❝I love the spirit of Halloween and the energy that comes with it.❞
Katharine McPhee
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"I have graded your book reports from last Friday and after I passed them out, we'll discuss them," Mr. Feeny announced as he walked around the classroom, handing out papers.
Elena and Shawn laughed when Cory turned to face them, sporting a fake clown nose as he made faces.
"Mr. Matthews," Mr. Feeny called Cory slowly turned to face him, "Shall I express my usual disappointment or just ask you to guide my sleigh tonight?"
"Wrong holiday, Mr. Feeny," Shawn intervened.
"Yeah, Mr. Feeny, see, Halloween's coming up and I was just test driving my clown nose."
"Then I insist you stay in the driver's seat. Put the nose back on for the rest of the morning," Mr. Feeny replied and Cory rolled his eyes.
"Mr. Minkus, excellent work as usual. I particularly enjoyed your haiku on Captain Ahab's obsession with the great white whale."
"The calm blue ocean. Sun light's up the monster's eye. He sees me; whale food," Stuart recited dramatically as he smiled proudly at his paper.
"It works on so many levels," Mr. Feeny smiled.
"Brown-noser," Shawn shot at Stuart.
"Troglodyte," Stuart responded.
"Mr. Lewis, very good work. Mr. Matthews, not one of your better efforts. Ms. Martinez, I must say your outlook on Romeo and Juliet was quite refreshing; 'a tale of tragedy hidden behind the renowned pretense of a love story'. Mr. Hunter."
Elena turned to talk with Shawn as Cory walked to Mr. Feeny's desk, probably to argue about his grade. She smiled as she saw the big red 'C-' written on Shawn's paper, she'd helped him write his book report in hopes of raising his grades and it seemed to be working.
"See, I knew you could do it!"
"What can I say, I had a great teacher."
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Shawn had his arm around Elena as they sat on the floor by Mr. Feeny's class, waiting for Cory to finish his detention.
"Okay, so the square root of four is two because two times two is four?" Shawn asked as he looked away from his paper and towards Elena, who smiled at him.
"Exactly!" She beamed at him.
She'd decided that if they were going to wait who knows how long for Cory to finish up with Mr. Feeny the least they could do was start on their math homework so this way Shawn couldn't pretend he forgot about it.
"You waited for me?" Cory asked with a smile as he walked out and saw his two best friends by the door.
"Are we not your best friends?" Shawn got up and held his hand out for Elena.
"You had detention too, didn't you?" Cory guessed.
"Oh, yeah. Mrs. Engles nailed me."
"How did you get detention in art?"
"Well, that's what makes me one of the greats," Shawn smirked as he aimed his juice bottle at the trash, only to miss.
"And apparently, since I sit next to Shawn that makes me guilty by association."
"Hey, check this out!" Shawn said as he threw away his juice bottle, he grabbed a piece of paper out of the trash, "Answers to a test."
"Shawn," Elena gave him a look, "We can't be looking at test answers."
"Yeah, that's major cheating. Detention for life," Cory agreed.
"No, these aren't for a real test. They're for that stupid IQ exam we're taking tomorrow," Shawn crumpled the paper and threw it back at the trashcan and that's when it caught Cory's attention.
"Wow," Cory said in awe, "The person who knows these answers gets a perfect score."
"On a test that doesn't count for a grade. Why bother?" Shawn shrugged.
"Are you kidding? This is my ticket to get Feeny off my back. If Feeny thinks I'm a genius, he'll treat me just as good as he treats Minkus," Cory exclaimed.
"Hey, Cory, do yourself a favor. Crumple the paper up and throw it away in the trash. Don't complicate your life," Shawn advised and Elena nodded in agreement.
"You know, that makes a lot of sense and if I was a smarter person, I'd probably listen to you. Except, I'm not a smarter person. But tomorrow, I'm going to be a genius," Cory folded up the paper and put it in his pocket.
I can't wait to see how this is going to blow up in his face, Elena thought as they walked out of school.
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"I hold in my hands the result of Tuesday's IQ test and one person here deserves special attention. This person achieved not only the highest score in the class, not only the highest score in the school, but a score so high as to give rise to the question 'Is there in fact, a ceiling on human intelligence?'"
"Please, Mr. Feeny, you're embarrassing me," Stuart smiled.
Oh no, this is going to crush him and it's not even real, Elena thought to herself as she frowned at Stuart.
"Mr. Minkus, you came in second."
"Second?" Stuart asked in shock.
"Uh-huh."
"As in the context of not first? Someone scored higher than I did on the IQ test?" He asked as his eyes widened.
"Blew you out of the academic waters. Someone sitting in this very classroom is a junior Kierkegaard," Mr. Feeny said as he stopped in front of Cory's desk.
"A what?"
"A great mind Mr. Matthews, just like yours. I have clearly underrated you, and I bow to your genius," Mr. Feeny said as he started to clap for him, "Bravo."
