The Trials of Homecoming

Summary: At six twenty-two and seventeen seconds, Alfred F. Jones, the hero who feared nothing, realized one very important thing-Homecoming was indeed coming and he still needed to ask out his date. America/Fem!Canada

Warning: This story contains no plot, Fem!Canada, Fem!Poland, Fem!North Italy, stupidity, Father!England, crazy narrators, Uncle!France, Marching Band, crazy Russian foreign exchange students, an even crazier main character, CrazyAunt!Hungary, shameless favorite song referencing, Fem!PolandxLithuania, brief cameos of characters, (don't get too excited) Fem!CanadaxAmerica, Crazy Awesome P.E. teachers, Russian Water, and scary Algebra 2/Trig teachers.

Alfred F. Jones was afraid of nothing. Well, technically speaking, he had a perpetual fear of surprise times table quizzes Mr. Beillschmidt was inclined to giving, French tests he 'forgot' to study for, the vegetarian pizza in the cafeteria, and he certainly had an extreme dislike for the sight of dried gum on the bottom of chairs, but those were all rather minor things that Alfred classified as 'Unimportant Most of the Time.' So, relatively speaking, Alfred F. Jones was afraid of nothing.

But—and there always was such a statement for every protagonist— there was one thing that didn't quite fall under 'Nothing' and 'Unimportant Most of the Time' that Alfred F. Jones might have been the tiniest bit scared of (notice it is 'scared' not 'afraid' just because it seems to be the lesser of the two) and that something concerned a girl; namely a girl carrying the name of Matilda W. Kirkland and namely asking her to the Homecoming Dance.

The facts were these: Matilda W. Kirkland, or Mattie, was in Alfred's Math, French, Band, Biology and History classes and had been for the past three years of his school life, and over the years, Alfred had noticed the way she was pretty without really trying to be pretty with her long, wavy blond hair always in two long, perfect pigtails fastened with a red ribbon and how an odd curl always stuck out from her part.

He also noticed her shy smile that always reached her blue-violet eyes, the exact shade of Alfred's best watercolor painting in sixth grade art, where he mixed the blue and purple together to color the sky. He also noticed that he thought her silver, thin wired glasses made her look particularly smart and that, even though she usually wore long skirts and baggy jackets, she always fit her clothes quite nicely.

But, he had only noticed all of this on one particular day in early September, when he seemed to be having a day full of epiphanies.

It was precisely eleven o' four, thirty-seven seconds on September seventh of Alfred's freshman year in high school that he was entering into the French classroom when he discovered two rather important things. One was that if he retrieved all his books from his bag before the previous class dismissed, he'd be able to stop off at his locker to drop them off without wasting time trying to get them out. Two was that day was Wednesday, which meant they were dismissed five minutes early from their fifth hour class, as French was his fifth hour, to go to the cafeteria in hopes of beating the crowd to the Wednesday special, which, in other words, is the highly delicious pasta. (Loved by Italians and Americans alike.) Upon taking his assigned seat, Alfred noticed one more thing that seemed to be rather important, and that was that Matilda W. Kirkland was wearing a very pretty white blouse that day over an equally pretty blue undershirt. This is, when he then noticed her adorable pigtails and then her adorable laugh—although Alfred would never openly admit such a thing out loud. And it was at this time, precisely eleven o' four and fifty-four seconds, that young Alfred F. Jones noticed that Matilda W. Kirkland was rather pretty in general, although he hardly thought the simple word did anyone like Matilda W. Kirkland justice.

So that is how, on October first, at the fine time of six twenty-two and seventeen seconds that Alfred found himself just finishing up his Algebra 2/Trig. homework that barely made him bat an eye as he focused his attention on a rather important dilemma that he put off the whole entire day thinking about. It was particularly hard to do, since the cause of said problem was in five of his seven classes and he also felt that he was running away from this 'fear'—but he would never ever admit that out loud either.

