dark beige

Bayside High School, California: Long-serving headmaster Mr Belding has expressed huge relief that ex-pupil Samuel "Screech" Powers has returned to the school so soon after graduating – but now as his administrative assistant!

Speaking about his new assistant, Belding said: "It’s just such a blast to see a familiar face. I really felt I was struggling with the weight of everyone’s expectations on my own. Now Screech is here, everything’s fine".

It’s not entirely clear how Screech wound up back at his former High School so quickly. Unusually, he went to the same college as almost every one of his former schoolmates, a wacky fun-loving gang headed up by Screech’s best friend, lovable rogue Zack Morris, where the gang also met a range of colourful new characters including wisecracking mature student, Michael Roberts.

It would appear that the venture did not work out and at the end of the year it was cancelled. That is to say, Screech cancelled finishing his college years and looked around at other opportunities.



Not knowing quite what else to do, it would appear that he returned to his former high school to work as an administrative assistant to Mr Belding, and conveniently bridged a gap between the old and new classes.

Quite how Mr Powers became the most qualified man for the job, having dropped out of college after one year, and never having worked in his life, is still unclear, though surely no one can deny that he knows the school inside out!



Screech is unsurprisingly similar to the personality he had as a pupil, but now wears a suit and looks older. His trademark squeaky voice also seems to come and go, ravaged by the invisible foe of puberty. "Yes, he’s been told to keep the voice squeaky", Belding told us, "It always scores with focus groups".

On the whole, Belding is just relieved to have him back. "My job feels a lot safer now Screech is here" he said. "It would be great to see some of the other gang too – perhaps Zack could be an English teacher, while Slater would be a shoe-in as football coach. And sweet little Kelly could always be my secretary. But who knows? Apparently they’ve all got other things on the go at the moment. We’ll see. Maybe in a couple of years they’ll realise when they were on to a good thing."

For the moment, the wacky and eerily familiar mishaps that the ever-changing new gangs of pupils get into are keeping Belding and indeed Screech, very busy. "We never get a moment to ourselves", he sighed, "not in this crazy zoo of a high school".

More Belding: http://darkbeige.blogspot.com/2008/03/its-time-to-step-out-on-my-own-by.html