Cory & Shawn's Miracle Soap: Thursday

Early Thursday morning, Cory plodded down the stairs into his kitchen. He stared bleary-eyed at an open refrigerator as he struggled to wake up. His sleep the night before had been plagued with nightmares about the goop and he hadn't slept well.

Pulling a bowl out of the cabinet near the sink and a large spoon from the drawer, Cory found the most sugar packed cereal in the house. As he dumped the contents of the box into his bowl, he silently prayed that Morgan hadn't picked through it already and taken the good stuff.

"Ah, Lucky Charms," he muttered. "Breakfast of champions."

"I think that would actually be Wheaties, sport." Alan finished tying his tie as he walked into the kitchen. "Why are you eating out of a mixing bowl?"

"Huh?" Cory stared at his dish. "Oh, I just grabbed it."

"Uh-huh. Looks like someone didn't sleep very well last night." Alan poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down next to his son.

"Green stuff," Cory murmured quietly. "Lots of green stuff everywhere." He looked up at his dad. "Morgan's Swamp Thing came after me in my dreams."

"I see," Alan said. "And Swamp Thing coming after you wouldn't have anything to do with a guilty conscious, would it?"

A plumber had come out to the Matthews' house late Wednesday night to check their pipes. The green goo blocking the drains was some sort of mixture of household products. The goo was heavy and slow moving; water wouldn't move it or through it. The longer it set in the pipes the more it thickened and it had started to congeal. After talking with Amy, Alan had a feeling that Cory might know what was in the pipes and wanted to give him a chance to confess.

Cory frowned, his brow knit together in thought. "No." He paused. "Should it be?"

Alan sighed. "You tell me, kid."

Cory shook his head and shrugged.

"Cory, what did you do with that stuff you and Shawn made last weekend?"

"Ummm..." Cory gulped and stared at his bowl of cereal. What was he supposed to say? He didn't quite know what selling the goo had to do with the sink backing up, but he had a sinking feeling that his father would not approve of him selling it to his classmates. "Uh, I don't know?"

It was Alan's turn to shake his head. "Wrong answer."

"Okay, fine." Cory pushed his bowl away and flopped back against the chair. "After Eric had the stuff on his face and it cleared up his acne, we kinda canned what wasn't washed down the sink and sold it at school."

This wasn't quite what Alan was expecting. He had figured that the junk had been put down the drain instead of being properly disposed, but selling it? "You did what!"

"Uh, sold it?" Cory could tell by the look on his dad's face that he was in big trouble.

Alan put his hands over his face and said nothing. After a moment he ran his hands through his hair and sighed. He glanced at Cory.

"Why?"

Cory shrugged and kicked the leg of the table.

"I take it Shawn was in on this too, huh?" Alan was still trying to absorb what his son had just told him.

"Yeah."

"Go get ready for school," Alan sighed once more and picked up his coffee mug.

"That's it?" Cory wasn't sure if not having a verdict on punishment was good or bad.

"For now. But don't plan on doing anything or going anywhere after school. You come straight home."

"Yes, sir."

Cory got up from the table.

"And, Cor."

"Yes?"

"You might as well bring Shawn with you."

Cory shook his head as he trudged up the stairs. Could this day get any worse?

_______________________________________________________________________________

"For next Tuesday," Audrey walked in front of the class. "I want you to choose a passage from your favorite poem of Edgar Allan Poe's and illustrate it. Be prepared to talk about it during class."

Topanga's hand went up. A few students in the back of the class muttered to each other.

Audrey nodded to Topanga. "Yes, Miss Lawrence?"

"What medium do you want us to use for the project?"

"I want you to use your imagination." Audrey picked up an 11"x 14" sheet of Bristol board from the desk. She held it in front of her so the class could see the graphite drawing on its front. The drawing was a detailed sketch of an terrified-looking old man with an odd-looking eye sitting in a darkened bedroom clutching a corner of his blanket. A thin streak of light stretched across the four-poster bed to a mirror. The reflection in the mirror revealed that the bedroom door was cracked open and someone was watching the old man. Behind the man reaching around the bed as if to strangle him was a foreboding black shadow. "I did this during my freshman year in high school not too long ago. Does anyone know what poem this is from?"

