Recess in high school.
Tj Detweiler, to absolutely nobody’s surprise, becomes student body president in freshman year. Then repeats the success all the way to graduation. Among his accomplishments are once again doing battle with Mr White, this time over a controversial educational decree Mr White tries to enforce in the wake of a terrible real life tragedy. Tj believes that a good percentage of the student body should not be punished because of the actions of a few terrible people that they have nothing to do with. Tj wins. This also proves to be the final time he faces Mr White. He does go to his funeral though. After all. A good man always pays his final respects. It’s just good manners.
Spinelli’s was Third Street Elementary’s very first Queen of the Playground. Building off of this she becomes the First Lady of Third Street High School. Her and Tj didn’t start actually dating until freshman year of high school. But as everyone said. It was only a matter of time. Spinelli’s style never really changes as she gets older. The most that happens is she ditches the pigtails and gets trousers that look like her old tights. She moves in with Muriel when her parents have to move to Cancun for work.
Vince is still a jack of all trades sports wise. But now he’s scaled back to just soccer and baseball to focus on being TJ’s vice president. He and Gretchen started dating in sophomore year of high school after she asked him to the winter dance. He keeps his elementary school haircut because it works for him. If it isn’t broke then why fix it?
Gretchen is still the smartest kid in school. But she has set her dreams of NASA aside for the time being so she can act as TJ’s Chief Of Staff to the very best of her considerable ability. She asked Vince to the winter dance in sophomore year because it was girls ask boys and they’ve been together ever since. She ditched the pigtails in middle school and now has a simple French braid. It keeps her hair out of her eyes.
Mikey never really slims down as he enters his teenage years. He and Spinelli still do ballet with each other. They received a standing ovation for their performance of Swan Lake during the senior year showcase. He takes his role as TJ’s Speech writer astonishingly seriously. He and Gus started dating in junior year. They didn’t know how to tell Gus’s parents. But luckily Principal Grotke was there and it couldn’t have gone better.
Gus shot up like a weed somewhere between the end of elementary school and the start of high school. He is now the exact same height as Mikey and just a little bit taller than Vince and Gretchen. He joined Muriel’s boxing club to both improve his self esteem and to better protect TJ as his self appointed bodyguard. He didn’t know how to break it to his father that he was dating Mikey, remember that this was during DADT, but thankfully his parents accepted him as he is. They were just happy that he was happy.
Peter Prickly never becomes a middle school principal like he always wanted to be. Instead he gets a promotion, or demotion depending on how you look at it, to homeroom teacher for Third Street High School. To Peter’s mild amusement, not that he would ever admit it, he actually becomes the gangs own personal George Feeny as their homeroom and English teacher for every year that they are in high school.
Alordayne Grotke becomes the principal of Third Street High School. She proves to be an exceptionally competent principal who is genial and approachable who helps usher in a new era of tolerance at the school, who is behind Tj and the gang 100% of the way but knows when to bring the thunder when needed. She is also instrumental in finally getting Peter and Muriel together. With a little bit of help from Tj of course.
Muriel Finster becomes Grotke’s vice principal. She is in charge of discipline at the school. Having mellowed out somewhat between elementary and high school, instead of just dolling out detentions like she used to, she implements a three strikes rule. If you use up your strikes you either get detention or you can join her after school boxing club. It proves to be surprisingly effective. Especially for a lot of the bullied students. Muriel also becomes Spinelli’s legal guardian after her parents have to move to Cancun for work.
Randall found himself adrift in high school. Muriel no longer needed an informant. So to fuel his pathological need to snitch on people. He joined the schools newspaper. He is now a thorn in Menlo’s side instead of the entire student body. But Menlo never suffered fools very well. So more often than not Randall ends up with bupkis.
Menlo and Tj are friends in public again. His time in middle school proved humbling for Menlo. So he is marginally less stuck up than he used to be. Now he spends his time as President Detweiler’s Press Secretary. He takes his new duties incredibly seriously to the point that not even Randall can get any damning information out of him. He is also partially responsible for Mr White’s untimely death. Who knew that not letting a crazy man incriminate a 16 year old boy would lead to a fatal stroke?
Irwin got expelled from Third Street High School in his sophomore year for an incredibly inappropriate use of bathroom soap and grape soda. Gus was very happy to suggest a French military school at Principal Grotke’s request. So now the gang do not have to worry about Irwin Lawson or his annoying voice ever again.
Ashley Armbruster’s family loses their fortune in an embezzlement scandal which forces her to go to Third Street High School instead of the exclusive California boarding school that her parents had promised she could go to. She also had to move into Spinelli’s old house when her parents went to Cancun. Neither are happy about that. But Spinelli greatly enjoys telling her lies about the house. Gretchen however took pity on the fallen socialite and convinced Tj to appoint her as his new PR manager.
Ashley Boulet went on a date to the movies with the son of her father’s rival during the summer before high school. So instead of the exclusive California boarding school. Boulet got shipped off to a Catholic boarding school for girls in Belgium.
Ashley Quinlan’s father surprised the family with an all expenses paid four year long vacation to Cancun right before her freshman year started. It would be perfect if they didn’t have to keep swapping hotels to escape the federal Agents Spinelli and Spinelli who barely let the Quinlan family have a month alone to themselves.
Ashley Tomassian is the only Ashley who goes to the exclusive California boarding school. She loves it. She is now an individual. She is the leader of a whole new discriminatorily vicious clique. She doesn’t have to go by her initial anymore. She has the first pick of the best boys. And she couldn’t be any happier if she tried.
Robert “King Bob” Carmichael ends up becoming Third Street High School’s drama teacher. He is also TJ’s biggest supporter outside of Prickly, Grotke and Finster. He is actually the reason why Tj ran for student body president in every year of high school. Bob might not be the king of the playground anymore. But he still knows that every school, especially high school, will only ever benefit from Tj Detweiler’s existence.
Franklin “The Dude” Dudikoff is the new history teacher at Third Street High School. He tries to cover as much as the district will allow. He still makes it fun. But he also knows when to discipline the students. As Ashley Armbruster found out when she tried to do her makeup during class. But he is still the students favourite teacher apart from Grotke, Prickly and Finster. He was also the last one to see Mr White alive. But Franklin doesn’t like talking about it very much. For obvious reasons.
Former Mayor Phillip Fitzhugh has fallen on hard times recently. He had gotten caught embezzling funds for public schools into a private golf course. So he is now the janitor at Third Street High School. He keeps trying to relive his political career vicariously through Tj. But President Detweiler never wants to listen to him. So he has to clean up after punk teenagers until either the funds are repaid or he dies of old age. Whichever one happens to him first. And Phillip is praying that it is the latter.
Aloysius White was whip smart right up until the very end. But after repeated battles of wits with Theodore Jasper Detweiler. January 2002 proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Aloysius tried to get a large percentage of students banned from attending the school. After very long debate with Theodore and an even longer tirade aimed at Dudikoff who Aloysius thought was Austrian. The horrible old man suffered a fatal, and very painful, stroke and died in Principle Grotke’s office.
