Author's Note: After writing a couple of reasonably successful one shots, I decided to try my hand at a full story. It's a bit of a slow beginning, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own South Park… le sigh…

Cartman Was Right

Chapter 1

School's Gay

They were doing it again, that lovey dovey thing where he would lace her delicate fingers with his and then press his warm lips tenderly to her numbed knuckles to reanimate her hands.

At nine years old, Kyle Broflovski decided that this intimate display of affection was so cute and innocent that it became completely disgusting, and since that point, he had rather lost his appetite for a healthy dose of loving.

"It's a nice day, huh?" he said in attempt to alleviate some of the awkwardness that seemed to appear like a cloud over his head on a daily basis. He pulled out an apple from his coat pocket and bit into it thoughtfully to avoid looking at the couple beside him as they continued batting their eyelashes at each other in a manner worthy of Sebastian the crab when he was giving Ariel lessons on how to kiss a guy.

Stan Marsh grinned at his best friend as the trio crunched through the freshly fallen snow to the only bus stop in South Park. "Are you kidding me? I'm freezing my ass off!" he laughed, cheeks red and lips chapped from the cold Colorado wind, which had blown a grey cloud in front of the sun.

Wendy, who had wrapped her slender arm around Stan's lower back, heartily agreed, using her other hand to still the beret that was threatening to be swept off of her silky hair. The picture was so perfect that it looked unreal. Kyle inwardly rolled his eyes when he again saw her small form covered by one of her boyfriend's heavy sweatshirts. Was that normal? Kyle really didn't fancy the thought of having someone else's smell on him twenty-four seven.

He looked at his wristwatch and groaned inaudibly to himself.

To his dismay, it was again that dreaded time of day. Every day of every year for the last year and a half of high school, ever since Stan and Wendy had finally stabilized their relationship, Wendy had insisted upon stopping by Bebe's house on the way so that the four of them could walk to school together. Kyle didn't trust her for a minute; since he was nine, he had had to endure painful hints from Wendy about a potential relationship between Bebe and himself. Wendy Testaburger was normally an extremely logical and sensible person, but Kyle had to knock off a couple points on her intelligence rating for being so irrational; he got along with Bebe about as well as a rabid mongoose and a cobra in a battle to the death; Bebe was the mongoose, of course.

He gritted his teeth as they trekked up the stone walkway to Bebe's front porch, Wendy in the lead and Kyle lagging behind as far as he could without being suspicious. Stan held his girlfriend's hand sweetly as she reached for the brass knocker.

Great, she's already knocking on the door…

Before Kyle could finish a coherent thought, the door to the Stevens' household swung open dramatically with an almighty "bang," and there stood Bebe with a half-eaten apple in her mouth, pulling on her snow boots as she hopped outside on her one free foot. "Hey, guys!" Her golden hair fell elegantly about her thin shoulders as she bounced down the steps of her front porch with much more enthusiasm than any normal person would have on a school day.

Kyle noticed how her sapphire eyes traveled gradually to his hand where he held his own half-eaten apple. Argh… now she's going to have to say –

"We're both eating apples today, Kyle!" she exclaimed, taking great joy in pointing out the obvious.

The Jew forced a smile that looked more like a grimace and made Stan raise an eyebrow in his direction. "You all right, dude?"

"Yeah, let's just go," he said, the rest of them following suit.

To avoid any unnecessary conversation, Kyle pulled a book out from his backpack and flipped open to his bookmark, the musty scent of the library wafting up from the page and spiraling its way into his nostrils.

It wasn't as though he really disliked Bebe. That wasn't the case at all. He definitely found her extremely amusing, and he actually did admire her ability to be so outgoing; there was no one at school who wasn't fond of her to some extent. He had just lost his ability to become engaged in a conversation with someone who was naturally so loquacious. He was often afraid of saying something either stupid or unappealing… or a combination of the aforementioned adjectives.

Instead, Kyle was the kid who sat in the library at lunch reading up on his latest topic of interest or flipping through moldy copies of Encyclopedia Britannica when he needed to find something new. Right now, the topic of interest was the French Revolution. He turned a page in A Tale of Two Cities and walked on in silence.

