“Now that…is some Rising Shards school spirit.” Rain said. The video ended, and I thought it looked amazing. We all crowded around KJ as she clicked around on the video files for the ercial. I felt a little proud about my tributions to the fight, which could be seen for approximately three seds, but I rouder about about 2.4 seds of my cell phone footage making it into the ercial.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “It’s rendering,” KJ said.

  “OK, what does that mean?” I asked.

  “It means the video’s processing.” KJ said.

  “What that means.” Iris said.

  “It means it’s almost done,” KJ said. “ you all just back off a bit?”

  It took about twenty more minutes for the ercial to render. O finished, we all rushed back to the puter to watch the finished product again.

  “We did it!” I said. “So is the club like officially able to sck off for a bit?”

  “Not yet,” Maia said. “It still o be judged.”

  “So how do we get it judged?” I asked. “ we do that now?”

  “Check the folder,” Maia said to Iris.

  “ht!” Iris said. She paged through the folder she’d been given for club rules and expectations. “It says that we have to schedule at least a biweekly che with a teacher advisor. And ours is…Peam.”

  “Wait, Principal Peam is the one who’s judging this?” I said.

  “That could be really bad, or really good,” Maia said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  KJ was not keen on the idea of l the video quality at all to send it over email, so we had to go to the library to check out aernal hard drive. We also made sure Latte was at least two shoulder lengths apart from the hard drive at all times. Ohat was done, we all went down to the principal’s office.

  “This is actually pretty exg,” Peam said as we walked inside. “I’ve been pushing for the Spirit Betterment club to e back for a while now, and I’ve been also pushing to be a teacher advisor for at least one of these clubs, so I’m gd the school board finally let me have a win here.”

  It was a bit of a struggle getting the external hard drive into Peam’s puter, as his USB ports were all filled with little light up toy things, aook a long time debating which to even temporarily unplug to watch a video that was two minutes long. Finally, the folder for the hard drive popped up over Peam’s way too full desktop.

  “OK, just cli the file that says ‘schooltrailer0001,’” KJ said.

  “Right…clig…” Peam said, squinting as he looked at the s.

  “Just…use the mouse.” KJ said.

  “Uh huh…the…mouse.” Peam said, still not doing anything.

  “Here, let me, Principal Peam,” Amara said. “If you’ll just move a little bit, KJ.”

  “Oh, is that what that thing’s for?” Peam said. “I just use the touchy s-y thing.”

  Iris started giggling at Peam’s ck of puter skills, prompting Maia to pinch her arm to get her to stop.

  I wasn’t sure eam would think of the video. I had never really even seen him mad, so I didn’t know what to expect if he hated the ercial as he watched it ily.

  “Oh yeah, this is good,” Peam said. “This is season 4 of House of the Kinder House good. I want…at least five more of these.”

  “Five?” I said.

  “You have the whole semester, right? Let’s make at an even seven!” Peam said.

  “Yep, we do it,” Iris said. “No problem, right guys?”

  The group murmured a zy response in agreement.

  “Also, for the ones, make sure someone is drinking a Redgre soda in each? They have to look like they’re enjoying it, too. I have a box around here somewhere…you know what, I’ll just bring them to your club room. I definitely want to see more of your process in a so to speak, so I’ll be cheg iy regurly to see your work in a. Or to see your a in work? You get what I mean."

  Maia’s forced smile got a little more forced hearing that Peam would be that engaged in our work.

  Peam asked for our meeting schedule, and said he’d have an update within a few days on his avaibility to che on our club meetings on a sistent basis.

  “Well, this is stupid,” Maia said whehered again at our club room.

  “We’ll still eventually be able to sck off, right?” I asked.

  “Oh, we’ll for sure still sck off, we just have to be more tactical about it if Peam is directly involved.” Maia said.

  “Yeah, never uimate Maia’s ability to go full zy cat.” Iris said.

  “Shut up.” Maia said.

  “I’m holy more surprised Latte didn’t break anything in Principal Peam’s office,” Amara said.

  “Hey!” Latte said.

  “What, like that’s not fair,” KJ said. “You still owe me for that tripod you broke.”

  “I didn’t break it, though.” Latte said.

  “Yes, you did,” I said.

  “Hm,” Latte said. “I guess we’ll agree to disagree.”

  “At least we got it done, right?” Iris said. “We’re not gon like club exunicated.”

  “What does that even mean?” Maia asked.

  “Like you know, like our club gets exiled from the school or something.” Iris said.

  “That actually happe my old school,” Latte said. “They never found the club members’ bodies after they sent them to sea.”

  “Wait, what?” Iris said. “Are you serious?”

  Latte took a sip of coffee from a hermos instead of expining.

  “Well, I say this calls for a celebration!” Rain said. “Shall I check to see if big table is avaible?”

  Given how badly my st trip to the stupid table went for my poor tail, I instinctively grabbed it just hearing the words ‘big table.’

  “You guys go hang out there, I o go nap or something,” Maia said.

  “Yeah, we go return the hard drive then,” Iris said.

  KJ, Amara, and Rai as Latte inched closer to Iris.

  “Hey,” Latte said, tugging on Iris’ sleeve. “ I hold that for a sed?”

  “What, this?” Iris asked, holding up the hard drive. “Sure, why?”

  I ya from Iris as she tried to hand it to Latte. “No, I really, really think it’d be better if you didn’t.”