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[Transcript]

        The second bell had rung at Bayview Biddle School, and Mr. Garcia’s science class had swung into low gear.

        “All right, class,” droned Garcia. “Yesterday you all asked a lot of good questions about volcanoes. How big are they? How hot are they? Should lava be considered ‘wet’ or not? The answer in all cases was ‘it probably depends.’ The answer should have been ‘we’re supposed to be learning about photosynthesis,’ though, so everybody stay on topic today, kapeesh? Or you’ll learn a LOT about volcanoes really quickly.”

        “Wouldn’t that be our goal, sir?” a student inquired. “If we were asking about volcanoes?”

        “Are you threatening to throw us into an active volcano, Mr. Garcia?”

        “Don’t be ridiculous,” the science teacher scoffed. He jabbed a thumb towards the island of Nevermoor, a landmark plain to see outside the window; its haze made it the black sheep of the bright and fluffy clouds on the Bayview horizon. “Mount Neverest has been dormant for years,” Garcia reassured his students. 

        The molten irony in his words had been mostly lost on Violet, who’d been lost in boiling thought while staring at Jeff’s empty desk. She’d looked almost everywhere for him, and then for Cody, but she still hadn’t found either of the boys by the time that class had started. At this point, Violet would even settle for some evidence that they’d skipped school together (not that it would make her JEALOUS if they’d sneaked off on a DATE—she was just using OCCAM’S RAZOR to discount UNLIKELY THEORIES that made her feel BAD for JEFF because he CLEARLY HAD BAD TASTE).

        Lisa, meanwhile, was watching the watcher from several seats back, amused as ever by the big heart Violet wore upon her sleeve. Lisa studied her best friend with a smile, witnessing as new ideas would bubble up into her brain. Soon they would pop, dismissed for some flaw she’d deduced while prodding at their details. Violet’s eyes would go wide every time, then scrunch back up into a scowl. She’d shake her head, which bounced her braids around, and nod as if agreeing with a coach’s reassurance. Then she’d chew her nail, and think, and think, and think some more… until her eyes went wide again. It was adorable.

        Lisa scribbled something in a black book she kept hidden from all eyes besides her own. When it was not in reach and out of sight, she kept it sealed within her extra-hidden, extra-locked-up locker. The book contained the greatest secrets she’d collected. Lisa finished the sentence she had written with a question mark, then slipped the volume back into the shadow of her desk.

        She caught Johnny glancing in her direction from his seat just beside her at the back of the room, but Lisa wasn’t worried that he’d seen something he shouldn’t. Johnny just tracked movement, like the t-rex that he was. It was a little strange, then, that the bully had been following the empty and unmoving air above them on the ceiling… but even dinosaurs could daydream, Lisa figured, giving him a friendly smile.

        “Mr. Garcia?” Violet called out, raising her hand. “You forgot to take attendance.” 

        “...Right,” the scruffy science teacher sighed. “Anybody not here, raise your hand.” The dad joke was passé, but Jean enhanced it by not bothering to look back from the blackboard.

        “Mr. Garcia?” an insistent Violet repeated, leaning to reach up and into her teacher’s peripheral vision. 

        “...Cutting class, Violet?” droned Garcia, glancing at her still-raised hand. “That’s not like you. It’s a good thing you’re not here for me to punish.”

        “Jeff’s not here,” his irritated student said, crossing her arms.

        “Oh. A’ight. I’ll mark down that he’s absent. One Garcia Star for you.”

        “He’s not absent,” Violet grumbled. “He was on the bus. I asked the bus driver. And he didn’t stay home sick.”

        “...Uh.” Jean scratched his stubble. “Anyone seen Flavors?” Nobody answered—none of them had synaesthesia, nor had they glimpsed their missing classmate. “He at the nurse?”

        “No,” complained Violet. “I already checked. The nurse told me to go away. She said that she was busy. She gave me a tongue suppressor and told me to ‘knock myself out.’”

        “...Not, uh. Not great medical advice,” Garcia said. He’d heard they were interviewing replacements for poor old Nurse Brittle. Must’ve been slim pickings. Luckily, it wasn’t and would never be his problem. “I’m sure Jeffavorite’s somewhere,” he reassured Violet with a shrug. 

