I knew it was bound to happen someday.
I guess everybody knew it was bound to happen someday. It's just that no one ever expects someday to be when they're sitting right there. I sure didn't.
Ever since the Academy started the kids had made jokes about the food. Most school food really stinks, but the Academy's food had to take the number one prize for being rotten. Everybody always said that if one of the boiled potatoes were thrown against something, it would bounce right off like a rubber ball.
I'd be willing to bet, though, that someday would have come a lot later if it wasn't for me. My problem is that I think out loud. I know I should stop thinking out loud, but I never think about that when I'm doing it. It's not until after that I remember I shouldn't think out loud--and by then it's too late.
So there I was, calmly eating dinner and thinking out loud. We had just learned about fulcrums and levers in our fourth level science class and I thought it was pretty interesting. The food was bad as usual, so instead of eating it I built my own fulcrum and lever: just to see what one looked like.
As it turned out, the meatloaf made a pretty good fulcrum. (I knew it had to be good for something.) I laid my fork across it, with the prongs sticking up so that it made a lever. It looked like it might work so I put a boiled potato on the prongs for a projectile.
All the time I was doing this I was thinking out loud, of course.
"Taking the size, weight, and shape into account," I drew out, "The amount of the arc should be directly proportional to the distance and speed needed to reach the target and...." With all the concentration the Academy had taught me to address a problem, I moved my fork until it was in the perfect position. "There: and with the point of impact, the point of origin would be difficult, if not impossible, to discern."
I'm really good at using technical language but my friend JJ, who was sitting beside me like he always does, gave me a funny look. He always says I sound pompous.
Actually, my thinking out loud would never get me into trouble if it wasn't for JJ. I like theories, but JJ is never satisfied with theories. He always has to try it to make sure it works.
I could see those little lines start to burrow their way into his forehead and he got this strange tint in his hazel eyes. Even his fine brown hair seemed to stand on end. His mouthful of food was just turning to mush, his hands were frozen in midair above his plate and he wasn't moving a muscle. I started to get scared.
"Please, JJ," I pleaded. "Don't..."
He did. That potato went flying through the air and slammed precisely into where I had aimed it: the Dean of Students' head.
Sure enough, it bounced right off again.
But it was too late to care if it did or not.
The Dean of Students was just standing there turning this funny shade of red while his face twisted into a weird kind of shape. He even had his fists clenched and I was waiting to see if steam would start coming out of his ears like in the cartoons.
It's always pretty easy to tell when the Dean is mad and he has this funny way of glaring at everybody at once, which I'm glad about because I don't think I could handle it if he just glared at me.
Nobody in the whole cafeteria was moving even a muscle and there wasn't a sound in the entire room. I was even afraid to breathe: everyone knew that whoever was stupid enough to move first was going to get blamed. Then, right there, I thought I was going to die.
My friend JJ on the left of me, and my friend T.J., on the right of me, were talking to each other. I knew The Corporation was going to get me into another mess of trouble.
The Corporation: that's the three of us. T.J., JJ, and me, Andy. We formed The Corporation when we were really little so that we knew we'd always stick together, no matter what. We do everything together. That's what friends are for.
Besides, we need The Corporation because we have something in common none of them understand: our father's are all HIM's. Every one of us was born on a Constitution Class Starship. You see, our father's are all "Great Captain's that Everyone Knows and Fears."
To us, they're just HIM's. "Oh, you're HIS son!" "Did you hear what HE did now?" "Did HE really call the Admiral all those names?"
We're really lucky to have The Corporation. The three of us have been inseparable nearly since we were born. It helps that our father's are all really good friends. It's like being three brothers with six parents. I'd go crazy without The Corporation but, on the other hand, I also wouldn't get into so much trouble.
It always happens the same way. First, I come up with the idea and make the mistake of thinking out loud. JJ listens to me and tries it, which gets us into trouble. Then T.J. seals our doom. He gets so excited and carried away with what JJ is doing that we get into more trouble than we can get out of.
So there I sat, listening to JJ and T.J. talking. I was getting sick to my stomach because I knew what was going to happen and I knew there was nothing I could do to stop it.
"PLEASE DON'T," I pleaded anyway.
But they did.
"Repetition provides proof," T.J. suddenly exclaimed, slamming his hand down onto his fork and launching an entire handful of potatoes into the air.
