I:

I was used to having dreams where I was back in high school, but none of those dreams had ever started with my waking up in the wrong bed. A comfy one, no less, and one where I still woke up to my usual "I Got You Babe" morning alarm at 6:15. My first instinct was to check the date—August 25th, 2018. Junior year of high school—what a nice trip down memory lane. My room was simply decorated, reminiscent of my dorm at UCLA, as if some generous host had chosen what they knew I'd like: some video game posters, a Casablanca poster, and on my desk was a binder of expensive Magic: The Gathering cards (far more valuable than my collection at home). My bookshelves were even better stocked than those at my home, including not just personal effects like my school yearbook but a wider range of classics and even some works in Chinese. Home sweet home, indeed.

In my dresser there was a kaleidoscopic array of college shirts, rolled up and sorted by region. Clearly my host was cheeky. I won't bore you with the rest of the inventory check, as much as it was sufficient to prove my unknown host was benevolent and intended for me to live in material comfort. My phone, tablet, and laptop remained identical to my knowledge, as much as I questioned what emails from 2022 were doing on my phone, but there was one new detail: my old high school email had unread messages. So it appeared I was a transfer student about to begin my first day at Heller High School. My overlords were clearly Catch-22 fans. My class schedule, albeit with unusual teacher names, remained the same as then: physics, ceramics, AP Chinese, statistics, a TA period with a new fellow I didn't recognize by the name of Mr. Thompson, APUSH, and AP Lang. At least I didn't have to do PE again.

I got dressed quickly, picking an USC Marshall shirt for good luck, and went to quickly survey the rest of the house. It was a nice one, and judging by the interior architecture I was somewhere near my old high school, but while there were two other bedrooms, the house was empty. It did have a Bosendorfer grand piano (better than Steinway, in my opinion) and what appeared to be a well-stocked kitchen, with a note handwritten in very neat print: "Don't worry about the house. Focus on school." Someone had gone through the effort of providing me with my own house, stocked with more college shirts than I would ever need in a lifetime, delicious foods of all sorts, and a good piano, but had neglected to provide me with a family or any indication of what circumstances had transported me here beyond that returning to my roots was the goal.

I wanted to give myself some time for reconnaissance, and to establish myself a set of ground rules, so I set off for Heller early; as predicted, I was only a few blocks away, and I arrived at the school I knew by a different name. I was pleased to discover that the layout was identical, and I thus knew the place by the back of my hand even if the teachers' names were different (names which I immediately set out to remember), but I knew as a supposed transfer student I would be expected to feign confusion. Some trappings of my former life would have to remain hidden at all costs: having functional university emails and access to the staff Wi-Fi via my admin account was beneficial, but a hard fact to explain, but at least my technology appeared appropriate for the era. If I were to recognize anyone, I would keep that fact to myself, and despite my inclination to use my superiority in knowledge to run wild through the school, I would keep as low a profile as someone who had presumably taken BC as a freshman could. The thought also occurred to me that some facts seemed missing from my former life: I thought I had one or two more email accounts, and there was a sense of deja vu inherent in the names "Heller High School" and "Patrick Kurtz" that were initially lost to me. This last fact revealed itself to me when I walked through Center Court, still staring at my course schedule as if I did not know where to go: "Mr. Kurtz" was listed on a poster as presumably working in the front office, and then I connected the dots: this was not only a reference to Heart of Darkness, but my old principal's name!

II:

Nobody had bothered to check in on me to see if the transfer student had ended up wandering the wilderness, which made me on one hand wonder about Heller's hospitality but also thankful I could go to physics without anyone questioning my presence. Mr. Ivanov, as my physics teacher was called in this universe, had perhaps more Slavic features than the one I had known well in my former life, but shared a similar temperament and was recognizable as being born of the same cloth. The other students bore less resemblance to the people I had known, while still all seeming to be plausible figures one might have convinced me in a stupor I had known. One student reminded me the most closely of an old high school classmate and UCLA friend, and I sat in his general vicinity; I knew that this would put us in the same lab group, a hypothesis proven true.

