With the stage, and to a larger extent, the gymnasium, abandoned for the time being, the lights shut off. The room was completely uninhabited, and not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, louse, or grouse. So naturally, the being known as Mr. Pony took it upon themselves to give a TED Talk to a captive audience of none up on the empty stage.

"Ahem," they began, waving their arms rhythmically. "As you may or may not know, there comes a time in everyone's life where they have to get… the talk." They looked down disappointedly briefly. "Unfortunately, I'm not legally allowed to do that here, due to ESRB reasons, so instead, you lot are just getting this TED Talk!" They then put their hands on their stomach.

"Back when I was a young'n," began Mr. Pony, clearly about to embark on some epic journey, "I had a friend. Let's call him, uh, Quacím! Anyways, so you know that song Sweet Dreams by Eurythmics? You know, the one that plays when the ultimate lifeform experiences life after death? Well, there's a lyric in there that says 'Everybody's lookin' for something." Mr. Pony covered their mouth with their hands mischievously. "And Quacím, boy howdy was he lookin' for something. In fact, he wasn't just looking for it – he sought it. I would always sit next to him in computer class, and when he wasn't checkin' out the girls, he was doing research on this thing online."

Mr. Pony turned to the side slightly and raised one hand. "This thing that he sought so desperately? It was a blue brick." They then put their hands on their stomach again. "Yup! Just an average, everyday slab of masonry… except it was blue." They returned to normal. "Once he had gathered enough info to determine the blue brick's whereabouts, Quacím set out on his epic quest dash s to find it and make it his own. To make a long story short, he basically traveled across Middle Earth and Mordor to acquire the one true ring. Scratched, torn, exhausted, and probably bleeding too, Quacím finally beheld the blue brick with his own eyes, and took it into his trembling arms in disbelief. At long last, the precious was his!" Mr. Pony put their hands over their mouth mischievously again. "His hero's journey over, and the blue brick safely inside his carryon, Quacím took an uber to the nearest airport and booked a flight back home, to, uh, Liberia, or wherever the heck he was from." Mr. Pony leaned backwards and to the side a little, closed their eyes, blushed and sweated slightly embarrassedly, and held their hands up to their chest in mock shock. "In the middle of the flight, Quacím took his treasure out of his carryon to admire it, its blue paint reflected lovingly in his eyes." They then returned to normal. "And then he yiffed it out the window!"

Man, I thought, a claustrophobic sense of Déjà vu gripping my body as I pushed through the uncomfortably packed crowd, following Kristy. This is just like the parks at DisneyWorld. Was it just me, or were there somehow more people in the lobby than there had been before the spelling bee began? Maybe it was just the loud background noise of conversation as everyone socialized. We finally joined the back of a long line in the lobby, luxuriously leading towards the concession stand. Through my now-glassesless eyes, I spied the menu high above the concession stand.

"Oh, boy!" said shep wonderfully. "They have portable pizza. My favorite."

"Huh, it doesn't say the prices," I commented aloud, my hand jostling my 65 Kc in the pocket of my tender, sophisticated black cardigan. "I hope I have enough."

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that," said Skylar, "It's free this time. This is, like, our only lunch, remember?"

She did have a point. I never had to pay for the food in the cafeteria, so maybe the concession stand was the same way?

"She's right," agreed Kristy, answering my thoughts. "When we went here earlier, we just got our food like in the cafeteria."

"Huh, okay," I said. "That's pretty cool." Maybe I could spend my money at the vending machine later. Though I was looking forward to having a taste of some of the pre-Operation: Nutrition food again, I couldn't help but zone out and be distracted by people watching in the bustling crowd around me. Was I warm enough for them? I recognized some of the faces whistling past as some of the students who had also participated in the first round. The more iconic designs like Lucian or Bayun stood out like sore thumbs. I also noticed some people opening up the doors to eat or just chill in the outside world. Now that the weather was better than it had been yesterday, I could get a good look at just what was outside the gym: a concrete walkway leading into the grotto from which we came with a few square, red picnic tables, and a small concrete ledge on the outside of the walkway separating it from the gently sloping green that led up to the football field near the big toy.

