Hey, hey everyone! Folding Turtles here! I don't really know where this story's headed yet, but the characters are definitely going to be contorted and things are going to get weird. I hope you all won't get too creeped out, and ENJOY!

No disclaimer, because I honestly own most of this.

;)

We – Angel, Nudge, and I – sat down at out usual lunch table. The voices of the entire eighth grade melted together, creating a familiar buzz in the background. I picked up snatches of conversations here and there. The constant noise made it difficult for me to concentrate on anything that wasn't trivial, and even harder to be alone in my own head.

But then again, this was a middle school cafeteria. Get used to it.

Nudge swung her all-too-conspicuous lime green lunch box in an exaggerated arc over our heads and onto the table. It landed with a sickening thud, making me wince for the orange that I knew was inside. (Nudge really liked oranges; she had one every day for lunch.) Then, Nudge plopped down in her usual seat, making her blue and black checkered Vans flash through the air. She took off her trademark black fedora with one hand and shook out her hair. The neon purple streaks that shot through her short, asymmetrical haircut shivered with the movement.

Angel meekly climbed in, followed by yours truly. She was nervously rubbing her hands together between her legs. Her shoulders were hunched over meekly; she was trying to take up as little space as possible. She tugged her blue jacket tighter around her body and tapped her feet in an erratic rhythm on the floor.

"So…" I said when I had sat down.

Angel didn't respond. On her other side, Nudge was grunting as she ferociously tackling the arduous task of peeling a very thick-skinned orange without the aid of a plastic knife.

Our friends came over and set their things down. Some of them went over to the microwave to heat up leftovers for lunch. Lucky.

Why was Angel so tense, you might ask? And why was I – the great Maximum Ride – at a loss for words?

Because we had just taken a science test.

And it was the kind where everything was multiple-choice, so all the teacher has to do was run the answer sheets through a scanner, and we instantly know our score.

Angel and I, but especially Angel, cares a lot about the percentages that the grading-machine spit out at us. To Angel, the difference between a 99% and a 100% was possibly the biggest gap in the world. We were the star students of our school. We had never gone home with anything less than an A-.

That is, until after this test.

*Flashback*

Angel walked cheerfully over to me after the test was over.

"How did you think it was?" I asked her. It had been one of the hardest ones this entire year. The concepts seemed easy in class, but for some reason, Mrs. Hutkins, our science teacher, felt the need to put impossibly difficult and confusing questions on the test.

"Okay. There were a few…" Angel drifted off. If Angel didn't get something right, she automatically assumes that no one else did, either. "What'd you get?"

That is the most important question of all time – to her.

"A ninety-two," I stated matter-of-factly.

Angel's happy face fell instantly.

"What about you?" That was the question I probably shouldn't have asked.

Angel stormed away to the cafeteria in a huff, clearly mad at me for doing better than she did on the test. It was one of the only reasons she would ever be mad at anyone for.

"Angel?"

She didn't respond.

"Angel?" I asked again.

"I'm fine, Max." She took the eraser that she had gripped in her hand and mercilessly stabbed her pure white binder with it, jabbing the plastic material viciously with a scrunched, resolute look on her face.

When the eraser-of-doom comes out, you know her score was bad.

Angel continued to exercise her worn-out pink eraser for a good ten seconds, causing some of the papers inside to shift. A corner of her graded answer sheet peeked out the side of her binder. I didn't mean to look, but my eyes were wandering around, waiting for her calm down, and they latched onto the incriminating number stamped at the bottom.

89

That was definitely not good.

Angel caught me staring and shoved the telltale paper back inside her abused binder. Her mutilated eraser gave a wheeze of relief that it was being given a break from the exercise. Its head hung down limply.

I tried to cheer Angel up by asking the question that had never failed to do so before until today. "What about Star?" That was the question that made it worse.

Star was another star student – no surprise – but she acts mean towards Angel, Nudge, pretty much all of our acquaintances, and me. She is our biggest competitor in the educational realm, even though we usually end up beating her on tests and quizzes alike. Angel in particular takes great relish in besting Star; a gloating smile would be smeared over her face for a whole day.

This time, however, was Star's time to bruise herself with a smirk.

