In the middle of his dinner at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Zaphod Beetlebrox was suddenly transported to a suburban High School and was transformed into the image of the principal of that school (while the real principal mysteriously vanished). While he did not think: "Oh no not again," Zaphod did think: "Earth, the ultimate question, hey." Considering he was a Galactic President, Zaphod guessed that being a principal should be a piece of cake—right?

Zaphod rearranged the ballpoint pens on the edge of his desk. A plan was slowly formulating in his fragmented mind. But after a few minutes, he was beginning to think his scheme was not going to be as easy as he had originally thought.

It would be a lot easier without all these stupid kids around, he thought.

You see, Zaphod Beetlebrox was never one to go about getting answers (or the Ulitamte question, in this case) in the easiest of ways. Even back in his younger days, Zaphod would go to any length to get the satisfying feeling one gets from causing a fiasco. His plan this time was to steal all of the ballpoint pens in the school. Not exactly as diabolical a plan as the theft of the Heart of Gold, but a plan nonetheless.

After Zaphod stole all of the ballpoint pens, he would finally be able to put the pieces together! Muw-ha-hah! It was brilliant, but it was going to be hard to pull off. First, he had to find some sort of major distraction, like a tornado drill—no, no, a fire drill. That way they would all leave their pens unmanned as they left the building.

But that was only part of it. He still needed to steal all the pens before they came back in. He couldn't do that on his own. He would need inside help.

The janitors! Zaphod thought. He jumped up and ran to the loud speaker and emitted: "Attention all janitors. I—your, errr…. Principal slash boss-thing would like to call a meeting in the gym in ten minutes. Oh, er, there's more than one gym? Well, of course, I meant Gym One. A? Gym A. Thank you. That is all."

Fifteen minutes later, Zaphod was tactfully informing the janitors of his evil plan. "Listen up all you apes! You're gonna steal all of the ballpoint pens in the school while those brats are running for their lives during my fire drill, or you all get fired! Clear?"

The janitors stared blankly at him for a second, then a tall man named Joe spoke up. "You mean just take the kids' pens?"

"That's right—Now you take Hall X and you others get hall whatever."

Blank stares.

"Well? Get going!"

The janitors exchanged odd glances as if to say, "he's finally lost it" as they shuffled off in different directions.

It was 10:42 and time for the unscheduled fire drill. The normal routine was to grab all of your things and slowly saunter out with the teachers that weren't on round-up detail. Some of the teachers would just sit inside chatting about the last impossible quiz they gave.

But since there was no sign that this was a drill, everybody quickly cleared the building in a massive ruckus. All of the pens left inside just as he had planned.

Within the next twenty minutes, Operation Ballpoint Pen Abduction was almost at a close when the fire department showed up. Zaphod grabbed the three large trash bags full of pens and started to run across the baseball field. With towel swinging madly above his head, Zaphod was transported back to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

"There you are, Zaphod!" called Ford's familiar voice. "Where have you been off to? And why are you holding three, large trash bags full of ballpoint pens?

"It's complicated, Ford. It's complicated."