The Universal Law of Gravitation and Other Stories
Chapter 7: The Broflovski Effect — The Slow-Emerging Buttefly
written by SleepySheep683 - illustrated by FriggingodessStan closed his eyes in annoyance as the bed shook once again. Kyle had a habit of fidgeting in his sleep and on this rickety bunk, Stan was feeling every twitch.
He sat up a little and was about to shake him awake, when he noticed that Cartman was gazing up in Kyle's direction from the other bunk. Stan stared in amazement at the sight. Clearly Cartman had no idea Stan had noticed, but it wasn't the fact that he was watching him so intently that had caught Stan's attention — Cartman had been like that with Kyle since they were kids — but the... well, the softness in his expression. Stan had never seen Cartman like this before; it was almost as though... Stan shook the thought away, for it was utterly absurd.
A creaking sound emanated from Cartman's direction; he had clambered out of the bottom bunk and slipped his dinner jacket off. Stan laid back and pretended to be asleep, but watched as Cartman crept over to his bunk, reached up and carefully laid his jacket over the top bunk — presumably over Kyle.
As Cartman moved away, he caught Stan's eye and froze. Stan watched as Cartman stared at him guiltily, his hands still resting on Kyle's bunk. Stan stared back, wondering who would be the first to crack and speak.
Turned out it was Cartman.
"He's freezing. Only way I'm going to stop that goddamn racket," he grumbled.
Stan continued to stare at him, still uncertain as to whether he bought Cartman's explanation or not.
"Stupid fucking Jew," Cartman added dispassionately, before sloping off back to his bunk.
Stan stared at the mattress above his head. Just when he thought nothing else could ever shock him.
Then Cartman got up and sat on the edge of Stan's bed.
"Cartman?" Stan whispered.
"Hey." He fiddled with the coarse blanket beneath his fingers.
"You okay?" Stan asked tentatively, really not knowing what sort of reaction he'd get. Melancholic Cartman was generally a powder keg of emotions, as prone to bursts of aggression as tears of sadness. Rather like Kyle in that respect.
"You hate him, don't you?" Cartman asked and Stan was shocked by the thought.
"I... I don't know," he said eventually. He'd thought he did; an abstract idea hovering somewhere in the dark spaces of this brain, but when forced to confront the idea head on he just couldn't bring himself to say it and confirm the notion.
Cartman smirked sadly at him. "Oh, he does that, huh? It doesn't matter what he does to you, you can't quite bring yourself to outright hate him. You just keep coming back like some fucking battered wife." He sighed heavily. "So, what did he do?"
Stan wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "I... He... I... nothing. Everything. I don't want to talk about it."
For some reason, Cartman found this highly amusing. "Yep," he said between chuckles. "That sounds about right."
Stan watched as he leant forward, hands clasped tightly, and stared at the concrete below. "You love him, right? I mean in a friend way, not in a gay way," Cartman clarified.
"I... I guess. He's my best friend." Stan was surprised how easily the platitude still rolled off his tongue.
Cartman smiled coldly at this. "So, not that close, then. He never really gets under your skin, does he? I mean, except maybe tonight. Whatever happened."
Stan was amazed Cartman didn't push the issue, but was more amazed by his accusation.
"Hey, we've been best friends since kindergarten!"
Cartman got up. "Best friends, best friends..." He looked Stan straight in the eye. "Whatever it is he's done, do you really think he's hurt you?"
"Yes! He really fucking has!" The truth in his blurted statement stung.
"It's nothing on what he's done to me," Cartman replied with uncharacteristic softness. Stan had to shove away every instinctive thought he had on the matter, because it was dumb and made no sense.
Didn't it?
"So, where's Kyle?" Kenny asked, sitting on a chair in the waiting area of the barbers while Mario — the moustachioed barber — trimmed Stan's hair.
Cartman snickered. "He's at the hair salon like the raging queen he's become."
Stan hit Cartman on the arm. "Dude, shut up!"
Mario clutched at his heart in exaggerated sadness. "Oh no! Have I lost little Kyle to 'Scissor Sisters' across the street?"
"Chill, Mario; he's just being a little gaymo," Cartman said as he played with his seat settings and sent himself half a foot further up into the air.
Mario sighed. "How many times do I have to say? My name, is no Mario!"
"What? You're Italian and you've got a moustache — you're frickin' Mario, dude," Cartman replied breezily.
"I no understand; I'm not Italian, I'm Turkish! What is this 'Mario' you keep talking about?"
Stan sighed. "It's nothing personal — about Kyle, I mean. He just wanted to see if they could do whatever they did in New York to his hair again," he said, while Cartman started to hum the theme from Super Mario Brothers.
Mario sighed. "That boy's hair..." He shook his head. "It was my — how you say — my impossible conquest." He brushed away at the back of Stan's neck and held a mirror behind him. "You like?"
"Yeah, I like. Thanks," Stan replied. Mario smiled, and then whipped his head around to glare at Cartman.
"You sing the music from that game? That's what you mean?" He seemed deeply offended. "Do I look like plumber?" He snipped the air aggressively with the scissors in his hands. "You think this plumbing?"
