The gray, overcast, and cloudy sky set a solemn tone as we walked towards the food building. Completely focused on the task at hand, I didn't stop to think about anything else until I had arrived at the door of the building, opened it, and held it open, because that is the only proper way to hold a door. Once again, I watched the shattered faces of my classmates pass me one by one, until finally Mr. Pony relieved me and I returned to the front of the line to lead them to the cafeteria.

As I crossed the threshold into the cafeteria, the aroma of healthy food flooded my nostrils. Although I still wasn't thrilled about Operation: Nutrition being More Than Just a Dream, which was the song that was currently playing in the background, the situation didn't seem as bleak as before. As some of my classmates fanned out behind me to find their own food, I waited back behind for William and the posse that his culinary skills had gathered in this situation: Skylar, Kiki, Kathleen, and Owen. For now, at least, the five of us had become aware of William's ability to make even the yucky Operation: Nutrition food taste good, and latched onto him during lunch period.

With all of the students lingering around him, William started sweating a little. "Hey… guys," he said a bit nervously. "Are you all going to sit with me today?"

Owen provided an answer before either Skylar or I had a chance to reply. "Totally! We should all get our pen-pals and hang out."

"All right, I guess," said William. "I'll see if I can find Zach, and get us all one big table."

"Zach?" I asked. "Isn't it Zak?" I thought of the rotund boi with the tight neon green T-shirt and fohawk.

"No, you're thinking of a different person," responded William as he shook his head. "Zach is different from Zak. He spells his name with a 'ch' instead of a 'k', which makes him much more sophisticated."

I was now officially confused. "Really? I don't think I know who you're talking about," I said.

William looked a bit disappointed. "You'll meet him pretty soon," he said. "But for now, we should look for your pen-pal, Chuck."

"Right," I agreed. While Chuck's specialty was playing Yugioh cards rather than creating sandwiches, he was by no means a bad sandwich artisan in and of himself. I scanned the vast cafeteria for any sign of him, until my eyes eventually locked onto Chuck's massive form towering over one of the tables near the window of the room, with three other beings seated at it. I recognized two of them as shep and Tim, but the third person, with his dark, wavy hair and maroon sweater vest, was unknown to me.

"It looks like Chuck is over there," I informed the group, pointing towards the table where I had seen him.

"Yeah, let's go," said William, who spotted him just before I did due to being several inches taller. He led us as we zigzagged through the crowd of people until we finally arrived at the table.

"Hey guys!" greeted Chuck, sweating and waving. "Grab a seat! There's plenty of them." A few of the beads of sweat flew towards the boy in the maroon sweater vest, who flinched away from them.

"I don't think I've been acquainted with some of your… friends, Charles," said the boy.

Chuck put a meaty hand behind his head, closed his eyes embarrassedly, and sweated nervously. "I keep telling you, it's Chuck," he said. "And this is my pen-pal Jordan and his friends."

"You… already know who I am," said William.

"I'm Skylar. I sit at the same table as William in class," said Skylar, leveraging her connections to establish a relationship with the other party.

"I'm Kiki," said Kiki, pulling the stick with the few remainders of her lollipop out of her mouth.

"I'm Kathleen," said Kathleen, before adding "Kiki and I both sit at the same table as Jordan."

"And I'm Owen," said Owen, spreading his arms wide as if he were presenting an idea from his imagination. "But you can call me El Presidente."

The boy in the maroon sweater vest raised one of his eyebrows like a sarcastic, bearded male hipster. "Charmed," he replied. "My name is Zachariah."

I was a little confused. "Aren't you William's pen-pal then? I thought your name was Zach?"

Zachariah recoiled a bit. "Never. I am a proper noun. I am to be addressed by my full name."

Chuck put a meaty hand behind his head, closed his eyes embarrassedly, and sweated nervously. "That's why he insists on calling me 'Charles'," he said.

"Right… my bad," said William, making a similar pose to Chuck, but with considerably less sweat involved. "I've only been introduced to this guy once, and written him one letter. I didn't know he wanted to go by, uh, Zacha...riah?"

Zachariah nodded his head seldomly.

"It's a bit of a mouthful," said William.

"What, would you prefer if I called you Willy?" inquired Zachariah condescendingly.

William quivered a bit at the thought of being called Willy. "Ok, yeah. I guess I understand then."

Zachariah gave off a bit of a standoffish aura for his first impression, so we all subconsciously decided to avoid him. Besides, it seemed like the already seated shep and Chuck were also keeping a one-seat breadth from him on either side as well. William ended up sitting to Chuck's right, with Skylar to his right, and me on the other side of her. On my left were Kathleen and then Kiki, then an empty seat, and then Owen, and finally shep on his right.

