They were on a field trip. His first field trip, actually. Tom was really excited, but he wasn't whooping or anything like he was sure Star would've done. He was just grinning out the window. He peered over Marco's shoulder at his phone. "Aw. Cute kitty."

There was a little picture of a fluffy gray cat with the words 'sorry, did i scare you?' "I hope Jackie likes it as much as you," Marco said excitedly.

"Wait, what?"

"I'm using it as a conversation starter," he explained.

"Okay, then use it," he said, confused. "Go talk to her."

The look on Marco's face was so shocked and clueless that Tom wondered what was wrong with the human. "More than just hello?"

". . . yeah?"

"Too risky," he said, shaking his head. "I might say something dumb. That's why I let the kitty pics do the talking for me."

He sent it, and a moment later, Jackie was saying, "Ooh! Oh, I love it!"

Marco had a big smile as he looked at her, and his phone buzzed. "She sent me an LOL," he said excitedly. "We're communicating."

"LOL?" Tom asked, not having been grilled on that part of Earth culture just yet. "Love . . . orange . . . lasagna?"

The human shook his head. "Laughing out loud. It means she found it funny."

Tom mouthed 'oh', and then the bus's breaks squealed, and he brightened up. "We're here!"

They all hopped out of the bus into the most boring museum ever, one on paper clips. He frowned. What did you even have to learn about paper clips? They held stuff together. They could be bent around. You could use them to pick locks. So what?

"Yuck," Marco said, and Tom agreed with that sentiment. "Luckily, I got my phone."

"No distractions, Mr. Diaz," Miss Skullnick said, pulling the phone out of his hand. The human was left standing there and gaping. She stuck his phone in her pocket and pulled out a megaphone. "And for the rest of you, NO MONKEY BUSINESS!" Everyone winced at the volume. "This is the Echo Creek Museum of Paper Clips. We're gonna spend the next eight hours learning about the genius of this little bent wire—"

"Miss Skullnick!" Alfonzo whined. "Stop. This hurts."

"So boring," Ferguson complained.

After a moment, everyone was shouting and whining and crying and pouting. Tom just waved his wand for something to fidget with, and he found many eyes staring at him. "What?"

"Well, you know what?" Miss Skullnick asked. "LIFE IS BORING!"

Tom shrugged and nodded, and the many stares turned into glares. Why were they—oh. They wanted him to do something fun, didn't they? He sighed. Might as well. "Well, it doesn't have to be," he pointed out. The troll glared at him.

"I used to think that, but now I'm 50, and all my dreams are in the rearview mirror," she replied unhappily. "The best thing in my life is teaching you kids, and I hate teaching you."

"That's because they hate being taught," he said with another shrug. "If you make it fun for them, they'll make it fun for you." The crowd eagerly nodded.

She stared down at him challengingly. "You think you can lead this trip better than me?"

"Well, I mean, I am royalty," he said. "I was born to lead."

She laughed mockingly. "Okay, go ahead then. When you fail, those brats might actually appreciate me for a change."

He doubted that, but whatever. He held out his hand, and Marco handed him the dimensional scissors. "Let's see, where should we go . . ." he muttered, and it clicked. He snapped his fingers and grinned. "Alright, everyone, get ready!"

They all hopped back in the bus and through a portal he made, sending them to the Dimension of Wonders and Amazements. He introduced them to it. "Welcome to the Dimension of Wonders and Amazements," he said, taking a dramatic bow and showing them the strange world. "A planet full of the oddest, unbelievable-est things in the universe."

They all cheered.

"And I know you guys don't really want rules, but this place is more dangerous than Earth. First off, if something looks dangerous, it probably is, so if you touch it or do it anyway, whatever sick and twisted thing happens to you is your fault, not mine.

"Second of all, I want you all to stay . . . relatively close? This is a whole planet, and it's also your fault if you go missing. Just make sure you can see one of these things around us, okay?

"And . . . that's about it," he summed up. "Other than that, go crazy. Also, don't expect me to fix all your messes. If you can get into it, you can get out of it. Now go have some fun!"

They all cheered again and ran off. Tom watched them go into the distance.

"This is probably a bad idea," he murmured.

Miss Skullnick looked down at him, impressed. "That went better than I expected," she admitted. "You're not like Star at all, are you, Tom?"

