College is completely finished. Over and done with. (Assuming I pass the final I just emailed!) To celebrate, I'm posting this early…I was going to wait until I finished Life with Paul. So celebrate with me by reviewing!!
This is my first crossover fic. I've always wanted to try one but never had an idea of how I could organically get two fandoms to mesh. Thank goodness for the internet (you'll see why). And you don't need to be an iCarly fan to read this, as it's mostly about LwD, but it can't hurt. So enjoy!
--Brandi
Disclaimer: I have fantasies about meeting Dan Schneider and having long conversations with him about his genius as a tween-entertainment mogul. But until that day when we finally meet, I better disclaim iCarly so that he doesn't sue me. And as always, Life with Derek is still not mine. It'll be a humid day in Antarctica when Shaftesbury hands those rights over to me.
World's Craziest Family
"Are you sure you want to do this, Lizzie?" Edwin asked, setting up the video camera on his dad's little-used tripod.
Lizzie nodded firmly. "I'm positive."
"You're not nervous?"
"Well, maybe a little…" Lizzie scrunched up her nose. "Which is why we need to get it over with as soon as possible."
"Aye, aye, Captain," Edwin saluted, and stepped in front of the camera, pulling Lizzie over to stand next to him. "Ready or not, here we go," he said, before reaching over to hit the record button.
Two hours later, and 2500 miles westward…
"Don't move…don't move," Spencer mumbled, as he quickly finished applying Paper Mache to his sister Carly's forearm. "Allllmost there…"
Carly just rolled her eyes at her friends Sam and Freddie, who were busy lounging on her sofa and flipping through some magazines, having declined Spencer's request for help on his latest art project. And Carly was increasingly aware that they had made the correct decision.
"There, you're done. You just can't move for two hours." Spencer stepped back to triumphantly admire his handiwork.
"Two hours?! You've got to be kidding me!" Carly had to refrain from stamping her foot; it would have cracked the plaster around her leg.
Spencer shrugged. "Sorry, Carly. I told you the project would take awhile."
"It has taken awhile already! I didn't realize 'awhile' meant my entire Saturday!"
Sam called from the sofa, "Could you keep it down over there? Freddie and I are comparing J-14 and Seventeen's coverage of Jamie Lynn Spears."
Spencer held up a hand to Carly when he saw she was about to blow. "I got it."
"Yo! Larry and Curly!" he bellowed. "Get over here and keep Moe company while she dries."
Sam and Freddie looked up at Spencer, annoyance evident on their faces.
"Fine, fine. The magazines are lame, anyway," Sam grumbled, as she came over to stand beside her friend. "What can we do standing still for two whole hours?"
Freddie picked up his laptop from the coffee table. "We could check the latest submissions. We need to start going through the videos for the 'World's Craziest Family' segment, anyway."
"Oh, yeah. Good idea, Freddie!" Carly was happy again, despite the casts on her extremities. Watching kids' video submissions always brightened her mood.
They set up the laptop on the counter, and Sam helped Carly shuffle over to stand in front of it. Spencer handed them each drinks, and then headed upstairs to work on some sketches.
"Look, this one looks good…'I Was Raised by Coyotes,'" Freddie said, clicking on the first video.
Sam and Carly exchanged dubious looks. "We wanted real families that are crazy, not people with imaginary dog parents," Carly said, carefully sipping her iced tea through a straw and trying to move as little as possible.
"Here's one," Sam pointed to a submission called 'The McDonald-Venturis: The True Story of the World's Craziest Blended Family.' "Let's check it out. Ooh, look, these kids live in Ontario."
"Where's that?" Freddie asked.
"I don't know, but it sounds exotic," Sam replied, clearly excited.
"Guys, Ontario is in Canada. But whatever. We did want an international competition, so let's see if these guys can make the cut." Carly carefully stretched out a pinky to click on the clip.
A pretty girl with long hair and freckles was standing next to a boy with a goofy grin.
"He's kind of cute," Carly admitted, and Sam nodded. Freddie glared at Carly, but she didn't notice. He didn't like this kid already.
Sam hit play, and they were immediately sucked in. These two had presence.
