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Post by zaratan on Jan 3, 2006 0:35:04 GMT -5
Life is Unfair
By Zaratan
Rated PG
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“KP, I’m telling you, senior year will be a breeze! We get to sit at the senior table, eat the best food, we rule!”
Kim sighed beside him, shaking her head slightly. “Just don’t go getting all big heady about it Ron. After all, we have SATs, and you still need to pass all your courses if we want to go to the same college together.”
Ron pouted as he turned to her, his lower lip quivering slightly. “Can’t I get just a little big heady? I mean, I am walking into the first day of school as a senior, dating the most beautiful, talented, amazing woman in the whole world!”
Kim smiled broadly, pulling Ron in for a brief kiss. “All right, but only a little.”
“Booyah!”
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Ron and Kim, hand in hand, walked into their first class, reluctantly parting when they noticed Mr. Barkin eyeing them. Ron was surprised to see him, sure that Ms. Crenshaw was scheduled to teach first period, and made his way over to the front desk.
“Um… Mr. Barkin… where’s Ms. Crenshaw?”
Steve Barkin glared at the young man in front of him. “I’m afraid she won’t be here. She had to go in for an operation, and I’ll be covering her class. Now, find your seat Stoppable, so I can begin class.”
Ron slunk over to his seat, and smiled that Kim had managed to save a spot beside her. Mr. Barkin rose from his seat, tugging at his shirt to keep it straight. “Welcome to Advanced Algebra. For those that don’t know me, my name is Mr. Barkin, and I’ll be your teacher for this class.”
Ron’s eyes widened, and he leaned quickly over to Kim. “Advanced Algebra? I thought this was Geography? You know, like countries and stuff.”
Kim leaned over whispering quietly. “Ron, you knew we had this class since the beginning of summer. I thought you were fine with it.”
“Fine with it? I’ve never been able to understand this stuff! How am I…”
“Stoppable, no talking in my class!” Mr. Barkin leaned down, bringing him face to face with Ron. “Am I understood, or should I separate you from Possible?”
Ron slunk down in his chair, cringing. “I’m good here, sir.”
Mr. Barkin smiled, and straightened up. “Good. Now, since this is Advanced Algebra, I’d like to see what everyone remembers. We’re going to have a pop quiz.”
Ron’s jaw dropped to the floor, his eyes wide. “Pop quiz? We haven’t even had a class yet! That is so ferociously unfair!”
Mr. Barkin glared at Ron, before turning to the rest of the class. “Anyone else have a problem with a pop quiz right now?”
Ron glanced everywhere, but no one spoke up or raised their hands. Even Kim was silent as she just sat there smiling. Ron sank deeper into his seat.
“I didn’t think so. Now, everyone pull out a piece of paper. I will tell you the question, and you will write it out and answer it. If you haven’t got an answer by the time I move on to the next question, you’ll have to move on to the next one. Is that understood? Good.”
Mr. Barkin returned behind his desk, sitting down with a grin on his face. “First question, 3 + 2 * 5x(y + 1). Begin!”
Ron had barely been able to write down the question, and he stared blankly at the page in front of him. He looked at it, trying desperately to remember anything from last year that could help him with this. He knew that the letters had to move, but had no idea where to begin. He fiddled with the figures, glancing around as everyone around him seemed to finish at the same time.
“Second question…”
“Mr. Barkin?” Ron stared wide-eyed at the teacher, clenching his pen tight in one hand. “I’m not even close to ready.”
Mr. Barkin looked over the rest of the classroom, smiling. “Anyone else not ready?”
Almost as one, the rest of the class responded. “No Mr. Barkin.”
Mr. Barkin shrugged as he turned back to Ron. “Sorry, but I can’t hold up the test for just one student. Second question… Evaluate b + x2, where b = -2 and x = p + 1.”
Ron stared blankly, as he frantically tried to write out the problem. “Um… what was…”
“No talking Stoppable. If you didn’t hear me the first time, that is your problem. It won’t help you to disturb the other students.”
“But Mr. Barkin…”
“What did I just say Stoppable?” Mr. Barkin rose from his seat, standing over by Ron now. “Alright class, question 3… factor this trinomial. 5u2 + -11uv + 6v2.”
Ron was writing frantically now, desperate to get something done. Mr. Barkin’s next comment didn’t help matters. “Does anyone mind if I make this quiz worth 50 percent of your overall mark?”
