Word Count: 1,879


That evening, Armin collapsed with a sigh into his desk chair. It had been quite the day.

He lazily pulled the note out of his pocket, confident that he had cracked this one's code. The answer to the Chem problem had been 49℃, which was the equivalent to A in the alphabet, and each letter following would be two less than the previous until Z, which was -1.

He sat up properly and unfolded the note, careful to turn his desk light on so that his grandfather wouldn't chastise him later and say he was ruining his perfect eyesight.

He scribbled out the key on a piece of scratch paper and from there spent the next ten minutes meticulously decoding the numbers. When that was done, he leaned back in his chair and exhaled; he hadn't even noticed he wasn't breathing towards the end.

He picked up the riddle and read it aloud:

"All students must pass / Through this class / To graduate. / Talk about zombies / Talk about atoms / Talk about all in between. / In case you don't have it / By some crazy magic / This class is also / A club. / Maa."

He glanced up at the end. "Maa?" he said, dumbfounded.

He read it over again, silently this time.

All students must pass through this class to graduate. Well, that was an easy bit; it ruled out all the electives.

He supposed it wouldn't be another English class, since that was where it had all started, and a scavenger hunt with two of the same items wasn't much fun at all.

He also ruled out it being a PE class, since there was never much talking about anything except for that one unit of sex ed, let alone zombies, atoms, and anything in between. He shuddered, not wanting to think about the poorly given lectures of that month of his freshman year.

That left him with either math or science.

Talk about zombies, talk about atoms, talk about all in between.

He stared off into space, chewing on his pinky, for a few moments as he gave those lines some thought. Math with Mr. Berner could be wild sometimes, especially when Ms. Zoë dropped by during her prep periods to tell them all short but hilarious stories about Mr. Berner back when he was her student teacher, but for the most part, no math class he had ever taken since he had entered high school had ever really talked about things other than, well, math.

His mind wandered off to the last time Ms. Zoë had popped into his Calc a/b class. Mr. Berner was off delivering some last minute paperwork or something, and she ended up rambling about how the reason Mr. Berner was prepared for everything down to the zombie apocalypse was because back when he was under her, he saw her accidentally explode an erlenmeyer flask because she thought it would be fun to show the kids what happens when you put three grams of pure Lithium in with distilled water.

But hey, at least no one got hurt because it was all in the fume hood.

Ah, Ms. Zoë and her qualifications to teach any subject she pleased. He remembered Mr. Berner telling them he was glad she mained in Chemistry because he wasn't sure how he'd come to school at the end of every semester sober if she was the head of his department. He remembered it particularly because when they had been asked to exchange notes with the person sitting next to them, he had received a notebook full of zombies eating ropes made of integrals from the girl who sat next to him.

Bang!

He jumped, startled out of his flashback by the sound of his grandfather slamming the door shut, signalling his arrival.

"Armin," his grandfather called, "Did you finish your homework?"

"Working on it!" Armin yelled back.

Shoving the riddle to the side, he dug his homework out of his backpack and began to work.


It was three in the morning. Armin was fast asleep in his bed, a feat astonishing for a junior loaded with ten million zillion AP classes.

His eyes suddenly snapped open.

"Ms. Zoë coaches Academic Decathalon."


He arrived on campus early the next day. Lunch would be too long to wait; he had grown too invested in the scavenger hunt to simply wait half a day to only receive the next riddle. Plus, Ms. Zoë came early every day so he knew her class would be open.

He carefully opened the door leading into her class and peeked inside. At first it seemed empty, its lights strangely all on when–

"Good morning, Armin! Oh, you always were one of my favorite students!"

He screamed when she leapt in front of him, amused smile on her face, nearly falling onto his bum from shock. "Ms.– Ms. Zoë! I di–"

"Oh, don't worry about it, kiddo. You're looking for something, no?"

Armin blinked, trying to process what just happened. "Uhh, yeah, actually." He started to take the previous note out of his back pocket but Ms. Zoë would have none of it.

"Shht! You don't need to show me. What, did you think I was oblivious to you kids' runnings arounds and local gossip? She told me all about your little scavenger hunt after I asked her about unusual her margin doodles." She paused for a second and broke into a grin. "It's cute, I have to say. I came in early this morning so she could hide your next clue in here."

She briefly checked her watch, but even then, Armin couldn't get a word in for he had no words to say, he was so astonished.

"Oh! I have to go pick some stuff up from the office. I'll be back in a jiff– oh, but don't worry about being alone in the classroom. Billy's watching."

Flabbergasted, Armin could do nothing but watch her push past him and run down the hall, heels, lab coat, and all.

Billy?

He squeezed into her classroom, feeling as though he had to be sneaky because the room was devoid of any adult supervision and who knew what he might accidentally blow up wandering through Zoë's classroom. Even if all the chemicals were locked up in a cupboard in the back with the only key belonging to Mr. Ackerman the janitor, he couldn't know for sure.