I felt like I was content with how much I had observed my surroundings, so I turned my focus back to the task at hand: waiting in line for food. I waited, and waited, and waited some more, like a patient little boy, and when that waiting was over… it was time to eat. Now that I held my chargrilled cheeseburger, alongside a pint of chocolate milk, inside a cardboard boat of chips, in my own two hands, the wafting smell overtook my nostrils and reminded me how hungry I was.

"Where should we all sit?" asked William. "It doesn't look like the tables are big enough for all of us."

"There's a ledge outside," I offered, using the knowledge I had just observed from my surroundings. I was starting to see why Rachel did this so often. "We could all sit there, side by side."

No one seemed opposed to that idea, so our large group of kindergarteners and first graders headed outside to enjoy our food. Despite the sun, it was a refreshing break from the stuffy, crowded lobby. I was sitting at the far end of the line on the ledge next to shep, away from the center of conversation, so I just kind of stayed out of it for the time being and enjoyed my lunch and the weather.

Due to the goodness of the food and my hunger, I soon found my belly full and my cardboard boat empty. That was a satisfying meal, I thought, looking down the line. Aside from Kiki, no one else seemed to be finished their meal yet. I got up to bin my empty pint of milk and cardboard tray and as I was walking towards one near a red picnic table and the entrance to the gym, I noticed Kiki hop off of the ledge and half-jog towards me in her little sandals.

"Wait up, Jor-bah," she said, catching her breath as she caught up to me. "Are you gonna go get seconds? I'm coming with you."

"Er, not exactly," I said. "I was just going to bin these, and then take a look around. I wanted to check out the vending machine while I was here."

"Oh word," she agreed. "I could go for some snax too." The way she pronounced 'snax' made it clear she was spelling it s-n-a-x instead of s-n-a-c-k-s.

"Hey, you two," came a brusque voice from behind us. With his long legged strides, Jacques was rapidly bearing down upon us. Had I not already known that he was friendly, I would have been intimidated. Following closely behind him were Chuck and shep. "Are you going to get more food? Wait for us."

My legs feeling a bit saplingy, like an icy young deer with headlights, I had no choice but to remain wilted in place until they caught up. A boy as tall as Jacques was bound to have an appetite like a horse, or rather, a hors. But what were Chuck and shep doing here?

"Sorry," wheezed Chuck as he doubled over on his hands and knees after reaching us. Sweat dripped off his pale, acne-encrusted skin and formed a sizable wet mark on the concrete around him. "I only got the burger, chips, and hotdog the first time. I still need to get the pizza, chicken, and the popcorn to collect them all." He paused for a few more seconds to pant before continuing. "But hoo boy! That sun really takes it out of ya."

"Nuh-uh," said Kiki. "The sun is what gives us energy."

"i want another portable pizza," continued shep. "if they only brung back the old food for the spelling bee, i figure this'll be my last chance to get one."

"Um, excuse me," came a voice that was squeaky, but also cute, like one of the chipettes. "But aren't you Noam? The one who won in the second group."

shep turned his mane of golden curls to the side, to address the source of the voice – a girl that looked pretty much exactly like she sounded. I recognized her as one of the quirky looking girls from Ms. Uni's class. She was sitting with a blonde girl built similar to Jacques, with a tall head and a long body, a cynical looking guy wearing a brown polo and red neckerchief, the emo-looking boy I recognized as Scott from the spelling bee, a wild-looking girl with reddish blond hair and a black leather jacket, and an enormous, fridge-looking boy with airpods whose white button down shirt barely stretched over his body before being tucked into his firmly pressed corduroy pants. Truly, this man was a cylinder.

"Ah, yes," shep replied, putting one hand on his hip and raising the other as a form of greeting. "But please, just call me shep. With a, lowercase 's', please." He then put his hand to his chin thoughtfully and looked to the side. "But who are you?"

"My name is Summer," said the chipette girl. "I was also in the spelling bee, remember?"