He wandered off to wash his hands. "You think I have brother called Luigi?" he shouted from the sink.
"Have you seen his wife?" Kenny whispered, leaning conspiratorially towards them. "She is a bit of a peach."
Stan couldn't help it and burst out laughing. Cartman was snickering as well. When Mario returned muttering to himself, they were in hysterics.
"You ready, Eric?" Mario asked through gritted teeth.
Cartman wiped his eyes. "Oh, sorry, sorry. I'm ready. Just, you know, whenever you're finished jumping in pipes or whatever."
Mario glared at him. "I no plumber? See, a plumber, he cut hair like this!" With a swift flick of his scissors, Cartman's bangs were gone, revealing the greying — but still very prominent — legend 'I'm a fat fucking pervert!'.
"God fucking damn it!" Cartman raged. "I'd just grown that enough in time for school, you asshole wop!"
Mario looked pretty damn pleased with himself, but Cartman threw a fit at him and refused to pay. Stan and Kenny cobbled together Mario's fee on account of his scissor-happy behaviour being so funny.
"Well, now you've had your fun, are we going to find your little boyfriend, Stan?" Cartman jeered, pulling a baseball cap out of his pocket and shoving it as far over his forehead as he could.
Stan rolled his eyes. "We're going to meet Kyle, if that's what you mean."
Cartman laughed. "Fucking gaywad Jew."
They wandered across the street to 'Scissor Sisters'.
"Can't we just wait outside?" Cartman suggested. "I think it might be catching."
Kenny peered through the window like a kid at a candy shop. "Can we go inside? It's crawling with hot chicks," he urged, although Stan detected less enthusiasm than he would have expected. Wow. Whoever this Maria had been, she'd done a number on him.
Stan pushed the door open; a wind chime above him tinkled with the action and a girl with perfectly coiffed hair, dyed only at the tips, popped up from behind the counter like a Jack-in-the-box.
"Can I help you, gentlemen? We've got a special on highlights—"
"No, thank you," Stan insisted. "We're—"
"We're just waiting for his boyfriend," Cartman finished.
"Shut up, Cartman!"
"What? He's your friend, he's a boy, you pound his ass..." He trailed off, clearly for dramatic effect.
Kenny started giggling hysterically. "No, Eric. I think Stan's the one who takes it up the—"
They all suddenly stopped talking. Stan could see Kyle at the back of the salon, and some very pretty girl was giving him a head massage.
Cartman glared at the receptionist. "What the hell is this, some kind of knocking shop?"
The girl stared in horror, and then laughed. "Oh, no — that's standard treatment here."
"Dude!" Stan figured maybe he should start getting his hair cut at a ladies salon.
"I think I might start coming here," Kenny commented; Stan was sure the double entendre was intentional.
"Does Kyle look different to you?"
"I don't know; maybe he's got taller?"
"She's been flirting with him all morning."
"Yeah. Slut."
Stan glanced over his shoulder and saw Mille sitting under some kind of heat lamp, whispering to Sally. Clearly they had patched things up after Butters' house party; apparently Token wasn't worth wrecking their friendship over. At first Stan thought they were so wrapped up in their conversation that they hadn't noticed him, but then their voices dropped to whispers that even surveillance equipment would struggle to pick up.
It didn't take much longer for Kyle to emerge — all tight messy curls rather than wild frizz — with the pretty hairdresser girl by his side.
"Well, good luck with your assessment."
"Thanks; it'll be my first cut, so I'm kind of nervous."
Kyle gently touched her arm. "You'll be fine. You've got really steady hands; I can vouch for that."
Stan spotted a very noticeable blush creep across the girl's cheeks. "Thanks. Umm... Okay, I'm just going to ask; are you doing anything tonight?"
"Probably hanging out, maybe playing some video games. Definitely lamenting the start of school," he replied.
She smiled, and appeared to stifle a giggle. "I meant, well, are you free any night?"
Kyle looked puzzled. "Sorry, I don't follow."
The girl fiddled nervously with the hem of her sleeve. "I just thought, I dunno, maybe we could go out sometime? Like, on a date?" she clarified. Stan felt sorry for her as she tried to penetrate Kyle's emotional awareness; subtext seemed to slide off him as though he was Teflon-coated against it. Yet he could find you every subtle example of thematic representation in a Shakespeare play; sometimes Stan just didn't understand him.
"Oh! Oh." Kyle suddenly appeared even more awkward. "Look, you seem really nice—"
"Oh. I see..."
"No! It's not..." He exhaled in a purse of his lips and fiddled with the hair in the nape of his neck. "I just came out of a pretty serious relationship. I guess I'm not really ready for..."
She smiled shyly at him and reached into his pocket, pulling out his cell phone. She tapped a few times with both thumbs, and then handed it back to him.
"My number, in case you change your mind," she said with a smile, before looking him up and down. "She was a lucky girl," she mused, before kissing him on the cheek. She walked off to the back of the salon, where her giggling colleagues had been watching.
Kyle looked embarrassed, flattered, confused and suspicious all at once. Stan hadn't even known that was possible. He glanced over immediately to see Millie and Sally's reactions, but they were texting on their phones and had paid no attention.