The background music changed to Elton John. I felt like my spatial reasoning skills were being put to the test. Given the number of people at this table, and the number of empty seats between all of them, that meant the total number of seats at this table, which was the same number as the maximum number of people that could be seated at a table, had to be… I put my hand over my nose and mouth to think. After several long minutes of thought, I could only think of three answers. 9, 12, and 16. Well, that was easy. 9.

"Nine?" I said aloud for some reason.

"Huh?" asked Skylar. "What was that, Jordan?"

I removed my hand from my nose and mouth to speak louder. "Nine. There's nine seats at this table."

She looked at me like I'd gone bonkers. I felt my ego take a little hit. "What?" For some reason, her voice came in sync with that of a large man bellowing in the distance. Then she looked around quickly. "That's, like, not even right. There are 9 people here, but there are 3 empty seats after that."

I put my hand back over my nose and mouth and resumed thinking. Shoot, I thought. She was right. But if that's the case, what's 9 + 3? It had to be one of the other two options. Frustrated with my apparent inability to understand the question, I re-chose 12.

"Twelve," I said, a lot more sure of myself this time.

"...Yes," said Skylar. "That's 12 seats. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"I..." I began. A disappointed bead of sweat dripped down the side of my face. "I don't know, actually."

"It's cuz you have amnesia," said Kiki.

"I don't have amnesia," I replied. "I never had amnesia."

"Yeah," agreed William. "He didn't have amnesia."

"It was just a rumor someone started about him." added Skylar.

"But he forgot about his pen-pal when we were writing letters, remember?" countered Kathleen.

"Yeah, he didn't know what to do at all," agreed Kiki.

"Jordan's pen-pal is Chuck," said William. "How could he have forgot who Chuck was if he recognized him today and yesterday?"

"What the heck are you guys talking about?" asked Chuck. "Jordan has amnesia? Since when?"

"Since after the first day William made us sandwiches!" insisted Kathleen. "He had amnesia in class that day after lunch."

"Do… they always argue about this?" asked Zachariah cynically.

My head was spinning. Somehow, Kiki's comment had spiraled into an argument between two conflicting accounts on whether I had had amnesia or not. I was sure that I hadn't, but Kathleen and Kiki were sure that I had. I tried to think back through what had just been said...

"Come on, Jor-bah, can't you take a joke?" Owen's scratchy voice interrupted the discussion.

"Huh?" I asked. "What do you mean, Owen? What joke?"

"You know, the joke that you had amnesia," he said, closing his eyes, smiling, and holding up one of his hands as if to shake someone else's.

"A joke? Were you the one that started the rumor about Jordan?" asked Skylar.

"Yep!" replied Owen, spreading his arms wide as if he were presenting an idea from his imagination. "I made it aaaall up."

"See? Even Owen admits it!" said William. "He only made it up. Jordan never had amnesia!"

I decided to be mad about that later. "Yeah," I agreed, "That's what I've been trying to tell everyone."

"That was all just a joke?" asked Kiki, looking slightly upwards and putting a finger to her lips thoughtfully. "...I don't get it."

"But," resisted Kathleen, struggling to find her words as her position dwindled, "He had amnesia. I saw it! I was there when it happened!"

I shook my head seldomly. "No," I disagreed. "If I know I didn't have amnesia, and Owen admits that he started the rumor about me, then it's clear that I never had amnesia."

Pushing her fists to her sides angrily, Kathleen looked from me to Owen, and back again. "It wasn't just a rumor. I know what I saw." Owen grimaced at first, but quickly turned it into a grin and put his hands behind his pink baseball capped head accordingly.

"Uh, guys," inputted Chuck, sweating impatiently, "If we want to have enough time to eat lunch we better start grabbing some food soon."

"Tru," replied Kiki, with no 'e'. "I'm pretty hungry right now."

"Alright then," continued Skylar. "So what's on the menu today, Chef Willy?"

"Don't call me that," replied Chef Willy, looking more embarrassed than upset. "And I don't know yet. We gotta look around and make a game plan like yesterday."

"Yeah," I added. "Even after Operation: Nutrition, it looks like the cafeteria changes some of its food every day."

"So there might not be burritoes anymore?" asked Kathleen.

"Maybe," answered William, crossing his thick arms and screwing up his face thoughtfully. "But there might be something else that's similar enough to a sandwich that I could work with it."

"Are we just going to split up into the same groups as last time?" asked Skylar.

"That'd be faster than picking new ones," I answered. "shep, let's get going then."

"Huh?" shep spoke up for the first time to respond to me. "Oh, I'm sorry Jor-bah. I'm already going with Owen here."

"Yeah, you should go with Zachariah," added Owen. "That way you could show him what to do."

That was a fair point. Both Owen and Zachariah hadn't been part of our pyramid scheme, as Skylar had called it, last time, so it would be better to have someone who had gathered ingredients before help the new people. "Okay," I agreed. "Let's look over in the far corner, Zachariah."

