. “May you watch through the walls?”
I nodded. “Hell yes, it works!”
Robbie explained, “This should be the room of Drake and Josh.”
I could not discover anyone.
Robbie explained, “They are not at home at this time of the day. Drake is with his band. Josh works at ‘Première Theater’ in order ot pay for college.”
I sighed deeply.
Robbie continued, “Drake and Josh hang out too much with each other for their own good. They are deemed a gay couple by many people around here.”
I cackled.
Robbie added, “Melinda Crenshaw, Josh’s girlfriend, on-and-off at least, has now trashed him for that. She can’t share any longer Josh with Drake, whatever that means. Maybe we can catch them in flagrante delicto, with your quinnoculars.”
I beamed. “Sure, if they return in time … else my arms fall asleep. We will take turns, right?”
Robbie nodded. “Of cours! Megan will pay a good sum for pictures. She will upload them on the interweb and get paid for it.”
I beamed. “Aw, that’s totally cool!”
Robbie continued, “the marriage betwen Audrey parker and Walter Nichols is equally prone to faulure. They have giot two many secrets from each other, and they stumble from one misunderstanding into the next. Also, they don’t approve of their mate’s life styles. If you ask me … they should make a clear cut!”
I smiled. “Definitely, yeah!”
Robbie took over the quinnoculars.
I switched to reading superhero comics. I had bought them off aforementioned “Firewire”.
Robbie wondered, “This lookes like a fire wire port. Maybe we can even take pictures without using the oculars?”
I gasped. “Should be! Quinn is great at building those things, second only to Wayne ‘Firewire’ Gilbert!”
They decided to show the whole thing to Megan Parker and let her decide.
Megan showed up in her street just a few hours later.
Robert Carmichael waved at her. “Hi Megs! This is my friend and roomie, Dustin Brooks.”
Megan reached her hand for me to shake.
Dustin gasped.
Megan really looked a whole lot like Carlotta Shay.
Robbie whispered unto Megan, “Dustin has got a crush on your cousin, Carly.”
I choked. “No, I don’t.” I blushed to death.
Megan chuckled. “The web show?”
Robbie nodded vigorously.
I could at least not deny that. I was one of the greatest fans of iCarly. But I could not stand Carly’s friend Samantha Puckett, my first “girlfriend”[dustins first girlfriend]
.
Megan hated Sam. But she could not really like iCarly, anyways, as she admired Carly’s worst enemy, a certain Nevel papperman, way too much.
Robbie went in medias res. “OK, we’ve found a way to take pics from Drake and Josh without letting them notice that.”
Megan sgasped. “Cool!”
I stamnmered a few words about the quinnoculars.
Megan took a look at the gadget. “Yeah, that’s a fire wire port. They are cool, perfect for spies.” She cackled with glee.
Robbie asked like a filthy agent, “what are the pics worth to you?”
Megan grinned. “Maybe some payment other than money?”
I shook my head. “No kisses!”
Megan snickered. “Hell no! Thing is … Dustin is on quite some mission of sawing havoc among the older students of your school, doesn’t he?”
Robbie gasped. “How would you know?”
Megan chuckled. “I’m a wuitch, I just do know it.”
I admitted to this.
Megan continued, “well, you could need a henchman able to work for you.”
I shrugged. “That would be cool, but who …”
Megan started to type a bunch of digts. “Oh, hi, Tyler, it’s Megan, you know.”
I wondered, “Tyler? who, pray tell, is Tyler?”
Robbie guessed, “Tyler Pearson, a young friend of Megan.”
Tyler appeared very excited.
Megan grinned, whispering to Dustin and Robbie, “not just one of my friends … but don’t tell the boobs.”
I shook my head. “Why would we?”
Megan explained the situation unto Tyler. Then she terminated her call. “OK, Tyler will be your executioner in tiurn for spying on the boobs.”
Robbie wondered, “sounds like a cool deal, whatever exactly it is.”
Megan laughed. She praised one of Tyler’s greatest heroic deeds. “He shopwed up at the boobs’ door as a delivery man with a plate of steaming nachos. Josh is into cheesy sauces. But only the boobs believed in the sauces being made of cheese. It was really Grizzly glue[grizzly glue]
.”
I choked. “That was mean!”
Megan giggled. “The boobs deserved it. And so do the kids you’re hunting down, don’t they?”
I nodded vigorously. “They are incredible jerks!”
Megan hi-fived with me. “Deal! Tyler has enrolled at ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ middle school for the next year. He will be very useful for you!” She griunned mischievously.
The red hot sun burnt up the hills of the southern tip of coastal California,
The weather was perfect for the annual independance parade of San Diego.
Megan Parker was a perfect solo obo. She contributed to the parade music.
Robbie and I had our banners rigged and ready for greeting the parading troops in historical uniforms. But we were also ready for meeting Tyler Pearson, secret agent of the royal guard, for the very first time.
Megan finally showed Tyler to me. “This is your new master.”
Tyler grinned. “Yeah! Death to the tyrants!”
The masses chimed in.
Megan started blowing the oboe, instigating the chorus.
Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
It waves forever.
Robbie, I, and Jeff Glazer waved their flags overhead, chanting along.
For me, Logan Reese was the treacherous envoy of the despots, the second Benedict Arnold.
[airbra] cf. Zoey 101 : Logan gets cut off
[quinnocular] optic aid first appearing in Zoey 101 : The curse of PCA
[drake at pca] cf. Zoey 101 : Spring Fling
This identifies Drake bel’s self insert as Drake Parker from Drake & Josh..
[bruce windchill] mentioned occasionally throughout Drake & Josh
[dustins first girlfriend] This identifies Sam Pucket from iCarly with same actress’s guest rôle, viz. Trisha Kirby, in Zoey 101 : Bad Girl
[grizzly glue] cf. Victorious : Tori the zombie
Table of Contents
Zoey’s return from Maui was nothing spectacular.
She had been a bit bored — bored enough to buy me a plush pineapple.
The cuddle toy had got big human-like eyes and a mouth.
I thought to be out of that age.
But my sister insisted in that gift.
Down to her, my luggage for my last year of middle school at “Pacific Coast Academy” increased more and more.
Even during the last weeks of the summer, the red hot Californian sun burnt mercilessly up the coastal hill braes and the beach of Malibu.
Uncle Glazer took us to the entrance.
Zoey had been — once more — assigned as a roomie to Lola and Quinn.
But, as aforementioned, this was not acceptable.
Zoey was in a state of war with Quinn and possibly even Lola.
Quinn had abused me.
Lola had not told Zoey about that abuse in time.
A gentle breeze came in from the mighty Pacific.
We had to separate at this point.
Zoey had to complain about the room assignment. “Most likely, my words won’t exactly be suitable for little boys to here, so better …”
I sighed deeply. I was now as old as Zoey at the time of her first arrival at “Pacific Coast Academy”. But I was still a “little boy”.
This would probably never change.
So I better started talking care of my own luggage.
Of course, Zoey would show up later in order to control everything.
Like last year, I shared my dorm with Robbie “Scooter” Carmichael.
But we also got a thir roomie.
His name was Reuben Thomas[reuben thomas].
Reuben liked to talk in strange metaphers.
This was sometimes hard to understand.
But he was very nice, after all. He had formerly been at “Ridgeway”, the school of Carly and Samantha. But he had been heartbroken in the most disgusting manner by Sam. Thence he had begged for being sent to a boarding school. And here he was.
Alas, I still had to get accustomed to Reuben’s picturesque language.
Sooner or later, this would not be too hard.
Robbie wanted to get his own treehouse even here on this campus.
The three of us deemed this a great thing.
But who would build such a thing for us?
Robbie explained, “this year, we’ve contracted a new teacher for wood shop.”
I wondered, “really?”
Zoey would not allow me to go to classes with power chain saws and power drills.
Robbie nodded solemnly. “It’s a certain Dusty Chopsaw from ‘James K. Pol’ in Santa Clarita.”
Abovementioned school was somewhat well-known to us.
Santa Clarita was at the other end of the county.
But before going coeducative, or in times of an exorbitantly unbalanced ratio of girls and boys, “Pacific Coast Academy” maintained contracts with other schools of Los Angeles county.
This way, we had been able to get girls into various school events.
For example, cheerleading was never popular among boys.
And then there were school dances.
Due to the vicinity, we often had to face that school, the most advanced of all schools run by Los Angeles county, in competitions.
For example, I was a member of the mathletic team.
That of “James K. Polk” regularly beat us into smithereens. They had got geniuses like Albert Wormenheimer, Bernice Livinghocker[bernice livinghocker], Simon Nelson Cooke, Lisa Zemo, Evelyn Kwong …
Not even Quinn could have stopped them.
Our sectionals were regularly like war.
And we always lost out badly.
That sucked.
There was also a war-like rivalry over teachers.
This stank even more.
The switch of Mr. Chopsaw, a wood addict, was almost a historical event.
Dean Rivers was going to be proud of it. He had probably fought to the death with Mr. Crubs, the principal of “James K. Polk”.
Oops! Maybe …
Had Dean Rivers really survived the summer break, inspite of the war-like situation between himself and his wife Tipper?
Arranging our belongings took quite some time.
I wanted to stuff the plush pineapple elsewhere. Alas, I could not do so before Zoey’s controlling visit. But I promised Reuben and Robbie to remove it later.
Finally, Zoey arrived. She reported, “I was sent from Coco Wexler to Ms. Burvich and back. It was terrible.”
I shrugged.
My sister continued, “but I was allowed to move into Stacey’s dorm instead.”
Stacey’s dorm was a cross between a janitor’s closet and a dress room of a gym.
Zoey moaned, “but I need to get Coco a new cooking recipe from my grandma.”
I shrugged, thinking, “that is still better than spending the nights with two traitors.”
I had been following Zoey into her new dormitory room, “00 Brenner Hall”.
It was really terrible.
Stacey had aleready been there before us.
Cotton swabs adorned everything, including Zoey’s bed and her closet.
A few words about that impossible situation were thusly due.
Stacey returned from lunch. She was flabbergasted. “Zoey?”
My sister nodded. “We are noe roomies, cool, isn’t it? But those swabs here …”
Stacey didn’t really looked pleased by Zoey’s suggestion.
I panted. “Stacey, Zoey means: ‘Your swabs are better of in a public plce. Everyone should be able to admire them.’”
Stacey beamed. “Oh,m sure!” She bounced around.
At the end of the prom night, Stacey’s lisp had disappeared.
Or so Ashley Blake had told me.
But now Stacey’s slurred speech was back.
She told us about her summer break. “I was with uncle Felix[uncle felix], and we also visited my sister Suzanne[sister suzanne] from St. Steve Hospital in Mississippi.”
My ears hurt.
Stacey continued mercilessly, “we had got a little car crash because of a twig on the road. So my lisp is now back.”
Zoey sighed fro despair.
Stacey had a bit more to say. “I am a fan of iCarly, the coolest webshow ever. And now I’ve bought a Creddie sticker. Look!” She exposed prousdly a sticker reading “Creddie Forever!”on her attire.
Clueless Zoey wondered, “who or what is a ‘Creddie’?”
Stacey replied, “there are two sorts of fans of iCarly. Creddiers are those who are positive about Carly and Freddie being a couple. But then there are also Seddiers. Those are stupid guys believing in Freddie and Sam as a couple. I hate Sam!”
Zoey choked. “Samantha Puckett?”
Stacey nodded solemnly.
I had been dating Sam like three years earlier.
It did not last for long.
She was always rude.
I had only done it in order to prove myself to be already a man. I had hated being seen as a little boy, especially by Zoey.
But Sam alias Trisha had treated me like dirt. And she had started cheating on me with Chase Bartholomew Mathews.
I had never forgiben that adulterous demeanour.
Zoey hated her too, worse than pestillence and death. She had got Sam alias Trisha expelled after only three weeks of probation.
Samantha’s monozygotic twin sister Melanie, howeve, was still among us. She wasn’t anywhere near as rude and sehe even helped Zoey with the organisation of school events.
Basically, I just wanted Carly to be happy, no matter how.
Granted, she made me blush all the time.
Aforementioned Freddie, alias Fredward Benson, was the technical producer of the web show and Carly’s boy next door. He always hit on Carly.
The latter would probably rather go for a tall rake, anyways.
In any case, Stacey’s property as a militant “Creddier” caused me some headaches.
Finding out about my crush on Carly, Stacey would deem me a “Creddie killer”, and she would torture me slowly to death with cotton swabs.
Thus I had to keep my feelings for Carly Shay secret, especially hidden from Stacey’s curious eyes and ears, for a whole year, and hope for stacey to move away as far as possible upon her graduation.
It was not just a danger for me.
There was a huge mass of fans of iCarly at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
It had started with Melanie Puckett having introduced her sister’s show to us.
The fans here were proabaly already split into those two irreconcilable camps, the “Creddiers” and the “Seddiers”.
And this meant a fan war at this school, more brute and more radical than any hitherto beknownst feud between two camps of students at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
The results could have been devastating.
Now it was my turn to introduce Tyler Pearson to this school.
Robbie carmichael had already started.
Tyler was a sixth grader. He was thus like two or three years younger than his girlfriend Megan.
But love knows no age.
Tyler had assisted Megan with various pranks on the boobs.
In the beginning, Megan had not been aware of Tyler’s crush. Upon hearing of it for the first time, she had been consternated and trie to stay away from him. But then she got her heart cracked and broken badly by some perverse karate jock named Corey[corey].
Even Drake and Josh were excessively disgusted by reckless rake Corey.
Wendy Gellar, Megan’s best friend, had thereupon talked Megan into taking a chance on Tyler.
And it worked out perfectly.
Wendy was another student at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
I had once got a crush on her, but I got rebuked badly.
Wendy just laughed at me. her “true love” had been, according to her own words, Drake Parker.
This was onesided and as frail as can be.
Drake had to turn her down.
Nowadays, Wendy is more like a second little sister for Drake. And she had started to learn music production in order to make up for having stalked him in a painful manner.
I got along with Wendy very well by now. Like my other friends, I often listened to Wendy’s latest compositions.
She was certainly able to achieve greater goals with these skills than just making up for having caused mental torture to Drake.
But this is for a later point of time.
Now I was stuck in the cafeteria with Tyler.
Our cafeteria was much bigger and more modern than those found at district schools.
We did no longer have to pay with coins. We used pre-paid cards for that avail.
Dean Rivers had introduced this, upon Zoey’s pressure, in order to reduce the danger of bullying for dinner cash.
Many other changes had been introduced by means of Zoey’s initiatives.
Tyler liked the differences. He was looking forward to a great time at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
This completed my introduction of Tyler to the campus.
Now we could start making plans in order to punish the unruly seniors like Quinn, Logan, Lola, Vince, Michael, and Lisa.
Some of them were now in the cafeteria.
For example, Lisa was here with Millie Brandon[millie brandon], a girl from her hometown tutored on and off by Lisa.
Millie had once got a crush on me, but she had given up on that after hearing about my fear of bugs.
Logan Reese was here, followed by a platoon of paparazzi, including our school news reporter, viz. Jeremiah Trottman..
They were asking him about his summer with Quinn Pensky.
Logan was annoyed by those.
That so served him right.
Tyler was particularly keen of targetting the rich adonis.
Lola arrived, talking to a girl looking almost like her. She introduced her unto Lisa as her younger sister, Shelby Marx.
Why did they have different surnames?
That wasn’t my business, anyways.
I just wanted to learn to tell them apart.
And so did Tyler.
It was necessary for our holy quest.
And there were even more new kids on the campus.
But we will encounter them later on, step by step, one by one.
[reuben thomas] Reuben is from iCarly : iWin A Triple Date
The surname is based on a hoax.
[bernice livinghocker] from Ned’s Declassified SSG : New Kid
[uncle felix] mentioned in Zoey 101 : Hands on a Blix van
[sister suzanne] mentioned in Zoey 101 : Chasing Zoey
[corey] cf. Drake & Josh : Megan’s First Kiss
[millie brandon] cameo in Zoey 101 : Rollercoaster
Table of Contents
My classes started out three days later.
Until then, we had only got homeroom and various tryouts.
I already had already come to know a few new kids.
But now it was time for our first physics classes.
I sat in the front row, along with Robbie Carmichael and my other friends of old, Henry Nolston[henry nolston], and Maximilian Tebbe[maximilian tebbe].
New student named Reuben Thomas completed the front row.
His style was still a bit hard for me to get accustomed to.
Girls like my ex-girlfriend Sandy Baldwin[sandy baldwin], Wendy Gellar, and Ashley Blake were sitting in my back. They made probably fun of us boys.
We had got a new teacher for physics.
Last year, Mr. Beringer[mr beringer]
, Zoey’s teacher for physics, had complained about the hard job of a teacher for physics.
Thence Garth Burman[garth burman] had decided to replace him.
His substitute was Mr. Sweeny from “James K. Polk” in nearby Santa Clarita.
I had also heard of some former puplis from that school studying now at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Mr. Sweeny was hard, but fair. At least he wasn’t such a slagger as most teachers for science.
Their knowledge used to be vastly inferior to that of Quinn Pensky, at least her usual knowledge fromn her good old days before starting to abuse little boys in the most deisgusting manner.
This reminded me of the topic of inflicting excruciating punishment on the former geek girl and her dirty lover, Logan Reese.
Mr. Sweeny started his lessons. “This term, we are going to talk about electricity.”
That sounded fun.
Mr. Sweeny remembered, “Starting with next weelk, there will be lab classes, too. You will work in teams of two.” he passed around a list.
We had to sign up with our partners.
I chose to work with Reuben.
What devil had commanded me to do so?
Well, the new guy was probably not going to have an easy time finding friends.
I sighed deeply.
This was going to be a march through hell.
Mr. Sweeny warned, “inspite of all the favours brought by electricity unto mankind, there are also a lot of dangers. Electricity may be hard to control, especially if misunderstood. For our laboratory classes, there will be strict rules.”
I had always been keen omn sticking to security rules.
This had made me look a bit boring.
But Zoey had told me to be always careful. She did not want me to do stuff liker Quinn’s experiments.
Somehow I could understand her concerns.
Mr. Sweeny explained, “electricity has only been understood and tamed during the last few centuries. But the destructive ppower of natural electrical phenomenons, such as flashes of lightning, have struck fear into the heart of mankind since old.”
I had to think about the destructive powers.
A flash of lightning should strike Logan and Quinn when making out and blow them asunder. Or it should do the same to Michael and Lisa, or to Vince and Lola.
They so deserved it.
Mr. Sweeny announced, “in our lab classes, we will create some little artificial lightnings. Nothing bad will happen unless you don’t heed the warnings expressed in the laboratory rules. This is very important.” Then he drew some sketches in order to help us understand the causes of lightning.
We had already heard a bit about it in geography classes when learning about the basic weather phenomenons.
Principally, it was an electostatic discharge appearing in the atmosphere.
There are strong positive charges and strong negative charges. They stupidly attract, leading to exorbitant chaos and mayhem.
The same thing was valid for Quinn and Logan.
They were fundamentally different.
Thus their relationship must necessarily have wreaked perversion and corruption.
This was inevitable.
Physics could be really useful.
I was now totally looking forward to my homework and the lab classes.
History classes had been a bit boring.
Our teacher was Mr. Toplin[mr toplin].
Thus I was happy about reching the big recess.
Tyler Pearson crossed my way. He gave me a bill of fifty bucks.
My eyes bugged ou.
Tyler remarked, “it’s for you and Robbie, from Megan.”
I wondered, “weren’t you the award?”
Tyler smiled. “Using your quinnocular, Megan found out something about Josh worth of much more.”
I asked, “wo! What’s the secret?”
Tyler giggled. “Josh is wearing carebear panties.”
I choked hard.
Tyler continued, “you may see the pictures on the interweb, Megan’s site, you know.”
I knew about it.
Poor Josh!
But he probably had so deserved it for being such a “boob”.
There was now a new coffee cart.
Calvin[calvin]
, former owner of the coffee cart, had been banned from the campus by Tipper Rivers.
His coffee cart had once almost run over the Dean’s wife, demonstrating the laws of physics concerning inertia, momentum, and impact.
The new guy was Benjamin Singer from the northeastern states.
His sister Addie was also new at “Pacific Coast Academy”, as a junior. Did she get discounts and credit at her brother’s cart?
There was also a new guy from aforementioned “James K. Polk”. He was Jerry Crony. Now he crossed the campus on some rusty bike.
But I remember having seen him a few years ago at “Pacific Coast Academy”, as Michael’s dance partner.
Something smelled fishy.
Oh, by the way, this year, I was officially working as a delivery boy for “Sushi Rox”, the Japanese café on the campus. This way, I was no longer required to do dirty jobs for Logan Reese in order to earn a few bucks.
Zoey had talked Kazu, the barkeeper, into giving me that chance.
Robbie would work for Ben Singer.
The fountain was still in the middle of the campus.
But campus workers had covered it, making it inaccessible.
Joe Braxley was one of them. He used to run a car work shop and a junk yard just two miles down the road from “Pacific Coast Academy”. Then he went to Seattle in order to work for a shoe house named “Daka”.
I hated those shoes.
Thier “tech foots” had not worked out.
Probably “Daka” had not grasped the laws of physics.
The worst thing: “Daka” had hired Carly and her show in order to promote those foot spoilers.
This had been totally embarrassing.
Fortunately, the company has now gone belly up like a dead tuna.
Oops!
This reminded me of the need to talk to Kazu about my schedule.
In any case, Joe had lost his job in this manenr and applied to come back to Malibu as a mechanic.
The fountain would be out of service for quite a few weeks.
That was a bit sad.
This evening, Kazu had not needed me.
Jerry Crony was doing the deliveries.
Ands that was a good thing.
It was the first session of Carly’s web show since my summer break.
I sat in my room, together with Robbie, Tyler, Max, Henry, Reuben, >Sandy, and Wendy.
We were all big fans of carly’s show.
And there were many more of us on the campus.
Carly and Sam performed some fun stuff.
But they had already announced the arrival of a special guest, Shane Diamond.[shane diamond]
This was a new student at “Ridgeway”. Along with Freddward Benson, he was a member of the AVL club.
Sam and Carly called him a nerd.
The moment of truth ws there.
The door opened.
Carly and Sam interrupted their weird dance for a moment.
Their eyes buggeed out.
Shane did not look at all like a stereotypical nerd, uch as Nelson Pernell and Marty Felsenberg[nelson and marty], two nerds encountered three years ago during the shootings for a family game series at the residence of Logan’s family.
How was it possible for a boy to be smart and look hot at the same time?
That was totally unfair.
See, Logan Reese was hot, but he was a complete idiot.
Wayne “Firewire” Gilbert was smart, but a complete dweeb.
So … this didn’t make any sense whatsoever.
Shane was now performing a physical experiment.
The segment was thus named “fun with physics”.
Strangely, it had to do with electricity and magnetism, reminding me of our classes in physics.
And Carly and Sam were mindless test rabbits. They poked their tongues into a long tube of glass and dipped their feet into different liquids.
Shane activated a strange device, a “magnetostatic multi pulse flux generator”.
Strange flashes of lightning appeared within the glass cylinder.
That looked very funny.
We applauded wholeheartedly for the experiment and wanted to get Mr. Sweeny to do something else in our upcoming classes.
Alas, Carly and Sam eyed each other suspiciously.
Henry guessed, “both of them have got a crush on Shane!”
Max gasped. “Hells bells, this could nmean the end of iCarly.”
Carly and Sam were probably expected to argue and fight each other over Shane.
But Carly could have done so much better than that wannabe hot nerd.
I sighed deeply, seeing my chances of evcer getting noticed by Carly swim down the Mississippi into the open seas.
Life could be so totally unfair.
Indeed, Carly and Sam appeared to have fought over Shane.
A few days later, some striking news cursed among us fans of the web show.
Shane had been really upset about being torn forth and back between the two horny teenager girls.
As Carly and Sam had been shown to have spotted Shane at the same time, they let the first real kiss decide.
Sam had tried to tick Shane into kissing her by feigning a heart attack, requiring a kiss of life. She had also feigned charity kissing booth.
Carly had taken one of Chase’s old scripts for a play named Beginning of a Romance and got Shane to practice the kissing scene with her.
But someone or something always interrupted the attempts.
Carly’s last attempt of getting Shane to kiss her during a feigned power failure got brutally sabotaged by Sam.
And in the end, nobody could win.
Shane did not take care of an empty elevator hole. He fell through the shaft for over twenty yards and broke all of his bones. Maybe he was never going to be able to walk again.
That was one brute lesson about the laws of gravity, another important chapter of physics classes.
Of course it was really mainly Sam’s fault.
She had already broken my heart and Reuben’s without even a minimal trace of remorses.
Breaking Shane’s bones was just the logical continuation of that.
Girls like Sam could be so cruel.
Fortunately, I was over her.
Our relationship had been too fragile to take off the ground.
But would Carly have ever been any more promising?
[henry nolston] Henry is a cameo figure from Zoey 101 : Bad Girl.
The surname is taken from same actor’s character in some third-party owned show.
[maximilian tebbe] Max is a cameo figure from Zoey 101 : Bad Girl.
The surname is taken from same actor’s character in some third-party owned show.
[sandy baldwin] from Zoey 101 : Lola Likes Chase
[mr beringer] from Zoey 101 : Rollercoaster
[garth burman] from Zoey 101 : Spring Fling
[mr toplin] cameo in Zoey 101 : The Great Vince Blake
[calvin] from Zoey 101 : Cooffee Cart Ban and a few prior cameos
[shane diamond] from iCarly : iSaw Him First
The surname is from same actor’s character in Big Time Rush.
[nelson and marty] from Zoey 101 : Spring Brweak-Up
Table of Contents
I had just seen another session of Carly’s show.
The show host had poked her tongue, upon the request of one of the viewers.
Carly’s brilliant pink tongue was very soft, warm, and smooth, without any cracks in the surface.
I had to blush over and over again.
Two years ago, Chase had seen Zoey’s tongue and deemed it too small.[zoeys tongue]
Maybe that disappointed him a lot.
Who knows?
Are girls with a bigger tongue better kissers?
Someone should research this question.
7.2. PakRats[pakrats]
A few nights later …
I was watching once more iCarly, along with Robbie, Reuben, Tyler, and some other middle school kids.
Unfortunately, Ashley was among them, too.
That annoyed me a bit.
Today, Carly Shay was really upset.
Her elder brother, Spencer, kept on being addicted to some old video game named PacRats. He was now totally distracted and unable to do any of his paid assignments.
Some rich farter from Seattle had hired him for making a sculpture of a labradoodle, whatever.
In Spencer’s current state, this was impossible.
Back then, you still did have to go to an arcade in order to play those games.
Today, you play them over the interweb.
The old record had been held by ever since lost Sasha Striker.
Carly told us about Spencer’s addiction. “he even pees while playing. And I’ve got to feed him.” Now she was looking desperately for Sasha Striker. “Spencer should challenge her, and then be cured from his addiction!”
I shuddered for excruciating disgust. But I had to recall my own addiction to certain action video games. I had once been so close to breaking a record. But some power failure broke all my frail dreams into smithereens.[power failure]
Tyler remarked, “I’ve got some connections …” He always seemed to have got “connections”.
I wondered, “what connections?”
Tyler grinned. “Megan knows two freaks able to build a PakRat machine from scratch.”
My eyes bugged out.
Robbie grinned. “I know those freaks … I think.”
I shrugged.
Tyler cackled. “Craig and Eric could certainly do that within a day or so.”
I was eager on breaking Sasha Striker’s record, with or without a trace of remorses.
Megan Parker had not had any troubles tricking Craig Ramirez and Eric Blonowitz into coming hereto fror a visit and install a scratch-built machine for playing PakRats on the campus of “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Those freads were so easy to fool.
And Tyler had not exaggereated by calling them “feaks”, quite the contrary.
Eric was a dweeby nerd on top of all. He could compete easily with aforementioned Nelson pernell and Marty Felsenberg.
The reason for Craig staying near Eric all the time were not really known.
But that did not matter.
Dean Rivers would have objected with heart and soul to establishing such an arcade machine on the campus.
Thus we had to hiude it somehow.
Fortunately, there was an old janitor’s closet down in “Maxwell Hall”.
It had been used by James Garrett as a dormitory room during his first two days at “Pacific Coast Academy”.[james in closet]
Tyler had to sneak a paraffine imprint of the corresponding key from custodian Seamas Finnegan[seamas finnegan]. But that had not been too hard for him.
.
The raw materials had to be fetched form a nearby junk yard run by aforementioned grease monkey Braxley.
There were lots of wires and tin junl.
Craig and Eric lost no time.
Alas, they kept on making stupid remarks.
Eric tried to hit on by-passing Shelby Marx.
But he got his curious nose punched badly by Shelby’s left fist and had to be lucky to survive it in one piece.
