After what felt like ten full hours of class—but was actually just one—Leo finally couldn’t take it anymore. The moment the bell rang, he shot out of his seat like a rocket, knocking his chair back and nearly tripping over it in his rush to escape. Behind him, the rest of the class stood up at the exact same time, moved at the exact same pace, and walked out in the exact same direction. It was so perfectly organized that it made Leo uneasy. Worse, they all walked in straight lines, like a group of extremely polite robots who had just been told how to behave.
“Excuse me,” Leo said, trying to push past them.
No one responded.
He squeezed between two students, only for another perfectly straight line of students to block his way again. “Why is everyone walking like this?” he muttered, ducking and weaving as best as he could. At one point, he nearly got swept along with them, which he immediately decided was unacceptable. “No,” he whispered to himself, stepping out of the line like he had just escaped something dangerous. “I am not becoming one of them.”
After what felt like a maze made entirely of polite, silent students, Leo finally broke free and sprinted down the hallway toward the cafeteria. When he burst through the doors, slightly out of breath and dramatically stressed, he found the rest of the group exactly where he expected them to be—arguing.
“…I’m telling you, it means ‘Hungry Students,’” Ollie was saying, gesturing like he had just solved everything.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Maya replied, though she still sounded calmer than everyone else.
“It makes perfect sense,” Ollie insisted. “Students are hungry. It’s realistic.”
Before anyone else could respond, Leo marched up to the table and dropped his hands dramatically on it. “You’re all wrong,” he said.
They all turned to look at him.
“HS means ‘Hypnotize Students.’”
There was a pause.
Then everyone stared at him.
Maya blinked. “That is significantly worse than ‘Hungry Students.’”
“It’s also true,” Leo said. “I saw it myself.”
Owen’s eyes widened instantly. “I knew it,” he whispered. “First hamburgers, now hypnosis. This is how it starts.”
“There is no hamburger—” Maya began, then stopped and sighed. “Leo, you need to prove this.”
“I can prove it,” Leo said quickly.
Maya raised an eyebrow. “Then prove it.”
A little while later, the five of them were once again hiding behind a teacher’s desk, which was quickly becoming their favorite and worst hiding spot. This time, they were in Miss Lampshade’s classroom. The room smelled faintly of markers and something slightly dusty, and from their crouched position, they could just barely see over the edge of the desk.
Miss Lampshade stood near the front of the room, talking quietly with another teacher. Her voice was calm, her expression normal—too normal, in Leo’s opinion. He watched her closely, narrowing his eyes like he was in the middle of a serious investigation, while Ollie peeked over the desk in a way that made it very obvious someone was hiding there.
“Get down,” Maya whispered, pulling him slightly.
“I am down,” Ollie whispered back, even though half his head was still visible.
After a few moments, Miss Lampshade nodded at the other teacher, picked up her notebook, and walked out of the room.
The door closed.
The room went quiet.
The spies slowly stood up.
“This is it,” Leo whispered. “We find proof.”
He moved toward the desk, his eyes scanning everything like he expected clues to jump out at him. Papers were stacked neatly, books arranged carefully, and everything looked exactly how a teacher’s desk was supposed to look—which was, unfortunately, not helpful.
Leo reached forward. “Maybe her phone—”
The door opened.
All five of them dropped instantly back behind the desk, bumping into each other in a silent panic. Someone’s elbow hit someone else’s shoulder, Owen almost made a noise but covered his mouth just in time, and Zara somehow managed to yawn in the middle of it.
Miss Lampshade walked back in.
The group froze.
She stepped over to the desk, picked up her phone without hesitation, and turned to leave again. For one terrifying second, it felt like she might look down and see them—but she didn’t. She simply walked out of the room once more, closing the door behind her.
There was silence.
Then five heads slowly rose again.
Leo exhaled. “That was close.”
“Too close,” Owen whispered.
Maya crossed her arms. “And we still don’t have proof.”
Leo frowned. “There is proof,” he insisted. “I saw it.”
“That’s not enough,” Maya said. “We need something real.”
Leo opened his mouth to argue—
Then stopped.
His eyes landed on something on the desk.
A notebook.
He stepped forward slowly and picked it up.
It was Ethan’s.
Leo flipped it open.
There, written clearly on the page, were the same words he had seen before.
HS = Perfect Students.
Leo looked up, his expression shifting from frustration to triumph. “There,” he said. “That’s it.”
The others gathered around him.
Maya leaned in, reading the words carefully. Her expression changed slightly—not fully convinced, but no longer dismissing it either.
Ollie nodded slowly. “Okay… that’s actually kind of weird.”
Owen took a step back. “So she is hypnotizing them.”
“No,” Maya said automatically—but her voice wasn’t as certain this time.
Leo closed the notebook and placed it back exactly where it was. “This is bigger than we thought,” he said.
Maya didn’t argue.
Because for the first time—
There was actual proof.
And it made the mystery a lot less ridiculous.
And a lot more real.
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