Chapter 44: Ask Her Out

Gumball started spending his time in class nowadays reading books Carrie let him borrow. Some are horror, some are romance. He suspected that the romance books were originally Amber since Carrie's not really one for romance.

After an amount of hours and boredom, he could easily read through the books. Some of those books he was actually really interested in while others were pretty corny.

After awhile, he set down the book and closed his eyes for a moment to rest. He looked around and took in what's around the class. Jake and Kelsey are playing a video game on their phones together while Anna watches, Carrie and Amber are reading their own books, Lexy, Teri and CJ seems to be drawing something on CJ's sketchbook, Darwin's teaching Cato, Dante, Jamie and Ivan how to play a roleplaying board game called "Dukes and Dragoons". The rest of the class seems bored out of their minds or doing their own thing.

"Hey, Gumball. Wanna come play with us?"

The blue cat turned back to the messy table with the boardgame and saw Ivan calling to him with his left arm draped over the back of his chair. Classic Ivan.

He walked over to them beside Cato and see how they were playing.

"You encounter a troll toll and must roll more than an 8 to proceed. Otherwise, move 2 steps back." Darwin said facing towards Cato.

"Don't you mean a troll bridge?" he questioned.

"No, I mean a troll toll."

Cato was still confused but shrugged it off and rolled the dice that had sides way too many for a dice; 8. "Awesome, I get to move."

"Nuh-uh." Darwin stopped him. "It said you have to get 'more than an 8', not 'an 8 or more'."

"What?!" Cato yelled, with Mr. Baxwell immediately shushing him from his desk.

"That means you go 2 steps back." Darwin happily grabbed Cato's piece and moved it backwards.

"This is some bullshit." Cato said, pouting and crossing his arms over his chest.

"It doesn't seem fun at first but you'll get the hang of it overtime."

Gumball laughed a little at Cato's unfortunate event and looked to Carrie. To his surprise, she's suddenly gone. He looked around and saw Carrie by Mr. Baxwell. She said something to him quietly and he nodded, letting her leave the classroom as she floats out the door.

Cato looked at him and tapped him on the arm. "Hey, you alright?"

"Kinda." He said quietly.

"You know you're not that good at lying right?"

Gumball stared at the door a little while. "Prom is in two days, and I just only realised that I haven't asked Carrie to prom yet."

"So? Just ask her. What's the problem?"

"I'm not sure I know how."

Cato looks at him with a smirk.

"How many times have you asked her out on a date?"

"I know it shouldn't be any different but I feel like I should do something different for this one. We only get this once and I want her to remember it I guess."

Cato took a moment to process whatever he said and thought of a plan. He got up from his seat and turned to their teacher.

"Hey, Mr. Baxwell. Me and Gumball gotta go see Principal Watterson."

"Dude, what're you doing?" Gumball whispered loudly before Cato covered his mouth to shut him up.

"For?"

"Beats me. You know how secretive he is."

He sighed. "Alright, go ahead."

Cato turned back to the group. "Jamie, you can take my place and play." He said and turned to Gumball, still confused to what he's doing. "Let's go."

Before Gumball could even say anything, Cato grabbed his arm and marched out of the class.

Amber looked at them walk out of the classroom, contemplating whether or not she should do what she thought she should do. After a few minutes, she finally raised her hand and spoke. "Mr. Baxwell..."

In the hallway, Gumball seemed pretty agitated while Cato was acting pretty normal a few steps in front of him. Well, as normal as he normally is. His hands and blue and black fingerless gloves invisible in his grey hoodie pockets.

"So we're going to Endo for advice? That's your plan?"

Cato looked at me with an eyebrow raised. "Endo? Nah, he's got so much on his mind that he'd probably tell u to ask Carrie out by helping her with her homework." Cato answered. "We're going to the mall to buy some flowers."

Gumball stopped himself. "Whoa, whoa, wait. We're ditching?"

Cato turned around, a smirk on his face yet again. "You obviously have never ditched before. Everyone's gotta do it once in their life." He turned back around and started walking again. "Besides, it's not ditching class when there's no class in the first place."

"Hey, wait up!" Gumball chased after him, unbeknownst to the figure watching them around the corner of the hallway.

(Elmore Mall)

Gumball and Cato were standing by the counter of the florist shop trying to pick out which flower to give.