Her right punch would have killed him without a trace of mercy.
Suddenly, Stacey Dillsen walked up to the video game crew. “Look! I’ve built a cotton swab model of a Pakrat machine! ” She held some frail cotton swab construct aloft.
A gust of wind could have blown it out of her hands and made it burst into smithereens, just as usual.
And there it was.
The statue was blown right into the hands of Eric.
The nerd wondered, “where did this come from?”
Stacey raised her hands.
Eric rendered the moel unto Stacey. “You are?”
Stacey growed, “my name is Stacey Dillsen. I come from Swampscott in Massachusetts. My sister Suzanne works as a nurse at St. Steve’s hosital in Mississippi.”
Eric sighed. “I’ve got a sister, too. Her name is Maureen[maureen blonowitz]
.”
Stacey contniued, “aw cool! My hobbies are acrobatics, astronomy, …”
Eric gasped. “You like astronomy? I love gazing a stars. But the astronomical observatory of San Diego closes down so early. Craig walways keeps me up. Then I’m too late!”
Stacey sighed. “Sorry. But I’ve got a telescope on my own. Do you want to follow me ans watch the stars? There are suppoosed to be some wishing stars tonight. Oh, have you heard about a comet approaching us?”
Eric nodded vigorously. Then he followed Stacey on her way back to her dormitory room.
Craig grunted, “Eric! Come back! Why do I have to do all the work on my own?”
Wayne Gilbert came along and started helping Craig. he knew a lot about electronics and computers.
Granted, Quinn knew even more. But she was on the bleeding edge. She did not like outfashioned technology like the one deplyed in machines built like twenty-five years ago.
Finally, the new video game machine was complete.
We just needed a way to keep Seamas Finnegan from intervening.
So, the machine was finally complete.
Now we just had to inform the video game channel.
Robbie thought about the first official tournament on the campus of “Pacific Coast Academy” for losers, pardon PakRat players.
The answer from Videogaming Channel was fast.
Barry Schatz, the chief reporter of that channel, was ready to promote the event ion the channel and to report it live at best broadcast time.
Too bad I had not got any clue concerning the organiosation of such a tournament. I could not even ask Zoy for help.
She deemed video gamers a bunch of losers.
The worst of all was that:
We had to keep the whole tournament a secret, viz. secret from the school’s administration.
Dean Rivers would have insisted in our suspension, expulsioin, and deportation.
I did not want to get deported to Siberia.
It was so cold over there.
Zoey would have forced me to take lots of socks along with me.
And the fever of us kids anticipating the biggest videogaming event ever on this campus grew stronger and stronger.
Robbie had met Barry Schatz secretly at the camopus fountain,. Then he guided him right over here to the secret closet.
Fortunately, it was the free day of Seamas Finnegan.
Schatz waved around with his microphone. “Gamers and Gamer girls! Prepare for the biggest event of the year! Dustin brooks from ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ had challenged classic Sasha Striker, the keeper of the world record of PakRats, for almost ten years!” He looked like a cross between Jeremiah Trottman and Eric Blonowitz.
I loked aghast. “What? I have challenged whom?” I had not said anything.
Robbie must have arranged that crap.
Was I really up to such a cheallenge?
And his anonymous assistant was even worse. He hit on each and every girl in sight.
That was uttermost disgusting.
Sasha slapped him across the face.
Unfortunately, the creepy dweeb had not yet crossed the way of Shelby Marx.
There would have been one ugly freak less on the face of this earth.
I could not wait any loinger for the start of the life broadcast of the matches of the tournament.
This way, Spencer would see a life sign from Sasha Striker.
Carly could inviter her to Seattle and let Spencer get cured from the disease.
But Barry Schatz had to talk way too much, and he had to greet so many people.
Sash gave a long interview.
This postponed the start of the proper challenge even more.
Suddenly, uninvited rumours were approaching.
Whjat the hell was going on?
It could not be Seamas Finnegan.
But it was way worse!
Dean Rivers and his security men stomped their feet.
I could now say my last prayers.
Zoey had already started knitting some warm woolen vests for me, right?
The thought of Siberia made me shudder.
Dean Rivers boomed, “what’s this?”
Barry Schatz kept on talking.
Our headmaster grabbed the freak’s microphone and bonked him deftly over his head.
Schatz glred aghast.
Rivers thundered, “a PakRat machine?”
We shivered.
Dean Rivers panted. “I’ve loved PakRat, back in the eighties. That was before marrying the censored, Tipper. She was always opposed to me playing video games. Put the machine into my office!”
We looked aghast.
The tournament would thus not start before the relocation of the video gaming machine.
This could have taken us a few days.
But why had we not requested an official permission much earlier?
We would have installed the whoile thing in the admin building on site instead of torturing us into this smelly and sticky closet.
Tyler poked me. “Spencer is coming!”
I looked aghast.
Spencer Shay had seen the start of the broadcast. He would now be in the challenge as well.
We were now gathered in the office of Dean Rivers in order to determine the new champion of PakRats.
Of courase I would lose out badly, right?
Bear with it!
I made the qualification.
The four best ratpackers were now left.
It was Sasha Striker, Spencer Shay, Dean Rivers, and my puny self.
The last rat was left.
Each of us had now already beaten Sasha Striker’s old record.
The latter had been as frail as a cotton swab sculpture made by Stacey Dillsen.
But who would win the tournament and set the new record mark?
I sweated all over.
Unfortunately, I only made the second prize.
And the winner was: Dean Rivers.
He clenched his fists. Now he would never give in to his wife’s stupids command.
The end of the eternally fragile marriage was now just around the corner.
But was Dean Rivers going to lose all of his possessions, as announced by his evil wife?
In any case, Spencer’s career was ruined.
He was unable to complete his sculpture of a labradoodle in time.
Was Carly now going to hate me for the video game tournament at “Pacific Coast Academy”?
Fortunately, Dean Rivers had got an idea. “We need a new teacher for art at this school, starting with next year. Are you in it, Mr. Shay?”
Spencer nodded solemnly. “Of course! This school rocks!” He marched around triumphantly. “Too bad I’ve got hallucinations. I just saw Sam Puckett loitering on the campus. I need some rest!” Actually, he had seen Melanie.
Spencer at “Pacific Coast Academy” would have been great.
Would Carly follow him? Or would she have to go to her grandpa to Yakima?
I totally hope for the former.
Yakima sucked so much.
And I would be closer to her.
But would Carly be happy here on the campus without Freddie and Sam?
Or would I want especially Sam to return to “Pacific Coast Academy”?
Those were really tougg questions.
Time would tell.
As a side note: During the next week, Carly would fall addicted to PakRats, too.
[zoeys tongue] cf. Zoey 101 : Surprise
[pakrats] from iCarly : iStage An Intervention
Probably a spoof off third-party owned game Packman and thid-party owned cartoon Rugrats
[power failure] from Zoey 101 : Back At PCA
[james in closet] cf. Zoey 101 : Rumours of Love
[seamas finnegan] from Zoey 101 : Alone At PCA
[maureen blonowitz] mentioned in Drake & Josh : Eric punches Drake
Chapter 8. Neither A Borrower Nor A Lender Be![borrower nor lender]
Table of Contents
It was time for yet another session of Carly’s wonderful web show.
I had already bought som pop corn for me and my roomies.
Tyler was with us, too.
Robbie plugged my laptop in.
Ashley remarked, “do you know we’re playing Hamlet in this year’s drama club?”
UI shook my head.
Ashley grunted, “Chase Matthews has written a modern version of it.”
I sighed.
Chase was apparently still a great playwright.
Last time, it had not ended that well.
Chase had written a play Alien Girl Zorka[zorka]
intended for himself and Zoey as the main rôles.
Unfortunately, Logan had been chosen by adviser Fletcher as the main star and thus the guy to kiss Zoey.
Needless to say, Chase was jealous, and he was srtill too much of a coward to tell Zoey the reason why.
Fortunately, Logan had turned out as the total, irreparable jerk of the uttermost worst sort during the play.
And Zoey had thence refused to liss him and changed the outcome of the play.
That was one odf Zoey’s greatest deeds in her whole life.
I wished her to have been able to avoid this jerk and others consistently.
Ashley explained, “I try out for being Ophelia.”
I did not know Shakespeare’s Hamlet well enough.
But Ophelia was certainly the female star.
And Lola must for sure have tried out for that rôle as well.
That could cause quite some troubles.
Ashley explained, “This year, Sofia Michelle[sofia michelle]
will attend the performance.”
Wendy shrugged. “I don’t think to have ever heard that name.”
Ashley glared at her room pal in a penetrant manner. “You do not know Sofia Michelle? You ignorant wench!”
Wendy looked puzzled.
Honestly, I did not lknow either.
Ashley grunted, “Sofia Michelle is the leading playwright at Broadway.”
I was not a “Broadway” freak.
Thus the name did not tell me anything.
But unto Chase it certainly did.
Sofia Michelle’s judgment could have meant either bloom or doom for Chase Bartholomew Matthews’s intended career as a playwright.
I wondered, “what has he deserved after being so rude to Zoey?”
Chase had claimed to have been totally in love with Zoey for three and a half years.
That statement had been from the moment of his panic departure for London.
But I had to ask myself, “is that actually true?”
Admitted, Chase had always behaved like a lovesick puppy around Zoey, and never admitted to it.
But then I wondered, “so, why did he date those ugly, perverse, and disgusting wenches like Rebecca[rebecca]
and Gretchen[gretchen]
? You don’t do that when loving a wonderful person for real. I do not want to think again about his two-timer with Samantha Puckett alias Trisha Kirby. And then there was that completely perverted thing with Lola.”
Most of thise things appeared absolutely fishy.
I had to investigate, but how? I thought to myself, “maybe a bit of espionage would be nice? I could discover quite some cracks in Chase’s feint interest in Zoey.” I panted heavily. “Ashley, are there still some characters left in the play?”
Ashley glared at me. “You can’t even act yourself!”
That sounded little flattering.
Ashley growled, “nobody has yet tried out for Polonius.”
I sighed. “OK!”
Ashley was convinced of my lack of ability of doing so.
I wondered, “but who the heck is Polonius?” But I better did not ask Ashley. I took some time out before the start of the web show and walked to the toilets.
Th web show had started.
We expected some fun as usual.
Unfortunately, the topic had not been exactly pleasant.
Samantha Puckett appeared to be always out of money and borrow stuff from others, especially Fredward Benson and Carlotta Shay.
Why did this not surprise me?
Unfortunately, I had got similar problems, too, once upon a time.
My addiction to gummi worms had thrown me into the debts.[gummi worm debts].
But I had learned really fast to get out of there.
Sam, on the other hand, could not help but begging us for money.
We should have sent it to her at school, “Ridgeway”.
Sandy asked, “why not to her at home?”
I reoplied, “Sam’s mom would probably interceive it and take the bucks for herself.” I shuddered for disgust.
Robbie commented, “but she could send it to Spencer and Carly.”
That was certainly the most appropriate destinatiion.
So … why send it to “Ridgeway”?
The question for me was thus: “Should I send my e-girlfriend money in order to pay back her debits?”
I still did not want Samantha back, of course.
But it was for Carly, her creditor.
But was I really able tio spare a few bucks?
Some of the other kids wondered whether to spend a few cents as well.
We could at least scratch a few bucks together.
This way, my name would be anonymous.
There were now auditions for Chase’s version of Hamlet.
Clearly, Ashley had no problems talking as Ophelia.
But Lola would not have them either.
I was supposed to be aforementioned Polonius. I still did not know that guy. “Is he one of the good guys or the bad ones?”
And this was my text:
Neither a borrower nor a lender be
For loan oft loses both itself and friends
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry
This above all: To thine own self be true!
And it must follow: as the night the day.
Thou canst not then be false to any man
This sounded totally antiquated, didn’t it?
Wasn’t the play a modern version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet?
But Mr. Fletcher explained, “Shakespeare’s words will only be used for the auditions.”
Why was it so?
According to Fletcher, mastering the classics was essential for being able to perform modern plays.
I shrugged.
Now it was my time to recite above lines, in front of hundreds of people.
Even Zoey had made it in time. She applauded. But she was not the one to decide.
Tyler tried thereupon out as one Laertius.
It would have allowed both of us to spy the scene.
Robbie wanted to be Hamlet.
Mr. Fletcher reminded us once more of the significance of the play due to the presence of Sofia Michelle.
The decision would be published during the next days.
Of course I could not help seeing a connection between thiose lines from Shakespear and Samantha Puckett’s current situation. I asked Zoey for advice.
Of course, she still hated Samantha.
“But I’d do it for Carly,” I replied.
Zoey grinned. “You seem to be quite a bit into her, aren’t you?”
I blushed explosively.
Zoey panted. “So, they really ordered you kids to send them money, to the address of ‘Ridgeway’?”
I nodded solemnly.
Zoey gasped. “You know it’s illegal, don’t you?”
I looked agahst.
Zoey boomed, “you can’t request money from minors over public channels without anything in turn. That;s against the law … I think …” Zoey had still been pondering going to law school.
Of course, there were still a few times left.
She would certianly have been a better fashion designer.
Or so I imagined. I had to ask someone more knowledgeable.
And indeed!
There was a girl at aforementioned “James K. Polk” who knew all of federal and state law by heart.
Her name was Claire Sawyer.
She used to call herself “future lawyer”.
I had to contact her about the situation.
Zoey was about making a list of things lent unto Quinn and Lola during the last three years.
The list was not exactly short.
Zoey thundered, “OK, I need to contact your future lawyer, too! There seems to be no better way to get all the crap back from my worthless ex-roomies.”
I nodded solemnly.
Claire was even darker than Michael or Lisa. And she glared aghast upon listening to the situation. She recited each and every pragraph of the law from the top of her head.
Of course Sam Puckett’s action was illegal.
Even more, “Ridgeway” could get into trouble.
And their principal, Theodore Franklin, was said to be very cool. He certainly didn’t deserve that crap.
We had to contact them and get them to stop the action.
Why could Sam Puckett not simply work as an auxiliary for some pub?
I had been pretty much content with my job at “Sushi Rox”, at least so far.
But Sam was Sam. She would have gone insane.
Tyler wrote a mail to the feedback site of Carly Shay’s web show.
But it was maybe already too late.
Zoey started now listing mercilessly the things lent unto Lola and Quinn.
It was an awfully long list.
I wondered, “how did so many things ever fit into their little dormitory room?”
Carly had received Tyler’s message pretty soon thereafter and issued a special warning on the show’s site, cancelling the action.
Unfortunately, many kids had already sent stuff to “Ridgeway”.
Theodore Franklin was upset.
Now the money had to be sent back.
But the fees for doing that would have been horrible when compared to the value of the donation.
A certain Louis Packerman[louis packerman]
had just sent one buck.
I wondered, “is Louis related to Katie Packerman[katie packerman], the archenemy of Zoey from elementary schiool times?”
Katie had once called Zoey “ugly”. She was such a mean liar.
Zoey had always been pretty.
Fortunately, Carly, Freddie, Sam, and Spencer only had to send back about one hundred bucks. But they were now safe from troubles.
Sam promised to never borrow again bucks from Carly.
Claire Sawyer warned Sam, “be more careful with loans. There are mean loan sharks like Mercedes Griffin alias ‘Missy Meany’.”
I shuddered for disgust.
Mercedes was one of our cheerleaders. She was awfully seductive and arrogant. She had been at “James K. Polk” school before moving hereto.
Spencer had finally arranged a job for Sam at “Groovy Smoothie”, a nearby pub for kids. He knew the manager, a certain T-Bo.
Sam would grudgingly.
Spencer turned out as a law school dropout. He still had got his books. He wanted to sell them to Claire and donate the money to Sam’s funds.
But Claire already knew all laws by heart and did not need the books.
Sofia Michelle had postponed her visit to California. She would also visit nearby “Hollywood School for performance Arts” first.
This gave us more time for rehearsing Chase’s version of Hamlet.
Oh, yeah I actually got accepted as Polonius.
Probably nobody else had wanted that rôle.
But seeing all those troubles of Sam and Carly, I was convinced of some truth being hidden in his words about lending and borrowing.
Oh, Lola was now Ophelia.
Ashley got assigned the rôle of evil queen Gertrude.
Was that the better solution?
I could not tell. But I would try hard, regardless of the other actors.
[borrower nor lender] from Shakespeare’s Hamlet
[zorka] cf. Zoey 101 : The Play
[sofia michelle] cameo from Victorious : Tori The Zombie
[rebecca] from Zoey 101 : Chase’s Girlfriend
She is identified with Trina Vega from Victorious
[gretchen] from Zoey 101 : Good-Bye, Zoey!
[gummi worm debts] cf. Zoey 101 : New Roomie
[louis packerman] mentioned in iCarly : iOwe You
[katie packerman] only mentioned in Zoey 101 : Miss PCA
Table of Contents
One of my favourite segments of Carly Shay’s wonderful web show had alweays been Mess With Lewbert!.
Lewbert was the doorman of “Bushwell Plaza”, the scyscraper inhabited by Carly and Spencer Shay, among many other people.
That would not have beem a bad thing.
But he was always rude to inhabitants and visitors, especially to children and to pets. He used to bark back at puppies and steal the candy of little children.
Carly, Freddie, and Sam thus did very well pulling pranks on him.
Lewbert had definitely had them coming, more than anyone else on this planet.
Tyler had already submitted in an anonymous way a few ideas of pranks. He was an expert for them.
Sam was always up to executing pranks, especially cruel ones. She had had the guts of claiming herself as having had the idea for them.
This was not so cool.
But what could you expect from a professional liar without a shadow of remorses?
Usually, I would have deemed Samantha Puckett’s deeds inappropriate.
This had already been the case during our common dates.
I had only approved of them because of not wanting to be alone.
Sam’s favourite prank back them had been that of hiding behind some shrubbery and throwing muffins at teachers.
She wasn’t discriminate and liked to hurt cool and annoying teachers alike.
We had never been caught.
So, now it was time for watching yet another session of Carly’s web show.
Sam and Carly announced another episode of Mess With Lewbert!
Our eyes bugged out.
They had actually accepted one of the ideas submitted by no other than my new best friend, Tyler Pearson.
And — business as usual — Samantha Puckett was again fraudulent enough to deny the origin of the idea.
Amnd, indeed, the prank involved muffins.
But this time, the kids were not going to throw them at Lewbert in a sniper-like manner.
Tyler’s idea was more tricky.
The kids had hired some fan to place a little basket full of muffins onto the counter of the doorman.
Lewbert was sometimes not very attentive.
This made things incredibly easy.
Tyler had suggested a mini bomb.
Freddie had changed this to a gas patron blowing up upon contact.
Regardless of the exact technical implementation, the trick worked out.
Lewbert was puzzled by the presence of the basket filled with muffins. But he did not hesitate eating one of them. He was just like the “boobs”, as Megan Parker would have said.
As expected, the gas bomb blew up in the right moment.
The explosion looked cool.
Unfortunately, it seems to have gone too far.
Lewbert flew across the lobby and ended up hurt badly.
Tyler went pale.
Most likely, Fredward Benson had miscalibrated the charge of the gas grenade.
That was totally not Tyler’s fault.
He had suggested another means of blowing up the basket in the first place.
But this nitpicking detail did not help.
Tyler passed out.
Never ever had any of his pranks had an impact as catastrophic as this one.
Carly Shay, Fredward Benson, and maybe even Samantha Puckett, probably only upon pressure by Carly, were also a bit consternated by their own deeds. What would they do during the next time?
Lewbert had to be taken to hospital. He had possibly cracked or even broken this or that bone in his body.
This bad character had not suffered in any way, as would be seen later.
This would be a very hard time for the kids from “Bushwell Plaza”.
Of course, most of us viewers got shocked, too.
Only Ashley Blake was unscathed. She even grunted, “eat dirt, Lewbert!”
At least we expected her to be unscathed. But we could have been potentially wrong.
It was now impossible for us to know.
Ashley refused to talk to us.
Alas, I had to remember a situation from last year.
Logan had yelled at me like an idiot for being too late and having missed out on one of his cellular phone calls.[logan insyults dustin]
I had been hired by Logan Reese as an errant boy. I had done that earlier, on and off. At that time, I had wanted to earn some bucks in order to buy mom a web cam.
Logan had been upset and insulted me on the phone.
Zoey denounced him to Dean Rivers, using Jeremiah Trottman.
Logan had not been gotten expelled because of the insanely huge annual donation by his dad. But he had been sent to anger management camp, instead. Then he promised to refrain from getting angry for two weeks and was saved from the humiliating experience of the camp.
Zoey wanted to prove his promises wrong.
We had to trick Logan and provocate him.
Several attempts had gone wrong.
We would have needed witnesses, and more precisely the presence of the shrink conducting the camp for anger management.
But Logan Reese had been able to feign being nice right in time to fool the shrink.
Finally, we had used a paint grenade built by Quinn Pensky.
This had obviously been before her perverted affair with Logan Reese.
Either this, or Zoey had been able to sneak the grenade off Quinn without letting her know,
That would have been infinitely cool!
In any case, we had been able to sneak the bomb into Logan’s dormitory room and make it splatter all over Logan.
This time, our timing had been perfect.
Logan had at first glance feigned to be friendly. But then he had showed his usual face and had been caught in flagrante delicto both by the shrink and by Dean Rivers. He had thereupon been sent back to the camp.
Quinn had assured the grenade to be harmless.
Basically, it had been.
But Quinn’s words on that were hardly to be trusted.
Many of her harmless inventions had blown up into other people’s faces or caused other sorts of despair and dismay.
For example, Quinn had once repaired my friends’ miniature plane.[repairing a plane] She had actaully disabled the power of the servo navigation and redirected it in order to boost the propulsion.
As a consequence, I had not been able to steer the plane appropriately.
The plane had been flying straight into the face of Dean Rivers, hurting him badly.
Fortunately, I had never been caught for that.
Otherwise, the headmaster would have punished me severely.
I’m talking suspension, expulsion, and deportation.
Summa summarum, I could have been easily in a situation comparable to that of Carly, Freddie, and even Sam.
And this made me even more nervous.
Feeling bad, I decided to write a message for Carly, Freddie, and Sam. Usually I would have been too nervous to do so,
Thinking about Carly Shay had always had the effect of making me blush over and over again.
But Tyler’s miserable situation left me with no choice.
It would have hurt me too much.
Tyler was still weeping.
I needed to know about Lewbert’s situation.
And Carly and Freddie, maybe even cruel Sam, would have been too much embarrassed to talk about the extent of Lewbert’s injuries to the public.
Thus only a private message would do.
Granted, there was the possibility of an anonymous message.
Alas, according to Zoey, this would have been inappropriate. “No sensitive girl would reply to sucha question by some anonymous guy. This would make your concern appear insincere.”
Of course, I was honestly concerned. Thus I had to torture myself into asking, using my proper name, in order to sound serious. Now I had to await a return.
The next evening, I was alone in my dormitory room, sobbing badly.
There was someone knocking at the door.
I opened the entrance.
Ashley stood outside, with a face as cold as stone.
This was nothing unusual.
It made me shudder over and over again.
Ashley commanded me to let her in.
My teeth started rattling.
I was not in the mood of disputing with a diva.
Ashley grunted, “hey, you are not the only one to feel pain.”
Of course I wasn’t. But I did not see any sense in that.
Ashley growled, “look at this!” She lifted her tank top and shrugged it off.
I went pale like a snow flake, thinking, “is Ashley now up to seducing me?” I choked.
Fortunately, things were not as they seemed.
Ashley growled, “look at these scars!”
There were a few on Ashley’s chest, on her back, and on her tummy.
I wondered, “where are they from?”
Ashley replied, “Vince!”
I gasped. “Is he beating you? Does your mom …”
Ashley shook her head at top speed. “Don’t even think about that!” She rebiuked me severely. “Vince is a loving family guy! These are traces of Vince’s hugs.”
I was puzzled.
Vince was excruciatingly athletic. He worked out a lot. During football games, he had got a lot of body contact with team members and opponents alike.
But they were usually almost equally tough, and sufficiently well protected on top of all.
Ashley was a fragile girl. And she hardly wore protective gear.
Vince Blake did by no means want to hurt his sister or any other of his close relatives. But he just could not help it.
Ashley donned her tank top again. “You see how easy it is, hurting someone you don’t really want to hurt badly, or even a beloved family member.”
Physically, the scars did not hurt Ashley any more.
But she could still remember the pains. And that made her concerned. “Please tell me about any news about the situation in Seattle. But don’t tell anyone I’m concerned!”
I sweated.
That was the good old Ashley Blake, colder than the glacier sinking the titanic.
But I had been one of the few seeing a vulnerable side of her.
This situation was not necessarily easy for me.
Paparazzi like Jeremiah Trottman would have assaulted me like vultures for knowing about it.
Finally, there was an answer from Seattle.
Carly comforted me a bit. She did not know how myuch this meant to me, though.
Lewbert had actually got quite a few cracks and bruises.
But none of his injuries were of vital significance.
The ugly wart in his face got blown off by the accident.
But Lewbert insists in getting it reattached by means of surgery.
I felt compelled to shudder all over again.
Carly, Freddie and Sam were now helping to nurse Lewbert.
Spencer was subbing for him as a doorman.
Alas, Marissa Benson, the evilly protective mother of Fredward, seemed to have a crush on him.
Tyler recovered fast upon these news. He immediately mailed an idea for a prank to tear Marissa and Lewbert apart.
Freddie was supposed to feign an injury.
His mother would have to care about him.
Lewbert would show his proper face due to hating kids.
Marissa would trash him thereupon.
This was Tyler’s plan.
Surprisingly, this one would work very well.
But I also had to draw my own conclusion. I would refrain thence from pranks and practical jokes with the potential of physical consequences like the prank pulled on Lewbert by Carly, Freddie, and Sam.
Logan Reese was a creep deserving to get hurt badly.
But I would not have wanted to be responsible for it, period.
Certain pranks were just plainly inappropriate.
Table of Contents
I was once more sitting in my lounge, along with Robbie, Tyler, and many other middle school kids.
It was once more time for a new session of Carly Shay’s wonderful web show.
The hosts greeted us with Japanese words.
I did not really understand them.
Truth spoken, none of us kids did.
Finally, Sam started to explain the reason. “Some guys in London are organising an annual award for the best web shows.”
Carly continued, “and guess who is nominated for the award of the best comedy show?”
Carly and Shay grinned triumphantly.
I cheered for them.
Finally some people have realised the superior quality of Carly’s web show.
This was totally fantastic.
I was already curious and looking forward to listening to them talking about their exciting trip to a fascinatingly foreign culture.
Carly continued, “and this year’s awards will be granted in …”
Fredward Benson inserted a background picture of Tokyo, and a virtual banderole with the name oif the city.
Sam and Carly squealed unison, “Tokyo!” They exhibited three tickets for a fist class flight to Tokyo. Then they started dancing like true Japanese geishas.
This explained the Japanese words.
Alas, Carly, Freddie and Sam had to admit to not being really proficient in that language.
I started worrying a bit.
Carly remarked, “but this is not too bad! Welcome my brother Spencer and his teacher for Japanese!”
Spencer walked in. He dragged a cardboard figure of a Japanese guy behind.
This cardboard thing was his teacher?
There was a computer attached to it.
I had already made some less favourable experiences with a similar, but more portable version of the whole thing.
Spencer demonstrated the device.
The machine started talking in Japanese.
Spencer had to listen and repeat.
Mistakes were punished by electric shocks.
And Spencer made a lot of them.
I felt awful for him and had to squeal along.
Then Carly and Sam introduced their competitors.
There was a French puppeteer and his dummy “Oumpeh”.
We kids all had got the same impression. “Lame!”
But there was also a pair of Japanese kids, pretending to be twins. They were called Kyoko and Yuki. They would clearly enjoy quite some domestic advantage. And they were really funny.
For example, Kyoko was wearing giant gloves and tried to play a guitar, in vain.
Of course, Carly was still the best.
But the Japanese people may have seen it differently.
And then there was the problem with the tickets.
The kids had only received three of them. But they needed responsible adult.
Spencer was needed as a tolk, too.
Alas, the demonstration of his “teacher for the Japanese language” was not exactly reassuring.
In addition, Fredward’s mother was terribly paranoid. She could hardly let Freddie make the long trip without her company. She hardly trusted Spencer with that.
Well, this was not exactly surprising.
Thus there were three tickets for five people.
Spencer saw no problem. “My friend Socko will trade them for five tickets in the economy class.” He had already talked a lot about his pal Socko.
But nobody had seen him for real.
He could have been a mean cheater of the worst sort.
I started getting totally worried.
Carly, Freddie, Sam, Spencer, and Mrs. Benson could be forced to fly in a really fragile plane.
The latter would burst into smithereens in the middle of the Pacific.