"Hi, I'm Lizzie McDonald, and this is my stepbrother, Edwin Venturi."
"Howdy." Edwin tipped an imaginary hat. "Sam and Carly, we're huge fans of the show, and when you announced your 'World's Craziest Family' competition, we knew we'd have to enter. Get ready to hear about the weirdest people you will ever, uh, almost meet."
Lizzie nodded, holding up a family photo. The family looked normal enough, and Carly and her friends exchanged bemused glances. How weird could a nice-looking stepfamily like that be?
"This is our family. We'd like to begin by saying we love each and every one of them, and that we mean no disrespect should you choose to put them on the show."
"Yeah, make sure you tell them not to kill us if they happen to see it," Edwin cut in.
Lizzie nodded. "Let's begin. First, there's Ed's little sister Marti." Lizzie held up Marti's latest school picture, in which she was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. (If he were missing a few teeth.)
"Marti is really smart for her age, but she's usually living in her own little fantasy world. She's got an imaginary friend named Daphne, and on some days she thinks she's a cat. She's actually spent dinners eating under the table so that she can lap up her food like a cat does." Edwin held up a picture of Marti in her cat costume, hissing at the camera.
"And she has a favorite toy: a monkey called Sir Monks-a-Lot."
"Who is actually a girl monkey," Edwin added quickly.
Lizzie groaned. "No, Ed, he's a boy." She put her hands over Edwin's ears, and continued, "He's still sore because our older brother caught him practicing his kissing technique on the monkey."
Edwin shoved her off of him. "That's not true! She's telling lies, people! Lies, I tell you!" He was getting very red in the face, and he wasn't looking directly into the camera anymore.
Lizzie cleared her throat. "Let's move on. We're next, but we're pretty normal. Okay, I'm pretty normal—"
"Hey!"
"—but there's not too much to say about us. Let's skip our older siblings for now and talk about our parents for a second." Lizzie held up another photo, this one taken at George and Nora's wedding. They were dancing their first dance as husband and wife.
"We love our parents. We do. But Edwin balances his dad's checkbook. And they tend to forget about us middle kids on a regular basis, because our older siblings are causing so much, uh, commotion."
Edwin, finally recovered from his embarrassment, picked up the story. "We gave them a parenting quiz once, and if they got below a six out of twenty, we were supposed to call a social worker. Our parents? Scored a two." He held up two fingers with a wide grin.
"You have to admit, that's pretty bad!" Lizzie chimed in.
"My dad can never remember my birthday. Day or year!"
"Mom once made us eat macaroni and cheese for a week because she didn't have time to cook dinner."
"Last Christmas, they didn't bother to buy us presents until Boxing Day, because they thought we'd be out of town. When everyone ended up staying home, they wrapped up Dad's tools to give to Marti so she'd have something to open in the morning."
"Don't forget, Ed, we also had no Christmas tree, and no food, besides the Chinese we managed to order."
Sam, Freddie, and Carly were staring at their screen in horror, mouths agape.
"And I thought I had it bad," Sam said, shaking her head in disbelief.
"What's Boxing Day?" Freddie asked, but the girls didn't hear him. Or if they did, they didn't know the answer.
"That's not all," Edwin was saying. "When they first got married, our parents forgot to pick us up from school, and we sat on the stoop for three hours."
"Okay, Ed, I think we can stop now. They get the picture." Lizzie held up another photo, but kept it turned around.
"Yeah. Like we said, we really do love our parents. They're just crazy." Edwin made a twirling motion by his head.
"Which is why we entered this contest," Lizzie continued. "But if you guys aren't convinced yet that we're the winners, keep watching."
"That's right. We haven't gotten to our worst relatives yet."
Lizzie turned to photo around to reveal smiling teenagers sitting close together on the stairs. "This is Edwin's brother Derek." She pointed. "And this is my sister, Casey."