He walked up to her desk, his quiet footsteps the only sound in the room. A white, fluffy stuffed alpaca in a lab coat and goggles smiled brightly at him with its eternal :3 face. The AcaDec mascot whom he just now remembered was named Billy. He stuck his hand into the little coat pocket, thinking perhaps it would be the stuffed animal that held the clue twice in a row. But alas, they were both empty.

As were Billy's eyes as he stared, stared, stared at Armin, the only living thing in the room.

He quickly decided to move away; thinking about the alpaca gave him the creeps.

He wandered over to the far side of the room, where little student drawn safety posters hung in their little, plastic sleeves. One starred Deadpool and Spider-Man demonstrating how to care for lab-induced injuries; another, Mr. Ackerman and Ms. Zoë themselves arguing about proper chemical disposal.

A third one was a simple three-panel comic with a plain-looking boy doing a general lab. In the background, Billy the Alpaca watched. It zoomed in on Billy's face, and in the last panel, he said, "I'm watching you, Billy."

A connection of Billies. It wasn't the strangest thing, in Armin's opinion; this was Zoë's class.

He stared at the comic in total silence for a while. Something about it drew him.

Then, he noticed it wasn't perfectly flush with the wall and that the opening was just a little bit wider than all the other little, plastic covers.

Bingo.

He reached into the sleeve and pulled out yet another little, triangularly-folded paper and grinned.


Lena had five different classes (English, math, science, history, and a foreign language) taught by five different teachers (Ral, Bozardo, Schultz, Jinn, and Ackerman). She had a different friend in every class: Hunter, Diana, Constance, Mei, and Sean. Since Lena isn't good at everything, her greats are all over the board with one of everything from an A to an F. Using the clues provided, deduce which period had what teacher teaching what class to Lena and her friend.

1. Lena's best grade was her foreign language; her worst was history.
2. Third or fifth period she had with either Diana or Sean.
3. Second period was a grade above first; fifth was a grade above fourth, and third was a grade above fifth.
4. Diana and Sean shared either math or science with Lena.
5. Schultz, Jinn, and Ackerman taught different grades during third and fifth.
6. Schultz taught Mei and Lena, Constance was so stupid that constantly reteaching him the material accidentally made it her best subject, and her fourth period (which she did not share with Mei) wasn't taught by Jinn.
7. Sean's help in their math class gave Lena one grade above her grade in Bozardo.

Go to Lena's second period and ask the teacher for their Hogwarts house.


It was then, as he was walking while reading the note and not paying attention to where he was going, when his friend Eren crashed into him from behind. He yelped, nearly dropping the little, folded-up paper, but Mikasa caught and stabilized him. They both stared at the note in his hands.

"Still doing that, Armin?" Eren asked.

"Well, it's a different note from the first one, but yeah. Day two of this scavenger hunt."

Mikasa gently took the note from him, read it for herself, and pursed her lips when she handed it back to him. "I recognize her handwriting."

"Her?"

"We sat next to each other in English last year so I recognize it from having to grade her tests all the time."

"Oh, yeah, huh. All the teachers that have mentioned them have been using she/her pronouns."

"Armin, are you listening to me?"

He jumped, startled. He ran his hand through his hair. "Sorry. I just hadn't been paying attention to some of the little things so it came as a shock when you told me it was a girl."

"Well, what were you hoping for?" Eren said incredulously. "A dude?"

Armin shrugged. "Hadn't given it much thought. I figured I'd find out when I met them."

Mikasa seemed to throw a subtle glare at someone behind the boys. "Well, I won't ruin your fun and tell you who it is."

"Yee."

The bell rang for school to start, and the three friends parted ways: Mikasa to the locker rooms for her Badminton class, Eren to the science wing where he took AP Biology with Ms. Zoë, and Armin followed the marching band until he turned into the hall leading to his language class.


Author's Note iii. the blowing up an erlenmyer flask is a true story i got from me very own chem teacher who saw another teacher do that on their break once. apparently she almost didn't even use the fume hood but thank goodness she did because PROPER LAB SAFETY, KIDS. very important stuff. same with the billy comic. lmao that was my friend's. also is it only my school that has the alpaca for the acadec mascot? is it the entire acadec mascot? i can't tell but our little stuffed alpaca again in my chem teacher's room is so fluffy. .3.

i'm just saving all these chapters as documents the same night as i finished the fic which is the same day as when it was first published so i dun know if anyone took up the drabble/crack the code offer, but still open. well, in this case you have to solve the puzzler. ye! ! i feel like i did a really good job on the foreshadowing in this fic. mmm. follow/fave/review/whatever floats your boat guys. have a greaaat daaay~~~