"Really, Connor, Mr. Frog thinks I'm just supposed to walk around sporting this half-drunk bottle of scotch?"

Pete followed Connor on their way out of Frog's classroom, off on the beginning of their journey to find and retrieve his bottles to bring back to Ms. Worm, a teacher each student was vaguely familiar with. The two traversed the school building, heading down sparsely crowded halls.

"Just keep it under your jacket. That's how I always used to steal bottles for my mom's... third boyfriend? Second or third."

Pete gulped, glancing both ways before obliging, his face turning red. "Now I feel like some kind of hoodlum."

"And doing what we did with Benji didn't give you that feeling?"

"I feel really bad about that. Have you heard about what happened to Franklin Clinton?"

"Who's that?"

"He was an offbeat that got injured during the drone bombings. Apparently his leg got burned and he couldn't afford to get it treated, so he had to drop out. It kills me to think that we were partially responsible for it."

Connor sighed. "Yeah, me too, bud. We're gonna make up for it, though."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I haven't figured out how yet, but we've gotta deal with some of the other ass-headed cliques in this school. One at a time I'd say. Unless it's the nerds, I'd say we're gonna have our hands full with any of the cliques around here. I don't know who to target first though. I can't say I'm used to being strategic."

The two cut a corner, heading down a staircase, passing a scowling prefect on the way.

"Pissbaby," the man muttered as he stepped past Pete.

Pete momentarily turned to watch the prefect go, his feelings taking a blow, then turned back around. "Well, I guess we ought to give that some thought after we deal with Frog."

"Yeah," Connor tsked. "Frog, man. Let's get this done quickly."

"Right. Any idea where the other three bottles are?"

"They could be anywhere. Let's-"

Pete stumbled on the last step of the staircase, letting out a quick, "whoa!" before tumbling over onto his front, mistakenly flailing the bottle ahead of him as he went. Horror in his eyes and nonchalance in Connor's, the boys watched the bottle soar through the air before crashing against the sleek first floor. Students and prefects gathered at all sides of the massive commonsstopped what they were doing, their eyes glued to the glass busting and shooting out in all directions. Glass and alcohol traveled at the speed of sound to reach the bystanders' feet.

"Wow!" Cameron exclaimed with an astounded smile. "An alcoholic beverage!"

JJ leaned on a wall, shaking his head and tsking. Some students laughed, others had little reactions at all, but in unison, the prefects came to the conclusion of giving chase. Faux authoritative shouts and commands from these young adults filled the commons.

"Little bastard!"

"Drinker!"

"Come here and face justice!"

"I'm gonna piss in your grits!"

"Can somebody sweep up this glass?"

Connor ripped Pete back up to his feet by his jacket, then thrust him aside with more power than Pete was expecting. "Split up! Meet by the parking lot with the bottles!"

"Ah!" Pete cried, flailing into a locker, only to spin around and barely swerve away from pursuing prefects. He saw some of them bustling after Connor, who took off down a hallway opposite Pete.

"Ah, shit, gotta run!" he exclaimed.

Pete felt his muscles burn and his heart race. His body still ached from falling when he broke the bottle, but he had no time whatsoever to recover; who knew what Headmaster Slug's penalty for having alcohol in the schoolhouse might be? It was something Pete couldn't perceive. All he felt was fear, coursing through him, pushing his little legs down winding halls.

The prefects kept on coming at him, and by this point, Pete's lack of endurance was starting to become a real noticeable ordeal. Huffing and puffing, his eyes scanned each locker-plastered side of the next hall he made it to.

"Come here already!" ordered one of the prefects.

No time for me to slip inside one of those lockers.

Only then did Pete see something else suitable for an escape plan. Letting himself trip up, Pete barged forwards into the side of a trash can, as well as a rando standing behind it. Both students let out groans as they toppled, Pete forward while the rando and the trash can fell right into the center of the hallway, effectively tumbling the flock of prefects like a bowling strike.

"Holy shit, it worked," Pete gasped, rushing back up to his feet and down another hall.

The miniscule boy fled for a while longer, only stopping when he felt the coast was clear.

