Chapter Text
“Good Monday Morning, Hephaestus High!”
“Yes, Monday, everyone’s favorite day of the week!”
“Doug, stick to the script! Ah, yes, we hope you have all had a wonderful weekend, and are ready for a new week of l-learning!”
“Ah, yes, education, because you’ll definitely need to know how to find the length of the hypotenuse in your day to day lives!”
“Shut up, we’re supposed to be doing the announcements! On Friday-”
“What Hera, do you think I’m being too...obtuse?”
There was a laugh, then a loud whap.
Hera McCarthy sighed. “Back to the announcements; on Friday, t-there will be a student council meeting. The student council president, Warren Kepler sincerely apologizes for the potential inconvenience, but also, requests that you find a way to make it work.”
“So basically, screw you,” Doug Eiffel cheerfully elaborated.
Another sigh. “In other news, the science club will be meeting in room 204 on Tuesday after school until 3:30. If you are interested, please contact Alexander Hilbert for details.”
“Saying the club is meeting is a bit of a stretch, Weird Al is the only member. I went once, but then I found out it’s a science club, not a science fiction club. Too much Erlenmeyer, not enough Enterprise.”
“Next up, d-don’t forget to grab your tickets for the Scottish play, which is coming up next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at seven, and Sunday at four. Tickets are eight dollars ahead of time and ten dollars at the door!”
“What’s the Scottish play? You mean Macbeth? The play starring Macbeth and Lady Macbeth? Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth Macbethedy Macbeth-beth, are you listening Renée?” Doug sang childishly into his mic.
Hera forged onward.
“The winter dance is fast approaching on the Friday after next, so get your tickets now. The event will take place in the school gym from seven until ten, and there will be free food! Don’t miss it!”
“Oh yes, that perfect opportunity for everyone to make a fool of themselves in front of the person they like, in hopes of maybe awkwardly slow dancing and avoiding eye contact.”
“Finally, Principal Cutter would like to remind everyone that even though winter break is coming up soon, and we are all very excited about it, that midterms are not long after we return, and we must not forget about our studies over the holidays.”
“I’m sure we’re all looking forward to that,” Doug droned. “First Christmas, then a bunch of tests! The gift that just keeps giving.”
“Well, that wraps up our news for today,” Hera said, through gritted teeth. “Have a wonderful day, everyone, stay st-stellar!”
“Macbeth!” Doug yelled one last time before his mic cut out.
“What the heck was that?” Hera asked, shoving Doug lightly as she got up. “Seriously, you know Renée is going to strangle you.”
Doug smirked, standing as well. “The look on her face when we get to bio is gonna be worth it.” He grabbed his backpack off of the floor.
“If you say so.” Hera rolled her eyes, and followed Doug out into the hall.
“Did you do the astronomy homework?” Doug asked.
“Yes,” Hera sighed, knowing what he was going to say next. It was basically a part of their normal routine at this point.
“On a completely unrelated note, can I borrow your astronomy homework?” Doug gave her his best puppy-dog eyes.
“Yes,” Hera agreed. “You can see it at lunch, kay?”
“You’re the best, Hera.” Doug grinned. “Hey, are you going to the Winter D-”
“Oh, Adam’s over there, I’d better go say hi,” Hera interrupted, her attention focused on a boy a little ways down the hall, who was waving to her and grinning. Adam Ingles had been Hera’s boyfriend since the end of sophomore year, and a constant headache for just as long.
“Okay, bye…” Doug sighed. He walked to class on his own, only to be ambushed by Renée Minkowski the exact millisecond he walked in.
“DOUG I CAN NOT BELIEVE YOU DID THAT! ARE YOU TRYING TO RUIN THIS PRODUCTION?!” Renée screamed at him as he moved casually to his desk.
Doug rolled his eyes. “What, because I said Mac-”
“Don’t!” Renée cut him off, following him to their desks.
“Beeeeeeeeeth?” Doug finished, drawing out the second syllable with a mischievous glint in his eye.
“I. Am. Going to kill you. If anything goes wrong with this production at all, and I mean anything…” she was practically shaking with rage, so much she could hardly speak. “If so much as a hair on the Scottish King’s wig is out of place, you will never wake up.”
“Pfft. You take this whole Mac-”
“Doug!” she cut him off again.
