Hey y'all. New chapter, I literally love this story so much. Okay, so this is the school evaluations, like, parent-teacher conferences and school shenanigans to kick off the new year. Because now it's January 2006.

I'm not getting a cardboard cutout of Logan Henderson for my birthday. Instead, it's a very tall poster of him (from that one picture they used in Big Time Interview, it's blue, and he looks—younger, and whatever) I'm excited to have this.

Also: Joanna consistently refers to Logan as Hortense, prepare yourself. Oh, and Logan continuously does more weird stuff, this will get explained eventually.

Enjoy!

Joanna Mitchell had been in a good mood when she dropped her son off at the Knight's was only fifteen minutes ago. The drive to the school had taken five minutes. And for the last ten, she had been sitting across from a rotating variety of teachers, who all told her the same thing, some using kinder tones than others.

"Your son has some—behavioral issues."

All five of them that she had seen so far, each of them spoke with that same pause in the middle, as if they were afraid of offending her. As if merely saying the words behavioral issues was some forbidden swear.

She didn't believe them for a second, especially since no one cared to elaborate. Every teacher spoke about Hortense's behavior in relation to their classroom, but they weren't telling her the problem.

She had figured that at the very least, the science and math teachers would have liked him. The English and history teachers, not so much. She had expected it. Hortense was better at science than he was at English, and better at math than he was at history. His grades did not reflect this. He was still passing every class, the teachers made it very clear that he was even acing each exam.

That was, until she spoke to the history teacher about a certain project.

"Ms. Mitchell," the teacher began, folding her hands neatly on the desk in front of her. "Now, normally, Logan—"

Brooke Diamond always got her way, even up against her.

"Hortense. His name is Hortense."

The teacher sighed. "Your son does particularly well on tests and quizzes in my class. He's very skilled at retaining information."

Joanna nodded. "I know."

Hortense was so good at retaining information that she couldn't take him to the pharmacist anymore. It didn't matter what she was picking up. Usually it was her own medication, but sometimes it was something for Hortense. The former always proved to be more difficult.

She would pick up the prescription, and once Hortense got one look at the pill bottles, he knew what it was.

"Fluoxetine," he would explain to her. "Did you know that Prozac hasn't even been used for thirty years? Prozac is the brand name, fluoxetine is the drug, though. I wonder why they make up brand names for medicine? Wouldn't it be easier just to have one name?"

Every single time he said fluoxetine she would flinch, and he wouldn't notice.

"Which is why I was so shocked when he failed the latest group project," this teacher continued, raising her eyebrows up at Joanna, daring her for a reaction.

"What was the project? Who was he paired with?" she replied, as calm as she could. She had already come to the conclusion that she and all the other teachers that had claimed her son had behavioral issues were wrong. They couldn't even explain themselves further than he's being a disruption in my classroom.

Well, she thought, perhaps, just maybe, there was a reason he was being disruptive.

"It was a group oral presentation on Ancient Egyptian medical practices."

Medical practices? Hortense knew absolutely everything about medicine, and surely this would have interested him. There was no way he didn't know the information, how could he possibly have failed?

"He failed that? What happened?"

The teacher stood up, retrieving some file folder from a cabinet. She rifled through it momentarily, a single piece of white copy paper in her hand. She set it down in front of Joanna.

It was a rubric, she realized. LOGAN MITCHELL was penned across the top in neat handwriting that certainly did not belong to her son. Neither did the grades, as far as she was concerned. Hortense consistently scored on the low end of the requirements.

One of the requirements was participation: Hortense scored a zero. Another had been his communication, which meant this had some type of oral presentation component as well. He scored a 0 there. The content grade, another zero. Mechanics and grammar, zero.

He had scored a zero in every single criterion.

"He was having serious difficulties in particular with his group participation and communication," the teacher explained, pointing to the appropriate rows with two fingers.

"Why is his content grade a zero?" Joanna pressed on. "He knows about—"

"For the same reason his participation is low. I couldn't score him high in the content field because I didn't know which content he had contributed to the project."

This was still a problem, but it had no relation to any supposed behavioral issues.

"Did he not do the work at all?"

The teacher shook her head, collecting a set of papers from another folder, standing up. She crossed over to the other side of the room, where several colorful, informative posters hung, held up by magnet clips on the whiteboard. Joanna rose herself, trying to figure out which poster Hortense had not contributed to.