He caught his breath below the staircase fortification, and entered the cafeteria to his right, softly closing the doors behind him. Exhaling in relief, he headed in. Numerous students hovered about, eating and hanging while they had this time between classes. The reputable administrator lady with the accent, Ms. Danvers stood chatting up the lunch lady that Pete swore had spat in people's food before. Meanwhile, Duncan gave an admirably executed wedgy to Harold at the further side of the cafeteria. Did Ms. Danvers not care about it? Maybe, but Pete couldn't be bothered to think about it for much longer.

He sighed, taking a seat at one of several long tables in the massive room. The chattering of others around him faded into the background. As guilt regarding helping Benji nuzzled its way back into the forefront of his mind, Pete brushed it off, thinking instead of his more current troubles.

"Why did I even choose to help Mr. Frog? I'm never gonna find those bottles..."

"What bottles?"

Pete recognized the voice, but couldn't believe who he was hearing it from. Looking up from his slouch at the table, he saw head bully Evan slinging his backpack to the side while he sat across from Pete.

"Evan," he uttered, mystified.

"Uh huh. What's going on?"

"I... I can't believe you're choosing to talk to me right now."

Evan shrugged. "Eh. I'm not really one for holding grudges, you know? Besides, everything that went down... it doesn't really feel real, does it?"

Pete nodded an obligatory nod. "Uhm, no, not really. Feels a little surreal actually."

"It all felt staged. Probably because it actually was staged. But more than that, the rivalry, all that shit. I was just trying to get publicity to be honest. I already told you and Connor that that was part of the point, and the shit worked. But the whole good-guy-bad-guy-we're-gonna-fight shit that you guys insisted on..." He sighed. "I don't know, bro. Not really my cup. It's a little too Marvel for me." Evan reached into one compartment of his pack to down some water while Pete fidgeted about at the other side of the table. When Pete didn't say anything, Evan spoke again. "So, what's this about bottles?"

"I, uh, don't know if I should say."

Evan half-scoffed, half-chuckled. "Pete, if you've been drinking at school, do you really think I give even half a fuck? I was a drug dealer. You can make that connection, can't you?"

"Well, it isn't about me. Yes, of course, I knew you were a drug dealer, but- it's about one of the teachers."

"Oh. Frog."

"Yeah. Frog. I don't know how serious he was, but he just enlisted mine and Connor's help getting rid of these bottles he's got hidden in the school somewhere."

Evan nodded and chuckled. "That sounds like Drunky McPissedPants to me."

"You wouldn't happen to have seen any bottles lurking around campus, have you?"

He shrugged. "Don't think I can help you there."

Pete groaned and slouched. "That's fine, I'll just figure it out for myself..."

"If there's one thing I learned from what happened, other than to not trust people who are clearly unstable, it's to think like the people around me. What was Connor thinking, and how could I use that knowledge to get ahead of him? What are my clique thinking, and how can I use that knowledge to better utilize them? So on and so forth. Maybe that'll help you."

He paused, staring off into space. "Yeah... maybe..."

Evan stood up from the table, breaking Pete's trance.

"Hey, thanks, Evan."

"Whatever, man."

After Evan left, Pete pulled in as much mental processing power as he could.

Think like the people around me... Frog is a drunken teacher, and he feels... angry. He's angry with the faculty. If I were an angry teacher, I might lash out. I might put the bottles somewhere... somewhere deeply disrespectful to the school administration!

"Light bulb moment," Pete beamed, a smile forming on his face.

As the halls of the schoolhouse dwindled further and further in volume of people roaming, Connor found himself more willing to scout. It'd be easier to shove a bottle under his hoodie if less people were around to see him, he figured. Without prefects on his tail anymore either, it was time to get to work.

Connor went in and out of classrooms where he could, investigating for any sign of the bottles, but there were less clues to be found than in the opening minutes of a Sherlock episode. On his way down a hall on the second floor, a prep appeared from down an intersecting hall, doing their best to capture Connor's attention.

"Hey! 'Scuse me!"

Connor eyed the fellow up and down. He, like the rest, wore slacks, dress shoes, and a blue, checkered sweater.