"Are you and Stan going to that dance next week?" Bebe asked her best friend happily, her voice creating a sort of chime in the nippy air.

Wendy merely grinned in a manner that made her look extremely pretty. "Of course we are! Right, Stan?"

Stan blushed and rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "Oh… well, sure. If you want to, I mean," he replied, trying and failing to play it off as nothing. Wendy laughed. It was a charming little laugh that sounded like twinkling bells; it made Stan fall more in love with her whenever he heard it. Again, Kyle couldn't help but notice a small detail like that and frown upon it in revulsion. "What about you, Bebe?" Stan's plan to get the attention off of himself worked like a charm.

"I was actually thinking about asking Craig today if he wanted to go," she responded with an aura of vengeance dripping from every pore.

Kyle made a face and snapped his book shut. "Don't you think that's a bit harsh? He's Clyde's best friend, you know."

"Well, I don't think I need advice from someone who reads about guillotines on the way to school," she snapped at the Jew, narrowing her eyes. Kyle was a little surprised to learn that she had actually noticed what he was reading and even more surprised to learn that she knew what it was about. "Besides, you don't even know what it's like to be in a relationship one day and then be cheated on the next, kosher boy."

"You're right," he readily agreed. "I don't." He supposed it wasn't worth the trouble of informing her that Craig didn't exactly appear to "play for the right team," so to speak, and with that, Kyle dealt the coup de grâce to the conversation by deciding not to say anything, reopening his book instead and burying his nose once again in the eloquence that was Charles Dickens. He ignored Bebe as she pursed her lips in obvious frustration. He half-expected her to retort or scoff or at least say something, but at a warning look from Wendy, she also chose to let it go.

"Wendy, seriously, this weekend we need to go to the mall or something. All this work lately has been killing me," the blonde whined. "I need a break!"

Kyle still didn't understand girls even after being around them for years. He always assumed that "taking a break" meant sitting on one's ass for an entire afternoon with a movie or ten and a shitload of potato chips.

Wendy smiled. "I know… this week has been hell. How about noon on Saturday? We can go look at dresses, or something." Kyle noticed with an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach that Stan's hand was slowly making its way into the back pocket of his girlfriend's jeans. It wasn't obscene by any means, but it was enough to cause him to shiver in discomfort. Was that normal courting behavior? He wondered if it was some sort of sign that he was supposed to walk next to Bebe now.

Never.

Bebe, apparently, noticed his discomfort. "You need a scarf or something, Kyle?" She asked despite the stiff atmosphere, unwrapping the garment from around her own neck and offering it to him as a means of reconciliation.

Reluctantly, out of fear of starting an explosive argument, Kyle accepted it and wrapped it underneath his chin. He finally became aware of the coldness of his own neck when some of her residual body heat made its way through his skin. "Thanks," he replied awkwardly, glancing down at the soft material draped over his upper body.

"Don't worry, it doesn't make you look like a girl," Bebe said with a hint of a giggle in her musical voice. It was a nice voice; it often reminded him pleasantly of Kreisler's Rondino on a Theme… but he would never say that.

According to the majority of the population, that was not the proper way to woo a girl, nor was it very appealing.

However, Kyle let out a short laugh in spite of himself; it was so like her to point out something like that. But he was relieved that the scarf really was pretty much gender-neutral; it was made simply out of grey wool. "Thanks," he said again, not really sure of how to respond. There was no way he could tell her that what really made him uncomfortable was the fact that he would smell like her by the time the four of them got to class.

--

"Oh yeah? I bet you five billion dollars, you stupid asshole!" Eric Cartman, massive in both appearance and presence, stood on his chair five minutes before the bell rang, going about his usual manipulation duties as if he were king of the world.

Craig flipped off Cartman and shook his head so that the blue drawstrings of his hat swung back and forth over his broad, blue-clad shoulders. "You don't even have five dollars, you retard. Besides, there's no way people can switch bodies, even if they wanted to."

Cartman puffed up unattractively in a manner that was reminiscent of a bullfrog. "Yes there is, you guys! If you bang their heads together and knock them out, then they'll switch bodies!"