"Hello, dear valued customer. How can I help you today?" Larry said from the other side of the counter.

"Hey, Larry." Cato said as he looked into the store, then looked back at Gumball. "Okay, so normally to get the perfect flower, you need to pick the type of flower that suits her most."

"Buying some flowers for a girl?" Larry asked.

"You could say that." Gumball answered. "Roses maybe?"

"Roses are more to beautiful by appearance but dangerous when you're not careful." Cato said.

"Care to explain her personality to me? Maybe I can try and pick one out for you." Larry said.

Gumball thought quite hard to figure out how Carrie acts. "Gothic, punk rock chick, soft and clingy sometimes, pretty defensive when it comes to me in general as if she tries to protect me and not lose me." Gumball thought again on that last part. "...again."

Larry put a hand on his chin and tried to connect his description to a type of flower. "We obviously don't have a flower that's gothic or into punk rock." Larry said jokingly. "But if you're looking for a soft flower, then I recommend giving her a daisy. Maybe a few should suffice."

"You have them here?"

"Well, of course we do." The hardworking rock then proceeds to walk up to one of the many shelves in the shops, took about 3 daisies from the shelf and walked back to the cashier counter. "This should be good."

"Thanks." Gumball said.

"So, who's the unluc- I mean, lucky lady?"

"Carrie."

Larry sighed in his sudden realization. "I should've known that when you mentioned "gothic, punk rock chick". Anyway that'll be 4 dollars and 50 cents."

Gumball switched the daisies to his other hand while he digs out some money in his pocket. "But this is my lunch money though."

Cato sighed. "Alright fine. I'll pay for it." he said as he took out his 5 bucks and gave it to Larry.

Larry took the money and gave Cato back his change. "Thank you for coming to Elmore Florist. Have a nice day." he said with a smile that neither of them couldn't even tell anymore whether it was genuine or fake.

They walked out of the store and started to head back to school.

"So what? Flowers is all it takes to make this invite look different?" Gumball asked.

"This is the cheapest way I could think of. You could have a banner that says "WILL YOU GO TO PROM WITH ME" written in all caps but not even able to buy 5 bucks worth of flowers tells me you can't even get a banner." Cato said.

"Whatever you say, "expert"." he said sarcastically.

"I've been in the field longer than you have. Now, if we get back to school now, we have enough time to-"

"AHA! Caught you in the act!" a voice yelled from in front of them which got them both to jump and Cato eventually losing his balance and falling backwards.

Stood before them was Cato's ghost girlfriend, who is currently wearing an angry look on her face and arms crossed over her chest.

Seeing Amber, Gumball immediately hid his hands and flowers behind his back. Cato rubbed the back of his head and took awhile to realize it was Amber who scared them. "Amber?! What are you doing here?"

"Following you." Amber answered, anger still on her face. "What are YOU doing here? Ditching out on class AGAIN."

"Relax, he was just helping me to buy some flowers so that I can ask Carrie to prom." Gumball said putting himself in between the angered ghost and the white humanoid who was still trying to get up.

"What's behind your back?" Amber asked as she noticed Gumball having one hand behind his back. Gumball pulled out his hand in front of him to reveal the newly purchased flowers. "Daisies?"

"Yeah. Why? You think she won't like it?" Gumball had a worried look on his face.

Amber looked at him and calmed down a little. If they were ditching to get something for her cousin, might as well help them. "Carrie doesn't really fawn over flowers, let alone daisies. But you can try." She tilted her head a little to see Cato behind him. "And what about you, hun? Not gonna give me any like Gumball here?"

"You know I can give you more than just flowers." Cato said confidently.

"Maybe a night with cuddles." she countered with an eyebrow raised.

This obviously got on Gumball's nerves, all the more being physically in between both of them while this is happening. "Okay, guys. Save it for later. It's lunchtime at school, if we move now, we might make it back before the bell rings."

"Or..." Amber floated towards the boys and held both of their hands, teleporting them out of the mall and into the school cafeteria. "There. Easy."

Gumball and Cato, still not used to the ghost teleporting effects, felt a bit nauseated. "Coulda warned us." Cato said.

"Hey, guys!" a voice cried out from one side of the cafeteria. The three of them turned to see their group of friends already at their seats eating their lunch, Anna waving her hand in the air to signal them. They went over to them, the flower still held behind Gumball's back. "Where did you guys go? Mr. Baxwell went looking for you guys."

