That week, Roxanne found herself with more attention than she'd ever had—well, more positive attention than she'd ever received in school. Mace walked her to all her classes, ate lunch with her, and nearly every day after school, he came over to speak with her or to play with Quicksilver.

The last day of that week, he invited her to his home to see the progress he'd made on the robotic version of Quicksilver.

All week, Roxanne felt all eyes on her as she walked through the halls, heard whispers and snickers, and in class things were no different from before.

Except for Deldja.

Because Deldja, her most prominent tormentor, was silent. She glared at Roxanne constantly, whispered and snickered with Flooze, but she never said a word to Roxanne, and she didn't lift a finger against her. She simply sat back and whispered with her friends, and Roxanne felt increasingly uneasy, because Deldja never ignored.

She only plotted.

***Break***

All week, Mace would glance down at his watch at random times, and sometimes he would answer with excitement and giddiness galore as Roxanne spoke to him. But other times he would glance down, see the image flashing at him from the watch face, and turn the watch off altogether.

Every day after school, Mace would come home from school and head upstairs, putting things in order before he headed off to the Cerebellum household. He would sit down briefly on his bed as he fiddled with the laces of his boots (the rockets and flight stabilizers installed in the heels messed with the self-tying function of the things, and he was still working on getting the two functions to work together), and heave a sigh as the communication function on the watch would go off.

On Grustday, Mace had actually answered that signal. It had been Krut, and Mace answered casually, like he always had done. He'd given Krut a communications device years ago so that their families could easily contact one another, and Mace had synced up the watch and Krut's device when Krut had most recently come for a visit.

"Salutations, Prince of Crypt," Mace greeted, and Krut answered with his own favorite,

"Hey."

"Is there a purpose to your call?" Mace asked, and Krut was quick to answer.

"Yeah. I was wondering if you could somehow get that one girl—the one…Oh, what's her name…" The sound of snapping fingers carried through the crystal-clear lines. Even light-years away, there was not so much as a scratch or hum or skip in the sound quality. Mace was proud of that, and he knew that if Krut focused his hearing, the older boy's far-reaching senses would most likely be able to pick up on just about everything that moved inside his house just from the tiny speakers that lay within the watch.

But Mace wasn't thinking about that, just then, because he was focused on the sinking feeling in his gut. Please say Deldja, he found himself wishing. Please, please, please say Deldja…

"Ada? No!" Krut exclaimed. "Aida! That was her name!"

"Why do you want to talk to Aida?" Mace asked a little warily, looking toward the door to make sure Minion hadn't come sneaking in. He was off somewhere doing something. Mace hadn't asked what.

"I want to see about coming to visit h—"

"Oh…sssshhhhhhhhh," Mace said, making a crackling noise in the back of his throat, like static. "Something…sssshhhhhh…Marmalade…ssshhhhhh…Yellow?...sssshhhh…And there's a rat…Ssshhhh…"

"Mace?" Krut asked, and though his voice came through perfectly clear, Mace pretended that it did not.

"Can't…Ssshhhhh…Think…Sssshhhhh…Breaking…sssshhhh…Bye!" Mace shut the watch off completely.

The rest of the week he just refused to answer when he saw Krut's face flashing on the screen. He didn't want to acknowledge the big brute's existence. Calling him to talk to Aida. Who did he think he was? Who did he think Mace was? He didn't like hearing Mendje talk about Aida and Krut, so he certainly didn't want to hear Krut talk about it. Some of the kids at school were even whispering about seeing Aida and Krut meet, and how they were the cutest ugly couple on Cerul.

He had dehydrated the first person who tried to gossip about with him. Dag them! They had no right to talk about Aida and Krut as if they were a couple—the two had hardly even met! He'd been punished for it, but since the kid wasn't harmed any, it had only been a single detention session spent helping the custodian fix broken things around the school. Mace wasn't upset about the punishment, nor was he sorry about what he'd done—Reptung had had it coming!

Author Comments:

FIRSTLY! I've previously mentioned that there are eleven days to a Cerulean week, and after careful consideration, I've decided to give them names! So, here you are:

Grustday: The first day of the schoolweek-the equivalent of Monday.
Wintday: The second day of the week-the equivalent of Tuesday.
Grollday: The third day of the week.
Fanadastday: The fourth day of the week.
Kruleday: The fifth day of the week-the equivalent of Wednesday.
Sttibastday: The sixth day of the week.
Aldaday: The seventh day of the week-the equivalent of Thursday.
Parndaday: The eighth day of the week; last day of the schoolweek-the equivalent of Friday.
Nokinday: The ninth day of the week; first day of the weekend-the equivalent of Saturday.
Nalinday: The tenth day of the week.
Nafarday: The eleventh day of the week; the last day of the weekend-the equivalent of Sunday.

Also, for future reference, I've decided that the Cerulean day is 36 hours long. In some parts of Cerul, they work in three twelve-hour cycles and military time goes up to 35:59, but in the area Mace and Roxanne reside within, they work in two cycles, like us, each eighteen hours long-eighteen o'clock is either high noon or midnight. I figure Ceruleans need less sleep and more at the same time-the average time allotted for sleep is twelve hours, but that's after a twenty-four hour period spent awake.

And the year, I think, will be more or less the same-I think the planet must be about as far away from its sun as Venus is from ours, maybe a little bit farther, but I also figure, being that they're so advanced, the species must be older, so that ties in with an older planet, an older planet system, and an older, weaker sun. The proximity to the sun makes the planet warm enough to allow the Ceruleans to evolve past hair (I really don't see what other explanation there could be for the species to be so close to completely without hair unless the planet is hot-or Megs' species is reptilian or something, which still wouldn't account for the facial hair, eyebrows, or lack of scales (and if the sun is older and weaker, it would account for the water and life that is able to subsist therein, making the planet too hot for comfort without baldness, but not so hot as to end life as it is known to our small, weak-willed minds)), and it would, in theory, make the revolutions around the sun quicker than ours. But maybe Cerul has an irregular orbit, or revolves at a slower pace due to astronomical anomalies or complications.
While we're on that subject, Metro Man has hair, so I might as well go ahead and press upon you my theory that Crypt is about as far away from the sun as Earth, but maybe slightly closer, unless we are to assume (as a definitive) that Cerul is slightly farther from its sun than Venus is from ours, because I imagine the two are twin planets. Maybe once, when Crypt and Cerul were still very young, they were one and the same and were hit by some sort of giant asteroid, or another planet, and one went spinning in one direction and the other in another, and...I'm sorry, I'm just speaking aloud right now, rambling on.

Goodness, I'm having FAR too much fun creating this world. And explaining it. XDXD, HAIL SCIENCE! XDXD.