Carly could get swallowed by sharks.
I screamed like a fury upon that thought.
I woke up on and off during the following nights.
A series of nightmares was haunting me from end to end.
Everything had to do with Carly’s impending trip to Japan.
Sometimes she fell into the sea and was bit by sharks.
They were talking sharks calling Carly very tasty. They refused to eat sam or spt her out in one piece, deeming her inedible.
In other dreams, Carly was totally lost in Japan, unable to ask anyone for help due to her lack of knowledge of the Japanese language.
Spencer was of no help. He couldn’t learn Japanese for a dime.
My sweat was now soaking my whole bed.
Robert Carmichael had got a hard time calming me down.
Now I talked about my experiences with an electronic teacher of language.
Logan had once bought one, with a picture of a hot female “teacher”, in order to learn Russian. But he was too arrogant to feel the pain triggered by mistakes. He had thus hired me to feel in on his behalf. And he had made a lot of mistakes.
At least the payment had been good.
My pain had not helped him learn at all, though.
Those machines sucked completetly.
Zoey had not yet heard about it. She would have killed the jerk.
Carly should definitely have looked for another tolk.
But another means of transportation would have served equally well.
It was now time for my shift at “Sushi Rox”.
Hey, it was a Japanese pub!
And the boss, Kazu, was a Japanese guy.
Well, that was not exactly the case.
Kazu was from Alabama[kazu from alabama]. But he had definitely got Japanese ancestors, and he was able to speak and understand Japanese.
May that have been the solution of one of the problems?
I just hadto ask him.
“Sushi Rox” was fairly busy.
But there was a little break.
I had to use it in order to ask Kazu. I panted heavily. “Kazu have you got a minute?”
He did.
It took me a few efforts.
I stammered, “please, they will be lost without a tolk! And then Carly will get eaten by sharks.”
I must have confused several of my nightmares.
Kazu had listened to the whole sermon. He admitted to being certainly able to serve American tourists in Tokyo as a tolk.
But there was one problem, kind of. sort of.
Kazu would have had to close down “Sushi Rox” for a few days.
I had not thought about that beforehand. Now I banged my head against one of the pillars.
His waiters could serve the clients, but they were not able to cook .
And Kazu did not trust us kids any longer with his kitchen, especially the stove.
Finding some substitute for Kazu as a cook might have solved this problem. But it did not really do so.
Kazu would have been one more passenger for a flight to Tokyo and back.
Three tickets for six people?
No way!
Robbie tried to comfort me. “The easiest would be to organise a trustworthy transport for them.”
OK, that sounded reasonable.
Alas, I did not own an airways company.
A private jet would have served the same purpose.
But we Brooks could not afford one.
I only knew one person with a private jet …
But I hated him now.
His name was of couse: Logan Reese!
I could barely imagine begging him on my knees into leaving his family’s private jet for almost a whole week unto Carly Shay and her friends from Seattle.
He would have forced me to do dirty jobs for him, over and over again.
I shuddered for excruciating disgust.
Tyler Pearson chuckled. “You must trick Logan into doing it voluntarily.”
That was a nice idea.
But how to do it?
Tyler told me, “just leave it all to me!”
Tyler had pretty soon learned a whole lot about our school. “Logan is not the only student with a family jet.”
I looked puzzled.
Tyler had figured, “the Griffins have got one, too. It is, of course, reserved for true stars.”
Ashley Blake had listened. “Aw, I know it. It is really exciting. A trip in the jet of Mercedes Griffin, that is.” She boasted mercilessly with her celebrity. “There are whirl pools, fridges, servants reading your wishes off your face, have I already mentioned the pools?” She strutted arrogantly up and down the foyer of our residence hall.
This was a hell of annoying.
Ashley declared boastfully, “I would not mind taking a trio in the Reese jet, though, especially alone with Logan.” She waggled her crumple zones.
But her face remained as cold as antarctic ice.
Maybe she had got a crush on the dandy of Malibu? Or she just wanted to humiliate Logan in some way for having stuck up to Chase against her big brother.
Either of these would have served Logan well.
I would definitely have loved to see Quinn’s face when catching her “boyfriend” in flagrante delicto with some other girl, especially a heartless diva.
It would have meant havoc for their tainted relationship.
Tyler continued, “OK, that could be it. Both Mercedes and Logan are damn’ proud of their family’s luxorious possessions. All we need to do is stoking the fire of envy and competition …”
I was watching Tyler and Logan from across the foyer.
Tyler claimed, “according to Ashley Blake, the famous Hollywood star, the Griffin jet is much better than your Reese jet.”
Logan gasped. “That’s impossible! The Griffin clan only owns cheap trash.”
Tyler shrugged. “If you say so. Ms. Griffin is possibly inclined to lend her private jet unto a few future stars from Seattle on their way to Japan and back. I could bet a buck … your plane could not even make it unscathed to Tokyo and back. It has too many cracks and would burst in the ocean.”
Logan gasped. “How dare you, you … toad? The Reese jet is the best, ever! My dad has been with it to Japan, forth and back, at least twice a year. Butler Chaunsey[chaunsey]
has made his pilot’s license and …”
I remembered that.
His dad had once sent him a horror movie and a Japanese J-phone from tokyo.[jphone].
J-phones are illegal in America. But they are perfect in Japan.
Coming to think of it, the reverse was probably true as well.
Carly , Freddie, and Sam would go to Japan without japanese cellular phones.
I had to do something about it.
Wendy Gellar stumbled in, followed closely by Mercedes Griffin.
Logan almost puked. He could not stand the vicinity of another spoiled rich jerk, even a hottie like Mercedes Griffin.
Mercedes growled, “what? You deem your own lousy jet better than the luxury Griffin jet? Are you insane?”
Logan replied, “oh yeah! Your rusty steel chicken won’t even get its wings off the ground.”
Tyler Pearson listened for a few minutes to the ongoing dispute. But, finally, he intervened, “Logan! Mercedes! There is only one way to find out which privvate jet is most suited to a trip to Japan.”
The spoiled teenagers glared at Tyler.
He explained, “try it out! Take a group of passengers from America to Tokyo and back! And then let them decide!”
Mercedes gasped. “You won’t find even two passengers willing to fly in the Reese Jet from here to Seattle, let alone to Tokyo.”
Logan thundered, “aw, in your dreams. Want to give up?”
Mercedes shook her head violently. “Not even dead!”
The contest was agreed on.
I giggled mischievously.
But there was still no tolk for them.
But tonight, a mid-aged Chinese woman visited “Sushi Rox”.
I had to take her to Kazu.
She introduced herself as Mrs. Lee, a migrant from China. “I run several Chinese restaurants in California. As of recent, I’ve also acquired ‘Hongkong Palace’[hongkong palace] in New Tork City and other cities in that region.”
Kazu shrugged. “That’s good for you.”
Mrs. Lee’s headquarter was “Wok Star”, Hollywood’s most renowned Chinese restaurant.
Mrs. Lee declared herself ready to take over “Sushi Rox” for a week, allowing for Kazu to take a trip to Tokyo and back.
Kazu was surprised. But he was totally happy about seeing his ancestry’s homelands again. He still had got some fourth cousins in Tokyo.
Everything appeared now fixed.
The fun could begin.
Instead of one private jet, we had now even got two of them at our disposition.
But what would Carly’s adventures in Japan look like exactly?
[kazu from alabama] cf. Zoey 101 : People Auction
[chaunsey] from Zoey 101 : Spring Break-Up
[jphone] cf. Zoey 101 : Drippin
[hongkong palace] Chinese restraurant from Unfabulous
Table of Contents
11.1. Daisy Lee[daisy lee]
So, Carly Shay and the bunch were now in Japan, along with Kazu.
Mrs. Lee was responsible for the kitchen oof “Sushi Rox”.
We would not have expected the Chinese lady to be able to cook sushi, just rice.
But that was a flawed assumption.
Mrs. Lee was obviously quite able to cook in an international manner.
Unfortunately, her daughter Daisy was a real pest. She tried to make it into the Hollywood business.
Mrs. Lee was supporting her.
Her main restaurant, “Wok Star”, contained a wall of fame.
This was a huge wall board containing pictures of prominewnt stars from the Hollywood business having dined once in that restaurant.
Some of those stars ha never been seen again afterwards.
Why did that make me worry?
Daisy appeared really naïve. But she was one intriguing wench.
I told Daisy plainly, “if you want to make it to Hollywood, you need to crawl up the rear of Logan Reese or Mercedes Griffin!”
Ashley saw Daisy with suspicious eyes. She deemed her as a future competitor. Thence she disapproved of my suggestion.
Daisy liked the wonderful idea, though.
Mrs. Lee had scrutinised the location of “Sushi Rox” over and over, too much for a temporary working spot. What was the reason?
Finally, the week of “Tokyo Web Awards” was over.
Due to the time shift, the live broadcast had occurred at times impossible for us to watch.
This was kind of sort of similar to Zoey’s and my problems talking to our parents in London.
But Carly Shay, Fredward Benson, and Samantha Puckett would probably dedicate their next sessions of their web show to showing video clips from their adventures in Japan.
Before anything else, we were glad to have Kazu back.
Logan and Mercedes, on the other hands, welcomed the return of their private jets.
Logan supposed, “now my jet had been used by vulgar mobs for a whole weeks. It must stink for vulgarity. I betterget it cleaned inside out.”
Mercedes was of a similar opinion concerning her own jet. But she could not stand Logan’s way of boasting with his own. “You still call ypour flying junk yard a jet? That’s disgusting!”
Logan replied in kind, of course.
We were sitting in our lounge, awaiting Carly’s first appearance since her adventures in Japan.
Freddie counted down as usual, no, not as usual. This time, he used Japanese numbers.
Sam was dressed as a black ninja.
Carly was dressed as a samurai.
This was a cool framework for their video clips from Japan.
First, Carly showed us the private jets from the inside.
There was a whirl pool, a frisdge, and servants, just as mentioned by Ashley Blake.
Carly sighed. “I would marry for such a jet.”
I fainted for jealousy.
Sam admitted, “I would kill for such a jet.”
That was totally believable.
The way to Japan, Carly, Sam, and Spencer had been using Logan’s jet.
The Bensons were using that of Mercedes.
The way back, they switched places.
They showed us pictures of Chaunsey, the butler of the Reese family.
Sam announced, “good news! Marissa Benson will soon marry Chaunsey!”
Freddie was upset. He deemed it a nightmare. But he was unable to do anything about it.
We did not want to risk any more stuff like with Lewbert.
Chaunsey may have been boring, but he was certainly not a mess like the disgusting doorman from “Bushwel Plaza”.
Then Freddie inserted pictures of their hotel in Tokyo.
Carly explained, “and here, Spencer tries Japanese candy from the bath rooms!”
Samm remarked, “of course it was soap!”
We saw Spencer spitting foam and had to laugh mercilessly.
Carly continued, “these were our worst competitors, Kyoko and Yuki! They clkaimed to be twin siblings.”
Freddie continued, “but it was all a lie. Thanks to Kazu, we had been able to understand their Japanese talk.” He inserted a picture of Kazu.
Sam clarified, “they are really a married couple. It wiould have been completely inappriopriate for siblings to talk as they had done!”
Carly nodded vigorously. “But that was not all. They invited us to a shopping trip through Tohyo …”
Sam continued, “in order to get rid of us somewhere out in the outskirts. So they could win the award due to the absence of the competitors. That’s really bad!” She triggered a virtual boo call.
Freddie sighed deeply.
Carly continued, “they wanted to get rid of Spencer and Freddie’s mom too.”
Sam explained, “luring them into a nearby ‘wellness centre’ for a traditional Japanese kelp wrap. I would have eaten all the kelp, of course.” She sighed.
Carly was feeling mildly nauseous upon that thought. “By the way, we could not even have called for help in Tokyo with our American cellular phones. They don’t work in Japan.”
Sam beamed, “fortunately, we had got a real Japanese J-Phone!” She took one and held it aloft.
Carly beamed, “they may download your favourite movies over night!”
Freddie had to warn us, “but they are not permitted in the United States. They may trigger fire alerts.”
Carly gasped. “Bad, bad J-phone!” She chuckled mercilessly.
Sam continued, “finally, we made it to the awards.”
Carly remarked, “next week, we will show you our awarded skits.”
We sighed. We had been so curious.
Finally, Freddie showed us pictures of the gang at the golden winners’ ceremony.
Mrs. Benson had to inspect the golden cup for pointy or toxic contents. “Freddie could get hurt this way.”
But it had aopparently been alright.
And there we saw Carly with her award in her hands, first on a video clip from Tokyo, and then for real.
That was totally sweet.
Carly was of course the best, just as usual.
I was done with a delivery of dead fish and other dead stuff.
The kitchen door at “Sushi Rox” was not completely closed.
I could listen to an ongoing converstaion between Kazu and Mrs. Lee.
Kazu seemed very much upset.
Mrs. Lee grunted, “you think I sub for you out here for no cost? You could not be any more stupid.”
Kazu was all pale. “What do you want?”
Mrs. Lee grinned demonically, “I want ‘Sushi Rox’, no more and no less.”
Kazu shivered all over. “I’ve worked hard for two decades, seen the pub burn down and get rebuild,[burning pub]
just in order to …”
Mrs. Lee grinned. “Correct! After the accident, your Dean Rivers had been forced by the muunicipal authority for fire prevention to introduce an obligatory fire insurance for all kinds of business running on the campus.”
I sighed, thinking “cinema tickets had become more expensive right after the fire. That must have been the reason.”
An obligatory fire insurance certainly made a lot of sense on a fairly crowded campus like this one.
Mrs. Lee continued, “I’ve got the reports from the competent fire insurance office. You are behind in paying the fees for … twenty months by now. Your debits amount to thousands of bucks.”
Kazu went pale. “How could you know that?”
Mrs. Lee cackled. “My ‘Wok Star’ is enrolled in the same office for fire insurance, like almost all restaurants of Los Angeles. And, according to the latest letter, the fees will soon get increased even more in the outskirts.”
Kazu choked and coughed. He had to admit to his fatal miscalculations from the period following the reopening of “Sushi Rox”.
Clearly, he would have had to increase the prices for sushi in order to be able to pay the insurance fees.
But this would have turned away many students.
And he would not have been able to pay the waiters and delivery guys as much as usual.
This would have been a difficulty already right after the reopening.
Now the accumulation of debts would make it even worse.
“Sushi Rox” was now in a real danger.
The existence of the Japanese café had started to show cracks long ago.
A total breakdown was now totally hard to avoid.
In addition, the business would have been illegal.
Dean Rivers or the board could have gotten Kazu deported to Siberia.
Mrs. Lee used that mercilessly.
I still remember the humiliating fund raising action by my sister and her friends.
Everything had been for naught.
Kazu’s current debts exceeded by far the amount of bucks invested after the fiery accident.
Needless to say, Kazu was consternated.
Selling “Sushi Rox” would not have worked at all, due to the high insurance debts.
He felt blackmailed, but he had got no other choice. He passed out on site.
Logan Reese and Mercedes Griffin were still bickering over theur private jets.
Carly, Freddie, Sam, Spencer, and Mrs. Benson were supposed to be able to decide on the better one.
Fact was:
They all had enjoyed both of the trips equally much, be it in Logan Reese’s jet or in that of Mercedes Griffin.
Tyler was watching them in Logan’s dormitory room, “148 Maxwell Hall”.
We were communicating via cellular phone.
But now Tyler had to interrupt our conversation in order to call Quinn Pensky.
What was the purpose?
Tyler was sure up to something.
Half an hour later, my cellular phone rang again.
Of course it was Tyler pearson.
I picked it up.
Tyler grinned mercilessly. “One couple is down!”
I did not quite understand.
Tyler explained, “It’s all over between Quinn and Logan.”
My face brightened up. “Cool! How did that go?”
Tyler cackled. “I had seen that coming: Logan and Mercedes started making out in front of Quinn’s eyes.”
I choked. “Brilliant!”
Tyler grinned. “It was not hard to recognise a cpouple of soul mates like Logan Reese and ‘Missy Meany’.”
I sighed for relief.
Certainly, Mercedes Griffin had always been the closest thing to a female verion of Logan Reese.
They may have appeared to be stuck in eternal hatred.
But it was just their jerkish way of showing mutual admiration.
But that was not unusual for people being really close, especially particularly spoiled ones.
I had sometimes wondered about Freddie and Sam in a similar manner.
Just where did Tyler’s instinct come from?
Maybe he had said something to Logan Reese and Mercedes in order to speed everything up.
Whatever, he had called Quinn just in the right moment, no earlier and no later.
I did not have to worry.
Now there were still two foul and decadent frail couples to break asunder:
Michael and Lisa were still stuck in mutual abuse.
Lola and Vince were not much better.
Kazu was still holding the wolf by the ears, dure to the frail situation of “Sushi Rox”.
Now things started to take another interesting turn.
Kazu would have liked at least to stay at current “Sushi Rox” as a responsible employee in the service of Mrs. Lee and “Wok Star”.
But there was one problem.
The tradition of Lee enterprises only allowed family members in such a responsible position.
I suggested, “oh, you just have to marry into the Lee clan.”
Kazu blushed. “Mrs. Lee is hot, but …” He seemed to have remorses.
Maybe the Japanese and the Chinese did not go very well together?
But this was a solvable problem, especially for Tyler Pearson.
Table of Contents
We werer once more collected in our lounge in ordeer to watch Carly’s exorbitantly wonderful web show.
But thsi day was not much fun.
Carly had got a very sad thing to announce.
Mr. Gallini[mr gallini]
, their favourite pie baker, had just bit the dust.
I had not yet heard of him any earlier.
And Freddie had not yet had any of his delicious cream pies.
But this did not make things any better.
Sam was addicted to cream pies. She would inevitably wreak havoc of the worst sort.
I still remembered the day of the death of Chase’s grandmom,
There was a huge problem:
Mr. Gallini had always kept his recipe for the coconut cream pies a secret.
It had to stay in the family.
This was somewhat similar to Mrs. Lee’s refusal to make anyone outside the family the first man of a branch of her business, including Kazu.
Thus a long culinary tradition was just on the brink of getting extinct.
Maybe the secret had its cracks and could be broken loose?
The funeral of Mr. Gallini was around the corner.
Carly had one desperate request for the viewers: She needed to collect new cream pie recipes and look for one to replace Gallini’s.
But maybe this was mission impossible.
Some had speculated about the possibility of Gertrude Gallini, the grandaughter of old Mr. Gallini, knowing the recipe.
But this was just a vague hope.
Trudy Gallini was a mid aged wannabe Hollywood actress with uttermost ugly looks and no talent, as completely opposed to Lola and Ashley.
We kids were speculating about recipes for cream pies.
I did not dare to submit a suckish one.
Carly would have gated me for submitting a not so tasty cream pie.
So … what to do?
Kazu was an expert for sushi. But he was not exactly a great pie maker.
Then I remembered Zoey’s cakes.
She had made some in a desperate attempt to raise funds in order to pay Lola’s debts.[zoeys cakes].
Too bad those were not exactly cream pies. but they were delicious.
Unfortunately, voracious Coco Wexler had stolen them, disabling Zoey from making money with them.
But Zoey had thus demonstrated her ability to make good pies.
I would not have dared to bother her.
But Tyler urged me rigorously to do so.
So why should there not have been a chance of Zoey making the perfect coconut cream pie?
Zoey gasped. “You expect me to come up with a recipe for the most delicious coconut cream pies?”
I nodded solemnly.
Zoey sighed. “Hey, I’ve made a few pies with ice cream, coconut ice cream, but these don’t really qualify as coconut cream pies.”
I sighed deeply. “But you are Zoey! Things you make have to be perfect.”
Zoey coughed. “Do you really think so?”
I nodded desperately.
Zoey sighed deeply. “OK, I will submit the recipe. The last time for me to try to comfort someone over the death of someone else had been the death of Chase’s grandma.”
I nodded sadly.
Zoey continued, “and how has he thanked me?”
I sighed deeply.
Zoey shuddered. “Let’s hope Carly is not like that.”
I was alone in my dorm.
Robbie was hiding up in his treehouse built by Stacey Dillsen and Mr. Chopsaw, using a power chain saw.
Ashley Blake knocked on my door.
I opened. “Ashley? What are you doing here?”
Ashley sighed. “Do you remember my scars from Vince’s hugs?”
I sighed.
It had been a really grisly discovery.
The death of Mr. Gallini, of course …
Ashley continied, “and Lola will be submitted to much more than just a few simple hugs.”
I coughed.
Did I have to think about the perverse things committed by Lola and Vince behind locked doors? I almost had to throw up.
Ashley sighed. “Vince wants at least three kids with Lola, two boys and one girl.”
My disgust increased.
Ashley yelled, “Lola is in vital danger!”
I choked. I had never thought of it.
With Vince lacking the ability of controlling his unearthly muscle strength, he could of course have gotten Lola hurt easily, especially in those very disgusting scenes.
I had never deemed Ashley able of caring about Lola, though.
She just appeared to have seen her as the worst possible enemy and rival. Now she really surprised me.
Some assumptions had seemed to be really frail.
And Lola’s bones were probably not the toughest, too. In all verisimilitude, they already showed substantial cracks from apllications of Vince’s brute strength.
Ashley’s conclusion was now simple: “I have to break Vince and Lola apart, just in order to avoid those otherwise inevitable accidents! May Tyler help me, as he did for breaking Quinn and Lola apart?”
I shrugged. “Do you have to help me?” I was not accustomed to Ashley asking.
Ashley sighed. “According to Megan, I do have to ask you. She has left Tyler exclusively in your service.”
I nodded solemnly. I was interested in breaking Vince and Lola apart, too, albeit for different reasons.
During the folowing days, my sunspense was increasing steadily.
I had imagined many possible reactions of Carly, Freddie, and Sam to Zoey’s cream pies.
The time of truth was now here.
Fredward Benson counted the secods. “Onlune in five … four … three … two …”
The girls gave their usual introduction sequence.
Then they started talking about the cream pies.
Carly explained, “well, Spencer has tried to date Trudy in order to get at the recipe.”
I shook my head. “Trudy is only worthy of Lewbert!”
Tyler agreed wholeheartedly.
Carly reported. “But Tryudy has not known it either. She only abused Spencer. He is still puking.”
A disgusting sound was heard from downstairs.
Carly contiinued. “Then there was the funeral.”
Sam reported, “we had got a hint. The secret recipe was hidden in his computer.”
Carly chuckled.
Sam contunued, “Fredcreep tried to hack it and stiuff. But for no avail. Then I smashed the hardware into smithereens. And there it was!”
Carly grinned. “Well, the secret formula is saved, but we don’t need ut anymore.”
Sam continued, “for we have found the perfect cream pie.”
Carly nodded. “One of you, my dear viewers, has sent us the perfect recipe for a cream pie with cocunut icecream.”
Sam triggered a virtual drum roll.
Carly grinned. “Now you might ask, ‘which of the many recipes sent in hads convinced us?’”
Sam nodded.
Carly continued, “there should be an award, but we have not yet thought of any.”
Sam moaned, “hey, why don’t we just keep the recipe and run away with it?”
Carly sighed. “Well, the viewer with the perfect recipe is in this sealed envelope.”
Sam moaned, but she triggered the expected drum roll.
Carly closed her eyes and ripped open the envelope.
And there was the winner.
She opened her eyes. “And the winner is: Dustin Brooks, with a recipe by Zoey Brooks.”
Samantha Puckett threw up on site and emptied her stomach onto Fredward’s pants and shoes.
Freddie looked consternated.
Carly wondered, “Sam? What is wrong?”
Samantha Puckett shook her head. “I must have eaten it too fast.”
I wagered something else.
Sam considered Zoey Brooks her arch enemy forever, and was now totally dismayed by the thought of having eaten a crem pie made according to her recipe.
Carely continued, “sorry, Sam can’t continue. Freddie, would you please …”
The show went offline.
I sighed deeply.
The problem with Lola and Vince persisted.
Ashley sighed. “Lola must already be cracked and bruised all over. But she is too blind for lust to admit to those pains.”
I feared the same.
Tyler had got a plan., “Shelby is really hard to tell from Lola.”
I nodded solemnly.
Tyler continued, “but Shelby ios strong and agile. She would not get hurt by Vince.”
I grinned. “Probably not! She’;s solid as a rock!”
Tyler continued, “indeed, Shelby is Lola’s stunt double in some of the dangerous action movies.”
Ashley nodded solemnly. “I need stunt doubles for almost everything. I’m a celebrity, I don’t want to sweat!”
This was so true.
Tyler continued, “well, making out with Vince is a dangerous scene, Thus she needs her stunt double.”
I coughed. “You want to make Vince believe into making out wiith Lola, but he really does so to Shelby?”
Tyler nodded gleefully.
I moaned. “That is mean! But it is … brilliant!”
Ashley grinned diabolically.
We hi-fived.
Ashley added, “it will break poor Lola’s heart, but better than her backbone.” She shuddered.
I added, “Lola should not have any problems in finding some successor for Vince.”
Ashley nodded solemnly. “I’ve already got an idea. There’s a hot student at ‘Hollywood school for the Professional Performance Arts’. His name is Beck Oliver. He may be in the same cast as Lola for an upcoming show by Malcolm Reese.”
Tyler grinned. “That’s cool!”
But there were two hitches.
On the one hand, Lola had probably fallen out of favour with Malcolm Reese.
Logan had suggested her due to the friendship of Quinn and Lola.
But Logan’s and Quinn’s relationship was all over now.
This made Logan little inclined to bear Quinn’s best friend and her escapades any longer.
On the other hand, Beck Oliver had already got a girlfriend named Jade West, a totally weird and aggressive goth girl.
But the relationship of Beck and Jade was totally perverted from the ground up, just like the equally corrupt thing between Quinn and Logan.
I had not got any qualms letting Tyler break them apart.
Whatever, we had to be very careful.
But now it was time for enjoying a slice of Zoey’s perfect cream pie.
We had to keep it in a secret place in order to hide it from Coco Wexler.
Tyler announced, “by the way, I’ve already submitted a prank in order to make Trudy and Lewbert date.”
That sounded very interesting indeed.
And Carly, Freddie, and Sam better would not mess it up this time.
Table of Contents
This session of Carly’s most wonderful web show appeared to be particularly interesting.
Carly, Freddie, and Sam talked about first kisses.
I blushed when hearing about Carly’s kiss.
The guy was a certain Ben Huebscher[ben huebscher]
.
They had been eating some mediocre potato salad right before that.
Sam was totally coldhearted when talking about her first kiss during a “Cuttle Fish” concert.
That was one of the most popular bands in the state of Washington.
Of course that had only one of terribly many of Sam’s prior kisses, including our uttermost disgusting makeout scenes.
I almost had to puke for thinking of them.
Freddie did not reveil anything.
Then they showed a short movie made by them at school: Kelly Kooper — A Terrible Movie.
However, the movie was fairly cool.
Tyler had successfully lured Kazu and Mrs. Lee into a dark room and locked thme in over night.
Sometimes this old trick appeared to work best.
The Japanese bar would soon be run by Mr. Kazu Lee and his wife.
That was one big surprise for most of us pupils.
Tyler grinned with excruciating mischief.
By now, it meant free sushi for everyone.
The next session, Sam blurted out with a shocking revelation. “Freddie has not yet kissed a girl!”
Of course this was not my business.
But yelling this into a public web show was a naughty thing from Sam to do.
Freddie would now feel humiliated by everyone.
Well, I would not have expected anything else from a true Sam Puckett alias Trisha Kirby.
Stacey Dillsen was totally disappointed. She had supposed Freddie and Carly having already kissed.
At least she expected Carly to do so now in order to end Freddie’s misery. She ran across the campus, shouting “Creddie! Creddie! Creddie!”
This was really annoying.
Zoey’s senior prom was coming closer and closer.
But they needed better music.
Last year’s prom band, consisting of lame rock musicians like Dirk, Blake, and Suzé[dirk blake suzee]
had been a catastrophe. They were thieves, anyways. Last year, those ruthless charlatans of the utterly worst sort had stolen Spencer shay’s drum set. Pne day, they would for sure pay dearly for their excessively evil deed.
But who else would qualify?
I thought of Drake Parker, the elder brother of Megan.
His concert at “Pacific Coast Academy”, four years ago, had been fantastic.
Stupidly, I had missed out on it.
That was all the fault of Quinn Pensky.
I had been her test rabbit for her rheory about sleep withdrawal.
A device had kept me from sleeping by means of electric shocks.
After a few days without sleep, I had been annoyed over the top and asked a passerby to sunder the device off me. I dropped asleep right at the begin of the concert.
The worst things was: “I had already paid for it!”
That sucked utterly and completely.
The worst possibility was that of letting Lisa Perkins and Michael Barret sing.