Again, the response was spooky in its synchronicity. “No Mr. Barkin.”
“Good, question four… are you getting this Stoppable? x2 - 12x + 27 = 0.”
Ron was writing frantically, but couldn’t get his head around the numbers. He wasn’t even sure what to do with them in the first place. “Please Mr. Barkin, can you give me just a little more time?
Mr. Barkin shook his head, looking almost sad. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to the other students. If you don’t get something on this, I can guarentee you won’t pass this course, and we’ll have to do this again and again until you do. Final question…”
Ron, wild-eyed, stared around the classroom and saw everyone attentive and smiling. He however hadn’t gotten a single thing right yet, let alone started. Ron felt ready to collapse.
“Here we go… x4 + -1x2y2 + -2y4.”
Ron didn’t even catch all of the question, and his head hit the desk in despair. He wasn’t even surprised when Mr. Barkin told them to put their pens down after just five seconds.
“I’ll collect all your papers now and mark them right here.” Mr. Barkin slowly made his way around the room, collecting all the papers. Ron reluctantly raised his up to hand it to him, and he put his head back down on his desk. He heard Mr. Barkin sit back down, and it seemed the teacher went through the papers as fast as he went through the questions earlier. “Bonnie… perfect. Monique… perfect. Kim… perfect. Big Mike… perfect.”
Ron raised his head, and turned quickly to look behind him, staring wide-eyed at the huge student behind him that he had somehow missed before. He couldn’t believe that Big Mike had gotten perfect. When he heard his name called, he reluctantly turned back around.
“Ron Stoppable… a zero. Looks like you’ll be back next year with me.
Bonnie derisive laughter pierced his ears like a knife. “So the loser won’t even be graduating with us? Why am I not surprised.”
Ron felt Kim place a hand gently on his, and he looked up hopefully at her.
“Ron… I’m so disappointed in you.”
Ron’s heart fell into his from his chest. “But… but Kim… I tried but… I mean…”
“How could I have gone out with such a loser.”
“But Kim… I thought you loved me?”
Kim frowned, looking away. “I could never love a loser like you.”
Mr. Barkin now stood in front of him, smiling grimly. “Looks like we’ll be sending you to the remedial class, if you’ll have any hope of graduating this decade. After all, we can’t have your stupidity infecting any of the others. They still have a future after all.”
Ron wasn’t even paying attention to him, as he looked towards Kim frantically. “Kim, I love you. Please, it can’t end like this!”
The look she gave him was almost pity. “I’m sorry Ron… I’m sorry…”
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“Ron, I’m sorry to wake you like this, but if you don’t hurry up, we’re going to be late for school.”
Ron sat up quickly, staring blearily into the smiling face of his girlfriend. “What… school? It was… it was all a dream?”
Kim laughed lightly as she watched him shake his head. “And it must have been one crazy dream. You kept talking about x + 5 and it’s not fair.”
Ron slumped relieved back into the pillows, sighing. “It was such a weird dream. Just tell me we don’t have Advanced Algebra?”
Kim sat down beside him, holding his hand. “We don’t have Advanced Algebra. Though we do have a math class in the afternoon, they might have algebra there.”
Ron chuckled softly, as relief was setting in nicely. “So long as they aren’t going to give us a test right off the bat.”
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Ron and Kim, hand in hand, walked into their first class, reluctantly parting when they noticed Mr. Barkin eyeing them. Fear began to settle in on him when he saw the older man, the dream coming back to him immediately. Trepidaciously, he made his way over to Mr. Barkin, fearful for what he would hear.
His voice was almost a whisper when he asked question he dreaded knowing the answer to. “Um… Mr. Barkin… where’s Ms. Crenshaw?”
Steve Barkin glared at the young man in front of him. “I’m afraid she won’t be here. She had to go in for an operation, and I’ll be covering her class. Now, find your seat Stoppable, so I can begin class.”
“And, this is… geography… right?”
Mr. Barkin eyed the young man, appearing a bit concerned. “Of course it is. Classes don’t just change.”
A bit more relieved, though still freaked at how eerily similar the conversation had been to the one in his dream, Ron quickly made his way to his seat. He was startled to notice it was in the exact same spot as in his dream, even Kim’s smile was reminiscent of it.
“KP, I am getting seriously freaked out here. This is so much like my dream, it’s scary!”
Kim placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry. Yes, there are similarities, but it’s just a coincidence. Besides, it’s geography, not algebra, so right there, it’s not like your dream.”
