709. Chapter 709

After Need to Know

Episode 6.03

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I'm too Castleless to own cool. Um, wait…. Rating: K Time: See above.

"I'd be perfect for the role, Richard."

Castle smiled, hoping he could let his mother down easily. "Don't you think the role calls for someone who's more of an.…ingénue?" He said, carefully.

Martha gave him a withering glare. "Are you saying I'm too old for the part? Not sexy enough perhaps? Over the hill? To be put out to pasture? Gone and forgotten?"

"Martha? Is something wrong?" Jim Beckett and Kate walked out onto the porch of the Castle's home in the Hamptons, where they were having breakfast.

"Richard doesn't think I'm suitable for a part in the screenplay he's writing. It's this very sexy older woman."

Kate turned and smiled. "Castle, you're writing a screenplay? For a Nikki Heat movie? Which book?"

"It's not a Nikki Heat screenplay." He said cautiously. "It's a Too Cool for School screenplay."

Kate laughed. "But, you're a mystery writer. You're really trying to write something for Too Cool for School? Really?"

"Yes, really. It turns out the show really is big in Russia and the rest of Europe. So, even after the Renkov crime family dropped the project, there was still interest, and money available for a movie. And, I know a guy, who knows a guy who's looking for a script for the movie. With both of the stars unavailable, it'll be a while before they can get back in production and if it becomes a franchise like The Fast and Furious, or Star Wars, they'll need more scripts."

"Richard, you're a mystery writer with the most fascinating character of all living with you." Martha smiled. "That's me, of course. Why write about high school?"

Castle frowned. "Because Heat Wave went straight to DVD and didn't even become a huge cult hit. It didn't become anything. And I went to high school. Do you think I can't write about my experiences there?"

"Richard, darling…."

"I remember it like it was yesterday….

Rick Rodgers drove his classic 1965 bright red Mustang convertible into the school parking lot. He smiled and waved at the girls who were standing outside of school gossiping. He smiled at the boys standing in a group, cupping cigarettes in their hands, hoping no teacher noticed them. Tom and Josh and the rest of the losers. Rick thought. They'll never amount to much. They're not very good academically. I mean they're not on the Dean's List every semester like I am, nor are they good at sports like me. After all, I've lettered in every sport offered here. Socially….Well, Tom did manage to get a date last year, but she went to the ladies' room and never came back.

Rich was interrupted by one of his many girlfriends. "Ricky, honey, can I come over tonight and watch you write? If you want, we can make out afterwards." The gorgeous chestnut haired beauty said.

"No, Ricky. Why don't you come over to my house?" A gorgeous hazel eyed girl said, glaring at her competition. "My parents will be gone and we can be alone. But if you want to write, that'll be okay. I just love what you write. It's so exciting and romantic and macabre and mysterious. Whatever you want is okay with me."

"Ricky, lover." Said a tall, slender brunette. "I can come over and we can do our homework together. We have all the same classes together. And you're so smart, and cool and ruggedly handsome and…"

"Richard!" Martha interrupted. "You were nothing like that. To begin with in high school you had an old Ford Fairlane that barely ran. And as far as sports went, you got hurt trying out for the chess team."

"That was a serious injury to my thumb. Those chess players were tough."

Martha shook her head. "Tough? Really? Sheila Dumbrowski was all of five feet nothing and weighed under a hundred pounds. And she apologized. She said she didn't realize you were so fragile." Martha went on before Rick could reply. "And while all of your teachers said you had potential, you goofed off so much and procrastinated and played so many pranks that you were always in danger of flunking all of your classes. You have no idea how many times I had to go to your teachers and beg them to give you another chance."

"But I did just fine, didn't I?" Rick said, not liking the tone of the conversation.

"Yes, dear. But what might you have accomplished if you really had applied yourself? And as for your girlfriends, or should I girlfriend, you dated that awful Carol MacNeil through several of the schools you went to. Didn't she end up in prison?"

"No, she did not!" Rick said forcefully.

Martha raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, she was in prison for a little bit but now she's getting the treatment and care she needs."

"In a locked psychological ward for the criminally insane." Martha finished.

"It was great research. I learned so much from her."

"Really, Castle?" Kate said, snickering. "I can just guess what you learned."

"And what did you learn in high school, Miss Rebel Becks? Maybe I can get some information for the character of Lisa from you."

Kate smiled. "High school. That was so great. The things I could tell you….

Rebel Becks rode her '94 Harley soft tail into the school parking lot. Her best friend, Maddie, was standing there looking at her.

"Becks, you know every girl in school envies you. You ride a Harley, wear those skin tight jeans and a tee shirt with no bra." Maddie giggled. "And when Principal Bracken tried to enforce that out of date school dress code on you, you took him to the school board and won. Why, the head of the School Board, Mr. Montgomery, said that was the best presentation he'd ever heard."

Kate nodded. It's true of course. Any time I can't outthink and outwit a third rate hack like that Bracken, it's time to hang up my big girl panties. If I wore panties, that is. Underwear is so bourgeois. When I'm the first female chief justice, I'll have to see about outlawing underwear.

"And you're brilliant as well as gorgeous, Becks. I'm so happy that you let me hang with you."

"You stick with me, Maddie and you'll do okay. Not like those airheads over there." Kate nodded towards a group of girls dressed rather sluttily who were trying to catch the attention of some boys. "I can tell you right now, Mads, that Meredith, Gina, Ellie and Jacinda are going to end up barefoot and pregnant and married to some loser like that Tom or Josh. Look at the way they're drooling over those airheads. Ten years from now they'll be living in a run down trailer park and fighting all the time."

"You have a boyfriend, though, don't you Becks?"

"Sure, but I'd never date some callow high school boy. I'm dating a grad student at Princeton. He also is the front man for his own band and counsels at risk youth. Next week we're going scuba diving at Hell Gate. His hobby is underwater archeology, so we're looking for the wreck of HMS Hussar, a British frigate that sank during the Revolutionary War with a fortune of gold on board. I've been helping him, so I'm sure we'll find it."

"Wow, you are the coolest person in all of New York, Becks." Maddie said admiringly.

Kate shrugged. True. I don't mean to brag, but I am way too cool for this school."

"You don't mean to brag, Katie? What do you think you were just doing? On those rare occasions when your mom would let you drive your motorcycle to school, you almost never had enough money for gas. And as for skin tight jeans, and not bra? You never dressed that way. And the girls who got into Stuyvesant with you were not empty head bimbos. That's one of the academically most challenging high schools in the country. Almost all of the graduates got into good colleges."

Kate shrugged. "Maybe I exaggerated a bit. I was just trying to help Rick with his script."

Jim laughed. "Well, leave out the part about your real boyfriend, then. Dave Mason has hardly drawn a sober breath for twenty years, and when he has, it's because he's smoking pot. In fact, I just heard that he's moved to Colorado." Jim frowned. "Or was it Oregon?"

Rick and Kate exchanged glances.

"Maybe I should get back to work on the next Nikki Heat book. I was thinking about writing something about terrorism." Rick said quickly.

Kate nodded. "Very topical. I learned a little bit about that when I was a Fed, you know. Need help?"

"You are my muse." He said with a smile, reaching out and taking her hand. "We can write in my office."

"But no more talk about high school."

"Agreed."