Cartman burst out laughing. "Look guys, it's Clark Gay-ble. How much did you pay her, Butt-love-ski? This has to be the only place I've ever been where they cut your hair but give you a beard..."
Kyle responded to Cartman's taunts by simply ripping his baseball cap off, exposing his grafittied forehead.
"Oi! Give that back, you fucking Kyke!"
The receptionist appeared truly horrified; Kyle just stuck Cartman's cap down his pants and paid for his hair cut.
"Oh, yeah; you'd like me to go in there after it, wouldn't you? You'd like my big manly hands rubbing all over your junk, huh?"
Kyle merely shrugged as the receptionist tried not to laugh.
Eventually, Cartman tackled Kyle to the floor and unzipped his pants. He grabbed his hat back and stuck it firmly on his head.
"Urgh; your sweaty balls have been all over this. I can smell them."
"Wow, and now his balls are vicariously resting on your head," Kenny pointed out with a smirk.
Kyle flashed a big toothy grin, and Stan suddenly noticed there were no train tracks to be seen. "Dude, your braces are off!" he said. "They look good."
"Thanks; I going to celebrate by eating a burger without cutlery," he deadpanned. Stan watched as his tongue glided over his teeth, seemingly subconsciously.
"Awesome! Let's go to Denny's to celebrate," Cartman said in a sickly sweet voice. "Then Stan can congratulate you by picking the bits of food out of your teeth with his tongue."
"One more word, and I'm torching your cap," Kyle warned, his patience clearly wearing thin.
"Gah; it sucks that we have to go back to school on Monday," Bebe said with a sigh. "We've got less than thirty-six hours of freedom left!" She returned to eating her baguette in a mind bogglingly erotic fashion; Wendy wondered how she managed it.
"It's not that bad," Wendy soothed, sipping on her ice-cream float. She felt very retro, sitting in the Fifties' style food court of the mall drinking her Fifties' style drink — which she spurted out through her nose in a distinctly non-retro way when Bebe nonchalantly said, "I was hoping I'd have taught Clyde to be a better fuck before tenth grade began."
"What?"
"Oh, you know I love him, like, tons." She out her baguette down and sighed heavily. "We just don't seem to connect sexually. I've tried everything!"
Wendy wanted to be horrified and disgusted with the way Bebe put so much emphasis on sex, but the pained expression she wore actually made her sympathise a little.
"It's, like, every time I almost get there, but not quite. I have to wait for him to have his little post-orgasm snooze so I can finish up — it hurt his feelings the last time I did it in front of him," Bebe said, rolling her eyes. "Like my feelings don't matter. You know what? I should just blow him and stop just before he's close to shooting his load. Then he'd know what it's like to have hurt feelings!" She stabbed her fork into her baguette; Wendy watched as it wobbled, but remained proudly upright in the bread.
"I'm sure it'll work out," Wendy said, in lieu of being able to dole out any proper advice.
Bebe touched her hand. "Sorry; I've been moaning all morning about my relationship — how's yours?"
"Fine," Wendy replied, not really wanting to go into the past month's awkward dates and Stan's eager, but often disappointed, advances; always followed by a guilty expression as though he was wrong to want what he did. The whole situation made Wendy feel lots of things, and none of them were good. She didn't mean to make him feel the way she did, but everything she tried to do to stop teasing him — from the way she dressed to the way she ate — had no effect.
"That's all you have to say?" Bebe teased, and Wendy realised that 'fine' wasn't going to cut it — she needed to have problems that would put a soap opera to shame, or wild sex that would make a pornographic film look limited.
"Umm... Stan gave me a poem," she offered meekly.
Bebe looked intrigued. "Ooh, is that one in the 'Kama Sutra'?"
Wendy blinked in confusion. "No, it's a poem. You know, with occasional rhymes and nice little phrases about how lovely I am."
"Oh. Okay. That's sweet," Bebe agreed.
"Yeah; Kyle's really good with words," Wendy mused.
Bebe dropped her fork in shock. "Wait, what? Kyle? You're dating Kyle now? When did this happen?" She looked disgusted.
"I'm not," Wendy replied. "He clearly wrote the poem on Stan's behalf. I recognised his writing voice." She became acutely aware that Bebe was gawping at her. She shrugged. "The thing with dating Stan is... well, you kind of end up dating Kyle, too. They're sort of a package deal."
Once Wendy had stopped fighting this idea and accepted it, she felt far less like she was competing with Stan's best friend and far more like he'd become her friend, too. For a long time she had Kyle pinned as an asshole with a short fuse and an arrogant streak a mile wide; now she realised he was a nice guy with a short fuse who fought hard for his beliefs and was a beacon of intelligence surrounded by a sea of stupidity. She could relate.
Bebe beamed with pride. "Wow. That's my girl. Maybe they'll both screw you, too?"
Wendy stared in horror. "I don't mean... It's not like that!"
Bebe sipped at her coffee and eyed her wickedly. "Have you asked? I mean, they do everything together, right?"
"I think even they have limits," Wendy replied.