Truth said, Michael can’t sing in the public. He may only puke. But he may open and close his mouth, letting a tape play and Lisa sing the much more impressive female lead voice, anyways. Michael was a great music producer, though. He should have applied for an internship at some record label,such as nearby “Rocque Records”m “Spin City Records”[spin city records], “Cage Records”[cage records]
, or “Revolutionary Records”[revolutionary records].
Those labels pretty much worked hand in hand and were all members of infamous “Fukixaki Trust”, along with Malcolm Reese’s studioes.
Maybe any of those labels was able to lend us a band?
Unfirtunately this would not have been cheap.
And the seniors did not have endless money.
There needed to be some cheaper solution.
My next idea was that of asking the specialised schools in Los Angeles for support, such as “Palmwood” and “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”.
They could certainly name a few hitherto undiscovered talents.
Robbie Carmichael, Tyler Pearson, and Wendy Gellar liked this idea insanely much.
Wendy had learned music production in order to impress Drake. She had participated in a summer camp for future players in the rock business.[summer camp for rock music]. She was certainly able to move around in a world of future Hollywood stars.
Likewise, Ashley Blake wanted to get back at the arrogant hindsides in the administration of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”. She had been turned down because of her lack of ability for team work. Now she wanted to show them what’s business.
We cast dice.
I had to go to “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” along with Ashley.
The rest of us went to “Palmwood”.
13.6. Principal Eichman[principal eichman]
So, this was the campus of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”.
The lockers were all full of ugly graffiti called “Art” by some of the students.
But we did not stop there.
Our destination was the office of Principal Eichman.
I was totally anxious.
Ashley remained as cold as ice.
I had never seen the advantages of Ashley’s demeanour. But now I was glad about her coldness. I would have been even more excited otherwise.
And this was the office of the headmaster. It was pretty much like that of Dean Rivers.
The headmaster himself appeared five minutes later.
Unfortunately, I was not aware of his identity.
One year ago, Mr. Eichman had bought Carly’s web show and made it into a TV show.
But the result had been totally lame.
Carly was glad to get rid of TV and make it back to her old home-made web cast.
I would never have trusted such a filthy creep.
Ashley grunted, “OK, we need some gifted musician for our school’s prom.”
Eichman wondered, “you are certainly not going to graduate any time soon.”
Ashley glared at him in a murderous manner.
I stammered, “our elder siblings are. And we want to do something good for them.”
Ashley confirmed, “only the best is good enough for them!”
Of course we needed to be able to pay for it.
But we could not say this straight like that.
Eichman sighed. “OK, I can only recommend Caterina Vega.”
We shrugged.
That name did not exactly ring a bell.
Wait!
The name “Vega” existed in Lola’s family. It’s a typical Latina family name.
But that was not unlikely to be an accident.
I sighed. “Nothing better known?”
The most promising talents of the last years had graduated last summmer. They were David R. Couleda[david r couleda] and Jordy N. Sporx[jordy n sporx].
Jordy had won last year’s edition of “America Sings”[america sings]
.
David was still in the race for the current season of the same popular casting show for future rock and pop stars.
Of course with such a high dose of fame, their price would be high, too high for us.
So we were restricted to choosing among the currently available talents.
And this appeared to mean: Trina Vega.
Unfortunately, we were not allowed to visit the students in their classes. We had to come back at some later point.
Wendy’s, Tyler’s and Robbie’s trip to “palmwood” had not been much more promising.
I had believed Ashley to be one arrogant diva.
But now it was time for me to know it better.
The biggest bitches were thre girls residing at “Palmwood” known as the “Jennifers”.
Maybe that family name was as fake as their stories.
In any case, their arrogance was not to be beaten.
And then there was a certain “guitar dude”. He didn’t even have a real name. He was just known like that.
But even Wendy Gellar had not been able to talk to him.
Our chances for decent music at Zoey’s prom were thus converging stronly to zilch.
Days had gone by sincxe Carly’slast session on the interweb.
But now it was the right time.
Fredie had ggone through hell and was not even present.
But what did Sam? She started talking about not making too much of Freddie’s status. “There are others like that. Take me, for example!”
That was a nice thing of Sam’s to stick up for Freddie.
But she had been blatantly lying.
I did not really care.
Too much time had gone by since my perverted date with the Pukebucket.
But Tyler could not leave it there. He wqs totally upset. “Sam is such a liar!”
I wanted to leave it there.
But Tyler explained, “people should not think you’ve made up stuff about Sam and you. That’s not fair!”
I shrugged.
Tyler was right. He was now going to send a mail to Carly, denouncing Sam as a double-faced liar of the worst sort.
But now it was just my word against Sam’s.
In the beginning, Carly had been indeed little inclined to believe me.
But there was a witness.
Samantha’s monozygotic twin sister, viz. Melanie, confirmed Tyler’s claim.
Freddie did not believe in Melanie’s existence. He asked, “Sam, was that just a cheap trick in order to get me to kiss you?”
Sam gasped. “Fredward! You did not want to talk about that!”
Carly gasped. “Freddie? Sam? Have you something to tell me? Hey!” But she was afraid.
Tyler had also submitted an audio to get played in the background, in case of Freddie and Sam starting bickering over it.
Carly shrugged and pushed a button.
Music filled the air.
Megan Parker’s oboe dictated the tune.
Nessun’ dorma!
Nessun’ dorma!
Tu, pure Freddork,
Nella tua fredda stanza
Guardi le stelle
Che tremano d’amore
E di speranza
Ma il mio mistero
È chiuso in me
Il nome mio nessun saprà
Sulla bocca te lo dirò
Quando la luce splenderà
Ed il mio bacio scioglerà il silenio
Che ti fa mio
Dilegua la notte
Tramontate le stelle
All’alba vincerò! [nessun dorma]
Seconds passed in silence.
Carly looked consternated at Freddie and Sam.
Finally, the silence was broken.
The bickering sidekicks could not help but kiss in front of Cary, and in front of the web cam.
Carly’s eyes bugged out.
Was she dreaming or what?
Hardly!
We applauded.
Tyler grinned diabolically. “I so knew it!”
[ben huebscher] mentioned in iCarly : iKiss
[dirk blake suzee] identifies the band from Zoey 101 : Chasing Zoey with same actors’ rôles in iCarly : iAm Your Biggest Fan.
[spin city records] cf. Drake & Josh : Really Big Shrimp
[cage records] from Spectacular!
[revolutionary records] This record label appears in Victorious : Birthweek Song
[summer camp for rock music] This alludes to third-party owned Camp Rock.
[principal eichman] cameo in Victorious : Pilot.
He is here identified with same actor’s rôle as TV producer Brad in iCarly :
[david r couleda] from iCarly : iRock The Votes
spoof off “David Archuleta”
[jordy n sporx] from Big Time Rush : Big Time Sparks
[america sings] cf. iCarly : iRock The Votes
[nessun dorma] aria from Turandot buy G. Puccini
Let nobody sleep! Even you, Freddork, in your cold dormitory, watch the stars trembling for love and hope. But my mystery is locked inside me. Let none know my name! I’ll tell it onto your mouth in the shining light. nd my kiss will melt the silence, making you mine. Begone, oh night! Begone, oh stars! I will win at dawn.
Table of Contents
I was ionce more gathered with my middle school friends in order to watch yet another section of Carly’s perfect web show.
Now, this time, there was even something to win.
Carly explained, “this is the son of Don Flunken[don flunken]
, the greatest car vendor of Seattle.”
Samantha Puckett triggered the fake applause.
We smiled.
Carly Shay explained, “and Don Flunken is ready to give away a car to the first one of you answering this perfect riddle.”
Of course I was still too young to ride a car.
But Zoey’s eighteenth birthday was already so close.
A new car would have been a perfect birthday gift.
The son of the car dealer opened an envelope. “OK, listen! A cowboy comes riding to down on a Fridauy. He starys for three days. Then he leaves again on a Friday. How is this possible?”
Freddie inserted the same thing as a text in the background.
I knew a similar riddle. I could easily imagine the answer. “The horse is named Friday!” I would never have dared to reply officially.
But it was too late.
Tyler was typing the answer for me, without my agreement.
I gasped, “what are you doing?”
Tyler grinned. “Let you win a price!”
I went totally pale, hoping for someoe somewhere else to have been faster.
Minutes passed with wild discussions among us.
At the end of the session, Carly returned to the riddle. “OK, so we have got a winner. But what was the solution?”
The son of Don Flunken replied, “‘Friday’ is the name of the cowboy’s horse.”
Carly smiled. “Yeah! Who would not have known it!.”
Sam triggered another fake applause.
Carly continued, “quite a few of our viewers should have guessed it right. But only one ofthem is our winner.” She smiled sweetly, making me blush a deep shade of carmine. “And the winner is … Dustin Brooks from Malinu!”
I went pale. I had actually won a car for Zoey’s birthday!
Tyler opened the video chat request.
I was now seen on the monitor in the attic studio of Carly’s show. I waved timidly. “Hi!”
Carly gasped. “Oh, Dustin, aren’t you Sam’s ex boyfriend?”
I gasped. “Somehow!”
The blond demon went totally pale.
Carly panted, “OK, that’s not our problem. So, you still live in Malibu, don’t you?”
I nodded solemnly.
Carly sighed. “OK, I will go to Don Flunken and talk to him. Then we will call you back.”
I nodded timidly. “Good idea …”
My heart was beating like a turbo steam engine.
So, I had won a car.
That was incredible, but incredibly cool.
I still wondered about a possibility to fetch teh car from Seattle.
Maybe Melanie could fetch if from there for me. But she did notyet have a driver’s permit, either.
That was a bitscary.
Anyways, I still had to come to see the car.
The next day, I was expecting a video message, showing the car won in the riddle.
This made me very excited.
Robbie was going to watch with me.
And there it was …
And the alert bell rang.
Robbie pushed the buttons.
I was too nervous to do so.
But what was that?
Carly plastered a very sad face.
My breath froze.
Carly sobbed. “Hello! Sorry, Dustin! I know, the prize was a brand new car from Don Flubken. But … we have been there … and tehre is no such thing as a car to give away. There is not even a son of Don Flunken. I still don’t know how to say it. Oops, I just did!” She shed a few tears and broke down before the web cam.
Freddie probably had had to push teh emegrency button.
So, I wondered, “who was the guy reading the question? Probably some charlatan.”
I would not have minded a car that much.
But it would have been a cool gift for Zoey.
It would be her last birthday at “Pacific Coast Academy”, and maybe her last in my presence for quite some time.
So this deserved a special gift.
Robbie read a postscriptum.
The crew of teh show was considering another award, but one not costing money.
Robbie boomed. “I know what award you wish!” He was ready to write an answer.
I gasped. “No! The car would have been for Zoey. Thus I can’t request anything for myself. That would stink!”
One day later, aforementioned nevel papperman sent me a video message.
I knew him alreasdy as the archenemy of Carly’s web show.
It was necessary to be careful.
He was very dangerous.
Tyler opened the message for me.
Nevel grinned. “Carly has broken her frail promise of a car to the fastest correect answer. This sort of false promises is illegal over the interweb. You should sue the web show. Mr. Bullock[mr bullock]
of the LCC will be interested.”
I gasped.
Tyler turned the thing off.
I sobbed. “But it wasn’t Carly’s fault.” Of course I would never have done anything like that. “And Carly is really sorry. And who is Mr. Bullok and the LCC? And why does Nevel know everything in advance?”
Tyler shrugged.
But what it really possible to get teh web show shut down for that?
That consequence would have been a horrible one, worse than anything else.
I could not bear the lack of certitude.
Who could know details about the situation?
Tyler suggested, “Claire Sawyer is an expert.”
Hells bells, of course she was!
the future lawyer listened to my report of the situation.
Tyler emphasised, “according to Nevel Papperman, it is illegal to promise awards on the interweb and then to refrain from keeping them.”
Claire Sawyer replied, “that is the case for TV shows. But they have got insurances and back insurances for those cases.”
I sobbed. “And for Carly’s web show?”
Claire wondered, “so, the price was a car?”
I nodded solemnly.
Claire continued, “it is a web showe for kids, right?”
I nodded solemnly.
Claire continued, “was any responsible adult with you?”
We shook our heads.
Claire continued, “OK, you can’t seriously promise a car to a kid of thirteen or fourteen years without a responsible adult. It must be considered as a joke. ”
That made sense.
Nevel must have ignored our age and his own.
We would not have been allowed to ride a car. We would most likely have steered it straight into the tree across the street, causing cracks and fractures all oever the car, the tree, and ourselves.
That would have been no fun at all.
Carly was happy about the message from Claire. She would thence restrict to prizes suitable for little kids, such as appropriate toys and toons, and not real cars.
But now there was a problem.
She sent us a message: “Spencer has ordered a space craft used in one of those stupid space operas, Galaxy Wars, or so, you know, with those light swords and the hairy ape and stuff like that. Now it turned out to be a new and cheap copy. But it also turned out as a functioning car. Spencer is so crazy. Alas, the space mobile does not fit in our car. Would your sister please be so kind and take it off us?”
That was a shock.
Of course, it required to spoil the birthday surprise and let Zoey know in advance, or to postpone the answer unto her birthday.
For, according to Claire Sawyer, it was not legal to render the car unto us minors.
But it was still worth the whole trouble.
So, a toy space ship had turned out as a functional cars.
Spencer’s expectations had been really high, but fragile.
Bad for Spencer, but good for Zoey.
She was not really into the “Galaxy Wars crap”, though.
That could have been a problem.
Now we had to come closer to senior promn.
Zoey would make her own prom gown. She was probably doomed to making it alone there. But she wanted to appear in a fashionable self made gown, at least.
That would not have been bad for a future fashion designer.
At least I still hoped her to take this turn instead of going to something stupid like law school, like Claire Sawyer, or some master of business crap. I was still working on hiring a suitable band.
My only choice seemed to be between the “three Jennifers”, backed by some anonymous guitar dude, and one Trina Vega.
We had to inspect those alternatives in detail.
So, this was the stage room of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts.”
Trina Vega was expected in five … four … three … two
After a delay of ove rhalf an hour. Trina Vega entered the stage in order to perform a passage from Toy Opera[toy opera]
..
I was watching along with Wendy Gellar.
Trina yelled, “Cat! This mask stinks!” She started singing.
That was terrible.
Disgusted, she removed her mask. Then she continued singing.
But Trina Vega’s face was now all familiar to me.
I yelled, “Rebecca!”
This was the one and only Rebecca, the evil former girlfriend of Chase Bartholomew Matthews. She had been perversely mean to Zoey.
Wendy sighed. “I’d need tons of makeup, a good choreographer, and voice patcher.”
Zoey would have killed me upon having organised such a singer for the senior prom.
Trina gasped. “Hey! I’m not Rebecca! There is no such thing as Rebecca.” Then she ran away. Of course she must have been Rebecca. She would not have reacted this way in the case of a confusion.
There were more things fishy going on.
I had to figure.
According to Ashley, the Jennifers were not much better, either.
It would be a choice between Scylla and Charybd, two monsters to play with in the way of Ulysses on his trip across the waves and the gales.
Those were truly no toy monsters, but ready to break any of those frail ancient galleys right down the middle.
The tide was high.
Time was running out on us.
[don flunken] from iCarly : iGive Away A Car
[mr bullock] cameo in iCarly : iGive Away A car
[toy opera] spoof off Toy Story
Table of Contents
One of my favourite cast shows has always been America Sings, featuring many aspiring pop stars.
This year, even Lisa Perkind, the dirty little concubine of Michael Barret, had been participating.
Fortunately, the viewers had not exhibited enough bad taste to vote her into the final turn.
My absolute favourite was one Davis R. Couleda. He had just graduated from “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”. Now he was already too famous to be hired for the senior prom, leaving us with a disgusting wench like Rebecca..
David was in the final turn.
His only remaining opponent was one Wade Collins, an arrogant brat.
Unfortunately, the inofficial polls saw Wade Collins win the casting contest by a landslide.
That would have been a national catastrophe.
But it would not be easy to stop him, woud it?
We watched another session of Carly’s wonderful web show.
The America Sings fever had already seized Seattle and Ridgeway.
Carly was totally keen on talking about the iompending decision. But she did not accept the current polls. “Vote for David!”
Sam completed, “R. Couleda!”
We chanted along. “David! David! David! David! David!”
Could Carly’s web show really rock the votes?
I totally hoped so.
The lounge was chock full for the broadcast of the decision of the casting show America Sings.
The moderator had to postpone the final verdict until after the commercial break.
I hated those breaks.
They wasted so much time.
Web shows like Carly’s were so incredibly much better.
Now the evil moderator was back. He held an envelope in his hand, sealed and closed. He broke the seal. “And the winner is …”
Our suspense increased.
The moderator boomed, “David R. Couleda!”
We jumped up and bounced around like crazy.
Apparently, the prognoses predicting a landslide victory of Wade Collins had already had some severe cracks.
And Carly’s intervention made the support for the creep break down at whim.
We would celebrate this world shaking victory all night long.
The costs for hiring someone like David R. Couleda for the senior prom had now certainly been skyrocketting.
Unable to afford such a national super star, we needed to stick to Rebecca Trina Vega.
But she was not in a good mood.
This was not going to make our negotiations any easier.
She yelled at me and Robbie., “You stinky nubs! What are you doing here?”
We mentioned the senior prom.
Rebecca grunted, “I bet you voited for David, that useless skunkbag!”
I nodded proudly. “he ain’t a skunkbag!”
Zoey would not have approved of me using this word.
Rebecca was now even more furious. “David Arse Cul should kiss his own hindside! Telling me to be not good enough for being his girlfriend. What a sad looser! My performance always rocks the audience. And he can’t even get little kids to sleep with his!”
So, Rebecca had once been rejected by David.
At least he did not suffer from poor taste.
So much was for sure.
I wondered, “why don’t you simply take Chase back? He had separated for good from my sister …”
Rebecca Trina Vega laughed in an exorbitantly hysterical manner. “Chase … Matthews … that one disgusting dewwn?” She started rolling on the floor, cringing for laughter.
I looked puzzled.
Rebecca explained, “really, Chase had paid me for making Zoey jealous.” She grunted, “otherwise I would never kiss a recklessly disgusting dweeb like Chase.”
I choked. I had to inbvestigate the suituation.
It stank all the way from hell to paradise and back.
Zoey was really desperate because of being forced to do all the prom outfits while being bound for her own senior prom all alone. She needed someone to back her up.
Kids at “James K. Polk” had got it a lot easier.
The school had got its own fashion creation club.
Ashley asked Claire Sawyer to lend us one of two fashion freaks from there. She also needed them for the creation of the costumes for the drama club.
Our impending performance of Shakespeare’s Hamlet would require a few historical costumes, or at least some costumes looking somewhat historical, suitable for the ninth century of Denmark.
Zoey was not able to do that in her curreent stuation, either.
The costumes would never be really historical.
According to Mr. Toplin, Prince Hamlet has been a literary invention by good old Shakespeare.
There was something rotten in the state of Denmark.
I always knew it.
In any case, no costumes meant no performance of Hamlet..
We had to hurry up.
Mr. Monroe, the adviser of their club, remarked surprisinly, “oh, buit our best fashion freak has alredy transferred to ‘Pacific Coast Academy’.”
This was quite some shocking news.
Mr. Monroe explained, “have yopu heard of Jerry Crony?”
I nodded. “I have seen him on the campus, but he did not look like a typical costume maker.”
We had been so sorrily mistaken.
But why had Jerry Crony kept it secret? And why had he ever been enrolling at our school dance as a girl?
There were so many things rotten in the state of “James K. Polk” school.
It was time for another session of Carly’s excruciatingly wonderful web show.
Carly had heard some sad news.
The mother of Wade Collins was deadly sick and needed some expensive surgery.
Wade had tried to win the necessary bucks as a pop rock star.
But Carly and her web show had spoiled his chances.
The runner up of the casting show was not really awarded, only the winner.
Now Carly had got some remorses.
Thew gang was now up to producing a music video with Wade Collins.
Unfortunately, the “star” was really late.
Ashley Bake remarked, “I tell you, he is just simulating.”
We gasped.
But Ashley was an experienced actress. She would have known it better than any of us.
Waiting for Wade, Carly inserted some other segment. She announced their friend Gibby, expecting him to sing something.
He was often enountered shirtless. And, indeed, he started singing a lullaby.
But his shirt was in his way.
He ripped it off his body.
I loved Gibby.
But his performance was not easy to bear for any of us, with or without shirt.
Fionally, Wade Collins arrived.
The work for the music video could start.
But I had not got a good feeling.
Wade was probably going to treat Carly, Freddie, Sam, and Gibby like the very last dirt.
The show went offline.
We discussed in our lounge.
I joked. “Quinn could perform a surgery on the mother of Wade. She never requires much.”
Robbie nodded solemnly.
Tyler took his lap top. He was about sending a message to the blog site of the web show.
I gasped. “Tyler, what are you doing?”
Tyler growled, “as you said … Quinn will cure Wade’s mother!”
Snickering Wendy wondered, “there is a teacher named Ms. Collins[ms collins]
at ‘Palmwood’’s. Maybe she is related?”
Nobody of us had got a clue.
I had to tell Tyler, “but I have just been joking. Quinn will refuse to do anything just because of us saying so. She was not pleased by our trick with Logan and Mercedes.”
Tyler grinned. “I may get that done with ease!”
I shrugged, wondering how.
But Tyler had already got Logan to lend his plane to Carly and her gang.
So why not this?
Along with Wendy, I went to visit “Palmwood”.
The Jennifers glared at us. “We will not perform at your stinnking prom for less than ten thousand bucks!”
We shrugged.
For the time being, there were more important tasks than finding music for Zoey’s prom.
Ms. Collins was already waiting for us. She had called us to her office, even without having admitted to being related to Wade. She probably had to talk about the wannabe rock star.
Wendy panted heavily. She explaine dthe situation.
Ms. Collins nodded. “I don’t know anything abpout any fatal disease of mom. OK, sometimes she is a bit …, well, many wommen around sicty are like that. I do have to check. But Wade could certainly make up that stuff.” She sobbed, sad about her brother’s unfair demeanour.
We thanked Ms. Collins, apparently Wade’s elder sister.
It was time for yet another session of Carly’s more than perfect web show.
Carly explained, “unfortunately, we were not able to complete the music video in time.”
Sam nodded. “Bad bad bad bad video!” She triggered the boop key.
Carly continued, “so, as you remember, Wade Collins needs the money in order to pay for his mother’s surgical intervention.”
Sam nodded. “Oh yeah! This reminds me of my mom. She will soon need another cosmetic surgery. The pimple on her buut cheek grows too fast.”
Carly coughed. “So, here we have gott th e perfect surprise: A coupon over a free surgery for old Mrs. Collins!” She held a coupon aloft.
Sam triggered some fake appplause.
Wade and his mom walked in.
Carly announced the good news. “We have found a surgeon ready to …”
Old Mrs. Collins went pale. She was looking for a fast way out.
But all exits were blocked. Well, they were just to narrow for a chubby matron.
Carly continued, “OK! And we have got some special guest on our plasma monitor … Wade will sure be glad to see his sister again!”
Mrs. Collins appeared on the monitor. “Wade! Mom!”
The cheaters almost passed out.
Quinn Pensky showed up, too. “Oh, hello, I am your surgeon. I have got my junior medic license from Dr. Hollywood.[dr hollywood] I will describe the surgery for your disease. First, you will get an inhection into your butt, using this syringe.
” She held one of those tools aloft, one with a six inch needle. She grinned merrily. “Then I will cut with this scalpel …”
Finally, the evil matron admitted to having cheated.
And so did Wade.
Now they were able to escape through the back exit.
Sam announced, “they won’t get far, anyways, I guess.”
Carly snickered.
David R. Couleda showed up on the monitor. “Thanks, I have already sensed something like this.”
Carly wanted David to sing.
But the star had gcaught some flu and could not sing. Nevertheless, he made an announce. “You have been warned by students at that school …”
Carly nodded. “The ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ in Malibu.”
David smiled. “I know that region. I went to school at nearvby ‘Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts’, you know. Well, an award would be in order.”
Carly nodded solemnly.
Sam sighed. “Maybe?”
David announced, “I will perform at an event of their choice at their school. Promised!”
Carly ordered Sam to trigger the fake applause.
Gibby squealed. “May I perform, too?”
Carly and Sam shook their head unison, growling “no!”
Gibby sighed for disappointment.
I jumped up, squealed for joy, and bounced around.
However, there was a hitch.
David remarked, “I need a decent female backup voice. Some voice that does not belong to one Trina Vega!” he shuddered for excruciating disgust.
OK, now we were left with one probem.
Where was it possible to find a gifted female pop rock star assisting David R. Couleda?
Before going offline, Spencer Shay performed a good old tune on his banjo. “The camptown ladies sing that song, dooh dah dooh dah! …”
Wade Collins and Trina “Rebecca” Vega would soon thereafter elope to Canada.
This was a good thing.
But I was still lookig for the remaining loose ends concerning Chase’s usage of Rebecca in order to make Zoey jealous.
At the same time, a female co-star for David was wanted.
And time was running out.
We better hurried up.
Table of Contents
We middle school kids were once more sitting in our foyer, waiting for a new session of Carly’s uncomparable web show.
Today, she had something very special to offer.
During the last months, excessively funny videos had appeared on the interweb. They had been produced by one Fredrick Figglehorn.
We had to roll on the floor, laughing ourselves into nothingness.
Too bad the session was so short, much too short for more videos of Fred.
Fredward Benson remarked, “I don’t think those videos are that funny.”
We gasped.
This was impossible.
Fred videos were the most funny low budged movies of the last years.
That was incredible!
But the public interest in Fredrick Figglehorn’s movies was certainly rock solid.
Fredward Benson’s criticism may have broken an already cracked and frail renown of Fredrick Figglehorn, but not a really healthy one, right?
Or so I hoped.
The next day, we stumbled upon horrible consequences.
Robbie Carlichael was the first of us kids at “Pacific Coast Academy” to discover some grisly news on the interweb.
According to one of the most relioable sourses, Fredrick Figglehorn had announced his withdrawal from the scene.
There would be no longer any “Fred videos”.
That was a catastrophe.
The reason was, of course, Fredward Benson’s poortaste and misjudgement of the videos.
Or, as Fredrick Figglehorn mimself put it: “Freddie killed Fred!”
That was the most eveil deed ever committed by Fredward Benson.
What made it really bad:
Many kids would now deem the whole show of Carly responsible for Fredrick Figglehorn’s retirement, including the show host.
But it was not at all Carly’s fault.
She was totally innocent!
That was totally unfair.
Carly was at best the messenger.
Trina Rebecca Vega had been leaving a gap at “Hollywood School For The Professional Performance Arts”.
This should not have been really a big loss.
How had the busty criolla made it there, anyways?
There had probably been something fishy.
But their school was up to performing a musical named Perita[perita], and Trina was the only one suitable for the star rôle.
According to Eichman, it definitely had to be a Latina.
This was a conditio sine qua non imposed by the original producers of the musical.
And there was currently none at “Hollywood School For The Professional Performance Arts”.
This was a peril for the renown of their school.
Lola might have replaced her. She was not really singing well enough for a professional musical.
But Trina was certainly even worse.
I asked Shelby.
She had recently reveiled her full name as Salvia Maria del Consuelo. She had always hated her Latin roots, though. For that avail, she had chosen a ring name sounding not Spanish at all: Shelby Marx.
Of course, I could not assume Shelby alias Salvia to be able to sing.
She was a into the martial arts, and not into the fine arts of singing and acting. But at least she knew two cousins, looking like herself and like Lola, and able to sing very well.
One of them was Tamara Dyson[tamara dyson]. But she lived far away.
And the other one was Rebecca’s sister Victoria. She did not think of herself as that gifted, and she was realy humble. But she was a much better singer, dancer, and actress than her elder sister, Trina. But her humilty had prevented her from trying out for “Hollywood School For The Professional Performance Arts”.
The camopus was split into ha;f concerning the question of Car;y’s guilt concerning the end of Fredrick Figglehorn’s series of fun videos.
Wayne “Firewire” Gilbert, a militant worshipper of Fredrick Figglehorn, had uses spray cans in order to write with read lacquer all over the walls of the admin building, “Freddie Killed Fred”.
Leaving said building, even Dean Rivers was hot by a ray from Wayne’s squirting bottle.
His face was now all red.
Little wonder, Dean Rivers was not exactly squaling for uttermost unadulterd joy upon noticing the mess caused by Wayne Gilbert.
The freak was grounded for six weeks.
But the headmaster had quickly started investigating the situation. He heard about “Fred videos” and Carly’s web show. Angered beyond any trace of a reason, Dean Rivers, stuck in the middle of his divorce, decided to declare both the videos by Fredrick Figgklehorn and the magnificient web show by Carly Shay illegal.
