It's almost over, Caroline thought to herself during the slow, but steady, ride to Bailey High. Sleepily staring out the window, Caroline braced herself for another day of Senior year. After 13 consecutive years of public schooling, in her eyes, she was a survivor. Many of her friends came and left Bailey High: some moved away, some left for private school, and some dropped out, but she was a fighter. They were lightweights who just couldn't handle Bailey High. Her mother, behind the wheel, refused to enroll her into the artists' prep school she wanted to go to. She wasn't really any better, but it made her feel better to think so. Her mother thought it'd be foolish to transfer during senior year. She always had a just-get-it-over-with attitude about everything, but of course, she'd been asking since sophomore year.

A luxurious black sedan pulled up to the front of the school. Caroline Stather swiftly opened the car door. After she got out and closed the door, Caroline turned to the car as though she’d forgotten something. “Bye mom…” she said, but it was pointless. Her mother had already sped off. One of these days she’s going to get a ticket, she thought, if the cops weren't too busy pulling over Aisha. In the avenue to which her mother was exiting, a policeman was writing Aisha a ticket. It was too far away to hear, but Caroline could tell Aisha was trying to dispute the ticket. Covering her mouth with her hand, Caroline laughed.

Inside the school cafeteria, Akira waited for the bell to ring. Bailey High had a policy requiring students who arrived early to wait in the Cafeteria before school started. There students could pick up breakfast and chat with their fellow students. Commandeering the usual table, Akira set down her thick backpack and steaming coffee cup. She hoped the others would group up with her here before strangers found themselves at her table. She gently laid her head down on the table. Akira was overcoming a sickness that morning, but she didn't want to skip school. She took some medicine, and let it work its magic. However, she didn't notice, until it was too late, that she'd taken Nightquil instead of Dayquil. She was already feeling drowsy and desperate enough to chug that coffee if need be.

Within minutes, Caroline entered the cafeteria and sat across from the sleeping Akira at their table. Caroline tapped her shoulder until Akira woke up. "What?" Akira asked aggressively. "Sorry, did we have any homework for AP Gov'?" Caroline asked.

"Yeah, that packet she gave us on Friday, remember?" Akira managed. Of course, Caroline can hardly remember her lefts from her rights. In all honesty, she intended to do the assignment, but she procrastinated until she forgot all about it. A five page packet with short-answer, critical-thinking questions at the back should be easy for someone like Caroline Stather to finish before class started, so there was nothing to worry about, except history was her kryptonite. Her big brain couldn't just logic its way through like in math and reading; she had to actually study at least a little. "My goodness, you're right!" Caroline realized. She anxiously sifted through her backpack full of junk, eventually finding the packet buried in one of her binders.

"Want some coffee?" Akira offered. She had every intention of spreading her sickness. "No thanks," Caroline smoothly replied, "I like to wake up au naturel." She would have continued to say that caffeine stunts your growth, but it would be a weak argument considering: Akira was taller than her. Akira chuckled, "whatever." Now Caroline was hard at work trying to fight the clock. There was nothing more to say, so Akira laid her head down for another deep sleep.

Namwoo was busy scribbling down some equations and solutions she didn't understand off of a homework cheat site that Google happily provided her. She didn't have time to do homework because she was super busy with something super important. I should get a break from some homework for running an important blog, Twitter was on fire last night and if I missed it I would've been out of the loop for eon- Namwoo's thoughts were interrupted by a screech of tires and a head to the back of a seat. "Jesus Christ, mom!" Namwoo groaned while rubbing her head from the impact.

"Sorry, dear. There was cat! I couldn't just run over it!"

"You know what mom, it's fine. I'm like two blocks away from school. I can walk it from here, wouldn't want you to be late," Before her mother could protest, Namwoo had already slipped her textbook her calculus homework and binder insider her book bag, also giving her mother a quick kiss on the check, and stepped out of the car. Namwoo hated cars anyway, they were death traps! "Now time to check that anonymous blog that spills all the tea of our school," Namwoo took out her smartphone and went to the bookmarked page of the blog. "The psychology teacher had a miscarriage?!" Namwoo put a hand to her heart. "That poor thing."

The walk to school was made much shorter with gossip at the tip of Namwoo's fingertips. She entered the school grounds with the rest of students hurriedly getting to school;presumably to get their unfinished homework done, just like Namwoo. Namwoo entered the school building and made her way to the cafeteria to get some breakfast, even if the breakfast tasted like cardboard and dishwasher fluid. At least it was edible.