"No they won't! Gah! They'll just get a c-concussion! Or cancer!" Tweak gave a violent twitch and spilled his Harbucks coffee all over Craig, who responded by giving him the finger. "Oh, sweet Jesus! I'm sorry!"

"Yeah, I think Tweak's right, fat ass," a nasally voice confirmed. "I'm pretty sure you can't do that." Clyde gave a small sniffle and rubbed his runny nose with the back of his bare hand.

"No he isn't! That twitchy asshole's full of it!" Cartman insisted, ignoring Craig who again responded with his signature obscene hand gesture. "I saw people switching bodies all over the place on that show last night!"

"You mean Myth Busters?" Token asked, having just walked into the room. He put his books on his desk. "I watch it all the time… but I'm pretty sure they were faking that one."

"No they weren't! Those guys are legit! Right Kenny?"

Kenny McCormick glanced up from finishing his homework before the bell rang and replied with a shrug and a look through his snorkel parka that clearly said: "I really don't give a rat's ass, and I need to do my homework before I end up like my dad."

Cartman closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, something he had done since he was a child whenever he became extremely miffed. "Kenny… if you agree with me on this just this once, and I win Craig's five billion dollars, I swear to Jesus that I'll buy you a new house with a working shower so that you don't come to school smelling like ass every morning."

Kenny yelled something through his hood that sounded suspiciously like: "Shut up you cock-sucking piece of shit!"

It made Craig and Clyde laugh heartily, and it wasn't long before everyone else joined in obnoxiously.

Cartman floundered for a moment, trying to regain some level of control. "Butters agrees with me! Right, Butters?"

"Well, gee, Eric…" the addressed boy stammered, wringing his hands uncomfortably. "I would agree with you, but my dad says he'll ground me if I ever get tricked by you again."

"God damn it!"

"By George, Eric, I think Butters is right," Pip commented hesitantly, his British accent as obvious as ever. "I'm quite certain that it has been scientifically proven to be impossible."

"Oh, can it, you French piece of crap!"

Mr. Garrison, who had been dozing off at his desk before the bell lifted his head off of his hands. "Shut the hell up, Eric. It's too early for this." This command was met by a handful of stifled snickers from several of the amused onlookers.

"Guys, I'm seriously! Listen to me!" Cartman was quickly becoming a spectacle as the rest of the homeroom class wandered into the classroom still half-asleep. Kyle, Stan, Wendy, and Bebe were among them. "Kahl!" Cartman, yelled, spotting the Jew with his beady little eyes the moment he walked into the rom.

"What do you want, fat ass?"

"You tell these assholes that I'm right!"

Kyle raised an eyebrow; whenever Cartman came to him for help, it wasn't a good sign. "Right about what?" he asked, afraid of where the conversation was heading.

"That people can switch bodies!"

Kyle stood dumbfounded for several seconds. After all these years, was he still really that stupid? "That's retarded, Cartman!" He really was in no mood to deal with the ignorance of his least favorite person in the world.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kyle heard the bell ring. Within a few minutes, everyone else had found their seats; Stan and Wendy sat next to each other in the front while Bebe made her way over to Craig who was unsuccessfully trying to help Tweek put the lid back on his scorching cup of coffee.

"But, Kahl!" the fat boy whined, balling his hands into fists that resembled small bowling balls.

"Get out of the way!" Kyle tried in vain to push past Cartman's wide girth and make his way to his seat. "Move!" It was about as effective as trying to move a house; Cartman was fat, but there was a whole lot of muscle in there somewhere that made it impossible for the slimmer boy to beat him physically.

"Okay, Kahl… you just have to admit that I'm right, and I'll move," he attempted to negotiate while planting his feet a little more firmly into the ground.

"When have you ever been right before?!"

"Hm." Cartman put a finger on his chubby chin and pretended to seriously think about his answer. "There was that one time when I said you could crap out your mouth, and – good Lord – it worked! And there was another time when I said you became a pussy if you didn't eat meat, and then Stan suffered from vaginitis – look at that, Kahl. And there was another time – "

"Shut up, Cartman!" Kyle yelled, trying in vain to get to his seat, which seemed to be a world away. "That's not the point! I know this stupid idea won't work! It's physically impossible! Now move already!"