Letting out a thoughtful sigh, he considered the options he had worked out. One was to try asking her out and her saying no, two was to be a scardy-cat and not ask at all, (which would probably lead to him sitting at home the night of Homecoming, watching re-runs of sappy romance movies from the 80's with his Uncle, which was an experience he didn't particular enjoy…especially when his Uncle started to cry all over his shoulder and suffocate him in a hug), and three was to try asking her and just end up having a seizure from being so nervous.

He couldn't quite figure out why all his possible scenarios led to utter disaster and/or mentally scaring experiences.

It was at this point, at precisely six thirty, that his Uncle, who served as his resident guardian and father-figure, wandered into the study-den where Alfred always found himself doing his homework to announce it was time for another of his fabulously cooked dinners. It took precisely two seconds and thirty-eight milliseconds for Alfred's Uncle Francis to guess exactly what his nephew was pondering and instantly knew what the answer to his problem was.

"What's her name?" asked the Uncle as he settled across from Alfred on the floor and the coffee table, still covered in math formulas and equations that Francis found utterly sickening to look at.

Alfred responded with something very intelligent like 'hmph-meph' that made his Uncle briefly question his nephew being in all honors classes and getting straight A's, while he was at it.

"I don't speak Alfred-ish," Francis said teasingly, if only to annoy his nephew.

He got the desired effect as said nephew mumbled another incoherent phrase, but this time in a miffed tone. But instead of leaving it at that, he said in plain, normal English, "Ma-Matilda Kir-Kirkland." Well, more like plain, normal, stuttered English.

"Ah," Uncle Francis nodded wisely. Francis was one of those few people that one happens to come across from time to time that had the uncanny way of knowing everything and everyone.

The facts were these: At the exact age of five years, seven months, seventeen days, four hours, forty-one minutes, and three seconds old, a young Francis Bonnefoy awoke to the realization that he should be a gourmet chef, before promptly falling asleep once more. It was from that early time in the morning in his young life that he began to venture into the kitchen to help cook and at the exact time he turned fifteen, (which happened to be July fourteenth, five after ten o'clock in the morning) thus making him old enough to get a job in a restaurant, he went out and did just that. It was then that young Francis began to gain another skill, and that was a way of knowing everything and everyone, since a kitchen of a small restaurant of an equally small town was a hive of gossip.

And in this particular instance, Francis was not in need of explanation either. He knew it already; she preferred a four-stack plate of regular buttermilk pancakes, two large two-percent milks, a bottle of warm maple syrup, and butter.

"Yeah," Alfred said in a way of agreement, almost as if he was confirming the information Francis' mind had come up with, before he added, "I really, really want to ask her to Homecoming."

"So?" prompted Francis, who was also a bit of an expert on all things concerning love as well as cooking and knowing things. "Why don't you? She won't say yes unless you try."

"But…I'm really, really," dare he say it? "afraid she'll say no," Alfred said, sounding more miserable now that he admitted he was afraid of something: the dilemma he found himself in.

Matilda W. Kirkland, or Mattie, was afraid of nothing. Well, in all reality, she was petrified of talking too loudly when their was that awkward lull in conversation in class, a large plate of cold, soggy pancakes being dumped over her head, the vegetarian pizza in the cafeteria, and she certainly had an extreme dislike of putting empty candy wrappers in her pocket. But, those were things she liked to pretend she didn't have a fear and/or phobia of most of the time. So, in a manner of ways, Matilda W. Kirkland was afraid of nothing.

But, as there is always such a statement for every protagonist, there was one thing that wasn't talking too loudly, soggy pancakes, vegetarian pizza, or empty wrappers that she might have the slightest fear of (notice the usage of the word 'slightest') and this one thing was named Alfred F. Jones. But, more correctly and specifically, talking to Alfred F. Jones.