Our lab group was just myself, that tall kid named Tom, and a shorter kid named Alan whose temperament and appearance reminded me greatly of someone in the year below me. They knew each other, and were pleased to make my acquaintance.

"Bill Carrey, you say? Any relation to Steve Carrey?" Tom asked with what seemed to be a hint of envy.

"Carey with one 'r,' actually, but I get that a lot. I transferred here this year. From, uh, Los Angeles. I lived in the Bay as a kid though and know the area well," I said, trying to preemptively cover my bases.

"You should come to our club meeting today at lunch since you're new—you missed registration, but you're new and didn't know. You can meet some new people there," Alan suggested.

"And what sort of club is this?"

"This would be our How To Be A Good Person Club. It's about philosophy and living a better life, that sort of thing," he explained. Tom rolled his eyes.

This was a miracle to me—my high school manifesto had somehow transcended universes! I clearly was not the inventor of this here, but I knew at once I had to meet this more Machiavellian Bill who had somehow turned it into an established social movement (and not a ritual to haze the new guy). I did what a good person does and feigned ignorance:

"That sounds fascinating! At lunch, you say? I'll be there," I promised, shaking Alan's hand for good measure.

The implications of this were astounding: I could only imagine what wild ideas a club based around the manifesto, presumably in an unironic sense, would constitute. It was clear at once that if this were the case, there was some sort of hierarchy I was not yet a part of, or an inside joke I was not privy to. So despite already having a better guess of what this club's true motivations were than the average Heller Tiger, I kept my mouth shut.

The rest of class was ordinary, following the format I had expected from my previous time in high school. I wanted a bit more of a challenge, though, and I went to talk to Mr. Ivanov after class:

"Is this class a calculus-based course? My multi class last year went through some of the basics of E & M, plus a bit more of mechanics, and since I don't know how the physics curriculum works here I was just curious—my schedule's what the counselor here set out for me."

"Now that you mention it, Bill," Mr. Ivanov said, "I could transfer you to the Physics C class and I suspect that would be up your alley. Unfortunately, the class is full—your counselor did you a disservice. Since I think you really should be in that class, here's what I'll do: I'm going to send you the recorded lectures for that advanced class and lend you a copy of the real textbook, and you can feel free to do that homework and whatnot instead. So you're on the books here as taking Physics 1 and so your peers don't think I'm giving the new kid preferential treatment, but you'll actually have something to do all year. This is how things work at Heller, just so you know: you always have to find loopholes in the system."

"Thank you so much for your generosity. One more thing: what's this good person club I keep hearing about? Everyone who's mentioned it so far seems very passionate." Mr. Ivanov's voice lowered and his eyes narrowed:

"Keep your distance. You'll see why. But there's some funny business going on there."

Ceramics class was as unremarkable as I remembered, although it gave me an opportunity to chat up some of my peers. They were mostly freshmen and sophomores, and as a fellow new kid we seemed to find common ground.

"I was going to the How To Be A Good Person Club orientation meeting at lunch today, actually. I've heard Frank, the kid who runs it, is an eloquent speaker. You should come too," one of them said. It seems like my counterpart, who appeared to be named Frank, was one successful fellow. I knew a Franklin for whom this would have been right up his alley. I was also reminded of a certain TV show named House of Cards, and knowing this school's penchant for allusion I inquired further:

"Frank... I might know him. What's his last name?" I asked.

"Barnes, I believe. A very respectable name," they said.

"Indeed it is."

My hypothesis was proven correct, it seemed. Perhaps this Frank had lost a sister to a vehicular collision. One other thought occurred to me, given my realization that when checking the news that morning, I had seen no mention of President Trump. A quick Google search during my passing period as I walked to Chinese revealed yet another interesting fact: this president was named Underwood. The reality of this world was clearly built on a house of cards, and this Frank fellow seemed to be the center of it. The TV show did not exist, however, although it seemed like Trump was still a public ignoramus. Good to know.

I arrived at Chinese class slightly early, where Mrs. Huang immediately pegged me as the new kid (I supposed it was a fair guess).

