542. Chapter 542

After Need to Know

Episode 6.03

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: You need to know that I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

High School Heat

By

Richard Castle

Nicole Heat leaned against her locker at Bayside High and watched tall, handsome, talented and uber-cool Jameson Rook walk down the hall. Every girl in the hallway smiled at Rook and tried to catch his eye, but none did.

"Why do you just look at him, girlfriend? Go after him."

Nichole turned to see her best friend, perky, bouncy Lauren Parry staring at her. "Me, go after Jameson Rook, the coolest guy in school? Are you kidding me? Look at me. I'm tall and skinny, flat chested and I have these awful braces and these nerdy glasses. He'd never give me a second look. That's the kind of girl that gets the Jameson Rooks of this world." Nichole pointed at a bouncy redhead with big boobs and long legs, shown off by her short cheerleader's skirt. "Merry Twinkee can have any guy she wants in school and she wants Jameson."

"Well, who says Jameson wants her?" Lauren shot back. "She has the IQ of an ice cube and can hardly speak in a complete sentence. You know that Rook writes for the school paper, don't you? He wants a girl with brains, not boobs."

"Then why hasn't Jameson ever talked to me? We've known each other since kindergarten. The only thing he's ever said to me was, "Hey, you dropped your bubblegum in the sandbox." one day at recess."

"What did you say to him?"

Nichole looked down at the floor. "Nothing. I just ran away."

Lauren shook her head. "Did you ever think of talking back to him?"

"I just fall apart when he looks at me." Nichole confessed.

"Then he's the wrong young man for you, Miss Heat."

Both Nichole and Lauren turned to see Principal Walter Irons standing there.

"Why is that, sir?" Lauren asked.

"Don't call me sir. Refer to me as Your Supreme Principalness! And Miss Heat should stay away from arrogant trouble makers like Mr. Rook. I understand that his band, Vee Thr33, play a song called"Hot for Teacher." That song severely upset Miss Clowan, our music teacher. Miss Heat would be far better off with someone of her own level of intelligence, like my nephew Sydney. A very bright young man, if I do say so myself."

The warning bell for the next class rang and the girls headed off to their next class, Thermonuclear Chess, taught by Dr. Emmett Brown. As they walked to the class, Lauren made vomiting noises. "Sydney? Is he kidding us? He is so gross. Always cutting up dead things. And the smells?"

Nichole sighed. "He might be my only chance to get a date for the spring dance."

Lauren stopped and put her hand on Nichole's arm. "There is absolutely no way I'm letting that happen. You come over to my house tonight. I'll have some friends come over and we'll give you a complete makeover."

"I don't know…"

"Really?" Kate Beckett said, reading over her fiance's shoulder. "That's what you see me as being like in high school? Not the cool Rebel K-Becks who blew off her prom to go to a poetry slam, but some dorky ugly duckling who is going to need Jameson Rook to turn into a beautiful swan?"

Castle smiled his most ingratiating smile. "Not at all. But you admit that you had a tendency to run away from relationships and you did say you had a mouth full of braces in high school. And the character of Nikki Heat is only based on you. As you well know, there are significant differences between you two."

"Right. I have boobs. Not that you're going to be able to verify that for yourself anytime soon."

Castle sighed and handed over his laptop. "Perhaps you can show me how it should be done?"

Kate smiled. "Gladly."

High School Heat

By

Katherine Beckett

Rebel Nikki drove to her locker in Bayside High School on her '94 Harley soft tail. Stopping, she carefully placed the Harley in her locker, next to her prized autographed photo of Dennis Hopper. Nikki checked herself. She wore boots with four inch heels, skin tight leather pants, and a tee shirt with the slogan. "Question Authority" under a black leather jacket. A stars and stripes do rag was wrapped around her head and she saw the world through aviator sunglasses.

"Miss Heat?" Principal Yates said diffidently. "Would you mind awfully much parking your bike in the parking lot? You can use my space if you want."