Ah, that was right! I remembered, now that she had pointed it out. "Yeah, you were in the group with Tim and Kristy."

"i'm sorry, but i'm afraid i don't remember," chuckled shep weakly. "you see, i've got the memory of a goldfish. i don't even remember what i ate for breakfast this morning."

The cynical looking guy raised his eyebrow, cynically of course. "Is this really the guy that beat Scott?"

"There's no doubt about it," muttered Scott, his pouty breath temporarily blowing his hair out of his eyes.

"Oh yeah," continued Summer, "and these are my friends. We're all in Ms. Uni's second grade class. I also help Mr. Sibba out at the library sometimes."

"I'm Lydia," said the tall blonde girl. "I'm vegetarian."

"Nick," said the cynical guy, dabbing at his mouth with his neckerchief. "I play the cello. It's not a saw, it's like a giant violin."

"Kimberly," said the wild-looking girl. "I'm a plumber. But like the kind for aliens."

"Aliens? I don't think those exist," said Chuck, teetering back to his feet and wiping the sweat from his brow. It just kept coming. It did start coming and it didn't stop coming.

"Yeah," replied Kimberly, pulling her black-ice sunglasses over her eyes. "That's 'cause of me." Was she supposed to be their class's Kristy?

"I'm Scott," mumbled the emo boy. "I DM for the group on weekends."

We all looked to the fridge-looking boy for some kind of contribution, but he just kind of sat there catatonically.

"That's Christian," said Nick. "He don't talk much."

After they had finished up, our group introduced ourselves.

"Speaking of which," asked Jacques. "Two of you were in the spelling bee. Who is the third second grader?"

"Oh, it's Avonte," responded Summer. "He made it to the final stage. He's a poet, so he's got a real way with words." she said that last part a little dreamily, but I couldn't tell whether it was meant as a joke or not. Either way, my mind flashed back to that frightening scene where Avonte had eliminated both Randy and Emma at once.

"That makes sense," I said. "I feel like a poet and a librarian would probably do well in a spelling bee."

"And not a dungeonmaster?" asked Scott insecurely. "I mean, I'm fluent in Dothraki, Klingon, Uruk-hai, and Japanese… so why not English too?"

"i see," said shep, putting his hand to his chin thoughtfully. "i guess i'll have to watch out for Avonte in the final round then." We spoke for a bit longer with the second graders before heading back into the lobby. It was nice to finally meet some of the people from the other class that was in our building.

"Finally," said Kiki, scratching her ear and looking down like something was a bummer. "Time to get some more food."

"Ah, not quite," said shep, sweating slightly and holding up his hands disarmingly. "We've still gotta wait in line."

Well, I guessed now something really was a bummer. "I'll join you guys in line in a second," I said. "I'm gonna go get something from the vending machine." I feebly hobbled over to the vending machine on the left side of the lobby, and inserted my 65 Kč in three increments of 21.66 Kč. Each and every time, I selected the Cadbury chocolate egg. I had developed a fascination with those things. I just had to know what was inside. With greedy, insect like fingers, I tore open the aluminum foil wrappers and binned them before cracking open and consuming those chocolatey shells and harvesting their contents. Truly, I had become a preying mantis, and today my prey happened to be a bust of Asclepius, a mini watercolor set, and an especially heavy rock. I pocketed all of these like a villager and returned to my friends.

The rock swinging back and forth uncomfortably in the pocket of my cardigan, I walked to the side of the line. Unfortunately, while I was gone, a few people had come along and gotten in line behind Chuck, shep, Jacques, and Kiki. In fact, I recognized the being right behind them instantly due to their swamp-like presence… it was Bayun.

"Oh!" I said in surprise, getting his attention, but staying outside of the line as I was unable to rejoin it. "You're Bayun, right? You were in the first stage of the spelling bee."

"H'yup," he hiccuped in response. "Ahm Bayun. It's a cawmbinaishun of Bayun, and bayou, cuz that's whayer ahm from." His South American accent was difficult to understand. Could he be one of those foreign exchange students?