After a whirlwind tour of the far side of the cafeteria, Zachariah and I returned to the table to contribute what foods we had found. By the time we got back, the background music had changed to Petr Marek. Kathleen Kiki, William, and Skylar had already come back, and Chuck showed up soon after Zachariah and I did. We all stood around for several more minutes waiting for Owen and shep to return, long enough that the background music changed twice more, but they never returned.

Chuck continued sweating impatiently. "Where are shep and Owen?" he asked. "We're just waiting on them."

Skylar checked the time on her phone. "We're running out of time," she reminded us. "Should we just start without them? William, can you make anything with what we've found so far?"

"Yeah," he replied, "but it would be better if I had a bit more to work with."

"Nah," cancelled the very hungry Kiki. "We should just go. At this point I'd be cool with eating anything, even if it wasn't a 'ficial Chef Willy Sandwich."

"You too?" asked a disappointed William. "All right then, here's what I got..."

William assigned us our respective ingredients and soon we were back at the table where he assembled them into 7 pita bread, tofu, hummus, spinach, and zucchini sandwiches. Though it was still surprisingly good, it was a noticeable downgrade from the burrito he had made yesterday when we had full participation. Between ditching our lunch group and starting the rumor that I had amnesia, I was starting to develop some beef with Owen, which was ironic, because I was eating tofu. I'd make sure to give him a piece of my mind the next time I saw him.

I finished my sandwich and my pint of 100% skim milk quickly. As the foodstuffs mixed in my digestive system, my stomach began churning. In short, I had become… queasy. Did I eat too fast? I took another look at the milk carton. The expiration date was tomorrow, was there a chance it had gone bad already? I stood up from my chair.

"Excuse me," I announced, as politely as I could given the situation. "I'll be right back." With greater tunnel vision than an aspiring senior citizen, I wove through the cafeteria crowd, which had thinned considerably as people had gotten their own food and settled down, on my way to the exit of the cafeteria. Peering through the threshold, I could see on the left side of the hallway were several closed wooden doors, but I remembered from a few days ago when they were open that they led to some conference rooms. On the right was the section that led to the staircase we always climbed, an elevator past that, and beyond that some more closed wooden doors. There were signs above those doors, - the universal signs for the male, female, and gender-neutral handicap bathrooms.

Jackpot. Beginning to sweat almost as profusely as Chuck, I speedwalked as fast as I legally could towards the male bathroom and threw open the door. My footsteps and heavy breathing echoed off the tile floor as I entered the enclosed, linoleum chamber. Unfortunately, as I turned to the right to enter one of the stalls, they both appeared to be locked.

Blast! I thought. And if I didn't think of something else quickly, that was also what I was about to do. My head whirled around wildly. There! There was a trash can near the hand dryer. I rushed over and promptly, as they say… lost my lunch. As I labored over the top of the trash can, I heard both of the stall doors open and sensed the presence of two beings emerging from them behind me, but at the moment I was in too vulnerable of a state to turn around and see who they were. The situation was made even more uncomfortable by the fact that neither of the two beings seemed to be doing anything except watching me, so all I could do was wait for my body to stop convulsing.

I rolled up one of my sleeves and wiped my mouth with my forearm before turning my tear-stained, bloodshot eyed face around to see… them. In any other story, I would have been talking about some hunky, romantic love interests, but this time it was only Owen and shep.

"What… are you two doing here?" I croaked, before adding irritably, "You ditched William and the rest of us!"

Owen grinned and put his hands behind his head, nodding towards the trash can behind me. "Yeah! And by the looks of it, we made the right call!"

I struggled to defend both William and myself. "It wasn't the sandwich's fault," I insisted, still a bit hoarsely. "I just drunk some inspired milk is all."

"Amazing," commented shep. "And then what did you do, Jor-bah?"

I was a bit confused by the question. "I… came here."

"Aww," replied shep, looking a bit like a disappointed doge. "That's a shame."

I felt like shep was trolling me for some reason. "Yeah," I went along with it hesitantly. "I don't think there'll be enough time left to make another sandwich, plus, I've kind of lost my appetite anyways." The two of them tried to move past me, but I stepped backwards to block the door.

"Hold on," I said. It sounded a bit shakier in person than I had imagined it in my head. "You never said why both of you were here. You at least owe us an explanation for why you disappeared from the lunch group without letting us know."

Owen closed his eyes, smiled, and held up one of his hands as if to shake someone else's. "Why do I need to tell you that?" His smile flashed into brief gritted-toothed anger. "What, you think you're the potty police or something?"

I was both slightly offended and embarrassed by his statement, but didn't back down just yet. "At least tell me why you started the rumor about me having amnesia!"

