[Xander – 13 years]

"Xander?" Dad asks. "Why do you seem so anxious?"

He just entered the dining room area to join Mom and me while we make breakfast, and he already knows I'm feeling anxious? Has he developed empathy? No, it doesn't seem he has. I can't feel mind magics in him.

"Um… how'd you know I'm anxious?"

"Because of the pancakes," he he tells me. "We don't do those often, and I know Katie was planning on doing waffles. That means you probably talked her into pancakes, so you can have your banana-blueberry-sprinkle-gummy bear pancakes. And you like those for breakfast when you're anxious."

"Oh."

"So?" He asks. "How come you're anxious?"

"It's… hard to explain," I tell him. "But I feel like while my schedule is going to mostly be normal, there's also something different? And not planned."

"In a bad way?"

"The schedule's suddenly different," I tell him. "That's bad. It's not planned. It's not advanced notice. And what if I'm wrong and it's actually really different? Like, what if you have a car accident on the way to work and end up in the hospital and then I can't do my classes and-"

"Xander, deep breaths," Dad instructs, and I start taking them. "If something bad happens, then we'll work through it. But do you feel like it's something bad? Outside of it being a change to your schedule?"

"Um… no?" I answer. "It doesn't give me a good feeling, though. My psychic gut doesn't work that like most of the time. It's only telling me something unplanned is happening to change my schedule a little bit right now, not that something bad is about to happen, or something good."

"Alright," he chuckles. "Well, we'll deal with whatever it is as it happens, okay? And if it ends up stressing you out too much, just remember that it's okay to ask for time to calm down."

I was allowed to do that even at normal school, when I was staying at the boys' home. It was some sort of plan for kids with certain disabilities, tailored to the kid. Mine included that if I started getting overwhelmed or stressed out, I could go to a designated location to calm down.

Not that I ever used it much. I always got stares and there were whispers from other kids if I tried, I think? I can't remember clearly. I know that I tried to not be obvious about it and ask the teacher quietly, but some of my former classmates didn't like that I got to leave class for a bit. At least, that's what I think I remember it being.

"I'll try to remember that," I tell him.

"Alright," he says. "How much longer until breakfast?"

"Um… about five minutes, I think?" I answer. "But Mom would be better for answering that."

"It should be about five minutes," Mom chuckles.

"Okay," I look at Dad. "Mom says it should be about five minutes."

"Alright," he chuckles. "Do you two need any help finishing?"

"Could you set the table?" Mom asks.

Dad does that while Mom and I finish cooking and putting the food on the table, then we sit and eat. After we finish, I help clean the dishes, then head up to my room until it's time to brush my teeth. Sig sent me a picture while I was eating. It seems his breakfast consisted of a muffin I'm pretty sure was bought from a store. Two muffins, he clarifies after I ask, and he confirms that they were bought in a pack from the store.

Why? If he's not going to make them himself, he should at least buy good ones. Like from a bakery. He makes more than enough money that he doesn't need to eat crap versions of food. He showed me the package in the messages and I remember eating that brand sometimes at the boys' home.

It's not that good.

Hm… it doesn't look like I have any of that same flavor of muffin in any of my storages.

Once it's time to brush my teeth, I do that, then head downstairs. Mom's still in the kitchen, which makes this easier.

"Mom," I say. "Can I make some muffins really quick?"

"Sure," she answers. "Do you have everything you need?"

"Yeah," I answer. "They're just regular blueberry muffins with crumble tops, I think. And I've got all the stuff for that."

"Okay," she says. "I'm assuming you'll be using temporal acceleration to assist?"

"Yeah," I nod. "I'm gonna make a bunch, but try to get it all done in under ten minutes. That gives me time to pick up Sig, but also deal with… whatever's coming. I hope. I think it'll be in about ten minutes."

That's what my gut says.

I manage to finish making the muffins, cleaning the dishes, and putting them away in roughly eight minutes. A faster time probably could have been managed considering how fast I can accelerate time to, but I don't want to risk that with baking, especially when making several hundred muffins.

I did use it faster on bananas for the banana nut muffins I made, so that they can ripen to perfection for baking. That and on the baking process itself were the only additional bits of temporal acceleration outside of just what I'd wrapped myself in to do the work.

There are also apple cinnamon muffins, lemon muffins, peach muffins, raspberry white chocolate muffins, and coffee cake muffins. One hundred and thirty-six of each, or thirteen dozen.

"Hm…" I look at all of the boxes of muffins. "Maybe that was too many?"