Ron sat back in his seat a bit. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Mr. Barkin walked in front of the class, sizing them up. “I’ll be covering this class for the duration, due to a medical situation with Ms. Crenshaw. Now, while I am aware that this is the first day back to school, I would like to know just how much everyone knows on the subject of political geography.”
Ron’s eyes widened, a silent no slipping past his lips.
“Now, normally I wouldn’t do something like this, but it might be good to get into the practice of this. Life isn’t fair after all, and you never know when a boss might do this to you on the spot.”
“Oh no…”
Mr. Barkin smiled. “So we’re going to have a little pop quiz.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
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Post by cloudmonet on Jan 6, 2006 17:47:02 GMT -5
Professor Dementor
by cloudmonet
rated G
Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Possible, Mr. and Mrs. Stoppable, Bonnie Rockwaller, and Professor Dementor are characters from the Kim Possible show, created by Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, owned and copyright © by the Walt Disney Company. The story takes place in September, 2000, while Kim and Ron are starting 8th grade at Middleton Middle School, well after after the Paisley Mansion rescue from “A Sitch in Time,” and at least a year before “Tick Tick Tick.” This story, © 2006 by cloudmonet.
“Ron, I can’t believe you’re so stressed over this,” Kim Possible said as they walked out the door of Middleton Middle School wearing backpacks filled with textbooks. “You used to be the one who got A’s on arithmetic tests.”
“Yeah, eight times six is forty eight, I can still do that,” Ron Stoppable replied.
“This algebra stuff, though-- I just can’t figure it out. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe if you actually did all the homework--” Kim suggested.
“Now you’re sounding like my parents. Ugh! Dad’s an actuary, and Mom works in a bank. Blah, blah, they do math all the time, I’m their son, why don’t I understand math? They’re really gonna be on my case if I fail the test tomorrow. They think I can’t even count change because I want a bigger allowance. Is it my fault if Bueno Nacho raised the price of grande-sized burritos again? Like they actually do much math at work! I know their computers do it all. My computer could do it too, if I had software to do algebra.”
“Well, why don’t you come over to my house, and we can do the homework together. My dad should be home by six. If I can’t explain it to you, he can. Rocket scientists use algebra a lot, you know.”
“Right, to figure out orbits and stuff,” said Ron.
“Well, I think he does that with calculus,” said Kim.
“Calculus?” Ron asked, with an edge of panic in his voice.
“You’re funny,” said Kim.
Kim gestured to Ron to be quiet as they climbed over the back fence into the yard of the Possible house. They stepped quietly around the uphill, back side of the house, crouching past the windows to the back door. Ever so quietly, Kim slipped her key in the door and turned it, cringing at the click it made. Quickly she stepped inside and silently moved down the hallway. One board creaked when Kim leapt into the air, but it was too late. She tackled her eight year old brothers to the floor before they could re-aim the toy rocket directed at the front door.
“I’ll take that, if you please,” Kim said, holding the cardboard missile high over her head.
“Hey, that’s ours!” Jim protested.
“Yeah, give it back,” said Tim.
“Anything aimed at my point of entry is mine,” said Kim. “Anyway, I think it got a little bit dented when I jumped on you.”
“Oh, that’s gonna fly really weird,” said Jim, snatching it from her hand in a moment of distraction.
“Take it outside or I’ll-- I’ll--”
“Better not hurt us or we’ll tell Mom,” said Tim.
“Oh, I won’t do that,” said Kim. “I’ll just hug you and kiss you and give you girl cooties!”
“You wouldn’t!” said Jim.
“You couldn’t!” said Tim.
“Just launch it outside and I won’t give you any more trouble, especially if you hit the Rockwaller house-- I mean, even if you hit the Rockwaller house,” Kim said with a wink.
“Hoosha!” said Jim, running outside with dented rocket in hand, followed by Tim with a cigarette lighter.
“KP, you’re scaring me,” said Ron. “I half expected you to do an evil laugh.”
“Who, me?” Kim asked innocently. “No way. I’m a hero. Heroes can’t do evil laughs. Of course, most heroes don’t have little brothers attempting to attack them with cardboard missiles, so I don’t have any role models for this.”
“Girl cooties?” asked Ron.
“Why, you want some?” Kim asked with a gleam in her eye.