“Curse too seriously,” Doug finished his sentence. “The show will not be ruined just because some very talented, extraordinarily handsome, completely non-production related announcer,” he gestured to himself, “says the title. That’s not even how that works.”
“Actually,” Hera said, having just entered the classroom to join the conversation. “I b-believe the curse only applies when you’re in a theatre. Anywhere else, it’s perfectly fine to say Mac-”
“No one says it!” Renée ordered. “I thought you were on my side, Hera! You didn’t say it on the announcements this morning! Has this fool-” she kicked Doug in the shin, “-made you turn traitor?”
Hera rolled her eyes. “I only refrained from saying it to humor you. The Scottish play is famous for its superstitions, and I thought it would be a clever way to introduce it.”
Renée scoffed.
***
Doug was messing around with a test tube of a vaguely dangerous looking chemical. “So, what exactly is the point of this again? I spaced out through all the explanation and I didn’t do the pre-lab.”
“We’re analyzing this sunflower,” Hera said. “We’ll be testing it with several different chemicals, and preparing a microscope s-slide. Alexander, what are you...”
“I am starting experiment,” Alexander Hilbert, the assigned fourth member of their lab group, was already bent over a set of test tubes, measuring an amount of bluish liquid into a graduated cylinder. “You three can start microscope slide.”
“Hey is this important, Lexy?” Doug brandished his test tube.
“Ah, yes, put that down,” Alexander, scowling, reached over the plucked the test tube from Doug’s hand.
“I was using that,” Doug complained.
“You were going to burn a hole in your leg, dumbass,” Renée responded. She ripped a leaf from the sunflower plant and began to make the slide.
“Doug, how about you write down data?” Hera suggested, pushing the data sheet and a pencil over to Doug.
“Lame. I want to do some actual science, like, make this plant alive or something.”
“It is alive, it is plant.” Alexander deadpanned.
“No, Al, I mean like, alive-alive.”
“It is alive, it is plant!” Alexander repeated. “Plant is living thing! And stop with the ridiculous nicknaming, I do not like it! My name is Alexander!”
“C’mon, Ander, you know what I mean. Like, a walking, talking, slightly carnivorous plant!”
Alexander growled and continued with his own work.
“Ooh, like Little Shop of Horrors?” Renée chimed in, seeming legitimately interested.
Doug looked at her blankly. “Is that one of your dumb musicals? Where people sing and dance for no reason?”
“It’s not for no reason, it’s-”
“Sorry to interrupt, but c-can we please focus on the assignment?” Hera chimed in.
“Yes, let’s not waste time on how Doug wouldn’t know a reprise from a revue. Hey, is it 5 or 10 millimeters of-” Renée was interrupted by the piercing scream of the fire alarm. “Or not.” She filed towards the door, calmly yet efficiently.
Hera stood, pushed in her stool, and followed Renée to the door.
“Doug, c’mon!” she called.
Doug had rushed to his desk to pack up his things. “I’ll be a minute, go on without me!” He fumbled with his black hoodie. The lights had been turned off by one of the students leaving the room, but he noticed the shadow of Alexander as he put his backpack on. He was still sitting on his stool by the plant. “Al, what are you doing?”
“I am just finishing, go on without me!” Alexander replied, fumbling to mix a solution.
“Okay, but I’m not covering for you during roll call!” Doug picked up his backpack and dashed out of the room, trying to reunite with his class.
Alexander, working quickly in the dark room, the alarm still blaring in his ears, added the finishing touch to the sunflower, before standing and heading for the door. When he looked back, the sunflower was gone.
Success.
***
“I can’t believe you stayed behind to get your stupid hoodie! If it was a real fire, you would’ve died!” Renée scolded him as they walked back to class.
“But the point is, it wasn’t a real fire, and I’m not Darth Vader.” Doug said, setting his backpack down on the floor next to him. “Although that would be pretty freaking cool. Seriously, it was just some Ferris Bueller pulling the fire alarm to get out of school early. I need my stuff!”
“Uh… guys?” Hera said cautiously.
“No one wants to mess with your dumb stuff, Doug! Literally, you have nothing of value! Both material-wise and in general!” Renée went on.
“Guys,” Hera said again, shaking Doug’s shoulder.
“Ohhhh, you want to fight me, Renée Minkowski?” Doug challenged, balling his fists and smirking. “Let’s have it then!”
“I am not going to fight you, we’ll get in trouble. Plus, we have to finish our lab.”