"You must be Bill, right? Where did you learn Chinese?" Mrs. Huang asked.

"Private school, although I don't speak too fluently. I can read, though," I responded.

"You remind me of Frank already! You two should meet each other. You'll fit right in!" She said, and immediately ushered me to a seat. Her room looked remarkably similar to what I had remembered, and in temperament she was the most recognizable thus far as being the likeness of someone in my universe. A minute or so later, Frank came in with some other kids I did not recognize (I made the correct assumption Frank was the only other white kid), and he took a seat next to me.

"You're new here?" Frank asked.

"I am. Transferred from private school. I see we're a minority here," I said in a hushed tone, not sure if that fact was supposed to remain unstated.

"I technically speak Chinese at home because my parents both learned it, but I'm obviously not Chinese. Are you, like, fluent?"

"I'm more literate than I can speak, although I'd still get a 5 on the AP test if I took it right now. I also speak decent Cantonese."

"And you learned that at private school? Interesting. I don't know any, but have some friends who do," Frank said, and before I could get an impression of him beyond his Chinese fluency, Mrs. Huang called me up to the front of the class to introduce myself, which was one task I still had down pretty well.

"They're like twins," Mrs. Huang joked, and everyone else laughed.

My proximity to the person in charge was not to remain unused, and when class inevitably lulled to let Mrs. Huang grade papers while we worked on worksheets far below our level, I took the opportunity to ask Frank more about his club:

"So I heard in my previous classes you're some sort of student leader around here, is that right? Apparently there's a shindig going on at lunch."

"Yeah, we're going to have a meeting to let everyone new drink the Kool-Aid, just a casual melding of minds, you know," Frank explained, his posture suddenly stiffening and his cadence slowing. I got the impression this was a question he had answered many times.

"Kool-Aid? Like Jonestown?" With this question Frank turned to me with what appeared to be a faint twisted smile, and his posture relaxed again.

"It's a metaphor. We can always use more staff members, if you enjoy the meeting and think you can be a value-add," he said. I wanted to try my luck:

"I understand if you wouldn't trust new people—paranoia is a sign of intelligence—but I'd love to help out."

I did not know what reaction to expect from Frank, but his face betrayed him for a single second in a way I could best describe as a moment of recognition, perhaps like the one Dimmesdale had in The Scarlet Letter. If this were a movement so prominent everyone else knew about it, clearly the new kid would too, and what better way to understand what I had trapped myself within by working from within?

"I see you have read our text," he said. "You will find, though, that there are many lessons that go unstated—even via subtext. We have centered ourselves on a very particular interpretation, a practical one, of this foundational document. You'll see what I mean during lunch," Frank said with a tone that was not the one I would have expected from someone meeting a brother-in-arms—clearly there was an unstated line between knowing too little and knowing too much. I wasn't sure if I liked this kid. We continued for the rest of the period in silence until brunch, and I steeled myself for a very interesting lunchtime experience. Whatever this movement promised, it seemed to be one where those less willing to drink the Kool-Aid were not valued for their diversity of thought. Two more classes remained until then—perhaps I would find more clarity.

III:

I was amused to discover that my AP Statistics class was largely what I remembered from my time previously spent at high school, except with a slightly less vibrant teacher and also with Frank and his seeming sidekick at another table. Most of my classmates here were seniors, whom I found to be less bothered by my presence than my fellow juniors: clearly they were used to faces they didn't recognize, and I refrained from pulling out the private school card.

The teacher recognized Frank and, more unusually to me, his sidekick, whom as it turns out is named Pranav. This was one of the more surprising turns of events so far—this was one of the most direct connections I'd seen so far between my world and this one. But this Pranav seemed to not recognize his old friend, and indeed he bore little resemblance but the name. And so it seemed this Frank was much like me, and I was willing to bet too that there were other kids who bore resemblances to my old pals.

From what I could gather, despite whatever reputation Frank had acquired as a Charles Manson figure or whatever else, he conducted his day-to-day routine much like I might have back then. And in fact, this Heller was much like my old school, if not for the undercurrent of hostility that now seemed directed at me from some of the club members. It was easy to identify them: they dressed more formally and showed the most recognition of me—Pranav looked like any other guy though. I supposed I stood out in a crowd a bit, and since it seemed I was to continue my stint as "college shirt guy," that was to remain.

