The day after the rig explosions, James joined Austin and Moses in the school lunch line, and he let the siblings know of the unfortunate news.

"¡Ay! I really had high hopes for that thing!" Austin said with a sigh.

"Honestly, I get it," James replied, "but w-what are you gonna do, right? There'll be other s-stories for Carmen and me. And I'm at least glad your dad got his article!"

Before either of the siblings could respond, they heard a feminine voice call out, "Moses! Austin!"

All three of them flipped around to see an excited student at a nearby lunch table. Her dark hair was up in a bun, her skin was the color of desert sand, and she was wearing a blue ring on the hand she waved with.

"Artemis?" Moses asked, glancing at the ring. She nodded. "I didn't know you had lunch here!"

"I usually eat outside, but it's really cold out today," Artemis explained. Then, she turned to James. "Are you their friend?"

"Yeah! I'm James!" He held out his hand, and Artemis shook it.

"I'm Artemis of the Castle System," she replied, motioning at the two key rings attached to her backpack: a red and a green one. "If you see this blue ring on, you know it's me."

"Castle is in our gym class," Moses explained. "James is our neighbor."

"These two make the best running partners!" Artemis declared. "They're fun to talk to, but they also challenge you, because they can speed ahead like that!"

Just as she snapped her fingers for emphasis, a coin fell onto the floor. Artemis sheepishly picked it up and said, "I'll go grab us a table...!"

As the three of them continued in the lunch line, James noticed that Artemis was holding her head at the table, and looked as though she was spacing out. And as they finally got their lunch and approached the table, they noticed her hooking the blue ring onto her backpack and wearing the green one.

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Meanwhile, Malia was eating lunch at a table just outside the cafeteria alongside Carmen and their mutual friends, Amelia Cole and Desiree Neuman. The topic of the spring musical had just come up.

"Are you thinking of joining us, Mal?" Amelia asked.

"Maybe. Depends on how bad my school schedule gets," Malia replied. "But last year was really fun! Car, you should've seen it!"

"I almost feel like I have!" Carmen joked. "With the way you've been talking about it, it's like the world of The Little Mermaid came to life right here!"

"As deserved!" said Desiree. "Although I still think Amelia would've been the perfect Ariel!"

"You're just saying that because we're dating," Amelia argued.

"I'm serious!" said Desiree. "Come on, can't you picture it?"

Amelia giggled. "I'll tell you what, I'll go to the bathroom and try to picture myself as an oceanic creature to prove you right."

"All I ask," Desiree agreed. Amelia then kissed her girlfriend's cheek and left the table.

For the next few minutes, no one spoke. Carmen was engrossed in her food, Malia had put her headphones in, and Desiree was checking her online messages. Then, they realized it had been a while since Amelia had gone to the bathroom, so Desiree announced that she was going to check on her.

This left Carmen and Malia alone together. And, as if to emphasize the moment, “Oral Fixation” by Scene Queen came up on Malia's shuffle as this happened.

Don't freak out, she thought. She's your friend, right? Just act like a friend would.

“So…” she started, pausing her song and putting her headphones down. “...is that a new purse? Because I like it!”

She pointed to the purse as she said this, and then - alarming them both - it flew into her hand!

“Yeah, I got it for Christmas, but you can't have it,” Carmen teased as she took the purse back. Malia gave her an embarrassed giggle and quickly returned to her music.

After lunch, the two of them met back up with Desiree and Amelia - the latter of which seemed unusually wet. But, while Malia wasn't always the best at reading body language, she could still tell that Amelia didn't want to talk about whatever had happened.

—--------------------------------------------------------

Later that night, after dinner, it was James’s turn to do the dishes. Their parents had already gone upstairs, but he’d caught Malia before she could go up with them.

“Hey, Mal, w-when I'm done, can I borrow your laptop? The battery died on mine, and I'm s-supposed to do the Twin Township Today intro this…week.”

“Yeah, no problem. Just let me know when you're done,” Malia agreed.

“Yeah, yeah, of course. I…oh!”

James had gotten distracted by their conversation and accidentally knocked a glass over. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal at all - except that the glass completely shattered!

Both twins stood there in complete shock for a solid minute before Malia offered to help clean it up. James agreed, and so the two of them worked together to get the glass shards off of the counter and floor.

“That w-was embarrassing,” James remarked when they were done.

“Don't worry about it. I had my fair share of embarrassment today, too,” Malia tried to reassure him.

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“I…may have accidentally stolen Carmen's purse…”

This made James chuckle. “How do you accidentally s-steal a purse?”

“I don't know! I just pointed to it, and it flew into my hand!”

“Hey, no need to get defensive now! Given the love she feels for you, I’m…sure she doesn't hold it against you!” He patted her on the shoulder as he said that.

“One, she doesn't love me! Two, you're missing the point!” Malia replied. “I think it's pretty weird that I’m making things fly on the same day that you're destroying our dirty dishes!”

“You know, you might be right,” James agreed. “W-we aren't the only ones doing w-weird stuff today. A girl at lunch made a coin appear by s-snapping her fingers.”

“Huh…also, you know my friend Amelia? She was soaking when she came back from the bathroom today,” Malia pointed out.

Both of them went quiet for a moment, as if processing these new pieces of information, before James spoke up again: “Every odd thing happened the day after the rig explosions that Austin was talking about!”

Malia’s eyes widened and locked with her brother's as they suddenly came to the same conclusion:

The rig had some sort of awful side effect on their town, and they were among those affected.