"Maybe," Mom chuckles as she fills another box with muffins. "But since they won't go to waste and you can afford to do this, then there's no harm in it, is there?"

Mom's the one filling the boxes; each box can hold twelve so she's adding two of each of five of the flavors and one of each of the other two in them. It's better that she does it than me as she can more easily figure out how to make it work so that the amounts add up and we don't end up with any boxes which don't have five pairs and two singles.

Though I could probably use a magi-artificial intelligence to do that math for me, but I'm not going to tell Mom she can't help me with something this simple. I don't know why, but it makes me feel really good when she helps me out with stuff when I'm baking or cooking.

"I guess not," I say. "But I don't give out muffins as much. Maybe I can gift the extras to the boys' home? We can hold them in storage until Wednesday night, then drop them off with some other breakfast stuff when we're dropping off groceries."

"Sure," she answers. "But maybe not all of them. This might be too much, but you can definitely gift them enough so they can have muffins for a day or two. How much longer until you need to go get S.G.?"

"Um," I check the time. "About six minutes. Eugh."

"Okay," she chuckles.

"Huh?" I look in the direction the front door is, even though I can't see it.

"What?"

"I can hear Ms. Johnson talking with Dad at the door," I tell her. "But she does her surprise visits in the afternoons or on weekends. Not random Tuesday mornings. And she just did last month's surprise visit barely a week ago."

Surprise visits are supposed to be spaced out a little bit more than that.

"You think it's something else?" Mom frowns. "Her showing up here this early is a bit concerning. Let's hope it's nothing bad."

"She didn't tell Dad," I tell her. "She asked if she could talk with both of us together about why she's here right now. I don't wanna go back!"

"Xander," Mom's voice remains calm, but I can feel her concern. She's stressing out over it, too! "We don't know why she's here. It might not be something bad, it could just be something came up and she wants to take care of it quickly rather than letting it wait. If she's shown up right before your classes, it might even be fast."

"Or it's to take me back!"

"And let you miss a day of classes?"

"As if I really do them!"

"You have your fitness class," she says. "Then your free-ish class, then your baking lesson. Those are all classes. Try to take some deep breaths, okay? If it is something bad, we'll handle it. But it might be something good, or just something which is neither but still important."

I'm still taking deep breaths when Dad and Ms. Johnson join us.

"I don't wanna go back! I like it here!"

"I tried calming him down," Mom tells Dad. "But, well…"

"Please don't take me back!"

"I'm not taking you back," Ms. Johnson tells me. "This is in regard to your education."

"I'm not a good fit for public school!" I tell her. "I'm too stupid! Please don't make me go back! I promise I'm learning! Just… maybe not as good as others! And I'm exempt from school, too! Please don't make me go back to public school! They'll call me stupid and treat me like I'm stupid and-"

"Xander," Ms. Johnson interrupts me. "You might be exempted from school, but you haven't officially stopped. And your case when it comes to education is a bit unusual. Foster children normally aren't allowed to be homeschooled, as it opens up another possibility for abuse by the foster parent or parents."

I open my mouth to tell her that Dad definitely isn't abusing me, and it's better I'm educated this way than in a public school. At least with Coach Adam and Mr. Wilson, I'm learning. They're teaching me in ways that I can understand.

"Xander," Dad says firmly before I can say anything. "Let Tiffany finish explaining, okay? I want to hear what's going on as well."

I look down at my socks.

"You were allowed to," Ms. Johnson says. "Because your academics are being handled by a licensed teacher who taught a variety of subjects and in a variety of grade levels at one of the top private primary education districts in the country. Also because your athletics/fitness class is being handled by a professional trainer and martial arts instructor. You tested out of the magic class requirement, but I'm sure you would've had someone just as qualified instructing.

"That said," she says. "It's still unusual. Because of that, the higher-ups in the department asked that I do a surprise visit for a full school day for you. That is, I'm here for every part of it, to see what's actually going on. And it's a surprise for the same reason I have to do surprise visits – so that things can't be prepared ahead of time to try and trick me. That's all it is. I'm here to see how your education is being handled, and how well it's going. And I know surprises stress you out, but I was told to make it one by my superiors so that if it wasn't being handled right, Trey couldn't set something up ahead of time to fool me."

She smiles a little.

"I've seen your classroom plenty of times," she tells me. "And how it's changed and received new posters as you learn new things. And I know you wouldn't lie, so I know you were honest when you told me when they were put up and why. But the state does need me to actually see your classes, so we know if it's okay to let you keep doing this. Okay?"

