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❛ ᴏᴄᴇᴀɴ ᴇʏᴇꜱ. ❜ ° . ༄
- ͙۪۪˚ ▎❛ 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍 ❜ ▎˚ ͙۪۪̥◌
»»————- ꒰ ᴛʜᴇ sᴛᴜᴅᴇɴᴛ ɪs
( ɴᴏᴛ ) ᴀʟᴡᴀʏs ʀɪɢʜᴛ ꒱
❝ YOU [ WERE WRONG ] &
THE WORLD ISN'T ENDING! ❞
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"An interesting thing happened when I was grading this assignment, Mr. Hunter," Mr. Feeny said as he passed back the assignments. "Yours wasn't there."
"Oh! I can explain that," Cory cut in quickly.
"I was speaking to Mr. Hunter."
"Well, see, Shawn and I, we think so much alike that we decided to write one paper," the curly-haired boy explained.
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"Then you won't mind sharing a grade."
"No, alright. So what do we get?" Shawn asked.
"Well, this was a well thought out paper. It deserves a B."
"Very fair."
"Divided by two," their teacher continued, ripping the paper in half, "makes a D for you and a D for you."
"Well actually," Juliet spoke up, "a B is an eighty-six. Eighty-six divided by two is a forty-three, so it's lower than a D which is a sixty-seven to sixty-nine."
Mr. Feeny glanced at her as he handed back the halves. "Do you think you know grading averages better than I do, Miss Capelwood?"
The redhead quieted as Shawn accepted the assignment. "Still fair."
"But Mr. Feeny," Cory protested, "come on. It's the middle of our senior year. Why are you being so tough on us with these assignments?"
"You know, you're right. Let's forget about those Ds and do as Miss Capelwood suggested. Two Fs."
"No!" Topanga exclaimed. "Don't fail them. Mr. Feeny, Juliet didn't mean it—"
"But he was wrong," Juliet interrupted her. "A D isn't half of a B so I did mean it."
"Ah! The fourth Beatle chimes in."
"An F follows you around for the rest of your life," the blonde said.
"Okay, we'll take your Ds," Cory agreed. "Our college applications are already in."
"Yeah, yours are."
Juliet turned to her boyfriend and her eyes narrowed. "What does that mean, Shawn?"
"Yeah, I filled those out for you," Cory added.
"Julie, Cory, don't start, okay? What's the point? People like me don't go to college."
The redhead sighed and closed her eyes briefly before she opened them. "Shawn," she began, prepared to have the same discussion for the thousandth time.
"Do your assignments, Mr. Hunter, and you'll go to college," Mr. Feeny spoke over the girl.
"And if I get in, how am I supposed to afford it, huh? There's just so many things standing in the way. Besides, I mean, why are we doing all these assignments? They're just busy work. What's there left to learn?" Shawn questioned their teacher, who gave him a flat look.
Cory tried to amend the situation. "Um, Mr. Feeny, he just means that we've been here for four years and there's nothing really left that you can teach us."
Juliet leaned forward and hissed, "not helping."
Their teacher's expression didn't change as Shawn spoke: "whoa! Look at Feeny, guys. Feeny, you okay?"
When there was no response, Cory twisted around to look at his friends. "Shawn, Jules, this is that moment we talked about."
"Yeah, he's definitely gonna blow," Shawn agreed.
"No he isn't," Juliet immediately countered, "and I'm gonna be right."
"Stand up."
The two boys obeyed the order and rose from their seats. The curly-haired boy leaned towards Shawn. "Okay, this is bad."
"The rest of the class, please leave," Mr. Feeny announced.
Everyone followed his request and Juliet stood with them as Shawn muttered, "bad, bad."
"Mr. Feeny, why don't you just give them a makeup assignment?" Topanga suggested. "Don't fail them."
"Maybe you should check your math," the redhead added.
"You two better stay here, too, little control freak and little miss know-it-all." The two girls gasped as he continued: "so, just because you sent in your college applications nothing that I teach you from now on means anything?"
"I was just having this discussion with them the other day," the blonde said quickly.
"Yeah, and we were saying—"
"Quiet!"
"You yelled at me!" Topanga exclaimed, hurt. "But I'm Topanga!"
"And I was gonna say that you were right," Juliet put in.
"Oh, well, by all means, continue, Miss Capelwood."
"Really?" she asked hopefully.
"No!" Mr. Feeny retorted. "Shawn, I want this assignment brought to my house by five o'clock this afternoon."
"This afternoon today?" Shawn repeated. "That's impossible."