The facts were these: Alfred F. Jones, or Al, was in Mattie's French, Biology, Band, Math, and History classes and had been for the past three years of her school life, and, ever since she first saw him, she thought he was very handsome without particularly trying to be. With his messy, tussled golden hair like the sun itself, always looking only slightly better than a rag-muffin's and the strange little piece of hair sticking up from the part of his hair that seemed to utterly refuse laying flat and enjoyed making a mockery of gravity.

She thought his happy and contagious smile—with every single of his perfectly straight, white teeth showing, without fail, every single time—was the high points of her day and that he always held a glimmer of mischief and laughter in his bright cerulean-blue eyes, the exact shade of the pristine water the Mediterranean sea was on one of the pre-programmed screen savers on her father's work desktop. She also thought that his thin-wired glasses made his eyes look even more blue and that, even though he never seemed to care much about what he wore, he always looked good in his slightly baggy blue jeans and favorite 'Who's Your Hero?' t-shirt.

She had thought all this for the first time one particular day in late August, which seemed to be a day full realizations.

It was exactly eight o'clock, ten minutes, and fifty-one seconds in the morning on August twenty-seventh of young Mattie's sixth grade year of school, making it the first day of it that she scurried into her assigned homeroom after briefly getting lost on the way—which was a bit of an accomplishment all by itself. As she entered into the classroom she realized two rather important things. One was that she had somehow lost the little pink flower her father had worked very hard at situating just right on her left ear and the second was that she wasn't the last person to arrive to class, since half the desks were empty, which was much to the young girl's relief.

The teacher smiled brightly at the young girl, who was feeling a little miserable that she had lost her pink flower, but instead of inquiring about little Mattie's sad state, showed her to her seat before hurrying off to assist the other new students. It was at exactly eight o'clock; seventeen minutes and forty-nine seconds that Mattie chanced a look at the door to see a rather boisterous blond striding into the classroom.

"Have no fear," he announced to the class, his golden blond hair tussled and glasses pushed all the way up his nose, "The hero is here!" And before anyone could think of anything to say in response to this rather loud remark, he seemed to catch sight of something, "Hey!" That something was Mattie. He hurried over to her, producing a little pink flower from nowhere, it would seem. "I saw you drop this. I was gonna give it back right away, but you didn't hear me calling."

Mattie opened her mouth to reply as the slightest dusting of pink, almost the same shade of flower's petals, appeared on her cheeks in the beginning of a blush, but before she could say anything, the boy said, "No need to thank me. It's my job to be the hero!" Without any further ado, he flashed her a million-dollar smile before hurrying over to another kid, a rather slim Japanese boy, who he greeted brightly.

It was at that exact moment, approximately eight eighteen and fourteen seconds, that Mattie's young, sixth grade heart gave a little flutter and she had found she had fallen for a boy that she would later know as Alfred F. Jones.

So that is why, on October first, at the fine time of seven o'clock in the evening, Mattie was setting aside the wooden spoon and turning off the burner, as she pronounced the stir-fry done which, in turn, pulled her out of her thoughts, which seemed to have been orbiting around one subject in particular. There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it, she had decided. She was determined to talk to Alfred the following day, if only to say hello. How did she honestly expect to go to Homecoming with him if the only time they ever talked was if they were assigned to be in same group for class projects?

Leaving her newly made resolution to be thought of at a later time, she turned to grab the plates, calling as she did, "Dad!"—who she had long since banned from doing anything in the kitchen except brew tea—"Dinner's ready."

"Be right in," came the reply from somewhere in the recesses of the house, most likely the small library. It took three minutes, twelve seconds, and thirty-nine milliseconds for Mattie to get the placemats, silverware, and milk for her and a tall iced water for her dad, in which time; Arthur Kirkland had made his way into the kitchen, helping himself to a large serving of stir-fry as he did.

"Smells lovely dear," he complimented as she joined him at the table and after they had said grace.