This teacher made it easy, stopping in front of a large blue one. It was titled with bold block letters. There were four sections, divided equally into quarters. Each section had a similarly fashioned subheading, as well as a printed out picture, accompanied by a bullet-point description. In the bottom right corner, three names.

Presented by Kendall Knight, Logan Mitchell and Jenny Tinkler

"I had each of the students hand in a participation log. Mostly they were assessing their own contributions, but also to address any problems within the group."

Joanna accepted the second piece of paper handed to her quickly. Aside from the template imported by this teacher, it was completely blank.

"Did he forget to fill it out? Sometimes—"

"He didn't fill it out because he had nothing to put down."

It was getting more difficult for her to wrap her head around the fact that Hortense had not only failed a project, but neglected to participate at all. "Maybe the work was delegated unfairly."

Even as she said it, she knew it was nothing but a lie. Kendall wasn't the type to overwork himself, and especially not when it came to Hortense's particular field of interest. If anything, Kendall would've let him take over the whole project, if that had been allowed.

Of course that wasn't allowed.

Joanna tucked the papers into her purse. "So, he's having trouble—delegating work?"

The teacher nodded, repositioning herself over by the desk. She sat back down, mirroring Joanna.

"I'd like to discuss this in more detail."

Was it wrong for her to be apprehensive, nervous, even, when the teacher clasped her hands together, and simply said:

"Sure."

—

Logan clutched the graded rubric in his hands, shaking his head. He had been like that for a few minutes, too shocked to say anything.

Kendall led him over to the couch, where Katie and the rest of his friends sat. Carlos threw a Dorito at Logan to snap him out of his stupor, which was unsuccessful.

"Logan, it's just a grade," James offered. "I get bad grades all the time."

This was true. Well, in comparison to Logan. Logan had an A+ average, James was steadily maintaining a letter grade lower, a B- average. Kendall fell somewhere in the B range along with him, and Carlos behind them all, fluctuating between C- and C.

"But—this was an important grade. And that's going to m-mess up my aver—my average."

To be honest, Kendall had been hearing about Logan freak out about his grade all day. And, to be perfectly fair, there was no reason for it. It was Logan's fault why he got a bad grade.

"You should've done the project, then," he muttered. "You like medicine and all that doctor-y stuff."

Logan sighed in frustration, balling up his fists, avoiding eye contact with his friends. "I tried to! You told me I wasn't allowed to. It's your fault that I failed, I would've gotten an A if you let me do any of it."

Then it was Kendall's turn to sigh in frustration, taking up Carlos's method, flicking a Dorito at his friend. It hit Logan in the forehead, then dropped into his lap. It remained there, untouched.

"I didn't tell you not to do it, I told you you can't do the whole thing by yourself."

Clearly, Logan did not understand the nature of the statement. He crossed his arms over his chest, staring up at the ceiling. His gaze landed anywhere but Kendall's face. "But I could! I would've!"

Within the next second, Kendall had snatched the rubric out of Logan's hand, which was now frozen in place. He began to read down the rows until he found what he was looking for.

Participation: the individual takes an active role in the project, sharing the workload equally between the members of the group. The contributions made by the individual are obvious, and adequate based on the nature of the project, time constraint, and number of group members.

That was the description box for the highest score in the Participation criteria. Logan, however, scored the lowest.

Participation: the individual takes little to no role in the project, leaving the workload to the other members of the group. The contributions made by the individual are few, minimal, and inadequate based on the nature of the project, time constraint, and number of group members.

Carlos peered over Kendall's shoulder, noisely indulging in a fistfull of Doritos. "Kendall, is that really Logan's rubric?" he whispered, just as loud.

Kendall shoved him backward with a yes, while Logan simultaneously replied no.

"Logan," Kendall continued, re-reading the rubric criteria. "You can't be mad about failing the project if you didn't do the project."

All the genius did was hum angrily in response. He reached for the platinum controller, but James grabbed it back from him. Katie had grabbed one of the others. Logan huffed in annoyance.

"But I tried to! And you said no, you have to let us all do the work, but I knew what I was doing!"

Logan was getting himself worked up into a circle. It was very clear the process that would unfold: Logan would repeat the same thought in his head, he would repeat it out loud, and he wouldn't stop thinking about it.

"I know you knew what you were doing."

"But you didn't let me do the project."