"Well uhm..." Gumball hesitated until Cato shoved him forward.

He looked at Carrie, staring into her eyes, and she started to get worried. "Is everything okay, Gumball?"

With a long, unnecessary, deep breath, Gumball walked to the table, shoved Ivan's and Dante's lunch, stepped in between where they were sitting and got on top of the table. Everyone stopped eating and stared in his direction and he knew it so, but he only stared at Carrie.

"What's he doing?" Amber whispered to Cato.

"I don't know. I didn't tell him to do that."

With another deep breath, he finally spoke. "Carrie Krueger..." he held out his daisies to Carrie. "..will you be my date to the prom."

At a moment of shock, she took a moment to take it all in. Everyone was now staring at the ghost, she was set in the spotlight. Everyone waiting for an answer, meanwhile Anna was silently fangirling, her fists clenched on her chest and a smile across her face.

Finally, Carrie got up from her seat and on top of the table to look at Gumball eye-to-eye. She took the three flowers and dropped to of them on the ground, leaving one in her hand. "You know, one would've been enough, silly." she said in a soft voice. "And yes, I will."

Cato started clapping and everyone followed suit with some cheering for the teenage blue cat while Gumball was hysterically laughing, wondering how it worked. He hugged Carrie tight and she held on to him, swaying side to side. All was fine.

Until..

"My, my. What a beautiful gesture." the familiar stern British voice was heard nearby. The group turned to see Endo clapping slowly. He eyed both Gumball and Cato.

"You two are in a heap of trouble." he said and they both figured it out immediately. Anna mentioned that Mr. Baxwell went to search for them and his first place to look was probably Endo's office. He probably even told that Endo was the one who called them in the first place. "Two hours detention for ditching, both of you."

"Hah, get what you deserve." Amber taunted.

"You too, Amber. I know you were following them." Endo said, this time eyeballing Amber who was caught in shock. "Come on, now. Let's go."

Cato went on ahead first with Amber on tow, hitting Cato in the back for dragging her into this with him (eventhough he didn't). Gumball got off from the table and looked back at Carrie, as if she was the only one currently at that table. "I'll see you Saturday night?"

Carrie nodded with a bright smile. "Definitely."

Gumball smiled back and walked out of the cafeteria to detention.

Meanwhile, while they were happy about what happened, Ivan was pissed about one particular thing. "Sure, our lunch don't matter. Step on it all you want for crying out loud." he ranted on whilst everyone laughed and Teri comforted him.

At detention, Gumball, Cato and Amber sat at their places while Endo kept watch, one leg on the other on the table and a mug of coffee to keep him company.

"Pretty grand gesture you put up back there." Endo said, breaking the silence. "Poor little ghost probably shocked back to death with that one.

Gumball nervously laughed at it, while Amber didn't know how to feel about the ghost pun.

"How did you ask Kira out to prom, Endo?" Gumball asked.

Endo took another sip of coffee and set the mug down. "Date to the funfair."

Gumball then faced to Cato. "Ha! I knew he's not that bor-."

"Then again, there isn't a funfair going about around here recently. So if you would've asked me how to ask her to prom, I probably say help her with homework or something." he interrupted and took another sip of coffee to end it.

Cato looked back at a shocked Gumball. "You were saying?"

Gumball looked away in defeat and Amber giggled, all the while Endo was oblivious to that last comment.

(Haunted mansion; few hours later)

Carrie knew exactly what to do with the flower. She took out an empty flower pot from the huge basement and filled it with dirt. Then she put in the flower and put it nice and snug. She put the flower pot on the windowsill and stared at it for a while, putting her cheek on her hand, knowing that Gumball bought it for her to show his love for her; something she was glad of finally getting back.

And that wraps up for this chapter. To think that Gumball was trying to get Carrie to go to prom with him when just last chapter we saw him tear through Penny. Strange change of pace, huh? Well, my story, my rules. Don't even ask about the flowers bit, I know nothing about flowers or its regard towards someone's personality and I just kinda winged that part. And I intentionally made Cato and Amber follow Gumball just for that specific end scene at detention because that was going around my mind for a few weeks now. Soo that's all for now, let me know what you think about the chapter and the story as of now because we are heading to the end very soon. I'll see you guys in the next chapter.

Stay at home, and peace out!