It's like everyone at this school has assimilated into their own cults.

"You're Connor Henson, right?"

"That's right. I'm also busy." Though Connor kept walking, this didn't send enough of a message for the prep to scram. He began to follow.

"My good chap Chandler told me you dissed him."

Connor halted. "I did what?"

"That's right. He told me you sullied his worth right in front of a full classroom. His feelings were tarnished, and worst of all, he told me you rejected his offer to box with us."

"Oh, right, that. What's your name, preppie?"

"Bryce. Bryce Vanveen."

"All right, Bryce Vanveen, you want the answer I gave your friend?"

"N-not particularly..."

With both middle fingers a-blazing, Connor fired, "You can go fuck yourself, that's what I think of your boxing. Hopefully this time the message sticks."

Bryce stared at Connor with shock and awe, as if another student had never dared disrespect him in such a way before. Without another word, Connor headed forwards, making his way towards the central office where Ms. Danvers usually kept herself busy behind a tall front desk. Bryce rushed to pursue Connor, and by the time he caught up to him, he stood in front of him in front of a glass encased trophy case, filled with trophies honoring various jocks, the largest of which encrusted "Rudolph 'Lightning' Jackson" at the bottom of it.

"Wh-wh-what? H-how could you say something like that to me?" Bryce danced around, keeping his feet light as he raised his fists in boxing position. "Why, I ought to beat you a new one right here in front of the trophy case! Wouldn't that be a sight to see? A pauper being beaten in front of valuable items he could never obtain for himself!"

Connor sighed, rolling his eyes. "Kid, just back off, okay? I don't give a-" Mid-roll of his eyes, Connor noticed something of interest nestled among the trophies. Lo and behold, one of Frog's fabled, hidden bottles of scotch, placed right between two wide trophies dedicated to students named Kirby Olsen and Nicolas Foster. This brought a spark to Connor's eyes. He turned and readied himself for a fight with the prep.

"All right, Bryce, you wanna fight? Let's go!"

Connor swung at Bryce, who swerved his whole body backwards, gliding through the motion like he'd practiced it a multitude of times before. As Bryce let a fist fly, Connor ducked and kicked his knee up into Bryce's back, grunting as he thrust the prep's fist right into the trophy case. From the force he'd put behind the strike, his fist crashed right through the glass.

As if the start of a fight in the schoolhouse wasn't enough to alert nearby appearing passersby, the sound of glass littering the floor coupled with Bryce's scream as his fist met the same glass shifted all eyes on the pair. Bryce wailed with pain as he shook his fist around, blood trickling down from his knuckles to his wrist and his white sweater sleeves with tiny shards of glass poking out from his hand. Any focus he had on Connor was eradicated.

Ms. Danvers rushed out of the office, gasping at the sight of the boys. "Oh, my word! Prefects!"

"Uh, way to go, cracking the glass, nimrod!" Connor yelled, loud enough for the prefects to target Bryce.

"Delinquent!" a prefect snapped, then raced up to hook his arm around Bryce's neck.

"I'm telling my father about this! He'll be happy to pay for medical attention, unlike your father!"

In the middle of Bryce's pained shout, Connor snagged the bottle, allowing Kirby and Nicolas' trophies to clank against the glass-littered floor as he thrust the bottle under his hoodie and leaped the staircase railing, then charged down the rest of the stairs.

Simultaneously, down a hall within eyeshot of the whole event, Hattrick appeared, throwing out an arm and shouting commands for prefects to pursue Connor. As this happened, Pete tip-toed his way out from Hattrick's office, behind the men, with his jacket bulging with two bottles.

"Time to go," he whispered to himself.

By the time Pete made it to the parking lot, he was shocked to see Connor just standing around, his green jacket whipping in the wind without an air of caution about him. It was strange for Pete to see a second set of gates near one end of the parking lot opened and actually available for faculty to drive out of at any time.

"Hey, Pete."

"Dude, how did you just get away with that?"

Connor smirked and pointed out the bottles that Pete struggled to conceal. "You mean, 'How did we just get away with that'?"