Their teacher walked to the black board as Cory watched him warily. "Oh no. He's keyed into something you said."
"It's impossible," Juliet told them. "You said something was impossible and he's going to prove you wrong."
"This afternoon today?" Shawn wondered again. "Why doesn't he just ask me to come up with tickets to the Super Bowl?"
Mr. Feeny wrote 'impossible' on the board before he returned to the quartet. "Mr. Hunter, here's your new assignment: come up with two tickets to the Super Bowl by the end of the week."
"Oh, come on, Mr. Feeny—"
"Quiet!"
"You yelled at me!" Cory objected. "But I'm Topanga!"
"You're Cory," the redhead corrected him instantly.
"Mr. Feeny, what are you so upset about?" Topanga asked.
"Miss Lawrence and Miss Capelwood, I have assignments for you two as well," their teacher said. "For you, Miss Lawrence, butt out of other people's lives for one week. For you, Miss Capelwood, learn to be wrong once this week. Otherwise, both of you will get Fs."
"But I've never failed before!"
"And I've always been right!"
"There's a first time for everything," Mr. Feeny dismissed them.
"That argument doesn't get you anywhere with her," Cory remarked, earning an irritated look from his girlfriend.
"And as for you, Mr. Matthews, since you feel so responsible for your friends' fate, I put their fate in your hands. Their success is your success but if any of them fail, so do you."
As Mr. Feeny left, Shawn turned to Topanga and Juliet. "Thanks a lot, girls."
The redhead pressed her lips together in an attempt to follow their teacher's assignment.
🌎🌎🌎
Later that day, the group was at the Matthews' home. The two boys sat at the kitchen table while the girls leaned on the counter behind them with a radio placed between them.
"Okay, what do you got?" Cory asked Shawn.
"I got four can't miss ways on how to get Super Bowl tickets."
"Okay, give me the best one."
"I go back in time to the first Super Bowl when tickets weren't that hard to get," Shawn said.
Juliet pressed her hand against her mouth to keep sound from escaping. Topanga walked casually to the other side of the kitchen as she chimed in: "if you're gonna go back in time you could do the original assignment and we wouldn't be in this mess. Tra-la-la-la."
"Topanga, butting in in musical form is still butting in," Cory informed her.
"Oh! Ask Juliet. That was my next idea. We get advice from my girlfriend," as he said the last word, the dark-haired boy turned to give the girl a charming smile.
The redhead dropped her hand. "I can't be right. If I am, we get an F. I can only give you bad ideas."
"You can afford an F, Julie."
"No I can't! It's important for me to do well in everything!"
Before he could reply, the radio show resumed: "'are you ready to win some Super Bowl tickets?'"
Unaware of the question, the boys continued to think. "If I was a pair of Super Bowl tickets how would I find me?"
Topanga grabbed the radio and held it between the pair as the man continued: "'we've got the last pair of Super Bowl tickets available in the known universe and we're down to ten more chances to win them, so call me now!'"
"Topanga, will you turn down the radio? We're trying to think," Cory scolded her. As she began to make exaggerated gestures to the radio, he added, "no jazzercise in the kitchen."
"'And we're down to our five final callers. Five-five-five wkzn.'"
The blonde grabbed a bowl and can of soup before she returned to the table and banged them on the surface. Cory gave her a curious look. "I think she's trying to tell us something."
"Well, you know her better than I do," Shawn said.
Topanga shoved the items in her boyfriend's face as he tried to decipher the meaning. "Okay, bowl. Can. There's trouble in the Balkans? Is that what the radio said, girl?" He gave his girlfriend a treat and winced slightly as she spit it back out before she showed him the items again. "Soup. Bowl. Soup or bowl. Alright, soup."
Shawn stood, about to pace in order to think better and let out a surprised yelp when a weight landed on his back as familiar arms circled his neck. Keeping her promise to Mr. Feeny, Juliet didn't say a word and instead forced her boyfriend to the table. She bent his head next to the radio as the announcer spoke again: "'five-five-five wkzn, 102, and we're down to our last caller for a chance to go to the Super Bowl!'"
Juliet slid from the boy's back as he stood. "They're giving away tickets to the Super Bowl!"
"And we almost missed it! Thanks a lot, girls!"
The dark-haired boy quickly dialed the number. "Hello? Yeah? I'm caller twenty!" he exclaimed, causing Cory to join him in his excitement. "What? I gotta do what?"
🌎🌎🌎
"Alright, Mr. Feeny, we got this one figured out," Cory announced as the quartet returned to the classroom.