Bebe grinned. "So, you've thought about it."
"What? No!" Wendy protested hotly, feeling both embarrassed and kind of grossed out. Before she could argue further, she was distracted by a loud buzzing in her purse; there was a message on her cell phone.
Simultaneously, she and Bebe reached for their purses and inspected their phones. Wendy read the message 'MURG mt. Bebe hse. Cdwd — SPARKLES'.
"My house?" Bebe appears confused, then shocked.
"What is it?" Wendy asked, not really knowing how to speak text — it could have meant anything.
Bebe grabbed her hand. "We have to go. Now." Her expression was grave. "It's the list."
By the time Wendy and Bebe reached her house, every girl in their class was loitering along the street, trying to make it appear as though their close proximity was sheer coincidence.
Bebe unlocked her door and gave the signal — nothing more than a wave of her hand — and the girls slowly made their way into the house, as though a pincer movement of almost-tenth grade girls was somehow less conspicuous if it dawdled.
Bebe directed them into the basement; they each took a chair and arranged them in an open crescent with Bebe at the helm. Despite her elementary school transgressions — or perhaps because of them — she had become the most unswerving, upright and brutally truthful Keeper.
She banged a gavel hard against her computer desk and everyone fell silent.
"Ladies, we are here because one of our number wishes to challenge an existing motion. Please make yourself known."
The girls all looked around excitedly; it was always worth watching someone try to make Bebe reconsider a list. Millie and Sally stood up and nervously made their way to the Jensen Ackles poster.
Millie cleared her throat. "I... We have reason to believe the BHI needs to be re-evaluated," she said.
"Who had caused the need for re-evaluation?" Bebe asked wearily. It had been pretty common these past two years; puberty had ravaged all of them at one point or another, making the BHI — Boy Hotness Index — more volatile than the NYSE after an IMF bailout.
"Kyle," Sally said. "Kyle Broflovski."
There was a ripple of murmuring that spread through the group.
"Silence!" Bebe roared, banging her gavel. A fearful hush descended. Bebe looked at Mille and Sally. "Present your case," she said, gesturing to the My Little Pony flipchart —Wendy had been meaning to get Bebe something a little more sophisticated for years.
Millie looked down at a crib-sheet she had surreptitiously slipped out of her sleeve. "Myself and my witness Sally observed Mr Broflovski in 'Scissor Sisters' at approximately ten AM, while undergoing a deep conditioning treatment. Mr Broflovski appeared, to all intents and purposes, to be looking rather hot."
Bebe raised an eyebrow in indulgent amusement. "Do you have proof?"
"Yes," Sally said. "We submit my camera phone for the benefit of the group." She handed over a pink glittery phone with a charm dangling from it shaped like a high heel; Wendy made a mental note to ask her where she got it from.
"There are photographs of Mr Broflovski in a very fetching jean and jacket combo—"
"No leading the panel, Sally," Bebe warned.
Sally hung her head. "Sorry, Bebe. There are photos of Mr Broflovski in new clothes, and video footage of Jessica Sloane flirting with him."
This seemed to send everyone muttering excitedly; Bebe had to give up on her gavel and instead scratched her fingernails down the Fisher Price blackboard — which Wendy knew had been bundled up ready to hand down to her young cousin — before everyone squealed and fell silent.
"We are all aware of Jessica Sloane's reputation — a snooty bitch who turns her nose up at any of the boys at Middle Park High, let alone South Park High." She steepled her fingers. "I accept your request. Unless anybody objects, I shall call a motion to reopen the BHI after careful perusal of the evidence brought forward." She slammed the gavel against her desk. "You have half an hour to examine the evidence, then we shall take a vote."
The half an hour whistled past very quickly; Wendy felt very weird having to give an opinion on the hotness of her boyfriend's best friend, but she couldn't shirk her duty. Once the votes were being collected, the atmosphere lightened a little.
"He didn't even realise she was hitting on him," Millie said, sighing. "It was so adorable!"
Wendy rolled her eyes. "Yeah, because no girl has ever hit on him before," she reasoned, although in the back of her mind she wondered who exactly had made the move on whom in New York.
"Well, let's be fair; who would have?" Bebe pointed out. "He's a nice guy, but..."
"And you didn't exactly help," Wendy pointed out. "You single-handedly destroyed his self-esteem for shoes!"
Bebe glared at her. "That was a long time ago, Wendy. I did my time."
"It doesn't change the fact it would have had an impact on him, especially at such a young age."
"Then I did him a favour," she shot back. "The fact he doesn't realise he's hot seems to have made him even hotter. Maybe that's part of it? That enigmatic combination of beauty and low self-esteem... Are the votes in yet?"
Red and Powder handed Bebe a box of ballot papers, each lovingly decorated with pink glitter and heart stickers.
"Right," Bebe announced, setting up a new tab on their spreadsheet. "Let's get to work."
Fifteen hours and a trip to the supermarket to stock up on essentials later, and Bebe was still staring dumbstruck at the screen of her laptop.
"Well?" Wendy asked, curiosity getting the better of her as she perused the selection box of chocolates currently in her possession. Bebe looked up at Wendy with dread in her eyes.