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Aisha eventually made her way into the cafeteria. She hurriedly sat next to Caroline and whipped her phone out. "Caroline, look at this." Several screens appeared on her phone, each showing a different view of the Highshcool interior and exterior. "Isn't this cool?"

"You hacked into the school Cameras?!" Caroline exclaimed. "How?" Her curiosity would rather have her ask: 'can my phone do that too?' but she feared the unknown consequences for getting caught with something like this.

"Well it's kinda like a WiFi-connection. The administrators can use their phones to watch us with their phones whenever they want, but you gotta have a certain app. And the password. I got it from the librarian's phone when she wasn't looking," going on a tangent, "Look at this, I can see everyone in the cafeteria." She giggled, "they look like ants."

"I don't think this is safe, Aisha. What if somebody catches you?" Caroline asked.

Ignoring her, "Look at this, Caroline. It's Mr. Oswald and Mr. Payne. I wish I could have sound and so I could hear what they're talking about."

Within in the empty halls of Bailey High, Allan Payne, the Dean of Academics, and Principle John Oswald were conversing about something extremely confidential just in front of the door of Mrs. Dunn's government class. "There's not need to rush this, John. We're not certain yet if it's her or not," Mr. Payne told him, "but if it's not her then an innocent girl could be-"

"Think of it this way," Mr. Oswald interrupted, "If the posts stop we know who it is. If they don't then we'll know with absolute certainty that it is the other suspect, and we still win. The Voice hasn't left us with any other options. Besides, do we really need another Asian kid who's not even good at ma-"

"John," Mr. Payne stopped him. He noticed standing behind Oswald was Lucas Earo. Oswald turned around and looked Lucas in the eye with his best death stare, without saying a word, he turned back to Mr. Payne and said, "My mistake, take care of this for me." Mr. Payne was flustered, but he composed himself enough to say, "Earo, you're supposed to be in the cafeteria right now, school hasn't started yet."

Ignore, posted double.

Namwoo was enjoying the cardboard and typing away at her phone to update her blog, and then next thing she knows she's being dragged away by two school authorities for whatever they decided to take her for. Namwoo started to panic. She hadn't remember doing anything out of line as of late. Namwoo doesn't remember being out of line at all line in this whole entire school year before this. She doesn't think she really caused any trouble ever in fact. But her she was, in the principal's office with some girl. Namwoo thinks her name is Ikea or something. They have journalism together but that never really interacted at all so Namwoo doesn't know why she, out of all the people that could've been in here, was in here confronting the heads of the school.

"I didn't do it." Was the first thing that came out of her mouth, it was the truth after all. Namwoo doesn't know about Ikea, but she knows that she, herself, hasn't done anything; Namwoo is far too lazy to be bothersome anyway. Whatever it is, I definitely did not do it, so the obviously must be a mistake of some sort. My mother raised me correctly!" Namwoo thought she saw Ikea give her the side eye but she quickly brushed it off in favor of paying attention to the situation at hand and how she could get out of it safely.

Payne took the two students down to Mrs. Anderson's office. Mrs. Anderson was a sparkling woman whose joyous attitude radiated throughout the entire room. "Please, take a seat," she insisted. "Don't look at me like that. You're not in trouble, I promise." There were two of the comfortable chairs in front of her desk just begging for someone to sit in them. Akira threw her bag aside and assumed her seat. "Sorry if they rushed you here, I've been kind of procrastinating this. I noticed you two didn't sign up for the upcoming college trip."

"Yeah, the one to Europe," Akira added. "I didn't forget, the prices were just ridiculous." Akira's family wasn't financially challenged, but $1,499 to tour a college she wasn't even remotely interested in seemed unreasonable. Bailey high was unique in this aspect, that is, opportunities like this were few and far in between at other public high schools: to see a foreign college in person would definitely make studying abroad less intimidating.

"Well that's what I wanted to talk to you about. There are some new financial aid services..."

Meanwhile, Mr. Payne and Mrs. Sullivan were casually conversing at the door. It may have sounded like the harmless, playful chat between students. Most students loathed Payne, largely because he strictly upholds the rules. They don't realize the pressure on him to do his job, and that outside of work he's actually a great person. "No way," Lauren joked. "I would have thought he was just being friendly. But Jasmine? I would never have put those two together."

"Yeah, I mean, he really hasn't been very quiet about it. Logan brags about it all the time at the lounge," Allan added.

"Are you serious? And his wife doesn't know? Doesn't she work here too?" she asked.

"Well technically she works at the college, she just teaches some dual credit classes here..." Allan explained.