Every year, sometimes before winter break, sometimes as AP exams were approaching, and in one especially frenetic year on the first day of school, Mr. Simon would hear three sonorous rings of a cowbell outside his classroom, and then he knew the prank war had begun. He and Ms. Liu had started small: she changed the font on his presentation to Comic Sans, and he had replaced a link in one of her assignments with a rickroll. This prank war never failed to draw in an eager battalion of other teachers and TAs who always picked sides, and sometimes waged miniature conflicts against each other.

As soon as Ms. Liu saw inherently suspicious copy paper boxes pop up around the school, she knew there was some untapped potential for shenaniganry—forget placebos or racketeering or whatever the club was up to, these boxes could do so much more! One late afternoon, she grabbed her cowbell and checked inside Mr. Simon's room; it was dark, but she could see a bright laptop screen (no silhouette of someone working, but he was probably out of view), so with a dramatic flourish of the cowbell, the game was afoot. She surveyed the path below the walkway to make sure nobody overheard her, but she only saw a few cheerleaders heading down to the field.

When Ms. Liu had sounded the call to arms, she hadn't taken the initiative of figuring out what her first prank would be, assuming that she would be able to make the first move. The following day, as she beckoned her third-period class in, Juliet came to her holding a copy paper box with a neatly written cursive note saying "Open me." So Mr. Simon had made the first move after all! A desperate measure, clearly, and one that she'd have to recoup immediately. But what was in the box? It seemed light, and she shook it a few times for good measure.

Ms. Liu rang her cowbell once more, and asked the class for a drumroll before opening the box. It was empty.

"This savors of anticlimax," Ms. Liu cackled. "As you were so nice, Juliet, to bring me this lovely present, could you bring him this box of Thin Mints after class? They're his favorite cookie, definitely, without a shadow of doubt. I saved them just for him."

"No problem, Ms. Liu. They're my favorite cookie too."

Frank entered Ms. Liu's classroom exactly with the seventh-period bell with a few Thin Mint crumbs on his face and another copy paper box in tow, this one also with a cursive "Open me" on top, and a few pink hearts for good measure.

"I was relayed this gift from Mr. Simon for you. He thanks you generously for the Thin Mints, and he says you'll enjoy this gift equally," Frank said without a trace of humor.

"Oh, I'm sure of it," Ms. Liu responded with another cackle. She shook the box a few more times—still really light, although this time there was definitely something inside—and asked for another drumroll. Inside there was nothing but a note accompanied with a picture of a surprised Pikachu: "That feeling when you expected an empty box." He had outplayed her yet again, and humiliated her in front of her entire class. This could not stand.

During brunch the following day, Ms. Liu told Juliet to stay behind a minute, and gave her a heavy copy paper box with an extremely elaborate, hand-inked letter in artificially formal English thanking Mr. Simon for all his presents and promising even more beneficence in return.

"I'll watch from outside. This is going to be one for the ages," Ms. Liu promised Juliet.

"I'm sure he'll be surprised."

Ms. Liu sent Juliet into his classroom and waited outside, hearing enough muffled chatter to assume that Juliet was probably the victim of another one of Mr. Simon's long rants. The bell rang, and she still wasn't out; Ms. Liu knew she had to get to class, so she left Juliet behind and made a beeline for her classroom. The light was off, which was strange; typically the motion detectors lasted longer.

When she turned on the lights, she saw every desk, including her own, had a copy paper box with a matching red bow and a note, still in pretty cursive, saying to "Open 7th Period." She conscripted a few brave freshmen to pile all the boxes in the back of the classroom and to guard them from their peers on penalty of death. It was rare for Mr. Simon to be this organized, and she had never seen him write with such legible handwriting. This was going to be epic!

Seventh period rolled around, and everyone's eyes were on Ms. Liu. They were typically only this focused when she was explaining their timed write prompts. She called for another drumroll, and everyone simultaneously pulled out a box of Thin Mints.

This was too organized to be Mr. Simon—besides, he hated Thin Mints. There was a bigger fish, someone more conniving than the both of them. He had recruited someone to his side—probably Mr. T. Before Ms. Liu could process this further, Mr. Simon knocked and came in.

"I was told there was something important you had to discuss, even though you had class, but more importantly, why does everyone have a box of Thin Mints? Those things are disgusting. You're spoiling your students!"

"I don't know, Mr. Simon, why would we all have boxes of Thin Mints?"

"I don't know either, Ms. Liu. Something strange is afoot, definitely, and the oddest thing is that I haven't heard your cowbell in a while. Care to give it a ring?"

"Are you saying you didn't hear this outside your classroom, Mr. Simon?" Ms. Liu asked while ringing the cowbell in his face.

"I don't think I heard anything of the sort, Ms. Liu. How about we ask your known jokester of a student sitting in the second row who somehow already has Thin Mint crumbs on his face with an unopened box? He was eating them during my class too, you know." All eyes turned to Frank, but he didn't seem to show signs of any impish recognition.

"What do you mean? Juliet's neighbor is a Girl Scout, and she knows that Thin Mints are a guilty pleasure of mine, so she brought me some during our meeting today. It was a momentary lapse in judgment and I know I should do better. If I had known everyone would be getting them, I'd have declined."

"So you're saying, Frank," Mr. Simon continued, "that you're not responsible for all of this?"

"All of these pranks have been hilarious, and I wish I could take credit for them. Sadly, you're looking at the wrong guy. You should take credit yourself for sending all the other boxes here."

"What other boxes?"

"You know, the empty box and the one with the surprised Pikachu meme?"

"What's a Pikachu?" This got a chuckle out of the class, Ms. Liu included.

"You're talking to the most unhip teacher on campus, why would you expect him to know what a meme is? Hold on a second: why would he know what a meme is? I had to explain to him earlier what it meant to yeet something."

"When you all come down from your collective sugar high, I'm sure you can untangle this mystery. Best of luck to you," Mr. Simon concluded, and he left after opening Ms. Liu's Thin Mint box and taking one. Ms. Liu wanted to get to the bottom of this mystery, but class had to come first, and so she rang the cowbell a few more times and began her lecture.

Ms. Liu saw Mr. Simon again at the football game that night, and one more line of inquiry had revealed itself to her in those intervening few hours:

"Paul, what did you think of the box that Juliet brought to you during brunch? She's been my little assistant in this, especially as you've seen fit to weaponize my own students against me."

"She said that was for club business. She wanted to talk to me about a research paper; she asked so many good questions we went right up to the bell. I saw you were outside, but Juliet said you were taking a phone call, so I didn't want to bother you."

"Really, now? And what about the box that Frank gave me yesterday, that he said was relayed from you?"

"Obviously that wasn't me. Are you sure that wasn't him? He wrote an entire manifesto about deception—surely he's likely to lie."

"He's a good kid, he wouldn't do that. But wait, he also had Thin Mint crumbs on his face yesterday, when he brought the second box. What class does Frank have fifth period? Do you know?"

"Well, I know that he and Juliet are TAs for Mrs. Huang, and Juliet came to my class to make up a quiz once fifth period because she had her TA period then, so..." Mr. Simon trailed off, and both of them turned to watch the cheer team's halftime performance.

Discussion Questions:

Through all these stories so far and the first book, what have we learned about Mr. Simon's personality?

Juliet "wins" the prank war here, and Frank for once is the one being manipulated. What narrative significance might there be to this?

Why are we alternating between happy and sad stories?