"I can't make it make sense," she moaned, reaching for the chocolates.
"Why, what's happened?" Millie asked.
"There must be a mistake..."
"We've counted the votes three hundred times, there can't be any fucking mistakes!" Red growled, clearly bored of the whole committee meeting.
"Three hundred and seven," Bebe corrected gloomily. "And still the same."
"Show us," Patty encouraged. With a heavy sigh, Bebe turned her laptop around and expanded some graphs. Wendy craned in for a closer look, and saw they were titled 'Best Hair', 'Best Eyes', 'Best Ass' and 'Best Upper Arms'.
"Right; these graphs show the results based on our new votes. There's no difference to last time; Kyle is still in the bottom five for everything, except for 'Best Ass' which, naturally, he has topped consistently for the past seven years." She scrolled through another set of graphs for 'Best Torso', 'Best Jaw Line', 'Best Hands,' 'Best Nose', 'Best Face' and 'Best Body Hair Distribution'. Wendy could see Kyle was still in the bottom five, and actually came bottom for half of them. She felt secretly pleased Kyle had no knowledge of this; she'd never even confided any of this stuff to Stan. Partly because it violated sacred girl law, but also because she didn't want him to get too smug at the prospect of being in the top five for almost every category — Kyle's dominance on the 'Best Ass' list pushed him into seventh place.
"So?" Red asked caustically.
"So, here's the revised 'Best-Looking Boy' list, as per today's vote." Bebe clicked on another graph, and Wendy nearly choked on her own air supply. She glanced around the room and saw even Red staring in utter bewilderment.
"No. Way," Millie breathed.
"This... this can't be," Patty said, practically pressing her nose to the laptop screen.
Red steadied herself on the back of a chair. "There's got to be a—"
"Three hundred and seven times, remember?" Bebe shot back coolly.
Wendy didn't know what to say. Despite being in the bottom five for all but one category of the Boy-Hotness Index, Kyle was apparently the fifth hottest boy in tenth grade. Stan, who was in the top five for all but one category, was the fourth hottest by two votes.
"It... It just doesn't make sense," she commented.
Powder walked over to the window and stared dejectedly at the Stevens' back garden. "Now I don't believe in nothing no more."
Stan kicked up flurries of snow as he ran for the bus, only to find it was late. Sadly, this just allowed extra time for it to sink in that summer break was over, rather than providing a blessed respite from the start of school. Kyle, Cartman and Kenny were waiting sombrely next to the bus stop; they shared nods in greeting.
"I wonder if we've got Math today?" Stan mused.
"Probably," Kenny replied. "Just like butt-fucking, they figure it's best to ease you in gently," he joked.
"Well, our scrawny little Jew queen will be happy. He loves Math. He gets off on it. Bet he can't wait for school so he can take it up the ass from Mr Spencer!" Cartman started to mime humping an invisible bent-over partner. "Yeah, that's right. You love my cosine, bitch. Oh yeah, Mr Spencer, spank my associative operation; I've been a bad little Math dork."
Kenny fell about laughing while Stan sighed and braced himself for the first Cartman versus Kyle smackdown of the school year. In many ways, he was impressed it had taken them so long; it must be a new record.
Kyle, however, didn't react. Stan studied his face, deep in thought and miles away from Cartman's mime — which had now been exaggerated into some kind of wheelbarrow manoeuvre, where Cartman held the imaginary legs of his imaginary partner up around his shoulders.
"Kyle? You okay?" Stan asked gently as Cartman glared in their direction.
"Goddamn it, Kyle! Pay attention!"
"Yeah, Cartman was busy fucking your ass, the least you can do is show him you care," Kenny replied, sniggering.
Cartman glared at him. "Shut the hell up, you poor piece of crap!"
"Ooh, someone's a little sensitive," Kenny teased.
"Kyle?"
Kyle seemed to snap out of whatever had occupied him. "Huh? Is the bus here?"
"Not yet; are you okay, buddy?"
"Yeah, fine," Kyle said in that too-bright tone that told Stan he was lying. He put a hand on Kyle's arm.
"I'm here, you know? If you need anything." Stan had spoken to him about the Rebecca incident; it didn't take a rocket scientist to tell him Kyle was pretty cut up about it.
Kyle patted his hand. "Thanks," he said, just as the school bus pulled up in front of them.
"Oi! It's here, you pair of fags!" Cartman growled.
They clambered onto the bus, Cartman muttering under his breath. Stan noticed the bus driver did a double-take when she saw Kyle.
"Hi, Kyle," Millie said as they sat in the seat opposite her.
"Hey," he replied.
"Hi, Kyle," Sally said, in a sweet voice.
Soon a barrage of girls were greeting Kyle in that same slightly saccharine tone.
"What's up with them?" Kyle asked, looking rather perturbed.
Stan shrugged. "No idea, dude." He craned his neck to look over the seats. "Can you see Wendy?"
"Nope. Maybe she drove? As soon as my dad gets his new car, I know I will."
"Huh?"
Kyle grinned. "Dad said I can have his old one. Reckons it's not worth selling. Depreciation and all that, you know?"
