Eric, Cal and Felix always (or nearly always—sometimes Cal didn't wake up) had breakfast together, outside in the courtyard by the Murphy building. Eric and his laptop had been up particularly early that morning, and he was typing even more frantically than usual. Cal was chilling on a bench with some organic yogurt, site-reading guitar music. Felix was wearing one of his more... "distinctive" shirts.
"You killed a poor innocent upholstered couch to get that shirt, didn't you?" Cal said reproachfully. "You skinned it. Did you at least eat the meat afterwards?"
"That's not funny," Felix replied, rolling his eyes. "This shirt is high fashion."
"Among the blind," Cal snorted. "And shouldn't you be wearing your uniform?
"Because I'll be in class later?" Felix asked sarcastically.
"Ah. Good point."
Felix looked at his shirt. It was a lovely shirt, 100% polyester (not that normal, wimpy polyester, but a very special flame-retardant polyester that was ultra-shiny), sort of brown, sort of orange, with a geometric pattern that could only be deciphered if you crossed your eyes and tried to look through it. It was one of the nicer specimens from his Closet Of Brown Shirts.
"Well, I think it's cool," Felix said. "I'm going to go get a waffle. Does anyone else want anything?"
Just then Jasper wandered in to the courtyard. He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, but they were rumpled and crushed, and his hair was all over the place. More importantly, he seemed to be walking—walking, not bouncing—with his eyes shut.
"Uh... Jasper?" Felix asked carefully.
"Ngh." Jasper stopped near him and yawned.
"You ok?"
"Mmm. Ngh." Jasper still hadn't opened his eyes.
"Uh... Is that a yes?"
Jasper shrugged. "S'mfm. T'lld. S'k."
"Ah," Felix said. He turned to Cal. "Jasper is speaking some strange dialect of 'still asleep' that I don't understand. I don't have 'Conversational Caffeine Deprivation' until Wednesday."
"Get him some coffee," Cal suggested.
"Oh, great, go and ruin my morning," Eric snarked.
At the mention of coffee Jasper perked up. Although it really just meant he tried vainly to open his eyes. "C'f?"
"Uh... hang on." Felix turned and hurried in to the building.
"So what are you working on, Eric?" Cal asked, finishing his yogurt.
"Plans," Eric said darkly. "There's something... Going down... Tonight. Ha. Ha. Ha."
"Nice maniacal laugh," Cal nodded.
"Thanks. I practice."
"So are you destroying something, blowing something up, planning a murder or what?" Cal asked. He still didn't sound terribly concerned.
"All of the above," Eric shrugged. "And it's all set up for tonight."
"Do I want to ask?"
"Well..." Eric hesitated and looked up. He pushed his dark sunglasses up on the top of his head. "Normally this is where I say something vague but disturbing about you not getting involved... But since J's still asleep..." Eric shrugged. "I guess you have to pick up the exposition slack."
"It's sloppy writing, that's what it is," Cal grumbled, but he nodded. "Ok. So tell me all about it."
"Well, not all about it. That would be totally out of character. How about... Look, I have a new plan to kill Madame Blanche. It involves a lot of explosives, and I have to store them today in a closet instead of going to class."
"Which class?"
"Any class."
"Of course. Silly me."
"Well... I don't plan to use them until tomorrow. You want to help me store them later?"
Cal considered. There was... Well, there was going to class, or there was helping to store highly dangerous, highly illegal explosives with a guy who was mentally unstable.
"Sure. After this?"
"Sounds good. We'll go to the Pentland building later." Eric put his sunglasses back on.
Felix came back with a tray of pancakes and a giant cup of coffee. "Here," he said, handing Jasper the giant cup of coffee. Jasper took it, smelled the coffee and immediately opened his eyes.
"Coffee!" he said, and proceeded to chug half the cup.
"Uh..." Cal said.
"Shhh. This is impressive," Felix whispered.
"Shouldn't he be... y'know, coming up for air?"
"I think he's evolved beyond that."
Jasper finished off the cup of coffee and took a huge theatrical breath. He looked up and saw Felix. "Hi!" he said bouncily. "How long have you been there? I mean, good morning."
"Hi," Felix said.
"Wow," Cal said, whistling.
"Coffee is good," Jasper announced to no one in particular.
Eric frowned. "That remains to be seen."
"Ok, I have to ask," Felix interrupted "is it a new fashion or something to wear the same clothes the next day?"
Jasper looked confused for a second, and then blushed slightly. "No, it's just... Well, I couldn't go into my room, and I didn't want to be - well you have to wear something and... It's my evil roommate's fault."
"Oh," said Cal. "I kinda understood that."
"Ah," Felix said, and shrugged. "I thought maybe it was part of the cartoon paradigm."
"Par-ah-dij-em?" Jasper repeated, confused.