"That's right," added Jacques, looking back over Chuck. "He was in the group with shep."

shep peered back at us from the front of our group. "What was that?"

"Awh!" gawked Bayun. "It's… hiyum. Shayup, cayun ah hayuv yore awtograf?"

shep chuckled weakly, as if the laughter was causing the bones in his fragile body to shake. "Shore." Just as he was about to step out of line to go back to Bayun, someone tried to squeeze into the line from the other side. Someone wearing timbs, brown khaki pants, a navy blue sweatshirt, turquoise battery backpack, and pink baseball cap.

"Owen?" I asked. "What are you doing? You can't just cut in line like that."

"Geez, Jor-bah, you're spending too much time with Randy-boy," he replied. "You sound just like him!"

"Where were you at?" I asked. "You were gone for a long time."

"Aw, you noticed? You really do care!"

Ignoring his jokes, I cut straight to the conversation. "Stop dodging the question, Owen. Where were you at?"

He returned my seriousness with a blank expression.

"And remember," added Kiki, holding up her finger as if to give a lecture, "Jacquesypoo's here, so don't even think about lying."

Jacques looked down at Kiki with his unblinking eyes and sweated disappointedly. "Are you going to call me that now too?"

Like a brother, I shared Jacques' sweat. "Welcome to the club."

Finally, Owen spoke up again. "Fine then. You guys wanna know where I was so bad? I went to the bathroom, remember? So obviously I was in the bathroom."

After the tense second pause between when he finished speaking, and Jacques hadn't gone 'BAAAAH', Kiki responded, "Yeah, I remember. You went in, like, right after we got here."

"But that was a while ago," I pressed. "Did you go anywhere else?"

"Nope! I was in there the whooole time. Just left, actually."

That was cap. "You be lying through your teeth!" I replied, taking everyone in the group by surprise. "That's impossible," I continued. "I went to the bathroom too, and there was no one else there. If you really were there the whole time, I would've seen you."

Owen grinned and put his hands behind his head. "Ooh, you got me!" He then closed his mouth and opened his eyes. "...Unless, Jor-bah's the one lying about going to the bathroom."

"What? No I'm not!" I looked to the rest of my friends. "I went to the bathroom!" I insisted a little too loudly, attracting some odd looks from others in the lobby.

"Tru," added Kiki, with no 'e', "I was with Jordan when he left to go use the restroom."

"But did you actually see him go into the restroom?" reversed Owen. "The whole class saw me do it, remember?"

"I saw him go to the lobby after he talked to me earlier," offered Chuck. "But not the bathroom." No one else spoke up.

"But, but," I cried, "I'm telling the truth! I went to the bathroom!"

Jacques broke his silence. "Neither of them seem to be lying."

"Wooow, Jor-bah, I dunno what kinda stamp-collecting magic you're working so Jacquesypoo can't detect your lies, but I'm not as easily convinced. If you were in the bathroom, you'll have to prove it."

"What? How do I prove it?" I was not only taken aback, but I was also starting to get heated.

"I dunno. That's your job to figure out. Are you sure no one saw you go in?"

I frowned frustratedly before putting my hand over my nose and mouth, trying to recall. After a few seconds, I shook my head slowly.

"Did you maybe… take something from the bathroom you can show us?"

It wasn't that either. Since my hand was conveniently over my nose and mouth, I sniffed it to see if I could still smell any of the soap I had washed it with at the sink. No good, only burger. Wait a minute, the sink? "Oh!" I finally piped up, thinking of something. "One of the sinks in the bathroom doesn't work. There we go!"

"Huh," asked Kiki, looking upward and putting her finger to her mouth pensively. "How does that prove you were in the bathroom?"

"Well, that's pretty simple," answered Owen, smiling and putting his hands behind his head. "But I'm sure Jor-bah already knows how, right? Otherwise he wouldn't have said it."

What the heck? Why is he making me answer all these stupid questions? "It proves I was in the bathroom," I explained, "because only someone that's been in the bathroom would know that."