"Okay…"

My phone pings.

"That's probably Sig."

"Sig?" Ms. Johnson asks.

"S.G.," Dad tells her. "He joins Xander for the athletics and fitness sessions. Xander teleports him over. Buddy, why don't you go get your shoes and pick him up?"

"Okay," I pull out my phone. "Yeah, it was him. I need to find my shoes."

"Find your shoes?" Ms. Johnson asks, and I can feel how confused she is.

"Xander frequently forgets where the shoes which go with his outfit are," Dad tells her.

"There's no set spot to put them," I tell Ms. Johnson. "Like at the home, where we had to take them off at the door, then bring them to our room and put them on a mat under our bed."

With up to forty boys living there at a time, everyone leaving their shoes at the front or back door would just cause there to be a lot of shoes sitting there. Racks for all of those would take up so much space. By having everyone keep them under their beds, it made it easier for people to keep track of.

"Except my floor's carpet here," I continue. "So I leave them at the door when I take them off, like in normal homes. But I wear so many different pairs since not all shoes go with all outfits. That means there are a lot of pairs of shoes, and they're at different doors since I left them on the shoe racks by each door."

"I'd been wondering why you had so many pairs at each door," Ms. Johnson said. "Just assumed it was because you had different pairs for different activities and they were left at the door you leave through for them. And backups, in case something happened to them."

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I do have backups," I nod. "But that's just the door where I took them off at. Dad didn't always have the shoe racks, by the way. He bought those in October. Before, they just sat on the floor, since the mats were only for wiping your feet off on."

"That's why you leave your shoes at the door?" Dad asks. "If you want to keep them in your room, you can get a shoe rack for your closet. And most people would leave them at the front door, Xander, not whichever door they arrived through. I think they normally go on a rack there or in a coat closet by it."

"Oh," I say. "Um… can we get a shoe rack the next time we go shopping somewhere there's one? Enough to fit all of my pairs?"

My closet is big enough for that. It still isn't full of clothes even though I usually get one or two new outfits a week. That's even when factoring in the dresser for socks and the one for underwear, too. Even excluding the space they take up, the closet isn't full of clothes yet.

It's massive, but at least it means I have plenty of space to have a lot of different outfits. That lets me have a variety to choose from, so that I can feel comfortable or happy with what I'm wearing. Adding in a rack to hold all of my shoes will take up some of that extra empty space, and that means I won't have to space my clothes out as much so that it doesn't feel as empty.

"Sure," Dad answers.

"Also," I say. "How come you ain't at work? You've normally left by now."

He didn't tell me he was staying home, either. Did something happen at the office unexpectedly that prevented him from going? Like Toby and school yesterday?

"I decided to stay home because of you stressing," Dad tells me. "So I could be available if you wanted me."

I don't think that's all of it, but I don't think it's okay to ask. If he wanted me to know the rest of it, he'd have told me when he answered.

"O-oh."

"I noticed you were rocking a little when we came over here," Ms. Johnson says. "Did something happen?"

"He had a feeling something unexpected was going to happen," Dad explains. "And that it was going to change his schedule slightly. That was stressing him out because he wasn't sure what it was. Now we know, it seems."

Ms. Johnson's been informed that I'm psychic, but that it's mostly just gut feelings.

"Ah," she says. "I see. Well, sorry for stressing you out, Xander. I did want to give you advance notice, but it wasn't allowed for the reason I mentioned."

"I understand… and can I please be excused so I can go get Sig? It's almost time for the lesson to start and we're gonna be late if this takes too much longer. It's already going to make him wait longer than usual."

"Go ahead," Dad says. "You can teleport from inside after you get your shoes on, and you can teleport back inside. Go ahead and go straight to the changing rooms, if you want."

That'll save us a lot of time, so we shouldn't be late. Not unless Ms. Johnson does other stuff to delay us.

"Okay."

I head to the front door and pull on my sneakers (that's where the ones which go with this outfit are), then summon a hoodie and pull it on before teleporting to Sig's.

"Hey!" Sig answers the door, a big smile on his face. "Good morning!"

"Morning," I hug him.

"You okay?"

"Ms. Johnson suddenly showed up," I tell him. "Her bosses want her to make sure that my education is being handled properly. Even though I'm exempted from classes due to work, I'm not actually out of school. I could pull out, but Dad said 'no' to that. But she wasn't allowed to tell us in advance, so we didn't know she was coming."

