Farewell, Middle School

Farewell, Middle School
Chapter	18 of 127 (list of chapters)
Published	August 9, 2006 (2006-08-09)
Page count	6
Major characters	Mike, Lucy, Paulo, Daisy, David, Yashy
Minor characters	Flower Girl, Katie, Stacy, John, Sue, Amaya, Sex-Ed Teacher
Locations	Roseville Middle School, Prom Venue
Collected in	Volume One, Omnibus 1
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Middle school goes out in style. David floods the hallway with chocolate ice cream, the teachers deliver some memorable goodbyes, and Mike gets placed into Honors English whether he likes it or not. A summer time skip at the end carries the whole cast toward high school.

Synopsis

The chapter opens on the Monday after prom, with Daisy demanding to know where Mike disappeared to all night. Yashy, heckling from Lucy's arms, insists he was avoiding Daisy, and Paulo insinuates that Mike and Lucy slipped off for a "private" dance. Mike flatly denies it. Then David wanders in with a bandaged head and a black eye. A flashback explains that he finally danced with his crush, Flower Girl, who happily played along right up until she got dizzy and accidentally threw him through a window. David's own review of the evening is glowing: "I think I got laid."

Paulo insists he actually won the "prom battle", and a second flashback shows how that went. He works his way through the crowd of girls with some very handsy moves, but his luck runs out at Flower Girl. David steps in with a growl, and Paulo flees in tears. Once the bell rings, Daisy hurries off to protect her permanent record, deaf to Paulo's protest that she is thirteen. Mike lingers behind for a moment, musing that maybe he really should "sit back and enjoy what I've got here.." until Yashy orders him to quit being introspective.

David's farewell gift to the school suits Yashy just fine.

The last day of school arrives, and with it David's "senior prank", a river of chocolate ice cream running through the hallway. Yashy floats blissfully down it on her back. In homeroom, the sobbing poodle teacher hands out next year's class placements. Lucy gets CP English and a two-book reading list, David lands in English I, and Mike learns he's been put into Honors English without being asked. Daisy made Honors too, and she immediately proposes reading the required books together, much to Yashy's fury.

The other teachers' farewells are a mixed bag. The sex-ed teacher's entire send-off on her subject is "It's even worse in high school. Don't do it.", the pug teacher hopes the high school teachers will beat them, the cat teacher doesn't remember her students at all, and the janitor bellows his own introduction at full volume. Lucy teasingly congratulates "Maishul" on making Honors English, borrowing the pet name Sandy coined in Unfulfilled Fantasy and flustering Mike badly. When Yashy accuses him of angsting about it, the janitor offers to clean the angst and mops him straight into the ice cream.

When the final bell rings, Daisy bursts into tears, clings to Mike, and makes him promise he won't move away over the summer. The students pour out the front doors along with the ice cream. Mike and Lucy turn toward each other for a hug, but Lucy kicks his cane out from under him instead. "It's unfair to your girlfriend," she explains, inviting him out for ice cream and strolling off with Yashy while he lies on the ground.

Calendar pages flip past June and July, and the cast comes off Mike's healed leg. Under a tree somewhere, he dozes over his Honors reading of 1984 until Lucy sits down beside him to needle him about it. Daisy, who followed Lucy there, barges in to defend Mike's intelligence. Paulo and David cheerfully admit they've been stalking everybody too. For once, Mike doesn't mind, catching himself thinking he's never been so happy to have these guys around. Daisy launches into a practice essay about Big Brother, and an offscreen thud leaves Paulo beaten and lovestruck on the ground. Lucy gets the chapter's last word, at full volume: "I THOUGHT THE POINT OF SUMMER VACATION WAS TO GET A BREAK FROM THESE IDIOTS"

Character dynamics

• David and Flower Girl: Until now, David's crush was strictly a background gag, and the two had shared exactly one scene, an accidental run-in back in Pep Rally. At prom he finally gets his dance, she happily plays along, and he defends her from Paulo with a single growl. Nothing comes of it on-page afterwards, but Veronica's commentary teases that "Perhaps David's crush is not truly random.."
• Mike and the friend group: Mike starts the chapter merely tolerating his friends, resolving on Monday morning to sit back and enjoy what he's got. The plan pays off under the summer tree, where being stalked, teased and lectured somehow leaves him genuinely content.
• Yashy and Daisy: Yashy's campaign against Daisy is a long-running one. She's been calling her a whore since the dance-planning days of Prom Preparation. This chapter escalates things to mutual locker threats, and the news that Daisy will share Honors English with Mike does nothing to improve Yashy's mood.

Trivia & observations

• Per Veronica's commentary, the chapter was built out of pages scrapped from the end of Unfulfilled Fantasy. She loved the day-after-prom page too much to throw away, Oliver felt the original ending was too abrupt, and page five was closely based on a canned page as well.
• The whole chapter was published in one go, all six pages on 23 March 2010.
• Veronica drew David's lovestruck expression in the prom flashback from memory, aiming for "that onion-headed guy from Di Gi Charat".
• Paulo's handsy crowd-work revives a gag from the pre-BCB comics, where Mike was the one doing it. Per Veronica's commentary, Paulo didn't exist yet, so Mike "had to encapsulate any and all 'male' traits".
• The teacher farewells are genuine send-offs. This is the last appearance of the poodle teacher, whom Veronica calls a fixture of the old series, as well as the sex-ed teacher and the middle school janitor. Her commentary also notes that in the pre-BCB comics, Mike and Lucy never actually made it to high school.
• Yashy gets progressively coated in chocolate over the course of the chapter, from a smeared mouth in homeroom to total submersion by the final bell. Veronica's commentary cheerfully labels this "CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT".
• Years later, Veronica described Yashy as representing "Lucy's mean intrusive thoughts a lot of the time" while advocating for Lucy "when she couldn't", which goes some way toward explaining her treatment of Daisy in this chapter.

Related chapters

• Unfulfilled Fantasy: The immediate predecessor, and the source of much of this chapter's material. Prom happens offscreen during it, and Sandy coins "Maishul" there by mispronouncing Mike's name.
• Field Day: This is where Mike broke his leg, tripping over a turtle in the final race. The cast and cane he carries through this chapter both come from there.
• Off to the Movies: Paulo's fear of barking is first revealed here. It's the exact weakness David exploits twice, first with the growl at prom and again with a single "woof" on the last day.
• Enter High School: The class placements handed out here pay off quickly. The Honors English teacher opens by asking whether everyone has read their assigned novels, and Mike panics.
• Onwards to Adventure: The David and Flower Girl thread gets its ending there. David spots her again, and Lucy reveals she transferred to a private school.