Part Four

70 2 7
                                    


"Did you say 'dead'?" Darwin reacted to Rick's assumption of Elmore Junior High's new interim principal.

"Yes, dead...as in 'deceased'," Rick scathingly clarified. "W-What? D-Do you people not have death in your world?! Do...Do you just...like...I dunno...waste away into nothingness? Some magical pixie dust or some $#%* like that?!?!"

"Rick, calm down," Cara instructed. They were no longer in the auditorium (the assembly ended over twenty minutes ago). Instead, they were standing out in the middle of the hall. "What if this friend of yours isn't the same woman? What if she's just one of infinite versions of herself?"

Rick considered her reasoning. "I...I just can't shake this feeling that it's her. You guys need to look into it."

"Us?!" Cara exclaimed. "You're the one that's so paranoid about it."

"Well, I can't *burp* look into her and try to find the source of the signal, can I?!" Rick disputed. "C-Compromise with me here, will ya?"

"Mr. Small?"

In his ranting, Rick almost didn't see the living cutout of a bear approach him.

"Aren't we supposed to meet for my afternoon session?" she asked him.

Rick neglected to remember his cover as a high school counselor, wishing he had gone as a janitor instead. "Y-Yes...like, totally, little...paper girl...thing..."

"Teri," Gumball whispered to him in a sideways manner.

"Carrie!" Rick blurted by mistake. "Yes, Carrie! I'm ready!"

"I'm Carrie. She's Teri."

Rick jolted in alarm as another girl – a white, translucent ghost – materialized right in front of him. "Geez! What is wrong with this dimension?!"

 "Geez! What is wrong with this dimension?!"

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

----------------

Cara felt like the big kid of the bunch, sitting at the lunch table with Gumball, Darwin, Morty, and even Tobias, who continued to flirt with her. She hated her disguise, which should have broken the school dress code by then, with her backside showing every time she bent over.

Interim Principal Holly Thompson monitored the cafeteria. Her presence in the room gave Cara an idea that she shared with the boys: "If we can get a food fight started, Thompson will have no choice but to call us into the office."

"So, your plan is to get us in trouble?" Gumball cringed.

"Yeah," Cara confirmed. "We need to find out if she really is the same woman Rick claims to have fought the Overtakers with. She might be able to help us."

That last possibility was enough incentive for Gumball and Darwin to enact Cara's plan. Scooping up globs of peanut butter and jelly from their lunch trays, they stood atop the table and yelled loud enough for the whole lunchroom to hear, including Miss Thompson.

"How dare you say that about my mother!"

"Dude," Darwin whispered, out of character. "We got the same mom."

"Oh, right." Realizing his mistake, Gumball changed the script. "I mean...How dare you say that my head is the wrong proportion to my body! I'll have you know that my head and body are exactly the same proportions!"

Gumball's setup made no sense to Darwin, but he went along with it anyway.

"I'll prove you wrong when I show you how easy it is to aim for your big head!"

This was the cue for them to hurl their condiments at each other. Unfortunately, both Watterson boys had terrible aim. The peanut butter and jelly ended up hitting Anton – a living piece of slightly burnt toast – instead.

To make matters worse, Anton told them, "Thanks, guys! My dermatologist's been tellin' me to take better care of my skin. All this P.B. and jelly will really help with my complexion!"

            Cara groaned over the failure of Gumball and Darwin's approach in provoking a food fight

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

Cara groaned over the failure of Gumball and Darwin's approach in provoking a food fight. Showing them how it was done, she stood up on the table with them with a handful of mashed potatoes and screamed at the top of her lungs, "FOOD FIGHT!"

After the first throw, each and every student in the cafeteria hurled their lunches across the room.

In the midst of it all, a slice of pizza struck Miss Thompson in the face.

Humiliated, her strikingly pale blue eyes fixated on the instigators of the mayhem.

----------------

Cara's plan was a flawless success. There was a setback when Thompson had only Cara and Darwin brought to her office. Gumball and Morty were forced to stay and clean the cafeteria – a task that Morty experienced difficulty doing with the lack of appendages from his "Alan" disguise.

Cleaning the sauce and pepperoni off her face, Miss Thompson scolded Cara and Darwin in a husky yet smooth voice: "That fight you both started in the cafeteria was unnecessary. If you wanted to find out that I'm the 'Holly Thompson' Rick Sanchez fought the Overtakers with, all you had to do was ask."

Her awareness of their suspicions surprised Cara and Darwin. She pretty much verified it to them right there and then.

"Thank God," Cara huffed in relief. "You've got to help us stop them. They're here in Elmore. We've been helping Rick find the source of the signal, which we believe is somewhere here in the school."

"I know," Thompson said. "Because I was the one who brought them here."

Out of the principal's desk, Holly seized a gun and aimed it directly at the horrified faces of Cara and Darwin.

"Jinkies," Cara gulped.

            "Jinkies," Cara gulped

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Infinite DC: They Live...Again!Where stories live. Discover now