Seeing as anything smelt better than her father's cooking but that she was much too polite to point out this little fact, she just smiled and said, "Thanks."

"Oh, I was meaning to tell you," Arthur said, "Your Aunt Elizaveta and Uncle Roderich are coming down this weekend and Elizaveta has practically threatened me into letting her abduct you Saturday to go shopping for a dress, apparently. Is that alright?"

Mattie couldn't help but to let a smile light up her face. Aunt Lizzie, as she was often called, was her favorite Aunt in the whole world, since they were both some of the few women in a very large family of men and certainly the only two that got along well enough to spend a whole day shopping together. "That's great!" she replied with an eager smile, looking forward to Saturday already, despite it only being Monday.

"Good, she was quite determined and I hardly think I could've talked her out of it even if you had shingles or something of the sort," he paused for a moment, as if something had just occurred to him, and he asked, "Why do you need a dress anyway? Is there a school dance coming up?"

Mattie sighed and rolled her eyes at the look of slight confusion on her father's face before saying, "Homecoming, Dad. Remember?"

"Oh, right," Arthur replied, looking like he didn't really remember, but Mattie hardly blamed him. Homecoming wasn't an event she was particularly looking forward to, well, that is, as long as a certain person still hadn't asked her out. "So, do you have a date yet?"

Mattie was taken back a bit at this sudden question as she glanced up at her father, who looked inquisitively at her, almost as if he knew. "No," she replied, trying to sound like she wasn't an anxious, nervous wreck about this.

"Ah," said her Dad, as he always did when he figured out a puzzle. "What's the lad's name?"

"D-d-dad!" Mattie spluttered out around a mouthful of stir-fry, cheeks flaming in embarrassment. It was one thing having a girl-to-girl talk with her best friends or Aunt, but it was completely another having one with her dad. But he just remained as calm as ever, sipping at his usual glass of water like they were discussing the weather.

"Come, come now, Matilda," he said in that annoyingly knowing way of his, "I'm not completely ignorant. I grew up with your Aunt Lizzie after all. I can tell when a girl is smitten, and you, my dear, seem to have been for the past three years."

Mattie's face flushed a brilliant red. This was embarrassing.

The facts were these: Arthur Kirkland, at the age of seventeen years, two months, eleven days, twenty-three hours, fourteen minutes, and forty-two seconds old, was holding a rather hysterical younger sister. Being the youngest son in the family, Arthur was usually never the one to turn to for comfort, but, since all three of his elder brothers were off at their various collages, he was left with the responsibility to comfort his sobbing sister. He had long since figured out the cause of her tears, having seen her long time boyfriend being kissed by another girl, and had found it best to be straight forward with his sister, since it seemed to return a bit of sense to her. As he swayed ever so slightly in an effort to calm her, Arthur finally realized the reason for all the wistful sighs Lizzie had uttered around that time. It was then, at eleven fourteen and forty two seconds at night on April seventeenth, that a young Arthur realized something rather important, and it wasn't that he was going to need to beat up a rather obnoxious fifteen-year-old boy sometime soon.

This rather important realization was how women acted when they were in love, or specifically, had a crush one someone.

"You know, if you don't tell me and he show's up at our doorstep on the night of Homecoming, I know full well how to load a colonial musket quite like the one above the fire place, which, if I may add, is indeed functional," Arthur said, allowing himself to tease his flustered daughter, if only just a little.

"Dad!" Mattie said, now looking mortified, making him slightly grin. He, at that precise moment of seven and thirty-seven seconds past seven, realized that one of the perks of being a father to a teenage daughter was threatening teenage boys with two hundred year old muskets.

He gave her an expectant look.

"Fine," she muttered, never able to resist not telling her Dad something, "His name's Alfred."

