"Pfl'iv rcc jf cltbp; pfli lezmvijv zj kyv vortk uvwzezkzfe fw yrggp. Jliv... Pfl tre jrp kyrk xiruvj riv r kyzex, slk uzu kyvp ivrccp xvk ze pfli nrp? Tfdgrivu kf nyrk nv yrmv? Nyrk nv riv?"

• • • • •

"Where do we go next?" Brooke asked.

"I guess we head to the grandstand, like we always do." James shrugged.

"Yeah." Gale, and some of them, nodded.

The whole batch spent their first Universal Break in a seminar about mental health, for the theme of the month was that. However, he may have dozed off during the part where the speaker told them to close their eyes and say they're wonderful. He didn't need it, considering how fine everything was.

• • • • •

"Uh... What?" Lucas murmured. The dormers had gone to the cafeteria to grab some food, and they arrived at the grandstand to find it with cats.

Kotka was meowing... Jay was meowing aggressively... James was offering the cats some food...

"What the hell!?" JC watched as the ginger cat swatted his fork away.

"Is this some sort of cult?" Leanne asked as she took her seat. A brown cat rolled off one of the ledges of the grandstand, arriving behind her. She and the cat blinked.

"Hmm..." Denise smiled, raising his empty bottle of orange juice. "Imagine a bottle with unlimited orange juice. It could be worshiped by a cult. We could dunk people with it! End world hunger! A new way for sp—"

"That's bad." Kara raised her fan, causing him to stop.

"Yay!" Julia smiled childishly.

"What if somebody was the supreme leader of Memes—" Andy started with a smirk.

"No." Kotka glared at him, and several other cats followed. Had the cats not done that, he wouldn't be unnerved.

"What if she's controlling the cats through some kind of virus or something?" James, after handing another cat a bit of his food, whispered to Gale as the latter took his seat next to him.

"How would she, though?" Carl shoved a bag on the brown cat next to Leanne. The cat hissed and fled.

"This is a book!" Kim waved her hands in the air. "Anything is possible!"

"What?" Several of their classmates looked at her.

"It's a reference..." She explained.

• • • • •

"Now that it's the second quarter..." Ma'am Diane said. It was now their. Integrated Science period. "You'll have new seating arrangements!"

"No!" Julia whined. "Ma'am! This is the only love life I have!"

"With who, though?" Leanne looked at her, smirking.

"With my chair..." She slid off it, knelt down, and cuddled it. "I don't want to leave it!"

"You can just bring it with you..." Ma'am Diane said awkwardly.

"Oh, yay!" She cuddled it tighter.

"Why can't you have a love life with me— AAAH!" Jeff was mumbling until Julia started to hit him with her fan.

"HOY THAT'S BAD." She yelled.

"Fine; I'll just ride Jabari instead—"

"What?" The mentioned person asked.

"WE'RE STILL KIDS AAAAA." Cheese Roll clutched her head.

"It's worse at the dorm~" Gale laughed, earning a slap.

• • • • •

For the first quarter in Integrated Science, Gale's seat mates were JC and Ciel. Now he was with Jabari and Kotka.

"For your first activity..." Ma'am Diane smiled. "We'll—"

"hAVE A SEATWORK JUST LIKE MATH!" Carl yelled.

"DAMMIT, CARL!" Gale yelled back at him.

"No, don't worry." The teacher reassured them. "You'll be having a hands-on class activity!"

"STILL A WOR—" Carl accidentally tripped off his chair when he leaned forward, interrupting himself.

"I have thirty boxes here." Ma'am Diane explained, holding up a tray of small, cream-hued cubes as the class secretary and vice president (Cheese Roll and Jeff) handed out activity sheets. "Science includes observations and inferences, right?"

The students nodded.

"In this activity, you will have to observe the boxes with all your senses and not just sight. Why?" Ma'am paused. "There is something inside the box, and you can't open it to find out."

"So, Ma'am," Denise raised his hand. "We can eat the box?"

"Why would you even eat it!?" Leanne stared at him.

"I've eaten a stapler and toy dragon before~" He laughed.

"Denise, no." Riannon warned him.

"Yeah... Don't..." Ma'am Diane said awkwardly.

"Ma'am," Gale raised his hand. "Can we lick the box?"

"Is that some kink!?" Carl asked him.

"Maybe don't use the sense of taste for this..." Ma'am Diane sighed.

• • • • •

Gale dragged his finger across the dried glue on his box. It actually felt satisfying.

"Yeah." Carl slid over to Gale's table. "You definitely have a kink for boxes."

"Why?" Gale frowned at Carl as the latter reached for the former's box.

"I mean you have a thing for living paper—"

"You all have your own boxes now, and you cannot touch somebody else's box." Ma'am Diane stated. "Pretend the box is your lover. You don't want people touching them or taking them away from you, right?"

"NICE ONE, MA'AM!" Jeff yelled.

"Yeah, definitely kinky." Carl scrambled back to his seat.

Gale tried to tap Kotka's box, but she slapped his hand away. However, she got the chance to poke both Gale's and Jabari's cubes.

• • • • •

"Also," The teacher announced while Gale was shaking his own box. It was labelled with the number seven, and it sounded like some ball was rolling in it. The thing was, it wasn't hitting the walls of the box, so he couldn't tell if it was metal. "If you break the box, you get an NCR."

"OOOH!" Gale looked up and stopped shaking the box. "I'm soooo scared!!!!!!!!!1!1!1"

"And here's a hint: some, if not all, boxes have barriers in them. This prevents what's ever inside from hitting the walls."

"AHA!" Ava slammed her box onto the table and wrote down whatever she discovered.

• • • • •

"I've been doing it the wrong way, god..." Gale realized that there wasn't a barrier on the top and bottom parts of the box. However, when he tried maneuvering the ball, it still stayed in the middle.

So maybe the barrier encloses the ball? He asked himself. Yeah, I'll stick with that.

• • • • •

"Now, class." Ma'am Diane said. "I want you to share your boxes with your classmates. Sharing is caring, right?"

"But I don't care!" Several of the students said, either with the same words or something with the same context.

"Whether you like it or not," The teacher stated. "You'll have to share."

Jabari passed his cube to Kotka. Gale gave his to the former, and he got the latter's.

Gale turned the box around. It was labeled with the number twenty, and its whole exterior was the same as his. He shook it. There was a metal ball within it, too, and the sphere bounced off all the sides of the box... Except for the bottom. He turned the cube over, trying to feel the overall shape of its barrier. There was a slope right at the bottom middle.

"Done?" Jabari asked him, and Gale nodded. The former slid the cube across the table, and the latter tossed the box. Jabari fumbled around, doing his best not to drop it.

Now Gale has Jabari's box; he had Kotka's, and she had Gale's.

"Screws!?" Gale gazed at the way Jabari's box was sealed in surprise.

"If it has screws it must be easier to screw with—" Carl started, but then he was hit by Kara's fan.

"Seriously, Carl." Andy stared at him. "How did you turn so... kinky... within a day?!"

"Uh... The internet. I learned how to read comments about sites. Plus, you know that there's people worse than me here." Carl shrugged, and Andy sighed. Gale returned to his box observing.