It was the day everyone at Littlest University was looking forward to ever since they heard about it during the beginning of the semester: Club Sign-Up Day. There were multiple clubs and organizations available, and everyone was excited to sign up for their favorite club and practice the thing they loved to do.

Sunil in particular was looking forward to Club Sign-Up Day. He had been looking forward to signing up for a club called Yoga and Mindfulness so he could practice his meditation, and maybe he can even find enough calmness in the club to access the ability to use a magic trick he was eager to learn. It took major concentration, something he couldn't fully have with attending classes and living with a rambunctious Vinnie and a lecture-packed Russell.

During the lunch period, students were allowed to walk outside to booths set up by student presidents or founders of the groups, and others went up to sign for their favored group. Sunil quickly ran out of the building with Vinnie and Russell following more calmly.

"C'mon, you slowpokes!" Sunil called ecstatically to his friends.

"Slow and steady wins the race!" Russell retorted.

"No, it doesn't," Vinnie argued, furrowing his brows in confusion. "If you're slow, you're gonna be in last place. Sunil has the right idea. Hey, buddy, wait up!" He ran over to his taller friend, ignoring an annoyed sigh from the librarian.

"Well, while you two are off running and crashing into other people, I'm gonna go sign up for Book Club," Russell called to his friends. He went to walk off, but he couldn't hold back a skip of excitement before breaking into a run. Noticing, Vinnie and Sunil both let out a chuckle.

"I'm gonna go sign up for the Dance Team!" Vinnie grinned before running off as well. "Good luck, buddy!"

"Thank you, Vinnie, and may the best of luck be with you as well!" Sunil called back. He turned to run in another direction, looking for a booth that read Yoga and Mindfulness.

At last, he came up to another area of booths and he grinned brightly when he saw the booth he was looking for. He started towards it, but stopped when he heard someone call out.

"Hey, you!"

Sunil looked around a bit, his brows furrowed, wondering if anyone was trying to catch his attention. He then heard, "Yes, you! The one in the blue sweater!", indicating someone was trying to catch his attention. He looked behind him and saw a young lady with a white and light blue dress and curled light blue hair grinning at him from behind a booth.

"Are you looking for me?" he asked hesitantly, pointing at himself.

"Yep!" the girl exclaimed as she gestured with her hand for him to come over. "C'mere, have I got a great deal for you!"

"Um, what kind of deal?" Sunil gulped nervously as he walked over to the booth. He flinched when the girl suddenly shot out her arm for him to shake, and he hesitantly shook it.

"My name's Casey Cottonpuff!" the girl introduced happily. "What's your name?"

"S-Sunil Nevla..."

"Well, Sunil, you look like you could be the perfect candidate for the Speakers Forum!"

"Speakers Forum? What's that?"

"It's a club all about public speaking and debating!" Casey held out a flyer to Sunil and he took it, looking at it curiously. "We're looking for new people to represent Littlest University in all kinds of debates and public speakings against our competition: Largest Ever Pet Shop! I just know you'll be perfect for this; you look as if you're bursting with knowledge!"

"Well, as I am quite knowledgable when it comes to certain things, I'm afraid I'm not interested," Sunil quickly spoke, handing the flyer back to Casey. "I want to sign up for Yoga and Mindfulness."

"But that club's boring!" the girl argued. "Here, there's all kinds of excitement and competition!"

"But I don't like too much excitement..." the Indian struggled to argue.

"C'mon, please? You'll really be helping us out!"

Sunil gritted his teeth and gulped nervously. He really wanted to sign up for Yoga and Mindfulness; he's been looking forward to this ever since the first announcement of Club Sign-Up Day. But now he was being dragged into another club that he really didn't like. He wanted so very badly to say no, but he just couldn't if this girl desperately needed him in the club.

Finally, he sighed in defeat and grumbled sourly, "Fine..."

"Great!" Casey squealed. She quickly wrote down some instructions on a piece of paper and gave it to Sunil. "Be sure to arrive in the cafeteria day after tomorrow at five o' clock sharp!"

"Five o' clock?" Sunil exclaimed in shock. "That is much too early for me!"

"Don't worry, you'll be fine," Casey smiled optimistically. Her gaze suddenly darkened and she glared at him. "And you'd better be there by five o' clock sharp! One second late and the president, Lolly Pinkington, will eat you out like a starving dog eating a pile of freshly-cooked steak! She makes everyone who's late write down ten thousand times, "I will never be late to Speakers Forum ever again", and it's horrible! I was late to the club once and I had to write that down ten thousand times, and my hand still hurts! And that was two years ago!"

Sunil let out a horrified whimper as he trembled. "B-B-But I don't want that..."

"Then make sure you're there on time!" Casey finished, her cheerful grin returning. "Oh, I have another applicant I gotta see to! See you tomorrow, Sunil!"