"Correct," said Owen, his inflection somehow imitating both Randy and the spelling bee judges at the same time. "That's the kind of critical thinking I like to see, Jor-bah. They sure don't teach that in schools anymore!" He then paused for a second. "...Of course, this all goes out the window when you remember we were both in the bathroom yesterday. Sooo, you could just know from then."

I gritted my teeth angrily. "Quit playing games, Owen. I can show you the broken sink too, if that'll prove it."

"Okay!" he agreed, spreading his arms wide as if he was presenting an idea from his imagination. "But we need someone else to come along, to make sure you're telling the truth. And you're all invited! Even you, Kiki."

"What?" asked Kiki in surprise.

"Oh, come on!" Owen maintained his pose, but lifted the bags underneath his eyes a little. "Don't pretend like you don't want to see what's in the boys' bathroom."

"Ew!" said Kiki, though it sounded more the 'that's wrong,' as she pointed a finger at Owen. "No way. I'm not gross like you."

Owen cackled a little at her reaction. "Fine, suit yourself. We'll go without you, just us boiz."

"Uh, actually," inputted Chuck a bit meekly, "I don't wanna leave the line. I still want more food."

"i'll go," offered shep. "to be deprived of my portable pizza, after waiting so long in line for it? That would truly be, uh, tragic."

"No," insisted Jacques. "I will go. You must still give Bayun his autograph, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, right," admitted shep absentmindedly while Bayun nodded eagerly. With that decided, Owen, Jacques and I left the line in the lobby to go check out the bathroom.

I led the way into the sealed linoleum chamber and headed towards the area with the two sinks. "See," I began, walking up to the broken sink and waving my hand under the sensor. "Even if I do this, no-" all of a sudden, cool, warm water came gushing out of the tap all over my outstretched hand, which I withdrew in surprise. "Huh?!" I blinked twice, staring at the sink like it had bitten me. "Uh, maybe it was the other one." Slightly unsure of myself, I tried the other sink, but it also regurgitated water as well. "What? They both work?"

"Heh heh," chuckled Owen. "Of course they do, Jor-bah. If you'd actually been in the bathroom like me, you'd know that, see? Admit it, you were lying."

"No!" I insisted, a mix of confused and angry. "I'm not! On God, I really was in here."

"He's not lying," agreed Jacques. "That I know. And he was telling the truth earlier, too. But that doesn't explain why both sinks work."

"See?" I added. "Jacques agrees with me. I don't know why the sink works now, but I swear it didn't earlier."

"A likely story," said Owen.

"Well… could it have been fixed between then and now?" asked Jacques.

"I guess that's what must've happened," I surmised, "since I definitely couldn't use it last time." That was the only explanation, right? I knew what I had seen, and what I had remembered. It wasn't like I actually got amnesia, or anything.

"Either way, I guess we're done in here. Let's get back to the line for food," inputted Owen, before making a face-heel turn and walking toward the exit. Jacques and I followed.

We met the others outside the boys room, at a table near the vending machine.

"So, was the sink broken?" asked Chuck, chowing down on a bucket of fried chicken.

"No," reported Jacques. "Both of the sinks worked just fine."

"So what does that mean again?" asked Kiki, munching on some chips. "It was so confusing."

"It means," explained Owen, "Jor-bah lied about going to the bathroom earlier."

"Okay. So what does that mean?"

"I dunno, really. Ask him, not me."

What? Now that I thought about it, why were we even arguing about that? I gulped in silence, not wanting to make even more of a fool of myself, now that I'd already been so wrong about the sink.

"Nah, I'm good," declined Kiki, turning her attention back to her food. No one else spoke up for a few seconds.

"I'm going to get food now," announced Jacques, before walking off. Owen headed off with him. I felt the nerves in my body unstiffen a little, now that I no longer had to deal with that confusing situation. I lingered for a few minutes before looking out the window to see what the rest of my class was up to. Most of them were still sitting on the ledge, but a few of them looked like they were playing tag on the field above it. The rock still swinging heavily in my pocket, I started walking back towards them, until a loud noise startled me – specifically, the WATCH Tower bell.