Audrey handed the piece to Topanga and indicted that she should pass it around to the rest of the room when she was done looking at it.

A few people were still waiting to see the picture when Shawn's hand went up.

"Yes, Shawn?"

"It's from 'The Tell-Tale Heart', right?"

Audrey smiled. "I'm impressed. It is indeed. Anyone care to take a guess at the exact passage that it's from?"

The class, including Shawn and Cory, flipped through their lit book looking for the passage.

Topanga's hand went up again. "I think it's '...and Death had stalked with his black shadow before him..." She looked up at Audrey. "Am I close?"

"You're dead on it," Audrey winked. "You can use whatever material you want to use on this project. Within reason. Don't go for the easiest, most obvious thing to do. Choose something different, find something hidden in those poems."

The bell rang over the finish of her instructions. "Remember they're due on Tuesday!"

The class filtered out of the room, but Topanga pushed her way over to Audrey.

"Miss Andrews?" she said timidly.

Audrey turned around and smiled. "Whatcha need, Topanga?"

"Oh, nothing, really." She pushed her bangs out of her face. "I just wanted to say that I really enjoy it when you teach. And that I hope you stay here and teach after your internship."

"Thanks, Topanga." Audrey squeezed the girl's shoulder. "That means a lot to me."

Topanga glanced over to the front corner of the room. She looked back at Audrey and grinned. "And I'm not just saying that so Mr. Feeny will give you a good review."

"I quite agree with you, Miss Lawrence," Feeny walked over to the two girls with a smile on his face. "I, too, hope that Miss Andrews will consider staying on here."

Audrey blushed. "Thank you, Mr. Feeny."

George nodded to her and walked Topanga out of the room.

"Hey," Jon leaned into the room after the principal had left. "Is it safe to come in yet?"

Audrey laughed and waved him in.

"How'd it go?"

Audrey wrinkled her nose. Mr. Feeny had been sitting in on the classroom that morning to view her progress. Jon hadn't been allowed to be in the room while the review was going on. "Pretty well, I think," she said, putting away her teaching materials. "I was so nervous though."

"I'm sure you did fine," he smiled. Jon noticed the picture lying on the desk. He carefully picked it up and studied it.

"'Tell-Tale Heart'?" he asked.

Audrey nodded. "Yeah, freshman English project," she explained.

"Wow, that's good." He gave her a sidelong glance. "You got anymore amazing talents I don't know about?"

"That?" Audrey pointed to the picture. "That's not talent- that was an assignment." She grinned at him. "I thought about being an Art major, but art isn't a very lucrative career. Of course, neither is dancing." She made a face. "What about you? Did you ever consider something other than teaching?"

Jon nodded. "Oh, yeah. For a long time a I wanted to be a pro hockey player."

Audrey raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Really? Why didn't you?"

Jon laughed. "I dunno. It was a lot of things, I guess. I played in leagues throughout school, but somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to do something more worthwhile with my life. And that concussion I got at a junior league tryout didn't help."

"Wait," Audrey said. "I gotta ask. Rangers or Islanders?"

"Rangers, of course!"

"Good," Audrey smiled. "I'm a die-hard Rangers fan so if you had said Islanders, we might not have been able to work together anymore."

Jon rolled his eyes at her. "Sure," he said. His expression became serious. "Hey, Aud."

"Hmm?" She turned and sat next to him on the desk.

"You never told me why you left Julliard."

"Oh, Jon," she sighed. "Why do you want to know that? That was a long time ago."

"No, it wasn't," he said. "It was barely three years ago. What happened?"

The conversation was making Audrey extremely uncomfortable. She wished for nothing more than to be able to tell him- to tell him about the terrible year prior to her departure from the fine arts college, about her problem... But she couldn't. There was no way. He would think she was a terrible person; a weak, sick person. She was convinced that if he knew then he would want nothing to do with her. And she couldn't stand the thought of that.

"It's really not that important."

Jon shrugged. He seemed disappointed. "Okay," he said, folding his arms across his chest.

"Don't be upset," Audrey pleaded worriedly. "It's just-" Her face twisted as though she might cry. She wrung her hands in distress.