He shrugged. Again. He was doing a lot of that today.

"Anyway, I'm sure there's something around here you'll find fun," he told her. He looked around, and spotted something. "There. Walking With Trolls. You might learn something new about yourself."

He wandered off to go keep some level of control. Ferguson and Alfonzo were excitedly looking at some light thingy. "Can we jump through this light ray thing?" Ferguson asked.

"Sure? Just remember, I don't have to fix it for you."

They jumped through together, and they turned into some weird kind of centaur. He shuddered. The chaos continued. Jackie and some other girl were riding some stingrays through the sky. They weren't supposed to do that, but if they got hurt, it was their fault.

"Mr. Tom, may I jump into this ominous-looking vortex?" that nerdy kid asked.

Tom sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Do you not see the signs? They very clearly want you to not do that." He pouted at him. "No. You're gonna die or turn into an amoeba or something. Don't do it."

He did it anyway, and ended up stacked on himself into infinity.

Justin was trying to touch an electric coil, so Tom used the wand as his own kind of megaphone and screamed, "IF YOU GET HURT, THAT IS YOUR FAULT! THINK THINGS THROUGH BEFORE YOU DO THEM!"

Aaaaaand everything was terrible. He huffed, feeling his anger starting to bubble up. Sabrina was stuck rolling down stairs for infinity, Justin was trying to lick the electric coil, they were still riding the stingrays, and some girl jumped on a stack of explosive pancakes. He grabbed the wand and started to fix his problems.

He healed the girl who'd gotten all exploded, and he used his parkour blast to go up to Sabrina and stop her from falling. He put a literal glass barrier between Justin and the electric coil, he scooped up a girl who wanted to get superpowers, and he dropped them all. And then they all ran off again.

He screamed, his anger exploding outward again, and he shouted, "EVERYONE, STOP DOING ANYTHING!"

Silence.

They were all gone.

He frowned. He hadn't meant stop existing. He hoped they hadn't actually done that. That would've been really stupid.

At that moment, Miss Skullnick ran up. "Tom. Tom, guess what. Wait. Where's the rest of the class?"

He huffed. "I told them not to do anything that looked dangerous, and then they all just . . . vanished!"

"Of course."

"Yeah, I probably should've thought this through better."

"Alright, they all got kidnapped by some monster, which I probably should've seen coming. But Marco and I fight monsters all the time, we can handle it," he tried to tell Miss Skullnick as she suited up.

"I trusted you with the class for five minutes, and you lost them," she hissed, and he winced. That . . . that was fair. "You spent so long trying to say it wasn't your fault that you caused problems."

"I . . . we can find them," he insisted. "Where are they?"

Marco's phone buzzed, and he showed them a picture. Blue socks falling down a hole. "They're where wherever this is."

The gears in his head started turning. "There was a trail of socks right after everyone vanished."

"That's where I'm starting my search," Miss Skullnick said. She left, and Tom called after her.

"Miss Skullnick! Wait!" She spun around to glare at him, and he looked away, taking a deep breath. "You're right. I should've taken responsibility for their actions. That's part of being in charge. But you don't need to do it alone. I can help fix it."

She looked at him intensely, then nodded, and they made off.

They were in a cave, with all the kids in human-sized socks over the fireplace. (Ferguson and Alfonzo were in the same sock, but Ferguson was the one at the top.) All of them were screaming. "Kids, don't worry," Miss Skullnick said. "We're gonna be home soon."

Marco and Tom made their way up and started freeing the students, though Tom was using the wand to make things easier, levitating the socks and helping them crawl out, stuff like that. There was a low growl, and they all looked in horror.

Miss Skullnick dropped her halberd and said, "Okay, we have to hurry. Jump. I'll catch you." All the kids they'd freed so far started doing so. "Come on, jump."

"I can't do this!" Ferguson screamed.

"Take my hand, bro," Alfonzo said, and the double-centaur jumped down together. Tom had freed Francis—that was his name, Francis!—and was moving on to Sabrina. Marco went to go help Jackie.

"Marco!" she said.

"Jackie!" he said. "Hi. Hey, yeah. Uh, hey, uh . . ."

Tom rolled his eyes and shoved Sabrina down. "I got Jackie. You get Janna."

