Why Don't You Get A Job?


"TURN IT DOWN!!!" Kitty yelled for the fourth time. She clapped her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. She opened her eyes and stared blankly at her astrophysics book.

The music was turned up louder.

Kitty could feel her heart thump with every beat. With an exaggerated sigh, Kitty slammed her book closed and pushed back in her chair. "That's it!" She yelled as she turned around and stormed toward the opposite wall. She never broke stride as she approached the wall. "Evan Daniels, I am giving you to the count of three to turn off that, like, total crap that you call music," Kitty said as she phased right through the wall into Evan's room next door. As soon as she had phased through the wall, the music stopped. Kitty gave a deep breath of contentment. "Thank you!" She huffed.

Evan was lying on his bed reading a "Sport's Illustrated," his mouth was hanging open.

"Like, what?" Kitty asked as she put her hands on her hips.

"Kitty! You phased through my stereo!" Evan said as he rose from the bed.

Kitty turned around and saw that she had, indeed, phased through the stereo. "Oh," she said in a small voice.

Evan rushed over to the huge stereo and jammed the power button repeatedly. "Come on, come on, come on, come on." He mumbled as he slapped the side of the stereo.

"Sorry," Kitty shrugged.

"It's broken!" Evan buried his hands in his face.

"Wow, Evan, it's like, just a stereo. I'll pay for it. How much was it."

"A thousand bucks," Evan said in a flat voice.

Kitty choked. "What?"

"A thousand bucks," Evan repeated.

"I don't have that much money! Like, what are you doing with such an expensive stereo system!" Kitty said in a shrill voice.

Evan snorted, "Well, it's summer break, you have plenty of time. Looks like you have to get a summer job," Evan crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Kitty.

"Job?" Kitty echoed in a hollow voice.

Evan nodded.

Kitty gulped. Where am I going to find a job? She wondered.


"Welcome to McDonalds, can I, like, take your order?" Kitty asked in a cheerful voice. She adjusted the stupid looking hat she was wearing.

The man stood for a moment, making his decision. "I'll take a Big Mac meal."

"Ick," Kitty made a face. "Are you like, totally sure that you want that? I mean, it's going to clog your arteries and, like, all that grease? Maybe you should have a salad."

The man gave her a funny look. "Uh, thanks for the health tips kid, but I think I'll still take that Big Mac meal."

"Ooooook," Kitty sighed, "it's your heart. Um, do you like want fries with that?"

"It comes with fries."

"Oh, it does?" Kitty swiveled around and glanced at the menu. "It does! That's cool," Kitty smiled at him.

The man waited for a few minutes. "How much?" he finally asked.

"Huh?"

"How much money?" he asked, annunciating each word in his frustration.

"Oh, like, chill for a second while I ring it up." Kitty felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked to her side and there stood the manager.

"Like, hi, Gregory!" Kitty smiled.

He smiled back, "You're fired, Kitty."

Kitty looked like she was about to cry. She took a deep breath and walked out, she had never failed at anything in her life! What was she going to do now?


Kitty stormed into the rec. room and plopped down on the couch.

"Nice hat, Kitty," Jean said as she looked up from her book. She was curled up in a large chair reading "Sophie's Choice."

Rogue looked up from her position lying on the floor and laughed. She unpaused her video game and began playing Mortal Kombat.

Kitty ripped off the boxy looking McDonald's hat and threw it into the hallway.

"What's yoah problem?" Rogue asked, not bothering to look up from her game.

"I got fired," Kitty pouted.

"And so ends your illustrious career in the fast food industry," commented Jean as she continued to read.

"Jean?" Rogue said.

"Hmmm?"

"Use smaller words, shugah. You sound like a geek."

Jean telekinetically tossed a pillow at Rogue. Without looking, Rogue reached out and caught it mid-air. She placed it on the floor and lay on it. "Thanks, Red."

Jean rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Kitty. "Well, maybe that wasn't really the job for you," Jean suggested, "Kitty, what do you like to do?"

"Shop," Rogue replied immediately with a small laugh.

Jean stifled a giggle.

Kitty's eyes lit up. "Rogue, you are a genius!" Kitty raced out of the room. She needed to get to the mall, fast.

"Good one," Jean sighed as she watched Kitty run out of the room.

"This is gunna be really bad, isn't it?" Rogue asked as she turned to Jean.

"How can Kitty make money by shopping?" Jean asked in a confused voice.