The same thought, over and over, until Logan broke down, or until Kendall went insane. He was sure it was annoying James and Carlos, currently pretending to be too absorbed in the video game. If need be, they would probably step in. Katie looked confused too, but kept quiet.

"Logan, it was a group project. Me and Jenny had to do some of it."

"But I didn't do any of it," Logan continued to argue. "I don't think that was the point."

It was basically useless to argue with him when he was like this, Kendall realized. Logan could just keep circling back, and it would never end if Kendall kept responding.

James was the first to break the cycle, with the rather harsh (but necessary) comment of: "You're not proving anything by having a tantrum over this. Let it go."

This didn't seem to do anything at first, but it did shift Logan's train of thought. That was a step in the right direction, even if James had gone about it the wrong way.

"It's not—" Logan tried to say, shutting his eyes. A watery smile dissolved into that other one, the panicky one, and then disappeared completely. "Water. I'm—water."

"You're water?" Katie asked, raising her eyebrows. Obviously, a person couldn't be water. She circled her finger around her head.

"Kendall, I think Logan needs a nap. He's crazy," she whispered to her brother, who shrugged her off.

Naturally, Kendall followed Logan. He was only a few steps behind, but it was like, during the short walk from the living room to the kitchen, Logan became a different person.

He probably didn't even know Kendall could see him, though it might not have made any difference. Whatever was happening right now was something new, and something probably bad.

It started with Logan standing at the sink. He wasn't reaching for a glass or anything, just standing there. Then, Kendall heard it: the muttering, the mouth-clicking.

Then it seemed to escalate. Logan didn't even seem to remember he was standing at the sink to pour himself a glass of water. He started pressing his hands together. He was cracking his knuckles. His feet were planted. He wouldn't move his feet, just his arms, swinging them. He grabbed his head. For a moment, all the movement and all the noises stopped.

"Logan?"

"I—"

Kendall got him the glass of water. Logan was still jittery—mouth-clicking, cracking his knuckles—-but took the glass and drank.

"James is wrong," Logan blurted suddenly, now resorting to turning the empty glass in his hands.

"Do you want more water?"

"Yeah."

Kendall got up to refill Logan's glass. As soon as the glass left Logan's grip, he began twisting his hands together. That stopped when he got the glass back, occupied with drinking.

"Are you okay?" Kendall asked.

Logan remained concentrated on the glass in front of him. From Kendall's perspective, it seemed like Logan was trying to occupy himself by looking at Kendall through the water.

"I don't know," Logan said.

That's not helpful, of course, but it's not like Kendall is going to say that. All he wanted to do was help his friend, which seemed almost impossible.

Logan was standing up again, all those little movements starting again. He reached up, he was too short to reach the radio perched on top of the fridge, but he tried. His fingers barely connected with the dial before Kendall turned it on for him.

"Music?" Kendall asked, waiting for Logan to nod. He did.

"What do you want to listen to? 90s channel?"

Logan nodded again. Kendall, knowing that his friend was annoyed at something and wouldn't appreciate anything too loud, turned the dial to low volume.

Girl To My Heart was playing. That song was by Boy—-something. Boy Earthquake, maybe? They played the 90s channel all the time at the grocery store.

"Can you turn it l-louder?"

Katie was probably right, Logan needed to sleep. He was stuttering, his eyes already shutting closed.

"Kendall."

Kendall turned the volume up louder. "Okay, yeah. Fine."

Logan was half asleep on the table, but he kept shifting his position, uncomfortable.

"Logan, if you're tired, you can just—"

"No."

He had said it with so much conviction that Kendall had been taken aback.

"Okay, well—"

Logan had moved to the couch within the second that it had taken Kendall to ask the question. Logan was still on the verge of falling asleep completely, practically falling on top of James. But he was still doing those movements and sounds. Maybe to try to keep himself awake?

"Logan, what's wrong?" Carlos asked, as James was trying to shove him a reasonable distance away.

Logan didn't answer, blinking rapidly as he reached for a video game controller.

Now, the music from the radio was blaring, the television was blaring.

And all Logan did was play the video game, and listen to the music, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Hey y'all, hope you liked that, took me a few days to finish. My friend did indeed make me a cardboard cutout of Logan Henderson. I'm very happy.

This is the picture she used. I'm going to find the most obscure place to put this in my house and keep it there. Anyway, have a lovely day everyone!