That class ended without any new insights, other that in the worst-case scenario I would find plenty of company with the jaded seniors, and I thus proceeded to what I knew as the health classroom for my TA period. All I knew was that nobody called this teacher Mr. Thompson, they called him Mr. T, which I found charming. My first impression upon entering his classroom, other than that this was his prep period, was that our tastes in decor were unusually similar: he had a similar Casablanca poster to my own, a skeleton, and other tchotchkes that were perhaps more appropriate for an antiques shop than a classroom. Mr. T spun around in his chair to face me with his fingers tented like Mr. Burns, only to break out into a smile:

"You must be the new guy! Bill, right? I'm Mr. T, Heller's resident dilettante. How do you like it so far here?"

Mr. T's reception was the most sincere one I'd received yet, and as if he had some premonition he was not doing enough, he turned around and pulled out some Taiwanese pineapple cakes from a drawer.

"Have you had these before? They're quite delicious, if a bit dry. Pineapple-flavored," he said, giving me one.

"Oh, I love these—I don't know what they're called in English, but I know them as 鳳梨酥 in Mandarin," I said.

"You speak Chinese, I see—that's great!" Mr. T said in a flawless Beijing accent, seemingly unfazed.

"Some Mandarin and some Cantonese, although my Cantonese is a bit rusty."

"Then I shall help you practice!" Mr. T said in Cantonese, before switching back to English: "I wasn't lying when I said I was Heller's resident dilettante and information kiosk. We can save the language practice for another time—I can loan you some textbooks. But before I send you to do some paper-sorting, do you have any questions about your new school? Why did you transfer here anyway, I assume from SoCal?"

I wasn't sure how much I wished to tell Mr. T, given my building suspicions there was a murderous cabal active at Heller and that this Mr. T was seemingly operating on another level of consciousness. But if anything, he could prove to be an ally, I thought, and I wanted answers more so than I wanted to leave myself guarded and enigmatic.

"Two questions, really: is this school named after Joseph Heller, and what's up with this Frank kid and his club?" Mr. T cracked his knuckles, and I felt as if I had passed some test.

"It is—wait until you hear that our drama teacher is named Mr. Cathcart—and Frank? Well, he's a mystery wrapped in an enigma. You've read Catch-22, right?"

"Of course I have—one of the best books ever."

"Imagine if Milo Minderbinder were reincarnated as a high school student, tossing in some shades of Max Bialystock. That's Frank. So what this kid has done is he's written this satirical manifesto, all about what a supposed good person should do to live a fulfilling life. Taken straight, it's damning—and what Frank did was, being the vicious opportunist he is, he convinced the school to take his word as gospel. Some get the truth. Most don't. Have you read it? It's a riot."

"I have, actually—as soon as I first heard of this club I looked it up."

"You see what I mean then. I'm the club supervisor, so I'm privy to more than you might imagine, and let me tell you something: this is not the best introduction to Heller values you could receive. You'll meet some of his peers, I'm sure, and get a better introduction, and then you'll realize just how entrenched this philosophy has become. It works itself into your bones. You strike me as someone who's above all this petty high school drama stuff. Watch, but keep what I told you in mind."

I nodded sagely as if this was the sort of thing I heard of happening every day at high schools. The club I remembered met in the very same classroom I was in, but focused on effective altruism and philosophical debate. What Mr. T described, and what I had seen from Frank, was an insular environment closer to Scientology than that of any discipline I recognized. One other comparison came to mind:

"This reminds me of something called the Third Wave, if you've heard that story." Mr. T nodded, then shook his head.

"You are on point today, Bill! I like you already—maybe more than Frank. Frank has usurped much of that movement's messaging, even using some of the same mottos, except that while that ran its course in a few days, this has been going on for a whole year. Welcome to Heller—we give Pianosa a run for its money."