"Hi, my name is Kitty! I'm going to be, like, your personal shopper!" Kitty bubbled with excitement.

The woman gave her a dubious look. She had never seen anybody look this excited in her life. "Well," she began," hi, Kitty, my name is Marianne. I wanted some help picking some clothes out for my daughter's birthday."

"How old is your daughter?" Kitty asked, eyes shining.

"She's thirteen, she's going to be turning fourteen next week."

"Fourteen! I'M fourteen! This is going to be so awesome! We are going to have, like, so much fun!" Kitty giggled and grabbed the woman's hand and pulled her into Abercrombie and Fitch.

"How about this?" Kitty asked, holding up a pink long sleeved tee shirt.

"Well, she's not really all that in to pink."

"Why not?" Kitty asked in an astonished voice, as if she could not believe such a thing possible.

"She's more of a tomboy. She's taller than you are too. She usually wears a large, maybe even an extra large."

"Well I'll just look around and pick out a few things she might like," Kitty said as she rubbed her hands together in excitement.

Two and a half hours later, Kitty emerged from one of the dressing rooms with a large pile of clothes. Marianne struggled up from the chair she had fallen asleep in and walked over to help Kitty with the load of clothes. She reached for a purple sweater on the top and looked quickly at the tag.

"This is a small," the woman said, holding the sweater in front of Kitty's face, "I told you that my daughter wears a large and she doesn't like pink and purple, remember?" The woman sighed and glanced at her watch.

Kitty giggled, "These aren't for her! They're, like, for me. I kinda saw some stuff that I wanted to try on."

Marianne shook her head and threw the sweater at Kitty. She stormed out of Abercrombie thanking the lord that her daughter was not like this girl.

Kitty watched her go. "Hmmm, I guess that means I'm fired again," she mused to herself. "Oh well," she shrugged her shoulders and went up to the desk to buy her new clothes.


"That woman was so ungrateful!" Kitty ranted as she stormed into the rec. room. "I would have picked out such cute stuff for her daughter! She will rue the day she fired Kitty Pryde as her personal shopper!"

"Rue the day?" Jean repeated to herself with a small laugh.

"Ah thought the whole point was to sell clothes, not buy them," Rogue observed as Kitty set down her bags.

Kitty ignored her and flopped down on the rec. room couch.

Jean studied the scrabble board in front of her, "Rogue, drabbet?" she said, sounding the word out and shaking her head. "There is no such word."

"Are you challenging me, shugah?" Rogue asked in an innocent voice.

"Hello! Guys! Can we focus on me for a minute?" Kitty said, cutting into their conversation. "I owe Evan one thousand dollars, I can't hold down a job for more than three seconds, and I just spent, like, two hundred dollars of my parent's money!"

Jean glanced at Kitty and turned back to Rogue. "Yes, yes I am challenging you," Jean said as she picked up the heavy dictionary by her side. "You can't just make up words," Jean mumbled as she flipped through the dictionary.

Kitty gave an exasperated sigh and slumped back to the couch, lifting a hand to her head.

Jean stared at the dictionary in silence.

"Why dontcha read it out loud?" asked Rogue with a cocky grin.

"Drabbet, a drab twilled linen, used for making men's smock-frocks, etc." Jean looked up at Rogue and shook her head in disbelief.

Rogue nodded and smiled. "That's right, you ain't the only one with a good vocabulary."

"Aren't," Jean corrected her as she looked down at her tiles.

"Yoah just jealous," Rogue laughed at her.

Kitty cleared her voice loudly, gaining the attention of both Jean and Rogue. "Yeah, hi, thanks. I'm, like, totally screwed here! I could use some help."

"Ah've seen ya in the kitchen a lot and stuff. Don't you really like cooking?" Rogue asked Kitty.

Jean's eyes widened and she began to shake her head vigorously. "Rogue," she hissed in a quiet voice, "no, no cooking."

Kitty rose from the couch. "Cooking! Of course! I'll go whip up a batch of my famous banana nut oatmeal raisin cookies and go sell them at the craft fair they have down by the museum!" Kitty danced out of the room.

Jean put her hands in her face and took a deep breath.

"Crap," Rogue said as she noted Jean's reaction, "Ah did it again, didn't I?" Rogue asked.

Jean looked up at her. "Remember this year around Christmas time, before you were living with us, when like none of us came to school for about a week?"