"Today is the day!" Alfred announced to his lunch table at twelve o' nine and twenty-three seconds on October seventh of his freshman year in high school. For the past three days he had initiated 'Plan Hero!' (a.k.a. Plan: Talk to Mattie as much as possible and then ask her to Homecoming) which is to say, he had been doing exactly what the other name of Plan Hero entailed. In second hour-Band, third hour-Algebra 2/Trig, fourth hour-Honors Biology, fifth hour-French 3, and sixth-World History he went out of his way to talk to a certain blond haired girl, meaning he had taken his Uncle's word as scripture and was following almost-all of it down to the letter. Thus far, he hadn't made himself look like a complete and total idiot. Well, only a little bit, anyway.

The facts were these: On October fourth, at eight twenty four and three seconds with a minute to spare before passing period was over, he had waltzed into the band room, retrieving his tenor saxophone in record time before hurrying over to his concert band chair just seconds before the band director took the podium, giving him barely enough time to wave and shout a cheery good morning to one Matilda W. Kirkland, who sat two rows up and three seats to the left in her position as first chair clarinet.

After that, he hadn't gotten a chance to talk to her until math class, taught by the rather strict and intimidating blond Mr. Beillschmidt, (brother to the Awesome Coach Beillschmidt, Al's P.E. teacher, whose gym class really was awesome since they had dodge ball tournaments every Friday instead of fitness days) where the two sat right next to each other. As soon as she slid into her chair—Alfred having bolted there so as to not miss a second of opportunity—he waved hello to her again and struck up a conversation about a math problem from the night before. Their conversation was cut off by Mr. Beillschmidt, calling the classroom to attention. For the rest of the school day of October fourth, Alfred would race off to the next class—after telling Mattie he'd see her there, naturally—and would patiently await her arrival so as to carry on their conversation.

And so, over the course of those three days, they had somehow found their way onto the topic of books and had a continuing conversation during the passing periods before and after their shared classes about their opinions on various books—particularly Harry Potter vs. Twilight, which they were both mutually agreed upon was a pointless argument since everyone knows Quidditch is far better than sparkly 'vampires.' (Notice the quotations.) This statement, made by Mattie and not Al, surprisingly, had made Al fall even harder for the girl—or that's what he would recount later while describing this event.

"Comrade?" blinked the large purple eyes of one Russian exchange student who had taken to sitting with Alfred and his friends ever since his arrival to the United States at the beginning of the school year, using his word choice just to annoy Alfred. "Are you alright?" His question was a perfectly fair one, since Alfred had proclaimed his announcement as he had jumped from his seat, making everyone in close proximity to their lunch table blink at him.

"Shut it, Ruski," Alfred said but in a perfectly friendly way despite his words. Ever since the first day of school, during gym class, him and the Russian—Ivan, as was his name—had a bit of a friendly rivalry with each other, usually bickering between one another although they really had become friends remarkably fast. "You're totally un-heroing everything!"

Kiku, Alfred's long time friend—since they had lived next door to one another ever since Al had moved in with his Uncle when he was four—just sighed at the sight of his over-energetic friend and continued on his conversation with Heracles and Sadiq, other members of their rather large group of friends, concerning baseball.

"But, like, seriously Al, what are you talking about?" asked Felikity, who was a new member of the group and the only girl that sat with them on a regular basis—which Alfred was hoping to change—but everyone had just made space for her, since she had gotten Toris, their particularly shy brown-haired friend, out of his shell a bit.

"I'm going to ask Mattie to Homecoming in World History!" he declared.

"Well that's, like, unromantic," Felikity said dryly, in much the same way as Uncle Francis had done the night before upon hearing his nephew's idea.

Which led to why at exactly nine o' seven and thirty-five seconds at night after a particularly tiring marching band rehearsal, everyone in the sizable band was huddled around one of the podiums to hear what their band director had to say before they were allowed to go home to get some sleep or finish up some last minute homework. Everyone, that is, except Alfred. He had snuck his way over to the side of the field where his Uncle was standing, who had turned up because Al 'accidentally' forgot his water bottle. After discreetly handing his nephew something that was most defiantly not a water bottle, Francis gave his nephew the slightest of winks and a smile before Al turned to merge into the crowd once more.

