The next day
The phone rang. "Hello? Yes? Okay, I'll send them down." The math teacher set the phone down. "Noah? Owen?" she asked. "The principal would like to see you."
Noah and Owen looked up from their assignment. "What for?" Noah asked Owen.
"I dunno. Izzy's been behaving really well today," Owen replied, pointing to his girlfriend, who was quietly doing her classwork.
"Let's just get this over with."
Blaineley Stacey Andrews O'Halloran (her birth name was Mildred, but she changed it during college) was the principal of Pahkitew High. Not that she wanted to be. She hated kids and really wanted to do reality TV, but her parents said otherwise and pushed her into education. Then corruption among her higher-ups had launched a then-recently-certified Blaineley all the way to the top.
"Noah. Owen," she said when the boys came, not even bothering to look up from her phone. "Sit."
They did.
"Do you know why you're here?"
"No," Noah said. "We were hoping you knew."
"Yesterday, our security cameras saw a girl sitting at your lunch table."
"Which girl? There's a lot of them in the misfits."
"Yeah. There's Eva, Dawn, Ella, Carrie, Beth, Izzy, Sanders and MacArthur," Owen listed on his fingers. "...what were their first names again?"
Blaineley sighed. "This one. Emma Xin. Just transferred here from Turtle Creek High." She pulled out Emma's student ID photo and showed them.
Noah immediately recognized her, but didn't show it. "And?"
"Emma has the makings of a very popular girl," Blaineley replied, drawing level with them. "And left to her own devices, she would be. But YOUR group isn't very popular and will never amount to anything."
"Define 'anything'," Noah smirked. Owen chuckled.
Blaineley suddenly got up in their faces. "You two are more or less the leaders of your little group. I want you to stay away from Emma. Fail to do that, and you will get in trouble. I'll make sure of it."
Noah and Owen gulped nervously.
"Now go!"
As Noah and Owen walked back to class, the former muttered, "Big Brother, much, Blaineley? Or should I say, Mildred?"
"Don't say that! They could hear you!" Owen admonished.
"Security cameras record images, not sounds."
"Oh. Heh heh. So what are you going to do about the thing?"
"Normally I'm all for disrespecting authority when it disrespects me, but this time it threatens my college career. I'm going to lie low."
"Good idea."
Noah scoffed to himself. "Besides, if this is the kind of treatment Emma wants, she's just not worth it."
Owen looked at his friend, concerned, but decided to drop it. They finished their walk back to class in silence.
That afternoon, Noah came home to find his mother, Lakshmi Wodeyar, at the dining-room table. "How was school?" she asked.
"Standard."
"Not anymore. You got something in the mail." She showed him a slip of paper. It read WHOEVER THIS PAPER IS ADDRESSED TO MUST SIGN THEIR NAME AND RETURN IT TO PAHKITEW HIGH BY SEPTEMBER 7th. DON'T MISS OUT ON THE CHANCE OF A LIFETIME.
"This could be very good for you. I might finally get you to go to Summer Fun Inc. and get you to do sports like your siblings."
"Mom, I am NOT my siblings."
"Just sign the paper."
Noah did, but little did he know he wasn't the only person who got one.
Cue montage music.
"This better not be a sick prank, José," Alejandro growled as he signed it.
"Maybe this'll be fun," a red-haired girl said. She wrote ZOEY on the line for her name.
"Anything to get away from Sierra," Cody reasoned.
"Anything to get close to Cody's cute lil' butt!" Sierra fantasized.
"Whatever," Duncan said apathetically, signing it without giving it much thought. Behind him, his father shook his head in disappointment.
An Italian boy wrote his name on the slip. Then he gasped, changed his facial expression, and wrote his name again. This happened three more times until he returned to normal.
Now the name line read MIKE, CHESTER, SVETLANA, VITO, MANITOBA
"Seriously, guys?" Mike groaned to his other selves.
"SIDEKICK! I mean, girlfriend! What is the meaning behind this?!"
Scarlett looked up from a laser-thingy and at a short, again somehow purple-haired boy. "That is a permission slip. Purpose currently unknown. Signing is a requirement. I also received one."
"Maybe it will let me do EVIL!" Max realized. He then quickly wrote his name on it.
Scarlett chuckled. "You and your wannabe villainous ways."
"In real life, the bad guys always win. And I want to get OUT of that dump I call home."
"You have a point. How long have the rats had a civilization?"
"Since we tested the civilization pills on them."
"Oh, right, I forgot about those."
"I think I can manage this," Trent said.
"How do I spell my name again?" Lindsay pondered.
"We are NOT signing this," Emma grumbled.
"Yes, we are," Kitty replied. Emma gave in and signed her slip.
"Daddy, wherever you are, I'm gonna make you proud! You too, Mama!" DJ said after signing his.
"I'm right here," his mother deadpanned.
"I don't even need my powers to know I'm going to have a good time," a wraith-y short girl said. She signed her name DAWN, CHILD OF GAIA.
Tyler fumbled with his pen.
"Drop dead, Samey! I'm going to this special occasion and you AREN'T!"
"I got one of these too, y'know."
The identical twin blonde girls glared at each other.
Amy (the one with a mole on her cheek) was the mean one. Sammy (the one without a face mole) was the (usually) nice one.
Don't get them confused.
"Okay, and done," Devin said, finishing signing his name. "I hope Carrie got one of these. Shelley'd probably not want to go." He sighed. "Why am I even dating her? Besides Jacques telling me to, I mean."
"Izzy cannot WAIT to do this!" Izzy cackled.
"Dude! You got one too?" Geoff asked a Hispanic boy.
"Yeah! We're both going! Maybe everyone's going. Oh, this would be the perfect chance to ask out that hot police chick! Y'know, the one with the killer glutes?"
"Brody, that'd be so cool for you! I support ya, bro!"
"Time to show everyone what the Zeke is aboot, eh!" Zeke paused in thought. "Now what?"
"Oh, I'm so excited!" Katie exclaimed.
"This is going to be magnifique!" Josee squealed in happiness.
End montage music.
"...eighty-two...eighty-three...eighty-four." Blaineley mopped her brow. Eighty-four of the mysterious slips of paper littered her desk. "Phew. Counting is such hard work. I don't think the vice principal would mind if I took a teensy little me break."
"I would," someone growled from behind her. Blaineley jumped and turned around. A massive African-Canadian dressed like a cook, white hat on his bald head, towered over her. "I see you have the papers," he said, "and you seem to have them all."
"I do," Blaineley replied. The man produced a box which Blaineley began to fill with the papers. "And don't sneak up on me like that! I can NOT get wrinkles at my age."
"But you're thirty-eight."
"I'M THIRTY!"
"Yeah, keep tellin' yourself that." The box was full. "Thanks for your cooperation."
"You're welcome. Say hi to my husband for me!" She flashed a smile.
The man, a Mr. Brian "Chef" Hatchet, got into his car and left the school parking lot as quickly as he'd come into it. On the highway, he looked at the box, which was now locked shut and sat in the passenger seat next to him.
"I knew I shoulda stayed an accountant," Chef grumbled. "Pretty boy, I hope you know what you're getting yourself into."
The car hit a bump. The box shifted, revealing a keychain on the lock. Printed on it was a picture of a middle-aged man with greasy black hair and black beady eyes that spoke of an insidious, sinister plan.
"For everyone's sake."