She blew her will into the bugle releasing out a melodic tune, admittedly not quite in sync with the accompanying drums and marching feet. Her and her crowd followed along with the hypnotic jumps and swirls of the baton at the head of the troupe which was led by a tall and slender woman. The woman still appeared young and just as vigorous as the children behind her, despite her rapid approach towards forty. Distracted by the swinging baton ahead of her, the girl didn’t notice the stone by her foot which promptly halted her march mid stride causing her face to quickly plummet towards the mud below.

      A few of her marching friends nearly tripped themselves as they stopped before their fallen comrade. The entire troupe ceased playing as many looked back to the familiar interruption. The woman at the head if the group caught her flying baton and walked back to the girl laying in the mud.

“I’m sorry Mrs.Liederkranz, I wasn’t paying attention and I…”

      The girl meandered sadly, she didn’t want to disappoint the whole troupe again and she especially didn’t want to disappoint Mrs.Liederkranz. Mrs.Liederkranz squatted down to the girl, picked up her bugle and helped the girl back to her feet. She began speaking while wiping the mud off of the girl’s bugle.

“Don’t worry about it. We were playing pretty awfully anyway. “

“WHAT!?”

      The troupe shouted back with a couple of grumbles and sighs. A few people turned to those standing next to them and joked soft words of agreement. The sudden rowdiness merely caused Mrs.Liederkranz to heartily laugh at her excitable students. The girl, still caked in mud, looked up to her teacher. She truly did look younger than her age, she was particularly beautiful when she laughed as she did now.

“It just means we will have to try again from the start, and you can try to not fall this time.”

      She spoke with a brimming grin using her index to wipe some mud from the girl’s eyes before turning towards the front of the invigorated crowd.

“Okay, one, two,”

      And the music began thumping away again. They continued to play and practice joyfully laughing and joking with one another as their teacher subtly influenced their play towards a careful mastery of their tools for another hour until finally practice had finished. Mrs.Liederkranz led the troupe back towards the building they had just spent most of the day at. Bemean was lucky that it contained the most remnants of the ancient civilization within its borders, combined with the relative peace and tranquility allotted to the country by its distance from the mokoi badlands meant the people of Bemean had the closest relationship to the ancient civilization. They often lived and worked in many of the old structures still standing. The building they walked towards was a long and short building. The great wealth of the country allowed for the repair of this building so that it can once again be used for what its theorized original purpose was: educating the next generation.

      The class finally arrived at the school. The large halls were completely empty if not for the troupe moving through. There usually weren’t classes today so the only people left in the school were diligent teachers and students performing extracurricular activities like the troupe was. Mrs.Liederkranz led the group into her classroom where the students quickly put away their costumes and instruments before gathering around their instructor who passed around drinks and snacks. The children all broke off into their own little cliques and talked amongst each other as children always do. The teacher joyfully watched on admiring the innocent glee of her students, sometimes with a slight sadness or regret it would seem. Occasionally some of the students would confront her in need of help for some subjects and sometimes just to talk. She seemed to be closer to the other students than many of the other teachers of the school. The girl had left to wash herself from the mud but returned to the bustle of the class soon after.

      The girl sat down next to a group of girls who were giggling as they teased one of their friends about a boy that they seemed adamant to not talk about. One of the girls, a short brunette, was the first to address the poor bugle player whose face was still damp from washing.

“Oh, hey Maladroit, what happened to your face? I was kind of liking what you did to it. I don’t know why, you just seemed to really stand out.”

      The girl who was being teased before Maladroit arrived was happy to shift the conversation.

“Must have been your hair.”

“That must have been it, did you do something to your hair?”

“Oh, shut up.”

      Maladroit smiled as she sat down with her laughing friends.

“Why are you even here? You’re not in band.”

      Maladroit asked her brunette friend.

“Half the people here aren’t in band. This is just party central, isn’t that right Mrs.Liederkranz?”

“WOOH!”

      The teacher threw a fist in the air as she shouted before turning back to the student she was conversing with. Maladroit looked around the room to recognize many faces which she was sure weren’t a part of the band.

“You’re right, when did this happen? How did I never notice?”

“Probably because you’re always too busy pining over Mrs.Liederkranz.”

“SHUT UP! What if she hears you?”

      Maladroit shushed angrily at her friend, lightly shoving her. The group of girls all laughed while a few glanced back to see if the teacher was listening. The girl was being teased before Maladroit arrived grew a mischievous grin before speaking.

“How about this, I’ll ask Feller out if you tell Mrs.Liederkranz you like her.”

“No way, not happening.”

“YES!! You have to. Come on, do it for Vanilla. Vanilla and Feller.”

“Yeah, do it for me and Feller.”

      Vanilla laughed. Maladroit’s face lit up in a bright red that covered all the way up to her ears.

“Come on do it! Do it!”

      The whole group began chanting together.

“You don’t have to tell her you want her babies. Just be like ‘hey hotstuff, I like you’”

“No! It’s not like that!”

      The group of friends were erupting in to such a commotion that they were beginning to draw the attention of other groups.

“If it’s not like that then it will be easy to say right?”

      Finally, Mrs.Liederkranz having noticed the growing clamor from the girls pressuring one of the others into something decided to step in.

“Is everything alright girls?”

      The whole group immediately went silent as they all glanced back and forth between Maladroit and the teacher with Cheshire grins covering their faces. Mrs.Liederkranz had gotten up from her chair and walked towards the group. Maladroit looked back to her professor, face as red as a beet, her mouth rested half agape for a while but eventually she decided to swallow her pride in hopes of suffocating the butterflies swarming her stomach.

“Mrs.Liederkranz…”

      She stuttered with great difficulty.

“Yes?”

      The teacher questioned back patiently waiting for her student to continue on with whatever she was going to say.

“Mrs.Liederkranz I-“

      Maladroit was suddenly interrupted by the loud chime of a bell that originated from seemingly nowhere. Behind the teacher a pink rhombus grew out of thin air. Many students jumped startled while screaming at the sudden object miraculously appearing. The pink rhombus did not hold its shape for very long. Its body would reject any stable state, it would shift and transform, shrink and grow, continuously morphing into other shapes. The pink shape finally locked into a form resembling that of a featureless human with only one limb, an arm outstretched towards the teacher.

“WHAT IS THAT!!”

      One of the students exclaimed while standing atop their desk. Mrs.Liederkranz turned to face the pink organism and stared at the glowing parchment before her. She read it carefully then let out a light chuckle as she finished. She took the parchment from the soft pink hands.

“Thank you umm… Mx? But this is not for me.”

      The pink organism once again began to morph and transform continuously changing shape until finally it was just a rhombus that simply shrunk out of existence.

      Mrs.Liederkranz looked at the parchment again, reading it thoroughly. She then rolled it up, walked back towards her desk, and stuffed it in one of the drawers. While this whole ordeal took place the students merely watched everything unfold in silence. Once the drawer was closed Mrs. Liederkranz spoke up nonchalantly.

“So Maladroit, you wanted to say something?”

“No, no, you do not just sweep that under the rug… or into the desk. What the hell was that!?”

      One of the students shouted back.

“You’re right, I should probably address this properly. I apologize to everyone, but I will have to close up early today. You’ll need to find somewhere else to hang out.”

      Many students tried to dispute with their teacher, but she dodged any explanation and guided everyone out of the room.

“Well what do we do now?”

“Incalescent firebox?”