“Uh, er, uh--”
“Okay, maybe not, then,” Kim said with some annoyance, dumping the contents of her backpack on the kitchen table, scaring Rufus, Ron’s pet naked mole rat, off the table and onto Ron’s shoulder. “Introduction to Algebra, chapter two, homework problems 16 to 30,” Kim read.
Ron opened his own book to the same page. “I’m supposed to unscramble this equation
till I get x equals something, right? Cause I don’t know where to start.”
Rufus, as he often did, imitated Ron’s perplexity.
“Okay, number 16 is easy. Well, it’s not real hard. It’s just like arithmetic, sorta. You just do whatever you need to do to get x by itself on one side of the equation, but whatever you do to one side, you do to the other side, so it goes on being equal.”
“Uh, er, uh--”
At this moment there was the sound of a whoosh in the front yard. Kim grabbed Ron’s hand and pulled him upstairs, then up the stairway in the middle of the hall that led to her attic bedroom, where she hurried over to the telescope, looked out the window, and aimed it with the finder scope, down at the roof of the Rockwaller house.
Rufus, meanwhile, was leaping up the stairs, trying to catch up.
“There it is!” Kim said with an excited squeal. “Look, Ron, look!”
Through the dim round enlargement of the telescope he saw the fiberglass shingles of the roof, the galvanized rain gutter, and a wreckage of cardboard tube and plastic fins caught on the edge. Rufus climbed up Ron’s leg and back, to his shoulders and tried to look through the eyepiece.
A door slammed, followed by a thunder of small feet running around downstairs, then upstairs to the second floor hallway.
“Can we see? Can we see?” asked one of the twins.
Kim came to the top of the stairs and gestured for them to come up. “You never miss,” she said as they took turns looking through the telescope. “Though how you hit target with a crumpled rocket I don’t know.”
The doorbell rang. Kim gestured silence. It rang again, followed by angry pounding.
“Kim Possible, I know you’re in there!” shouted Bonnie Rockwaller, the girl from school Kim liked the least.
The twins covered their mouths to choke back laughter.
“I’ll get you for this, you and those little freaks!”
“Oh, we’re in trouble now,” Kim said quietly, rolling her eyes.
The clock in the kitchen said 6:15. Ron was still trying to understand problem 18, Kim was trying to understand what he didn’t understand about it, and Kim’s dad, who might be able to guide Ron through this with minimal trouble, was still nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe I should call Dad,” said Kim, picking up the phone and pressing the speed dial button for his work extension.
After a few rings, someone picked up the phone and an unfamiliar man’s voice said,
“Hello?”
“This is Dr. Possible’s desk, isn’t it? I’m his daughter, Kim. Can I talk to him?”
“I’m affraid you have de wrong number, yes,” the man said, with a thick Gherman accent.
“No I don’t,” Kim insisted. “Who are you?”
“My name is Professor Dementor, and I’m sorry, but I’m a ffery busy man right now, so iff you vill excuse me, I vill say goodbye now. Goodbye.” And he hung up.
“That’s weird,” Kim told Ron. “Some other man was working at my father’s desk.”
“If your father’s already on his way home--” Ron suggested.
“Okay,” said Kim. “I’ll try his cell phone. He doesn’t like me to do this, because the minutes cost, but I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” She pressed the speed dial button for her father’s cell phone. It rang and rang and then--
“Hello?”
“Professor Dementor,” Kim said, recognizing his voice, “where’s Dr. Possible?”
“Ve are vorking on a launch sequence right now, ya. I vill haff him call you back ven he can talk. Hokay? Goodbye, Miss Possible.”
“That’s it,” Kim said after Dementor hung up. “Something bad’s going on at the space center. I know it. Dad talks about the other scientists all the time. I’d remember if he ever mentioned any Professor Dementor.”
“Professor Dementor?” asked Ron. “What is he, a mad scientist or something?”
“Cool,” said Tim. “You gonna beat him up?”
“You do know three kinds of kung fu,” said Jim.
“Four,” said Kim, striking a fighting pose.
“How many do you know, Ron?” asked Jim.
“Well--” said Kim.
“I’ve mastered being thrown to the mat without getting hurt,” Ron said. “I’m better at that than I am at algebra.”
“You’ll do what I say?” Kim asked.
“Always.”
Kim started up her computer. “Now who can I ask for a ride?” she wondered, going through the list of people she’d helped or rescued.
The front door opened. “Honey, I’m home,” said Kim’s mom’s voice.
“There’s our ride,” said Kim. “Mom’ll want to help us rescue Dad.”
