Amity called from the other side of the printing press. "Okay, wait, can you pull that one again?"

Luz squeezed the wooden trigger against the metal of the lever and pulled the whole thing down. It moved easily in her grip, swinging out from the press, and she released the trigger when it was about a quarter of the way away from the machine. The lever sprung back upwards a few degrees, then ratcheted into a groove with a clunk. "Done!"

The belts hummed up again and Amity shouted over the extra noise. "That was it, Luz, we got it!"

With a grin, Luz scooted around the printing press and watched as the belts spat out cut pages one after another to flutter toward the floor. Amity grinned, holding one up by its corners so Luz could read it. EXTRA, EXTRA, BUMP STILL BUTT, MORE AT ELEVEN.

Luz pumped an arm in victory. "Yes! That was the last thing, right?"

Amity dropped the page and went back to the main switch to turn off the belts. She looked at her hands, then wiped them on her protective cloak. "Ugh, the shirt's already soaked."

"What, really?" Luz circled around and looked at the lever. After they'd pinpointed the main source of their inky mess problem, she'd brought an old, ratty t-shirt from a garbage day gone by and wrapped the handle up so they didn't have to touch it directly. The pink fabric had gone completely black and looked shiny in the light from the captured lightning. "Wow, gross. Is it leaking ink?"

"I don't know why there'd be ink in it. It must catch a lot of splashes or something." Amity gathered the finished pages and disintegrated all but one, handing the remaining copy to Luz. "I think that's everything, though, since we figured out how to turn the cutter on and change the length of the pages between cuts. The only part we'll have to do ourselves is the assembly."

Luz smiled despite herself. "Don't suppose you know any gunkloogies that'd help with that, huh?"

"Even if I did, we don't have the sort of snails they'd charge for their services, and—you weren't being serious." Amity huffed while Luz held in laughter. "I don't know what you find so funny about gunkloogies, Luz, they're a vital part of the Isle's economy."

"And I don't know why you think a sticky frog demon that's name is a combination of the words gunk and loogie somehow isn't funny."

"The word loogie doesn't mean anything to me unless we're talking about gunkloogies!"

"A loogie is when you spit out a big wad of snot!"

"Gross!"

"I know!" Luz covered her mouth and shook with held in laughter.

Amity sighed and crossed her arms over her chest, giving Luz a half smile. "Are you done?"

"You are no fun." Luz took a steadying breath and looked over the printing press. "Anyway, yeah, I think we've worked out all the printing stuff. We might run into other problems or something later, but I think we're good to go. So next step's announcing it and making ads, right?"

Amity frowned in thought and reached to tap her chin, then flinched and looked at her hands at the last second. "Um, yeah, I think that's it, I'll have to look at our schedule, though. Did you get any ink on you?"

Giving her hands and protective cloak a once-over, Luz shook her head, "Nah, I'm good. I got a schedule in my bag, but it's kinda cramped in here, wanna go plan stuff out somewhere else?

"That sounds good." Luz watched Amity create a couple of tiny abominations, which she returned to the already soaked t-shirt handle. She still had some stains of dried ink on her hands as she took off the cloak. "There. Where should we go? Has Principal Bump assigned us a room we can work out of?"

"Not yet," Luz said, pulling her own cloak off and hanging it on one of protrusions lining the walls between tubes of captured lightning. She grabbed her bag. "I told him it wasn't gonna be super important until we get to judging and layout, so he said in the meantime we can just use a classroom wherever, so long as nobody else is using it."

Amity held the door open for Luz with her own bag slung over her shoulder. "So shall we find an empty classroom?"

"That or we can go to Frieda's and plan stuff there again."

Amity grinned. "Ice scream does sound good. My treat this time, though."

Luz returned the smile as she switched off the main power to the room, darkness falling over the machine as the lightning fizzled. She followed Amity out into the candlelit hall and off toward the Secret Room of Shortcuts. "Jeez, it's so weird to think we're walking sideways right now. Do you think we're walking up or down?"