"Uh, he said it, and you didn't read it, so you can pronounce it," Cal pointed out through clenched teeth.
"Oh. Ooops, sorry." Jasper sweatdropped. "I mean, what's a cartoon paradigm?"
"Well, since you've already blown the whole fourth wall concept for this scene anyway-" Cal had his arms crossed and he looked highly pissed off.
"I said I was sorry!"
"-the cartoon paradigm is the standard laws under which the cartoon universe functions. And on most cartoons the characters wear the same clothes in every episode."
"Oh. Ewww," Jasper said.
"Right, so I was wondering if that was why you were dressed the same," Felix said.
"No, it was more the evil roommate."
"Ok then."
Felix cleared his throat. "Don't make me stop this scene again for you! I swear; at some point in this story we are going to get through a whole scene in character!"
"No, probably not," Jasper shook his head.
The bell in the chapel tower started ringing. It was nine o'clock, and traditionally the time when classes started. Jasper went to walk toward one of the two buildings with classrooms, noticed the other three hadn't moved and stopped.
"Uh..." he said.
"We don't really 'attend class'," Felix explained. "It's so pedestrian."
"Oh. But... What are you doing instead?"
"Stuff," Eric said mysteriously. "Cal, want to go help me store the dynamite?"
"Sure," Cal said. "So, how did you decide where to store it?"
"It's right under the room of one of my enemies," Eric said. "That way, if it blows up, no one gets hurt."
"Eric, you don't have enemies, you know that, right?"
"Sure," Eric said. "And I suppose it was just coincidence that I got diet Coke instead of normal Coke last time I used the vending machine?"
"Well... Probably yes."
Eric shook his head sadly. "You are so naive."
Jasper looked vaguely frightened. "Wow. You're scary, you know that? Will you help me blow up my roommate or something later? I mean, I don't want to - I don't want him dead - I'd just... It wouldn't hurt to maim him a little, you know?"
"He can't be that bad," Cal said.
"He is. Yesterday he-" "That's nice." Eric cut him off pointedly. "Look, none of us has an ideal roommate. I have to live with Cal-"
"I made that joke yesterday," Cal groaned.
"Felix's roommate is a total loser who just sleeps all day," Eric continued.
"Actually, I think he may get kicked out of school," Felix put in. "He hasn't gone to a class yet."
"Neither have we," Cal pointed out.
"Hmm. But... But he's..." Felix tried to explain.
"He's a minor character and a plot point?" Cal sighed.
"Well... Yeah."
"That's it," Cal snapped. "This scene is over! Enough! No more! Jasper, go to class. Felix, go play your bass somewhere. Eric, let's go store some dynamite." He stormed off in an indignant huff.
"He's touchy," Jasper said.
"No, I'm the touchy one," Eric corrected.
"Uh, guys? Let's go, before steam begins pouring out of Cal's ears," Felix suggested. He went to get his bass while Eric followed Cal, typing, and Jasper bounced off to class.
*
Felix sent Jasper an email at some point during the morning (he checked it during a really long dull study hall) saying that they were all meeting at Eric's room for lunch, and directions to Eric's room. Jasper arrived at Eric's door just after noon - he'd been slightly delayed by an argument with one of the lunch ladies. Most of it had involved coffee. More specifically, why Jasper needed some, and why she wasn't allowed to give it to students. Jasper won, and it only involved small amounts of crying, pleading, screaming and jumping up and down.
Eric's room was at the end of the hall on the first floor of the Scott building. Jasper knocked on the door and after a minute pushed it open.
Blinding red lights began flashing and there was a siren. He heard Cal yell "It's just Jasper! Turn it off!" and then the lights and the sirens stopped.
Temporarily blind and deaf, Jasper just stood and blinked for a minute. When he could see again, he was stunned, but in a different way.
The room was huge. It was the size of the cafeteria. There were couches and a TV on one side, there was a kitchen through the back, there was a bedroom off one side. He could see at least six rooms from where he was standing, and a curving staircase that disappeared on to the upper floors. Everything was done in oak and cream-colored carpet, and there were crystal dishes. Crystal.
"This is where you live?" he gasped.
"C'mon in," Cal said.
"But... But..." Jasper started.
Eric appeared out of one of the rooms. "Don't walk in like that. Next time you might set off one of the security devices."
"The lasers and the alarm weren't security devices?"
Eric rolled his eyes. "Oh please. Like they'd stop a crack Russian Mafia team? Or even the CIA?"
"I guess not..." Jasper said uncertainly. Felix wandered in to the living room too. "So... this is where you live," he repeated.
"Yeah, this is it."
"But..." Jasper shut the door behind him and stepped in to the thick pile carpeting. "It's palatial. It's huge. It's like a hotel suite at the poshest hotel ever."
