A month passed from that day when the robbers broke into our house. My friendship with Discord grew very close. Unfortunately, he still saw me as just a friend. For me, I wanted to be more than friends, but I couldn't tell him that. It would be awkward central.

The police never found out anything about Roger and Larry. They said they probably skipped town and headed out to avoid being caught. They still had no idea how I was able to chase them off so easily. Of course, I couldn't tell them the truth, could I?

Nearing the end of August, I faced a new challenge: going to school. It was always a challenge, but I wasn't sure how I was going to leave Discord alone in my house with Mom and Caroline. I thought about having him turn into a teenage human and following me around so I could keep an eye him. But then Patrick might get jealous, and there was a slim possibility that my mom might find out about him as a human and ask questions.

So, I had to give him a lecture the night before school.

I stood at the foot of my bed that Discord still used as his own. He was stretched out and had thrown my blankets and pillows on the floor.

"I have to talk to you about something." I began, crossing my arms in front of my chest to appear more authoritative.

"If it's about giving you your bed back, then no." Discord replied harshly.

"No," I took a deep breath and started, "I'm going to go back to school tomorrow, and I need you to be on your best behavior for the rest of the time you're here. You can't go around showing yourself to my mom or Caroline. If they find you, you know what will happen."

Discord suddenly sat up and looked annoyed, "And what do expect for me to do the whole time while you're gone?"

"I don't know. Read a book or something."

"I hate reading! And it only takes me five minutes to read a multi-chapter book!"

"Not my fault you read at the speed of a time lord!"

Discord groaned, "Fine, I'll just torment Zoe."

At the mention of this, Zoe growled and scooted into the corner of the room.

"Just..." I tried to keep my cool, "Just don't come anywhere near Mom or Caroline. Or any other human being for that matter."

"I won't make any promises."

"Well, if the Earth is suddenly panicking about a strange, sentient chimera thing living in the suburbs, I'll be sure to give you a good smack across the face."

"You'd have to catch me first."

I knew he'd just keep arguing with me, so I laid down and gave up. Zoe came over to my makeshift bed and curled up with me, keeping me warm with her soft fur. I wasn't sure how I was going to force Discord to not do anything while I was gone. He couldn't stop himself if he wanted to mess with someone. I just had to trust that he'd stay in my room and keep himself hidden from everyone.

Yeah, like that would ever happen.

I packed up my stuff, put on some nicer, first-day-of-school clothes, and did the rest of my morning rituals. Afterwards, I went back to my room and bid Discord and Zoe goodbye.

"Can I trust you not to cause trouble?" I asked him.

He gave a sleazy smile, "Nope."

I rolled my eyes and exited the room. Caroline was sitting in the living room with all of her stuff. I motioned for her to come on, since I usually took her to school on my own, then headed to mine. As we got in the car, I helped Caroline with her booster seat, then took the driver's seat. I pulled out of the driveway and out on to the streets, failing to notice the black van parked across the street.

"We're sorry we didn't contact you earlier, General Zephyr," Roger apologized to the large, mean-looking man on the screen in the van, "We've been on the run from the police for almost a month now. We couldn't get you that dog though."

Zephyr did not look pleased.

"But we found something even more interesting!" Larry continued.

Roger shuddered, "There was this thing... This... Creature. It was dark, so we couldn't get a very good look at the thing. It had these glowing red eyes and these sharp teeth... I swear, it was the size of a school bus. It was in that house."

"And it was in my banana!" Larry added.

Roger promptly slapped Larry to get him to shut up, "Sir, that creature looked like something that walked out of the depths of hell itself. It might have been a demon, coming to possess us or something."

Zephyr only stared at them, "Mr. Cole... It was in your... What?"

"My banana!" Larry exclaimed, "When I peeled it, the creature's face was in my banana! Then it turned into the thing itself and that's when we ran away screaming!"

Zephyr looked intrigued, "Did this creature say anything... Or do anything peculiar besides appearing as a banana?"

"Well, it hijacked my pistol, I think," Roger explained, "Made it like one of those cartoons with the white flag that says BANG!"

"And it said boo!" Larry added.

Zephyr started smiling, "Then I want you to continue investigating that house and the family in it. I want that creature."

"W-what?" Roger looked as pale as a ghost.

"I said, I want that creature."

Larry whined, "Sir, we don't even know what that creature is capable of! What if it turns into my banana again?!"

Zephyr sighed in annoyance, "I don't care if it takes your souls! I want that creature!" Then he shut off the video feed, making the screen blank once again.

Roger and Larry exchanged glances.

Roger gulped, "Larry, we have a big problem ahead of us."

As I walked into Eastside High School, I saw all the people from last year, as well as some new faces: the freshmen and transfers. Almost immediately, I picked the tall, red-headed boy out of the crowd. We went running to each other and greeted each other with our secret handshake.

"Good to see you, Pat." I told him.

Patrick laughed, "Right back at ya, Double C. How was your summer break?"

I wanted to say, 'Other than the spirit of chaos sabotaging my life, it was good', but I forced myself to say, "It was good, but a bit boring."

"Man, I wish we coulda gone on a summer vacation like everyone else," Patrick sighed sadly, "But we're not swimming in money like they are."

I suddenly caught a glimpse of a familiar person approaching from behind Patrick, "Female dog, five o' clock."

The girl approaching was the school's popular snob, Amber Jones. She was also dating the meathead Josh Akerson. She had perfectly wavy red hair, a low-cut shirt showing off her almost nonexistent cleavage, and extremely tight skinny jeans. She was the stereotypical high school, rich, snobby, mean girl. Her posse luckily wasn't with her, so she just shot us a glare as she walked by and continued on.

"Whew," I breathed, "For a second there, I thought I was going to have to argue with the devil's wife herself."