"Oh," he says.

"I'll understand if you don't come today," my voice is quiet.

"Why wouldn't I come?"

"Since Ms. Johnson is gonna be watching everything," I tell him. "That might make you uncomfortable for the martial arts. Or your aunt might not be okay with it. You should ask Ms. Rachel."

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, lemme ask her. Come on in."

I step inside and we close the door, then he heads over to Ms. Rachel's office to let her know. He does clarify to her that Ms. Johnson is my case worker, since she was originally confused about that. Permission is granted, so he rejoins me.

"Dad said it's okay to teleport straight to the changing rooms today to make up for lost time," I let Sig know once we're on the street. "So I'm gonna do that. Gonna teleport us in three… two… one."

We appear in the changing rooms, then change into our martial arts gis. When we enter the gym, the mats are set up like normal and Coach Adam is waiting. Dad and Ms. Johnson are sitting on one of the bleachers, while Roderick is standing guard near the door.

This is in the rec center. We've moved all of my fitness stuff to here since it's better-equipped for it than the room Dad had renovated. I feel bad about him having wasted that money, but he says he doesn't mind it. Had he thought about having an actual gymnasium and stuff set up for my classes, he would have had that under construction before I moved in. Because of that, he says the blame for the wasted money lies with him.

Though my regular academics still take place in the classroom he had set up for those. The old fitness room is being converted into another type of classroom, I think.

Upon seeing me in the gi, a lot of surprise comes from Ms. Johnson. I can make a guess about what it is. Wearing sneakers isn't really allowed for martial arts practice, but wearing socks would be a bad idea due to how they'd act slippery on the floor and the mats. Because of that, I'm barefoot. That's something which rarely happens outside of swimming, changing, sleeping, or showering. And she probably doesn't know that I don't wear socks when I sleep anymore.

"Hello, Xander," Coach Adam greets me. "S.G."

"'Sup?" Sig asks.

"Hello," I say.

"You two ready?" He asks.

"Yup!" Sig answers.

"Maybe," I say.

"Alright," Coach Adam says. "Let's start with some stretches."

Coach Adam runs us through our usual pre-martial arts stretches, then some bodyweight exercises. Push-ups, pull-ups, planks, lunges, squats, and handstands. Then new ones are added to the set, but he let us know last week it would be, so that I knew before today.

Swimming is relatively the same, but he's adding some new stuff into my other fitness/athletics stuff starting all this week. For martial arts days, that includes flips. Cartwheels, tumbles, front flips, and back flips. Well, he calls it tumbling, but it's a low-to-the-ground forward roll.

Once the new additions to the Tuesday warm-up are finished, Coach Adam begins the actual lesson. He makes sure I'm wearing the strength-limiting bracelet, too. That way, I can actually properly practice against each of them. Someone only a little bit bigger than me, and someone a lot bigger than me.

It's important to have a variety of sizes and builds to practice against, so that one doesn't get used to exactly one other person's skills. That can lead to bad habits since different sizes means needing to take different things into account. We sometimes use some of Dad's security guards to help, too, but not today.

"Good job," Coach Adam says once the lesson is over. "I might move the flips to the fitness days and swap the balance beam to martial arts. Doing the flips properly should probably have a little bit more time devoted to it, and that would cut into the martial arts lesson much more than I want."

"Okay," I say. "But not tomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow," he says. "We'll see how it is this week, then I'll decide on if it gets changed or not starting next week."

"Okay," I say. "And the balance beam ain't gonna be too high off of the ground?"

"No," he chuckles. "It'll be right on the ground, so that it's as if you're walking on a curb. There's no reason for us to put it higher, since it's mostly to work on your balance. You'll just have to restart if you step off of it."

"Okay."

"And Xander?"

"Yes, Coach Adam?"

"I noticed those fixtures up there," he indicates towards the ceiling. "I've been wondering what they were and realized… those are climbing ropes, aren't they? Just coiled up around a bar and contained within a box, so they're out of sight?"

I'd hoped he wouldn't ever realize or learn what they are, but he did anyway.

"Um…"

"I know you don't like heights," he says. "That's why I wanted to ask before just adding it. Do you want climbing ropes to be added to the Wednesday fitness session? We can do it where you go as high as you feel comfortable, then hold for a short bit."

"Um… no."

"Okay," he says. "Would you be okay with it if I added it anyway? If we do this, it might help you with your fear of heights. S.G., too."

