Malcolm in the Middle: one-shots

Malcolm's Millennium Madness

Setting: December 31, 1999

So far, this Christmas break has been totally awesome. Francis is finally home from military school, since he missed Thanksgiving and a few of the other long weekends thanks to misdeeds that he told me not to describe, we had enough cranberry sauce to go with the turkey, I got lots of cool new video games for Christmas, like the Tony Hawk skateboard game and Donkey Kong 64, and me and my brothers got remote-control trucks, and not the boring kiddie kind that go really slow, but the ones with the remotes where you can control the speed.

Needless to say, we spent lots of time racing them up and down the hallway, and I managed to beat Reese every time, since we decided that he would be disqualified every time he took a shortcut or detour, while Dewey just made his truck do donuts the whole time. The prize at stake was a handful of jelly beans from the giant bag that Dad got in his stocking, so this made us even more competitive.

It's New Year's Eve now, and even though it's supposed to be a holiday, I just see it as another day because I've never believed in the concept of New Year's resolutions, since no one ever sticks to them, such as when Reese made a New Year's resolution last year to stop punching me and calling me nicknames with the word "butt" in them and he only kept the promise for two minutes, tops.

Usually, in our house, Mom and Dad share champagne and watch the fireworks on TV while me and my brothers just sit on the couch, watching a movie on video while eating snacks, wearing those ridiculous shiny cone hats from the dollar store, and carrying the matching horns, which Dewey tries to swallow while Reese blows directly into our ears, but since the new millennium starts at midnight tonight, Dad has been planning for it for several months, since the garage is filled with canned foods, a hot plate, sleeping bags, a wind-up radio, and those emergency lanterns.

"Can you believe the new millennium is starting tonight?" asked Mom as we ate lunch.

"Or maybe not," said Dad, who believed all those news stories saying that all the computers would crash, leading to the deaths of everyone.

"Dad, those stories aren't real," I said, using logic. "Computers are advanced enough now that this probably won't happen."

"Shut up, nerd-face!" said Reese. "Stop acting like a Krelboyne!"

At my school, the word "Krelboyne" was used as a nickname for students in the gifted class in the trailer outside the school, like Stevie Kenarban, a kid in a wheelchair who takes heavy breaths between words who I was forced to have lunch with one day. He was nice enough, but I wouldn't want to eat lunch with him again, not because of his disability, but because if my classmates knew I was friends with a Krelboyne, then I'd have to say goodbye to any chance of having a social life. I'm at the top of my class and my bookshelf is full of science encyclopedias and National Geographic magazines, but I try not to answer when the teacher calls on me because I don't want to end up in that class.

"Reese, be nice to your brother!" said Mom. "I got a letter from the school saying that Malcolm has to do an IQ test in the new year, and with his grades, he could very well end up in that class, so watch your mouth, both of you!"

"Or what?" asked Reese, riling Mom up.

"Or you'll regret it!" said Mom.

"Are we going to die tonight, Daddy?" asked Dewey while biting the head off a dinosaur chicken nugget, the only thing he ever wants to eat during meals.

"We very well might, so that's why I've been preparing for months!" said Dad.

"So is that why I couldn't take my BB gun out of the garage to show my brothers what I learned during shooting training at military school?" asked Francis.