"Yeah, Marco, help me," she growled with fake fangs in her mouth. Marco yelped and chucked her down. "Oh, relax. They weren't real fangs. Unless you want them to be."

Tom brought him and Marco down with a parkour blast, and there was some whistling in the distance. "Quiet. It's coming," Miss Skullnick said. The whistling got louder, until a massive string monster came in, holding a bunch of wood. Everyone screamed and ran away.

He held up the wand, with it already charging, but Miss Skullnick stopped him. "No! I'm back in charge, and I need you to get those kids to safety."

He nodded professionally, grabbed Marco and Janna, and blasted behind him, shooting them forward with the power of physics. Behind them, Miss Skullnick lifted up a massive boulder. They skidded to a stop with the rest of the group. "Everyone, go!" he shouted. They stared behind him at the massive string monster, and his anger exploded. "ON THE BUS!" he screamed, and they all came to their senses and ran.

Miss Skullnick and the string monster arrived, and though it wasn't do much, she was fighting pretty good. He nodded his appreciation. Then it ate her, and both boys gasped. He ran forward, shot downward to launch himself into the sky, and prepared a blast, but Miss Skullnick popped out of the monster, using a paperclip to beat it.

"Get that bus moving!" she shouted, and they hopped inside with everyone else. The bus driver—whoa, had he really stayed in there the entire time?—drove off, and after Miss Skullnick attached the string to a post, she ran after it, and Tom helped pull her inside, even as they were being pursued.

The monster unraveled before it could reach them, thankfully. They all cheered, and Miss Skullnick shouted, "That's how you do it!"

"That was really good!" he told her with a grin. "You're a lot better at fighting than I expected."

"You bet your tuchus I am."

And, after he sliced the portal open and sat back down, he noticed Marco sitting with Jackie, and he grinned.

"Tom, hurry up," Marco called, annoyed.

"Working on it!" he screamed, and he shot through the halls and around the corner. He grabbed the edge of the lockers before he could slam into Marco, and then the magic stopped, and he collapsed on the ground. He hastily got up to his feet and looked at his friend. "Sorry."

"Can you do anything without magic?" Marco deadpanned.

"Well, yeah," he said, frowning as he tried to unlock his locker. His anger bubbled up, and he shoved it back down by thinking about Marshmallow. He pulled out the slip of paper peeking through the holes at the top, the one he'd put there with his locker combination, and he calmly put it in. "I just use magic a lot because the other option is me screaming in frustration and hurting somebody."

Marco just gave him an unimpressed look.

Jackie rolled by, calling, "Hey, Marco!", and the human waved back. Then she said, "Hey, Blake. Sweet beard."

"Yeah, thanks, Jackie. I grew it last night."

"So full."

Marco was pouting at the scene. "One night?" he asked, slouching down in defeat. "I've been working on mine for weeks."

Tom shrugged. "Eh. It's hair. Don't see what's so cool about it." He pulled out his book and closed his locker again, taking another look at the passcode in an attempt to memorize it. "But, I mean, there are faster ways to grow a beard." He wiggled the wand.

"Nah, I'll stick with my peach fuzz, thanks. This may not be much, but it's mine. Sometimes, there's a sense of satisfaction in doing things yourself."

"Yeah . . . but there's also a sense of frustration . . ."

Marco was cheering about something, and Tom groaned, slumping into the bathroom and splashing some water in his face to wake himself up.

"Tom, I did it! I grew a beard! USA, USA!"

"Okay? Cool?" He grabbed his mascara and started applying it tiredly. "Like, I said, it's just . . . hair . . ."

"Uh . . ." They both stared at his beard, as it was growing at a surprising rate. "Tom, did you use magic on me?"

"No! I swear, I didn't! I was trying to respect your wishes! I don't know what . . . ugh!" He stopped his makeup to look at it as it grew even more. And now he only had part of one eye done. It probably looked really dumb.

Though not as dumb as Marco with a beard . . .

"Tom, my face . . . !"

"I'LL FIX IT!" He reached for his wand, but at that moment, Marco's beard exploded, and he was blown out of the house. He ended up wrapped in hair, and he coughed and spluttered and wiggled out. "Ew." He reached in his pocket for the wand, but of course he'd left it on the counter.