"No, I- well, yeah, I guess I do," Pete mentioned, failing to hold off a smile. "Seriously, though. You were right out in front of Ms. Danvers office, like, the centerpoint of the second floor of the schoolhouse. How did you manage to escape?"

"Easy. Pin it on the annoying prep. It was getting away after that bought me the first few minutes that was more of a challenge. I'll have to tell you about my experience with the preps lately in a minute, but it looks like Ms. Worm is here."

Pete turned to see a woman dressed in a brown dress and heels approaching the lads. With the wrinkles on her skin, partially hidden by her flat bob hairstyle fluttering around in the wind, Pete guessed she was in her 50s or so. Over her shoulder, she held a travel bag that looked just like it was made from the unflattering-feeling materials of old people bags, the sort of clothes you'd only find from women and men in nursing homes.

"What do we have here?" she asked rhetorically.

"Uhm, good morning, miss. Good day," Pete greeted her, peering around uneasily to scout for watchers. "I, uh, I truly do love this meetup spot for e-extra credit, uh, extra credit con- conclu- conclusions class. Er, I-"

"Cut the crap, kid," Worm muttered. "What's the matter with you? We're not doing this out here, where anyone and their gay uncle could be peeping."

Pete was speechless. "Uh..."

Worm tilted her head, gesturing to Connor for the group to head over behind a hummer in a parking spot. Connor understood, nodding and then following her over. Pete pressed his palm in his face and trotted after them. A short while later and the three walked back out into the parking lot, now with Worm's bag much heavier than before.

"Nice work bringing the bottles, kids," Worm grunted, slinging the bag back up over her shoulder. "It's good of you youths to try to cast out a single oar to a man six hundred feet deep into the Marianas Trench."

"What?" Connor uttered.

"You know. Tossing a single oar. You tried to help out, but it's about as helpful as tossing a single oar to a man-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it now."

"Lionel Frog, while a fantasy man in many ways," she murmured with an air of melancholy in her voice, "is also a deeply troubled little boy, hiding beneath a shell and a thin veneer of normalcy. It's gonna take much more than taking away a few bottles to help Mr. Frog out of his drinking habit."

"Mr. Frog was the one who asked us to find his bottles," Pete replied. "Why would he do that if he wasn't gonna quit drinking? Or at least plan to?"

Ms. Worm shrugged, her hair whipping into her face again from the wind. "Well, perhaps he wanted you two to provide a little hope. I suppose that, assuming he could even see that oar from all the way down in the depths, that's enough to tell him there's something above him. If you know there's something waiting for you, then you know that the abyss around you isn't all you've got. Maybe then... maybe then you can start swimming."

The teacher shrugged again, then headed back off the way she'd come. Connor and Pete watched her go for a few beats.

"Damn, that was a lot more profound of an answer than I was expecting from a woman with the last name Worm," Pete remarked.

"Good deed done," Connor responded. "So, Pete, you interested in hearing about my recent, brief endeavors with those preppies?"

"Did you say something about the prep-sticides?"

At the sound of the new voice, Connor and Pete turned to see Kanashii approaching with Winston and Shay alongside him. Unlike Connor and Pete, Kanashii hadn't changed his outfit whatsoever for the slightly colder season; his dog hair-covered hoodie still slumped over his unknown-sized chest.

Winston wasted no time rushing for Pete, barking a number of times before demanding attention. Pete rubbed behind his ears, then he dropped to sit, raised a paw for Pete to shake, then nudged his face into the boy's crotch.

"Whoa, Winston, getting a little fresh there, buddy."

"Winston," Shay squeaked, "stay away from people's penises."

Pete looked up to see Shay approach, then he felt a lump in his chest. His heart thudded, and it took him so off guard that he tensed like a car was coming at him. Shay's look had changed, subtly, but enough for Pete to see the girl differently. Her hair, a mix of cotton candy pink and velvet purple with blue highlights, was up in two pigtails on each side of her head. She wore a choker, a black bomber jacket-a size too large for her with purple streaks along the sleeves-as well as a vibrant, colorful crop top similar to her hair with a large anarchy necklace over it. To top it off, she sported a black and blue skirt and fishnets over her pale legs, with high top vans.

