So I couldn't sleep last night and saw this challenge by SunnyRose for iGo To Japan. I think this is the quickest I've ever written a story. Hope you like it. Ok, for the usual disclaimers: I don't own anything except for the sequence of words on this page…and Vapo-Goo. Enjoy and Review. Merci Beaucoup! (Hey, it rhymed. Had to do it)

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November 10, 2008

Hi, My name is Freddie Benson, I'm 15 years old, and in the next 24 hours I am going to die. Just to be clear, I don't have cancer or some rare disease that is shortening my life. I am 99.99% positive that I will be killed by one of my best friends, Samantha Puckett.

Perhaps I should start from the beginning. About three weeks ago we were assigned a group project for Science. This is not an unusual occurrence; we work together whenever possible. It's a great partnership, really. I help Carly with Science and Math. She's really good in English and Social Studies. Sam doesn't mind working with either of us, because it usually means she could be lazy and still get a good grade. This time, though we had the coolest experiment ever! We were building a bomb to show the physics of an explosion. We were using spray paint for the propellant and trying to get it to hit Spencer's new sculpture (sort of like Splatter Man 2.0). We were going to film the whole thing for iCarly. The idea was not only would we get a grade, but we'd also get a show segment, and with any luck, Spencer would get a sellable art piece. Brilliant, Right?

Anyway, we were all supposed to meet at Carly's after dinner to start the hypothesis and get the materials together. Sam was already there, of course, but when my Mom found out they were having fresh mackerel (fish bones, enough said), she insisted I have the meatless meatloaf and mashed potatoes with her at home. Ok, so the meatless meatloaf is pretty much disgusting, but the mashed potatoes are usually good. It was these potatoes, however, that were the beginning of my demise.

It was just an accident. When my Mom wasn't looking I added a little more pepper to the mashed potatoes (she'd never let me add something so spicy if she saw). I guess I inhaled just a little of the pepper dust, because all of a sudden I sneezed: that's it, one sneeze! You'd think I had caught the plague! My Mother forbid me to go to Carly's, insisted I change immediately into my anti-bacterial pajamas, slathered Vapo-Goo all over my feet and covered them with three pairs of socks. Besides being terribly hot and uncomfortable, I was now on house arrest. I tried to tell her that I needed to go over to Carly's for a school project, but she was having none of it.

After an hour of pleading, I still couldn't convince her to let me go to Carly's, but at least I convinced her that it was impossible to catch anything over the phone. I called Carly and told her the situation. Carly is so clever! She figured out we could still work over web cam. Are you with me so far? Here's where it gets dangerous.

Spencer accidentally melted the web cam on the computer in the kitchen last week, (don't ask) so Carly had to use the computer in her room in order to talk to me. I e-mailed the list of materials we'd need and she left Sam and Spencer downstairs to work on that. Carly and I worked on the rest of it over the web cam. We actually got a lot done in the hour in a half we were working Sam free. We were well on our way to a successful experiment. Carly was reading back the hypothesis we came up with when all of a sudden there was a very loud boom followed by a girly scream. It was so loud that I heard it not only over Carly's web cam, but coming from the next apartment.

Carly stopped reading immediately and her eyes went big. She yelled down to Spencer, and he just yelled back that they were still alive. A couple seconds later I saw Sam come into Carly's room covered in yellow paint. Carly jumped up immediately concerned and asked what happened. Apparently, one of the cans of paint got too hot and blew up. She couldn't tell us how it happened. Things like that tend to happen with Spencer. I told her yeah, I could hear her screaming all the way from my apartment. She just said, "Yeah, that wasn't me." Poor Spencer.

About that time I could hear my Mother banging on my door. She was telling me that I needed to get some rest or I'd catch pneumonia or something. Carly kept trying to pull clothes out for Sam and letting me know that she'd have to go check on Spencer. It was getting a little late, so we both decided to sign off and start again at school the next day…Yeah, I should have left it at that.