Amity frowned. "I don't really know, I'm not sure if we're heading toward the atrium or away from it." She looked around the hall, then put a hand to her forehead. "Wow, that is really disorienting."

Luz chuckled as she opened up the Secret Room of Shortcuts. "Need to stop at your locker first?"

"No, but I wouldn't mind stopping at the bathroom." She looked at her stained hands with a lip curled in disgust. "And next time I'm bringing gloves."

Luz laughed again, then led them to a half-sized door on the third landing. "Watch your step on this one." She pushed it open, crouched, and hopped down the three feet to the ground, then turned around and held a hand out for Amity.

Amity crouched and took Luz's hand, then jumped out of the Secret Room of Shortcuts. Luz closed the magical entryway and it smoothed into the wall as Amity looked around the hallway. The door had taken them to just around the corner from the girls' bathrooms at the front of the school. Amity shook her head. "Honestly, I don't know how you're ever late for class, Luz."

"Y'know, I never think to go through there when I'm late, I just end up running."

Amity laughed and led the way. "Okay, that makes more sense, knowing you."

She walked with Amity over to the bathroom door, then hung back in the hall to give Amity privacy. She leaned up against the wall and unslung her bag to rifle through it, pulling free a handful of sheets filled up with notes and plans for Tales from the Isles. She read through the top of her notes until Amity came back out, wiping her clean hands on the hem of her uniform.

"Ready for ice scream?" Amity asked.

"Yep! And you were right, next up's planning the ads and stuff, but we've got a bit before we have to worry about it." She glanced at the back side of the sheet for a moment before shoving it back in her bag and falling into step next to Amity. "We gave ourselves a bunch of time to figure out the printing press first, and we didn't want to put ads up too early and have everyone get bored and forget before submissions were due."

"Yeah, that's true. I suppose that means we'll have plenty of time to get the ads ready, and we'll have a chance to really test out the printing press to make them, since we don't have to rush." She held open the door to the school for Luz, and they headed out toward Bonesborough. "Thankfully we figured out how it worked pretty fast, I hate feeling rushed."

"The only reason we figured it out so fast was because you were there, Amity, thank you so much for doing all of this."

Amity smiled and looked down at the ground while they walked, color touching her cheeks. "I was happy to. Thanks for asking me."

"Still, that all went way easier than I was afraid it would. I was thinking we were gonna have to get Willow and Gus' help and it'd take us weeks. And that room's cramped with just us in there as it is."

"Heh, yeah."

Luz's smile fell as they walked in silence for a moment, leaving the school grounds and heading down the road toward Frieda's Frozen Frights. She glanced around and confirmed they were alone, then stopped. "Hey, Amity, can I ask you something?"

"Hm?" Amity paused and looked back at her, then stopped and turned. "Sure, Luz, what is it?"

"Are you shy?"

The questioning look turned to confusion. "Huh?"

"I'm asking because I don't want to be making you uncomfortable by accident. I know I can be, like, the total opposite of shy sometimes and drag everyone along with me, but I definitely don't mean to be making you do stuff that makes you uncomfortable just because I'm pushy."

"I'm … where is this coming from, Luz?" She shuffled her feet and looked down at the ground. "Am I coming off like I don't want to be spending time with you?"

"What? No! Nothing like that! I just …" She rubbed her elbow and looked away, feeling heat rise in her face. "Somebody else said something and I just—listen, forget I said anything." She started walking again, keeping her eyes trained ahead on the road and avoiding Amity's gaze.

"Hey, hold on, Luz, I'm not mad or anything." Luz felt Amity grab her shoulder, and she let herself be slowed and turned. Amity gave her a smile. "I appreciate you wanting to make sure I'm not feeling pressured, which I don't. As I said, I'm happy to help with this, it's been fun to do."

Luz let herself relax a little, gave Amity a nod, and then kept walking, going at a more sedate pace. "It has been fun. But I wasn't really talking about this stuff with the magazine. To be honest, I brought it up because I mentioned Willow and Gus."

Amity frowned at her. "Oh?"