Owen's normally expressive face went blank and emotionless. "I never did anything like that."

I was starting to get heated. "But you literally said you did! Just now, at lunch!"

"Oh, that? It was just a joke. I was playing along with what you said," he explained.

"What do you mean, what I said?"

"I didn't start a rumor about nothing," insisted Owen. "You were the one that started the rumor about people spreading rumors that you had amnesia." He grinned and put his hands behind his head. "Of course, I dunno why you did that, but I thought I'd play along."

"Huh?" I asked, a mix of confused and angry. I knew that what Owen was saying was wrong somehow, but between the layered rumors and conflicting accounts, my brain was struggling to figure out what was wrong about it. Even with all my thinking, I couldn't even come up with three answers to choose from, so I just replied this: "Why did you play along with it then, if you knew it wasn't true?"

"Cause we're bois, remember?" he answered almost immediately. "And as bois, we've always got to stick up for each other. C'mon Jor-bah, you know ya boi's always got your back. You can trust me."

"But..." I tried to think again.

shep cut me off. "i don't know what the deal is with all the rumors and amnesia," he inputted, putting his hands up disarmingly. "But after everyone split up to find food, Owen told me to come here with him to play a game. That's why we were in the bathroom."

"A game?" I asked. That sounded both suspicious and slightly inappropriate. "What kind of game?"

"It'll be easier if I just show you!" said Owen, reaching into the pocket of his navy blue sweatshirt and pulling out the metal disc I had given to him yesterday. "Okay, Jor-bah, heads or tails?"

I looked back and forth from Owen's grinning face to the metal disc in his palm. "What?"

"shep, heads or tails?"

shep put his hand to his chin and looked to the side thoughtfully. "Tails never fails," he finally answered.

"Okay, so Jor-bah is heads," added Owen, before flipping the disc into the air. He promptly caught it in his left hand and slapped it onto the top of his right. When he removed the left hand, the disc was lying face down on top of the right hand.

"Tails," announced Owen. "You lose, Jor-bah."

"What?" I asked. "That's it? That's the game? What happens now?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Owen, spreading his arms wide as if to present an idea from his imagination. "Just kidding. Here," he added, holding out his fist with the coin enclosed inside. "You can have this back."

"Really?" I asked, more than a little confused. "But why? Didn't you ask for it earlier?"

"Yeah," he answered, holding up his other hand and inspecting it. "But I don't really need it anymore." His face went completely expressionless again. "Plus, I really think you should be the one to hang on to it, Jor-bah."

I didn't really understand what he meant by that, but despite his normally comedic ways, I had a sense that Owen was being serious this time. I reached out my hand to accept the coin, feeling a bit like Julia, except that I no longer had any glasses to adjust. And just like that, the coin was back in my possession. I looked at it blankly for a few seconds, allowing shep and Owen to pass me by.

"Catch you later, Jor-bah," said shep pleasantly as he exited the bathroom.

"You better hurry up and get back to the cafeteria before lunch ends," added Owen, "or I might just give your line leader spot to Randy!"

The cafeteria. Right. I slipped the coin back into the pocket of my cardigan. "I'll be there in a few seconds," I let them know. "Just gotta wash up first."

Using the bathroom's sink and mirror, I cleaned the remainders of my lost lunch off my face and forearm, then dried myself off. In the echoey silence of the linoleum chamber, I was alone with my thoughts for a few minutes, so I tried to make sense of the exchange I had with Owen. Did he or did he not start the rumor that I had amnesia? If he didn't, why did he claim that he did? Was he really just sticking up for me, like he said? And what was up with his 'game' with shep?

Like laser beams in a house full of mirrors, these questions ricocheted around my head as I departed the bathroom and made my way back to the cafeteria. I crossed back through the threshold to see Mr. Pony's class scattered around in small groups, without any real order or organization to them.

"There you are, Jordan," said Randy as I appeared, his red-and-black-flanneled arms crossed in front of him. "Where have you been? If you're the line leader, you need to be here to lead the line."

"Sorry," I admitted. "I got a bit sick from lunch, so I was in the bathroom."

To my surprise, Randy's icy blue gaze softened a bit. "Ah, all right then. Do you need to go to the office? I can get Mr. Pony to show you where it is, and take over as line leader in the meantime."

"No thanks," I declined. "I'm feeling better now."

"Are you sure? If you're sick, you should go home early. I don't need you contaminating the rest of us."

"I'm fine," I insisted. "I just drunk some inspired milk is all."

Randy looked me up and down warily one more time. "All right, if you say so." he finally said, before leaving me to address the rest of the class. "Jordan is here," he called. "Time to line up!"

The small social groups dissolved as the rest of my classmates fell into line behind me. Once we were all ready, and Mr. Pony gave the signal, we departed the cafeteria and returned to the kindergarten building from whence we came.