I signed off, but thought that maybe we should document the mishaps too. I quickly signed back on to tell Carly to take pictures of the damage, and have Sam and Spencer describe what happened. When I signed back on the web cam, though, it wasn't Carly that I saw…it was Sam. She had her back toward the computer and was taking off her hoodie. I swear I tried to get her attention. I called her name, like, four times, but she had turned up the music and couldn't hear me. That's when my life changed. She pulled off her paint splattered pants, right in front of the web cam. All I could see was a screen full of lime green cotton and 'I Heart Las Vegas' written in sparkly letters glistening in the LCD light.

OH MY GOD! I was dead! I knew it! My life had ended right there. If Sam had any idea what I had just seen, it would be the end of the Benson line right here…but she hadn't looked back yet. She just kept dancing around the room to the music. If I wasn't in mortal danger, it might have actually been funny. I recognized that I had a reprieve so I did the only thing I could and signed off the web cam. I stepped away from the computer just in case Sam decided to check (a really dumb thing, I realize now, but when you're in panic mode things don't always make sense). After a few minutes I realized that I was in the clear. Nobody knew anything of what I accidentally saw, and if I wanted to keep breathing, nobody ever would.

It wasn't hard to keep that vision a secret, after all. I'm not saying I completely forgot about it, but a couple days later we found out that we were nominated for the iWeb award. Things got a little crazy after that. Everyone was all wrapped up in that, so my mind really didn't have a chance dwell on "the incident". WHEW! That is until we actually got to Japan. You know, I thought I was going to die in Japan a bunch of times, but it's weird to think that something as little as this will get me killed.

It was when those psycho Japanese Web kids Kyoko and Yuki were supposed to take us shopping. I was the gentleman my mother taught me to be and held the door for Carly and Sam. Sam was the first to get in and when she bent down to climb in, I caught a glimpse of something lime green just below the waistband of her pants. It all came flooding back…she was wearing I heart Las Vegas! I don't even remember Carly getting in the car, the next thing I know she was asking me if I was coming. I should have forgot about it, I had done well enough for over two weeks. Nobody knew a thing. Darn my tongue, it should be cut out sometimes. I guess the green glimpse brought it right up to the front of my brain, because the first mention of my anti-bacterial underpants and I just blurt it out. "Well, at least mine don't have I heart Las Vegas written across the Butt!" WHAT! WORDS COME BACK!!! Too late, Damage was done. It's just a good thing Carly was there between us.

Luckily, (for me anyway) we were kidnapped, left in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, rescued and stuffed in a clown car, detained by stupid security guards at the TV studio, nearly miss the awards, then actually win the iWeb award. I think she might have forgotten about it…but that was yesterday. We are leaving on some sort of boat heading back home this afternoon. I'm sure once boredom set in, it'll come back to her. I'm sure she'll have plenty of time to kill me and throw my body overboard while everyone is sleeping.

So in case I don't make it back, I want my A/V equipment to go to Carly for the show. Wait, with me dead and Sam incarcerated there probably won't be any show. So…I want my equipment to go to the A/V club at Ridgeway. Spencer should get all of my Galaxy Wars action figures and comics. My mother…um, I'm sorry about all the multivitamins and herbs that I didn't take. I don't want it to be a shock when you find them in my bottom drawer. On second thought, let Spencer or someone else clean out that drawer…

Anyway, It was a nice life. Thanks, everyone for the ride.

Freddie Benson

November 14, 2008

Hi, Freddie here. We made it back home yesterday, and as you can tell, I'm still alive. Four days on a boat with Sam after the whole underpants incident and I lived to tell the tale. Actually, the deal is that I'm only living, if I don't tell the tale. I guess after all we went through she was in a pretty generous mood. She was only going to break both my arms and poke my eyes out, but Carly convinced her that since I hijacked the TV signal and showed the video that won us the award, I should be able to keep my limbs and eyes intact. I won't say that I got off completely. She seemed to think that it was important for me to be able to closely read the label on my underpants (to make sure they were anti-bacterial) while I was wearing them. That was 2 days ago and today I am able to sit for almost 20 minutes at a time, so it's getting better. The point is after everything I did and everything that I saw, it looks like I will live to be sixteen after all…unless my Mom finds out. *Sigh* Later.

Freddie