I glance at S.G., who starts feeling nervous. He's okay with climbing trees, and with climbing cliffs if it's not too high and he'll fall into water if he slips. But heights make him nervous, too. But they aren't as scary for him as they are for me.

"Will I have to go high?"

"As high as you're comfortable," he says. "As long as your feet aren't touching the ground."

But even that might be too much. It's not like when I grow wings or am riding Uncle Aurum. Riding a unicorn is high up but I've gotten used to that and it's not dangerous. Uncle Aurum would never let me fall off of him. Growing wings for climbing a rope probably wouldn't be allowed.

"Um… maybe?" I answer. "Can we… try it?"

"Sure," he says. "We'll try it tomorrow. And if it's too much for you, then we won't. It's not as if it's necessary – you already have plenty of things for your fitness session. This would be just another to add in."

"Okay."

Hopefully, we decide that it's not something we're going to do beyond tomorrow's class.

"Dismissed," he says.

Sig and I head to the changing rooms. After we shower and dress, we head to the kitchen. Mom has our post-workout cookies and smoothies ready for us when we arrive. Dad and Ms. Johnson are there as well, and Mom is explaining about the cookies and smoothies to my case worker. Another person's scent is in here, but somewhat faint.

It's a berry-like scent, which makes sense since it's the smell of Berry's berries. That's the only scent he usually has when he's in his humanish form. He usually brings produce over from the greenhouse during Second Period, for Mom to use for lunch. Why did he come in during First Period? And why did he do it in his human form today? He usually brings them over in his real one.

"Everything okay?" Mom asks as I sniff my cookie. "The ingredients should've all been okay."

"The cinnamon smells good."

"Berry gave it to me," she tells me. "It's a newer addition to the greenhouse. He said that Lady Lily gave him a starter for the tree last week and he put it in a special section. It has a mix of mental, spatial, and temporal magics."

He must have used his magic along with the little shrubbies to make it grow well enough he could harvest from it today. I haven't looked in the greenhouse in awhile, just visited it to collect ingredients. Maybe I should look through it to see what else has ended up in there that wasn't on any of my lists.

And I'll need to make sure to thank Grandma Lily for the new cinnamon. She definitely put in a lot of work to create the breed. No such type of cinnamon tree existed when I asked Grandpa Adrian about it a month ago. More than likely, Grandma Lily made this strain just for me.

"Oooh," I say. "Yeah, I can see those in the cookie, but I thought it maybe came from you blending different ingredients which had those. I wanna make some snickerdoodles to gift Grandma Lily. With plant magics, though, since she likes the taste of foods with those better than with mental, spatial, and temporal magics."

"We can do that when making the stuff for bowling," Mom says.

"Okay," I take a bite of my cookie.

It really is delicious. The new cinnamon is amazing.

Once Sig and I finish our cookies and smoothies, we leave so I can teleport him to his house.

"See you this afternoon!" Sig says as we hug at his front door.

"Here," I summon a box.

"Cookies!" Excitement fills his mind as he accepts the box. "And a huge box of them, too! Thanks!"

"Muffins," I correct. "So that you ain't gotta eat crap ones. I've had the ones you had before, and they ain't that good. And you should buy yourself better muffins. But then I went and made a bunch. Hundreds. So lemme know if you want more of them, okay? 'Cause I ain't sure what I'm gonna do with all of the others. It ain't like with cookies…"

"Alright," he chuckles. "Thanks! See ya this afternoon!"

"Your aunt's in the living room," I tell him. "She's probably wanting to find out how things went with Ms. Johnson being there."

"It was soooo weird," he says. "Having an audience. Mr. Caldwell watching was a little unnerving."

"He made you uncomfortable?"

"Not in a bad way," he explains. "It's usually just us, Coach Adam, and Roderick – and the latter usually only when you're not feeling too happy or comfortable that day. So it was weird, having others there. And knowing that your dad is probably really good at martial arts, considering his business… yeaaaah."

This is probably one of those things a normal person would understand. It was definitely uncomfortable for me as well, but not because of Dad's own skill in martial arts. Just having people watching me was what made me uncomfortable."

"Okay," I say. "I hope I'll see you later. Bye."

"Bye," he gives me a light squeeze for the hug, then heads inside.

I return to the street, then teleport back home. I make my way inside and to the classroom, where Dad and Ms. Johnson are already waiting, with Roderick standing in his usual spot by the door. Dad's sitting on a black beanbag, while Ms. Johnson's sitting on a brown one.

