21│I DREAM OF FEENY

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❛ ᴏᴄᴇᴀɴ ᴇʏᴇꜱ​​​​​​​​​​. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚   ▎❛ 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘-𝐎𝐍𝐄 ❜   ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ɪ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴏғ ғᴇᴇɴʏ ꒱


❝ GUYS, STOP FLIRTING ❞

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Juliet leaned against Cory's counter as he and Shawn dumped things into a blender. Boys, the redhead thought exasperatedly for the umpteenth time.

"You got your milk," Cory stated as he poured it in.

"You got your peanut butter," Shawn added, scooping in the paste.

"How about a banana?"

"What about a raw egg?"

"Ew, why does it have to be raw? Why can't we scramble it and pour it in?" the curly-haired boy complained.

"Stallone drinks raw eggs," Shawn retorted.

"Stallone is like five-foot-two!"

"And you're like two-foot-five," the boy pointed out.

"Go with the egg, baby," Cory agreed as Shawn cracked it into the blender.

"Idiots," Juliet mumbled as she wrinkled her nose at the concoction.

"Yeah, but we're your idiots," Shawn answered. He sent the girl an easy smile that made her roll her eyes.

"Unfortunately."

"Ouch."

"Guys, stop flirting," Cory complained again while he put the lid on the blender. "Just because we're kids with a blender doesn't mean we have to make a mess."

"We're not flirting!" Juliet exclaimed, but the voice in her head whispered aren't you? tauntingly. She ignored it. 

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," the boy dismissed her protest. He put his finger over the button.

"Boy, are you mommy whipped." Shawn stopped him and reached for the lid to take it off.

"Aah!" Cory yelled as the three of them jumped backwards, away from the explosion. They struggled to turn it off before it went quiet again.

"Now, that I could never do at my house," Shawn laughed as he looked around at the mess.

"Or mine," Juliet put in. "Not that I would."

"Yeah, 'cause you're boring," Cory scoffed.

"You're dead," the redhead answered, pointing to the door.

"Oh, my mom!" the boy panicked. "Back me up, guys. I wanted to use the lid, I was Lid Boy!" He struck a 'superhero' pose. Mrs. Matthews opened the door, took one look, and turned around.

"He wanted to use the lid," Juliet announced flatly to the empty space.

"Thanks a lot, Jules," the curly-haired boy huffed. "I'll clean it up! You don't have to scream," he tacked on in the same direction the girl had spoken. Cory attempted to mop up some of the mess with the paper towels nearby. 

"Watch it, you're getting it all over my geography book," Shawn objected as he grabbed it from the counter.

"Oh, like you're ever going to open it up."

"Hey, he might! Don't discourage him!" Juliet chided the boy.

"Feeny's test tomorrow is going to be such a killer," Shawn sighed, ignoring her nagging.

"Not if I help you study," the redhead grumbled.

"Yeah, I don't understand why we have to learn anything about geography. Why do we have to learn where everything is? I'll just be like my dad and drive around 'til I find it."

"Look at Feeny," the dark-haired boy commented, looking out the window. "He's out there hanging up some geeky duck. Not a care in the world while we're stuck in here studying for his lame test. Yeah, life's fair."

"We're not studying," the girl pointed out. "We got distracted with the blender."

"No one likes a know-it-all, Jules," Cory told her. "Although maybe we should get started."

"Finally, thank you! Okay," she began and picked up a flashcard. "What's the capital of North Dakota?"

"Banff."

"Really?"

"We're toast," Shawn sighed.

"You guys are."

"Shush, Jules. Maybe Shawn and I can just say we're sick and stay home tomorrow."

"I can't, Cor. I've already used all my bogus medical excuses. Feeny says if my grandma dies one more time he wants to see the body."

"How come it has to be us? Why should we always be the ones faking a disease to get out of school? How come Feeny can't shoulder a little more responsibility?"

"Maybe if you'd started studying on Monday instead of Thursday you'd feel more prepared," Juliet pointed out.

"Dream on," Shawn scoffed. "Besides, I hear Feeny hasn't missed a day of school since World War One."

"That's stupid on his part because teachers still get paid when they're sick," Cory informed them.

"You lie," Shawn gasped.

"I swear! Minkus said the school board pays them to be sick for a whole week every year."

"Well, maybe Feeny doesn't know that," the dark-haired boy suggested. "Maybe we should leave him, like, an anonymous note on his desk."

"Won't help us dodge that geography bullet tomorrow." Cory paused. "C'mon, cough!"

Their teacher continued to admire his handiwork.

🌎🌎🌎

"Hi, Topanga," Juliet greeted the upside-down curly haired girl. "Or should I say 'agnapot ih.'"

"That's backwards, not upside-down," Topanga pointed out, red-faced. "Hi, Juliet."

"There's a look," Shawn commented from behind the redhead.

"Don't tell me. You died and came back a bat with a perm," Cory chimed in sarcastically.

"This Hindu yoga position increases blood flow to the brain, thus maximizing concentration and cognitive performance," the girl informed them.

"I'm so nervous," Cory stated as he sat down.

