“Oh, e on!” Kalei said whe to the track.

  A weird set or stage thing was blog a good portion of the track. Behind a bunch of desks were logos that read “Rising Shards Rising School News (Sponsored by Redgre Co)”.

  A group of students were in suits doing vocal exercises, and Mr. Soleri wandered around with a clipboard, cheg names off. It looked kinda h the zily rolling clouds over us. But less nice for being in our way.

  “What is all this?” Oka asked.

  A shirl respohat she was c the news, and immediately burped loudly in kind of a weirdly threateniory defense move. We moved away to a safer, belch free zone.

  I spotted Aira Orbis crawling around the grass. It was readily apparent she had uastes and hobbies (she got in trouble with Caya a week earlier for eating one of her vein seeds), but I decided she would be easier to ask than Soleri, who would probably respond with a riddle or something about the a cheeses of the Jercruible region.

  “Hey Aira, what’s going on?” I asked.

  Aira rolled over onto her bad sat up like she had just been reanimated.

  “Why, hello, Zeta,” Aira said. “I was here doing stuff, and then they set all this up. I heard someone say it’s a new club that will be here for the few weeks?”

  “ few weeks? Bleh.” I said. “What stuff were you doing?”

  Aira looked sheepish as she pressed her pointer fiogether.

  “I’m looking fs.” Aira said.

  “Aira, please don’t be eating bugs.” I said.

  “I’m ing them!” Aira said. “Do you really think I’m that weird?”

  Before I could say anything (I didn’t think she was that weird), Aira quickly added. “I’m just doting their fvor!”

  I reported my findings to Oka and Kalei.

  “Ew, what?” Oka asked. “And all this stuff is gonna be here for weeks?”

  Kalei sighed.

  “Let’s just go somewhere else.” Kalei said.

  “No!” I said. “There’s gotta be something we do.”

  I looked around at all the pieces of the set. It was kind of lopsided, as it was c the track while a big portion of the grassy part was free.

  “Maybe we vince Soleri to move it over, so this is all in the middle. We could use the track then!” I said.

  Kalei shrugged, not looking vinced. My determination to help Kalei was strohan my fear of talking to Soleri. Unfortunately, I was blocked from getting close to him.

  “Well if it isn’t Zeta Manure.”

  I almost didn’t reize Ovie. She had weird TV makeup on and a pants suit with a zig zag pattern on it. Her hair looked like it had been repced with a molded piece of pstic with all the product she had holding it up.

  “Hey, don’t call her that!” Oka said. “Zeta doesn’t smell bad! She doesn’t really smell like anything!”

  “Thanks?” I said.

  “You’re wele. And you must have a defective nasal cavity,” Ovie said. “But it’s less about her odor and more about her general personality."

  Ever since css started, Ovie retty active in voig her newfound dislike of me for some reason, including the very clever niame Zeta Manure.

  “Sorry,” Ovie said. “I don’t want to spend much more thaeen seds around manure.”

  As I struggled to e up with a eback (hours ter I thought of saying “why do you want to spend any time around manure?”, which would have bee), Ovie tinued.

  “You should probably get out of here, lest you interfere with Rising Shards Rising School News,” Ovie said. “I’m going to be the lead broadcaster, and I ’t be on television if I’m in the presence of something so miserable.”

  I doubted this would actually air anywhere other than school TVs.

  “If all this stuff wasn’t here we could get out of your way.” I said.

  “Well we need all this stuff,” Ovie said. “Do you really think ractice here without a plete recreation of a televisio?”

  “I mean, probably.” I said. “You could move this inside.”

  Ovie scowled at me.

  “I think I have my first report,” Ovie said. “It’ll be called ‘Zeta Manure Sucks.”

  “She doesn’t!” Oka said.

  While I was gd Oka was quiy defense, I was really tired uing with Ovie. I was trying to help Kalei (who rapidly looked like she was going to just give up and go back to the dorms), not freeze up fighting Ovie. She ignored Oka anyways, a her judgmental eyes locked on me.

  “Ovie, you just let me through already?” I asked.

  “No,” Ovie said. “In fact, I’m going to go tell Mr. Soleri you’re trespassing, and that you said you wao burn televisios down. Sed report: Zeta Manure is an arsonist and ties her shoes like someone whose parents got divorced.”

  I stammered some sounds that I assume could have been words had they been given more than a reaary ounce of angry thoughts, losing the argument immediately with my incapability to respond well as Ovie took off.

  “Well, now what?” Oka asked.

  “Hold on,” Kalei said. “Is that who I think it is over there?”

  Aeacher sat in the bleachers with his head in his hands.

  “Krangel!” Oka said. “He looks so sad.”

  If I was afraid to talk to Soleri, I was a million times more afraid to talk tel. But for Kalei, I had to.

  “What are you thinking, Zeta?” Kalei asked.

  “I just had an idea,” I said. “It’s really stupid, but it’s the only one I got.”

  Mr. Krangel barely noticed us e up, even as our steps rattled loudly oal bleachers.

  “Mr. Krangel?” I asked.

  “WHAT?” Krangel bellowed as he so attention. “Oh. Hello?”

  “Are you alright, Mr. Krangel?” Oka asked.

  “I uh, well, no,” Krangel said. “I feel as defeated as Smak Gristoff in the famous no holds barred championship bout of AB-784 at the eighteenth Remembrance of Pai.”

  Krangel’s nguage was basically Havena fighting. I didn’t really get or like watg Havena fights, but I knew I’d have to at least appeal somehow to his is for his help. I tried to remember all the refereo Havena Krangel had said to us so far.

  “Are you mad about the field being taken up too?” I asked.

  “Yes, it’s like the ring of my heart has been squashed by the invading fa of student television news.”

  Krangel buried his fa his hands again.

  “I just hate Soleri so much.” Krangel said, breaking school policy of being rude about other teachers in front of students. “But what I even do about it?”

  “Well, we maybe be like that one Havena fighter…” I said.

  Kraood up straighter and looked at me in anticipation. OK, this is all you now, me.

  “Who lost that fight when they wouldn’t let him…fight,” I said. “But then at the uh, show or whatever, he snu disguised as an insurance salesman, so he could beat up those uys, bite the general manager with his fangs, and sign the tract, so he could get in…the fight?”

  I hoped that made more seo him than it did to me. Krangel gasped.

  “Slep Dung!” Krangel said.

  “Excuse you.” Oka said.

  Krangel jumped to his feet.

  “How could I be so blind?” Krangel asked. “This whole time, I he spirit of the wily yet brutally strong Slep Dung! How else could he win 42 flht championships?”

  “Definitely not by sitting here doing nothing!” I said.

  “That’s right!” Krangel said. “But…what do we do?”

  I didn’t pn this out this far. I assumed Krangel could just fix this for us. I couldn’t give up on Kalei, but I drew too many bnks.

  “I got something,” Kalei said.

  I turo Kalei who, for the first time all day, had fire in her eyes.