Luz shifted to grip her bag in front of her, holding the strap tight. "Yeah. It's stupid." As Amity continued to look at her, she let out a breath and slumped forward as she walked. "Okay, so when I was talking with Eda, she was making sure she knew which one of my friends you were, and she said the shy one with dyed green hair, and I was weirded out because I never really thought of you as shy, but Eda said some stuff that made me think maybe I was wrong, and I … just …"

Luz stopped in the middle of the road again and a beat of silence passed as she gave Amity a worried look. She felt anxious and twitchy, half wanting to run away, then pretend the conversation never happened. She took a deep breath. "I … really like spending time with you, Amity. We get along super great, and there's stuff I've got in common with you that I really don't with Willow or Gus, and …" She felt her face heat up and she glanced away. "Thinking that maybe I was accidentally making you feel bad scared me a little."

After a moment, Amity closed the gap between them and put her hands on Luz's shoulders. Luz fought through the hot embarrassment and met Amity's gaze. Amity smiled. "I think we get along really well, too, Luz. I enjoy spending time with you. Most of why this has been fun has been from spending time with you, not working on figuring out the printing press. If I was worried I was making you feel bad, I'd want to make sure I wasn't, either." She searched Luz's face. "… Am I making you feel bad?"

Luz cracked a smile. "No. That's my own brain's job, I guess." She stepped forward and pulled Amity into a hug. Amity let out a small gasp of surprise, then returned the hug. Luz stepped back, feeling a wave of relief, and started walking with Amity again, the gap between their bodies a little bit smaller than it had been before. "So I take it Eda's just flat wrong, then?"

Amity cleared her throat. "Yeah, I don't think I'm shy. The better word might be introverted, I guess. I admit I'm usually not very friendly."

Luz chuckled and bumped Amity's shoulder. "Amity Blight? Not very friendly?"

Amity laughed and bumped her back. "I know, it's hard to imagine." Her smile turned earnest. "It is a lot easier to be friendly when you actually like your friends."

Luz returned the small smile.

They got to the ice scream shop and Luz grabbed the door for them. A lull in their conversation fell as they ordered their crying scoops. Amity paid, then they made their way back to the same table they'd used the last time they'd been in the shop.

"You know," Luz said, "we have ice cream back in the human realm, but it doesn't make noise while you eat it."

"Weird."

"I'll admit it, having it scream makes it more fun to eat." She took a wailing slurp, then dug her notes back out of her bag. She spread them out on the table. "So we've got two weeks before we were planning on making the announcement …"

"What's this for?" Amity asked, picking up one of the loose pages.

It was a much bigger mess of random chunks of writing than the other pages, with half of the lines scratched out, and several of them circled or underlined. Luz jumped in her seat, lifting her hand to snatch the sheet away, then stopped, forcing herself to settle back down, her cheeks warming up again. "Oh, erm, that's part of the outline for the story I'm writing for the magazine. Don't read too much of it, there're spoilers."

"Ooh, spoilers, I like spoilers," Amity teased. She flashed Luz a mischievous grin, but then set the page back down without looking at it more and slid it over to Luz. "Have you started working on yours already? I was going to start writing something, but haven't had the chance yet."

"Yeah, we have been pretty busy. I stayed up way later than I meant to writing last night." She glanced at the outline, then returned it to her bag. "What are you going to write for it?"

A flash of unease crossed Amity's face, then smoothed out, and she said, "I'm not giving you any spoilers."

Luz laughed and nodded. "Okay, okay, fair. I don't really like showing anyone stuff that's still a work in progress, either. I'll just have to read it when we're judging, and you can read mine at the same time."

Amity grinned and nodded. "Sounds good."

Luz shifted the pages around on the table, then set a fresh one in front of her and fished out a pencil from her bag. She noticed her ice scream was getting ready to escape, and she took a big slurp. "So anyway, we've got two weeks to make some announcements. What should they say?"

Amity's smile widened. "I thought we were going with extra, extra, Principal Bump is a butt."

Luz choked on her ice scream.