As the girl turned her attention to another person, Sunil backed away slowly. He looked over at the booth he so badly wanted to register at, then looked back down at the paper he received from Casey, and finally sighed in defeat. Head hanging low, he slowly made his way back to the building.


"So explain to me once again," an Indian man wearing a white undershirt, blue jacket, a darker blue scarf, and a few ear piercings grunted as he raised an eyebrow at Vinnie, "how the heck you got into Dance Team."

"For the last time Shahrukh," Vinnie groaned as he rolled his eyes in annoyance, "I was told to dance to audition and that's what I did! I gave them a little jig and a twirl and a slide and a spin!" The shorter man preformed said moves respectfully, but during the spin he ended up crashing into Russell's bookcase, causing all the books to fall all over him.

"Vinnie!" Russell exclaimed as he stood up quickly. "I spent all night alphabetizing those by author!"

"Sorry, Russell," Vinnie grinned sheepishly as he stood up and brushed himself off. "Anyway, that's pretty much how I got in. Of course I didn't exactly crash into a bookcase, but the janitor's cleaning supplies instead. They still thought it was the funniest thing they've ever seen, and they liked my dance routine before the crash, so that's how they accepted me!"

"How strange, I never would've imagined someone as clumsy as you could get into anything," Shahrukh grunted as he turned his attention to his blue iPhone. "I suppose they just had pity for you."

"Nu-uh!" Vinnie retorted angrily.

"Anyway," Russell spoke quickly, trying to keep the two from fighting. "Shahrukh, what group did you sign up for?"

"Well, if you must know, I have signed up for the Yearbook Club," he answered, still looking down at his phone.

"Why did you sign up for that?"

"Because the members are responsible for taking pictures for the yearbook, and that includes selfies." Shahrukh held his phone up and grinned before taking a picture of himself and looking back down at it, then growled. "No, this will not do at all! Russell, you were in my shot! Could you please maybe scoot to the left a few feet? Thank you."

Russell rolled his eyes in irritation before standing up and walking to the other side of the room. As he went past the door, he almost collided into it when it suddenly flung open, a steaming Sunil standing in the doorway.

"Sunil!" Vinnie cried out happily as he stood up. "Guess what? I made it into Dance Team!"

"Oh, well, I'm oh, so happy things worked out for you!" Sunil sneered, rolling his eyes. He stomped in and shut the door behind him, stalking past Vinnie without even looking at him.

"Uhh, Sunil?" Russell began. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, yes, Russell, I'm just peachy! Thank you ever so much for asking!" After mustering a fake grin at Russell, the Indian slouched down on his bed and folded his arms.

"Let me guess," Shahrukh grunted, still looking at his phone. "You didn't make it into Yoga and Mindfulness."

"What the heck is he here for?" Sunil suddenly snapped at Russell and Vinnie, causing them both to flinch. "I don't need anymore negativity in my life! Shahrukh, get out of my dorm!"

"Russell and Vinnie invited me here," Sunil's older brother spoke calmly. "I'm not going anywhere until they say I can go home. I don't need to listen to you."

Sunil snarled, grating his clenched teeth together and narrowing his eyes into tiny amber slits of fury.

"U-Uh, Shahrukh, maybe you should leave," Russell spoke quickly. "We'll see you tomorrow."

"Very well," Shahrukh simply said as he stood up and walked out the door. He poked his head back in before the door closed and added, "Could someone hand me my book bag over there?"

"Here, take your filthy book bag!" Sunil spat, grabbing his brother's book bag off of the floor and flinging it at him. He yelped and ducked to avoid being hit, and before he could retort Sunil slammed the door in his face and locked the door.

"Sunil, what the heck's wrong with you?" Vinnie exclaimed. "I know you can get kinda fed up with Shahrukh sometimes, but you've never been full-out nasty to him."

"What's it to you?" Sunil snapped, glaring at his best friend who yelped and backed away a bit.

"Sunil, seriously, what's wrong?" Russell jumped in, not flinching as the Indian glared at him, too. "You'd never act this way unless something happened that really upset you."

"I said everything's fine, Russell!"

"Did you and Vinnie not just go so far as to interrogate me into telling you guys about me being bullied by Wiggles a few weeks back? Don't be a hypocrite now, Sunil. Tell us what's wrong."

"Okay, so now you're back to admitting what's wrong with your life?" Sunil sneered hostilely. "Sure, go ahead, it's not like you had any problems with getting what you want! It's not like you were forced into a club you utterly despise and are going to be forced to wake up at five in the morning and speak in public and be secretly judged by everyone and having to write ten thousand times over "I will never be late to Speaking Forum ever again" until your hand hurts two years later if you late by even one damn second!" The Indian panted heavily, catching his breath, and glared at the wide-eyed Vinnie and Russell.

