#WHY DOES HE SOUND LIKE MELVIN SNEEDLY FROM CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS

[newsiegirlscout]

Beep Beep! Special Delivery for @crispcomet: the requested prompt “Captain Underpants trying to cheer the boys up” for an art/fic swap! Hope you enjoy it!

“Hey man, at..at least we’re still in Elementary! No one cares about one stupid C-plus!”

Harold sobbed, burying his face in his hands. “My mom will care, George! It was a D-plus, I’m going to be grounded until I go to college!”

Truth be told, George didn’t have much in the way of encouragement for his friend, having earned a C-minus for the semester’s Mathematics grade on his report card to take home. Normally, both of the boys thought of themselves as optimists, always carrying a cheerful attitude no matter the circumstances. After all, wasn’t it Albert Einstein who said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge”?

Despite their general principals, George and Harold still did put effort into their schoolwork, though it would come as a surprise to many people.  Once they received the slips at the door on the way out, they forged a plan to open them as soon as possible, (without a grown-up), practically vibrating from the anxiety of the single letters that would sum up the value of the hours they spent studying together, the lucky charms they folded their fingers over in their pockets when taking a test, and the number of endless, dry tutoring sessions they ticked away in the Homework club with Melvin Sneedly.

But when they steamed open the creamy white envelopes against their better judgement, only to find failing grades for both of them, they felt their universe drain away to be replaced by a grayscale world of extra work, solitary confinement in their bedrooms, and harsh lectures from their parents waiting for them at every turn. 

Though they hadn’t ever expected their last hours together to be full of despair and silky red-rimmed eyes, neither of them could bring themselves to go home, not just yet. That was, until dusk fell and they each decided in their own way that they’d get in bigger trouble if they didn’t take the long walk back at some point, final grades crumpled in their pockets as fireflies danced in the air around them, a symbol of their lost freedom.

############################################################

“Now, usually when you write a persuasive essay, you want to state around three interlocking claims in your introduction. The first sentence introduces the topic with a hook, the second gives some exposition, and by the third, the audience should have your point of view on the topic-after that, you state your claims and move onto the body paragraphs-so, how do you feel about the proposal of lengthening the school day by an extra hour Tuesday through Friday, then getting Mondays off?” 

“Huh? Oh, yeah, that sounds great.” He said, absently sketching a penny-sized mandala. 

“Alright, so you should probably start with a surprising fact or a question to grab the reader’s attention, so they can...buy rocket packs, and fly to the moon...” Melvin digressed softly, annoyance lilting in his tone, “Hutchins, are you paying attention at all?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! I got it, Melvin!” Harold replied, flapping his hand dismissively, “And my name is Harold, man. Nobody calls me by my last name except the Starbucks guy.” His eyes, devoid of all their usual troublemaking sparkle, flickered down to his paper. The boy’s pencil, scarred with his bite marks, scratched across the paper, writing the introduction under his tutor’s smug gaze.

Somehow, his hero made it into the composition, the trademark catchphrase-”Tra-la-laaaaaaaaaaa!”-dancing between the blue lines. 

###########################################

In another classroom, Stephanie Wykoff flicked flashcards between her fingers, calling out the questions at lightning-speed.

“Three times seven!”

“Twenty-one.” George answered.

“Thirty-six divy four!”

“Nine..wait, did you just say ‘Divy’?”

“Divided by. Divy. Four cubed!”

“Sixty-four.”

“Correct! What’s the square root of 121?” She said. 

Seventeen? If ten-squared is a hundred, then eleven times eleven would be like...111, right? So maybe twelve? No, that’s 144...maybe she was tricky this time and did like, ten and a half. That’s such a Melvin thing to do....maybe she could be his sidekick in another issue of Captain Underpants! Aw, wait, we’re not allowed to do those anymore..that’s terrible, Captain would know how to get us out of a mess like this. George thought, his coffee-colored eyes glossing over as they pinpointed to a certain spot on the floor. Wait, why was Stephanie so frustrated all of a sudden?

“-rge? George!” Stephanie said sharply, snapping her fingers several times in front of his face. “Are you paying attention?”

“Honestly, I wasn’t. Sorry, Steph.” he started to say when he heard a ceramic mug crash to the floor behind him, and a musical cry fill the clear air. 

“Tra-la-LAAAAAAA!” Captain Underpants trilled, hovering slightly above shards of Mr. Krupp’s favorite coffee mugs. “Sidekick! How are you this lovely Summer’s day?”

“I’m, uh, doing fine, Captain..” George stuttered, watching the perky cheerleader’s eyes widen in surprise. “But it’s not summer yet on Earth. It’s winter. And you shouldn’t bother with Harold and I, we’re probably too dumb to be your sidekicks now.” The dark-skinned girl fell to the ground behind them, giggling wildly for a minute before she fainted.

“Why do you say that, mighty sidekick? I don’t fight with the power of wit, you know! I fight for truth, justice, and all that is pre-shrunk and cottony!”

“Yeah, and the school board cares a whole lot about underwear.” he grumbled, tears coming to his eyes. “Captain Underpants, you’re better off without us. We’re STUPID, okay? See this C here? Harold and I busted our butts for it, and this was what we got anyway. It means if we were left on our own, we’d probably walk into traffic and order a cheeseburger at the shoe store.”

“Ah, sidekick! Why do you let a single letter define who you are, or the depth of your personality? You and the yellow-haired boy are both brave, creative, kind, and willing to throw yourself into peril at any time! You have heart and spirit, and neither of you should ever think your value should be measured by someone else’s standards.”

George wiped the saltwater from his eyes, a wan smile brightening his features. 

“Wow. That was..surprisingly profound.”

“But why did you say you weren’t supposed to order a cheeseburger at the shoe store? Where else do you get them?” he said, fixing him with a puzzled look, “And does the yellow-haired child know?”

“Yes. Yeah, I think he does.”

“Good, I’m starving! And Earth food is so deliciously unnatural!”

Captain Underpants ran into the adjacent room, then returned a second later carrying Harold on his shoulders, a cry of “I’m TELLING!!!” ringing forth. 

“Let’s go, young and valuable sidekicks! Cheeseburgers await us in the non-shoe store!” He cheered marching out of the school. Harold’s hand clasped George’s in his, and they both seemed to see color in their world again.