Disclaimer: Own plot. Own the finer details of personalities. Own the characters that I invented and most of the settings. ¿Comprende?

Chapter 1 of The Truth Behind the Letters Behind the Coconut Trees

LS to BB #1

Part One

Lemony raced through the narrow corridors, wincing occasionally when someone didn't mind their elbows. Or knees. The hallways of the VFD training facility were crowded with people who had just gotten up, were delayed or for some other reason were going to be late for class, as if they had deemed something else more worthy of their precious time.

Of course, he had been delayed too. Just thinking about it made him blush. He had only wanted to talk to—Don't think about that, he admonished himself. Just don't.

On to Code Class and the flat-footed tediousness of the instructor, then.

VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD VFD

Peck-peck-peck went his typewriter.

"…and so we can determine that the encryptions on the glass…"

Tap-tap-tap.

"…are merely incidental."

Click, click, click.

He licked the adhesive stamp on the red card and put up his hand.

"Sir?"

"…but in some cases…"

"Sir."

"… as such…"

"SIR?"

"…no, don't interrupt. As I was saying…"

"SIR!"

"Yes?" asked the instructor.

"May I leave the classroom for a moment?"

This was the standard euphemism for the cruder term of going to the bathroom. Anyway, since those weren't his intentions, this way he wasn't exactly lying.

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Lemony delivered the piece of red paper to the Theatrics classroom above him and returned to his desk in the depressingly boring Code Class.

Despite all known odds, he was smiling.