That expository investigation now complete, we returned to our actual duties—or it was more that I worked while Mr. T briefed me on the staff list and tested my Cantonese a bit. He said he'd learned it in Hong Kong, something I believed, although this naturally begged the question of what he was doing there. Something for another time.

When the lunch bell rang, he turned to me and said with firmness "Good luck," in a way that felt more cautionary than reassuring, and I went to Center Court to witness what I certain would be the experience of a lifetime.

IV:

I had previously seen Center Court (it appeared people at Heller called it "the central courtyard" and were baffled by my abbreviation) this full only on rally days, but I could already tell that this was going to be a rally, even if of another sort. Alan walked toward me after placing his chairs down and approached me as if I were an old friend:

"Glad you could make it!" Alan said, reaching over to shake my hand once again. "Let's get you an ID card quickly before the meeting begins," he continued, and before I could raise any objections he led me to a white background where I took a photo and was then presented with an ID card that looked far too corporate for a high school. My photo reminded me of a prison mugshot, and the thought occurred to me that they were explicitly telling people to not smile—couldn't even good people crack a smile once in a while?

It was still a surprise to me that so many people were willing to go through this rigmarole all to humor Frank, or to obtain some benefit that was not easily quantifiable. It did seem that these good people commanded respect around campus, and there were many faces I recognized from my classes just as there were many new ones. Some, like the Ernest I had met in my physics and Chinese classes, were absent—and I was also beginning to work out the internal logic, based on which classmates I had in school, who he and others were. I recalled that I had a batch of female acquaintances who at various points were distinguished by their remarkable obeisance toward me—I heard someone call out to Beth, who was a junior, and this name I recognized. She had transferred after sophomore year in my universe, but here she was again, and I could believe that this was more than coincidence. From this revelation I was able to identify Regina and Ernest, and if I were right about Juliet, Frank was in for a fun year.

Before I could make delicate inquiries as to which people were the real power-brokers, Frank approached the podium, and I resumed my position as an inquisitive and naïve observer.

I was too enraptured—one might say gobsmacked—by the club meeting to recall exactly what was said, but it shall suffice to say that nobody in Heller's administration had ever taken a history course if they allowed this spectacle. Frank's speech was laced with political rhetoric, some I recognized from my manifesto and some that was a peculiar blend of the Third Wave and conventional populism, mainly focused around teaching us how to walk like marionettes and conform to good person precepts, along with a healthy dose of vitriol against those who had committed the slight of not drinking the Kool-Aid and joining the club. This last metaphor was not said explicitly, but when at the end of the meeting cups of Kool-Aid were passed out, it was clear to me what I had gotten myself into.

Naturally, I took a sip: what else was I to do? My healthy skepticism was tempered by a fierce curiosity, a feeling that I was a tourist in a foreign country more so than an authentic high school student. The prospect of daily meetings was even more captivating, as I knew that my classes would offer little I didn't already know and Mr. T could only do so much for me. With as much as I approached this ritual with wariness, I could also say that nobody else showed any signs of consternation—with the warning Mr. T had given me, this was no surprise, but yet I wondered what exactly would compel so many to play along. Gullibility? That couldn't be the case—they were top students. The answer occurred to me as I saw Frank perambulate through the crowd like a celebrity, with Juliet standing as a bodyguard: power. They wanted power. The same power a junior Bill would have taken in an instant if it meant engaging in silly rituals every day. Frank oozed authority, even if he did not seem pleasant to me; his charm was that of a presidential candidate who knew that his constituents were interchangeable.

Frank stopped to say hello to me again, with Juliet in tow—typically it was other people who approached him.

"I told you you would enjoy this meeting—I saw your participation during the meeting was commendable. You're new here, so it might not have been clear that we are still a minority here. A powerful one, but a vocal one, but yet there is room for expansion. Have you met Juliet?"

"I have not, but it's my pleasure," I said, reaching out for a handshake she took before trying to fist-bump my hand.