We have ones in other colors? I just thought it was the green ones, the blue ones, the purple ones, and the yellow one. Only one yellow one, and that's the one Luke used over the summer.

Having additional beanbag chairs makes sense. One never knows when additional people might show up. They're comfortable to sit on, too.

Should I get a bunch for the rec center? People might like having them for lounging on, or playing certain games, or something. Or when watching others playing a game.

"Dad," I say. "Can I buy beanbag chairs for the rec room?"

"We'll find a time to get those," he says. "Maybe during the trip to get the shoe racks for your bedroom."

"Okay," I say, then walk over to the tray for my packets.

I pull those out of my backpack and put them into the tray.

"Those are yesterday's packets," I tell Mr. Wilson. "Since I streamed in the afternoon instead of doing classes."

That's normal for me, so I have packets to do most days. Tuesdays are the only day where I'm not actually missing classes, but I still do packets anyway. A baking lesson is a lesson but I want to make sure I don't stay stupid.

"And there's an extra packet, too," I tell him. "I wasn't feeling confident with math, so I took two math packets in addition to the language arts one. One was just a review packet, but it's still a packet."

"Alright," Mr. Wilson says. "Pick out what you want to do for the first half."

"Okay," I walk over to the options table and look at the different things he's set out for me to choose from.

I don't think I can focus that well on something complex, like math or science or social studies. Not right now. My schedule is wrong and people are here who shouldn't be. Language arts is frustrating. Reading assignments are scary.

That's all that are available. Mr. Wilson always gives at least one option for each greater subject, sometimes more. And he always has a reading assignment offered even though I've never done it. The same reading assignment. He has a plan of what order to do things in. So if I don't pick any of the stuff from today, then the next time that subject is offered, that's the lesson which will be there.

Though there are some variations, since different subjects have sub-subjects. Like with math. There's an option for geometry, but also for pre-algebra. The language arts sub-subject choices for today are oral communication or grammar. Spelling was yesterday, and I always do that for one part of the class on Mondays and Fridays (or Thursdays, if I don't do this class on Friday).

That subject goes fast, so we can usually fit three things into one class period if I do spelling.

It would be better if I just made it a packets day, but I don't think Ms. Johnson would be happy if I did that. She'd probably feel that my classes aren't doing good, and then she'd make me go back to public school. Then I'd fall even further behind, because it'd be hard for me to finish catching up when my classmates are being taught something different.

The teachers probably wouldn't be able to help me catch up, if they were even willing in the first place.

"Xander?" Dad asks. "Everything okay?"

"I don't-focus-not packets-it's not-"

"Deep breaths," Dad says. "In… out… yeah, like that. I'm sure Mr. Wilson would understand if you'd rather do something with magitech during the lesson."

"What's wrong?" Ms. Johnson asks.

"You being here is causing him enough stress that he's not sure he can focus on a lesson properly," Dad tells her. "But is worried about him doing a self-study on packets would give you the wrong impression. If he's that stressed, then magitech's pretty much the only thing he'll be able to properly focus on right now. He's done that a few times and used packets to make up for not doing a regular lesson during this time."

Dad is certain he's not psychic, but I'm not so sure. Even if I can't feel psychic powers from him, he definitely seems to know things like that even when I can't talk clearly. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough that he might have some sort of psychic magic I can't sense.

"Magitech isn't an area I'm versed in," Mr. Wilson says. "But as always, if you have a question about something simpler, like math, then you're welcome to ask. And if you calm down enough to do something else, we can do that then, okay?"

I nod, then put Trenton on his beanbag before sitting on mine. My work board moves onto my lap, then I pull out some stuff from my backpack and bracelet and start working.

"Xander?" Ms. Johnson asks after about a minute.

"Yes, Ms. Johnson?" I look over at her.

"What are you working on?"

"An advanced puzzle sphere," I answer. "It'd be really expensive if it went onto the market, but I want to try and do this because it feels like a challenge. The pieces are normally on little rods to move out and turn and stuff. What I'm trying to do with this one is have them just use hover magic, like with my hoverboards. The problem is that the pieces need to be able to rotate, merge, split, reshape, and so on while still having that aspect.

"My initial thought was to try and make each piece do that individually," I tell her. "But I'm a fucking dumbass. That's way too complicated. So now I'm working on making it so that the core itself is applying the hover magic to the pieces. But I need to also make it so that they have a set spot they go to, and all that stuff, so that it stays solid instead of falling apart.

"If you look right here…"

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