"You? My palms are sweating so much I can't read the answers I wrote on them," Shawn replied. He ran his hand through his hair as he bounced his leg nervously.

"I'm sensing an acute case of performance anxiety," Minkus observed, eyeing the two. "No doubt brought on by a complete lack of preparation. Something, I'm sure, that does not concern you, my sweet."

Juliet rolled her eyes. "At least I get the credit. I tried to help them study."

"Well, as they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink," Minkus replied.

"Minkus," Cory snapped, "you can get all the As you want but it's still not gonna make you popular."

"What about Juliet? She's wonderfully smart," the blond pointed out.

"Yes, but she's not annoying about it. Besides, she's my wife so lay off," Shawn shot back at the boy. "I can hear you ten years from now." He pitched his voice higher: "'people, people, how many times do I have to tell you? If you save your receipts you don't have to worry about an audit.'"

"And I can here you ten years from now: 'your honor, dude,'" the boy began as he ran his fingers through his hair. "'I'd like to plea bargain.'"

Juliet snorted at that, which earned her a bright smile from the blond boy as the dark-haired one glared at him. "Geek master."

"Recidivist."

"Good morning, class. I'm Miss Chase, your substitute teacher," a woman's voice welcomed them. "Mr. Feeny will not be in today. He has taken ill."

"Taken' ill or fakin' ill? I mean, the guy's never missed a day," Shawn remarked.

"Maybe he heard about the school board's great deal on sick leave."

"I'm afraid I don't have access to Mr. Feeny's lesson plan. Can somebody please fill me in on what you were going to do today?" Miss Chase asked.

Minkus raised his hand, causing Shawn to rush over to him and put it down. "Miss Chase, today we're supposed to take a geo—" he started.

"Break," the boy interrupted him and put a hand over the blond's mouth. "A break from geography."

"And do nothing but think about our lives and write a poem about it," Cory added.

"A short poem," Shawn clarified. "Two, maybe three lines, tops."

"And it doesn't even have to rhyme," Juliet added with a sigh.

"Is this true?"

Shawn uncovered Minkus's mouth to allow him to answer. "Yep."

"Great! My major at the University of Pennsylvania was poetry. Epic poetry."

"Epic," Juliet commented with a grin.

"Exactly," the woman confirmed with a nod. "In fact, my dissertation was on 'Beowulf,' an eighth century poem written in three thousand two hundred lines of old English. Let's see if we can knock out the first one thousand six hundred lines before lunch."

"Cool," the redhead breathed out, unperturbed by the challenge. She ignored her screaming best friends.

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"I can't believe that Mr. Feeny actually missed a day of school," Topanga remarked with a frown as the four of them sat in the cafeteria.

"Well, you know who you can thank for that?"

"Zeus?"

"Me!" he exclaimed. "I wished for him to get sick and he did!"

"You didn't wish for him to get sick," Shawn argued.

"Sure I did. Yesterday, when Juliet tried to make us study."

"The power of the mind is not to be taken lightly, Shawn," Topanga agreed. "Force of will is the most powerful weapon on earth."

"No, no it's not," the boy disagreed as he stared at her.

"Maybe I do have the kind of strange power like the X-Men only I have the power to make people sick."

"You wish," Juliet said.

"Yeah, it's working on me right now," Shawn sassed.

"Maybe I'll call myself Sick Boy! Sick Boy, the possessor of a strange, mutant power that can, with a glance of his sickening eye, make otherwise healthy men bend over the toilet and go—" He pretend vomited.

"Just men?" the redhead observed. "That's a very limiting power."

"Yeah, if you want to make someone sick, try Minkus," Shawn suggested, pointing at the boy.

"Piece of cake."

"Hey, Minkus— Minkus, come here." The blond came over and Cory squinted his eyes at him the whole time.

"When your mother cuts your hair tell her to take the oatmeal out of the bowl," Shawn taunted him.

The boy shook his head. "Sorry Shawn, but I don't have the energy to be trading insults today. I'm not feeling very well."

"Whoa."

"Chills."

"No way."

"What can I say? It's a gift."

"Minkus, you were alright in class this morning. When, exactly, did you start feeling terrible?" Shawn asked.

"When I heard that Mr. Feeny was in the hospital," the boy answered.

"The hospital? Sounds serious."

"For Mr. Feeny and for you," Topanga remarked.

"It's just a coincidence," Juliet huffed.

"Why me? Why's it serious for me?"

"Karma. What goes around comes around."

"The hospital? Whoa, you are good."

"He didn't do this," the redhead insisted.

"Thank you, Jules. I didn't!" the boy protested.

"You just told us that you were wishing yesterday, when we weren't studying," Shawn reminded him.

"Juliet just said it herself, Shawn. Just because you want something to happen doesn't mean it is. Besides, how many times has she been wrong and we've been right?"

"I wish you wouldn't say things like that," Shawn replied as he stood. "C'mon, Julie."

"What? Why?" she asked as the boy grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Just don't look at us, okay? Don't look at us!" he called to the other boy as the two of them ran out of the cafeteria.

"Shawn! Cory's fine!" she tried to protest, but her words fell on deaf ears.

(As it turned out, she was right, as usual.)

[edited may 2022]

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