"Good job, Angel," Star's voice dripped with sarcasm as she passed by Angel and me, followed by her cronies, Maya and Kate. Predictably, Star was wedged in the middle of the trio. They walked in sync. I don't think I had ever seen the threesome apart ever before. "You were so close."

And Angel's eraser braces itself for another round of attacks…

"Ignore her," I told Angel as Star, Maya, and Kate walked away. "I know you're better than her."

"Why – am – I – so – stupid!" Angel vehemently muttered. A blow to her binder punctuated each word.

"You're not stupid," I was failing epically at bringing her up.

"She," Angel practically spit out the word. "Got a darling little ninety-one, and I got a freaking eighty-nine!"

Her fist was clenched so tightly around her eraser that I was worried her knuckles might crack with the strain, not to mention the fact that her eraser might die of suffocation.

"It's okay, Angel. You're going to beat her next time," I attempted to calm her down.

Angel hissed with contempt under her breath, "Next time."

*End flashback*

And that is why Angel is currently giving all of us the death glare. She hates it when people do better than her on anything.

We desperately needed something to break the stifling tension.

As if she heard my unspoken wish, Nudge cried out in fake pain. "Ahhh! My eye! It burns!" Leave it to Nudge and her flamboyant, loud personality to stir things up.

"What happened?" I asked, concerned.

Nudge held her partially pealed orange in one hand and her tightly shut eye with the other. A thin rivulet of orange juice ran down her cheek from the heel of her hand.

"Don't pound an orange too hard when you're trying to peel it," Nudge said vaguely in explanation. "It can fight back."

"Are you okay?" I chuckled softly, mentally shaking my head.

"Yeah, I'm good. My eyes get stronger every time that happens," Nudge laughed and resumed hacking away at her orange with her long nails.

Angel just sighed and propped her head up on her hands.

After we finished lunch (Bouncy hot dog Monday – I'm not kidding about the bouncy part; if you throw it on the ground, it will literally rebound three feet in the air. Nudge had a lot of fun with the hot dogs today. Makes you wonder if the hot dog is mostly meat – or rubber.), Angel, Nudge, and I headed off to world history. We fought against the lethargic flow of students and the annoying cheerleader congregations loitering by their lockers who were putting yet another coat on top of their already-foot-thick mascara and adjusting their disgustingly skintight yoga pants.

Angel and I were in our seats well before the bell rang. We got out the packet Mr. Colby, our world history teacher, had given to us yesterday like the instructions said to do so on the board.

When the teacher walked in, I fixed my eyes on him, following his steps around the classroom like they would give me an answer on our next test – the epitome of attentiveness. Angel was doing the same.

"So," he clapped his hands together loudly. "I don't really have much planned for you today. Read your packet and highlight anything important."

I moved to get my highlighter out of my neatly organized pencil pouch.

"Mr. Colby, how will we know what to highlight?" one of the football players asked.

Angel rolled her eyes.

Mr. Colby gave the guy a look, cocking his hands on his hips like an annoyed teenage girl, and said bluntly. "You read it. I'm not going to give you all the answers."

I didn't wait to see what the jock's reaction would be. I delved into first paragraph. As I read, I thought about Mr. Colby's response to the jock. It seemed like he had inadvertently given us an answer:

It is 1400 B.C. The shrine of the Oracle of Delphi encircles a sacred spring. It is possibly the most important shrine in all of Greece and considered to be the omphalos (the center, or literally, the navel) of the world.

You have traveled many miles from across Greece to visit with the Oracle and have your questions about the future answered by the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo. When you finally meet her, her answer is cryptic, and you argue with yourself what the correct interpretation of the answer is. You might summon enough courage to ask the Oracle to explain herself, but then you would need more gold. The Oracle is always happy to make another prophesy in exchange for the precious metal.

"Now your statues are standing and pouring sweat. They shiver with dread. The black blood drips from the highest rooftops. They have seen the necessity of evil. Get out, get out of my sanctum and drown your spirits in woe," the Oracle proclaims.

I shuddered at the thought of what the Oracle had seen in the future to give a prophecy so grim and despairing.

But, this is history. We always know what will happen next.

Right?