Once everyone was dismissed, most began to head back up to the school and band room so as to put instruments away for the evening. Most of them were walking at a reasonably slow pace as well, but Alfred fast-walked through the slow crowd as he caught up with just the girl he was looking for.

"Hey, Mattie?" he asked as he reached her side, making the blond girl, who always wore her hair in pigtails, stop and turn to look at him, slight surprise on her face. "Um, I've been meaning to ask you…if you'd…umm…go to Homecoming…with me?" The last part was when the small but still rather pretty bouquet of little pink flowers, not unlike Mattie's temporarily lost one in sixth grade, was brought into her view.

A smile lit up her face.

The facts were these: The first thing Matilda W. Kirkland did when she got home was call her best friend in the whole world—Felicia Vargas—and the two girls proceeded to gush the night away and giggle over the phone, which continued on the next day when they saw each other at school. The flowers that Francis had given Al who had given to Mattie sat rather proudly on the kitchen table in the Kirkland's best vase, so as to be gushed over by Aunt Lizzie when she came on Saturday, and even Arthur a bit, since only a gentleman gave lady flowers and he decided that Mattie's lad might be at least a tiny bit deserving of his little girl—not completely deserving, since no one really is. (Although he would deny this fact in favor of saying he'd rather threaten him with a musket.)

Aunt Lizzie and Mattie's shopping trip into the city was a success, as they returned with twelve rather expensive gowns all charged on Daddy Kirkland's credit card. (Arthur's blood pressure skyrocketed.) She ended up wearing the gold one. And when the day finally arrived, and so did the young man, Arthur had to hesitantly admit that he was up to snuff, although he didn't deny himself the pleasure of menacingly polishing the musket while the two plus family were getting situated for pictures.

It was a lovely night for mostly everyone, Francis had a delightful time antagonizing Arthur—it would seem they had a natural inclination to annoy each other—Arthur got to threaten someone with his musket, even if it wasn't Alfred. Mattie was absolutely stunning and had a great time dancing with all her friends but—most of all—Alfred, Alfred had a great time at the fancy Italian restaurant and getting to slow dance with Mattie. Aunt Lizzie got many adorable pictures of her niece and date. Ivan, although unsuccessful in spiking the punch with 'Russian Water', had found that he had a new love for the song 'Rasputin' by Bobby Farrell from Boney M. Felicia meet a rather mysterious blond haired boy which would lead to a rather Hollywood-worthy romance. Kiku got large amounts of photographic blackmail from the whole evening, while Toris and Felikity…well they were nowhere to be found most of the night and everyone thought it best to leave it at that.

The only one that didn't seem to enjoy all the festivities was Uncle Roderich, but that was solely because he was suffering from severe piano withdrawal.

Needless to say, Mattie, when faced with the bouquet of small pink flowers, had said yes. She also said yes when she was faced with a pure silver band with a white diamond set on it.

Alfred F. Jones was afraid of nothing and neither was Matilda W. K. Jones.

A/N: So, I think I had way too much fun writing this and now my favorite couple is America/Fem!Canada…I tried to write this in a fairytale/Pushing Daisies kind of style, so I hope I didn't fail too terribly hard. Also, big thanks to my sis, hillyhp2590, for her help with the summary! ('Cause she's a genius) And, although you guys probably got this while you were reading:

Felicia=Feliciano

Felikity=Feliks

Matilda=Matthew

And also, I know it's a little strange that Arthur is Matilda's dad and Francis is Alfred's father-figure, because usually it's vice-versa, but I really wanted Arthur to get to threaten someone with his musket, and he couldn't do that if he was Al's dad and I figured Francis and Al could be uncle and nephew, since Francis helped Al out in the Revolution. So, anyway thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed, and please leave review!