This was not his first act of censorship.
Thre yearsago, Dean Rivers had prohibit the broadcast of a web show produced by Chase and Michael.[censorship by dean rivers].
Zoey and Logan had accidentally added some spice to their otherwise lame excuse of a web show by leading controversial discussions about various topics.
In any case, the situation was horrible.
Carly’s show was sweet and wonderful. It was no such lame crap as the junk show by Chase and Michael.
Strangely, Tyler Pearson had made some discoveries and observations.
And then there was a shocking conclusion:
Fredrick Figglehorn was not up to retiring at all. He had just told so in order to get more attention.
Of course, the same worked for Carly’s web show.
But they must have gone through hell in Seattle.
Indeed, according to maelanie’s report, Fredward Benson had been expelled from all clubs at his school, including the archery club.
And we got now cut off both Fredrick’s visdeos and Carly’s web show.
That was absolutely not fair.
Fortunately, there was one person able to help us:
Spencer Shay was now sort of a friend of Dean Rivers, since championship for “Pak Rats”. He was certainly able to talk our headmaster into readmitting bothe the videos by Fredrick Figglehorn and the web show by Carly Shay.
But Dean Rivers was not easy to persuade.
Fortunately, there was a solution.
Dean Rivers declared to lift the prohibition of Carly’s web show in turn for a banjo performance.
Spencer had to play Dean Rivers’s favourite folk songs.
We were not the only ones trying tp get Lola’s cousin Victoria to fill the gap left by her ungrateful elder sister, viz. Trina Vega.
André Harris from “Hollywood School For The Professional Performance Arts” had got a similar idea. He was a gifted composer and song writer, almost like Wendy or Gustavo Rocque. He had written songs fro his twin brother Harper[harper].
Said Harper had already performed in Carly’s web show, about one year ago.
André had adapted the musical about the most dubious figure in the history of South America for the purpose of a performance at their school. He had often visited Trina Vega at her home in order to practise. He head not really met Tori. But he had often heard her sing in the showers.
According to Trina, Tori was her ungifted little sister, singing just in order to annoy everyone.
But André’s impression of Tori’s voice had been a totally different one.
Along with Tyler, I dared to show up at the residence of the Veg family.
Victoria already at home. “Who are you? What do you want? I don’t buy anything from pedlars and cultists.”
We shook our head. “You are the cousin of Shelby Marx?”
Tori grunted, “true, but I don’t want to talk about her. So kindly begone, lest …”
I panted heavily. “You are a really great singer, right>? And we are looking for one. Rather, for two. But one singer for two occasions would be enough.”
Tori was confused.
Tyler explained, “you sing so much better than Trina. You should close her gap at ‘Hollywood School For The professional performance Arts’.”
Tori gasped. “Not again! Trina is the gifted one. I am just …”
I did not believe it. “Please, you can do so much better!”
Tori remained stubborn.
This time, we had to return with empty hands. But we would not give up so fast.
We were now watching another session of Carly’s wenb show, along with Dean Rivers.
The latter was anxiously waiting for the performance of Spencer Shay and his banjo.
Tyler’s conclusion had been correct.
It had all been a mean promotional trick by Fredrick Figglehorn.
We had sent a mail to the blog site of Carly’s web show, explaining this.
Carly had thereupon asked Fredrick and made him amidt to his deed.
Fredrick greeted us kids at “Pacific Coast Academy”. “OK, I live in Idaho. But I consider coming to Hollywood for a movie. But there are two conditiones sine qquibus non: First, I live at home in a treehouse. I want one in Los Angeles, too. Second, I want Ashley Blake as a co-star. ”
The little Hollywood diva beamed and walked proudly up and down the foyer.
I chuckled.
A Fred video with Ashley Blake sounded totally cool.
And Robbie Carmichael beamed even more.
His treehouse on the campus was still a bit rough.
But Stacey Dillsen was gladly up to polishing and adorning it appropriately for the arrival of Fredrick Figglehorn and his impending movie with Ashley Blake. “Whee! I have to by cotton swabs, carpernter’s glue, wood paint, hammers, nails, and paint brushes.”
Now Carly made us watch a few skits Fredrick Figglehorn , Fredward Benson, Samantha Puckett, and Carly Shay had made together.
The session was not yet over.
Spencer Shay showed up with his banjo. “Oh, Carly begged me to sing something for one of the oldest fans of this show. Hi, Carl!”
Dean Rivers smiled and waved.
Spencer petted the chords of his banjo. “Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t car, Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t care, Jimmy Crack Corn, and I don’t care …”
Our headmaster sang along and clapped rhythmically, forcing us to chime in.
Of course it was now no longer much of a difficulty to get his permission for shooting Fredrick Figglehorn’s movie on the campus of “Pacific Coast Academy”.
I wanted Zoey to make the costumes for the short movie.
But my sister was still very sad. She had still not found a partner for senior prom, and she had not had to guts to assk for the help of Jerome Crony alias Olivary Biallo for the prom outfits.
Likewise, we still had not got a female backup voice for David R. Couleda and the senior prom.
And time was running away from us.
[perita] spoof off third-party owned musical Evita.
[tamara dyson] Tammie Dyson from Spectacular!.
[censorship by dean rivers] cf. Zoey 101 : Broadcast Views
[harper] from iCarly : iCarly Saves TV
Table of Contents
We were now watching Samantha Puckett’s birthday party.
She was now turning fifteen.
Freddie and Carly had kept it a surprise for quite a few days.
Many kids from their school were invited, such as infamous Gibby the shirtless gnome.
But one of them gave me the creeps. He was named Pete Pearson[pete pearson] and appeared to hit subtly on Samantha.
Tyler knew Pete very well.
They were cousins.
Funnily, there was a restaurant neat “Pacific Coast Academy” named “Pete And Sam”.[pete and sam]
There was something fishy.
And there were even more subtle news about bullies at “Ridgeway”.
The source of the inflict appeared to be some Jocelyn[jocelyn], a poorly literate adult returning to high school in the framework of some state program.
Tyler promised to talk some sense into his cousin Pete.
The problem concerning violence at “Ridgeway” scared me.
As an elementary school kid, I had often been troubled by evil older kids.
One of the worst nutcases was Keith Finch[keith finch].
I had been participating in some math classes for older kids in order to prepare for the mathletic sectionals.
The dumber kids in there, especially Finch, envied me for being smarter.
More precisely, I had corrected one of his mistakes and been praised for this by the teacher.
He must have been feeling exorbitantly humiliated. Thereupon, he started blackmailing me into doing his homework and his laungry.
I had not wanted Zoey to hear about this.
But she spomehow came to know and decided to defend me, even by threatening some sort of violence.
I hated being treated like a little baby in need of protection twenty-four out of twenty-four and seven out of seven.
Somehow, the bullying had stopped after a few days.
I did not know how.
Alas, Keith was just a minor nutcase compared to Dana Cruz.
This was one of Zoey’s “friends” and room mates during her first year at “Pacific Coast Academy”. She had always been really abrasive.
Nicole Bristow had never been able to get along with Dana.
They were always arguing over little things.
And Zoey had been totally busy keeping them from killing each other.
But Dana had also treated me like crap. She just used to do it always in Zoey’s absence.
For example, I had caught some flu, one day. I had wanted to ask Zoey in her dormitory room.[dustins flu]
My sister had not been there.
Only Dana Cruz was in their dormitory room. She slammed the door shut, in front of my nose.
That was only one of many situations.
I had never talked to Zoey about it.
My sister would just have turned her protectivity mode on and patronised me again like a little baby.
That would have been really ugly.
Fortunately, the spook had only lasted for one year.
After my return to “Pacific Coast Academy” for a new academic year, I had noticed Dana Cruz gone.
She had been trnsfeered to some noble boarding school in the outskirts of Paris.
That was the capital of France!
At least it was now impossibole for her to bully me from there.
Ever since I had been feeling a lot safer. I had even come to forget completely about “Danger” Cruz.
But all those memories returned in a flabbergasting way upon hearing about the horrible case of ongoing bullying at “Ridgeway”.
I did not want car;y to get hurt by that evil censored named Jocelyn.
As it did not touch me personally, just my remote friends in Seattle at “Ridgeway”, I decided to ask Zoey for advice concerning those bullies.
Zoey was shocked. “Does that bully crap never stop?”
I sobbed.
Zoey hugged me. “I know, it was an ugly time, Keith Finch … and then Dana …”
I nodded solemnly. But I came to think, “Zoey has just mentioned Dana. I had never told her about that.”
My face changed its shade,
Zoey wondered about that. “Dustin? What’s up? Are you sick?”
I moaned, “how do you know about Dana?”
Zoey sighed. “Some birds twittered it … and I had to add bits and pieces together.”
I wondered, “when?”
Zoey stammered, “winter and spring of my first year at ‘Pacific Coast Academy’.”
I sighed deeply. “and you sure did something about that?”
This was just an assumption based on experience.
I needed to know a way to stop that evil censored from bullying Carly and her friends at “Ridgeway”.
Zoey went pale. She had to hide something.
I grunted, “Zoey?”
She panted heavily. “OK, Dustin, it’s now already like … almost four years have gone by ever since.”
I nodded slowly.
My sister continued, “OK, Dana went to France after that year. But it was not really her choice.”
I glared aghast.
Zoey explained, “Dana hated learning foreign languages. She expected anyone wanting to talk to her to lear ner langauge first.”
I nodded soolemnly. “That makes sense, and properly so.”
Zoey continued, “really, I found that ad from a prep school in Paris. It was directed by Monique and André Chaumont[chaumont]
.”
Those names actually rang me a bell.
Three years ago, two foreigners, viz/ André and Monique Chaumont, whad been visiting our campus at Halloween day. They had turned out as teachers from some boarding school in France.
Zoey had never told me about knowing them. Well, she had been compelled to keep it a secret. She had hardly wanted to become known for being acquainted with them and being associated with Dana’s departure.
BUt that had been then.
And now Zoey concluded, “I informed Dana’s parents immediately about an international programme at that school in the surroundings of the French capital. I had told them about the huge advantages of high school in such an environment. And that worked ou.”
So, Zoey had gotten Dana shoved out of my way.
I would not have liked to know about her activvities.
But this had been history.
Zoey urged us to talk to the schhol administration of “Ridgeway”.
Talking to Jocelyn’s parents would not have made any sense.
Jocelyn was an adult, maybe even over thirty years old.
I did not know the details.
But someone had to be responsible for that programme at “Ridgeway” and its containing school district.
I would not have wanted to get the board of “Ridgeway”’s school district involved.
Buy Tyler Pearson had got a different opinion about the whole thing. He messaged his cousin Pete. On the one hand, he told hiim to keep his fingers from Freddie’s girl viz. Samantha Puckett. On the other hand, he urged Pete to tell the executive board of the school district of downtown Seattle to get the situation under control.
Those overaged highschool kids were usually bad kids.
Sam would most llikely have ended up like them, if not supported continually by Carly Shay.
Zoey had now got other things to worry about than kids at some school about one thousand miles away.
Senior prom came closer and closer.
By now, Zoey had not been done with even half of the ordered sets of outfit for the participants.
And Kazu and Mrs. lee also wanted Zoey to provide for the outfits of their wedding.
Today, aforementioned Jerome Crony alias Olivary Biallo showed up for a visit.
I still happened to be around,
Zoey gasped. She vaguely remembered Michael’s former partner from the middle scxhool dance of four years ago.
Olivary sighed. “Yes, it’s me.”
Zoey wondered, “so, why have you been there as a girl?”
Olivary replied, “I was a student of ‘James K.Polk’. The ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ was looking for girls from our school to participoate in your dance.”
There was a simple reason for that.
“Pacific Coast Academy” had been a school reserved for boys until five years ago.
The ratio of girls and boys had been significantly unbalanced during the first two years of coeducation.
Only at the begin of the third year was there a sort of equilibrium.
The lack of girls was compensated by inviting girls from neighbouring schools, such as “James K. Polk”, “palmwood”, “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”, “Silver Spring”[silver spring], or “Eastridge”[eastridge], to events like the middle school dance and cheerleading.
Zoey nodded solemnly. “So, why did you want to make it to middle school ball, even at the cost of hiding as a girl?”
Crony alias Biallo explained, “at ‘James K. Polk’, I was always the only boy in the textile creation club. This was so unmanly. I had to hide it. Thus I joined a bully gang …”
Zoey choked hard.
There we were once more stuck to our old topic …
At least, Olivary Biallo alias Jerry Crony had been unhappy with this situation. He had tried hard to get away from the gamg and make it to some more tolerant school, such as “Pacific Coast Academy”.
This had bee a very hard task.
Crony admitted, “even my exotic accent was a fake. Farfalla[farfalla]
helped me. I passed her off as my sister.”
Zoey chuckled.
Michael had been dancing with Farfalla at the end of the middle school dance.
Zoey sighed deeply. “>You could simply have told about it to one of us. We would have helped.” Well, Zoey would have done so.
Others, such as Logan Reese or Dana Cruz, would not have helped him in any way, though.
Olivary Biallo sobbed.
Zoey concluded, “but that’s OK now, so, you really want to help me with the creation of the outfits for the prom and the wedding?”
Olivary Biallo nodded viggorously.
Zoey smiled. “So, these are my planned designs. That talon is for the boys. The other one is for the girls.”
Olivary nodded. “I better take the boys’ heap.”
Zoey grinned. “Very good! You really don’t have to be ashamed for a ‘girly’ hobby. It just happens.”
Crony nodded timidly.
Finally, Zoey and Olivary were able to start working hand in hand, cutting the time needed for the preparation of the prom outfits into half.
And there was one thing left.
Michael had been making out in a perverse manner with Farfalla during the school dance.
However, in Farfalla’s tropic culture, this behaviour of a guy towards a girl was tantamount to a wedding promise.
But Michael had totally ignored Farfalla ever since. He may even have had forgotten about her.
This was a big offense.
Farfalla’s family would now come and hunt down Michael and pester him for his fragile yet adulterous relationship with Lisa Perkins.
I cackled with glee.
It sounded like the perfect way to break Lisa and Michael apart.
Pete Pearson had listened to his cousin’s stern plea and started to desist from hitting on Samantha Puckett, the girlfriend of Fredward Benson.
The board of the district of downtown Seattle, under the direction of superintendent Gorman[gorman], had got a hard time to admit to its mistake.
Principal Franklin, a very good headmaster, had not been powerful enough to do something about it.
But, fortunately, Spencer Shay knew someone in the department of education of the state of Washington.
This would solve the situation.
[pete pearson] from iCarly : iMake Sam Girlier
The surname is taken from same actor’s rôle in some third-party owned show.
[pete and sam] This restaurant is mentioned in Zoey 101 : Chasing Zoey.
[jocelyn] from iCarly : iMake Sam Girlier
[keith finch] from Zoey 101 : Defending Dustin
He is identified with same actor’s rôle in iCarly : iFence.
[dustins flu] cf. Zoey 101 : The Play
[chaumont] They appear in Zoey 101 : Haunted House
[silver spring] from Just Jordan
,
[eastridge] cameo in Big Time Rush : Big Time Break
[farfalla] cameo in Zoey 101 : School Dance
[gorman] from iCarly : iHave My Principals
Chapter 18. Jackson Colt[jackson colt]
Table of Contents
Mixed martial fights had recently become very popular.
Shelby Marx was one example. In denying her Latin roots, she had gone far enough not only to change her name, but also to deny the identity of her coach.
He was nobody other than Lola’s and Shelby’s father, Juan Martinez!
But Shelby just called him “Coach Juan”.
Today, one of the greatest martial champions of all times was fighing in Seattle.
It was famous “Mr. Seven foot two and chock full of impressively bulging muscles” Jackson Colt, winner of an olympic medal like ten years ago. He was fabulous for his unforgattable one foot punch against some Russian lobotomster. Colt was able to crack concrete walls with his exorbitantly strong limbs, both hand and feet, both left and right.
And the most remarkable about his visit to Seattle:
Carly, Freddie, and Sam had obtained backstage tickets for the great martial event.
The upcoming session of their wonderful web show would give us a life impression from the back stage of the event, probably with an interview of Jackson Colt.
But being close to a bunch of brute jocks sounds so dangerous.
Zoey would never have allowed me let me to attend such a horribly dangerous event. And she had once been in the wrestling team. But she had only got one fight against unvincible Chuck Javers[chuck javers].
This messy event had occurred like two years ago during the regionals of the wrestling teams.
Most boys refuse to fight against girls.
This was particular valid for recklessly perverse jerks like Logan Reese.
Chuck Javers was an exception. He slammed Zoey into the earth after less than five seconds.
I had been screaming for two hours straight.
Certainly, attending a live martial show would have been very exciting bfor me.
So I had to look forward to the next session of Carly’s web show.
As aforementioned, most boys were not willing to fight against girls.
Losing would have made them incredible weaklings.
Winning would have made them lady beaters.
Neither of these sounded really cool.
Tyler remembered a story concerning Drake Parker.
That ruthless jerk had been feeling depressed when seeing his girlfriend of the week, Lucie Banks[lucie banks] beating up football jocks. He could not live with the thought of being weaker than his girlfriend.
Thence Drake and Lucie had performed a private wrestling match.
The whole thing had ended in a tie.
But this was due to Lucie having pulled punches to some rif=diculous degree.
Drake had not noticed this.
But Megan had done so and told Drake a few days later.
This put an end to Drake’s relationship of the week.
Honestly said, Lucie should not have wasted herself on Drake in the first place.
None of his relationships had been lasting for more than three weeks.
Wendy Gellar had been very sad hen getting turned down by Drake. But now she was so many times over it.
Having been Drake’s girlfriend for a few weeks would have been a lot worse for her.
Was Vincent Blake, uncontested captain and quarterback of our football squad, also such a perverted jerk refusing to fight against girls?
Ashley scratched her head. “I don’t really know. But he would certainly not lose.”
Tyler suggested, “not even against Shelby Marx?”
Ashley sighed deeply. “OK, I’m not so sure there. But hey! Why not give it a try?”
Tyler grinned. “Vince would finally feel Shelby’s muscles and notice: ‘I have dated the wrong one of the two alike-looking sisters, for over a year.’”
Ashley chuckled mercilessly. “Yeah, that would be cool!”
Ashley had been able to talk Vince into agreeing on such a fight.
At first glance, Vince Blake appeared to be like all the other pervert jerks of the categorie “Logan Reese”.
But then the latest news about Shelby Marx became known.
She had beaten some Russian girl into oblivion and was now qualified for the world championships.
Mind you!
Shelby was just fifteen years old, and she was qualified not for the junior championships, but for the world championships of any age.
Maya Feckner[maya feckner] was about thirty years old. She looked like a wardrobe and had already won twelve world championships in a row.
But Shelby was in no way whatsoever afraid of the muscular colossus.
Vince finally agreed, “Shelby is hardly just a girl. Losing against her is not a shame for any boy.”
Ashley grinned.
But Vince insisted in letting Shelby execute the first punch.
That was acceptable.
Alas, there was one problem.
The campus rules of “Pacific Coast Academy” did not allow for fighting on the campus outside official contests under the auspices of the “Californian Federation for Martial Arts at High Schools”.
We needed to get the permission of Dean Rivers.
Unfortunately, our headmaster refused to give us the necessary license.
Too many things could break on the camous.
Carl Rivers was still upset about some cart race on the campus[cart race]
, an event having occurred like two years ago. As a weak substitute, he offered a showdown in the gym, not man versus man, pardon, man versus girl, but with inanimate objects. “But there are strict rules for the security of the onlookers. In fact, no live viewers in the gym hall, only automated cameras or so.”
This was quite some spoiler.
But of course those cameras were possible.
Jeremiah Trottman, the official reporter, was clueless about advanced technology.
But Quinn knew enough about cameras to allow for a safe and controlled showdown.
The Roman legions of the old times used to practise with inanimate objects known as quintains.
Those were dolls, usually just a stake with a shield attached, erected in the quintana, i.e. the ally separating each fifth block of a legionaries’ camp.
Quinn invented things and liked to name them for herself. Having heard about the indirect martial showdown, she had started to invent a high technology improvement of the classical quintain.
The resulting quinntain is a stationary robot serving as a target for martial traing. It contained many microchips allowing us to watch the martial actions and to get more information about the potential efects of their moves.
We were now about watching the jousting challenge safely from out foyers on the plasma flatscreen plants.
Tyler also worked as a sort of bookmaker. He accepted bets and adjusted the stakes and the odds, following some reasonable procedure.
Lola sighed in a hearttearing manner. “I bet ten bucks on each of them. Otherwise, one of them could be mad at me.”
Tyler grinned.
The bookmakers were always winning in such a situation on betting equal amounts on all contestants, regardless of the particular odds and stakes or the outcome.
There happened to be quite a few fans of eithe rparty on the campus. They held up pnels, cheering for their heroes.
The games could begin.
Quinn was controlling both the quinntain and the other cams with a wireless remote device.
It used fire wire technology.
Wayne Gilbert claimed this to be his own invention.
At first, they practised a bit with the usual oak wood boards.
Splintered planks were flying through the air, hitting the gym walls.
Dean Rivers’ fears had thence been justified, along with his decision to disallow live audience.
Nobody wanted to get hit by some flying piece of an oak log or even some marble brick.
Shelby landed the first blow on the quintain.
Quinn’s eyes bucked out. She announced, “this strike would have broken all of the ribs of Dean Rivers.”
Our headmaster twitched and choked for excruciating consternation.
Vince was not much worse.
Quinn shook her head. “Five of their attacks would have broken all my bones, including those of my sixth toe on my right foot[sixth toe]
.” She started naming them, annoying us to no end.
The battle went on for three long hours.
The amount of points earned by the martial powermongers grew on and on.
There had never been much of a difference.
Finally, Shelby was ahead by ten points out of some ten thousand.
Vince gave up. “Sorry, I can’t feel my hands anymore. Everything burns.”
Shelby nodded. “OK! You give it up?”
Vince nodded sadly.
Ashley looked a bit disappointed.
Shelby, not unaffected by hours of martial practice, needed to cool and balm her limbs as well. She walked up to Vince. “Do you at leastfeel this?” She caressed his face tenderly with her lips.
Vince purred and blushed. “Somewhat!”
Shelby smiled. “You will be better next time. Pain is the best coach.”
Vince was still dazed.
Lola was little pleased by this scene. She grunted, “Shelby, you naughty liuttle censored!”
Ashley may have lost bucks in a bet. But now she had got every reason to start smiling.
Apparently, everything concerning Vince and Lola had gone according to plan.
After the breakup of Quinn and Logan, this was so close to strike number two.
Now only Lisa and Michael were left.
We were now watching the next session of Carly’s perfect web show.
They had actually made it behind the stage.
Carly interviewed Jackson Colt.
Sam’s head turned out smaller than Jackson’s bicepd muscle.
I was not surprised.
Sam’s head only served for growing hair on top of it.
There was really a lot of blood.
Suddenly, Spencer Shay showed up. Apparently, he had not allowed Carly to attend the mixed martial fest. For that avail, he appeared very angry.
Jackson was not really pleased by the unanticipated intrusion. He swang his fists and knocked Spencer against the wall.
We were shocked.
Fortunately, Spencer’s impact was moderated by some buffet table.
Also, Jackson had apparently pulled punches.
In any case, this was by no means a pleasant end of the session.
So, Spencer had not allowed Carly to go to the event in the first place.
Indeed, Carly, Freddy, and Sam had hired three similarly loking kids from Seattle in order to feign their presence at home.
But Spencer had not been fooled.
Those “lookalikes” were really easy to disbelieve.
New girl Addie Singer knew one of the fake kids, more precisely her best friend, Geena Fabiano, the fake Carly. Addie had never had any problems telling them apart, quite the contrary, she could not understand anyone confusing them.
Melanie felt insulted. As Samnantha’s twin sister, she would have been a much better lookalike than the poor excuse emplyed by Sam.
carly, Freddie, and Sam ewere now back at their studio and celebrated a little party in fronnt of the running web cam with their counterfeits and with Jackson Colt.
Spencer was still unconscious.
Carly announced, “the kids from ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ near Los Angeles have invented a cool machine serving as a target for martial demonstrations.”
Freddie showed them a video submitted by Tyler, showing Vince and Shelby. “Shelby is so hot …”
Sam glared at Freddie.
Fredie added, “but not as hot as Sam.”
Sam grinned.
Jackson announced, “I will soon be in California and try it out.” He waved into the cam.
We cheered.
That would be one big honour for Quinn and the whole of “Pacific Coast Academy”..
[jackson colt] from iCarly : iLook Alike
[chuck javers] from Zoey 101 : Wrestling
[lucie banks] Lucie is from Drake & Josh : Girl Power.
The surname is taken from same actress’s rôle in some third-party owned movie.
[maya feckner] cameo in iCarly : iFight Shelby Marx
[cart race] cf. Zoey 101 : Michael Loves Lisa
[sixth toe] mentioned e.g. in Zoey 101 : Zoey’s balloon
Table of Contents
Another evening started at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
The sun was ready to set in the murky brine of the mighty Pacific.
We wanted to watch Carly’s exorbitantly wonderful web show, just as usual.
But what was that?
Robbie stammered, “‘iCarly dot com’ is gone!”
We looked aghast.
Robbie had to repeat it for us, at least thrice. He could not really say it. He was stammering uncontrollably.
How was that possible?
I was absolutely consternated.
It was the worst catastrophe ever!
I had to ask Melanie Puckett about it.
The sister of Samantha was most likely to know the very reasons.
The explanation was sounding so stupid.
Spencer Shay had changed his credit card.
Thus the fees for the web domain could not be paid any longer.
The web site had to be cancelled.
The mere frail existence of the show was dependent on Spencer’s credit card.
This was so idiotic.
Spencer was not really reliable.
Thus it was totally unfair.
We did not really know what to do without the perfect web show.
And now the wedding of Kazu and Mrs. Lee was around the corner.
We were helping to organise it.
Mrs. Lee had insisted in letting Fredrick Figglehorn and Ashley Blake perform at her wedding.
There would also be a wall of fame at “Sushi Rox” alias the new branch of “Wok Star”.
Mrs. Lee wanted to open that wall with great pictures of Ashley Blake and of Fredrick Figglehorn.
That was certainly a great idea.
Stacey had to ornate the tree house needed for their skit with cotton swabs and carvings.
The tree house would make it to the photograph of Ashley and Fredrick.
This made Stacey Dillsen proud beyond any measure.
19.3. Mandy Valdez[mandy valdez]
Tyler crawled through the interweb. “Hey! The domain icarly dot com has got a new owner.”
I was curious.
Tyler continued, “Amanda Valdez”,
I choke. “Mandy, the insane fan!”
Some kids remembered.
Mandy had been a really obnoxious fan of Carly’s web show. She disturbed the production of two episode with her stalking demeanour.
I sighed. “Carly must get her web site back.”
Robbie nodded solemnly. “But Mandy is really cool!” He swooned.
Some of us kids looke doddly at Robbie.
He explained, “her duck costume rocks. Quack! Quack!”
I giggled.
The great day for Kazu and Mrs. Lee had come.
This was a lot of work for us.
Mr. Bender was fetching Fredrick Figglehorn from the bus station.
The bridal maids were Daisy Lee and Evelyn Kwong.
The latter was a niece of Mrs. Lee.
Kazu’s groomsmen were Chase and Michael.
Finally, Mr. Bender halted his craft, a mixture between a convertible and a truck.
But not only Fredrick Figglehorn left his car.
There was also one surprise guest: Mandy Valdez squealed like a fury, “hello, ‘Pacific Coast Academy’! Here I come!”
I looked aghast.
Mandy grinned mischievously. “I’ve heard about many loyal fans of Carly’s web show dwelling here on the campus.”
The devil must have told her.
And she knew even more. “Fredrick Figglehorn is here, too. I’m a total fan of his fun videos. Fred! Fred! Fred!”
I pitied Fredrick.
He must have gone through hell already during the car trip.
Mandy stated, “I have purchsed Carly’s domain. So no freak will grab it.”
I sighed deeply, thinking “says who?”
Mandy continued, “But after you let me do the duck dance with Robbie, Carly will get it back.”
I gasped. “Robbie?”
My roomie went pale. He had to admit to having informed Mandy Valdez and asked her for the duck dance.
Amanda donned her duck costune.
Robbie had got the same in a different colour.
This was not exactly the perfect background for the wedding of Kazu and Mrs. Lee.
Megan Parker had come from San Dirego for the purpose of performing the wedding chorus on her oboe.
Future lawyer Claire Sawyer had prepared a wedding contract of only 500 pages of small print.
Zoey had prepared the wedding outfits. But she would not have been able to do this all on her own.
Olivary Biallo alias Jerome Crony had been required in order to help her will all of the mess.