He wiped all the beard hair off of himself with a disgusted expression and tried to think of a way out of it. An idea occurred to him, so he got gardening shears and tried to open the door, but more hair just burst out. He made a face. Nope.

He backed up and looked at the various windows. Hmm. Marco was in the bathroom, and Star's room was across from there, so maybe he could climb up the hair to get close? That would be slightly more pleasant than trying to wade through oodles of beard hair.

So, reluctantly, he started climbing up the hair to try and rescue his friend.

Toffee watched the scanner. There was Tom, climbing from inside the hair, and there was the wand. Of course, the boy had taken a faster route, but no matter. They could make it. "I have a location on the wand," he said. "It's inside the house, and it's ours for the taking."

"That's a house?" Ludo asked. "It's covered in hair. Maybe we should come back another time."

"Of course," Toffee said. Unfortunately, Ludo was his superior. For the moment. "It's just, the wand's never been unattended before." All the monsters smiled down at Ludo.

The bird-man, clearly reluctantly, said, "Fine. But you idiots are going to carry me. I don't want a single hair touching me. Hold still, you dumb bird. What are you waiting for? Hurry up. Protect me."

Toffee watched the scene, collecting information, as always. Ludo was almost making this too easy. As expected, he pushed them too far, and a simple act such as giving the giraffe a glass of water added a nice comparison, earning more points for him.

"We need to hurry," he said. "Tom is getting closer to the wand. He took an easier route in."

"Come on, idiots! Get moving!" Ludo screeched, and his poor overworked monsters sped up.

Tom was almost there. He was in the bathroom when the hair freaked out again and tied him to the wall. He groaned as his hedge clippers were taken from his hand. The wand was right there, in front of him, and he couldn't reach it. And as he watched, the monsters came in. The hair was still on the move, and Ludo was the only one who was left out.

He watched the honestly pathetic scene, with Ludo clearly dealing with some kind of hair phobia, and sighed. When the bird-man finally reached the wand, he touched the hair for the first time and burst out laughing.

Tom took the opportunity to wiggle down, through the hair, and grabbed the wand from underneath. He looked down at the monsters with a grin. "Normally, I'd blast you all into oblivion, but hey, you don't need magic for everything."

He kicked them all out of the house, leaving them bruised and battered.

He turned to his friend with an evil smile. "You know, since you were going on and on about how I was using magic too much, I could just use this little razor to shave it off . . ." His friend shook his head, and he laughed. "Just kidding." He waved his wand, and the hair vanished.

Toffee stood behind Ludo as he told his monsters how bad they were. "What a pathetic display back there," he steamed. "You guys make me sick! No more milkshake privileges for you! I want you to use that time to think about what you've done." They all glared at him, and Toffee saw his entry.

"Perhaps they should use that time to think about what you've done," he said calmly.

"Exactly. Wait, what?" Ludo looked up at him, surprised. He was used to Toffee being on his side, after all.

He walked forward. "Let me ask you a question. What kind of leader throws you into a pit of hair, makes you do all the work, and shows you no appreciation for your sacrifices?" He could see the realization dawning on their faces.

"Are you talking about me?" Ludo asked, suddenly looking afraid.

"What kind of leader has all the power in the universe at his fingertips, and gets tickled right out of it?" The last bit he added a baby voice for extra power.

"Toffee, what are you doing?"

"Your soldiers deserve better," he told the little bird-man.

Ludo sputtered, like he didn't know what to say. "You are fired!"

"Let's put it to your soldiers." He turned to the monsters, already knowing how it was going to end up. "Who's the better leader, Ludo . . . or me?" He walked to be in front of them, and they all murmured their agreement.

Ludo was clearly trying to grasp a situation far out of his reach. "You guys belong to me. Three-Eyed Potato Baby, I am like a father to you. Beard Deer, I took you in off the streets. Are you stupid imbeciles really going to listen to him?"

That was a mistake. He'd played right into Toffee's trap. He smirked, and a moment later, Ludo was booted out of the castle.

"You can't do this!" he shrieked. "This is my castle. Those are my monsters."

Toffee loomed over him. "Not anymore."

Ludo was crying. Amusing. "Toffee," he said through his tears.

He shut the door on his used-to-be-superior.

"Let's get to work."