"Sweet, dude! I call shotgun!" Stan replied quickly.
Kyle smiled. "Naturally."
When they finally got to school and dumped their bags in their new lockers, Stan had noticed practically every girl in the class had been checking them out.
"Wow," Cartman said. "Word must have got around about me bringing sexy back."
"Dude, they aren't even looking at you," Kenny replied evenly. "Or us."
"Huh?"
Kenny pointed surreptitiously at Kyle, and Stan suddenly got it; every girl hadn't been checking them out — they'd been checking Kyle out.
Kyle, for his part, clearly hadn't noticed. "What?" he asked after Stan realised he'd been staring a little too long.
"Nothing. What's up with the girls?"
Kyle raised an eyebrow. "Fucked if I know; they're acting really weird." He slammed his locker door shout. "Ready?"
"Umm, yeah." Stan exchanged glances with a sniggering Kenny and an irritated Cartman.
"Fucking retard," Cartman grumbled.
Wendy arrived at her first class of the day — Geography — to find Bebe staring at Kyle as though he were a fascinating new species.
"Why?" she muttered to herself. "What is it about you, Kyle Broflovski?"
"Bebe?" Wendy asked, and Bebe jumped a mile in her seat.
"Sorry. I was just thinking."
"About Kyle?" Wendy whispered as she slid into her desk next to her.
"Yeah. There has to be a reason..."
Wendy touched her arm. "Just let it go."
"I can't!" The force with which Bebe slammed her fist against her desk alarmed Wendy. "I can't just let a discrepancy like this go unexamined!" She looked at Wendy; her expression was deadly serious. "I learned my lesson when I tampered with the list all those years ago; I'll be damned if I'm just going to brush this under the carpet." She chewed on her pen thoughtfully as Wendy got out her new stationery set. She cast her glance at Kyle, who was hunched over his desk and scribbling into a notebook. Wendy didn't really understand what the fuss was about; he'd just grown into himself. He'd also sorted his hair out, and lost his braces, and now wore clothes that actually fitted him. It seemed quite straight forward to Wendy; Kyle had emerged through the ravages of puberty a stronger individual for his trials.
She saw Kyle turn around, glare at Bebe suspiciously, then turn back to his notes. Not a whit of realisation showed in his expression; Wendy could pretty much guarantee that when he looked in the mirror, he still saw the small, zit covered thirteen year old who from the age of eight had been convinced he was ugly and accepted it graciously.
"Can I help you?" Kyle said with a bite of irritation in his voice; Wendy swiftly realised she had been staring in his direction.
"I... I just wondered if you had any AP classes?" she asked to cover herself.
Kyle seemed to relax at this. "Yeah." He pulled his timetable out of his pocket — already creased and stained as though he'd had it stowed away in there for a month. "I've got English—"
"Naturally," Wendy commented, and Kyle blushed — he must have realised that she knew Stan contracted out the task of writing his love letters to him.
"And Calculus. Figured I'd see how I got on with those this year before doing more in eleventh grade," he explained. "What about you?"
"The same," Wendy conceded, not having to check the colour-coded timetables she had carefully glued into her binder. She knew he was doing some AP classes; they'd been in the same meeting about them. It was nice to know they were doing the same ones; Wendy had a sneaking suspicion they'd have to join the eleventh graders for their classes due to lack of uptake.
"Huh, what a coincidence," Kyle commented airily.
"Oh, please," Bebe interrupted. "You two are, like, top of every class. It's hardly a surprise. You'll probably end up being co-opted by Harrison Life Sciences to do some special research before you reach eleventh grade. They always need smart-asses to perform experiments..." She trailed off and sucked on the end of her pen; Wendy knew this meant she'd just had a brainwave.
Regardless, it coincided with the appearance of their Geography teacher, Mr. Powell. The moment he shut the door, the class fell silent; he was one of the very few teachers who could instil that curious mix of fear and respect.
He elegantly slipped his dark jacket off his back and onto his chair before stroking his scratchy dark beard — Cartman had frequently described him as looking like a terrorist seemingly for this feature alone — and looked around at the class.
"Ah, my darlings. I've missed you so much," he announced grandly before perching on the end of his desk. Nobody could fail to hear the sarcasm in his voice.
"Well, we've missed you too, sir," Butters said with a warm smile, and Wendy amended her previous thought. Apparently anybody except Butters couldn't miss the sarcasm.
"As it's our first day back, doubtless we will have to go over everything we did in the last semester — I had better things to do with my summer and I'm sure you did, too."
Kyle seemed to blanch at this; Wendy couldn't help but feel a little pang of sympathy.
"So, who can tell me about spatial diffusion?"
Nobody volunteered. As Wendy was trying to remember, Kyle looked around him and uttered, "It describes the spread of largely non-tangible effects such as ideas, languages and cultural influences throughout communities or countries."
Mr. Powell looked amazed. "Kol HaKavod, Kyle," he said uncertainly.
As Mr. Powell and Kyle continued to volley questions and answers, Wendy felt Bebe jab her in the arm with a pen.
"What?" Wendy hissed.
"I know what I have to do," Bebe said. "An experiment!"