"Hey, Connor. Hey, Pete," she greeted them each with a smile.

Pete stifled a gulp. "H-h-hi, Shay."

The sight of her black lipstick, her pale, luminous skin, and bluish foundation had Pete at a loss for words.

What's going on?

"Were you saying something about the preps?" Kanashii asked again.

"Yeah, I was," Connor started. "It started in Frog's class. Some guy mentioned what happened in the Hole, and suggested I come box at the Bullworth town gym. I told him to blow me-"

"Did he?" Kanashii wondered.

"Then another rich asshole named Bryce Vanveen," he sneered in a condescending tone, "tried to get me to box. So, since I was just in the middle of stealing some of Frog's spare alcohol-don't ask-I got Bryce to try and fight me, then got him to crush his hand and break a trophy case. He, uh, didn't like that so much."

"Oh, goodness," Shay murmured.

"Between that and the first guy-Chandler, maybe? It seems cl-"

"I really like your, uhm, your everything today, Shay," Pete mumbled. "I-I can't really pick one thing to compliment. There's... there's a lot going on there."

Kanashii eyed him with curiosity, Connor with confusion, while Shay smiled bigger at him.

"Thank you, Pete. That's very kind of you to say," she peeped.

"Pete," Connor cleared his throat, "I was right in the middle of talking."

"Oh, shit. My bad. Remind me. You were saying...?"

"I was just talking about how the preps seem interested in me. They want me to go into Bullworth town and box with them."

"It could be a good idea," Shay chimed in. "I was just thinking about how I want to go out and explore now that we've got the opportunity."

"True that," Kanashii agreed. "Winston's getting tired of walking around on campus. He needs new scents, man. That sniffer of his could do with a bit of new pavement. Isn't that right, fat, flubbery fuck-man?"

Winston barked happily, sitting for Kanashii as his owner rubbed his blocky head.

"I think the four of us should go out into Bullworth town tomorrow afternoon," Shay suggested.

"Eh, I don't know about tomorrow," Connor replied. "Like I said about Bryce, I don't think the preps are gonna be all that happy if they see me for a bit. I don't feel the need to spoil your guys' days over it. Give it two or three days and they might cool off."

"Okay, I'm flexible. Guys?"

"Sure," Kanashii agreed. "Just need to skip chemistry two days from now and then I'll be free."

Shay chuckled. "You're funny."

"I've got some funny jokes, too," Pete added.

Once everyone went silent and looked at him again, Pete froze.

Why did I say that? I wasn't even thinking that first!

"O-oh, yeah?" Kanashii responded.

"Y-yeah, yep."

"Wanna tell me one?" Shay offered.

Silence.

"I'll, uh... I forgot it."

Awkwardly, the others didn't respond at first. Connor rubbed behind his neck and watched a bird fly overhead as Kanashii shifted his foot around on the pavement, paddling Winston with his hands.

"All right, that's fine," Shay murmured. "Okay, see you guys later."

"Yep, see you," Connor replied.

"Bye," Kanashii said.

"Why don't you tell me one of those jokes when you remember?" Shay asked.

"Yeah, I'll do that."

As the group split, Pete watched Shay go with a jelly-jiggle sort of weakness in his knees, a perspiration in his hands, a thumping in his chest that was slowly becoming less intense as she went. While she walked, Pete watched her, seeing her as a splotch of color among a canvas of gray. She was absolutely magnetic, and he longed to run up and ask her something, anything, just to hear her speak again.

"God, her smell," Pete whispered, alone in the parking lot now that Connor headed out. "Her eyes, makeup, hair, the little twirly fidget she does when she's talking, her everything. She's... Oh, no. Oh, god, no, Peter."

Images of Shay flooded Pete's mind. As he imagined her laughing, looking into his eyes with her fake purple ones, seeing her hair bounce around as she ran, and most wonderful of all, the sensation, scent, and feeling of Shay hugging him, something happened. Happy chemicals started rushing into his brain as all these images melded together into one sweet, yet horrifying message, clear as day, that spelled out:

"I have a crush on Shay."