Kim slipped behind the folding screen and changed into a black turtleneck and dull green cargo pants before either Ron or the twins paid any attention.
“These’ll fit you,” said Kim, tossing Ron another black turtleneck and a pair of gray cargo pants.
“What, we’re wearing uniforms now?” Ron asked, taking the clothes behind the screen.
“These are boy’s pants, aren’t they?”
Kim opened a box in her closet and got out a collapsible grappling hook and a coil of lightweight rope, which she clipped to her belt, one of her mom’s laser scalpels, which she put in her upper pocket, a flashlight, which she put in her lower pocket, and a makeup compact, which she put in the upper pocket on the other side. “Someday I’m gonna get a bunch of really cool spy gadgets,” Kim said. “Night vision binoculars, that’d be cool, and knockout gas, and a rocket bike, and parachutes-- you wanna buy me any of this stuff for Christmas? I know better than to ask Mom or Dad.”
“Is anybody home?” Kim’s mom called out.
“We’re all up in my room,” Kim called back.
Kim’s mom was in the second floor hallway when the twins came down Kim’s stairway, followed by Kim and Ron, both looking very serious. “You’ve got a rescue mission on a school night?” Mom asked with skepticism.
“We need a ride to the Middleton Space Center,” said Kim. “I think Dad’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“This character named Professor Dementor-- he has a Gherman accent I think-- keeps answering Dad’s phones. He’s not one of Dad’s colleagues that you know of, is he?”
Mom gave a nervous chuckle. “Dementor? Not that I know of--”
“I know, why don’t we just call the police? Well, I’m thinking hostage situation, the police walk in, it’s a standoff, and either Dad gets hurt or Dementor gets away with what he wants. I’m figuring he’s probably stealing something from the Space Center. I’ve got Dad’s spare keys. I can just walk in, and I look like some young girl, I mean, Dementor doesn’t know what I can do to him.”
“Anything’s possible for a Possible?” Mom asked.
“Straight on,” said Kim.
“You know what the scary thing is? You’ve got me more than half convinced you are the best solution to this problem. Just-- promise you’ll make sure this Professor Dementor really does have bad intentions before you beat him up.”
“I’m anticipating finding Dad bound and gagged with duct tape,” said Kim. “That would make it pretty obvious.”
“Let’s go,” said Mom.
“Can we come, too?” asked Jim.
“Please?” asked Tim.
“It’s not a good idea,” said Kim.
“If I leave you two alone, there’s no telling what mischief you’ll get into,” said Mom. “I know. I’ll just call Bonnie Rockwaller--”
“No, no way,” said Jim.
“On second thought, let’s bring them along,” said Kim. “I don’t want Bonnie going through my stuff when I’m not here.”
“Are you and Bonnie still mad at each other.”
“Mom, she hates me, all right? I don’t like her much either. Just because you and Bonnie’s mom are good friends doesn’t mean that Bonnie and I have to like each other.”
Kim’s mom sighed, and unlocked the doors to the van, and everyone got inside.
“When we get there, just Ron and I go in, understood?” Kim asked. “Give us twenty minutes to get back out before you call the police. Try to get either Officer Hobble or Sgt. Grazinski, okay? They know me.”
“I know I’m gonna fail the algebra test now,” said Ron, as Kim unlocked a side door to the space center.
“Keep your head in the game,” said Kim, “there could be--”
Immediately inside the door was a big man in some sort of gray uniform with a masked hood who lunged at her. Kim stomped on his foot, kicked his shin bone, did a handspring over his shoulder, kicked his head from behind, tumbled in the air and landed on her feet.
“--henchmen,” Kim whispered as Ron stepped around the groaning man.
“How ’bout we send Rufus ahead to scout?” Ron asked Kim.
“Good idea,” she replied.
“Rufus, recon,” Ron said quietly to the molerat in his hand, who seemed to be saluting with his right front paw. “Find Kim’s dad, report back.”
“Oooh-kay,” Rufus seemed to reply, and hopped off Ron’s hand and swiftly ran ahead through the maze of hallways.
The Middleton Space Center was an architectural wonder, with curving hallways, oddly shaped offices, huge control centers with high ceilings, mysterious laboratories that Kim was never allowed to see--
Kim crossed paths with another henchman, who in uniform looked almost like a twin brother of the first. This one lunged at Ron, possibly figuring the boy to be the greater danger, only to be taken down by Kim’s spin-kick to his jaw. Ron dodged to the side as the henchman stumbled, leaving one foot behind to hook his ankle. His head smashed against the industrial carpeting with a dull thud.
