"Anneliese, wait up!" Becky yelled as I briskly walked down the hallway so I could get to my next class.

"What's up, Becky?" I asked exhaustedly. I could barely sleep a wink last night because Mom, who was getting more and more angry with everything, was arguing with Dad about making coffee at one in the morning so that he could stay up with her. At this point, Mom's job was tearing them apart.

"Thought I should give you this." Becky said, digging into her bag and handing me a can of coffee. "You looked out of it during English today."

"Thanks Becky. Seriously." I said happily as I opened up the can and took a sip. "You’re a lifesaver."

"Everything going okay at home?" Becky asked gently.

"Everything’s fine." I said simply, taking another sip of the coffee. I had successfully made it through my first two weeks of school, but at this rate, Mom and Dad were going to make me go crazy. "A lot of the people at my mom’s job are being laid off, so she’s been doing double and sometimes triple duty at her job. She and my dad were arguing at one in the morning last night because my dad wanted to wait up for her, so he made some coffee and they got into a giant argument."

"What exactly does your mom do, anyway?"

"She’s a travel agent. Teleports people to their destinations so that they can see it themselves before booking with her agency."

"So she can teleport?"

"Yeah."

"And your dad?"

"Security guard at the Treatorian Collective."

"So no super powers?"

"Nope." I said, sighing heavily as we got to the staircase. "Mom is our mode of transportation so we’ve been having headaches from her stress all week. Pair the fact that I got no sleep last night with the fact that Mom’s stress is giving me a headache, and-"

"Why don’t I give you a ride home?"

I gave Becky a confused look. "Like in a car?"

"Yeah." Becky said, giving me an equally confused look as we paused outside of her forensics classroom. "Have you never been in a motorized vehicle before?"

"I have… On field trips. There’s not really a need for a car or whatever when you have a parent who can teleport to places at the blink of an eye."

"So you don’t have a driver’s license?"

"... No. What part of not having any need for a car did you not understand?"

"Oh boy." Becky said, sighing heavily and rolling her eyes as she handed me her phone. "Put in your phone number. I am driving you home today."

"Becky, you really don’t-"

"No, I’m doing it." Becky insisted. "You look like absolute shit right now and like you’re about to pass out from exhaustion. I am driving you home whether you like it or not, Anneliese. Just make sure that you text your mother about this."

"Fine." I sighed, quickly putting my phone number into Becky’s phone and handed it back to her.

"Was that so hard?"

"Yes."

Becky rolled her eyes. "You’re lying. I’ll text you during my lunch period so you have my number. Just text me back your address so I don’t have to kidnap you and bring you to my house."

"Okay..." I said, quickly backing away and towards my history classroom. "I’ll see you later then..."

"See you after school!"

Groaning internally, I quickly walked inside of history and sat down, quickly texting Mom about the situation as Keisha walked over and stood at the front of my desk.

"You got in here late." Keisha noted. The bell hadn't rung yet, but I was usually in the classroom within the first minute because English and History were on the first floor. There was only a minute left before the bell rang now.

"Yeah… Becky gave me coffee." I explained, motioning to the can in front of me that I put in the corner of my desk.

"Why?"

"I barely got any sleep last night and this entire weekend because my parents were arguing with each other at one in the morning, so she thought that I needed a pick me up."

"What in the world were they arguing about at one in the morning?"

"Ironically enough, they were arguing about coffee."

"Why-"

"Long story." I said as the bell rang. "I’ll explain later."

Keisha gave me a thumbs up as our history teacher explained that we were going to be watching a video about how the SNL and Treatorian Collective were formed. Most of the class fell asleep instantly, Keisha included. I almost did until Brain Dump appeared on screen to sign the Peaceful Supers Treaty that was created after the SNL took back the Treatorian Collective in full uniform. Something was wrong with the flickering image, and not just the fact that he was wearing a full wrestler's mask on his face so we couldn't see who was underneath.