"It's ok," Eric shrugged. "You should see Lisa's. It's all pink." He shuddered. "Pink carpet, and pink walls. Framed pictures of unicorns. It's like a psycho ward."
"Fair enough, but I... I live in... My room is the size of a shoebox, right, and I don't see how—I mean, I almost died last night, my roommate—well, he's psycho, that's a different story, but how can you—don't you think it's a little—"
"Finish. A. Sentence." Eric growled.
"Can I sleep on your couch tonight?" Jasper said plaintively.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because you'd make me irritated, and then you'd drive me nuts, and then I'd have to kill you. And you wouldn't enjoy that, even if I would."
"Oh."
"You should see my room. I'll have it to myself as of tomorrow, looks like," Felix volunteered.
"Really? Why?" Jasper asked.
"When I stopped by this morning after playing my bass, Petey was packing up. He's already failed out. Something about not attending classes, drinking too much, buying some drugs or something. You know; failing stuff."
"Buying drugs? Really? Where?" Jasper asked.
"Oh, there's a kid in the Pentland building who sells a lot of drugs. Well known for it."
"Hey, I live in the Pentland building," Jasper objected. "Oh man. Great. Fabulous. Well, and by live in I mean my stuff is there."
"You hungry?" Eric asked. "I'm having some take-out Chinese sent up to the penthouse."
"Penthouse?!?!" Jasper demanded.
"Are you ready for rehearsal tonight?" Cal asked to change the subject.
"Oh." Jasper deflated slightly. "Well... Sure. I mean I'm not looking forward to it or anything... It'll be really long I bet, and I bet Rock's gonna be a jerk again and... Eric, no offense, but Lisa's acting weird."
"Gee. Never noticed that."
"Well, it's logical," Felix shrugged. "Consider: the same environment that produced Eric produced her. Nature or Nurture; either way she's screwed. Up."
Eric glared at him, but shrugged.
"Well, yeah, but Eric doesn't seem to be, you know, stalking me."
"Let's go eat. Scene's over anyway," Cal interrupted.
"Could you maybe find a different way to do that?" Felix demanded. "One with, oh, maybe subtlety, so we could fool the readers in to thinking this story has plot or coherency and wasn't written at 1 AM?"
"No."
*
Rehearsal started off innocuously enough, in Jasper's opinion. Everyone sort of mingled in the theater, or rather, the girls mingled together on one side, the jocks mingled by the wall, the "theater" people mingled in the middle singing songs from "Rent" and the lads sat near the back wall, watching everyone else. Lisa appeared twice, trying to convince Jasper to come and "meet everyone" and he claimed social anxiety disorder to make her go away. More convincingly, Eric threatened to blow her up.
"The dynamite's all stored," Cal pointed out.
"I could go get it," Eric said darkly.
"Riiiiiight," Lisa nodded, and went back to her group of friends. They continued to point at Jasper every few sentences.
Madame Blanche arrived a mere twenty minutes late. She had a stack of scripts and she hollered names as she handed them out. "Lisa! Bo! ... Jasper..."
"She just totally hissed my name!"
"Well, she hates you," Felix pointed out.
"Oh. Right." Jasper went up to get his script.
"Now," Madame Blanche began to the room in general, "I just want to say that I'm sure this will be our best production yet. This play will be a real good show, and something we can be very proud of, because we have a fabulous, talented cast." She shot Jasper a dark look. "Mostly."
Rock (Bo) snickered and took his script, edging forward so he was blocking Jasper's escape route back to Cal, Felix and Eric. "Can I just say I'm really looking forward to this? This should be so much fun!" He grinned at Madame Blanche, who smiled back. Then she turned her head to look at someone else and Rock muttered "This should be fun," and shoved Jasper. He went sprawling in to the stage, catching himself on the edge just before he fell completely over. He caught a couple of odd stares from the people nearby, and grinned them off.
"You know what I think'll be fun?" Jasper said softly, turning back. Rock raised his one, massive eyebrow. "Proving what an untalented hack you are on stage. And I won't even have to work at it." Jasper smiled sweetly. Rock pulled back one massive fist, and just then Madame Blanche turned back to them.
"Boys?" she said.
"Yes ma'am," they chorused inadvertently. Rock shot Jasper a glare of death, but he dropped his fist.
"Now, the two of you are in the vast majority of scenes, so I'll need you both for all the rehearsals," Madame Blanche said. "Other people won't need to be here everyday. I hope you both realize the commitment involved in this show."
"Of course," Rock said, syrupy-sweet.
"Absolutely," Jasper replied.
"They're going to kill each other by the end of the week," Felix muttered to Cal.
"You think it'll take that long?"
"My money's on Rock," Felix continued. "I mean, Jasper's nice and all, but if he's not road kill by Monday I'll be very surprised."