Rufus reappeared, chattering, and Kim and Ron followed him down a side hall around the bend to a lab where Kim’s father and several other space center scientists, three men and two women, were bound to plastic chairs with duct tape. A short stout hooded man in a red uniform with a goatee and yellowish skin was copying data to a portable hard disk.
Ron crept to the prisoners with a pocket knife, and started cutting them free.
The short man heard the ripping tape and turned to face the sound just as Kim grabbed the hard drive and threw it across the lab.
“Do you think I am a fool? I am armed vitt a state of the art laser gun! Now if you vill please put up your hands, I vill-- Vait, you are not putting up your hands, you are dieffing behind de desk. Haffe it your vay!” Professor Dementor aimed his laser gun at the desk and began melting and cutting. “It is qvite powerful. You can giff up before it burns you in haff, you know. Vy aren’t you giffing up?”
Kim, crouching on the other side of the desk, was watching the red glow of the laser cutting through and moving her compact mirror at an angle that would bounce the laser back to the source, but the light failed, just as it cut all the way through the desk.
“Vatt?” Dementor exclaimed. “The batteries vere supposed to be fully charged! Come! My loyal henchmen!”
Ron was again cutting duct tape with his pocket knife, and Kim sprang into the air, leaping over the still simmering sliced steel desk, to strike Dementor’s chest feet first. Dementor was a better fighter than he looked, and grabbed Kim’s ankles and squeezed hard, lifting up to throw her to one side and regaining his feet. Warily they circled each other.
Two other henchmen came running into the lab from the other corridor. One was clobbered by a flying computer chair thrown by Ron, the other tackled by Dr. Thompson, who looked rather like a linebacker in a lab coat, and in fact had played high school and college football before becoming more interested in rocket science.
Kim was kicking, punching, and kung-fu chopping at Dementor, and many of her blows connected, but the stout little Gherman was solid, not easily hurt or knocked down.
“Iss dat all you got, little girl?” he taunted her.
Ron met Kim’s eyes, then hit Dementor low from behind at the same moment Kim slammed his shoulders. All three tumbled to the floor, but before they sorted themselves out, all the other scientists, who had been freeing each other from duct tape and chairs, pinned Dementor’s arms and legs.
“It’s over, Kimmie,” said her dad’s voice. “We got him.”
Kim staggered to her feet, gasping for breath.
Three Middleton Police Officers, led by Sgt. Grazinski, who in turn was led by a chattering Rufus, came into the lab. “I’m guessing the guys in gray uniforms and masks don’t belong here,” he said to Kim and her dad.
“That’s correct, officer,” said Mr. Dr. Possible. “The short man in red who calls himself Professor Dementor is the ringleader. He threatened us with a laser weapon--”
A woman scientist handed it to Sgt. Grazinski. “He drained the battery,” she said.
“A laser gun?” asked Sgt. Grazinski skeptically.
“Look at that steel desk nearly cut in half,” said Mr. Dr. Possible. “My daughter was clever enough to know that a laser gun is meant to be used in short blasts against personnel, not for a steady beam cutting steel.”
“I’ve never seen one before.”
“With the new antiexplosive foam Global Justice is developing to neutralize gunpowder, we can expect to see weapons like this more often, especially in the hands of international rogues like this fellow,” Mr. Dr. Possible explained.
“I am not an international rogue, I am a legitimate researcher--” Professor Dementor protested.
“Legitimate researchers don’t threaten their colleagues with laser guns and bind them to chairs with duct tape,” said Mr. Dr. Possible.
“A small misunderstanding,” said Dementor. “I’m sure our attorneys can vork it out.”
“You’re under arrest, Dementor,” Sgt. Grazinski told him. “Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. The potential charges include assault, false imprisonment, robbery, property destruction, and attempted manslaughter.”
“I’m a girl, but he means me,” Kim explained to Ron.
“I knew that,” he replied.
Mr. Dr. Possible sat with Kim and Ron at the kitchen table. Kim was now busy figuring and scribbling away, while Dad and Ron discussed the impasse of problem 19.
“I hate it when they start using y,” Ron said.
“There’s two variables and two equations, Ronald,” Mr. Dr. P said patiently. “Y equals some amount of x. Can you get an answer like that from either equation?”