Jon slipped an arm around her shoulders. "I'm not upset," he assured her in a quiet voice. "I wish you felt like you could trust me enough to tell me what happened that was so terrible. But it's okay if you don't."

"Jon, it-"

Jon stopped her from saying more. "Say no more," he said with a smile. "Let's forget about it and go get something to eat."

He let go of her and retrieved his leather jacket from the chair of his desk. Audrey wasn't convinced that he wasn't at least hurt by her refusal to talk to him about Julliard. She vowed to herself to work up the courage to tell him...someday.

"I don't really want to go to the cafeteria today," she said, hesitantly, still worried that he was disappointed with her.

"Me neither," Jon said, handing her purse and jacket to her. "We don't have cafeteria duty today, so I thought we'd go out and get something. We can start planning the New York trip; it's going to be here before you know it."

He felt regretful that his questions about Julliard had upset her so. It must be something serious for her not to tell him. She had been so open about most everything else- she was rather reluctant to discuss her father, but he could understand that. Parent-offspring relationships weren't always the best. Aside from that, he felt he knew her as well as he knew almost anyone. At least he thought he did. Pushing away his concerns and suspicions for the time being, he helped Audrey with her coat.

"You ever been to Poe Cottage?" he asked as they headed out of the room.

"Only every time my dad took me to the Bronx," she smiled, glad for the change of subject. "Poe's my all-time favorite author."

"Mine, too," Jon said, sensing a release of the earlier tension. "I love his works. I always thought it would've been cool to live in the house. You know, to see if his muse was still there."

"No kidding!" she exclaimed. "And here I thought I was the only whoever wanted to do that! Did you go to that Poe discussion group at the library a few weeks back?"

"No, unfortunately. Kat didn't want to go. She's not a Poe fanatic. Says he too morbid and depressing."

"Know what I feel like eating?" Audrey skipped a few step ahead of him, feeling as light as a bird.

"What?"

"Pizza!" She smirked at him mischievously.

He stared at her. "Are you kidding me?"

_______________________________________________________________________________

Cory and Shawn didn't even have a chance to set up their table before kids swarmed them. They all had angry red faces. Literally.

The noise coming from the crowd was getting louder and Shawn was beginning to worry. Not about the reason for everyone's unrest, but that the melee would bring Feeny around to see what the commotion was about. He really didn't need to get in trouble right now.

"Hey!" An angry baritone boomed over the mob. Tyler the senior shoved his way to front. Menacingly, he lunged at the boys, stopped only by the card table they were standing behind.

"Well, Tyler, nice ta see ya," Cory smiled weakly. He knew that some had gone very wrong with their product. He was just praying that the rash on the hulking senior's face didn't have anything to do with it.

"Look at what your stupid soap did to my face!"

"Oh, no," Cory moaned. "Shawn! Do something."

Shawn wasn't too eager to get out from under the table. Cory was all but dragged him out from underneath it and he hit his head on the edge as he stood up.

"Tyler!" Shawn said, unable to hide the nervousness in his voice. "Whoa, buddy. Check out the face."

"You think this is bad, Hunter?" Tyler leaned forward and growled.

"I'd say so," Shawn gulped.

"This is nothing compared to what I'm going to do to yours and Matthews'!"

"Tyler, you know, you really ought to see someone about managing that anger."

The senior was in no mood for wisecracking.

"Is everyone up here for the same reason?" Cory wondered aloud. It was a comment he probably should have keep to himself.

The crowd responded with one resounding roar.

"Shawn, you know how I told you that Mom and Dad think our soap is what caused the sewer back up?"

"Yeah." Shawn started to back up as the mob advanced.

"And you know how they were going to call Mr. Turner and have a meeting tonight to punish us?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, I have good news."

"What's that?"

"I don't think we're going to live to get grounded."

Shawn looked at Cory with wide-eyes. "Some people might think that's good news."

A shout came from the crowd to "get them" and someone yelled that they were going to tell Feeny.

"Shawn?"

"What, Cory?"

"I think now is a good time to flee to Mexico."

"Me, too."

With that Cory and Shawn tipped over the card table to create a distraction and ran off down the hall as fast as they could.

