All Friends Check-In (The Suite Life of Zack & Cody)

15. Rumors

I found out Cody had applied for a week-long trip to Washington with some selected students to watch a senator sign papers and make phone calls. It sounded boring as watching paint dry. 

Additionally, Uncle Marion tasked me to investigate who was tampering with the games in the game room and playing them for free. I knew it to be Zack since I had seen him tie a quarter to a piece of string that he'd yanked like a yo-yo. After seeing him tamper with one of the games, I informed Uncle Marion. My uncle couldn't tell which twin was which, so he banned both Zack and Cody from the game room. There was no point in correcting him that Cody was the innocent one.

I was reading a novel when I noticed Cody walking by dressed like a rapper.

"What up, my peeps?" I asked, glancing at him.

"This is so that people won't mistake me for Zack," Cody explained.

"I'd find a belt if I were you."

The jeans he wore slipped off, and he held them up.

"Just watchout for gangbangers while you're out there," I warned Cody.

"Noted," he nodded.

"Mm-hmm."

I resumed reading my book after he left. 

Later, I heard someone say that Maddie and Lance were seen kissing. I found it hard to believe since Maddie was going out with Chuck, one of the employees. Plus, Maddie and Lance broke up a while back when it turned out that they were better off as friends and nothing else. So I went over to the candy counter to ask her about the rumor. I came too late to see Maddie's reaction when Chuck walked away from her, clearly upset, and Lance approached her.

"Ok, where did this ridiculous rumor start?" Maddie asked and grabbed Zack by the shirt. "Zack, who told you this?"

"It was Cody!" he replied.

Maddie recruited me to help her find out who spread the false tale about her and Lance. It turned out Lance was teaching her how to perform CPR, which would've appeared to someone that they were kissing. 

On finding Cody up in the suite, Maddie and I interrogated him.

"It was Muriel!" he answered after being grabbed.

We found Muriel cleaning. Maddie pinned the cleaning lady to the wall and grabbed her shirt.

"It was Esteban!" Muriel shouted.

Maddie and I found the bellboy in the lobby, and she grabbed the collar of his shirt. 

"It was London!" Esteban responded. "Oh, I curse these lips that cannot keep themselves sealed! I know. I will hold them together to keep from spreading rumors again." The bellboy pinched his lips shut.

"Where is she?" Maddie asked.

"In her room."

"You don't have to hold your lips together like that," I assured Esteban as Maddie left to confront London. "Probably try to ignore something that isn't true.

Due to the rumor, no one in the hotel spoke to Maddie. I found it stupid that they didn't have all the facts. Maddie found it comforting that I was the only one who knew the rumor was false in the first place and that I was still talking with her.

When I met up with the twins at school, I was stunned to see that Cody had dyed his hair a fire-engine red by mistake, thinking it was auburn. The gangsta look didn't suit him well!

The following day, every magazine featuring London's picture revealed that she was an animal murderer and had animal furs in her closet. Having seen her massive walk-in closet, none of them were real furs, especially since London loved all sorts of animals. I even saw her walking around the lobby holding a chinchilla.

When London was swarmed and blinded by reporters and the flash photography of the paparazzi, I quickly guided her back into the building. At the same time, Uncle Marion and the other staff shooed them away. Given Maddie's reaction, I had to guess that she was the one who leaked London's false story, likely due to her anger about the rumor involving her and Lance. I didn't plan on saying anything until she admitted to my uncle.

Also, when the man from the Week in Washington program arrived to interview Cody, the latter had Zack pose as him.

Eventually, when it seemed Chuck was the one who had spoken to a reporter about London, Maddie confessed her actions, stating that she didn't know it was a reporter she had spoken to. 

After both London and Maddie apologized to each other about the rumors, I went over to Uncle Marion.

"I wasn't gonna say anything until it was confirmed to be true," I stated.

"I know, Marley," my uncle nodded in approval, knowing that I only told him things that I already knew and wouldn't say anything about something I didn't know.

Right after London clarified to everyone in the hotel that the rumor about Maddie and Lance was false, Maddie hatched a plan to restore London's good name. Esteban and I let in a small group of paparazzi, and they tipped him. Cody pretended to be a kid with a pet chinchilla that fainted, and London gave it CPR. She coughed up a furball afterwards, but was happy anyway.

Additionally, Cody was accepted into the Week in Washington program due to his exceptional humor and personality.