"Nah, she has to have her zombies with her." Patrick joked.

"Oh, good one!"

We both laughed about our stupid jokes before the bell rang for first period. We both sighed, knowing that our first class was the worst, mainly because of the teacher who taught it sounded like an adult on Charlie Brown. Unfortunately, we were both forced to go, despite our hatred of the class.

"Now when two hydrogen atoms combine with an oxygen atom, the reaction is very violent," Mr. Wallace said in his signature, super-monotone voice, "And you should all know what it creates."

Me and Patrick sat in the back of the classroom, listening to our chemistry teacher, Mr. Wallace, drone on about hydrogen and oxygen. We were luckily lab partners this year, which was a relief. Last year I got stuck with a lazy boy named Mark, who made me do all of the work, and it was an absolute nightmare. Mark was stuck with Amber this year, which made me secretly smug.

As Wallace droned on, I started drawing random scribbles on my notebook. There was an old drawing of a cartoony dragon wearing sunglasses on the same page. It was something Caroline had asked me to draw for her, but forgot to give it to her. I looked over at Patrick, who's hazel eyes were slowly closing. He gave a large yawn before removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. He was a smart guy who almost always stayed awake during class; but Wallace was like listening to an airplane engine high in the sky. He was background noise that no one really paid any attention to.

I looked back down at the drawing of the cartoony dragon and almost had a heart attack. The dragon was laying on its stomach with the sunglasses now on its forehead. It had this relaxed smirk, and one clawed paw resting under its chin. Why was this strange, you ask?

I originally drew it standing up. With the glasses on its face. And no smirk.

I almost debated on screaming right there in class when the scribbles I had drawn earlier formed into a message. I stared with wide eyes, trying to comprehend what was happening. The scribbles then became readable words:

'How's dying of boredom going?

-Dizcord.'

I immediately sighed with annoyance before jotting down under the message, 'You spelled you're own name wrong, stupid.'

Another message appeared, 'You used the incorrect form of your, stupid.'

I scratched out his message, only for another to appear under it, 'Want me to liven things up?'

In big, bold letters, I wrote, 'NO!'

'Too bad!' A badly drawn version of Discord appeared underneath the message, along with, 'Mwahahahaha!'

Oh god... I thought to myself, starting to feel paranoid. What was he going to do? Turn all the students into rabbits? Make our textbooks explode? Turn Wallace into-?

My thoughts were interrupted when Wallace suddenly turned around with the widest smile on his face. I had never seen the guy crack a small smile, much less this one that rivaled the Joker. He suddenly pulled out a large, clear container, and another smaller one.

"Alright class," He said in a much more jolly tone, "We're gonna practice a chemical reaction."

One of the students raised his hand, "Sir, it's only the first day of school. We don't get into doing chemical reactions until the second quarter of the year!"

"Quiet!" Wallace shouted at the student before he turned back to the container, "Today, we'll be practicing by combining hydrogen and oxygen to make water!"

My eyes widened. I panicked and scrawled on my notebook paper, 'THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?!'

'Livening up things, my dear. Deal with it.'

Patrick raised his hand, "Mr. Wallace, you just said that combining hydrogen and oxygen is a violent process."

Wallace only smiled crazily as he quickly attached the smaller container to the larger one, making it airtight. I knew it had to contain the oxygen and hydrogen, and I think we all knew what was coming next. The class ducked underneath their desks as the containers started to slowly bulge. Wallace didn't even care about what was happening as he simply stood there with that crazy smile still on his face.

Then, the containers exploded, launching dangerous glass projectiles into the back walls. A ball of fire plumed from the containers and up to one of the fire detectors. Immediately, the sprinkling system came on and drenched us and all of our books and notes.

Wallace now had glass shards lodged in him and burns on his face, "And that class," He said in a dazed tone, "Is why you shouldn't combine oxygen and hydrogen at home." He then fell backwards, knocked out.

The entire school was forced to stay outside while the firemen came and made sure that everything was safe. It took nearly two hours, and with the autumn season setting in, along with being soaking wet was not a pleasurable experience.

Mr. Wallace was taken to the hospital. Paramedics said there weren't any fatal injuries, just cuts from the glass that might have to be stitched up, along with some minor first degree and second degree burns. Other than that, our Charlie-Brown-adult chemistry teacher was fine.

All of us in Wallace's class were quite confused at his sudden change in character, except for me. I knew exactly who was behind this mess, and I was going to punch him in the nose when I got home.

Four hours later, we were released from school. I immediately went to my car and drove to the elementary school a few blocks over. I picked up Caroline, got some dinner at the local McDonalds, then went home. Mom greeted us with hugs before I immediately went upstairs to my room and slammed the door behind me. Zoe was in the corner sleeping, but was awoken when I came in. She sensed my anger, and stayed in her corner.

"I know you're in here," I growled, "Don't make me do something rash."

"Like what?"

I immediately turned around, raised my fist, and aimed for the chaotic creature's nose. He stopped me, however, by holding my fist in a magical grasp.

"Violence solves nothing." Discord said, that trollish smile still on his face.

"Let me punch your nose, then we'll be even for making my Monday miserable." I felt as though I was frothing at the mouth.

"I made you Monday interesting, mind you." He growled back.

"You made my chemistry teacher concoct a hydrogen bomb!"

"And yet, you secretly enjoyed every moment of it."

"I made you promise not to leave my room and cause trouble."

"Ah, but you didn't make me Pinkie Promise. Nor did you make me swear on the River Styx. Nor did you make me cross my heart."

At that very moment, I freed my hand from Discord's magical grasp, launched my fist at his face, and planted a well-deserved punch on his cheek. He ended up only laughing at me and calling me a weakling, but it was worth it.