"Bill speaks Mandarin just like me, and came from private school. He's an intelligent guy, and a creative thinker," Frank said, and at once I assumed that last phrase was an euphemism. Juliet didn't flinch, and said:

"Juliet Wong. It's my pleasure—I am very pleased to meet you," she said in southern-accented Mandarin. I made the connection:

"I'm also very pleased to meet you," I responded in Cantonese. Juliet smiled politely, clearly having understood what I said, and seemed to be evaluating me once again—or searching for the right words.

"Impressive! I don't speak much, but my family is from Hong Kong. We speak Mandarin at home, actually. Where did you learn?"

A good question to which I didn't have a good answer. The real answer involved someone whom I suspected would have been one of the "real" Juliet's friends, as much as I couldn't quite place her as corresponding to an individual, but that seemed too specific. The default response would work:

"Private school. I had some friends from Hong Kong."

"Fascinating!" Juliet said with a more genuine enthusiasm. Frank turned to move away, perhaps disappointed the discussion had strayed from club matters or that he was no longer the center of attention; Juliet followed him a few seconds later after giving me a petite wave.

APUSH was after lunch, and I thought it ironic that after a club meeting which seemed to exploit our historical legacy, I was in a class establishing that legacy's origin. Those who did not study the past were doomed to repeat it. This class met in the "wrong" classroom as far as I was concerned, this being a class on the corner of the building where I was sophomore year. I was at the same table as Madeline, whom I was learning was a similarly dour person to someone I recognized from my high school (this one would also fit right in at Harvard), and Juliet, who seemed like a far more scatterbrained person than I had met at the meeting prior. Scatterbrained was too critical of a word—she was less composed. Not a Claire Underwood or an Iron Lady, but an ordinary AP kid no different from the rest of them.

Mr. Simon proved less garrulous than his counterpart at my high school—he struck me as an amalgamation of many of my history teachers—but nevertheless proved engaging, and he, like my other teachers, was reminding me of the benefit of small class sizes. People were asking me if I felt lost at Heller, if I needed a friend, and I found by responding authentically and forgetting how much I was going to miss the company of people my mental age I made new friends quickly. During a work period Juliet initiated small talk with me about the club, which I noticed repulsed Madeline: she was clearly a skeptic, and I had not seen her at the meeting earlier.

"So what did you think of the club meeting? I bet at your private school you didn't have anything quite like this," Juliet said with the clear expectation of a certain answer. The mention of private school piqued Madeline's interest, and she looked up from her worksheet.

"It was nothing like I'd ever seen before. It reminded me of something I'd see in a history book," I said, pointing vaguely at the spot on the historical timeline on the wall where World War II was. Juliet seemed not to notice—she was too busy searching my face for emotional cues—but Madeline followed my outstretched hand and seemed to have understood the implication. It was unclear to me how well-known the club was through the school, but I could not imagine anyone didn't know who Frank was. That was one thing he excelled at: cultivating a reputation.

"I'm glad you loved it—we try our hardest to welcome newcomers, and I can promise you'll be treated with the respect you deserve if you keep attending meetings. Have you started your assigned reading?" Juliet asked, naturally referring to what I had penned.

"I already read it. From computer fonts to the rise and fall of civilization, I've absorbed it all. Frank is an enthralling writer—I couldn't have done better myself."

"That's exactly how I felt when reading it! He makes so many things about the world so simple to understand, and if you keep attending meetings you'll find his wisdom spans beyond that initial document. It's like that's our Old Testament, but we have all his past speeches compiled and are going to someday publish them all as a new volume."

"Like a New Testament?" I asked.

"More like The Little Red Book," Madeline interjected with a sneer. We chuckled at this, but it was unclear if Juliet understood—or if she did, if she detected any contempt. It became clear at once that Juliet did not understand the satiric aspect of Frank's manifesto, or if she did, she found it an inconvenient truth outweighed by the power her position provided. So maybe she was the most power-hungry of them all.