Rogue nodded with a confused look on her face.

"Kitty's famous frosted cinnamon tofu cranberry Christmas cookies."


Kitty sat at her booth watching as people walked by. "Cookies!" She called out to the passers by. "Banana nut oatmeal raisin cookies, five for one dollar!" Kitty called out. This is hopeless, she admitted to herself. The only ones who had bought her cookies were these, like, ten-year-old boys who kept coming back ever twenty minutes or so. Kitty sighed; I'll never be able to re-pay Evan at this rate. She consoled herself with the fact that at least someone was enjoying her fabulous cookies.

One of the ten year old boys ran up to her, breathless and asked for five more cookies.

Kitty smiled and took his dollar, "I'm like totally glad that you like my cookies. Aren't they yummy?"

The boy gave her a funny look. "You think we are eating these?"

"Well what else would you do with cookies?" Kitty asked.

"These are the best sling shot ammo that I've ever seen," the boy answered as he tapped the rock hard cookie on the table in demonstration.

Kitty was furious. She picked up a handful of cookies and hurled them at the retreating boy. "How dare he insult my wonderful cooking!" Kitty wailed as she packed up her things.


"How did the bake sale go?" Jean asked after taking a sip of her apple juice.

"Like, what the heck are you guys doing on the roof?" Kitty asked. "I couldn't find you anywhere!"

"Exactly," Rogue mumbled as she flipped down her sunglasses and settled into her lounge chair.

Jean shot her a `behave' look.

"So, like, what ARE you doing up here?"

"We are driving Mack trucks," Jean answered in a flat voice.

Rogue laughed, "Nice one."

"Thanks," Jean said with a grin. "We are sunbathing, Kitty," Jean answered the confused girl. Jean pointed to the bikini Rogue was wearing.

"S-u-n-b-a-t-h-i-n-g," Rogue said in a slow voice so that Kitty could understand.

"Then why did Jean, like, say that you guys were driving trucks or something?"

"Sarcasm, Kitty," Jean answered with a warm smile, "I was just kidding."

"Oh," Kitty said. "Well, whatever. I need a job!" she wined and sunk to her knees.

Jean flipped up her sunglasses and turned to look at Kitty, "Kitty, why don't you just fix the thing yourself?"

Kitty was speechless. "Why didn't I think of that?!" she jumped up and began to phase through the roof.

"Hey, Kitty," Rogue said, getting the girl's attention. "Did you know that the word `gullible' isn't in the dictionary?"

"Really?" Kitty asked.

"Nope. Go look it up and see."

"Wow, that's so weird," Kitty said as she phased through the roof.

Once she was gone, Rogue burst into a fit of laughter.

Jean tried to stifle her own giggles as she said, "Rogue, that was just mean."

"You really think Princess is going to be able to fix that stereo system?" Rogue asked in a skeptical voice.

"She may be a ditz, but that girl is a super-genius."

"Whatever you say," Rogue still had her doubts. "Oh, well, back to work," Rogue smiled and tossed a large water balloon into the air.

Jean caught it with her tk and guided it through the air, about two hundred feet away where Scott, Evan and Kurt were playing soccer in the middle of the large field. She released it right over Scott's head. The balloon hurled through the air and burst right on his head. The three boys looked around, trying to figure out where the hell all these water balloons were coming from. Scott kept looking over his shoulder.

The two girls practically fell out of their chairs with laughter. "Nice shot!" Rogue commented as the two put up their hands in an air high five.


Evan jogged up to his room, wiping himself off with a hand towel. He still couldn't figure out where those balloons were coming from. Scott was convinced that Jean had something to do with it, but they couldn't seem to find her anywhere. And both Evan and Kurt had assured him that Jean would never do anything like that. Scott had just laughed at them.


Upon entering his room Evan was met with a horrific sight—Kitty standing over his beloved stereo system, screwdriver in hand. "What are you doing?!" Evan asked in a panicked voice.

"Like, relax. I just fixed your stereo."

"You what?" Evan asked in astonished voice.

"Fixed your stereo," Kitty repeated. "Oh, and, like, as an `I'm sorry for phasing through your stereo' bonus, I added a CD burner and a voice activated CD library catalogue for your 100 disk changer."

Evan stared at her, "T-thank you!" he stuttered.

"Like, no prob!" Kitty smiled, "I'll see you later, I have to go, like, look up a word in the dictionary!"