“This is so boring. They’re not even doing anything.”

A girl with twin ponytails stood across from us, touching her ear when she spoke. She was wearing a maid outfit for some reason. We were in one of the classroom buildings in a meeting area waiting for Dr. Diast when ponytail girl walked in, pretending to broom as she chewed bubblegum.

“How am I supposed to get intel on them if they’re not doing anything?” She asked. The girl had a bit of a snotty tone to her voice as she mimed brushing our table. “Uh huh. I am! I have a disguise and everything, I’m pretty sure they bought it.”

“Uh…” Kalei said. “Are you talking about us?”

“I’m in the middle of a call here,” The girl said. “But yes. I’m spying on you.”

“If you’re actually spying, you probably shouldn’t just announce it to everyone.” Oka said.

“Maybe that’s why I’m failing spy class!” The girl said.

“Is this a Wildfire Hearts thing?” I asked. 

“Yes.” The girl said. She touched her earpiece again. “Yes to them, not to whatever you just asked. Yes, I’m talking to them! I’m allowed to! …I’m not? What do you mean? Ohhhh. OK. I think I get what I was supposed to do better now. Maybe I can ask for a redo. I’m so bad at spying…can I cheat off your answers for the spy class worksheet too?”

Normally, I’d be very concerned about a student from Wildfire Hearts spying on us. A lot of my biggest crises at Rising Shards had ties to our rival school. That said, this girl didn’t seem very threatening.

“You freaking cannot, dumbass.” Another girl’s voice blared loudly as the maid/spy grabbed the side of her head.

“Ah, oh my god!” The girl said, pulling a small device off of her ear. “Fricking hell, turned the speaker on. That killed my ear, ouchie…oh, I think I hung up on accident. Heh, she’s gonna be really pissed.”

“Whoa, what’s going on here?” Iris asked as she and Maia arrived, a few minutes later than when we’d been told to meet. “Since when did we have maids at this school?”

“Nice sitcom entrance.” Kalei said. She snickered as she got her phone ready. “Wait, hold on, lemme load a laugh track up.”

As Kalei did that, Iris elbowed Maia. “I told you we’d get here before Diast.”

“What kept you two?” Oka asked.

“Oh, you know, just some B.F.S. business.” Iris said, promptly getting an elbow of her own from Maia. “What was that for?”

“I dunno, I just figured B.F.S. was a private thing.” Maia said.

“Uhhhhhh…” Kalei said. Then she played a laugh track sound effect she found a few times, a joke she found way funnier than the rest of us. “Wait, go outside and come back in! I have a crowd greeting one.”

“Nah.” Iris said. “So what’s with the maid again?”

“I have a name, you know.” The maid/spy said.

“If you’re spying on us, you probably shouldn’t tell us your name.” Oka said. I found it very sweet that my girlfriend was trying to help our spying maid in spite of whatever the girl was doing for Wildfire Hearts.

“Well, my cover’s blown anyways.” She shrugged. “My codename is Chickadee. I will leave it to you to debate if that's just my codename or if it’s also my real name.”

“Why would your codename be your real name?” Oka asked.

“And why give us a codename if you just said your cover is blown?” Kalei asked.

“How about shut up!” Chickadee said. “Crap, I forgot to take like, any notes. I should’ve brought a little notepad or something. I was supposed to write down some deets about you jerks.”

“Do you want some scratch paper?” Oka asked.

“I have a spare pencil if you need it.” I said.

“Are we even important enough to spy on?” Kalei asked.

“It’s for spying class!” Chickadee said.

“Ah, there you are,” Dr. Diast said as she joined us, holding a stack of messy file folders.

“Finally.” Lillia muttered.

“Diast, you just gonna let this chick spy on us?” Kalei asked.

“That’s Chickadee.” The maid said.

“It’s not really spying, this is an official meet and greet,” Diast said.

“With her?” Kalei asked.

“She’s not going to attack us or anything, is she?” I asked. “She said she’s spying on us for Wildfire Hearts.”

“They do have that weird spying class, but I don’t think she’s allowed to really get any personal information from you guys.” Diast said. “Is the rest of your pod here?” I thought about how long Diast had to have taught at this school to not be remotely fazed by a student from another school in a maid outfit.

“Pod?” Chickadee asked. “That sounds so gross, what?”

“Your teammates.” Diast said.

“Why didn’t you just say team?” Chickadee asked. “And no, I am operating alone today. Alone-ish. I have my team leader on call. But then I hung up on her on accident.”

“Right,” Diast said. “I guess we’ll meet the rest later. Do you want to introduce yourself?”

“She kinda did already.” Kalei said.

“Can I go now?” Chickadee asked.

“If the rest of your team isn’t gonna be here, yeah, you can leave.” Diast said.

“Don’t you mean pod?” Chickadee asked.

“Ugh.” Diast said. “Alright, dismissed.”

Chickadee gave a curtsy. “Thank you for using uh, our cleaning services. Please give us a good review.” She darted off.

I raised my hand. “Dr. Diast, what the heck was that about?”

“So we have the Recreant Protocol games coming up next semester, and for a lot of that this pod will be up against one from Wildfire Hearts. That girl was part of the rival pod.”

“Is her name actually Chickadee?” Iris asked.

“I…” Diast squinted. “Think so? I would need to check the file again. I was hoping for them to all be here so we could have a cordial introduction. Guess that’s off for a bit.”

“We’re not going to have to fight them or anything, are we?” I asked.

“It’s mostly gonna be sporting challenges,” Diast said. “But some other events will be in there too, I’m still pushing for academic decathlon. I think any duels or anything of the sort like a Cani power volley challenge will be up to you if you want to participate.”

That didn’t sound too bad. I was still concerned, and my sour expression reflected that.

“Hey, I worked very hard to get you paired up with a team that nobody has any personal, instant trauma inducing beef with.” Diast said.

“Invasion of privacy much?” Kalei said.

“I didn’t have to invade anyone’s privacy, I just made sure you aren’t up against anyone from that school or ours that you’ve gotten in a fight with this semester.” Diast said.

“We probably have a high amount of fights, huh…” I said. I didn’t mean to get into as many fights as I had since starting at Rising Shards.

“We’re Cani, it happens,” Diast said. “I had a group one year that had something similar to the Recreant Protocol that got in so many fights with Wildfire Hearts kids I didn’t really have a choice, they just had to be up against people they really had issues with.”

“OK, so how ‘up against’ us are they gonna be?” I asked.

“It should just be friendly competition,” Diast said. “If it’s not though and any of them get super violent or aggressive with y’all, tell me or another RS teacher immediately.”

“What if we get super violent and aggressive with them first?” Iris asked. “Beat them to the punch and all?”

“I’m gonna hope you are joking and ignore that,” Diast said. “Disclaimer that while I worked tirelessly to make sure the teams would be relatively chill in the vibes department, that could all go sour within the amount of time it takes for higher ups in this district to handle that. Just remember I did my best.”

Despite Dr. Diast’s best efforts, I could tell we all assumed the ‘higher ups screwing this up’ thing would happen promptly for the rival team picking.

“And since that meet and greet was a big chunk of this get together today, next is…” Diast said.

“You don’t have to pretend you made an itinerary or anything,” Kalei said as Diast searched through her folders. “We’ve all been in your class long enough to know how you operate.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Diast said, handing us each a paper. “The next thing we’re tackling is a gameplan for the semester finals.”