“All done,” said Kim, and went looking for her mother, who was in the basement with a basket of laundry. “Mom, we need to talk,” she said.
“Sure, Kimmie, what do you want?”
“Can you please call me Kim?”
“Sorry, Kim, I keep forgetting. So---”
“I need to go to another kung fu workshop, Mom, please--”
“Again?”
“I’m still not good enough,” Kim said. “I got by today, but I should do better. I’m thinking ahead. What if someday I have to save someone who’s been kidnapped by ninjas?”
“Ninjas?” Mom asked skeptically, methodically throwing everything white into the washer, and everything else into another laundry basket.
“What if the guy at the space center had been a Chinese spy with a kung fu black belt? I’d be so over. I need more training.”
“Well--”
“Mom, did anybody ever tell you girls can’t be brain surgeons?”
“Yes, and a lot more told me they shouldn’t.”
“There’s bad stuff going down in the world, Mom. I can do something about it. If the police had gone in first, they would have just shot that guy. You can tell Dad I’m taking a cheerleading workshop or something. It really does help my cheer moves, too.”
“Okay, Kim, okay,” Mom said, adding detergent and closing the washer lid.
“You rock, Mom,” Kim replied, hugging her as she turned around.
Back upstairs, Ron was talking about problem 21. “So y = 2x + 3. So I replace the y with 2x + 3 in the other equation, and it’ll all be x’s, right?”
“I think you’re getting it, Ronald,” Mr. Dr. P. said, rolling his eyes at Kim as she came back into sight.
“Where were you, Ronnie?” his own mom asked when he opened the side door.
“There’s an algebra test tomorrow,” Ron replied. “Kim’s dad was helping me with how to do the homework.”
“I hoped you thanked him.”
“Of course I did, Mom.”
“Did you eat dinner?” she asked.
“Ewww-- my stomach’s kinda upset. I’m too freaked about the test tomorrow.”
“But you always do well in math,” Mom insisted.
“I’ve done all the studying I can stand,” said Ron. “My head hurts, too.”
“Judy, come in here, listen to this,” said Ron’s father from the living room.
A newswoman was saying, “Tonight, young teen hero Kim Possible proved that she can do more than rescue lost hikers on Mount Middleton. She saved six space center scientists, including her own father, from a robbery and hostage situation perpetrated by a man calling himself ‘Professor Dementor’ and four gang members.”
“It was no big,” Kim told the reporter. Ron was standing beside her.
“Ronnie, you told me you were doing homework,” said his mom.
“We had to rescue Mr. Dr. P. before he could help me!” Ron protested.
Mrs. Goffin passed out the stapled test pages face down to each student, moving briskly around the room. “Okay, future mathematicians, you may turn over your tests, now, and you have twenty minutes to solve ten problems. Show your work, and you may get partial credit even if you get the wrong answer.”
“I am so doomed,” Ron said under his breath, thinking hard about how to unscramble 45x + 3 = 138, expecting some horrible decimal to raise its ugly head, and trying to remember if expressing the answer as a fraction was okay, not that he liked fractions that well either.
Twenty minutes of tortoise-paced torture came to an sudden and horrible end when Ron was crushed by the clock at the very beginning of problem eight.
“How’d you do?” Kim asked, turning around in her seat toward Ron.
“I only finished seven,” he whispered. “The best I can get is a C. If even one is wrong, it’s D minus. Two or more and I’m so dead.”
“Maybe you got them all right,” Kim suggested.
“When’s that ever happened?” asked Ron.
“You need to work a little faster, Ron,” Mrs. Goffin told him as she handed back his test the next day. “I gave you half credit on problem 3. You would have got the right answer, but you made a long division error, so your score is 65.”
“That’s a D, isn’t it?” asked Ron.
“Probably more like a C minus,” said Mrs. Goffin. “You might have gotten an A or a B if you’d finished.”
“I don’t see why we had to hurry.”
“Quick thinking is clear thinking,” she said with a smile. “Kim, you got 87--”
“Oh-- I see where I went wrong with this problem, right here, I should’ve--”
“Yeah,” Mrs. Goffin agreed.
“That could’ve gone so much worse,” Ron told Kim as the sat next to each other in the cafeteria.
“I did okay. Not as good as I should’ve done, but okay. Is your stomach feeling any better?”
“Wanna do Bueno Nacho after school?” Ron asked.
“Okay, sure,” Kim said, smiling at him.
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