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i'm writing a magic school bus fanfic. no, really.
um, wow. O_o
in all honesty, though, it's not that odd, because at least the magic school bus is rather awesome. however, if i ever start writing care bears fanfiction, then by the lord, someone please kill me. mmkay? ^^;;;
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Arnold quickly finished up his meal, pushing his plate to the side. "I have to be at the airport at four thirty," he explained as he stood up.
"Oh, is a relative coming to visit?" Phoebe asked. Walkerville was a relatively small town, so it didn't have an airport; people would go to the closest city over, about an hour and a half away by car, whenever they had to catch a plane or receive visitors.
"No, not exactly," he replied, taking a look down at his wristwatch to make sure he wasn't terribly late. "Well, you know how I want to get into Harvard, right--"
"Nooo, really?!" Wanda interrupted him, in a mock-surprised tone. Her eyes went appropriately wide as if to emphasize her supposed shock at Arnold's words. The gesture, this being Wanda, was kind of hilarious on its own.
"It's why you joined student council," Dorothy Ann pointed out, always practical.
"It's why you organized that food drive for the orphanage..." Phoebe added, sounding proud.
"...And practically the only thing you've talked about for the past four years," Keesha finished with a bit of a grumble. She was happy that Arnold was this excited about college, but a person can only take so much blabbering about how many Nobel laureates have graduated from there.
"Heh, yes, well..." Arnold cleared his throat as Wanda and Keesha rolled his eyes at him. "I've already sent in my application and I've confirmed that it was received. Now, all that's left is the interview, a couple months from now. It's kind of the most decisive part of the selection," he emphasized the word decisive, like life or death hinged on it. "It's very tough. I mean, I'm not part of any minority so the diversity vote doesn't work for me, and my extracurricular activities are probably just as good as anyone else's, so I just have to do well on the interview. I have to, or it's over. So, it just happens that I know one of the people in the selection committee..."
"Arnold, you're not going to use his influence to get in, are you?" Dorothy Ann asked him, suspicious. She fundamentally disagreed with any breach of protocol in this type of things (this was a person's education they were talking about! Cheating could ruin lives here), and she believed Arnold had the grades, the personality and the ability to be accepted on his own anyway.
"No, of course not!" Arnold was quick to assure her. "He's coming over for two weeks, to kind of coach me for the interview. You know, so I can know what they want from me, which questions to expect, that sort of stuff." He shrugged. "You know how antsy I get about surprises, so the more I know beforehand, the better."
Dorothy Ann conceded that after he explained, the idea didn't seem bad at all. Keesha, though, just raised an eyebrow at him. "So let me get this straight... you've got a life coach?"
"Arnold's got a life coach!" Wanda exclaimed, a bit (a LOT) louder. She laughed, which in turn made Keesha and Dorothy Ann chuckle.
"There's nothing wrong with getting help," Phoebe intervened, conciliatory.
"He's not a life coach!" Arnold exclaimed, cheeks going red as a few people in the café turned to look at them. He huffed, a bit indignant. "He's not a life coach," he repeated in a less exalted tone. "Look, I gotta go. Dad's waiting for me at home, he's gonna drive me. You guys can use this table if you want." He waved at them and practically ran out of the restaurant in his rush.
"Bye, Arnold," the girls chorused as he left, and then moved to occupy the table the young man had just vacated.
Keesha let Dorothy Ann take a look at the menu first, while she texted her boyfriend about something or other. Phoebe, ever polite, handed Wanda her menu as well. The Asian girl rolled her eyes. Phoebe flinched. "What?" she asked, a bit defensive at her friend's expression.
"'There's nothing wrong with getting help'?" Wanda asked, sounding somewhat astounded. "Okay, Phoebe: you HAVE to tell him."
The shy girl paused, uncomfortable at the way the spotlight suddenly turned to her. For a few seconds there, it seemed like she was going to pretend she didn't know what Wanda was talking about, but in the end decided it wasn't worth it. She sighed, resigned to her fate. "Really?"
"Yes!" Wanda exclaimed immediately. As always the girl was so exhuberant in her enthusiasm that she dropped the menu on the table a little too strongly. "Phoebe, hello! In six months we'll be at college!" Phoebe bit her lip but otherwise remained quiet. Wanda groaned. "Girls, back me up here, please."
"She's right," Keesha said, without even looking up from her phone.
"You may never see him again," Wanda sentenced, in the tone that the narrator of a superhero cartoon might use when stating that the hero is inevitably doomed.
"Don't be so overdramatic, Wanda," Dorothy Ann intervened, not wanting to freak poor Phoebe out. "He'll just be in Boston, not in Baku."
"...Where is Baku?" was all Wanda could come up with in reply to that.
"Capital of Afghanistan?" Keesha suggested off-handedly, as she was still merrily texting away.
"Azerbaijan," the blonde corrected automatically.
"Dorothy Ann is right," Phoebe cut off the geography tangent with a hopeful determination in her expression. "With any luck, I'll still be somewhere in the east coast. Maybe I could go visit him," she put out, hoping that her friends would take the hint and leave her love-life (or lack thereof) alone for the moment.
"You won't," Wanda immediately threw back at her. "Phoebe, we've known you since we were kids. And you've been pining for him since, what, the third grade? You'll just skirt around it for the rest of your life. It's practically your MO. I know that, and you know that," she finished. She didn't want to push Phoebe to do something she didn't want to do, but she didn't want to see her two friends waste a wonderful opportunity to be happy together. Well, that, and she kind of had a thing for meddling in other people's lives.
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i have no idea how to title this thing, either (surprise, surprise?). so, erm, help? any and all ideas welcome.
meanwhile, i'm probably going to end up making a picspam for my ideal MSB "cast," since for some reason i can't write this thing without being able to see them "all grown up" in my head. and i have a graphics fixation. so yeah.