Everything was ready for the long march down the aisle.
There was no bridal guide, though.
Mrs. Lee had to go all the way on her own.
A certain “Coconut Head” from “james K. Polk” was going to sing the chorus.
Faithful and True
We lead ye forth
Where love triumphant
Shall crown ye with joyStar of renown
Flower of the earth
Blest be ye both
Far from all Life’s annoy
There was a lot of turmoil on our campus.
Jeremiah Trottman was commenting the event live, both for PCA News and for Cooking Channel.
Dean Rivers was particularly excited.
This was the first wedding performed on the campus of “Pacific Coast Academy”, and that just a few weeks before his own divorce. Down to Claire Sawyer’s efforts, Dean Rivers was going to save a lot of money.
The oboe of Megan Parker kept on filling the airs of Malibu with gentle sounds.
Champion victorious
Go thou before
Maid bright and glorious
Go thou beforeEarth’s noisy revel
Ye have forsaken
Tender delight
For you now awaken
Unfortunately, Mandy’s demeanour was a bit annoying and disturbing for the atmosphere of the wedding.
The annoying freak was outrageously talkative.
Father McCurdy[father mccurdy], the world’s fattest priest, was in charge with conducting the wedding ceremony. He had volunteered readily for serving at the wedding of two of the best cooks of the whole west coast.
Fragrant abode
Enshrine ye in bliss
Splendor and state
In joy ye dismiss
Finally, the couple had reached the altar.
Father McCurdy blathered the usual nonsense and asked all thos annoying questions.
The answers were given as expected.
And now Mccurdy could declare them as hubby and wife.
The wedding buffet was now open.
Mrs. Lee and Kazu had prepared it themselves, with some of us kids as kitchen slaves.
This had been no fun at all.
The lady of the spring rolls could be excruciatingly brush, and she had showed this over and over again.
McCurdy did not heasitate striking there.
Now it was time for the garter and the bucket thing.
Mrs. Lee sent the bunch of chinese orchids sky high.
The flowers ended up un the hands of Amanda Valdez.
I applauded carefully.
Then the garter was flung.
Robbie Carmichael caught it safely.
They were now allowed to dance together aforementioned duck dance, with ther mproved and upgraded costumes.
Fredrick Figglehorn and Ashley Blake were ready for the big play.
Quinn Pensky recorded everything with a cam. She wanted to make it possible to submit it to Carly’s next web show.
Mandy cheered vigorously for Fredrick Figglehorn.
Stacey scremed in a similar manner.
The tree house would be seen in Carly’s web show, making Stacey infinitely happy.
The couple was now ready for the wedding trip to Las Vegas.
Megan had arranged a show with Henry Doheny[henry doheny], the greatest illusionist and escapist artist still alive, just for the two of them.
Megan Parker had helped him to continue his career.
The latter had been seriously at stake like two years ago.
Doheny had been close to giving up.
Megan had allowed him to feign his own death during some performance in San Diego.
Doheny had been resurrected right at his scheduled funeral.
The whole audience had been flabbergasted and dismayed.
Nobody had ever come to know about Megan Parker’s mysterious secret.
Megan had still got a great influence on the grand master of illusionism.
Otherwise it would have been impossible for us to arrange that.
The couple would live in famous five star “Hotel Chambrolay”[hotel chambrolay].
My dad knew the manager of another branch of the same hotel chain.
This had made it a whole lot easier for us to arrange the whole mess.
Unfortunately, there was one giant drawback.
Sushi Rox would now have to be closed for two weeks.
But this was infinitely better than the prospects of losing it for good.
And such a catastrophe would have been the consequence of a failure of the wedding.
Another evening arrived at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
We were united for the first session of Carly Shay’s web show after the cancellation of her elder brother’s credit card.
Fredward Benson counted down the seconds. “Online in five … four … three … two …”
Seeing them again was filling both my soul and my heart with ease.
And now Carly Shay as explaining the stubborn situation.
I sighed deeply.
Carly even thanked us for having taken care of Mandy Valdez, their “favourite fan”.
Freddie projected several magnified photographs of the wedding onto the green screen in the background.
And we were also going to see the video about the skit of Fredrick Figglehorn and Ashley Blake.
Spencer was forced to swear to never let it happen again, with spittle and handshake.
But were his promises really reliable and rock solid, or were they as frail as Stacey Dillsen’s cotton swab sculptures?
[mandy valdez] from iCarly : iAm Your Biggest Fan and iWant My Website Back
[father mccurdy] mentioned in iCarly : iWant A Record
[henry doheny] from Drake & Josh : The Great Doheny
[hotel chambrolay] branches of this hotel are mentioned in Zoey 101 : Chasing Zoey, iCarly : iRock The Votes, and Drake & Josh : Drake and Josh go Hollywood.
Table of Contents
20.1. Mr. Henning[mr henning]
It was time for another session of Carly’s perfect web show.
This time Carly and Sam talked about a project for their science classes.
Their teacher was a certain Mr. Henning, a stupid eco freak.
Their project consisted in providing a contribution to the three magical “R”: “Repair, reduce, and recycle!”
And they better did their assignments well.
Otherwise they would have to go to “Root and Berry Retreat” out in the forests near the beach of Seattle.
And it rained a lot up there.
Maybe there were even wolves and bears.
And what about bigfoot?
Now it was time for my own science classes.
Mr. Sweeny talked about the impending tests.
They would decide about our potential admission to the AP classes.
At “Pacific Coast Academy”, at two AP classes were required for each student in order to graduate.
For me, this was not a great problem.
But many others, such as Robbie Carmichael and Ashley Blake, were really floundering.
Mr. Sweeny grinned. “So maybe some of you will need another chance. Last night, I watched some web show by some teenagers somehwere. They have got a teacher talking a lot about ecology.” He grinned. “This gave me an idea.” Sweeny walked up and down. “At ‘James K. Polk’, we had got those recycling weeks. There was a prize for the kids gathering most recyclable trash.”
I sighed deeply.
At “Pacific Coast Academy”, Logan Reese would have won such a contest. He did not care in any way about ecology. But he would simply have hired some trucks and sent them to the next trash yard in order to gather some cracked and broken junk and take it to our campus, allowing him to gather it all.
This would have been so totally unfair.
He would even have hired people in order to produce all the junk.
This would have been even totally perverse.
But it was Logan Reese’s way of life.
I sighed deeply.
Fortunately, our assignment was different. It was more or less the same as that of Carly and her friends.
We had to think of more ways of reducing, repairing, and recycling on our campus, ways to make the school more environment friendly.
I had thought about a heap of rotten kitchen trash with rain worms.
But those beasts were so slippery and icky.
In addition, other kids would certainly do the same.
And that would be lame.
Robbiw was even more allergic to rain worms. He always thought about them having big teeth and stuff.
My next idea was a trip to the junk yard.
Using junk for new items was some sort of recycling, wasn’t it?
Now I was lost between a stock of old pieces of cars and other metal monsters.
But which of all these were really useful?
I remembered having been here in order to fetch the pieces for the Pak Rat play station.
Joe the Greasemonkey was around.
I had to ask him for help.
Joe thought about an electric scooter.
This made less noise than a “Jet-X”[jetx]
, i.e. the brand of scooters used by Zoey and her friends. And it did not pollute the air with all those obnoxious exhaust fumes.
But I always used to cross the campus my bike on my bike. And I did not use to leave it very often.
This time, Wayne Gilbert had taken me to the junk yard with his trike.
It certainly would have caused less polution without me.
But that happened at most once in a blue moon.
And I could have used the bike, too. I was not chubby, anyways.
Only Zoey always teased me for eating too much candy, such as gummi worms.
But Coco Wexler was a different case. The chubby dormitory adviser for the girls’ residence halls certainly needed a whole lot of petrol and caused this way a whole lot of pollution when using a conventional motor vehicle.
“Coco is cool,” claimed Joe Braxley.
I shrugged.
Coco was horribly irresponsible.
Two years ago, my class had been on a camping trip with Coco Wexler through coastal hills.
We had lost two kids due to her lack of responsibility.[lost pupils]
But Joe Braxley’s taste appeared to be somewhat different.
We could have started assembling such an electro scooter the next day.
I was nopt the only one from my classes out here on the junk yard.
Others expected to find suitable materials, too.
After some qualms, I talked to Quinn about the impending project, supposing her to be one of the greatest experts about energy saving technologies.
Alas, the nerd queen was not really convinced of it. “Do you know how much electricity is wasted by such a little electric motor?”
I shrugged. “A little?”
Quinn laughed hysterically. “A whole lot of it. And in the case of Coco Wexler …” She started calculating.
I sighed very deeply.
Quinn had to leave for a moment. “Don’t touch anything here! I will be back here in about two, or three …” And she was gone.
I looked curiously around. “Maybe there is something useful for another project …”
My eyes hit a bottle with some blue liquid.
I remembered that. “Frazz![frazz]”
It was an all natural power drink.
That sounded like perfect for the project.
Three years ago, I had drunk a whole bottle of it. I had been awake for several days straight and beaten all records.
Quinn was still gone, but for how long?
I quickly filled a few drops of liquid into a little bottle and hit it in one of my pockets.
Quinn was now back. And she did not notice anything.
I was now back in my dorm.
Robbie sighed. “My garlic plant doesn’t grow any more. It starts to wither away.” He started sobbing.
I wondered, “your garlic plant?”
Robbie nodded. He was up to using that vegetable as a source for natural medicine. “There’s a lot of chemistry in our medications. But garlic is useful against so many things.”
I had heard of it. I scratched my head, thinking, “Quinn’s power drink is all natural. And it had given me the enegegy for several days of great activity.” I supposed it to promote the growth of plants, too.
Robbie remarked, “what are you thinking about?”
I told him about Frazz.
Robbie had not yet been a student at “Pacific Coast Academy” like three years ago. Thus he had not yet heard about it. But now he was keen on giving it a try.
I picked the little bottle.
Robbie shrugged. “It just looks like blue Blix.”
I shrugged. “But it’s all natural, and very powerful.”
We gave it a try and added a bit of the blue liquid to the water supply for the garlic plant.
There was definitely something going on.
We waited for several minutes.
Boom!
The whole pot containing the garlic plant blew up.
Smithereens of pottery flew across our room.
Robbie squealed to no end.
Some snitherrens cut out skin badly.
And we were now covered with humus earth.
Frazz had just been too strong for Robbie’s garlic plant.
Now I would enter the history as the “plant killer”.
Malcolm Reese was probably already planning to make a movie about me: The Plant Killer.
I was deeply ashamed.
And Robbie was totally angry at me.
Before anything else, we had to be brought to the infirmary.
The hour spent in the infirmary had by no means been pleasant.
He had been rubbed with powerful chemical salves and bandaged all over.
Our faces was certainly going to be chock full with ugly scars.
And Quinn preached me a stern lesson.
Frazz had been calibrated for humans.
Little plants could not handle the energy strain.
Maybe some big segovias were able to?
But I did not want to hear anything about it.
Quinn sighed. “Hey! It’s your lucjy day! I may even help you with the project.”
Robbie and I, we looked puzzled.
Quinn smiled. “I have just got a delivery of some fresh natural ingredients useful for building a portable power plant.”
We smiled. “That is great!”
Quinn calculated, “it is thrice as powerful as the invention of Paige Howard[paige howard]
, and it fits into some portable box.”
I wondered, “Paige Howard?”
Quinn explained, “she had been here at ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ in order to demonstrate her well awarded invention, a universal power plant. That was almost two years ago.”
More precisely, it had happened during my aforementioned field trip with Coco.
Thus I was not yet aware of Paige.
Quinn continued, “the machine needed to be fixed.” She sighed deeply. “Paige was cool and smart, but she has never been heard of ever since.”
Quinn wondered why. “But, strangely, Paige looks a lot like that girl running your favourite web show, Carla or so.”
I grunted, “Carly Shay?”
Quinn nodded solemnly.
Was that some random incident?
In any case, we were happy about this turn.
Quinn was rigged and ready to build such an ecological power plant, able to supply the whole campus of “Pacific Coast Academy” with electricity.
And it even fit into a portable cardboard box.
Quinn was carefully assembling the bits and pieces needed for the construction of the new ecological and technological miracle.
Robbie and I assisted her in one or the other way by holding her. We needed to hold up some screws and bolts.
I did not really understand it.
Neither did Robbie.
Fredward Benson had officially opened the web session.
This time, Carly, Freddie, and Sam had invited ome guests.
One of them was Mr. Henning, their teacher for science.
The other one was called “Cal”.
Quinn knew him. “He’s my mentor and provider with strange ingredients. He has graduated from ‘Caltech’, alias ‘Californian Institute For Technology’, with a major in nuclear physics.”
Carly announced proudly, “this show is powered by this little miracle of technology.” She showed us a power generator and thanked “cal” for his generous help.
Quinn and “Cal” had apparently got the same idea. They were like-minded, after all.
For Cary that meant a very good grade and certainly no trip to “Root and Berry Retreat”.
Thus Robbie and I would also receive a good mark for our project.
We were celebrating over in “Sushi Rox”.
Even Mr. Sweeny was here. In his decades of work as a teacher for science, he had never given better awards for a project than this time. “Even Simon Nelson Cooke” had not really made it that far.
And Simon had always beaten Quinn and Wayne at the sectionals.
So this meant a lot.
All of a sudden, Quinn Pensky’s cellular phone rang. She picked it up. “Quinn Pensky … oh, Cal!”
I would have liked to thank “Cal” to have helped Carly the same way as Quinn had helped me.
But the nerd from “Caltech” was totally out of breath. “The police is after me for dealing with pulverised uranium.”
Quinn gasped. “Oops!” She had been “Cal”
“’s best customer and confient since ages.”
My power plant had been based on said pulverised uranium as well.
Quinn was now obviously in trouble, too. She jumped through the window. “Sorry, I haveto be with him!”
Mr. Sweeny was consternated. “Illegal uranium? Portable nuclear reactor?”
I was now apparently forced to better forget about the good mark and the admission to AP classes in science.
Zoey would be very disappointed and preach me some lessons. But she was not the one to tell me. She had sucked in chemistry even more.
And for Carly, this meant one week in infamous “Root and Berry Retreat”.
Quinn would now probably elope with her beloved “Cal”.
We would never see her again on the campus.
Sweeny would give me and Robbie another last chance.
Too bad this did not mean “roots and berries with Carly”.
But many probems were still left.
We still needed a female voice for David R. Couleda’s performance.
[mr henning] from iCarly : iGo Nuclear
[jetx] from Zoey 101 : Jet-X
[lost pupils] mentioned in Zoey 101 : Fake Room Mate
[frazz] cf. Zoey 101 : Spring Break Up
[paige howard] from Zoey 101 : Paige At PCA
She is here identified with Megan Parker.
Table of Contents
Trina’s unanticipated and shocking disappearance from Hollywood had been leaving a big gap.
Principal Eichman’s featured musical Perita could not be performed at the scheduled time.
And there were already several other productions of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” planned for the next two years, counting on Trina Vega.
But not all of them would have been detrimental to the prestige of the school.
The one of Perita, on the other hand, definitely was.
Not only was the presence of the ambassadors of about six southern american states expected in the special guest lounge.
There was also Sofia Michelle from “Broadway” in New Yoork City. She was Chase Matthews’s example to live up to.
Eichman’s career as a principal of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” had been at stake since quite some time, anyways.
His pathetically high expenses for athletic teams had been by no means justified by their excessively meager results.
His TV productions, especially iZebo, had been obnoxiously lame.
And Eichman had repeatedly grabbed money from the school’s cash in order to close the financial gap caused by his TV productions.
The cracks in Eichman’s career were now hard to fill.
Apparently the president of Venezuela was urging towards the removal of Principal Eichman, if not the elimination of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” as a whole.
The Peruvian vice president was even more upset. He made Eichman responsible for kidney failure.
The board and the sponsors of teh school were forced to react quickly.
Among them were the most important big players of the Hollywood business, such as inevitable Malcolm Reese and Arthur Griffin.
Unfortunately, the nuking of Principal Eichman would only get rid of one problem.
The lack of a suitable artist performing the solo vocals of “Perita” would always get the south american states to run riots against the school.
We were consternated by the news about the devastating troubles of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”.
Morgan[morgan], the daughter of Mr. Eichman, was one of our students.
And we had got a few friends over there.
The school needed first of all a new principal.
Maybe the new boss would even be able to attract Victoria Vega.
This would not be easy.
Tyler had got an idea. “I know some suitable substitute!” He whistled innocently. But whom was he talking about?
In order to talk Tori Vega into performing at our senior prom — as the female backup voice for Couleda — we needed to think of something better.
Maybe David R. Couleda in person was able to persuade the most gifted singer of California?
OK, this sounded really critical.
But the tide was already high.
We could not waste all that much more time.
I rang once more the bell to the Vega’s residence.
Tori opened for me. “Hi? Oh no, not you again! I will nit go to Hollywood Arts. Piss off, bugger! Or I will call the police.”
Her father was a police officer.
That was hardly any joke.
Fortunately, I was not alone.
David R. Couleda, the one and only, was closely following me.
Tori’s breath froze. “Cou … cou … cou …”
David grinned. “Couleda … but you need to call me David.” He smiled.
Victoria was shivering over and over and over again. She was now far from calling for daddy in order to throw us into the next stinking rat hole.
David wondered, “may we come in?”
Tori stammered, “sure … right her …”
A few months ago, Trina had talked about her infallible crush on David.
But the winner of American Sings had ever since broken Trina’s heart.
Well, Trina did not have any heartr to break, anyways.
It was not easy for Tori to bear the presence of the great star, given Trina’s former feelings for him, reven though shallow and vain feelings.
David panted heavily. “OK, Victoria, you do miss your sister, don’t you?”
Tori nodded sadly. “She’s arrogant amd crazy, but I miss her anyways.”
David nodded. “But you can’t mourn forever.”
Tori sobbed. “I can’t?”
David shook his head.
Tori grunted, “why not?”
David shrugged. “It doesn’t fit to your face. You are a smiley girl.”
Tori gasped. “Tell me what?” She scratched her chin.
David panted heavily. “Being so sad, you should sing something to express it.”
Tori growled, “OK!” She sobbed and started singing Sad Songs[sad songs].
David simled. “Aw … Wonderful! No professional pop star could sing that better.”
Tori’s eyes bugged out. “I was good?”
David sighed. “I am not talking about ‘good’, I am talking about ‘fantabulous’!”
Tori gasped. “What? But Trina is the gifted one in our family. I am just her worthless little sister.” Alas, from the mouth of one of the greatest pop stars of our generation, Tori better had to believe it.
David sighed. “Trina claims to be the gifted one. But she has always been like Wade Collins. She just wants to harvest money and fame with little work.” David panted. “And that’s not how show business works.”
Trina and Wade were like little devils.
Tori and David were more like little angels.
Tori sobbed. But she still felt misplaced in a world formerly inhabited by her elder sister.
David started chanting a tune, trying top get Tori to chime in.
This worked out nicely.
They were now singling a little duet.
My cellular phone range.
I picked it up. “Dustin Brooks … aw Tyler?”
My pal cackled. “Yes, it is me again! I have found a new potential principal of ‘Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts’.”
I sighed. “Congrats!”
Tyler continued, “Megan takes her now right to the Vega mansion.”
I gasped. “What?”
Tyler snickered. “I deemed you in need of more backup for that quest.” He was so right.
David and Tori were able tro sing a great duet.
This was wonderful, and certainly enough for them as a band for our senior prom.
But Tori was able to do more. She would also have been a great future rock pop star. And she was still hesitating.
It was incredibly hard to convince her of joining “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”. She did not want to feel like the substitute for Trina.
The door bell rang.
Tori shrugged and walked to the door. “Who is there?” She looked through a peep hole.
Tori’s eyes bugged out. “Ba … ba … ba …”
The door went open.
An afroamerican woman around forty stood in the door frameb. “Baxter. But you may call me Helen!”
I also spotted a godawfully grinning Megan Parker.
“Helen Baxter” rang some bell. She must have been the postulant for the position as a new principal of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” mentioned by Tyler.
“Wasn’t she the actress of that family soap from the eighties?” I pondered for myself.
Indeed she was! Helen nodded solemnly.
Tori admitted, “Last week, I’ve watched some old family soap episodes. I am awfully missing my elder sister. And there I sw you.”
Helen grinned. She had been a Hollywood star actress already at the frail age of five.[kid star helen] And now she wanted to forward her experiences top new generations of Hollywood stars. For many years, she had been run a cinema in San Dirego named “Première”.
But now it was time for her to move on to bigger tasks.
Joshuah Nichols, the worthless step brother of Megan Parker, had been working as an auxiliary slave for Helen all high school time through.
Tori was still surprised.
It took Helen a long time to tell her story.
As a boss of the best cinema of San Diego, she had been able to secure many premières of great Hollywood stars.
Some of them involved big stars, such as Jenna Lotrell[jenna lotrell], Edwin Begley[ed begley], Jeff Garrett[jeff garrett], Melinda Murray[melinda murray], Ashley Blake, Jett Stetson[jett stetson], and on and on and on it goes.
Helen had been sort of a big star herself. But she had not made it beyond a certain age and fallen away from the path. Now she was motivated for helping the future stars of the day to learn from her errors and become much better.
Tori listened carefully and sobbed sadly.
Somehow, with Helen Baxter, “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” would be a completely different place, not haunted by the spectral presence of Trina. It was a place for Tori to give a try.
Victoria Vega decided to enroll at “Hollywood Sxhool for the Professional Performance Arts” and to perform at our senior prom.
Many things were now saved.
But quite a few troubles were still to come.
[morgan] cameo in iCarly : iCarly Saves TV
[sad songs] Third-party owned song by Elton John
[kid star helen] cf. Drake & Josh : Helen’s Surgery.
[jenna lotrell] cameo in True Jackson VP : Red Carpet
[ed begley] cameo in Big Time Rush : Big Time Live
[jeff garrett] from Zoey 101 : Jet-X
[melinda murray] from Victorious : Beck’s Big Break
[jett stetson] a few cameos in season two of Big Time Rush
Table of Contents
As aforementioned, Lisa had ignored Michael almolsy completely for many months.
This had only changed at the day of a fatal race on the campus between Logan Reese and Chase Bartholomew Matthews.
Logan had bought an expensive race cart.
Chase had rebuilt an old lawn mower from the custodian’s storage.
Really, Quinn Pensky had built it. At least she had been responsible for the fine tuning. She was always good for those things and could have repaired planes, if not rockets.
But her constructions had almost always got a downside.
And you know it.
I’ve already told you about the accident with my friends’ miniature plane.
She had boosted the propulsion at the cost of the navigation. And she had refused to learn from it. Thus, just a few months later, Quinn had built a race cart for Chase, promoting the propulsion at the expence of the brakes.
For this reason, Chase had completely lost the control over his cart towards the end of the race. He drove it straight into the viewers’ ranks.
And Lisa Perkins had happened to sit in the track of the car.
Michael had just jumped at Lisa and pushed her out of the way of Chase’s cart, saving her life.
Thhis had been the start of a dirty relationship.
It was exactly like the situation between Eric Mosby and Samantha Puckett.
In other words, Michael Barrett was nothing more than Lisa Perkin’s ham.
Tyler grinned. “And now we just need to work on using this in order to split Lisa and Michael asunder.”
I sighed deeply. “I have tried to think about it for almost two years.”
Tyler shrugged. “Maybe to thoroughly enough …”
I looked aghast.
Tyler sugegsted, “maybe Michael had provoked the accident on purpose …”
I gasped. “What?” I had hitherto thought,
There are strong parallels between Eric Mosby’s repeated gift of ham to Samantha Puckett and Michael Barret’s action in order to save Lisa Perkins’s life.
Eric’s action was a planned plot.
Michael’s decision to risk his limbs for Lisa had been very spontaneous.
And that is probably the reason for Lisa’s stubborn addiction to Michael Barret inspite of any proof of love.
The reason was probably really stupid.
But its existence could not be denied.
And now Tyler came to challenge this.
I wondered, “would Michael Barret really plan such an action?”
Tyler answered, “maybe?”
My eyes bugged out.
I had to think, “was Michael Barret really able to do that?”
Tyler seemed to know an answer.
Ashley Blake would have loved to study at “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”, already years ago.
But there had been problems.
Ashley had been a child star already at the age of five.
Thus her great affinity to the professional performance arts was blatantly undisputable.
Ashley was just a pure solist. She could not work in a team.
This had been more than utterly evident in our drama club.
Gertrude was the perfect rôle for her.
Mr. Lane[lane]
, one of the teachers of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”, had thus objected to her admission.
Truth said, Eichman would not necessarily have cared about this.
Amber Tate[amber tate] was about as arrogant as snobbish as Ashley. But she had always played a great part of the plans of Mr. Eichman. She had been made the star of his regular show iZeeboh, featuring some stupid dinoaur.
Eichman’s obsession with that dino had almost destroyed Carly’s sanity.
Whatever the reasons, Ashley had not been accepted at Eichman’s schools.
But times were about to change.
Helen Baxter had just been confirmed as the new principal of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”. And she was in favour of Ashley.
Thus the decision was made easy.
Ashley Blake would leave “Pacific Coast Academy” and attend the best possible school for a young diva.
Helen was certainly up to implementing quite a few changes.
22.3. Gene Conroy[gene conroy]
I was sitting alone in my dormitory room.
Robbie and Reuben were out for supper.
There were noises at the door.
I went there in order to open.
A young man, unbeknownst to me, stood in the door frame.
I stammered, “hello?”
The stranger replied, “Hello, is there a certain Dustin Brooks?”
I nodded solemnly. “That’s me!” Thinking twice, I deemed the visitor slightly familiar. I must have seen him once with Zoey.
The visitor introduced himself as Gene Conroy.
I choked. “That Gene?”
Gene sighed. “Yeah, that one.” He had been assigned as Zoey’s dance partner for a dance contest, some year ago.
But the dance had never happened.
Gene had been injured in some accident near the coffee cart, just a few days before the dance.
Zoey had been bitterly disappointed.
Our grandma had always been a great dancer, and she wanted to watxch Zoey win.
But the accident had robbed Zoey of all her chances.
If only I could have caught the culprit for that accident.
He would have to rue the day, until the times of dystopia!
Gene Conroy sighed. “Now I have found better witnesses for the accident.”
I started getting excited.
Gene panted heavily. “Wayne Gilbert has recorded the event, with his digital video camera.”
I gasped. “Really? May I see that?”
Gene nodded solemnly. “You just have to ask Wayne for it.”
Wayne cackled when letting me watch the video. He had, of course, not made it in order to find the culprit of something not predicated by him.
Wayne’s motivation was that of studying the reactions of Calvin, the owner of the cart, to the actions of the customers.
This sounded very much nerdy. OK, it definitely was.
But there had been a concrete reason.
The queues in front of the coffee cart had been very long back then.
Calvin had introduced the title of the “customer of the week”.
The selected client had been entitled to skip the queue any time for a whole week, and to get a gratis cup of coffee.
Given the usual length of the queue, this had been quite some valuable award.
Most pupils had wanted to make it there.
But the criteria had been unknown to anyone besides Calvin.
Most of the interested pupils had tried to catch the attention of Calvin in one or the other way.
Wayne had tried to watch and record this attempts with his video camera and learn from the outcome. This way he tried to be successful the week after.
That wasn’t really stupid, was it?
In any case, it had been the reason for the presence of Wayne’s digital video cam.
So, what was special about this scene?
Apparently, Michael was trying to save Calvin fromsome psychotic customer.
It went awry.
The psycho guy lost its balance and ran over Gene, making him crippled for the next week.
Honestly said, Gene had not yet recovered from the whole accident.
Wayne scrolled back.
And what did I see?
Michael appeared to give the psychopath a sign with his face and his fingers.
In other words, the scenario was planned.
Michael had wanted the psycho to threaten Calvin. Then he had intervened in order to “save” Calvin.
Everything had gone awry afterwards.
Gene could even have been hit worse.
For me, there was now now way back.
I concluded: “Michael tried carelessly to impress Calvin, even at the expense of roadkills. This way, he ruined all of Zoey’s chances of winning a dance contest in front of grandma’s eyes. Michael would have to pay dearly for this!”
Oh, so what had been the criteria for Calvin’s weekly choice?
The video analysis had not helped at all.
Calvin had always chosen a cute girl to make out with while ketting the other customers wait. He was one disgusting jerk of the worst sort. Fortunately, he was now gone.
Benjamin was not all that much better, though. But he would not have used those abominable means in order to get at girls. Or maybe he would, but he was always feeling observed by his stern little sister.
Addie Singer would have denounced her brother to mom and dad in the case of severe misdemeanour.
And the old Singers had put some ten thousands of bucks into the coffee cart, including the necessary insurance.