"Huh?"
"An experiment to see what makes Kyle so... so whatever he's become. I need to go out with him."
Wendy didn't really know what to say to think, besides, "But you're dating Clyde."
"I know. I only mean once," Bebe insisted, with a cheeky grin. "One date. Think you can pull a few strings for me?"
"What, me?"
"You're friendly with him," Bebe pointed out, and Wendy prayed she didn't blush; she had certainly confessed at least one thing to him she'd have never told Bebe about.
"He won't go out with you," Wendy said finally.
"Why not? He's not holding a grudge about our seventh grade dance, is he?"
"What? No. You're dating Clyde," Wendy replied and the two of them glanced over just as Clyde had apparently raised his hand.
"Ah, Goedemorgen, Clyde," Mr Powell said. Clyde looked at him uncomfortably.
"Umm, yeah. The Holocaust was an example, I guess."
Wendy turned and smiled at Bebe. "He'd never; bros before hos, and all that."
"Damn it!" Bebe hissed.
Mr. Powell sighed. "The holocaust. Can anybody give me any examples of how the holocaust affected migration patterns in the 1940s — Eric, one word out of you and I shall leave this room, lock the door for a minute and let Kyle do whatever he deems necessary."
"What if I break up with Clyde?" Bebe suggested.
"Nope — Clyde would be nursing a broken heart and Kyle wouldn't step on it. Doubly so after this summer."
"Why? What happened this summer?"
"Girls?"
Wendy looked up and saw Mr. Powell staring at her and Bebe, his eyebrows raised querulously.
"If you want to have a mother's meeting, I can arrange one for you after school where you can write 1000 lines on why you think it'll help your GPA score," he said testily.
"Sorry, sir," Wendy said, staring intently at the board and trying to ignore the many inventively disgusting fellatio mimes Cartman aimed at Kyle the moment Mr. Powell's back was turned.
As soon as they got out of class, Kyle knew Cartman was going to start. He'd been itching to all day.
"Wow, Kyle; you're really planning to take every single one of our teachers' dicks in your hungry little Jew mouth, huh?"
"Shut up, Cartman!" Kyle snapped; fed up with having to keep silent for the past three classes while Cartman kicked his chair, threw spit balls at his hair, mimed sucking on cock and basically did anything he could to wind him up.
"Dude, what is going on?" Stan asked, his expression somewhat fearful. "You never speak up this much in class."
Kenny shrugged. "It beats listening to embarrassing silence," he commented.
Kyle sighed. "I dunno," he said defensively. How could he tell them that he'd spent the past week feverishly studying? It had been the only thing that had stopped him thinking about... about her. Damn it; he couldn't even bear to think of her name.
"Hope Mr Taylor's cock tastes good, Kyle," Cartman mocked as he slammed his locker door shut.
Suddenly, Kyle became painfully aware of angry shouting coming from the other end of the corridor.
"Well, if that's how you feel, maybe we should just split up!"
"Fine, you stroppy bitch!"
"Fine! Consider us broken up, you lousy faggot!" Bebe whirled past him at such a speed that Kyle was nearly knocked into his locker door by the resultant force. He noticed with sadness that the eyes of every single boy in the vicinity followed the gentle bouncing movement of her impressive bosom as though they were watching a volley at a tennis match. She looked pretty upset, and Kyle was fairly sure scores of boys peering at her boobs wasn't going to cheer her up.
"Whoa, dude. What happened?" Stan asked Clyde as he calmly closed his locker door.
"It had just run its course," he said nonchalantly. "These things happen."
"Wow. I'm sorry," Stan said quietly. He looked deeply perturbed; Kyle couldn't help but wonder whether it had anything to do with the fact Clyde and Bebe had been going out around the same amount of time as Stan and Wendy.
Clyde shrugged. "I'm not," he said heartlessly.
Token and Butters, who had been standing nearby and no doubt heard all the commotion, looked at each other.
"Does that mean Bebe's, you know, on the market again?" Token asked hopefully.
"Yep," Clyde replied nonchalantly.
"And... Umm... So if some other guy asked her out, you'd — ah — be fine about that?" Butters asked nervously.
"Sure," Clyde replied airily. "We're done. Any guy who wants to go out with her totally has my blessing," he said with a smile, before strolling down the corridor whistling a jaunty tune.
"Man, that was weird," Stan said.
Cartman shrugged. "Oh well. It's a free-for-all on Bebe's tits now, at long last."
"Yeah," Kenny agreed. "They're beautiful. Like huge, ripe, mouth-watering peaches; begging for you to taste their juicy goodness."
Kyle walked away, suddenly feeling really pissed off at his friends. He heard Stan call after him, but he just had to see if Bebe was okay. He knew how much it sucked to just suddenly get cast aside when everything seemed so perfect.
He found Bebe at the foot of the stairs leading up to the language lab, politely brushing off a couple of boys from the grade above; apparently news travelled really fucking fast in their high school.
He gently tapped her on the shoulder. "Hey, Bebe."
She turned around and flashed him a rather lovely smile. "Oh. Hey, Kyle. What's up?"
