"Admit it, you’ve got nothing," Milo said, smirking like he’d been waiting all morning to watch me fail.

I glared at him, gripping my pencil like it might start writing ideas out of pity.

Okay, think, Elijah. Chaos Cleaners Club. When people hear that name, they think…actual cleaning. Mops. Buckets. The smell of chlorine and crushed dreams. But maybe it doesn’t have to be literal. Maybe it could mean something like...cleaning up chaos, metaphorically. Restoring order. Hope. Sanity.

…Okay, no, that sounded like a motivational poster.

I dropped my head onto the desk with a groan. “I’m doomed.”

From somewhere behind me, Renzo’s voice chirped like he’d just solved world hunger. “Don’t worry! I trust your creative vision!”

That made one of us.

"Renzo, remember when I asked you why the club even existed and you told me you didn't know?" I asked, looking at Renzo, who was untangling his favorite mop, which I just discovered was named Adeline Macbeth. Why that name, you may ask? Who knows.

"Maybe?"

"Well, maybe we can make our own definition," I said, writing the club name on the paper and staring the words with a different lens.

Maybe we take the name literally. Chaos.

But unlike what you've been doing before, we don’t wait for chaos. Instead, we cause it.

My pencil started moving before I could stop it. “What if…we made a mess first?” I said slowly.

Renzo looked horrified. “You mean, like...vandalism?”

“No, not vandalism. More like…performance art,” I said, gesturing vaguely, like that would make it sound smarter. “We could make up this crazy rumor about the school. Maybe something like...ghosts. And then, we fake a haunting. Trash our own booth—throw sponges, spill water, the whole works—and everyone watching thinks we're cursed. Then, right when it hits peak disaster, we clean it all up in perfect sync. Mops, sprays, rhythm. A literal chaos cleanup. Perform this crazy paranormal cleanup.”

Wendy’s eyes widened. “That…actually sounds kind of cool.”

Renzo gasped like I’d just discovered fire. “That’s genius! A dramatic play! Chaos into order!”

Milo muttered, “You guys have officially lost it,” but even he didn’t look completely unconvinced.

And just like that, I could see it—the crowd gathering, the confusion, the fear building up, and then the moment when the Chaos Cleaners flipped it all around.

…It was insane. It was reckless.

And it might just work.

"And Samuel," I said, turning to Samuel, who was staring at me with his expression so dense I suffocated for a quick second. "I want to apologize for my insensitive suggestion earlier. I was making you into something like a commodity. But I think we can use your skill for something else. We'll hide you behind the scenes, and...if you're willing...you could help with the sound effects. Make it sound more realistic."

Samuel stared for a long second, then glanced at Renzo, Wendy, and Milo, who were all waiting to see if he’d bite. The popular drummer sighed and said in defeat, “Fine.”

All of us cheered.

That was it. We're going to reshape the Chaos Cleaners Club with our own hands. We're going to change the definition; the very image that made people think we're some joke. Everyone's waiting for us to fail. Then we might as well do this with a bang. Create chaos to fix chaos. That's going to be our mantra from now on.

"Well then, gang, we have five and a half hours to make Eli's plan a reality, so let's do it," Renzo shoved his hands into the middle. Wendy placed hers on top first, Milo followed, then me. Sam looked reluctant, but he sighed again and put his hand on top.

Renzo grinned like a proud president. "On three, Chaos Cleaner Club. One, two, th—"

"C-Chaos Cleaners..."

"...Cleaners Club!"

Nobody managed to do it right. Samuel was already walking away before we could try again.

“Okay, we’ll work on that,” Renzo laughed. “Let’s start the chaos!”

We all scrambled: lists, props, white powder, and a ridiculous amount of red paint. I began sketching cues and timing the “panic” moments. Wendy organized props into neat piles. Milo freelanced a sign that looked suspiciously like a kindergarten craft project. Renzo assigned mop choreography as if he were staging a musical.

After fixing up the booth, we added the “haunting” aspect of our so-called performance. I had to steal some white thread from the Dressmakers Club and tie it to the leg of our table, which I could pull on later. Milo adjusted the lights to make them flicker when we turned them on. And Samuel…well, we found the perfect hiding spot for him—behind the tree that had once been a nuisance for us.

A couple more retouches, and the booth was ready.

The five of us put on our aprons and gloves, and then the campus began to shake in excitement.

All the clubs had their gimmicks. Music was blaring; there was a dragon dance on the side, fireworks, karate demonstrations, and just all sorts of things that would get people’s attention.

Our club, on the other hand, had a very different approach.

We stood in front of our booth, mops in hand. People looked at us, chuckled, and then walked past. The reaction was expected, but what came next caught everyone completely off guard.

While the rest of the freshmen students and guests wandered the booths, I turned to Samuel, who was hiding behind the tree, hidden from everyone’s view. He met my eyes, waiting. I gave him a small nod.

With his makeshift drums connected to a large speaker that we’d strategically placed on the other side of the courtyard, Samuel nodded back. With no time to spare, he hit one of the metal buckets as hard as he could. The sound was so loud that it made even our club cover our ears. The piercing noise echoed through the courtyard, vibrating against the walls until it felt like the air itself was trembling.

The laughter and the music stopped. Everyone froze.

“What was that?”

“What the heck was that? I accidentally dropped my ice cream!”

“Did one of the speakers malfunction?”

While everyone was in a state of confusion, Milo and Wendy ran off to their designated spots, while Renzo and I stood front and center, putting our acting to the test. How did I end up being part of this again? Oh, right...rock, paper, scissors.

“Oh no, it’s happening,” Renzo exclaimed, eyes wide, his voice rising with just enough panic to sound real. “I knew it. We shouldn’t have opened that book.”

“Hey, what are you blabbering about, you weirdo?” the captain of the swimming team shouted.

Renzo froze, pretending to hesitate. “N-No, this was a mistake.”

“What mistake?” another student demanded.

Before Renzo could answer, the lights in our booth began to flicker. I still don’t know how Samuel managed it, but an eerie sound began to crawl through the courtyard. It was a low, mechanical hum that made the hairs on everyone’s arms rise. The crowd shifted uneasily, their laughter replaced by whispers.

“What the hell is happening?” the swimming captain asked again, suddenly grabbing Renzo by the collar in irritation. That wasn’t part of the plan, but it worked. It pulled even more attention to us.

“What mistake are you talking about? Did you mess with the booths?”

“No! We didn't," Renzo defended. "But the other day, we were just cleaning the storage room and found this old book! We thought it was something a senior wrote for fun. “When we opened it, there were instructions. It said if we chanted to our cleaning supplies, we’d be blessed with luck or cursed with consequences. Which, you know, sounded perfectly normal at the time.” Renzo explained, just as I’d written it.

If this flopped, at least he could audition for the drama club.

“You’re shitting me,” the captain said, unsure whether to laugh or back away. The others didn’t know what to think either, and that was exactly the reaction we needed.

I took a deep breath and snapped my fingers.

In perfect choreography, Wendy screamed...and everything inside our booth started to move.

Brushes trembled, the tables and chairs rattled, and a single sponge spun like it was possessed. For one breathless moment, the entire courtyard went silent, staring at the unexplainable sight with their mouth open in disbelief. Then, in that moment of disorientation, the bucket crashed, and blood-like liquid splashed across the floor. 

The students finally screamed, and Renzo yelled, “THE CURSE IS REAL!”

Pandemonium. Absolute pandemonium.

There were shrieks, laughter, and footsteps scrambling away.

And just when I thought we’d pulled it off perfectly, I noticed something.

One brush was still hovering.

Even after Samuel cut the sound.