In an instant, the air was alive with food. Meatloaf and potatoes and pudding were dancing in the atmosphere as screeching kids hurled them with energy.
Butch, across the table from me, began laughing out loud, his mouth hanging open like the idiot he was. A handful of peas landed right in his open mouth. I almost choked when he just swallowed them. Just so there was no doubt about how much of an idiot he was, Butch stood up and began trying to catch the soaring food in his mouth. Most of it just kindof splattered all over his face.
I sat there feeling as white as a ghost, and wishing that, like a ghost, I could just sink into the chair and disappear. T.J. and JJ weren't throwing food anymore either. As the food fight got worse and worse, all three of us knew the same thing. We were in a lot of trouble.
The Academy is pretty strict about throwing food in the cafeteria. In fact, they're pretty strict about doing anything of interest, especially in the cafeteria. You have to understand them, I suppose. The Federation Academy for Children is supposed to be the first step in preparing to join Starfleet as an Officer. From here you go to the Primary Academy and, finally, to Starfleet Academy itself. So everybody who runs the place is pretty bent on discipline and proper behavior. That's fine for adults, but for us kids it can get pretty boring.
I especially feel sorry for the kids who don't even want to join Starfleet. I don't mean the ones whose parents want them to: I mean the ones whose parents are in Starfleet and are just using this as a boarding school.
The Dean of Student's and his cronies don't care why you're here though. All they care about is discipline, and the cafeteria is the utopia of discipline. They somehow think it's a display of how well behaved we are. There's very little we're allowed to do in the cafeteria. Right now I wasn't even eating.
The food fight seemed to last a whole eternity. Logically, the food would have run out before then: but it sure felt like an entire eternity before the President of the Academy stepped through the doors. There he stood, a monstrosity of a man with chocolate pudding dripping off his mustache and hunks of meatloaf in his hair, staring directly at the three of us.
He always did that. No matter what the trouble was, he came directly to The Corporation. Some day, I resolved, I was going to get very angry about that. Maybe someday it wouldn't be our fault. True, that day hadn't come yet, but it could. Just on principle I didn't want to be blamed for something I didn't do.
We got blamed for the food fight. We stood like the line of toy soldiers they had taught us to be while the President, the Dean of Students and the Program Director paced holes into the carpet of the President's office.
I didn't even listen to what they were saying. It was always the same thing. I actually considered suggesting they put it on tape to save us all some valuable time.
'Do you realize that you should be expelled for this? You are aware your father's will be informed about this."
My brain was reciting the words while I stood there like a good little toy soldier waiting for it to be over. Something was different this time, though. JJ was pounding his elbow into me in the most annoying fashion. I finally pounded him back and told him to shut up.
"Didn't you hear what he said? You're not listening!"
"HE's here!" T.J. gasped morbidly.
The whole inside of my body went cold and my heart stopped beating.
"Who's HE?"
"YOURS," they declared in unison. The far worst one of the HIM's by a landslide, and we all knew it. What a day for HIM to visit.
So we sat at the end of the bed with the worst tyrant in the history of the Fleet pacing up and down in front of us, his feet clicking soundly on the floor like a gun. He did that on purpose: I decided that a long time ago.
We had a major debate earlier on what we should say at this point in time. I had won in the end. Not because HE was mine, but because I'm the most pigheaded and they knew it by now. Silence may not be golden, but sometimes it's downright intelligent.
So we just sat there, waiting.
"You started a major food fight," my father said all of the sudden in a sharp, scary voice that I didn't like at all, "in the cafeteria of the Federation Academy for Children."
Finally, he stopped pacing and heaved in this awful sigh. It occurred to me at that moment to check if he was carrying his sidearm.
He turned, stepped over to the bed, and squat down in front of us. Then he just stayed there. Staring at me. There was a light making funny patterns really deep in his dark brown eyes and I didn't like it very much.
Finally, he shook his head.
"James Tiberious Kirk, Junior; Timothy James Sulu; and Andrie Pavolich Chekov," my father said in a really deep voice that I didn't like at all. "If you continue this type of behavior, you're going to FAR outdo all the damage your fathers' caused. I'll leave it to you to discover how each of us terrorized Starfleet Academy."
My Papa smiled then, this really big smile that made his eyes twinkle. "Now, why don't we do something constructive about the food?"
Sometimes it helps to have a HIM for a father.