Schmidt. "I, er, was just leaving," I stammered, trying to edge my way down the ladder. Jacques was glaring at me.

"Don't come here again," he said. "Or else." I was severely tempted to find out what that 'or else' meant, but I didn't want to get caught. Usually, getting caught means getting expelled (sigh... experience) and getting expelled from freaking Super School was not happening. Nuh-uh. Not even if there were multiple mysteries that were very confusing.

Hey, at least I had the weekend to solve them. We did have a fair bit of homework, as well as the expectation to practice our powers (not like I wasn't going to, making and vanishing a bunch of elastics made for a great time-passer) but I could work around those.

Maybe I'd even do everything today. Including that essay.

I looked back as the blue light and Jacques's feet disappeared up the hatch and kept going, out of the room. A bunch of dummies were scattered across the floor. That barricade didn't hold up too well. I stacked them back in the corner, walking back to my room. Not many other people were around, but I could hear the occasional sentence from random conversations behind the doors. (Why did she do that? I'm not even kidding! Wanna see a trick?)

No, I did not sit outside in the hall listening in on conversations.

I stood up and headed over to one of the boys' rooms. Dakota's. I knocked on the door, and my friend answered it.

Thank goodness it wasn't Liam. Liam the Plotter.

"Hey, want to go... Train? Talk? Eat? I don't really know." He shrugged.

"I'd ratherest talk. We haven't really spoken these past couple days, buddy." He elbowed me in that playful way. Not like the jabbing elbowing, because that would be annoying and like Hawaii.

Yes, Hawaii was different than Dakota.

We linked arms and skipped cheesily off to the library, with the best seats in the house. (Once we got there, he realized that he had forgotten to close the door and hurried back, before rearriving saying that Liam had already done just that.)

"So..," I said, "What should we talk about?" Dakota shrugged. "Powers? Roommates? Flying unicorns?"

"Roommates. First off, mine are incredibly stupid and annoying and never speak about anything. And they ignore me. Which is annoying."

"That's Emerald's doing. The ignoring part. Terra told me."

"Oh," Dakota said. "Speaking of Terra, Jacques talks in his sleep. And he always says her name. Crushing on her, much?"

I laughed, then frowned. "Wait, he sleeps?" If he actually slept, then he would leave before Terra got up to the Third Floor. And that would be disasterous for my theories.

He shrugged. "When I wake up, he's in his bed. Why wouldn't he be sleeping?"

"Oh, nothing, he just seems so robotic." My explanations may have needed work, but it did the job, and Dakota went back to staring at the bookshelf on the other side of us. Jacques probably got to bed earlier, I reasoned with myself. Or Dakota wakes up late.

"How's Terra? Annoying?"

I shrugged. "A bit. We got into a fist fight this morning, but then we apologized to each other. It's a weird relationship."

"What was that about?" he asked. "The fist fight."

I looked away. "A misunderstanding."

"Oh, hey, she's here now."

I snapped my head to the left, to the door, and Terra was there, staring at me. "Um, do you want to keep talking in my room? It would be distracting if she, er, was beating up some dummies."

"Sure, why not."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the room. Terra smiled as we went out. I figured she'd wanted to go up. I saw her walk over and grab the chair as we exited, closing the door behind us, confirming my suspicions.

Dakota and I sat down on my bed, ducking as to not hit our heads. We sat in silence for a minute.

"I kind of hated you at first," I said, breaking the quiet.

"Because I shoved you out of the way?" I nodded. "Sorry about that. I was, well, kind of mad that my parents left me here while they went to Hawaii. Hence the clothes."

"So that's why."

"Also, I thought you would end up being one of those really annoying girls. Like Emerald, I guess."

I burst out laughing. "Me? Like her? You got that one wrong."

Dakota smiled, lopsided. "I guess I did."