Nikki gave Principal Yates a withering stare. "Listen, Prinny Baby. I told you before, I'm Rebel Nikki and I park my hog where I please. Now do you want to have me go to the school board again and embarrass you like I did the last time?"

Principal Yates remembered the scathing review of her tenure at Bayside that Heat had delivered to the school board. Yates was still being carefully watched by the board even now. She gathered her courage and spoke again. "And about your clothing, the school dress code…"

"Oh, I forgot to tell you." Nikki interrupted. "The school board adopted my suggestions for the school dress code." She pointed at her clothing. "This is the new school dress code. And there's one for principals as well. I expect to see you tomorrow in hooker heels, fishnet stockings, a red leather miniskirt and a tube top. You can probably pull it off, but I don't know how Principal Tyson over at Ocean View High will look."

"Hooker heels?" Principal Yates said, staggering back to her office.

"Right on, girlfriend." Said Nikki's best friend, Lauren Parry. "You told old Yates off. Care to walk with me to my ballet class?"

The two girls walked to their classes, all of the boys tried to catch their eyes. All except one boy who looked away from Nikki. She stopped by Jameson Rook's locker. "Rookie, I need to talk to you."

Jameson stared a Nikki and his lips moved, but no words came out. Nikki sighed. She was used to his with Jameson. "I read your column in the Bayside school's paper. If you really think Clinton and those women didn't do it, you're more of a sexist twit than I thought you were."

"But he's the President!" Rook finally said. "He wouldn't lie."

Nikki carefully pointed at the slogan on her shirt. "Question authority, Rookie. How do you ever expect to get anyplace as a writer is you just accept whatever they tell you?"

"I'll do better, Nikki I promise."

"One other thing. I drove past your garage last night and heard your band and the new song you wrote. Really? Battle and Scrum? Don't you think that song is awfully derivative? You can do better. Probably."

With a burst of courage that Jameson didn't realize he had, he said to Nikki, "Will you go to the spring dance with me."

All of the people in the hallway stopped, shocked at what they had heard. Nerdy Jameson Rook had actually asked Nikki Heat to the spring dance. They waited for the inevitable explosion from Heat.

Actually Nikki was quite kind to the young fellow. "Rookie, I'm Rebel Nikki. I'm way too cool to go to some high school dance. That's for air headed jocks like Schlemming and that brain dead redhead he hangs around with. I go to poetry slams."

And with that Nikki walked off to her auto shop class where she was building a rocket engine for her Harley.

"I say to you what you said to me: Really? Don't you think that you're making Nikki sound like one of those girls who hangs around the Visigoths Motorcycle Club?" Rick said.

"As opposed to making her sound like a wallflower who'll have her first kiss when she's thirty? Really?" Kate answered back.

"We'd probably be able to do better if we cooperate."

She nodded. "We do our best work together, after all."

High School Heat

By

Richard Castle and Katherine Beckett

Nicole Heat wasn't too sure about this. She had never worn this much make up and her hair had never been done up like this before. The skirt she had borrowed from one of Lauren's friends was tighter and shorter than she was used to, but she did agree she did have good legs. And the tight tee shirt and the push up bra made her look…stacked.

"Hi, Nicole?" Jameson Rook said, pulling up in front of Lauren's house in his mother's VW Bug. "Why are you waiting out here?"

"Please, call me Nikki from now on, okay?" Nikki got in the car, wondering if she'd ever get up the courage to tell Jameson that Lauren Parry, and not her, had sent him the note that she wanted to go out with him tonight.

"Sure, Nikki. You look really great tonight."

"Thanks. Where are we going?"

"There's this poetry slam. I figured that someone with your brains would like that better than a movie or something."

"A poetry slam sounds fascinating."

Nikki reached over and shyly took Rook's hand.

Then Kate reached over and not so shyly took Rick's hand.