Brain Dump was writing with his right hand. That wouldn’t seem like a big deal to anyone else, except I’ve always had a weird eye for detail. Noticing a scene difference because of cuts, no problem. This gave me the same feeling I had when I first met Mr. Herbstriet. Something was extremely wrong with what I was seeing in the video.

As soon as the video was done, our history teacher walked to the front of the room. "Does anyone have any questions?"

I raised my hand cautiously. Our history teacher sighed. Obviously, he was hoping that the answer was going to be no. I had a feeling that he didn’t like teaching since most of what we did since the school year started was watch movies in here. "Yes, Miss Andrews?"

"Is Brain Dump ambidextrous?"

"What?" He asked.

I rolled my eyes to myself. And this is why people needed to read more. How bad was it when your own teachers didn't know big words? "Brain Dump. Can he write with both hands?"

"Why are you asking that ridiculous question at… 10:30 in the morning?"

"Well… I saw this video of Brain Dump a while back where he was signing an autograph with his left hand. In the footage we just saw of the Peaceful Supers Treaty, he was signing the treaty with his right hand. I was just curious, that’s all."

"Well how in the hell am I supposed to know that!"

"I mean… The Treatorian Collective does have the stats of the members of the SNL on their website. It does have dominant hand on there too, I checked last week." One of the kids in the back said.

Groaning, our history teacher typed a couple things into his computer, then looked over at me angrily. "No, he is not… Whatever that big word was. He writes with his right hand so whatever video you saw of him was a fake. Are you happy now, Miss Andrews?"

The bell rang before I could answer. I went through Math with Erika, the bad feeling in my chest increasing as I sat down with Callum for lunch. I picked at my sandwich for a couple minutes before Callum tapped my hand. "Anna, what’s wrong? You haven’t said a word since lunch started."

"It’s nothing."

"Anneliese..."

"Callum, I swear, it’s nothing."

"Is it about that fight your mom and dad got into last night?" Callum asked after a couple minutes of silence.

"How do you know about that?"

"Becky was filling me in fourth hour."

I sighed heavily, knowing that Callum wasn’t going to leave it alone until I gave him a concrete answer. "Yeah. That’s exactly what it’s about."

"You know that that’s not your fault, right?"

"Yes Callum, I’m aware."

"I just want to make sure that you know-"

"Callum, I know. Seriously, I’m perfectly aware that this whole thing is not my fault. You do not need to reiterate it."

"Just wanted to make sure." Callum said, raising his hands above his head in self defense. "Anyway, are you excited for the competition this weekend?"

"Definitely. We are gonna crush the competition!"

"Heck yeah we are! Go Marching Mushrooms!"

"Who decided to let our school mascot be a freaking mushroom? Like, seriously. Who decided that?"

Callum and I talked about random stuff for the rest of lunch. By the end of the school day, I was glad that I had someone to talk things over with instead of being left to my own defenses at home until Dad got home.

"Your house, here we come!" Becky said as we walked out to her car, practically jumping up and down as she did so.

"Hey Becky, I have a weird question for you."

"I like weird questions. Shoot."

"Does Mr. Herbstriet seem… Weird to you?"

"Weird how?"

"I don’t know… Like he’s hiding something?"

Becky’s eyes widened as she sighed happily. "You mean it’s not just me anymore?"

"Huh?"

"Ever since Callum found out that Brain Dump worked at our school and convinced him to be the supervisor, I’ve had this weird feeling about him. I've been acting like it hasn't been bothering me, but I did some digging and I have evidence to back some of it up."

"Really?"

"Well, it’s what I consider evidence. Point still stands that there’s something fishy about Alexander Herbstriet."

"Do you have the evidence on you?"

Becky scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Obviously. I never leave home without it."

Glossing over how weird that sounded, I smiled at Becky. "You wanna go over it?"

"Yeah, but where?"

I smiled a bit. "I don’t think my parents would mind having an extra dinner guest..."