Edwin jumped in, "They're both great, but they have a bit of a problem. You see, Derek and Casey are in love, but they don't know it. How is this possible, you say? Allow me to elaborate." He pulled a thick binder from an off-screen surface and cracked it open. "This is our research on them. It started over a year ago, and it's a pretty complete record of their relationship. Derek and Casey are completely, totally, head-over-heels in love…"
"…And they're just so right for each other, but they don't see it. They spend all their time fighting and arguing instead. Derek's pretty abrasive sometimes, and he loves to tease Casey. And Casey's such a perfectionist that any kind of disruption to her plans sends her off the deep end." Lizzie held up a picture of Derek and Casey in rocker outfits. "Except when they work together. They seem to get along when they're both working towards a common goal. But when they're at odds, forget it. It's World War Three in our house."
Sam cast a sidelong glance at Freddie to gauge his reaction. She had called herself abrasive more than once, and Freddie was a bit of a perfectionist. He turned when he felt her eyes on him, but looked away again quickly.
Edwin was holding up another picture. "This is Casey at one of her school's football games. She was a cheerleader for a while. Derek went to her tryouts, and just about every game. But he hates football."
Lizzie nodded. "And one day, Derek stole all of Casey's clothes and hid them. Instead of borrowing something of our mom's to wear to school, she wore Derek's clothes. How weird is that?"
"Also," Edwin continued, "Another time, Casey dressed up like the video game character Babe Raider for a class presentation, and Derek had trouble speaking when he saw how, um, beautiful she looked."
Lizzie checked her watch. "Well, we better stop. As you can see, there is a binder full of Derek and Casey's 'questionable' behavior." She put air-quotes around the word 'questionable.'
Edwin patted the binder. "Bottom line is, they do all these things, and have no idea that other people notice the attraction between them. You should see how they flirt all the time. It's pathetic. And gross."
"Aw, I think it's cute. They even do it in front of our parents, but of course we're the only ones who notice."
"I think my friend Teddy notices. He told me that they have 'eye-sex' all the time, whatever that means. Oops, sorry, Carly, I can't say that on the show, can I? You can get Freddie to edit it out."
Lizzie rolled her eyes. "I guess it's time to wrap up. In conclusion, our parents are clueless, our older brother and sister are hot for each other, and our little sister lives in a fantasy world. So as you can see, we live in a pretty crazy household."
"You can say that again," Carly muttered, as both Lizzie and Edwin waved to the camera and then shut it off. The video ended.
"I kind of feel bad for Derek and Casey," Sam blurted out without thinking. "I mean, uh, unrequited love is tough."
"But these kooks don't even realize they have feelings for each other," Freddie fired back, face getting a little red.
Carly pretended not to notice. "I think they're keepers. They're funny. And they really do have a nutty family." She shifted slightly. "Oh, no…"
"What?" Sam turned to her, concerned.
"I'm gonna snee—Ahhhh-choo!" Carly let out the sneeze, in the process cracking the plaster around most of the joints in her upper body.
"Quick, we'll get some water and fix it, before Spencer sees!" Freddie ran to the sink to fill a bowl with water.
"Oh, man!" Carly cried. "I was just starting to dry! You're extending my prison sentence!"
Sam gave her a sympathetic smile. "Think of it this way: you can spend a little bit extra time drying, or face the wrath of Spencer in Artist Mode. I'm thinkin' you know the answer to that."
Carly groaned. "Yeah, yeah. The things I do for my family."
The next Sunday, and 2500 miles eastward…
When the "World's Craziest Family" webisode of iCarly premiered, The McDonald-Venturis got second place. They lost to the kid who had, it turned out, actually been raised by coyotes.
Edwin and Lizzie were psyched, though, because Carly and Sam showed a big chunk of their video on the air, along with a bunch of praise for how entertaining they were.
Ed minimized the webpage and turned to Lizzie. "So Liz, I was thinking….what if we just 'accidentally' left up on Derek and Casey's computers?" He rubbed his hands together deviously.
Lizzie put her hands to her face in mock horror. "You want to die at such a young age, Ed?"
"Liz, it's either show them now, and let them be angry for awhile, or continue to live with Dr. Denial and Mistress Oblivious. Your call."
"You're right. They'll forgive us eventually. Hopefully sooner." She sighed. "The things we do for our family."