"You were forced to sign up for Speaking Forum?" Russell gasped.

"Did I stutter?" Sunil retorted sourly.

"Well, why didn't you just say no?" Vinnie asked.

"Because she needed me in the group, that Casey Cottonfluff or whatever the heck her name was! She wouldn't stop nagging me to join and... and..." Sunil's expression of fury suddenly changed into one of hopelessness, and his eyes began to tear up. "A-And I just couldn't say no... I just couldn't... Oh, what am I going to do?" He finally broke down into sobs and buried his face in his pillow.

"Oh, come on, Sunil, don't cry," Vinnie sympathized, placing a comforting hand on his friend's back and rubbing it a bit. "We'll help you figure something out."

"What is there left to do?" Sunil sniffled. "My chance of getting into the club I want to be in is now all gone! I don't want to speak in front of a crowd, I have horrible stage fright! And I don't want my hand to hurt from writing ten thousand times over!"

"I got it!" Russell suddenly exclaimed with a snap of his fingers. "Tomorrow's Club Sign-Up Make-Up Day; it gives students who weren't here today a second chance to sign up for clubs. If you can tell this Casey you really don't want to be in the Speaker's Forum, you can still have a chance to sign up for the club you really want."

"But how?" the Indian fretted. "I'm not good at saying no! I'll never be able to do it!"

"Don't worry, we have plenty of time," Russell smiled assuringly.

"Time for what?"

"For practice, of course!" The librarian placed Sunil's magic table in the center of the room, along with two chairs, and sat down in one of them. "C'mon, sit in the other chair. Pretend I'm Casey trying to push you into joining the Speaker's Forum."

"I dunno..." Sunil sighed. "It seems kinda silly..."

"Be that as it may, it will help you. You want to get into Yoga and Mindfulness, don't you?" Russell smiled when his taller friend nodded. "Then come over here and practice."

"Okay, I suppose it is worth a try." Sunil walked over to the chair and sat down in it. "I feel kinda ridiculous..."

"Don't worry, Sunil, you'll do great!" Vinnie cheered on, hugging his best friend from behind. "Just tell Russell - er, Casey no and you'll be able to do it for real tomorrow!"

"Well, okay..."


Sunil practiced with Russell and Vinnie all afternoon and evening until it came around to almost eleven at night, which is when they went to bed. At six in the morning the next day, they resumed their practice for an hour more before they had to get ready for the day.

The whole while, Sunil would constantly give in to "Casey's" pleas, and the three friends would immediately have to start over once again. The Indian felt as though they were barely getting anywhere with his training, until finally he had had enough of repeating the same scenario over and over again, and he ended up snapping at "Casey", finally telling her no, albeit he was a bit rude about it. The impasse was finally shattered and they were able to make actual progress now, Sunil finding it easier and easier to say no and reject the offer into Speakers Forum. Sunil finally felt confident in telling the real Casey the next day he wanted to be in Yoga and Mindfulness instead.

The next morning, Sunil brushed up on the skills he had acquired the night prior with Vinnie and Russell before getting ready, and an hour later the three friends left their dorm and made their way to class. Throughout the day, Sunil could feel his confidence draining slowly out of his consciousness, and when Club Sign-Up Make-Up Day finally rolled around he felt his confidence drain out almost completely.

"Well, Sunil," Russell spoke as he and his other two friends walked through the crowd of people, "are you ready to get into the club you want to be in?"

"I-I don't know..." Sunil whimpered in reply, trembling all over. "What if Casey won't let me leave?"

"Then she'll have us to answer to!" Vinnie shouted. "If she tries to keep you in that club even if you don't want to, I swear I'll-"

"You'll do nothing," Russell cut off with a stern glance. "This is Sunil's battle to fight, not ours."

"Ugh, fine..."

"Come on, Sunil, let's find that Speakers Forum booth," Russell said, having to push his taller friend gently to get him to walk forward.

Whimpering, Sunil started to walk forward, looking through the flurry of people and booths, trying to spot the Speakers Forum booth with that annoying blue and white girl. However, at the same time he didn't want to find either one; he was too afraid to face his fears!

"There she is!" Vinnie suddenly exclaimed, snapping the Indian out of his thoughts. The suddenly loud voice startled him and he ended up screaming and leaping into the air a few feet, and once he regained his composure he followed his shorter friend's pointing finger to the same booth reading Speakers Forum on the banner above, as well as Casey speaking to another person.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Russell smiled. "Go on, you can do it."

"B-But what if I can't?" Sunil gulped, trying to back away.

"Sunil, if you don't give it a try at least, you'll never be able to say no in the real world, and therefore you'll never be able to be happy. You don't want that, do you?"

