A/N- I love Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy so much I couldn't stand another second without doing something with these amazing characters!

Zaphod Beeblebrox was late. But it was just one of those mornings that you'd have to try and delay everything until the last possible second, just because you didn't want to go to school. Everyone in the world's had at lease one of these mornings. More than a few of us have had at least one a week. And Zaphod had one nearly every day.

School just wasn't really… his thing. He would have very much preferred to have spent the time he 'wasted' in school doing activities such as drinking stolen alcohol or hijacking the careless neighbor's car. Both were illegal, since he didn't have a driver's license and was underage, at eighteen, to be drinking. But those facts made them all the more desirable for Zaphod.

"Zaphod!" called his father, who was actually his step-father no matter how hard the poor man tried to act otherwise.

"I, uh…" Zaphod said back, trying to speak loudly enough that his voice would go through the door, skid across the hall, and slide down the banister to where he was sure it would enter his step-father's ears. "I can hear you calling my name, but what do you want?" He knew, of course, exactly what his step-father wanted, but he just didn't feel like complying currently.

"Get down here!" yelled step-father-trying-to-be-true-father.

Zaphod let his eyeballs look over his pile of notebooks. They'd been given to him by his step-father for school several weeks ago, but this was the first official day of classes and every single one of them was filled with devious plans, sketches for inventions, and even several recipes, the prize one of those being for an entirely new type of alcoholic drink that consisted of a mix of other alcoholic drinks, herbs, and salt. Too bad there wasn't a written up, foolproof (although Zaphod was far from a fool) get-out-of-school-free excuse.

"Zaphod!"

Said ape-descendant got up and went to the bathroom, grabbing a hairbrush as he went. He found it extremely irritating that he had to put the brush down in order to squirt toothpaste onto his toothbrush, and he found it even more irritating when he figured out he wasn't quite coordinated enough to brush his hair (shoulder-length, wavy, golden-brown) and his teeth (pearly white!) at the same time. And at that moment, Zaphod wished for a third arm, and thought how very much quicker it would make his morning routine.

"Ah'mn cawglin, Ahhbur!" Zaphod said through a mouthful of toothpaste. What his brain said was, 'I'm coming, Albert!', but his mouth said it quite differently. Annoying. As an afterthought, he added, "Cwoow yaow ghekkth!" which meant, 'Cool your jets!'

He marveled over how interesting his words sounded when he had that plastic foam-coated thing polishing his lovely teeth, and cackled about how confusing and frustrating it must be for Albert, his step-father, to try and decode it. Of course, one should never even attempt to cackle with a mouth full of toothpaste, and Zaphod was a master cackler, so it wasn't an attempt, it was a 'yes, he just cackled'. And all his toothpaste spontaneously shot out of his mouth and landed on the mirror.

Zaphod sighed. That was what came of cackling with a mouth full of toothpaste and he knew it. At least he didn't have to spit it out in the sink now. He ran the brush though his hair until he was satisfied, and struck a pose. Grinning at the Zaphod in the mirror, Zaphod said, "You look great, you clever first-day-o'-bein'-a-junior, you!" Then he spun on his heel (his fancy, gold embellished, black leather-covered heel), walked across the hall, and slid down the banister, feeling action-packed and very self-centered indeed and thinking what a very great day it might maybe be.

Of course, then the moment was gone because Zaphod had slammed unintentionally (maybe, most likely completely indended-ly) into his step-father and they both crashed to the floor.

What a tremendous start to the first day of school!