"Don't be so sure," Eric interrupted. Cal and Felix turned to him in surprise.
"You think Japser's going to beat up Rock?" Felix demanded.
"No. But I think if he plays his cards right he can get Lisa to do it." Eric pointed.
Lisa had managed to get to the front of the stage, her posse of friends trailing behind her, giggling. She was standing right behind Jasper, who hadn't noticed she was there yet. She cleared her throat, and he didn't look up from his script. She cleared her throat again, louder this time.
Jasper turned and did a quick double take because he hadn't really expected to be nose-to-nose with anyone. He laughed nervously and backed up half a pace.
"Hi!" Lisa said brightly. "We have lots of scenes together! We need to rehearse!"
"We... we do? Because aren't you playing Mary, and doesn't she mostly have scenes with... uh, Jesus? Rock I mean? Not-"
"I," Lisa repeated firmly, "need to practice with you."
"Umm. Oh. Ok." He sweatdropped. "Neat."
"Yes," Lisa said. "Neat."
"We're going to start today by doing a read-through of the script," Madame Blanche announced. "Can everyone come over here and circle around?"
Eric and Cal had just gotten to their feet when there was a low, echoing BOOM! from outside. The windows rattled. Some of Lisa's friends screamed. Cal and Felix exchanged a quick glance, and then they (and Jasper and Lisa across the room) all turned to stare at Eric.
"Um." Eric fiddled with his glasses. Everyone else in the room was frozen, staring in shock. The girls were clutching each other, wide-eyed.
In the silence, Eric sighed. "Ok. So I should go see what that was." Lisa opened her mouth angrily, pointing and he cut her off "I'm sure it wasn't my fault ... But I should... Umm... Yeah." He turned and hurried out.
Cal looked at Felix and then Jasper, and the three of them took off at a run after Eric. A beat later Lisa followed them. Madame Blanche waved her pudgy arms ineffectually, yelling "Rehearsal! Just because you are a Donnelly you can not just ruin rehearsal!" But by the time she was done yelling, she was talking to herself, because all the other students had taken off too.
Eric ran across the courtyard toward the billowing black smoke that surrounded the east wing of the Pentland building. He coughed and waved his arms, getting as close as he could before he ground to a halt. Hot on his heels Cal, Felix and Jasper crowded behind him, and Lisa right behind them, stopping behind Jasper.
"The dynamite, right? It was the dynamite, wasn't it? Improperly stored, right? Right?" Cal demanded.
"That's certainly a possibility," Eric acknowledged.
"You're a maniac!" Lisa hollered.
"I'm sure no one got hurt," Eric snapped back.
"How do you know?" Lisa demanded.
"Because the closet we used was on a hall with no dorm rooms, and the only room upstairs that was near enough to get hurt belonged to that crazy Steve kid. And who cares if he blew up anyway? He's evil."
Jasper's mouth dropped open. The smoke was beginning to clear, revealing a large, jagged hole in the side of the building where a closet had been. Above it was a slightly less-damaged but definitely burned-out room with no outer wall anymore. Everything in the room had been reduced to ash and charcoal, except... Standing in the smoking remain of what had been the room was a black, char-covered figure who looked suspiciously like Jasper's roommate. He coughed, once, blowing out black smoke, and then fainted.
A spontaneous cheer went up from the group of students who'd gathered around to look at the wreckage.
"That's-That's my... My God. Do you see? Did you know that... My God!!" Jasper said, pointing.
"What?" Cal asked Felix.
Felix shrugged. "I have no idea at all. What, Jasper?"
"My room!" Jasper said incoherently (even for him). "My room! My room was... You killed my room!"
The others turned to stare at him. "Your roommate was Steve the Maniac?" Felix demanded.
"That was my room!" Jasper yelled again, pointing.
"Your roommate was Steve?" Cal asked.
"My room!" He pointed again.
"Stop saying that!"
"But... but my room!" Cal decided that Jasper's arm was stuck in the 'pointing' position, and grabbed it, forcing it down.
"Your evil roommate was Evil Steve?" Cal asked again.
"My stuff," Jasper wailed. "All my stuff! It's all... It's all blown up!"
"Well, if you look good in black and you like the smell of smoke you might be ok," Felix said philosophically. Jasper looked like he was about to burst in to tears. Lisa threw her arms around his neck, hugging him, which helped in as much as it broke him out of shock and in to fear and horror.
"I thought you were exaggerating," Cal said.
"Yeah," Eric agreed. "Wow. Sorry about the roommie thing after all."
Jasper turned to him in astonishment, trying to peel Lisa's arms from around his neck. "For real? You're apologizing?"
"I have no memory of that event happening. You must be hallucinating," Eric said immediately.
Jasper managed to get one of Lisa's arms out of it's death-grip on his neck.