"N-No, of course not."

"Then think of this as practice for when you set yourself off in the real world after we graduate. Come on, you can do it."

Gulping, unable to get down the large lump in his throat, Sunil slowly walked towards the booth. When Casey spotted him and squealed, "Hi, Sunil!", he whimpered and tried to back away again. He was stopped by Russell and Vinnie, who then gently pushed him forwards. Sighing, finding no easy way out of this, he walked up to the booth.

"Guess what, Sunil?" Casey grinned once the Indian made it up to the booth. "I told Lolly yesterday that you decided to join and she was super excited! However, I noticed she went out to buy a lot of paper and pencils, so I guess she was preparing for you to be late or something. I tried to tell her you wouldn't be late, but she said that she can't be too careful."

Sunil gulped, trying to stifle a loud whine of despair, and tried to stand up straight. "Um... Casey?"

"Yes, Sunil?"

"I... I'm afraid I can't join Speakers Forum."

"What? Why not? You already signed up for it, remember?" Casey picked up a clipboard with a paper clipped to it and shoved it in Sunil's face, nearly smacking him in the nose. The paper had a list of the names of other students who signed up for the club, and his name was among them.

"Yes, I understand that, but I wish to partake in Yoga and Mindfulness," Sunil replied, pushing the clipboard down and out of his face.

"But this club's much more exciting!"

"I understand that. I, however, am not even a thrill-seeker."

"Well, you'll never know for certain if you're a thrill-seeker or not unless you join the club!"

"I want to join Yoga and Mindfulness."

"But you already signed up."

"Then take me off the list! I want to sign up for something else!"

"But, Sunil, this club is right for you!"

"I SAID NO!" Now furious, Sunil let out the loudest shriek he had ever mustered up before, not counting his screams, drawing a lot of attention to him. Conversations were put on hold as dozens and dozens of heads turned to look at the angry Indian. However, due to his fury, he hadn't even noticed how much attention he was drawing.

"Whoa," Vinnie breathed to Russell, his eyes wide as he stared at his best friend in shock. "I never knew he had that kind of volume in him."

"Me, neither," Russell replied, his eyes just as wide.

Casey blinked at Sunil a few times, shock sparkling in her wide eyes as well. Suddenly, she grinned. "Wow, that was a great voice! See? Speakers Forum is the right club for you!"

"Listen here, Casey Cottonfluff-" Sunil began.

"Casey Cottonpuff."

"Whatever! I do not want to join Speakers Forum! How many times must I tell you this? I wish to join Yoga and Mindfulness! You are not my mother, therefore you cannot force me into doing something I don't want to do, so you had better get this through your thick skull: I am not joining this club! Do I make myself absolutely positively one-hundred percent crystal clear?"

Casey opened her mouth, wanting to argue, but a furious glare from the Indian man before her told her otherwise. Instead, she sighed sadly. "Yeah... Guess you're right, I shouldn't force you into something you don't want to do. I don't know why, but I've been doing that with a lot of people lately. Guess I just really wanted people to face their fears of speaking in public, but I need to understand that no means no. In that case, Sunil, consider yourself dropped out of the club!" With a smile, the girl crossed off Sunil's name on the paper.

"I... I did it," Sunil whispered, his eyes widened in disbelief. He quickly grinned widely and turned to his friends. "Did you see that? I did it! I actually stood up for myself!"

"Great job, Sunil!" Russell cheered. "We knew you could do it!"

"Yeah!" Vinnie added. "Now quick, before Club Sign-Up Make-Up Day ends! Go sign up for Yoga and Mindfulness!"

"Right, be right back!" In a flash, Sunil sought out and ran to the booth of the club he desperately wanted to sign up for to begin with, and a few minutes later he ran back to his friends, bouncing ecstatically. "I got in! There was one last slot and I signed up for the club!"

For a brief, rare moment of overjoy - and a touch of immaturity for their ages - the three boys bounced around, shouting and squealing with glee for their tallest friend's success. Once they calmed down, Sunil hugged Russell and Vinnie tightly.

"Thank you so much for helping me out today, you two," he grinned. "You two are the greatest friends a guy could ever have!"

"Aww, don't mention it," Russell chuckled, his cheeks turning pink from the praise.

"No prob, buddy!" Vinnie hugged Sunil back, looking quite accomplished of himself. "We always have your back!"

"Well, I suppose it's time to go back to class," Sunil said as he heard the bell ring from the building. "Let's go back to class. I can't wait until tomorrow so I can enjoy Yoga and Mindfulness, even more so since I've worked even harder than expected to make it in the club!"

The three friends headed back to class, and the next day the three friends went off to their clubs, which took place thirty minutes before lunchtime.

Sunil had never had as much fun in his life as he had in Yoga and Mindfulness.