Prologue

Disclaimer: 'The Suite Life of Zack and Cody' is not mine; if it was, season two would be a lot better than it is now! Also, 'And Then There Were None', regrettably, is not mine. PS, a lot of AC fans will want to have my head for tying a classic novel with a TV show that has now jumped the shark, so keep in mind that this is just for fun; PPS, Zack and Cody's rewrite will contain lots of accurate spoilers for the novel, so read it first before reading what comes after the prologue or else you will be SPOILED. You have been warned.

It was just another typical Saturday afternoon for the Martins. Zack was playing a video game, Cody was doing his homework, and Carey was downstairs practicing her latest song. At least, Cody was trying to do his homework, but the 'blam-blam-blams' from Zack's video game were distracting him.

"Zack, could you please turn that down just a notch?" Cody asked above the video game noises.

Zack fully heard what Cody was saying, but chose to ignore him and continued to slaughter the game aliens.

"I said, could you please turn it down just a notch?" said Cody even louder.

Zack continued to keep on playing. Three more aliens to go, and he'd move on up to the final level!

"Zackary Martin, turn it down now!" shouted Cody. He knew Zack hated being called Zackary and thought it would get his attention, but it didn't.

Cody lost his patience, got up, walked over to the TV, and pulled the plug.

"Hey!" exclaimed Zack. "What was that for?"

"That's for ignoring me when I politely asked you to turn down the volume of that incessant game of yours," said Cody. "You were breaking my concentration!"

"I was breaking your concentration?" asked Zack. "What about you? That annoying scritch-scratch noise from your pencil nearly caused me to lose the game!"

"Well, I'm almost done my math homework anyway," said Cody. "After that, the only thing we have left is English."

"We?" asked Zack.

"Yes, we," said Cody. "Don't you remember the assignment that was given to us the other day? The one where we have to rewrite the best-selling mystery novel of all time?"

"Which one was that again?" asked Zack. He was half-teasing, half-serious. "Was that the one where those people keep getting killed off one-by-one? What's it called? And Then There Were Many?"

"No, it's called And Then There Were None, you doofus," snapped Cody.

"And Then There Were None You Doofus…now that's a catchy title!" joked Zack.

"C'mon, you enjoyed it, and you know it," said Cody. "You're just too embarrassed to admit you actually liked a book that didn't have pictures of cute girls in it, one that had depth and meaning to it, one that plays off human guilt!'

"Wow, for the first time in your life, you're wrong," remarked Zack.

Cody paused. He decided to test Zack: "All right then, what did you think of Vera Clayton?"

"Her name's Vera Claythorne."

"Ha!"

Zack sighed, "All right, all right, I did like it, but if you tell anyone that I read a book I liked, I'll use Agnes to beat you up! Anyway, what's this rinky-dink assignment?"

"We have to re-write the story in any way we want it," said Cody.

"Any way?" asked Zack. "Wow, I'm beginning to like this assignment!"

Cody felt Zack's forehead and said, "Zack, are you running a fever?"

"Ha, ha, very funny," said Zack. "Just start writing this sucker, okay? You know how bad my hand-writing, spelling, and grammar is."

"Yeah—you were so bad, you made our English teacher cry," said Cody.

"Watch it," said Zack warningly. "So here's the deal: I'll dictate whatever comes to mind and you write it and you can even throw in any ideas you occasionally get."

"Okay, but don't forget that I have the right to edit something if I don't like it," warned Cody.

"Two more things," said Zack. "One, maybe we should put a disclaimer at the beginning of each chapter in case this accidentally falls into the wrong hands and we get sued. Heck, maybe we should even put up a disclaimer for ourselves! How about we say something like…'The Suite Life of Zack and Cody doesn't belong to us; it belongs to some big-named company I can't think of at the moment'…wait, I've got it! Disney! Yeah, that would make sense since the last school we went to was Disney Middle School!"

"Why the heck would we put up a disclaimer for ourselves?" asked Cody. "That's completely moronic! We're real people; we're not two completely made up characters on a semi-realistic sit-com!"

"Not in this dimension at least," said Zack, looking directly into the camera.

"Okay, okay, fine I'll put up a disclaimer for ourselves," sighed Cody. "What was the other thing you said you wanted to talk about?"

"How about we use the same last names for the characters in the novel, but we use the same first names as most of the people we know?" suggested Zack. "Vera Claythorne could become Maddie Claythorne, Thomas and Ethel Rogers are now Esteban and Muriel Rogers," (he shuddered at the thought of Esteban and Muriel together, but went on), "Anthony Marston becomes London Marston, William Blore is transformed into William Moseby—that's the one exception because I don't know what Mr. Moseby's first name is—and the boatman is Arwin. I can't think of anyone else to represent the judge, Miss Brent, the General, and the doctor, so we'll leave them as they are."

"And I suppose you plan on calling Philip Lombard Zack Lombard?" asked Cody.

"You know me all too well," said Zack.

Cody pulled out his sharpest pencil and began writing a few sentences of his own before Zack contributed…