Each member of the group was bundled in coats and gloves, having just come from the radio show's challenge of who could stand at the top of a billboard the longest. Shawn had almost made it except for one contestant who had turned out to be an Inuit. Juliet didn't think he was a fair contender.
"This was never about the Super Bowl tickets," Shawn added.
"It wasn't?"
"You don't think we know you, Mr. Feeny?" Cory asked. "You don't think we know that when you're teaching us something, we should look for the lesson behind the lesson? Well, we looked and we figured this one out all by ourselves."
"And we didn't even help them, Mr. Feeny," Topanga told him.
"Yeah, I didn't say anything so I was neither right nor wrong," Juliet said proudly.
"Even though we think something's impossible we still should have tried because that's all you wanted," the dark-haired boy continued. "You wanted us to try."
"And even though it's not important to do work during our senior year, we should still make you think we're trying," Cory finished.
"You see?" the blonde asked.
"Even though they're totally wrong I'm definitely not saying anything," the redhead stated.
"You see how we haven't given them any advice on what to say?" Topanga questioned him. "I don't fail. I don't."
"Aren't you proud of us, Mr. Feeny?" Cory asked as they stood together.
"Where are the Super Bowl tickets?" Mr. Feeny demanded.
They looked at each other before they burst into laughter. "You know we don't have any tickets!"
"Mr. Feeny, that—"
"No, Miss Lawrence. All you had to do was stay out of it and you had to help them succeed. And Miss Capelwood, do you plan to go the rest of your life without speaking? You must learn to accept that you can't be right about everything. That was the assignment. Now, where are the tickets?"
"Mr. Feeny, I really tried," Shawn protested.
"We know that's what you wanted," Cory added.
"You have no idea what I want," Mr. Feeny told him. "Get the tickets or fail."
"Mr. Feeny—"
"Stay out of it or fail."
"But—"
"Be wrong, or fail."
"Mr. Feeny, come on. How are we—"
"Help them, or fail," he finished as he walked out of the classroom.
"Thanks a lot, girls," Shawn said to Juliet and Topanga.
🌎🌎🌎
Juliet and Shawn sat at the top of the billboard with their backs against the yellow plaster as the red-haired girl leaned her head against his shoulder. They'd been sitting in silence for some time, each lost in their own thoughts until the girl spoke: "do you think I really feel I have to be right all the time?"
"You do have that tendency," the dark-haired boy answered cautiously.
"But it's not hard to not be wrong as long as you have common sense and some degree of intelligence," Juliet continued. "I can't help it. It's not annoying, is it?"
"Of course not," he was quick to reassure his girlfriend. "I don't mind it since I'm usually wrong. Maybe Feeny has a point, though. It wouldn't hurt to be wrong once in a while."
She tilted her head up to give him an amused smile. "I never thought I'd see the day that you'd say Mr. Feeny was right." Her eyes widened. "Hey— I'm wrong! I was wrong about something!"
"Would you look at that," Shawn nudged her. "You did it and the world isn't ending!"
The redhead rolled her eyes. "Okay Mr. Know-It-All. What about your problem?"
"I don't have a problem."
"You don't have any Super Bowl tickets. You have a problem."
He sighed. "It just seems that whenever I've wanted anything in my life there's always an obstacle in the way."
"Give me an example," Juliet encouraged him.
"Okay, you want an example? You remember the summer Cory went to summer camp and I couldn't afford to? That was an obstacle. All the other kids grew up in real houses with real backyards. I grew up in a trailer park."
"Obstacle," the redhead agreed with a nod. "But what about us? You've wanted to date me since kindergarten and now you are."
"You're the first thing I ever got on my own," he admitted softly as he reached for her hand to tangle their fingers together. "You were the only long game plan I had and I wasn't about to give up so easily."
"Well, maybe it's time for a new long game plan," Juliet suggested, doing her best to ignore her warm face. "Now that you've proven to yourself that you can accomplish a goal the next one won't be so daunting."
Shawn didn't answer for a moment and stared into the distance thoughtfully. Then he stood and pulled his girlfriend up with him. "You're right," he agreed. "There's always been so many things standing in my way that I'm tired of it. I'm going to the Super Bowl."
Juliet gave him a beaming smile. "You can do it, Shawnie. I know you can."
He offered the redhead an affectionate look as he leaned down to press a quick kiss to her lips before he pulled away. "See you at the Super Bowl, Julie."
[written may 2021]
[edited jun. 2022]