Tyler Pearson had heard about the video from Benjamin Singer and thereupon informed Gene Conroy.
Benjanin had wanted to know more about the good old times of the coffee cart.
Tyler had made the message about the video spread like wildfire.
It had not been without consequences.
Finally, Lisa had come to hear about it cand concluded “Michael almost got killed Gene in order to become customer of the week. He may for sure have arranged the race cart accident, as well. He is insane.” She did not want to be his girlfriend any longer.
That was possibly strike number three.
Michael still claimed to be innocent.
But Lisa’s distrust in him was stronger.
Maybe Michael was innocent.
But the relationship with Lisa had already suffered from severe lack of confidence since the apparition of Mr. Takato. It had been cracked and leaking guts for ages. And now it was broken.
R.I.P.
[lane] various cameos in Victorious.
He is identified here with same actor’s cameo as Ernie in iCarly :
[amber tate] from iCarly : iCarly Saves TV
[gene conroy] Gene is from Zoey 101 : Dance Contest.
The surname is taken from same actor’s guest rôle in some third-party owned show.
Table of Contents
Robbie had been watching something on an otherwise really lame channel, Dingo.
This time, it was not totally lame. It looked somewhat similar to Carly’s perfect web show.
Hey! There was a reason for that.
Those filthy creeps were plagiarising stuff from Carly’s shows and did not credit them!.
Of course that was a very mean thing to do.
Tyler did not hesitate sending a message to the Splash Face site of Carly’s gang.
But that was not even necessary.
We were not the first ones and hardly the last ones to recognise that fraud.
But Tyler did something more.
The Dingo Headquarters were not faraway from our campus.
Spring break was in front of our door.
Many kids would be away during from the camopus during that time.
The administration of “Pacific Coast Academy” was usually ready to rent rooms to tourists upon prior request for a moderate fee.
So, the idea was simply that of inviting Carly, Freddie, and Sam to our campus as an operational base in order to take on the obnoxious plagiarisers.
Over a year ago, Chase and Michael had got the reverse problem. They had been making toons for Toon Juice, a site publishing toons. They were even slightly paid for it.
Toon Juice required a certain minimum amount of toons per month for that reason.
This was hard to meet for many amateurs, especially high school kids like most of the conttributors.
Thus Chase and Michael had been pressed hard to accomplish their work within the given deadline.
This made them often enough as desperate as can be.
A certain Topher Lane[topher lane]
from one of the greatest broadcasting networks had accused Chase and Michael of having used their ideas and started to sue them for ten thousands of bucks.
But it had been all Logan Reese’s fault.
The shamelessly perverse dandy had told Chase and Michael to make that toon.
Fortunately, Chase and Michael had been able to dissuade Topher Lane in the last moment.
Tyler had got an idea. “Maybe Logan is also behind this plagiarism?”
I gasped.
That was a really shocking assumption.
But it was not much of a surprise.
Someone like Logan Reese was up to all kinds of sorts of abominations, everywhere, all the time, in any way.
Carly had gladly accepted the odffer to stay here at “Pacific Coast Academy” for a few days during spring break.
Alas, Sam was reluctant. She was probably not willing to encounter Melanie, her evil twin sister. She had suggested “Come On Inn”[come on inn]
as a place to stay during the mission on the vcampus of “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Her mother had used to come to this run down motel in downtown Los Angeles in order to get surgical treatment from Quinn Pensky.
The latter had now disappeared from teh scene.
I imagined such an inn as chock full of roaches and rats.
Spencer had told Carly a lot about our campus.
And she appeared to be very happy about it.
Of course, I would have to blush all the time.
To make things worse: Robbie and Tyler were among the kids leaving homeward for the spring break.
I would thus have to stand through this embarrassing situation all on my own.
My heart started beating restlessly like a rusty steam engine.
Ms. Burvich had just confirmed the availability of guest rooms to rent for the spring break.
Even more, Fredward benson was supposed to stay in my dormitory room, replacing Robert Carmichael for those days.
Now I was waiting in the lounge for Robbie. He needed to copy my homework, as often.
Zoey hated that.
But I could not really help it.
Alas, someone else stumbled in: Claire Sawyer, self-proclaimed future lawyer. She was wearing her usual formal outfit.
I gasped.
Claire introduced herself.
But I knew her already.
Claire explained, “I have heard about a severe case of plagiarism.”
That was inevitable.
The rumours about the theft of Carly’s segment must have spread like wildfire.
Needless to say, Claire Sawyer was up to suing Dingo for Carly. She had already prepared a lot of legal paperwork.
Of course we could not say anything in Carly’s absence.
Spring break had come.
Tyler and Ribbie had already left the chaos.
My suspense increased.
Melanie was ready to see her monozygotic twin sister. But she knew very well, “Samantha will hate to see me.” Thus she did not dare to wait for her over by the drop site.
I was of course uttermost excited.
Stacey Dillsen was also here. She had built a cotton swab model of the studio of the web show, as a gift for Carly.
Reuben was also around. He was still upset because Sam had once compared him to something disgusting. But he wanted to see Carly, anyways.
Finally, Spencer Shay’s rusty vehicle was seen slithering along the serpentine road connecting our campus with the centre of Malibu.
The excitement increased dramatically.
My heart started missing every other beat.
The car came closer and closer.
Finally, the wheels aqueaked.
The car had just halted.
Spencer had assembled the car from pieces from the junk yard.
The machine was cracked and rusted all over.
carly exited from the car.
I blushed a shade of exorbitantly flaming crimson.
Carly smiled. “Hi!”
I stammered, “hi!”
Spencer shook hands with me. He was already looking forward to the next fall, his first year of teaching art at “Pacific Coast Academy”. Now he was forced to share a room with Chase Matthews, replacing Logan Reese.
The snobbish dandy was away for the spring vacations.
Carly and Sam were going to live in the room of Lola and Quinn.
It was now empty, with Lola away for the break and Quinn gone to the middle of the land of nowhere.
Stacey would guide Carly and Sam to their residence.
Alas, her cotton swab model was not really welcome.
Sam pushed it into the dirt, making Stacey weep. She did not want to follow the cotton swab queen, either. “I am hungry!” In other words, she wanted to make it as fast as possible to “Sushi Rox”. She had encountered Kazu during their trip to Japan. Now she wanted to taste his sushi at his daily work place. Of course she still knew Kazu from her first time at “Pacific Coast Academy”. But she had tried to lie about this to Carly, as a part of her attempts of avoiding an encounter with Melanie.
I told her about the changes at the restaurant. “It now belongs to Mrs. Lee from ‘Wok Star’.”
That was not much of a problem.
Samantha also loved spring rolls like crazy. She told Carly, “take care of my luggage! I’ll be back sometime!.”
I had guided Fredward Benson swiftly to our dormitory room.
The technical producer of Carly’s show was already very tired. And he had spent many hours straight in Spencer’s fragile car, awaiting a breakdown any moment.
Usually, his mother would not have allowed him to go to California in a car guided by Spencer Shay. But she had been away for a few days in order to babysit Freddie’s baby cousin Stephanie[cousin stephanie]
.
Freddie had abused this occasion in order to sneak away. Inspoite of being tired, he asked me about my days with Sam, three years ago.
I sighed deeply. “It was horrible.” I did not really want to remember all that.
Freddie gave in.
Suddenly Melanie Puckett stumbled in.
Freddie jumped up and pulled her into a kiss. “Hi Sam!”
Of course it was a confusion.
For some odd reason, Freddie was not able to tell Sam from Mel.
Melanie knew about Sam’s and Freddie’s fresh relationship. But she did not do anything to correct him. She just smiled sweetly. “Hi Freddork!” Then she pulled him into another kiss.
My eyes bugged oit.
Melanie was deliberately using her similarity with Sam in order to steal Freddie of her!
The next day, Claire Sawyer urged Carly again to take legal steps against Dingo.
But Carly feared, “we still have got no proof.”
Spencer started telling a grisly story. “The skull of Charles Dingo, the founder of the channel, is deep frozen and hidden in the guts of the headquarters.”
Carly hated Spencer’s usage of the term “guts”.
Claire suggested hiring a private detective.
Carly shrugged.
Spencer wanted to intrude into their headquarters and look for the skull, hidden in the …
I did not want Spencer to repeat the bad word. Thus I studffed his mouth with a sock.
Carly giggled. “Cool!” Alas, she was too much scared by the skull and the bad word thing.
My cellular phone rang.
I picked it up. “Dustin Brooks …”
It was Tyler Pearson. “Hi Dustin. I have done some research on Dingo …”
My eyes bugged out.
I asked, “what? How did you …”
Actually, Tyler had ordered some sort of detective without telling me.
The research had been performed by one Robert Shapiro, a student from “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”, i.e. the school of Helen Baxter and soon of Tori Vega and of Ashley Blake.
Robbie’s report was the following:
Dingo Channel is really owned by Mr. Hawk from “Hawk Records”.
The history read on their web site is bogus.
However, there is a frozen in one of the rooms. But it is not the bony remainder of the head of fictional Charles Dingo. Rather, it belongs to the old Mr. Bradford[bradford], the very founder of “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Carly had to vomit.
I cringed for horror. But I was still able to slouych away and fetch a bucket for Carly.
She thanked me.
I blushed deeper and deeper. I also wonderdd for myself, “how did Robert Shapiro figure all this?”
One thing was clear:
Mr. Bradford II, the son of the founder, was a really grumpy man in hi sixties. He had impossibly stored his father’s skull in the hidden layers of the headquarters of Dingo Channel.
Maybe the skull had originally been hosted here on the campus of “Pacific Coast Academy”?
By no means would our boss be excessively pleased by noticing the theft of the skull. He had impossibly been aware of this yet. Otherwise, he would have started wreaking havoc and making us suffer until dystopia.
We had to figure out the original location of the skull, and then we would need to steal it back and return it to its rightful spot.
All this would have to happen before the moment of Mr. Bradford noticing anything.
Otherwise, doom and gloom would have been inflicted upon us, until the days of dystopia.
Mr. Bradford would have expelled us on site, and then deported to Siberia, the world’s biggest deep freezer barring the antarctic continent.
Spencer and Fredward wanted to steal the skull right now. They had already made a plan.
But Wayne Gilbert shook his head. “We don’t have a deep freezer powerful enough to keep it safe.”
Such a deep frozen skull was very sensitive.
We needed a rock solid way of keeping it at those low temperatures, not a cracky and frail one.
We sighed for despair.
It would have been foolish to retrieve the skull before finding a suitavble way of storing it.
Sam suggested, “your cafeteria has got a giant fridge.” She had probably already emptied it.
But according to Wayne, the cooling engine of the freezer of our campus cafeteria was not strong enough to keep the skull fresh.
The same was valid for the freezer of the central headquarters of “Wok Star”.
Alas, Robert Shapiro had got enough proof for the plagiarism.
Carly signed a suit against Dingo Channel.
Claire Sawyer was now going to do something.
How would this end up?
Carly, Freddie, Spencer, and Sam had to return to Seattle.
I looked sad during Carly’s departure. I could not stop blushing, either.
The motor of the ryusty vehicle howled.
Carly looked once back at me and must have seen my face.
Suddenly, the coloour of her face changed its shade into a deeply red one, too.
What was that supposed to mean?
[topher lane] from Zoey 101 : Son Of A Dean
[come on inn] from iCarly : iTake On Dingo
[cousin stephanie] from iCarly : iPie
[bradford] cf. Zoey 101 : Prank Week
Table of Contents
It was time for watching yet another wonnderful seession of the most perfect web show ever.
Tyler sat back in his chair. He had certainly got something up his sleeves.
This time, a certain Chad from Wisconsin[chad from wisconsin] has sent a requestto the gang.
Carly, Freddie, and Sam were challenged to draw a bunny each.
And this was the very moment of reveiling the results.
Fredward Benson’s bunny looked boringly normal. But it was most definitely a bunny.
Samantha Puckett’s bunny was locked up in jail for bank robbery.
Then there was Carly’s bunny.
I closed my eyes before seeing it.
According to Freddie and Sam, Carly’s bunny was ridiculously lame. It seeed to work part time for the fire brigades.
They were so mean. “Are you really realted to Spencer, one of the greatest artists ever?”
Robbie decided to make us draw bunnies as well.
We looked around.
Stacey wondered, “does a cotton swab model of a bunny count?”
We turned around. “No!”
Stacey sobbed and started weeping.
The next day, we met once more in the lounge in order to reveil our works of art.
Most of our bunnies were really normal.
But mine sucked completetly.
Robbie CarMichael had to roll on the floor laughing for several minutes.
Roomies could be really mean.
Stacey’s picture of a bunny was great, though.
It appeared almost alive.
But my outcome was devastating.
Zoey was such a perfect designer. She always made the best pictures, with whatever means.
Was I really the little brother of such a perfect artist?
It could not stay like this.
So much was for sure.
My fragile, almost broken self esteem needed to be mended by learning to draw decent bunnies.
But what should I do in order to be able to draw better bunnies? I needed sort of a teacher.
Our regular teacher for art, Mrs. Fisher[mrs fisher]
, was totally lame.
Zoey was so totally busy. She had to prepare all the prom stuff.
So I decided to ask Stacey for help.
This was not an easy decision.
She was a stern “Creddier”, as you know.
I had to choke myself for even darink to ask her.
We were now in the lounge of “Bernner Hall”.
Stacey Dillsen was trying to make something with cotton swabs and carpenter’s glue.
It was probably a model of a hammer.
I closed my eyes and panted heavily. Then I dared to stammer, “Stacey … may you teach me to draw pictures of bunnies?”
Stacey gasped. “What? You creddie killer dare to ask me to …” She picked up her cotton swab hammer and used it in order to veat away with it at me. “You barstard of a creddie killer! Take this!”
Fortunately, being hit with a bunch of cotton swabs did not hert all that much.
Many pupils started laughing about the ongoing scene in a somewhat hysterical manner.
Then Stacey changed her mind. “Hey! I would teach you, but in turn …”
I declared, “no date with Logan!”
Stacey laughed fanatically. “Logan Reese is so gone. I am now happy with Eric Blonowitz.!”
OK, Stacey and Eric sounded just right.
Stacey looked sternly. “I want Quinn’s quinnocular.”
I gasped, “Quinn is no more at ‘Pacific Coast Academy’, thus …”“
what?”
Staceyu growled,
Quinn has disappeared over night.
Many of her belongings are still around on the campus.
Lola is keeping them in some container. She wants Quinn to pass by and fetch them.
One of those items is the quinnocular.
I offered Stacey my sample of the optic tool.
But she was not really glad about this.
Are you joking?
Your quinnocular is just the oldest version.
I want Quinn’s last upgrade!
It is very useful for watching the stars. It allows me to determine many details about the observed stars.
I sighed deeply.
Lola was probably not going to lend me the quinnocular for naught.
And what had the old Polonius said? “Neither a borrower nor a lender be!”
My head started spinning around like a record.
I had agreed with the deal.
Tyler was working on a plan to get at the quinnocular.
Now Stacey started teaching me about art.
Rather, it wa sthe “Zen of Cotton Swab Art” or something like that.
I moaned when having to patch a few cotton swab sculptures.
Stacey was a very stern teacher.
I wondered, “What do cotton swab sculptures have to do with bunnies?”
Stacey explained, “mastering the art of cotton swabs, you will be more at ease when drawing bunnies!”
I sighed deeply.
The glue smelled disgusting. It was “Grizzly Clue”.
Were chemicals like this dissolving your brain slowly?
Maybe in the case of Stacey, it had already worked greatly.
But I would not want to end up like this.
And Stacey was not up to calling it a day and move on from cotton sab sculpting to drawing bunnies.
A few hourse later, the sun was setting.
I was in my dormitory room with Reuben and Robbie.
There were noises at the door.
I went in order to open.
Tyler stumbled in.
I sighed. “Any hopes of getting the quinnocular?”
Tyler moaned, “Lola is upset because of having to go all alone to the prom.”
I shrugged. “But many boys have asked Lola already.”
Tyler giggled. “They aren’t good kissers.”
I nodded solemnly. “Probably not …”
Well, there was a chance of Beck Oliver.
But he was still stuck in the razor sharp claws and fangs of wild metal goth beast Jade West.
But I wanted to learn drawing bunnies right now.
Tyler had got an idea. “Someone else might assemble a quinnocular.” Indeed we knew a few persons able to invent something like that.
One of them was certainly Mindy Crenshaw, aforementioned ex girlfriend of Joshuah Nichols.
Simon Nelson Cooke was assumed to be able to do the same.
Alas, Stacey was already impatient.
And the cotton swabs were already annoying me to no end.
The next day, Ashley Blake had called us. She had been in the locker hall of her new school, viz. “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”.
Some of the kids had adorned their lockers in a wonderful manner.
The most impressive work of art was that of one Sinjin van Cleef.
I was urged to take a look and ask said Sinjin to teach me drawing bunnies.
Stacey was just giving up on me and called me an ungifted and instensitive bastard, like all “Seddiers”.
I was strolling the locker hall of aforementioned “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”.
The kids there were really crazy.
One of them was a certain Caitlin Valentine, or, short, “Cat”. She had dyed her hair all read. She reminded me to some great deal of Nicole Bristow, a total bimbo wench.
Then there was aforemention Robert Shapiro, the freak from the school journal. He had got a doll on his arms.
Rex, said doll, seemed to have a life on its own. It argued permanently with Robert.
A teacher passed by me, carrying two coconuts around and juggling them. This was Mr. Sikowitz. He had already been the first acting teacher of Lola Martinez.
That explained probably Lola’s weirdness.
Sikowitz had instructed her in the art of concentrationg on her rôle. He had used hypnosis.
Ashley Blake walked into my general direction. She was apparently too embarrassed to admit to knowing me. “Hey, you guy, if you happen to look for Mr. Van Cleef …” She pointed towards him with her arms, making me gasp.
Sinjin van Cleef came along. He looked even weirder than Stacey Dillsen.
Ashley walked on, pretending to have never seen me.
Sinjin grinned. He started explaining his works of art. “These ornations of my locker are chewed yet undigested bits and pieces of foot, treated with polyurethane and grizzly glue.”
My stomach started revolting.
Then Sinjin started talking about his collection of th eteeth of the relatives of former presidents of the United States of America. He would use them for an ultimate sculpture.
I really refused to learn about the details.
Off to the loos was my way.
My stomach needed to be emptied as soon as only possible.
And I better did not tell Sinjin about it.
The freak would have started to look for a way of turning my vomit into art. And he would certainly have found one.
I would be happy to be out of there. And I had sacrificed my only free afternoon of the week for this.
I knocked at Zoey’s door.
Stacey was certainly not around.
It was the evening of the freshly founded club for astronomy.
Thus Eric and Stacey were somewhere out on the dunes, ready to watch the stars.
Zoey opened the door. “Dustin?”
I nodded solemnly. “It’s me, your little brother.”
Zoey coughed. “I haven’t forgotten about you. I am just busy with the outfits for the prom, and with the decoration of the prom hall.” She sighed deeply. “So much to do, so little time left.”
I sighed, “can you teach me to draw bunnies?”
Zoey nodded. “But of course! But I won’t make bunny gowns for the prom.”
I gasped.
Nicole would certainly have wanted some. Fortunately, she was not around.
Zoey took an old sketch book. “Let us start with painting a few straight lines with colour pencils!”
I sighed. “But I want to paint cute, fluffy bunnies.”
Zoey growled, “you need to learn patience and modesty before learning about the ways of drawiung bunnies.”
I sighed deeply.
Zoey insisted in guiding my hand for the first straight lines.
I started counting the seconds.
It was totally boring.
I wondered, “and when will I learn to draw bunnies?”
Zoey shook her head.
I had now drawn four lines, five lines, six lines …
Zoey praised me for my great efforts in drawing all the lines. “Very good, Dustin, that looks like quite some progress.”
My eyelids turned heavuy and slumped shut.
My head felt like a block of lead. It slumped nercilessly onto the table.
That was going nowhere.
A day later, I was ready for the next lesson in drawing “bunnies”.
But Zoey was not yet there.
Jerome Crony came along. He was up to presenting his latest productions, the outfit for Mark del Figgalo.
I had to disappoint him. “Zoey is not yet back.”
He shrugged helplessly.
I wondered, “you are a great fashion designer. Would you please teach me to draw bunnies?”
Crony nodded solenly. “Sure!” He picked a blue waterproof marker from his pockets and started drawing bunnies onto the door.
Alas, they were not really cute and fluffy. They were more like rocker bunnies with dark shades and spiked collars.
But it was a start.
I picked my sketch book and started to try to copy the paintings.
It was a lot of fun.
Finally, Zoey came along. She was upset because of the paintings on the door. “Hey! Who was that?”
I explained the situation.
Zoey growled at Crony, “how dare you to spoil my dormitory room door? And you have not got the permission to teach my brother to draw bunnies before me.”
Crony stammered, “he won’t learn to draw bunnies from your method. He needs to follow his gut instincts.”
Zoey grunted, “no, he won’t. He’s a nice boy.” She picked her lip stick. “Take this!” She drew a straight line all over Crony’s mouth.
Criony turned angry and started painting her mouth blue, using the water proof marker.
That was terrible.
Lola came along.
I cried for help.
Lola shrugged and took a fire extinguisher in order to cool down the heated minds. Then she kept on walking and shrugged helplessly.
Zoey and Crony looked now really consternated.
I told them to wash their faces. Otherwise I would not be able to cuddle Zoey.
Crony excused himself for having dyed Zoey’s face all blue.
Zoey sighed. “Sorry for having dyed yours all in read. Hey, we’re artists! Let’s make violet of it?”
Crony growled, “cool idea!”
They grabbed each other and pulled each other into a kiss, thusly getting the colours on their mouth mixed.
I had to admit, “I will never understand art.” I sighed deeply and let the love birds be. Soon, I would hear about carly’s vain attempts to learn drawing bunnies, with similar consequences.
At least Carly would understand me.
Unfortunately, the whole crap was obligatory.
[chad from wisconsin] mentioned in iCarly : iMust Have Locker 239
He is here identified with a cameo character named Chad from Drake & Josh : Eric Punches Drake
[mrs fisher] mentioned in Zoey 101 : Anger Management
Table of Contents
The bell was ringing for the start of yet another day of classes at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
I was crawling slowly into my homeroom classes.
Mr. Bender was a bit late. And he was not alone. “Good morning! I have to introduce someone very important to you.”
We looked aghast.
Mr. Bender continued, “this is vice principal Crubs from James K. Polk school. He is also responsible for the organisation of the career weeks at the middle schools in the county of Los Angeles.”
“Career week” did not reall sound much fun.
And Crubs grinned like a Miami Vice[miami vice] cop.
I had already heard some bad things about him.
His former studend Edmond Bigby had recently published a school survival guide, based on his experiences at “James K. Polk”. Edmond, usually shortened to Ned, was now a junior at “James K. Polk” high school.
The survival guide, both printed and in its web form, was very popular among us middle school kids.
Mr. Bender explained, “according to the results of your questionaries, you will be assigned to an internship.”
Crubs distributed the forms to fill in.
I moaned.
There were questions about health restrictions.
Zoey had to fill it in for me. She had got my medical reports.
Other questions were bopring.
The whole crap kindled my memories of a stupid middle school dance from like four years ago.
Zoey had been assigned by a computer to some Glen Davis[glen davis]
, a perverse jerk of the Logan Reese kind.
A week later, Mr. Bender had gathered us again for homeroom classes. “Mr. Crubs has gone through the questionaries and entered them into the computer.” He had got a long list. “There are your assigned internships.” He fixed the list to a blackboard.
We were curious and wanted to check it out soon.
Wendy Gellar moaned, “oh no, I have to help Ben Singer.”
Robbie giggled. “Hells bells! I have to serve in a shop for girls’ outfits.” He choked.
“Wok Star?” I shrugged.
Mr. Bender had to make some remarks about me and others assigned off campus.
We would be brought to and fetched from our assigned site by a PCA minibus. We were not allowed to leave from our sites without a responsible adult.
That sucked big times.
And it was all the fault of excruciatingly creepy Mr. Crubs.
But I had to bear with it.
This was my first morning at wok star.
There were not many guests before five o’clock in the evening.
And my internship ended at four.
So what was my task here?
Mrs. Lee received me with a brook in her hand.
Apparently, my job was that of sweeping the floor.
Mrs. Lee was no going back to her private rooms and enjoy her morning sleep.
I sighed.
There was a list with other tasks for me to do.
For example, I had to receive the delivery vans and sign the list.
Wasn’t that a bit topo much responsibility?
I should have worried.
Was it my business wondering about Mrs. Lee’s business? It probably wasn’t.
Another task of mine on the list was that of undusting and polishing the fabulous wall of fame.
I had heard a lot about it. But I had not yet come to spot it.
And there it was.
I was standing right in front of the hall of fame.
Most of Hollywood’s stars were seen there. They had eaten oince upon a time here at “Wok Star”.
That was not much of an issue.
The restaurant was located right across one of the biggest cinema halls of down town Los Angeles.
I would not have recognised Malcom Reese. And I had met him in person.
But it was written across the picture in big pink letters.
The picture must have been terribly old.
Or, in other words, Malcolm Reese was still very young on it.
I sighed deeply.
Logan’s father was so hard to imagine as a young man.
Had he not always and forever been the csar of Hollywood?
That was a bit confusing for my mind.
I also recognised Melinda Murray, Edwin Begley, Jeff Garrett, and Jenna Lotrell, all of them supreme Hollywood stars, thegreatest ones alive.
And tehre were also some no longer living ones.
But that was not my business, either.
But there was one black spot right in the first row of the wall.
I had to undust it as well.
According to Mrs. Lee’s detailled instructions, I was forced to use only special cothers and special detergents for the wall of fame.
Finally, lunch time was there.
I was in one of the best restaurants in downtown Los Angeles.
Yet there was no food for me.
Someone had locked the fridge and the storage rooms for the food.
That was a bit annoying.
Lunch time was over.
My stomach bellowed like a dragon.
Suddenly, Evelyn Kwong showed up. “Hey! What are you doing here?”
I told her about the career week stuff.
Evelyn grunted, “that sucks. I remembere mine, back at ‘james K. Polk’ middle school.”
I nodded. “I am hungry. Very hungry.”
Evelyn had guessed so. She showed me the location of the key for the fridges and the micro wave. “Do you like spring rolls?”
I smiled. “Always and everywhere!”
Evelyn growled. “Bad luck! Those are mine!”
I sighed deeply.
Evelyn continued, “OK, let’s cut them into half. Sweet sour?”
I nodded solemnly.
Evelyn panted heavily. “In three minutes!”
I sighed. Awaiting my lunch, I glared again at the wall of fame. “Why is there an empty black spot?”
Eveleyn growled, “a missing picture.”
I wondered, “whose picture?”
Evelyn was done with the microwave stove.
My mouth had turned all wet.
Evelyn Kwong replied, “it belonged to Helen Baxter, my aunt’s idol of her teenage days.”
I gasped. “Helen Baxter, nowadays principal of ‘Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts’?”
Evelyn bellowed, “do you know any other?”
I shook my head.
Whatever, the picture had disappeared like five years ago.
Ever since, Mrs. Lee had refused to fill the spot.
Nothing was deemed worthy enough to the gap.
And it had to be a picture of young Helen, not the currently living one.
I knew the very Helen Baxter in person, due to Tyler’s initiative.
But was that enough to beg her for a picture of herself?
Was it even worth the trouble to ask her?
Looking for the lost picture would be an even more horrible task.
Maybe there was not even an alternative left.
My first day at “Wok Star” was now all but over.
The miniature bus was going to fetch me in a few minutes.
But my head was starting to spin round like a record.
Table of Contents
My internship at “Wok Star” had finally come to an end.
The missing poster of Helen Baxter had not been found.
I would ask Helen some time about those days.
But this was not the right moment.
Today, Wayne “Firewire” Gilbert was visiting me, with some serious request.
During the last months, Quinn had started helping out tyhe science club team with a few informations and ingredients.
The sudden departure of the nerd queen had been axing a deep gap into the forest of the plans of Wayne and his pals.
Wayne had started participating once more in the war robot league.
Quinn’s inventions and the materials delivered by “Cal” had been a totally crucial factor.
Now Wayne was seeing himself stuck in an endless quagmire of close to impossible plans.
But Quinn Pensky’s legacy, as supposed to be found lying locked in Lola’s cache, was possibly very useful and the key to continuing Wayne’s projects.
Basically, wayne was now trying to get me to beg Lola into giving him access to the cache.
But the drama queen would probably be stubborn. She hated Wayne to the death.
There was not much to do about it.
I met Lola next day in the lounge.
Basicallly, she was no longer unhappy about having gotten rid of brutal jock Vincent Blake. But of course she needed someone to be seen with at the prom iin order to get the paparazzi to write about her.