________________________________________________________________________________

After school, Cory and Shawn took their own sweet time walking home. The only thing worse than being punished was being punished at a group meeting.

"Why couldn't they just've talked to each other on the phone?" Cory needed to whine to a sympathetic ear and he had a feeling that Shawn was the only one who would pity him at the moment. "Is really necessary that my parents drag Mr. Turner all the way over here just to tell us we're grounded?"

Shawn shuffled his feet in the grass. "Man, this day could not get any-"

"Don't say it!" Cory frantically shoved a hand over his friend's mouth. Shawn looked at him in bewilderment. "The moment you say it," Cory told him. "Things get even...you know."

"What?" Shawn pulled Cory's hand off his mouth. "Worse? Com'n, Cor, the day really couldn't get much worse."

Cory threw his hands up in the air and looked towards the heavens. "Oh, there you said it! We are doomed."

"Cor, it's just your mom and dad and Jon. It's not like there's going to be an audience or anything. At least Feeny won't be there."

"Don't count on it," Cory replied opening the back door. "The man lives right over that fence."

Shawn shook his head as they entered the house. Amy was there to meet them. She didn't look happy.

"Go sit on the couch until Jonathan gets here. You two really took a risk in wasting so much time coming home."

Eager to get out from under Amy's frigid glare, Cory and Shawn slunk into living room.

Before long the front door bell rang and Alan came down the stairs to get it, casting a glance at the boys.

"Hi, Jonathan," Alan greeted the English teacher grimly. "Sorry, to have to call you over under these circumstances."

Jon nodded. "Yeah, me, too."

"Oh, no," Shawn breathed, a look of horror on his face. "It can't be."

"What?" Cory wanted to know, craning his neck to see what was wrong.

"What's she doing here?"

Cory looked over his friend's shoulder and saw why he was so mortified. Audrey was with Jon.

Cory paled. "Oh, boyee!"

"I'm really sorry," Alan was saying. "That you had to bring your girlfriend to this too." He smiled apologetically at Audrey.

Jon didn't seem to know how to respond to that, so Audrey stepped forward. "I'm not his girlfriend," she said extending her hand. "I'm Audrey Andrews, the student teacher."

"Oh, of course!" Alan exclaimed as he recognized her name. "Cory's talked a lot about you. Please come in."

As they stepped into the living room, Jon shot Shawn a displeased looked.

"Actually, I'm glad you're here, Audrey," Alan said gesturing for them to have a seat. "Maybe the boys will be so embarrassed to get in trouble in front of you that they won't do something like this again."

Audrey gave Cory and Shawn a questioning look. The boys couldn't meet her gaze.

"Fat chance of that, Dad." Eric came thought the kitchen door with a bowl of popcorn. Morgan trailed behind him. They plopped down in front of the coffee table facing the culprits.

"No audience, huh?" Cory snapped at his friend, pointing to his brother and sister.

Shawn gave him a sheepish look. "At least Feeny isn't here."

The kitchen door swung open again. This time Amy came out and joined her husband by the couch. George Feeny followed her.

Shawn's jaw dropped and Cory glared at his shoes.

"I know I'm wrong about absolutely everything," Cory grumbled to Shawn. "But you're not doing so hot today yourself."

"Why is he here?" Shawn was flabbergasted by their principal's attendance to their punishment meeting.

Feeny shot him a silencing look. "I'm here, Mr. Hunter, because it seems you and Mr. Matthews' have been peddling a sewage-blocking mixture to your peers as acne medication. How you do explain this one?"

"This is going to be good," Eric whispered to Morgan who was stuffing popcorn into her cheeks.

"I'm a chipmunk!" she told him.

"Eric..." Alan gave his eldest child a Look. "Upstairs. Now. Take Morgan with you."

"Aw, man!" Eric huffily got up and took the popcorn bowl from his sister.

"But I wanna watch Cory and Shawn get in trouble," she protested as Eric led her away.

"Shhh," Eric put a finger to his lips. He and Morgan walked up to the landing and then quietly sat down, watching the proceedings from between the banisters.

"I believe Mr. Feeny asked you a question," Jon said pointedly to Shawn.