"It's not a big thing, Mr. Feeny," Cory said as he stood up.
"On the contrary, Mr. Matthews, it is a big thing. A very big thing," Mr. Feeny said darkly.
Cory turned to Shawn and Elena with wide eyes, "Uh oh."
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Elena, Shawn, and Cory rushed up to his room the minute they entered the Matthew household, they'd run up there so fast that they'd almost given Amy Matthews whiplash.
"Feeny knows," Cory said as he held the white envelope in his hand, "Somehow he knows and he's going to get me."
"You're wrong," Shawn said and Elena and Cory gave him a look.
"You think he's sending my parents a thank you note?" Cory said sarcastically as raised his eyebrows, "Thank you for bringing up your son. He's a genius. He's smarter than Captain Kirkaguard."
"Kierkegaard," Elena corrected him.
Shawn rolled his eyes before he grabbed the letter out of Cory's hand and ripped it open.
"What are you doing?" Cory yelled, "That's a sealed envelope addressed to my parents. Now they're going to know I opened it!"
"Cory, do your parents ever write letters to anyone?" Shawn asked.
"Yeah."
"And when they do, what do they put the letters in?"
"Envelopes."
"Just like this one," Shawn pointed out with a smile.
"So we could read the note and seal it up in a new white envelope," Elena continued as she smiled at Shawn.
"Ha!" Cory laughed, "I love how we think."
Shawn leaned her head against his shoulder so she could read the letter with him. Elena didn't notice when he smiled down at her, blush coating his cheeks.
"What's it say?" Cory asked, anxiously.
"Uh oh," Shawn frowned. "He's bringing in the SEA."
Elena gave him a look and as she was about to say something Shawn pinched her side, winking at her when she turned to glare at him.
"What?"
"The State Education Authority," Shawn explained. "They have special field agents who handle intelligence fraud."
Elena buried her face in Shawn's arm trying to hide her laughter, while she felt bad for doing this to Cory they did warn him not to cheat in the first place so maybe he deserved a little teasing.
"I'm cooked! I'm cooked! For the first time in my life, I'm in real trouble," Cory paced around his room.
"Not if he's making all this up," Elena shrugged.
"Are you?" Cory asked with wide eyes.
"No."
"I'm cooked!"
"Relax," Elena laughed, "Of course he's making it up. He just wants to talk to your parents."
"What if he tells them he doesn't think I'm a genius?" Cory took the letter and began to read it himself just to make sure.
"Who cares if Feeny doesn't think you're brilliant? As long as the test says so, you're a genius," Shawn brushed off his worries.
"But I'm not, and my parents know that I'm not," Cory pointed out.
"Then you'll have to make them think you are," Elena explained.
"How do I do that?"
"Cory, it's Halloween, and this year you're going to be a genius."
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"Shawn, Elena, this whole thing is getting out of hand," Cory told them as they waited for Mr. Feeny to arrive.
"Relax," Shawn said, "Everybody thinks you're brilliant. You should enjoy it."
"When it was just Feeny, I could enjoy it but now my parents are involved, and I don't like lying to them."
"You don't?"
"No."
"What about you Lena?"
"Nope."
"Huh," Shawn frowned, "Cuz it gives me a little rush."
Elena gave him a look as he stared off into space before he continued, "Besides, you didn't tell them that you were a genius, Feeny did."
"And I didn't tell Feeny I'm a genius," Cory slowly understood what Shawn was getting at, "And you didn't ask to take that test."
"They gave it to me."
"And you wouldn't have even seen the answers-"
"If they didn't give us-"
"Detention," They said in unison.
"We're innocent kids. Nothing we do is actually our fault," Shawn concluded, "It's good to be kids."
"You two are idiots but sadly at the moment you two are also my best friends so I can't just leave and find new friends no matter how badly I want to do that."
"Oh common Lena, you love us!" Cory smiled at her as Shawn threw an arm around her shoulder, "And besides you could never leave your husband, what about the kids?"
Just as Elena opened her mouth to correct them the bell rang and the three of them quickly climbed down from their desks and sat down in their seats.
"Class, this is Ms. Chin, " Mr. Feeny introduced as an Asian woman walked in behind him, "She'll be with you for the first half-hour while I have a word with Mr. Matthews."
"Tell my mom I went out like a man."
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"Ok, we're here. What's the big emergency?" Shawn asked as he and Elena walked into Cory's room where they found Cory sitting on his bed with a nerf gun in his hands.
When he began shooting at them, Shawn immediately wrapped his arms around Elena and pushed her behind him as they stumbled around Cory's room.
"Hey!" Shawn shouted, "What are you trying to do, kill us?!"
Once Cory had stopped shooting at them with his nerf gun Shawn turned to Elena, "You okay?"
Elena nodded before the two of them turned to Cory, who quickly apologized to Elena, "Sorry Lena."
"Kill you? I'll tell you about killed," Cory shouted when he turned his attention to Shawn, "How about what you did to me?"