Beck Oliver appeared more and more as the uttermost suited guy for that purpose.
Alas, Jade West was such a pernicious barnacle.
Getting rid of her would not be easy.
And it was Lola’s condition to get Jade to trash Beck.
Then she would be in a position of catching the rebound.
Beck Oliver was certainly no good for a goth girl like Jade West.
Likewise, Jade was a pain in Oliver’s guts.
Their cracked relationship had to be seen as perverse and decadent as only imaginable.
There must have been really foul and disgusting reasons for them being together.
Tyler played with the letters of the names and made some shocking discovery.
“Jade” contains two letters of the name “Judith”, in the correct order.
Likewise, “Oliver” contains a few letters of the name “Holofernes” in order.
That’s harder to see.
The “f” and the “v” are closely related, making it more plausible even.
I suppose a development from “Holofernes” over “Olovernes”, “Olivernes” to “Oliver”.
I could not make much sense of it. “I don’t know anything or anyone named ‘Holofernes’.” I shrugged, sighing deeply.
Tyler started talking about a second century Jewish book named Book of Judith.
The book is an invocation of the spirit of Jewish resistance against the foreign oppression of Judea.
Back then, the Roman emperors gave the Jews less and less priviliges in even their own homelands.
The last revolt by one Shimeon bar Cochebah was finally oppressed by emepror Hadrian.
After this, Jerusalem had finally been given a pagan name, Aelia Capitolina.
Jews got even banned from their own holy city.
Said Holofernes had been an Assyrian conqueror of Jerusalem.
Judith was a Jewish woman and mistress of Holofernes. She is said to have assassinated her drunk abuser and cut his head off.
This made her a hero of the oppressed Jewish population of all times, especially the times of danger for the very existence of Jerusalem, such as the war between Hadrian and Bar Cochebah.
He grinned.
I shuddered for disgust. “That sounds horrible! Like frenzied ninjas with chop sticks …”
Was there really a parallel between the story of the Book Of Judith and the relationship of Jade and Beck?
This sounded so terrible.
Was Jade going to cut Beck’s head off? She was so totally obsessed with scissors.
It all sounded totally plausible.
Should we not at least go and warn Beck?
Wayne Gilbert urged me over and over to do something.
I sighed deeply and started telling him about Tyler’s analogy.
Wayne cackled mercilessly. “Jade is a tattooed goth girl. She is certainly able to do that!”
I gasped.
Now I got to see Wayne’s incomplete plans for the robot war league.
He explained, “Quinn’s last great idea were shapeshifting robots, like in that anime.[shapeshifting robots]”
I had seen that film.
There were impressive machines, or robots, or something like that.
They were able to change from a car into a plane or a tank or so at whim.
Of course it sounded like a cool idea for war robots.
The opponent would never know the next shape in advance and fail planning.
Really, it had been Wayne Gilbert’s idea.
Quinn did not read action cartoons and had always made fun of Wayne’s obsession with them.
But only Quinn’s inventions would have been able to turn the concept of shape shifting robots into realisable technology.
But what was the closer connection to Jade and her tattoo?
Wayne explained, “King Solomon used demons in order to build the temple of Jerusalem.[demons and temple]. He used a seal ring depicting a five pointed star, or pentagram, thence known as the ‘Seal Of Solomon’.”
I had briefly seen the star on Jade’s exposed right arm while walking the locker halls of “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts”.
Wayne Gilbert explained the striking difference of a five pointed star pointing upward and one pointing downward.[orientation of pentagram]
The upward star implies the domination of the elements of nature by the power of spirit, or the quintessence.
The downward star symbolises the downfall of spirit into matter.
“Quintessesnce” had nothing to do with Quinn Pensky.
This made me a bit disappointed.
Wayne explained, “Jade must have realised Beck as a pernicious demon. She needs the pentagram tattooed onto her right arm in order to control him and not get sucked into the depth of the quagmire of perversity and decadence.”
It would require great skills for Jade to abuse Beck for her purpose.
But what had Beck Oliver exactly done in order to deserve that?
I did not know it.
Would it be necessary to find out about it?
I did not know.
It sounded very likely.
But the very thought scared me to no end.
[shapeshifting robots] alludes to third-party owned movie Transformers
[demons and temple] cf. Testament Of Solomon
[orientation of pentagram] cf. Éliphas Lévi Key To The Great Mysteries
Table of Contents
So, the tattoo, the pentagram underneath the skin of Jade West, was of a magical significance, the control of demons like Beck Oliver.
I had always been somewhat scared by magics and tattoos.
Tyler had to tell me more about the legend of King Solomon and the demons.
Somehow, the beasts had been locked away into seven water pots, in the depths of the temple of Solomon. They had been released upon the destruction of the temple.
I came to think about the construction and multiple extensions of the “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Did the head of old Mr. Bradford have a deeper significance for that procedure?
Maybe the current owner had to lock it away, as a protection from the demons helping him to control the school?
I shuddered for disgust.
Mr. Bradford II was so scary, he must have had a deal with some demons in order to be able to rule over “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Wayne Gilbert cackled manically upon listening to my assumptions. “You must be into something!”
But we aactually had to think it a bit further.
The deeply frozen skull was now gone.
Did this mean chaos and corruption for the whole school?
Hey!
Maybe the absence of the head had been the source of everything going wrong during the last years, especially all those decadent couples?
But I had to ask myself, “when has the had disappeared?”
Michael and Lisa had been the first of the false couples to be established here at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
This unholy event had been happening over two years ago.
The skull must have had disappeared before that event.
I had often passed the statue ofter the first Mr. Bradford when crossing the camous of “Pacific Coast Academy”.
It was large and massive.
After all the fuss about the frozen skull, it was no longer possinble for me to walk past the sculpture without taking an increasinly nervous look at it.
Tody, I could not help it kicking the sculpture. “Bad Bradford!” I wondered, “was that really a massive brass statue?”
Indeed, it sounded a bit hollow.
I shrugged carelessly.
Taylor Pearson and Wayne Gilbert did not trust the incident and were now up to taking a closer look at the sculpture.
According to the latter, the metal of the monument made it impossible to use the quinnocular for a closer inspection.
The geek suggested the application of ultrasonic reflection tomography.
I did not understand that word.
Mr. Sweeny, on the other hand, did so. He was interested in a tomographic examination of the old sculpture.
And this was the great moment for the examination of the hollow sculpture.
Mr. Sweeny was sitting at the monitor.
Wayne fumbled around with some weird device. He kept on cackling like a fool.
Mr. Sweeny commented the pictuures on the screen. “This is interesting!”
I shrugged.
Mr. Sweeny panted heavily. He took off his spectacles in order to countercheck. He donned then again after half a minute. Then he concluded, “the sculpture is hollow at its base!”
I sighed deeply.
My senses had not been cheating.
Wayne wondered, “maybe there is a secret door?” He cackled fanatically.
I shivered.
Wayne must have stumbled upon some insane bunch of secret entrances in his fantastic toons.
But how could we enter the secret hollow?
Cutting a holw into the brass skin of the monument would have been dangerous.
Mr. Bradford II would certainly have noticed it during the next visit.
Mr. Sweeny suggested laser metallurgy. “This reduces the immediably visible traces of such a manioulation to zilch!”
We gasped.
Quinn pensky and her Cal would certainly have been able to perform such a surgery on the sculpture.
But we did not have the necessary tools at our disposal.
Once again, Quinn could easily have provided us with the necessary equipment.
The gap left by her departure was deep, oh so deep. I made sigh badly.
But then there were the other options, such as Mindy Crenshaw and Simon Nelson Cooke.
Tyler had not got any problems talking to Mindy.
Alas, the geek girl was not keen on showing up on the campus, for whatever reason.
That was a bit strange.
Tyler could explain it. “Mindy is a persona non grata on this campus.” He shrugged. “She has been here once for a few weeks and made herself unpopular, saying it mildly.[mindy at pca] Now she doesn’t dare to show up again.”
I was not able to imagine the causes for this bad renown here at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Tyler had got a hard time talking Mindy into showing up all masked. he finally succeeded.
Finally, Minsy Crenshaw appeared on our campus, completely veiled.
Greasemonkey Joe Braxley had sold us some trash metal in order to be able to repair the statue after the operation.
Mindy introduced her tools. “This is a hyperbolic photo cannon[hyperbolic photon cannon]
.”
Wayne Gilbert had heard a lot about that nifty tool.
The same was valid for Simon Nelson Cooke. He did not understand Mindy’s need for veiling herself. “She’s an excellent scientist and engineer.” He shrugged.
Mindy started the engines.
There were a few strange sounds.
Some mist covered the air.
But then it was all over.
The mist disappeared.
There was now that hole in the statue.
Mr. Sweeny directed an electric torch at the opening. He gasped. “There must be a hole in the ground!”
Tyler was small enough to take a closer look. “This looks pretty much like an entrance to the campus underground.”
The statue was thus probably hiding the access to some secret location.
Was this the sealed arcane path to the hideout of the skull of Mr. Bradford I?
That looked like a big discovery.
We were tempted to go and look.
But it sounded oh so risky.
Not even Tyler, small enough for many wormholes, was reluctant.
Fortunately, oour technology freals knew a way around it. They withdrew briefly in order to discuss the situation.
Finally, there was an agreement.
The freaks were up to sending some remotely controlled robot down the hole.
There were some technical problems with the broadcast of the pictures from the robot to our monitors, though.
Wayne Gilbert took one of his old battle robots.
Finally, the droid moved on.
The geeks were still discussing the details.
Some hour later, Wayne Gilbert announced, “The secret freezing room has been found. But it is dysfunctional.”
We gasped.
Even with a plan like Spencer Shay’s for retrieving the stolen head it would not be possibble for us to put it back into its proper place.
The skull would just rot away.
That sounded terrible.
For the time being, we could only resolder the statue and conceil the operation.
As some sort of good new, Beck Oliver had been warned from Jade West’s detrimental plans. Now he had done the one and only right thing and trashed Jade West on site.
There was now no obnoxious obstacle left between Lola and Beck.
Tyler had used Ashley Blake quite cleverly as a tool. But he still refused to tell me the details, though. He was probably not willing to strain my already excessively tortured mind any more.
Lola was now totally happy about the prospects of going to her senior prom by the side of Beck Oliver, one of the reportedly best kissers west of the Mississippi and thus totally wasted on a death metal fan and goth girl like Jade West. She was finally ready to let us access her well guarded chache of Quinn Pen sky’s heritage.
We had been awaiting this moment with exorbitant impatience already.
Many excessively shocking technological secrets and scientific discoveries were now at last available for the better of all student of “Pacific Coast Academy” and our friends.
Wayne was rigged and ready to scan her leftovers for the valuables.
Alas, Jade would probably not take it totally easy and wreak some havoc, right?
[mindy at pca] This identifies Mindy Crenshaw with same actress’s guest rôle in Zoey 101 : Backpack.
[hyperbolic photon cannon] cf. Drake & Josh : Mindy Loves Josh
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As expected, the goth girl of the year showed up at “Pacific Coast Academy” right on site in order to wreak havoc.
Fortunately, Shelby Marx was subbing for Lola.
Jade West could not tell the difference. Thus she tried hurting the gracile drama queen badly. But she actually aimed at the martial princess.
Shelby span around and punched the living twilights out of Jade.
The goth girl was consternated.
Shelby grinned. “Time to cool down!”
At least none of Jade’s bones were cracked.
But her self esteem was a different issue altogether.
Wayne Gilbert walked in with a battle droid. He had deciphered a few of Quinn’s secred records.
Doing so was by no means an easy task.
Quinn was sometimes very cryptic.
Jade was disgusted by the lame droid and wanted to kick it the way she had been hurt by Shelby.
Wayne pushed the buttons.
Jade shrugged.
Suddenly, the shapeshifter robot transformed into a pair of jadded-edged scissor blades.
Jade’s eyes bugged outr.
She screamed, “aw, I love scissors!”
Wayne cackled. “Who doesn’t?”
Jade grunted, “losers?”
Wayne cackled even more.
The jagged edges made Jade swoon even more than the powerful mechanism deployed in order to make the blades open and close.
Jade’s wrath and fits of anger formerly directed againts us , the students of “Pacific Coast Academy”, had been cracked and cut into smithereens by those scissor blades like a piece of cardboard.
“May I see more of them?” asked the goth mistress.
Wayne cackled. “
Sure, my workshop is just across the campus.” He explained, “I have got other warrior robots, too: Hammers, saws, drills, …l”
Jade grinned. “OK, that sounds great!” She staggered away, following Wayne to his robot shack.
During the next days, Wayne Gilbert’s robot would face the terrible team of “james K. Polk”, with Simon Nelson Cooke as its head engineer.
jade was of course not a member of the team. But she saw many other potential uses for the scissor bot.
Of course, the abrupt breakup with Lisa Perkins had not been exactly a pleasure for Michael.
The master of the jazz flute was now slouching the campus, looking for a place to die. Infact, he should have been exorbitantly happy for having got rid of the iron block tied to his ankles.
Fortunately, he was not the only one having ever been in that situation.
And you did not even have to go back to Trisha’s former suitor, Eric Moseby and his gift of ham.
Wendy Gellar was here, right on the campus. Her feelings after having been turned down by her former super idol, Drake Parker, were exorbitantly similar to the sufferings of Michael Barret before and after his totally self-destructive relationship with Lisa Perkins.
Tyler had ordered Wendy to take a bit care of Michael.
Wendy sighed. “That’s OK.” She did not really like getting reminded to that unlucky moment. But now she walked up to Michael and started talking.
I sighed for relief.
The operation “prom partner for Michael” appeared to start out great.
Lola was now helping us to ask Helen Baxter about some old photograph.
A picture of Lola was now on the miniature wall of fame of “Sushi Rox”.
But of course Lola wanted to make it to the real wall of fame.
Getting a proper picture of old Helen Baxter would have been an excellent start.
We were now in Helen’s headmaster office.
Lola had already been at several première parties in “Première Theater” in San Diego.
Helen sighed deeply. “Thwere are indeed not many old signed photographs around.”
We had seen that coming.
Helen continued, “but there should still be one in the hands of Malcolm Reese, a bit more than twenty years old..”
We sighed. “Aw!”
I calculated briefly. “Malcolm Reese was not yet that famous back then.”
Helen nodded. “But he already started about thinngs to do as a great producer and director.” She gave me and Lola a long list.
Thus our task was now that of retrieving a picture of young Helen Baxter from Malcolm Reese and then take it to Mrs. Lee.
Trying to drag Logan into the whole stupid affair would not have been of much avail.
We had to go straight to the lion’s den.
I remember our weekend at Reese’s summer residence in Santa Barbara.
It was a very spacy estate.
But, at least according to Logan, it was nothing compared to their mansion in Beverly Hills.
Malcolm used to spend most of his time over there.
Lola and I were now bound for visiting him up there.
Chaunsey, the staunch butler of the Reese family, expected us at the entrance. He still looked like three years ago.
And Mrs. Benson was soon going to marry him, probably during the summer break.
I wondered,
Will Chaunsey move up to Seattle?
Or will Marissa and Freddie have to come to Beverly Hills?
But then Samantha Puckett will be alone in Seattle.
This was not really good.
Without Carly and Freddie, Samantha will just rob banks and push old women onto the pavement.
On the other hand, Malcolm Reese will not survive without the continued efforts of his faithful butler.
Finally, Chaunsey was guiding us into the audience room of Malcolm Reese, the pope of Hollywood.
I was tota;;y excited./
Lola had been here already more than once, but hitherto always accompanied by an agent.
By the way, her old agent sucked.
Lola was already looking for a new one.
Two years later, a certain Katie Knight, an excruciatingly smart and cunning tween girl from Minnesota, would fill in this important position and push Lola to her first Oscar.
But I did not know her at that point.
Thus Lola had to keep herself somehow adrift.
Malcolm had expected Lola to ask for a nw rôle.
But Lola was content with those already in store, such as Jerk In The Fountain[jerk in the fountain]
and Kissed Her Sister[kissed her sister]
. She panted heavily. “Really, I am here for a picture of Helen Baxter.”
I added hastily, “young Helen!”
Malcolm shrugged carelessly. He had actually got several pictures of the former child diva.
But those exhibited by Malcolm were not the one true picture needed for Mrs. Lee.
I had to point it out again.
Malcolm gasped.
The picture still existed.
But Malcolm kept is hidden from the public.
It was too precious for him.
He explained, “before meeting Helen Baxter, I had just been a lofty dreamer at Hollywood. I would never have made it up to the top without her intervention.”
Lola grinned.
Malcolm continued, “I had just made a few movies as an actor. I was maybe not gifted enough for the star rôles. But I enjoyed being a backup with a sentence to talk every now and then.” He sighed deeply. “helen changed this.”
His way of talking about Helen Baxter and the moment of the old picture made it seem impossible for him to part with it.
But he appeared to be ready to negotiate. “There’s one thing able to get me to part with the picture.”
Lola smiled. “Cool! I love those ‘one thing’.”
Malcolm continued, “and that is Helen in person.”
I shrugged.
That sounded feasible.
But he made it more precise, “get Helen to marry me! You will then get the picture.”
I choked hard.
Lola panted. “Oh?”
Indeed, at their first encounter, young Helen had promised to marry Malcolm in the case of becoming a famous Hollywood producer.
The promise had never been kept. Was it full of cracks, beyond repair?
Or was there a way to mend it?
It was up to us to try.
Oh, the picture was completely free from any damage. It was kept safely in some treasure closet.
We were now ready to return to our campus.
Lola’s senior prom was next door.
And Lola’s gown was not yet ready.
The same was true for Beck’s perfect tuxedo suit, also taylored by Zoey.
It was not my prom.
But I worried a lot about it.
[jerk in the fountain] cf, Zoey 101 : Lola Likes Chase
[kissed her sister] mentioned in various episodes of Drake & Josh
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The door to the office of Helen baxter at “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” was widely open in front of me.
I was equipped with a box with diamond rings from Malcolm Reese.
Helen wondered. “I don’t have much time to waste.”
It was also senior prom time at “Hollywood School for teh professional Performance Arts”.
And this was Helen’s first time of supervising a prom ball.
Helen was already very excited about that event.
But it also caused a lot of distress.
Helen did not need more of that sort.
I was unable to speak at this moment.
Fortunately Tyler had no qualms bothering Helen. He just showed her the box with rings. “From Malcolm!”
Helen’s eyes bugged out. “Wow! I have been waiting for this moment all my life!”
Tyler and I hi fived noisily.
The picture of young Helen was now in our hands.
I was now visiting the back office of Mrs. Lee here at “Sushi Rox”, along with Robbie Carmichael.
Mrs. Lee was very much pleased by the acquisition of said fabulous old photograph.
It would get polished and varnished all over before making it to its most fabulous spot on the wall of eternal fame.
Mrs. Lee declared, “I am responsible for the buffets both here at ‘Pacific Coast Academy’ and over there at ‘Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts’, likewise, at ‘Palmwood’, at ‘James K. Polk’, at ‘Eastridge’, and at ‘Silver Springs’.”
I had seen that coming.
The same was valid for Robbie Carmichael.
That sounded like a lot of work.
Was the staff of “Wok Star” even near able to manage all the fuzz?
Mrs. Lee then declared, “OK. Dustin, you will be the Maître D’ of the prom banquet!”
I beamed proudly.
It was not really new your middle school kids to serve at prom night as auxiliary forces for the outfit and the execution of the prom programme.
But being the maître d’ was quite exciting.
The thought of the wedding banquet turned many mouths watery.
But the next topic would turn amny stomachs dysfunctional.
Wayne Gilbert, Simon Nelson Cooke, and Mindy Crenshaw were busy with their hollow attempts to restore the freezing facility of the secret storage accessible from the cavity in the “massive” monument of Mr. Bradford Senior.
Lola Martinez had not been supposed to hear about that operation.
Unfortunately, we had to involve her because of her custody for the legacy of Quinn Pensky.
There were still hundreds of books in the cache awaiting a competent reader.
Neither Wayne nor Mindy nor Simon were able to read them all at once.
Quinn’s intellectual treasure appeared well guarded by her cryptic way of talking about her secrets.
But with three of the smartest heads of southern california working on it, those secrets would soon break open. They were already showing cracks.
Lola smiled. “Do you mean that head?”
I shrugged.
Wayne cackled.
I explained the significance of the head.
Lola grinned. “Oh yeah, it must be that one.” Apparently, she knew more about it.
I growled, “so … what do you know about it?”
Lola whistled innocently. “Oh, nothing particular.”
I looked sternly at Lola. “Don’t try to fool us!”
Lola sighed deeply. “OK. Do you remember the haunted mansion[haunted mansion]
from Halloween, like, three years ago??”
I nodded solemnly.
Logan Reese had prepared a ghost house for us elementary school kids. He had gone out of his way.
But Zoey had deviced a plan to scare the living hell out of Logan.
Thus Logan had been forced to cancel the whole thing in the middle of the haunted hall.
I remebered, “but … Lola? You have not been there, back ten.” Well, I was mistaken.
Lola sighed. “Oh, I was there. I had been hired by Logan as an actress portraying some scary ghost.”
I shuddered.
As going to turn out, Lola had been scheduled the main feature of the last part of the haunted mansion.
But Zoey had ruined and spoiled the whole fun.
So, what did the head have to do with that?
Lola explained, “and I was supposed to carry the dead head under my right arm.”
A frosty wave ran down my spine.
Lola as an undead monster carrying its own head ‘neath her shoulders?
That was too much for my stomach to bear.
Everyone was ready for the great prom dance.
Lola Martinez was here with her beloved Beck Oliver.
Chase Bartholomew Matthews showed up with Addie Singer.
Vincent Blake was followed by Shelby Marx.
Wayner Gilbert appeared in the company of Jade West.
Michael Barret arrived with Wendy Gellar.
Stacey Dillsen and Eric Blonowitz were wearing some prom outfit made completely of cotton swabs and white yarn.
Zoey’s prom date was no other than Jerome Crony alias Olivary Biallo.
Logan dragged Missy Meany along. He was now shamelessly admitting to having used the skull for his mansion of horror.
Zoey looked oddly at him.
But it was none of her business anymore.
In a few days, she would ever have to see the reckless jerk and dandy again.
Along with my deputy Robbie Carmichael, I was of course keen on serving the dips and the snacks.
But Zoey had to give her valedictorian’s speech first.
Her main topic were books.
Zoey had made school books the central theme of the prom party.
That was a bit creepy.
But for many students, graduation meant a resounding good bye from the world of books, and thunderous “hello” to life experience.
This was of course the case for Lola Martinez.
She would now only read filthy magazines like Buzz[buzz]
, and of course the texts for her rôles.
In order to conform with the topic, David Archuleta and his beloved Tori Vega were now singing a song about books.
I started distributing the dips. “I have got baba genouche, guacamole, tapenade, hummous, …”
Zoey ruffled my hair. Then she took a bit of everything. “I have never tried spring rolls or sushi with baba genouche.” She took a bite. “Yummy!”
I grinned.
Finally, David and Tori sang some song from Perita, adapted to the prom party: Don’t cry for me, PCA[dont cry for me]
The students sang along.
The prom hall was now almost bursting for applause. It was certainly already showing cracks left and right.
[haunted mansion] cf. Zoey 101 : Haunted House
[buzz] mentioned Zoey 101 : Miss PCA et alibi
[dont cry for me] spoof off third-party owned Don’t cry for me, Argentina from aforementioned musical Evita
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I started weeping when seeoing Zoey leave our campus for the last time.
Well she would come and visit me on and off.
But that would never be the same.
Zoey was now my responsible adult.
This reduced the need to get permissions fro everything from my dad in England.
Zoey and Crony would work as freelance fashion freaks for “Mad Style”, one of the greatest fashion labels of New York City. She would also teach costume design at nearby “Hollywood School for the Professional Performance Arts” under the supervision of principal Helen Baxter.
Lola Martinez and Beck Oliver would be the honour couple at the impending wedding of Helen and Malcolm. They would also perform together in the next Oscar winning movie of Malcom.
Stacey Dillsen would go to a vocational college for carpentry.
Dean Rivers was now finally divorced.
His new wife would be Ms. Park, a second cousin of Kazu and hitherto a teacher at some high school in New York City. She would henceforth teach here at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Chase Bartholomew Matthews would starte a career as a playwright at Broadway and wait for his beloved Addie Singer.
Wayne Gilbert would found his own factory for deceptive transformer robots, with Jade’s special wishes.
Vince Blake would go to Russia in to the freashly founded continental american-style football league.
Shelby Marx would follow him a few years later.
Lisa Perkins was accepted as a new member in Drake Parker’s band, And she would be a trifle more for Drake than just his female lead vocals.
Michael would start as a trainee at the record studio of fabulous Gustavo Rocque.
This would be a very hard start into a career.
Gustavo used to shout a lot at his employees, calling them dogs and monkeys and stuff.
Logan was now a male supermodel. He would soon go on a tour across the whole world. He needed to test all whirlpools ever built.
Bradley Impala[bradley D'Impala], Logan’s example to be up tom was alreasy waiting for him. This mega model was rumoured by some to be a vampire.
This year, we spent most of the summer in London with mom and dad.
The weather in London was terrible. But it would have been worse during the winter times.
I had to think most of the time about the impending life without Zoey.
“Zoey” is derived from a greek word meaning “life”.
Without my elder sister, the world at “Pacific Coast Academy” would be a bit dull.
Nobody had determined the history and the times of “Pacific Coast Academy” during the last half of a decade as much as the blond Mary Sue.
But I had to go through it.
Finally, the summer break was over, making way for a new year at “Pacific Coast Academy”.
For many kids, not just for me, the departure of Zoey left an emptiness not to be filled by anyone.
But new pupils were already roaming the campus.
Remarkably, many have been attracted by the frequent appearance of allusions to “Pacific Coast Academy” at Carly’s web show during the last months.
There was Nolan “Shredderman” Byrd[nolan byrd], a former hero as a fighter against scandalous states at his school and its involvation in corrupt community politics.
His principal had been Dr. Sheila Voss alias Mrs. Briggs alias Jacqueline Bell[sheila voss], currently vice principal at Carly’s school “Ridgeway”.
There was also Drake Parker’s alike-looking cousin Timothy Turner[timothy turner]
, an adult elementary school kid.
Megan had always been too embarrassed to even mention him.
Even Sam’s and melanie’s alike looking cousin Christina Saunders[chris saunders]
And last but not least, there was …
“Carly!” shouted I at the top of my lungs.
Csrly Shay turned around. “Dustin, right?”
I blushed a shade of blazing crimson. “Yeah, that’s me.”
She smiled. “That’s cool!”
I tryied to smile.
But my face was still burning like hell fire.
Carly sighed. “Would you please help me getting started?” She gasped. “melanie wanted to help me, but she is not yet here.” She shrugged. She was not going to live in a dormitory room, but wiith Spencer in some apartment three miles off the campus.
My heart was still beating like a rusty steam engine.
Carly would certainly miss Freddie and Sam. “But I have been feeling like a thir wheel of a bicycle sinc, well …”
According to Carly, Freddie and Sam would better do without her.
Carly would try to find a new team in order to be able to continue iCarly from the campus of “Pacific Coast Academy”.
Freddie and Sam, on the other hand, would continue with a new moderator, viz. Gibby.
I sighed deeply.
She was alluding to my revelation about me and Sam.
I remarked, “I have learned from my mistake with Sam.”
Carly admitted to having made mistakes, too. “Fredward Benson, Griffin[griffin], Benjamin Huebscher, Jake Grendle, and so on …” She almost puked.
I tried to comfort her. “How about some spring roll?”
She nodded solemnly. “I like the campus restaurant.”
And off we went.
This was just a start into our new life.
We would grow closer and closer from day to day.
The false relationships of Lola and Vince, Michael and Lisa, Quinn and Logan, due to being based on “attracting” opposites, had been full of cracks, devoid of proper love, and easy to crack for a truly cunning master schemer such as Tyler Pearson.
I would not have made it there without his unstoppable efforts. I had often enough got doubts about the functionality of his tricky plans.
And it had always turned out right, although sometimes after substantial detours.
But Carly and I were birds of a feather, just like, destined for reaching the end of the rainbow together.
Tyler had prepared our way.
But we had to hang on to our possibilities and walk it to the end.
The End
[bradley D'Impala] from True Jackson VP : True Fear
[nolan byrd] star of Shredderman Rules
[sheila voss] This identifies Sheila Voss from Shredderman Rules with Francine Briggs from iCarly and Jacqueline Bell from Unfabulous : The Gray Zone
[timothy turner] start of Fairly Odd Movie
[chris saunders] star of Best Player
was new here. She was obsessed with arcades and had been mesmerised by our PakRat contest.
[griffin] from iCarly : iDate A Bad Boy