Kyle looked at her; she seemed really chirpy for someone who'd just split up with her boyfriend. "I just wanted to see if you were okay; I kind of heard what went down with you and Clyde..."
She nodded and glanced at the floor. "Oh, I'm fine. Thanks." She looked around, and then sat on the stairs. "I guess it was kind of expected, really."
Kyle sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. "Well, I kind of went through a similar thing a few weeks ago, so if you want to talk... I'm here. Okay?"
She looked up at him, her expression one of surprise. "You... you did?"
"Yeah. It fucking hurt. Like..." He mimed an explosion against his rib cage, and then realised it was a pretty decent analogy. "I'm still pulling out bits of shrapnel. I mean, metaphorical shrapnel, obviously. She didn't actually sling a grenade at me. Her father, on the other hand..." He stopped at her horrified expression and shook his head in dismissal. "That's another story."
Bebe looked down at her hands. "Well, I'm fine. I promise you." She sighed. "The worst thing is that I bought two tickets for us to see 'Li'l Bare Bait and the Hootchie Slut Bombs' on Saturday."
"Hey, I love them!" Kyle enthused. "Okay, so they kind of sold out after their second album — 'PussyTown' was pretty mainstream."
"I know, right?"
"Well, I could always buy the other ticket off you," Kyle suggested. "I mean, as a friend thing," he insisted. "I'm not trying to ask you out when you've literally just broken up with... Unless you want to make him think we're on a date."
"Huh?"
"Clyde was being an asshole, telling everyone how they were free to ask you out." He smirked. "I'll happily bet you ten bucks he changes his tune the moment you do; it's not as though you're short of admirers."
He was surprised to see Bebe blush at this; he figured she must have known that practically every boy in their class would crawl on their stomachs across broken glass with their flies unzipped just for a chance of feeling her up.
"Cool, let's go as friends, then," she said, before frowning. "Wait, do you have a car?"
"If I don't by Saturday, I'll definitely have access to one."
"Then I'll buy the tickets, you buy the gas. Deal?"
"Deal."
They shook hands on it, and Kyle couldn't help but find Bebe's dazzling smile charmingly infectious.
Wendy waited in the school parking lot after her first AP Calculus class ready to smack Bebe in the face. Kyle had mentioned during the wait for their math teacher that he and Bebe were off to Denver to see some awful misogynistic rock and hip-hop fusion band that they both inexplicably loved, and he seemed pretty pleased about it.
"We're just going as friends, though," he had insisted, and Wendy was convinced she could detect a trace of hope in his voice.
"Hey, Wendy," Clyde said amiably. Wendy ignored him.
He sighed and sat on the hood of her car — a third-hand Volkswagen Beetle her parents had bought from Clyde's mom as an early birthday present for her. "You know I haven't really broken up with Bebe, right?"
"Get off my car, Clyde," she spat, folding her arms.
"What's up with you?" he asked, clearly astounded. "Anyway, it's sort of my car. It was my mom's."
"Not anymore."
At that moment, Bebe arrived. She smirked at Clyde. "You're an asshole."
"Did I do well?"
"You were perfect, honey," she replied. "What's up, Wendy?"
Wendy glared at Bebe, then Clyde, then back to Bebe. "You really think this is okay?"
They stared at her blankly. Wendy rolled her eyes.
"You have just conspired to make poor Kyle think you're on some sweet little heart-healing date on Saturday—"
"Hey, I said it was just as friends!" Bebe protested.
Clyde stared at her. "Wait, what? Then what the hell was the point of all that 'breaking up' bullshit if you were going to tell him you were going as friends? You could have just told him I didn't want to see 'Li'l Bare Bait' and, frankly, you'd have been right."
Bebe glared right back at Wendy. "You didn't tell me he'd had his heart broken by some mystery girl; what was I supposed to do?" She turned to face Clyde. "And what do you mean, you didn't want to see 'L'il Bare Bait'? I thought you loved them?"
"No, you love them. I just tag along because nobody else will go with you. I wish I'd known about Kyle sooner — he can go and see them with you every tour instead of me."
"Did you know about this girl?" Bebe asked Clyde, somewhat accusatorily.
He shrugged. "Didn't even know he'd had a girlfriend. I was hoping you ladies would fill me in."
Wendy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just get in the car," she said, "and if Kyle gets hurt through all of this, I am seriously going to hurt you both back!"
Clyde sniggered. "What, are you his mom now, or something?"
Bebe shook her head and playfully shoved Clyde into the back seat. "Didn't you hear? Wendy's dating both Stan and Kyle."
"Really? I mean, I knew they were close—"
"Metaphorically," Wendy mumbled. "If I'm dating Stan, Kyle's in my life. That's just how it works."
Clyde shrugged. "Kyle's okay. You kind of remind me of him, Wendy. I mean, he's smart, feisty, kind of bitchy..."
"Shut up, Clyde!" Wendy and Bebe shouted simultaneously.
He grinned. "I guess that means I don't get to date both of you metaphorically?"
"Clyde, honey, we're not getting back together until Monday. You really need to be on your best behaviour in case I change my mind," Bebe teased.