"Come on Chanice, I swear on my life I didn't bet a cent!" Buck pleaded with his fiancé, "You've gotta give me another chance!"

"Correct me if I'm wrong, Buck, but I believe I've given you about thirty-eight chances in the past!" Chanice said curtly. She picked up an invoice for January's shipment of tires from her desk and began leafing through it, not really acknowledging Buck was there.

"Well if you need positive proof, I can get Miles and Maizy to testify on my behalf; you know they don't lie."

"Oh sure they won't lie, not after you've told them what to say."

"Now Chanice, have I ever coaxed the kids to deliberately say what I want them to?"

Chanice get to her feet. "This is more than just what they have to say on the matter, Buck," she said slowly so he'd catch every word, "It's about the fact that you made an explicit promise to me that you'd help me look at the cake, and one again you decided going to the racetrack was more important than keeping your word."

"But..it's..would..!" Buck was grasping at straws now. He sighed heavily in despair. "All right, you're right in that regard Chanice, but the whole story is that, like I said on the phone last night, Richard took away all of my paycheck, and I..well, I wanted to make sure I could get you a present this Christmas. I swear that's the only reason I went."

"Um hmm," Chanice wasn't buying it, "And that was important enough to take Miles and Maizy along?"

"Well if you'd been in and not gallivanting around with Bruce Wayne, maybe you could have looked after them!" Buck protested.

Chanice slammed the invoice shipment to the desk. "All right Buck, let's get one thing straight here," she said icily. "One, you do not have the say on what I do with my life, which does not revolve around you. Two, I really don't appreciate the way you're referring to Mark. He's always been a good and decent man, and unlike you, he can keep his word. In fact, I had one of the best days of my life yesterday, so don't take your own failures out on him!"

Buck could sense a sort of finality in her voice that he had only heard once before in his life-last February when Tia had almost succeeded in breaking them apart. The look Chanice was giving him now was dead-on to the one she'd given him when she'd caught him dancing with Marcy. "So what are you saying Chanice, that it's over?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't say yes.

"I don't know yet," Chanice told him, flopping hard into her chair, "I'm going to have to think long and hard about this. Right now, I'd like to get me work for the morning done if you don't mind."

"So do you want me..."

"Buck," Chanice said coldly, "As of now you are trespassing in my office. Please leave."

With that, she spun around in her chair and faced the back window of her office, once again reading the invoice. Buck sighed in deep disappointment.

"If that's what you want, I'll go," he told her softly. Chanice gave no reply. Buck trudged slowly out of the office. As he exited the garage itself, a long limousine pulled up outside. Knowing who this would be, he flattened himself against the side wall of the building; the last thing he wanted was for Tarquin to see him broken and defeated. Once he was sure the rich man wouldn't see him, he hustled for his car. He couldn't resist the temptation to look back, though, and saw Chanice giving him a hug, obviously happy to see him again. Buck sighed and slowly got into the car. As he stated the engine, a thought came to his mind: "Maybe this guy is the right one for Chanice after all..."

Rooney eyed the student body is it came through the front doors of Shermer High. There had still been no sign of Ferris yet. Rooney was planning on corning him the moment he came through the door and pinning him with spying on him, or whatever the twerp had been up to last night. Next to him, Vernon wasn't quite convinced yet of the merit of doing this.

"You realize of course, Ed, that there's little or no way you'll be able to prove Ferris Bueller was up to anything against you last night," the superintendent confided with his associate.

"Trust me on this Richard, Ferris is up to his usual tricks," Rooney said. "He'll do anything to save Frye's hide, including screwing me over. And nobody screws Edward Rooney over."

Vernon shook his head at this, convinced Rooney was carrying the situation a little too far. "Perhaps you'll be a little happier to know, Ed, that I was able to hire a band to play at tomorrow night's dance," he said, trying to change the subject.

"Really?" Rooney didn't take his eyes off the door, "Who'd you hire?"

Vernon, perhaps on account of the many students looking at them, whispered the answer in Rooney's ear. Rooney smiled in glee. "Very good choice, Richard," he told the superintendent, "let's see them enjoy their big party night dancing to that!"

"And plus, it costs us less with them than it would with a conventional band," Vernon added. "They've had it coming for years for betraying me and you and.."

"Uh, Mr. Rooney?" came Cameron's voice from behind them. He looked rather uncomfortable...just the way Rooney wanted him. "Hello Frye," the principal greeted him, "have you thought carefully about what I told you yesterday?"

"Um, yes I have, very thoroughly, and I'd like to give you this," Cameron handed Rooney a tape recorder. "What's this?" Rooney asked.

"I taped Ferris last night in his room; he said he was going to tape you making love to somebody, I really don't know who, and use the footage to blackmail you into letting me go," Cameron told him slowly and uneasily.

"Does he know you taped him?" Rooney asked, not totally convinced Cameron was on the level with him.

"Not at all," Cameron told him. "In fact, he's not here now because he's back home looking for the blackmail tape. I took it from his room while he was still asleep, took it down to the shop when I got here just now, and, well,...." he deposited the crushed remains of another tape recorder into Rooney's hand.

Rooney smiled the biggest smile he'd let loose in years. "Well Frye, it seems I've greatly misjudged your sense of morality," he said, very pleased.

"Yeah, well, like I said, I thought about what you told me yesterday, and I realized that I want to live a normal life, and although Ferris has always been good to me, I know that I don't want to spend my life taking part in con after con," Cameron said, still uneasy.

"Well, you've definitely made the right decision Frye," Rooney said, patting him on the shoulder. "And for your firm honesty in this, I'm personally going to make sure that you've accepted at whatever university you've applied to and get every scholarship available."

"So does this mean I'm not in trouble with the law anymore?" Cameron asked, hopeful.

"Certainly. It's clear the situation yesterday was little more than a misunderstanding on our part," Rooney said. "It's obvious you were just working under Ferris's thumb. No charges will be filed. You'd better get to your first class, then."

"Thank you Mr. Rooney," Cameron shook his hand. He turned as he was starting to leave and added, "You know, I've spent most of my life fearing you, but now I realize you really weren't so bad after all."

"I'm only bad to those I don't like, Frye," Rooney told him with an enormous smile. Once Cameron had left, he turned back to Vernon and said, "Richard, call the school board, I want them here to hear this tape."

"Ed, I can't just summon the school board for something like this!" Vernon protested. 'And you can't just dole out punishment breaks like a candy store...!"

"Richard, this is more than just that!" Rooney told him, "This is the culmination of four years of excruciatingly hard work on my part. The school board's always been on my case about how I've been too caught up in trying to nail Ferris, and I want them here to see me proven right, so get on the horn with them and tell them to come on over."

Vernon sighed. "All right Ed, but they'd better not be in the middle of something important right now."

"Don't worry about it Richard, this is the start of good things," Rooney told the superintendent as he walked away. He eyed the intact tape recorder in his hand lovingly. Now if only Ferris would show up in time to see himself go down.....