        “Bro’s probably just cuttin’ class,” Johnny offhandedly suggested. He was leaning back in his chair with his feet on his desk, and wasn’t paying much attention. When he squinted, he could see weird purple shapes squirming around on the ceiling like ants at work. Johnny wondered if maybe he was seeing a mirage, since it was hot as a desert in here despite the full-blast air conditioning. 

        “Jeff wouldn’t do that, Johnny,” Violet brusquely shot back at him.

        “I didn’t say he’d do it for a cool reason,” Johnny snorted. “He’s probably playin’ Beyblades versus Bakugan up on the roof or somethin’.”

        “...Mr. Garcia,” Violet said, turning away from the irrelevant delinquent. “My sister told me that the first fourty-eight hours are the most important window for retrieving KIDNAPPED CHILDREN who get CARRIED OFF BY EAGLES—”

        “Right. Well. That’s two days on the clock.” Garcia sighed when Violet gawked at him in utter indignation. “Joke. That was a joke. I’ll let the main office know. They’ll, uh… they’ll track ’im down. Don’t worry.”

        “I’m tellin’ you, V, you’re snitchin’ on my guy while he plays Roblox in a bathroom stall.”

        “Jeff is NOT! Your guy, JOHNNY.”

        “Is he YOUR guy?” Johnny scoffed, tossing a sharp pencil at the shade upon the ceiling. It phased right through, sticking deep into the tile with a satisfying twang. “Is he your little baby lamb papoose?”

        “He’s my FRIEND,” Violet snapped. “I’m WORRIED about him.”

        “Why worry? Jeff can take care of HIMSELF. Bro was frickin’ vascular in gym class. Did you see his hitball arm? Or Max’s after?”

        Mr. Garcia cocked an eyebrow. Oh, right. There was the supernatural element of all this. He’d been on the periphery of that day’s paranormal hijinks, but he did know that Jeff had gotten swept up in the first wave of the chaos. Maybe this disappearance did call for a deeper sniff or two, Jean begrudgingly considered with a sigh.

        “NO, I didn’t see that, JOHNNY, because I was going to get help. Help that NO ONE ELSE was getting him,” Violet hissed in a frustrated huff. “HELP Jeff wouldn’t NEED so much if BULLIES LIKE YOU would just leave him ALONE! Lisa TOLD me he was flipping out on YOU in gym class, Johnny Jhonny.”

        “All right, guys, knock it off—”

        “Me and Jeff are literally chill now,” Johnny grunted, ignoring Garcia’s lethargic interjection.

        “Oh, because he fought back for the first time?? Most people like people for being NICE, you know! That’s why I like Jeff—’cause he’s a CHARMING, HARMLESS DORK. The same reason that YOU and your friends picked on him for YEARS!” Violet threw her hands up. “That’s why I’m WORRIED about him, Johnny! ’Cause he’s a GOOD KID, so it’s WEIRD when he does stuff that would be NORMAL for a BAD KID like YOU!”

        Johnny grimaced.

        “...Whatever,” he grumbled, wilting back into a proper sitting position.

        “You done, guys?” asked Garcia. He looked at both his red-faced students. They’d folded up in grumpy bundles and were facing away from each other. “Good. Save it for rooftop Roblockublades or whatever it was,” Jean sighed, turning back to face the blackboard. 

        Lisa reached forward to give her friend’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Violet spared her smiling face a glance, but didn’t smile back. By the time she looked away, her sullen frown had spread to Lisa.

        Mr. Garcia chewed a deep groove in his toothpick. What a pain. The day of a full moon was the worst time for him to try and let sleeping dogs lie… but if he had to give into any of his instincts, there were worse ones than the hunch he was attempting to ignore. Jean sniffed trouble on the breeze, a sense he liked to think that Shrike had taught him.

        “...Hey, uh, Violet.”

        The grumpy student glanced up at her teacher.

        “Do you, by any chance,” Garcia mumbled, “have anything on hand that smells like Jeff?”

        Violet gave him such a look, as did everybody else.

        “...........................Nevermind,” Garcia said, returning to his notes on photosynthesis.