Awol was dragging Spiff through the dormitories at such a speed that the kid was barely even being dragged- it was more like he was billowing in the wind. The Sergeant had spent the last 5 hours looking after Spiff, and he was going to spend the next 5 hours filling out his mountains of paperwork. He didn't want a second of it to go to any further waste.

"7-555… 7-556… 7-557… 7-558! Finally!"

The door of room 7-558 was flown open so quickly that Spiff barely had time to react before he was violently shoved into it by his superior.

"You'll stay here," said Awol, "until you and your teammates' trials tomorrow."

"Whatever you say, Migget," said Spiff. He turned from Awol and quickly scanned the room. It was pretty barebones: the walls, ceiling, and floor were all painted a garish shade of light green, with a window on the far wall, looking out into the regions of space. The only furniture was a tall dresser and three beds: a middle-sized bed in the back of the room, a small bed in the front of the room, and a bunk bed between the two.

Also inside the dorm room were three young boys, staring back at Spiff. They were all older than Spiff, and none of them seemed especially pleased to see him.

The first boy, who sat on the bunk bed's top mattress, was very tall, even taller than Awol, with spiky hair much like Spiff's, but darker, and an annoyed scowl on his face.

The second boy had large, extremely expressive eyes that took up almost half of his face, very light blond hair (blonder than Spiff himself), a small round nose, and was about 6 inches taller than Spiff. He sat on the bottom mattress.

The third boy was practically the opposite of the first: extraordinarily short, with combed-back brown hair, glasses, and an overbite. It was immediately evident that he was quite shy: he was sitting in the far back of the room, on the edge of the middle-sized bed, and his expression made it look like he was actually afraid of Spiff.

"Well, doesn't this look like a motley crew?"Spiff snarked to himself.

"Uh, yes. Ahem. Well, I trust you'll be able to introduce yourselves," Awol said hastily. And at that, he slammed the door and audibly ran from the corridor.

All four of them listened intently for his footsteps to disappear. Then, finally, the tall one spoke:

"Okay, what the hell is this?" he shouted. "Awol told us we were getting a new teammate. That sounded great!. I was thinkin' I'd get someone cool, like me, not another loser like these guys. Like maybe a girl! Maybe a hot girl! But noooooooo… We get a fu…freaking kid! Is this a sick joke?!"

Spiff was positively fuming at this insult. "Kid? I'll have you know, I'm the future Spaceman Spiff! I'm gonna be the greatest Spaceman of all time! You and these punks are gonna be groveling at my feet just to get the chance to talk to me! So you'd better not insult me like that!"

The teen looked at Spiff with a confounded look on his face. He reacted as though Spiff had said the most ridiculous thing in the world. As if Spiff had just claimed to be the regent monarch of Planet Bavaria or something. The blond-haired kid kept looking between the two, like the referee of a boxing match.

The teen started laughing- hard!

"Hahahahaha! You, the greatest Spaceman ever? Oh my god! I've never heard anything that crazy in my entire life! What are you, like, three inches tall? You're not making it out of the academy, buddy! You-"

Suddenly, the blond-haired kid stood up and started yelling in what sounded like gibberish. "You leaff him alone, Mort! Schusch! Vat iss your problem? Hee iss jusst a boy! Boy wit big dreamss! Hee iss just hoping tall!"

Spiff was completely lost, but somehow the tall boy understood. "Aw, don't be such a kiss ass, Rolf! This loser's going nowhere and you know it! And no amount of "hoping tall" is gonna fix that!"

"Anyting iss poschible, Mort!"

"Not everything, man! Some things just can't happen! Like a three-foot-tall guy getting Spaceman!"

"Spaceman iss fery hard, zat iss fery hard, yesch, but if he vorks fery ha-"

"Okay, WHAT is going on here?!" Spiff yelled. "You're saying things, but no words are coming out! You're talking in voodoo talk!

The tall guy turned to Spiff and said, "Rolf's speaking perfect English. You must just be too stupid to understand his accent! Stupid like your stupid… stupid freaking… er… dreams and sh… stuff…er…yeah. …Uh, I'm Mort."

"Pleased to meet you," Spiff growled. "I'm Spaceman Spiff."

Mort continued, "Oh, and this guy here is-"

"Rolf! I'm Rolf!" interrupted the blond kid.

"Yeah… he's Rolf," replied Mort.

"Well, I am absolutely looking forward to working with you both," Spiff said in the same angry tone of voice. "Now who's this chump?" he asked, pointing to the short kid, who was sitting in a corner, and had turned to face the opposite direction. He didn't appear to actually be doing anything.

"That's Fargle," said Mort. "He, uh, doesn't talk much."

Fargle, indeed, didn't say anything.

"What's the matter, kid?" Spiff asked him. "You too good to talk to me?" Still nothing from Fargle's end.

Spiff was getting mad. "Come on! Speak up!" He grabbed Fargle's shoulder, but Fargle only gave a shriek, swiped his hand away, and buried himself deeper into the corner.

"HEY!" yelled Spiff, "What's your-"

"Ah, Ah!" Rolf interrupted. "Vee, ah, vee had better get to schleep! Fery big day tomorrow, yesch? Yesch!"

"Y-yes, right, Rolf," said Mort, laying back down onto his bed. "We'd all better get to bed." He shot a "back off" look in Spiff's direction.

"Oh, uh, okay," said Spiff. He backed away from Fargle and climbed onto the small, empty bed- which was really little more than a cot. After he did so, the lights quickly shut off, seemingly automatically.

There was an awkward pause as everyone settled in. "This was a good idea..." Mort said in a soft voice. "'cause, 'cause Spiff here's going to need lots of rest. For all of the totally cool and awesome stuff he's gonna do. The best Spaceman ever's gotta sleep well. Heh heh heh… Goodnight, all!"

"Goot night," whispered Rolf.

"...night..." tittered Fargle.

"Good night, Ralph, Fuggle, Mud... I mean Mort," grumbled Spiff.

The young boy lay in the darkness, stewing in anger. He thought of a bunch of nasty things he could do to Mort. He thought of a few ways to get Fargle to say something in his defense. He wondered whether there was a way to get Rolf to stop talking. And before laying his head down to sleep, he whispered:

"The incredible Spaceman Spiff is about to engage in his first mission. Surely, an incredible day in the history of spacefaring- perhaps, all of humankind. Soon the world will know of his stunning strength... and no one will be able to laugh at him ever again!"