"What'd I do?" Shawn exclaimed as walked towards Cory.
"Where are you spending your next recess? Playground, shooting hoops, playing ball?" Cory asked with narrowed eyes.
"Yeah so," Shawn shrugged in confusion.
"So, let me tell you what I'm doing, I'm searching for Bobby Fisher!" Cory exclaimed.
"What are you talking about?" Shawn asked.
"Did you know Shawn," Cory continued, "That geniuses go to a special school!"
"You killed me," Cory flopped down onto his bed, "I'm going to be in a class full of Minkus'. Wait a minute. What am I talking about? These kids make Minkus look like Fabio!"
"They're putting you in another school?" Elena questioned and Cory gave them a sad look.
"Yes. The lady is going to be here in half an hour and they're going to give me another genius test and then they're going to take me away. So I called you and Lena up to say goodbye or as geniuses say, goodbye in Latin."
Elena rolled her eyes, "Hey idiot."
"What?"
"Are you a genius?"
"No."
"Do you have the answers to this test?"
"No."
"You kind of see where I'm going with this?"
"You want me to throw the test?"
"Oh, no, no. We want you to take the test to your best ability. And no guessing, I wouldn't want you to stumble onto the right answer," Shawn told him with a smirk
He and Elena made their way to the door.
"No guessing." Elena reminded.
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Elena was dressed as a witch this year for Halloween and she was currently sat on the couch waiting for Shawn. He'd told her he would come over so they could walk to Cory's house together.
She smiled happily when she heard the doorbell ring, "Shawn's here Papi!"
Shawn, who was dressed as Frankenstein, smiled at Elena when she opened the door.
"Bye Mom, bye Dad!" Elena rushed out excitedly as they began to walk out the door.
"Not so fast. We haven't taken one picture of you two!"
The two groaned as they were ushered back inside, they couldn't wait to start trick or treating as it is.
Elena placed her Jack O'lantern by the door as she and Shawn walking into the living room and stood next to each other, smiling for the photo.
"You two look absolutely adorable!" Elena's mother gushed as her father snapped multiple photos of them.
"Thanks, Mrs. Martinez but you should probably save the film in there. You're going to be taking a lot more photos at our wedding after all," Shawn smiled mischievously as Elena blushed bright red.
"Shawn!"
Her parents laughed as they watched the two, "Alright, C'mon you two. You'd better leave now if you don't want to be late," Mr. Martinez said as his laughter subsided.
Shawn and Elena looked at each other with wide eyes before they darted out of the house.
"Bye Mrs. Martinez, Mr. Martinez!" Shawn called as Elena quickly yelled goodbye to her parents.
"Love you!"
"I love you too!"
"Not you Shawn!"
"Oh, well I still love you."
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Shawn and Elena were almost down the street when Elena realized she'd forgotten her Jack O'lantern by the door.
"Hey Shawn, I'll catch up with you. I forgot my Jack O'lantern at home."
Shawn shook his head, "I'll go get it."
"Thanks, Shawn but-"
"Hey, don't sweat it. Besides, I'll probably be faster," he said as he turned his gaze to her new shoes.
She'd been trying to break them in since Tuesday and it was now Friday and she was still complaining about how uncomfortable they were.
"No, Shawn it's-"
"I'll be back before you know it," He turned around and made his way to her house.
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As Elena was waiting for Shawn to come back a boy dressed up as a pirate walked up to her, "Hey, you're Elena right?"
She looked at him before giving him an awkward smile, "Uh yeah."
The boy laughed, "I'm James, I sit next to you in Math."
Elena's eyes widened as she remembered the boy from school, he sat to her right in Math. She'd talk to him sometimes when their teacher, Mr. Andrews, gave them free time and Shawn was asleep - which was fairly often but there was no surprise there, Shawn seemed to think Math was his nap time.
"Oh yeah! Now I remember."
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As Shawn was walking back from Elena's house with her Jack O'lantern in hand paused when he saw Elena laughing with a boy he recognized from Math - from the few times he could stay awake anyways.
He quickly walked closer to the two and began to listen in on their conversation.
"Do you want to come-"
Shawn had decided that he did not like James and that it was time for him to leave his girl alone and with that in mind he pulled down his mask, smirking.
He'd jumped in front of James, screaming like a maniac.
The boy managed a loud squeak before he ran off leaving Elena to watch with wide eyes.
Shawn pulled of his mask as he laughed at the boy before he turned to Elena.
"Shawn-"
He quickly cut her off, "C'mon Lena, you can't blame me. The guy was a total loser."
"Even Morgan doesn't sound that girly when she screams and she's five!" Elena finished as she laughed.
Shawn's eyes widened, here he'd thought Elena was going to yell at him for doing that. Soon a smile made its way onto his face,
"You are perfect."
"C'mon, let's go before all the good candy's gone!"
The two made their way to Cory's house, laughing about James' reaction.