"Would you care to test that theory, Jew?" He blinked innocently and overdid a smile that was supposed to look sweet.

"No! I wouldn't! Now get the hell outta my way!"

"Eric, sit your fat ass down!" Before Cartman could answer, Mr. Garrison had dragged him by the arm to his desk where he sat down reluctantly in the creaking chair, muttering obscenities under his breath. Kyle took the only other empty desk in the classroom on Eric's right side.

"Sex-changing bastard…"

"Okay, class." Mr. Garrison had resumed his usual position at the front of the room. "We have a lot to learn today, and not a lot of time, so I'm going to take role, and – what, Eric?" he asked, for Cartman's hand had shot up into the air so quickly that Kyle felt a breeze rushing past his left ear.

"Mr. Garrison, I think we should discuss switching bodies with people."

Mr. Garrison wrinkled his brow and paused for a moment before responding to his request. "No, Eric, that's stupid and retarded. Okay, Token? Is Token here?" he inquired, returning to his roll sheet.

Token raised his dark hand, but so did Cartman, practically standing in his seat and looking as though he was about to pop a vein or two; his eyes were practically bulging out of his skull.

"Oh my God…" Kyle put his face in his hand as he tried to ignore the fat boy straining in the seat next to him. School was so gay.

"Eric, put down your god damn hand already!" Mr. Garrison yelled, his bald head glistening unpleasantly in the artificial lighting.

"Mr. Garrison, there is extreme relevance between switching bodies and our classroom curriculum," Cartman said professorially.

"Oh, really? How so?" Mr. Garrison tapped his black shoe rapidly against the floor with impatience.

"Well, take, for example, your sex change operations."

"That's not the same thing at all, Cartman!" Stan countered unexpectedly from his seat before the teacher could offer his own opinion on the matter.

"Yes it is, Stan."

"No it isn't," he replied, always the voice of reason in an ever ignorant world. "Mr. Garrison cut off his penis and turned into a chick! The thing that you're describing is like that thing that happened in Freaky Friday!"

Cartman put a hand to his heart and feigned hurt. "Are you calling Disney a liar, Stan?"

"Disney is a liar, dumbass!" Kyle interrupted angrily, irked at the fact that his education, already jeopardized from having such an incompetent teacher, was being further impeded.

The fat boy clicked his tongue in disbelief. "Disney's a liar? Would you call Jesus a liar too, Kahl?" He chuckled in an arrogant manner. "Well, you are a Jew, after all," he stated patronizingly.

"That's enough, Eric!"

"But, Mr. Garr – "

"Okay, fatso… you're going to see the school counselor!" Herbert Garrison, in the midst of another mood swing, must've had some extra estrogen in his system since the sex change, but nevertheless, he violently opened his desk and pulled out a stack of red referral notes. "'Name… Eric Cartman. Crime… being a smartass! Punishment…'" he muttered to himself while filling out the form. He tore it off the pad with more force than was necessary and shoved it into Cartman's pudgy hand.

"Fuck!" Cartman yelled loudly, throwing his hat onto the floor and glaring angrily at several people behind him who didn't even bother to hide their laughter.

"Watch your language!" Mr. Garrison put his hands on his hips aggressively. "You, Kyle," he demanded, pointing an accusing finger at the Jewish boy. "Go with him to the office an make sure he doesn't pull anything stupid."

Kyle groaned, slumping in his seat and wishing that he were back home in bed. "But, Mr. Garrison – "

"NOW!" The teacher's face had taken on a rather disturbing puce tint that clashed horribly with his green windbreaker.

Kyle, already angry and uncomfortable, stood up stiffly and followed Cartman into the hall, allowing his boots to make an unnecessarily loud thump every time he took a step; it felt analogous to walking to one's doom.

It was an unjust punishment, he decided. Not only was he forced to miss class, but he was also subjected to being in the presence of the leader of the modern-day Nazi cult for an interminable minute and a half. Mr. Garrison was a dick, Kyle concluded, regardless of his gender.