Shawn looked to Cory for help. "Well.." he began with a sinking feeling that the explanation wasn't going to be good enough. "See we got really bored last Saturday so we decided to...um, mix some stuff together in the bathroom. Eric came in and kicked us out before we were done and he sorta put the stuff on his face. It cleared up his zit, so we thought, hey it works why not sell it to help others in need."

"How charitable of you," Mr. Feeny remarked.

Shawn smiled, not realizing that the principal was being sarcastic. "Yeah, it was."

Feeny rolled his eyes.

"It was irresponsible, Mr. Hunter," he said severely. "Selling something to other people as a facial product when you had no idea what it was or what it might do. Do you realize how serious this is? What if someone who used it had been allergic to something in it?" He paused and covered his mouth briefly with his hand. "But I don't suppose you boys thought of that, now did you?"

"No, sir," Cory mumble, deeply embarrassed. It was true that they had never thought about the danger in what they were doing. How was it that something that sounded so good ended up so bad?

Shawn hung his head in shame. His cheeks flushed crimson. "We're sorry," he said sincerely. "It was stupid and we weren't thinking."

"No, you weren't," Jon agreed with him.

"Your mom told you to get rid of the stuff, correct?" Alan was addressing Cory. "But instead of throwing it away properly you rinsed some of it down the drain?"

"That's about it," Cory replied humbly.

"Okay," Amy said. "First part of the punishment. Cory, that stuff created quite a mess in both our house and the other houses on the block. So...any cleaning that has to be done due to the residue this junk left behind is to be done by you. Both at our house and any of the neighbors' houses that need it cleaned up."

"And you're going to help him," Jon added. "But not together."

"That's right," Alan said. "We think you two need to spend some time apart."

Cory slapped his hand to his forehead.

"But you said first part?" Shawn leaned forward and looked at Jon. "Does that mean there's a part two?"

Jon nodded. "George, care to tell them about part two?"

Feeny faced the boys with his arms folded across his chest. "First thing tomorrow you will bring me all the money from your little business venture and the notebook you kept on sales so that the profits can be redistributed to your customers. Then, for the next month, everyday after school for an hour and for three hours on Saturday, you both will be helping Janitor Bud clean the school building and grounds. Consider it as community service."

The boys groaned.

"I think that's about it, don't you, Alan?" Amy looked at her husband.

He nodded. "I think so."

Cory sat up. "So you're saying our punishment is just cleaning?"

"That's about all you're going to have time for during the week, sport." Alan said.

"And on weekends, you're grounded," Amy finished. "That's a given."

"Oh, man," Cory flopped roughly against the couch.

"Ouch, Cor," Shawn gave his friend a sympathetic smile. His smile faded when he caught sight of the look Jon was giving him.

"Same goes for you, Hunter," Jon said. "Now get your stuff and let's go."

The adults exchanged good-byes. Feeny made a note that Audrey had come with Jon. He watched with a raised eyebrow as Jon, Shawn, and Audrey left together.

This is not a good situation, he thought.

After they were out of the house, Jon turned to Shawn who sought sympathy from Audrey.

"You didn't put any of that stuff down my drain did you?"

____________________________________________________________________________

Late that night, Audrey stumbled out of her bathroom. She felt cold, so cold. She shivered. Her skin felt disgustingly clammy. She leaned against the doorframe for support-she felt so weak. Dark thoughts invaded her consciousness. With a sudden burst of energy, Audrey turned and went back into the bathroom. She rummaged frenziedly through her medicine cabinet until she found a bottle of milk of magnesia. Hastily, she broke the seal and opened the bottle. With a fluid move, she tipped her head back and down the entire bottle. The second she did it, she regretted it. Her chest constricted until it was painfully tight. Her breath came in short, uneven gasps. She staggered out of the bathroom to the kitchen of her small apartment. Tears blurred her eyes as she scanned the room. Her gaze fell on the phone by the refrigerator. She dragged herself over to it and picked it up. Clutching the receiver, she stared at a blue post-it note on the refrigerator that read:

If you want to talk or need anything, call me. -Jon

Slowly she dialed his number, urgently needing to talk to him. She touched the last number, but instead of pressing "phone" she hit the off button. At two in the morning, Audrey collapsed on her couch and cried herself to sleep.