"You could say it's like our Bible," Juliet continued, unflustered. "Sometimes I wonder if he's a prophet—not that I'm religious or anything—but I can say that if he were to tell us he was Jesus reincarnated, I would believe it. I'm not kidding." Madeline shook her head again as if to say she'd overheard many a conversation like this before, and I took the cue to stop. Juliet continued chatting with me idly during the period—perhaps a more accurate description would be "pestering"—but all her attempts at conversation would eventually drift toward Frank or the club, and I could sense a comparison was being made between us. If not for the airiness of her speech, a trait that reminded me of a few "veteran bores" (to borrow a phrase from Gatsby) I had met at UCLA, I would think she was flirting with me. Then again, good people give each other undue compliments.

English was the last class of the day, and here I reunited with Frank and Tom outside a classroom I knew all too well, having spent three years there in various capacities. The ring of the cowbell was familiar too, and I knew then again I was home. Ms. Liu, an obvious analogue to the "real" teacher I knew, treated Frank with a casual familiarity that I had only seen from Mrs. Huang before to him. While Mrs. Huang seemed to dote on him, at least before she realized my existence made him less special, Ms. Liu treated him as if he were a veteran of the class. My manifesto appeared again in the context of rhetorical analysis, and I wondered if she too had gotten a sneak peek the previous year of what Frank had to offer.

The one other kid who stood out to me was John, both because of a vague physical similarity and because his last name was Zakarian. He was at another table, but two things occurred to me immediately: he must be related to Geoffrey Zakarian, and his name was reminiscent of John Yossarian of Catch-22 fame. His personality I could not trace directly to someone I knew, but the coincidence of his name alone told me he had some part to play in this narrative. Truth be told, based on his detachment from class, you'd think he was a wee bit slow in the mind. Frank seemed to know him, and I then recalled I had seen John at the club meeting that lunch period.

Once the final school bell rang and I was released from my duties, my Pavlovian conditioning at that point making my behavior no different than that of my peers, it immediately occurred to me how bizarre that day had been, and how I had truly not liked the people I had met (with the exception of the teachers) all that much. Heller was not unlike the school I knew, but its differences made it a much worse place, the sort of place which corrupted young minds and made them too cynical to enjoy what the world had to offer them. If I was to spend two more years at such a school, I knew I would go mad, most especially because of my choice of company. The futility of my actions, knowing exactly what was to come in every class, was compounded by knowing that I would have little choice but to face the club head-on if I were to leave Heller with a clear conscience.

As I walked slowly through Center Court, out of the corner of my eye I saw Alan carrying a copy paper box; he stole around a corner before I could fully process what it was I saw. If there was one thing I remembered from my tenure at high school, it was that these smacked of mischief, and I still remembered some of my old hiding spots. In the robotics room, on a bottom shelf next to some unidentifiable equipment, I found my cargo. In my day, these boxes were empty, and you can imagine my astonishment when I opened this one and found vials of a green liquid. I uncorked one and smelled it: celery.

My continued investigations of the club's activity, and what more I have learned from returning to this high school, will have to remain for another day. I do not know how many more days I will be stuck here, as I am writing this after returning home on that first day. Perhaps this vivid dream will free me when I go to bed tonight—or it will only be when I walk the aisle to graduate that I'm freed. Whatever proves to be the case, let it be known that I would rather spend an eternity in my ordinary world, with its predictable charms and problems, than spend the rest of my life in this wretched place. My unnamed hosts have some agenda for me, clearly: perhaps I have been sent to dismantle the club? If there were a noble cause to be enacted at Heller, it would be finding a discreet way to push Frank in front of traffic. What is clear, though, is that this saga has not yet found its natural conclusion.

Until next time.

Discussion Questions:

What broader purpose might all these stylistic pastiches/out-there situations (e.g. the film noir, the Dickens, the diaries) serve? What do we learn about Heller and the broader themes present that we don't learn in the more conventional stories?

Bill Carey's name is a pastiche of Bill Murray and Steve Carrey (minus one letter), who starred in Groundhog Day and The Truman Show; somewhat fittingly, Bill breaks the fourth wall a lot and recognizes the parallels between his ordinary universe and this one, even claiming to recognize Frank's manifesto from his own life. Why might the boundary between truth and fiction be blurred so much for what's clearly a fictional story?

From what we've seen of Bill, do you think he'll fit in at Heller?