"Don't be sore, Kahl. Is it just that time of the month?" Cartman jabbed Kyle in the ribs with his referral slip as a means to provoke him as the two boys walked down the hallway. It was empty save for a couple that had snuck out of their respective classes to engage in a lip lock behind a water fountain. Kyle didn't care. They did that every day without reservations.

"Don't push me, fat ass! I'm not in the mood!" He was being completely serious.

"Kahl, this could've been prevented had you simply grown some balls and admitted that I was right." As usual, Cartman's logic made very little sense.

"About what?!"

"About switching bodies. I mean, seriously, grow a pair, Kahl. You even smell like a girl." He pinched his nose as if Kyle was giving off an odor of skunk and rotten cheese in the middle of the battlefield after Antietam.

Kyle blinked, revolted by the implication of that statement; the fat bastard was smelling him now? "You stupid asshole!"

"It's okay if you're menstruating, Kyle… Just let it all out." He snickered as the comment took on a new meaning in his mind. "Let it all out! Everything!" He burst into a fit of laughter that was surely loud enough to attract the attention of some of the other teachers.

Feeling the urge to strangle the fatter boy (though admitting it would be difficult to reach all the way around his neck, which was hidden beneath several chins), Kyle shoved him through Mr. Mackey's office door before he did something he would later regret.

"Mmkay," he heard the school counselor drone through the door, the silhouette of his prodigious cranium evident through the glass panel. "Being a smart ass is bad, mmkay. Don't do it."

Kyle spun on his heel as soon as he was sure that Cartman wouldn't be walking back out anytime soon and stomped back to class. He decided to take a trip to the bathroom before being trapped again in a room with a bunch of idiots; school was so super gay, and Cartman was a dipshit.

The loo smelled like piss, as usual, but Kyle walked over to the sink and stared at his reflection in the mildew-covered mirror. He didn't look at all like a girl, he decided, removing his ushanka and glaring at his frizzy excuse for a head of hair. He was fairly masculine looking; he was wiry, but at least he wasn't curvy like Tweek. Maybe that was why Craig had been staring at that poor caffeine-driven boy all of a sudden… No, Kyle wasn't built like Stan, but he definitely looked like a healthy young man. He contented himself by saying internally that he physically resembled Stephan Braun from that German ensemble and felt better about himself. Though, maybe his eyes, in all their startling greenness, did look a bit feminine.

He turned on the rusty faucet and promptly splashed his face with cold water, shuddering as it ran in small icy streams down his neck. That was when he noticed that he was still wearing Bebe's scarf snugly around his windpipe. Remembering what Cartman had said, he raised one end to his nose, hands still dripping with tap water, and inhaled hesitantly against the coarse material. It was an obliging but faint smell of some floral shampoo that made his heart flutter ever so slightly in his chest. He didn't really feel like returning it all of a sudden and pocketed it instead.

Drying his hands on the outside of his coat, Kyle exited the bathroom and proceeded to walk to class, though taking extra care to take smaller steps and drag his feet a little bit as he walked. There was no real reason for him to be eager to get back to Mr. Garrison's lecture about Brad, Angelina, and the twelve kids they had decided to adopt in the last year.

It happened so fast that the Jewish boy didn't even have time to react. As soon as he had turned the corner, a blonde blur came dashing from the other direction with the force of a small herd. He heard a small shout of surprise before he collided with Bebe, hitting his unfortunate skull somewhere on her person and falling limp against the cool tile floor.

Somewhere around him he heard several voices.

He heard the opening and slamming of classroom doors and then nothing more as he slipped into blissful oblivion.

Author's Note: So… what did you guys think? Did it at least entertain you all a little bit? I hope it has at least made you excited to read more! Please review! It would make me one happy camper! :D I'll do my best to update this as often as I can, but it'll be difficult with seven honors classes… Ugh. So, look forward to the next update! I can already tell that I'm going to have a lot of fun writing this!

Sorry for you guys who didn't understand some of the references I made in this chapter. There were several musical allusions in this; I don't know if you can tell, but I'm a total music nut. If you're interested at all in Kreisler or Stephan Braun (the ensemble's name is "Deep Strings," by the way), try looking up the Rondino on a Theme and the remake of Norah Jones's "Don't Know Why" on youtube – the man has got some amazing skill with a cello. xD