"Excuse me," the professor slammed down a book on his desk, which immediatly stopped all the fidgeting in the room. "There are still five minutes left in class. I have not dismissed you yet."

The students, some of whom had already started rising from their chairs, waited.

"Now. I was going to remind you all that your midterm exam will take place on Monday of next week. We will not be meeting again until then, so I want to remind you to review chapters 2,3,5,8, and 10. As well we will begin discussion for chapter 11 on Wednesday, so you should read pages 312-337, though it will not be covered on the exam," the professor paused. "Alright. Now you may go."

Barely skipping a beat, the students stood and exited en masse from the classroom. Fred and Daphne were amongst the first ones out, followed by a tall skinny kid with dirty blonde hair. Velma, who chose to sit on the far side of her classes, lingered behind the rest.

"Miss Dinkley, can I have a word?" the professor asked as the last few students trickled out.

"Uh, yes sir?"

"I wanted to express some concern. Regarding your last essay."

A feeling like ice plunged deep into Velma's stomach.

"Was there something... wrong with it sir?" she asked, steeling herself for the answer.

"With the essay? Oh no. I didn't mean to imply... No, no. I meant with your placement in this class. Have you taken Philosophy courses before?"

"Um, no sir," Velma replied. "It's my first quarter here sir."

"Well, I couldn't help but wonder because in your last essay you cited Emmanuel Kant. We're not getting into ethics until later in the semester. You proved to have a very clear and deep understanding of his work, which I assumed came from previous study."

"I've studied his work on my own," she pushed her glasses up her nose. "Just for my own interest."

"What are you studying here?"

Velma let out a breath, doing her best not to allow it to sound like a sigh.

"Library sciences, sir."

"Have you considered studying something more...logic based, perhaps?" the professor suggested. "Perhaps if not philosophy itself maybe... analytics? Or even math?"

"I have considered them, yes," Velma shook her head. "My parents won't allow it."

"I would work on them if I were you," the professor pointed at her. "You have a gift for reasoning. That would be a shameful thing to let go to waste."


Daphne smiled at the sun as she walked to her next class. Coolsville, Ohio had been unusually rainy for the past few weeks. Some said it was because everyone was sad about the murder of Danny Snyder, Coolsville Comets star quarterback. Others said it was just Ohio.

Nevertheless, she enjoyed it. There was only one class left in her schedule for the day, and then she just had to wait for Fred to get done with practice before they could have dinner and study.

"Hey, hey!" a student shouted from somewhere behind her. She turned, as did everyone else in the vicinity.

The person shouting was a young man, probably a freshman. He seemed out of breath.

"There's a sit-in on the football field!" he shouted. "A big group is protesting there right now! The football players came out to "

With little provocation, the students around her started running in the direction of the football field. Daphne paused for a second, considering. Her next class was Public Speaking, and she already had an A+, she knew that for sure.

Why not? she thought to herself, as she joined the hundreds of other students taking off in the direction of the field.


"Stop the monetarization of sports! Stop the monetarization of sports!" a group of students chanted from the football field.

Fred Jones and his fellow teammates watched from the sidelines as students filed in from all sides to join the protest.

"Let's break this up," a big bulky linebacker next to him said threateningly. He cracked his knucles and went to move forward, but Fred threw out a hand to stop him.

"Let me talk to them. You guys stay here. And don't-" he looked the linebacker straight in the eye. "Do anything that could get you, me, or any of us in trouble."

The linebacker, nearly twice Fred's size considered him for a second. For a moment, it seemed like the guy was ready to pounce, but instead his shoulders dropped and he took a step back. Fred clapped him on the shoulder and turned back to the growing crowd, which seemed to have doubled in just the time it took to look away.

"Alright," Fred shouted, taking a step forward. "Who is a your leader?"

"We're a collaborative!" a girl with long hair and a tie-dye shirt yelled from the crowd. "We have no leader!"

"Okay, well who organized this? I need to speak to one of you."

"You speak to all of us or you speak to no one!" a short stocky guy called from the front row of students.

"I have senstitive information that I can give to one of you. So choose that person, or risk losing that information," Fred called. The crowd grew silent.

"You go Shaggy," a girl beside the tall lanky boy seated in the middle front of the crowd whispered.

"Like dude, why me?"

"Because. You organized this. You go."

Shaggy sighed, but got up nonetheless. He approached Fred, who was already waiting halfway between the crowd and the football team. He gulped as he approached the man ahead of him, who had two inches on him and was at least twice as wide.

"Okay, so I have to say," Fred began. "I support what you're doing here. But we aren't the ones you should be protesting. We don't get any say in how much we get. We're just doing our best to retain our scholarships. If you want to really make a statement, you should protest at the Athletics Administration building, over on Essex Avenue. Tell them you have an inside source that told you that scholarships are strictly for tuition but don't cover anything for room and board. Tell them you know that there are guys on the team who have to work one, sometimes two jobs just to make rent. Tell them that it could be threatening their academic and athletic performance. They'll be sure to listen to you if you tell them that. Just... keep my name out of it."

"Wow, like...thanks dude," Shaggy said appreciatively. "That's great... like that's really gonna be helpful."

"I'm glad," Fred smiled, offering a hand to Shaggy, who shook it. "Now, can we have our field back?"

"Like...In a second? I actually, uh, " Shaggy smiled sheepishly, dropping his voice. "This is actually not just a protest. I'm also kind of covering something. I have, uh, reason to believe that, like Danny Snyder, you know the quarterback? Like, there might be a tie to something in the coach's office here. And like, I can disperse it once I get the signal that my friend got that info."

"Wait, you're looking into the Danny Snyder case too?" Fred asked, his voice low to match Shaggy's. "What do you know?"

"Like not much right now," Shaggy said. "But like, Danny was a good friend of mine growing up. I wanted to do my best to help his family find out how he died. And like, Danny was in talks to go pro once he graduated. But, like I have reason to believe he might have been signed to a contract he didn't know about."

"Whoa," Fred paused, taking in this new information. "Could... could we meet and talk about this further? Because I've got some stuff put together that might be helpful to you, and you've got some stuff that might be helpful to me."

"Like sure," Shaggy nodded. "How about we meet tomorrow night at, like, eight? I've got a house right off campus. Bring your stuff, and I'll bring mine."

"Cool," Fred said smiling. "But I'll need to bring my girlfriend Daphne. She's working with me."

"Groovy," this time it was Shaggy who offered a hand to Fred, who shook it. "I'll bring my best pal, Scooby-Doo."

"We're all set then," Fred nodded, looking around. "Now, can I have the field back?"

Shaggy looked around, and spotted a young guy running towards him. He was young, and was very winded from spreading word of the protest all around campus. He gave Shaggy a thumb's up.

"You sure can."

Shaggy turned to the crowd.

"Let's go protest the admin building. They're the ones who need to hear us."

The crowd was silent for a moment before erupting in roars of agreement. Shaggy led the crowd off the field and out towards the campus. Fred and his team waited another ten minutes before the field was finally clear again.

After their warm-up, Fred led the team back into the lockerroom and the coaches, who came in late due to what they said was an 'importat meeting they could not get out of', started the official practice.

Fred could not concentrate through the entire two and half hours. His mind was repeating the conversation he had had with the beatnik kid who organized the protest. The kid had information, information he was willing to share with him. All he had to do was meet him at his house. Potential suspicions aside, this could be the key they were looking for.

When practice finally ended, Fred ran straight to the locker room to grab his bag and clothes. He didn't even stop to change, let alone shower. He had to get to Daphne, to fill her in on this new news. There was no time to lose.