“Yes, the lab, about that!” Hera exclaimed.
“Oh, you sure? You sure you don’t wanna fight? What if I said… Macbeth?”
“Oh that’s it!” Renée picked up her black pen, prepared for battle.
“Earth to Doug and Renée!” Hera yelled, stepping between the two. “The sunflower is gone!”
“As in… poof?” Doug asked, peering around Hera to see the lab table.
“As in poof,” Hera agreed. “As in, beam me up Scotty!”
“Oh, that was a good one,” Doug complimented.
“Wait, what do you mean it’s gone? It’s a sunflower, it can’t just up and walk away!” Renée stared at the lab table in confusion. It was, indeed, gone: flower, pot, and all.
“Well, it seems it has,” Alexander commented, bending over to peer under the table.
“Oh my God, first Warren schedules the student council meeting during the show, then our plant somehow goes missing- this is all your fault, Doug! None of this would’ve happened if you didn’t say the M word!” Renée raised an accusatory finger.
“The M word? Which M word, there are so many...moose, moon, marbles-you’ve obviously lost yours-magic, medical mumbo jumbo. Oh, did you mean...Macbeth?”
Renée crossed her arms over her chest. “Why do you find it so funny to ruin my life?”
“Because you’re cute when you’re mad,” Doug teased gleefully. Renée growled at him, twirling the pen in her fingers. “You know I take it back you’re not cute you're very imposing please oh God don’t hurt me!”
“Guys!” Hera interjected. “Help us look for the s-sunflower!”
“Look for the sunflower? Where did it go? How could it go anywhere at all? Is it on a luxury cruise to Hawaii?” Doug gestured wildly around the room, then lowered his hands to his sides.
“Wait...you.” He turned to Alexander. “You were messing with the plant, weren’t you?”
“What? No, I-I did not mess with plant! I was just finishing experiment, that is all!” Alexander spluttered defensively.
Doug tried to rationalize. “When I left this room, the plant was still here. Which means you must have done something to it. Is it because I called you Weird Al on the announcements? Or because I said you sound kind of like a drugged up chicken sometimes?”
“I did not do anything!” Alexander persisted.
“Doug, leave him alone,” Hera said. “I’m sure this is just a mistake- maybe one of the other groups took our p-plant by accident.”
“Sure, is good reasoning,” Alexander put in.
Doug stared skeptically at Alexander for a moment. “Fine. But if I find out that you hurt Sunny, I will never stop calling you Weird Al.”
“You named it?” Renée asked.
“No, I named her,” Doug corrected. “Sunny is a lady.”
“Oh my god,” Renée groaned. “We’re doomed.”
***
Renée sighed. As she approached the enemy lunch table, she reminded herself that she had to be civil, for the sake of her acting career. Warren Kepler was there, wearing his blazer, looking uptight as usual. He was eating the vegan lunch option, a tofu salad that looked like something only the most pitiful of animals could enjoy eating. Sitting on his right was Daniel Jacobi, Student Council Vice President, who basically acted as Warren’s lapdog. He was currently winding spaghetti around his fork, looking rather bored. On Warren’s left was Alana Maxwell, the most tolerable member of the group. She had her nose in a book and hadn’t touched her food.
“Hello, Warren, I was hoping we could talk,” Renée sat down across from him, trying to sound pleasant.
“Ah, Renée, how good to see you,” Warren said cheerfully, twirling his plastic fork between his fingers. “I’ve heard you’re planning to skip the student council meeting this Friday, is that correct?”
“No, it is not,” Renée had to resist the urge to punch the smug bastard right in the face. “I was actually hoping you could reschedule the meeting, since it coincides with the play, and it is a very important vote that aims to take money from the arts and put it towards more standardized testing. Don’t you think someone actually involved in the arts should be there?” she asked optimistically.
“Oh Renée, Renée… I really do try to include everyone, but sometimes it’s just not possible… I do hope you break an arm or whatever it is you’re supposed to say… what’s the show again… Macbeth, isn’t it?” He smiled as she cringed.
“I don’t see why it’s not possible, I mean, you reschedule and make new meetings all the time. Why does this very important vote have to be on the night of the show?”
Warren shook his head slowly. “I see it will be impossible to please everyone. You could always miss the show, if the vote means that much to you…”
“Yeah, I mean, who cares about the arts anyway?” Daniel piped up. “It’d be great if you could be there to vote for the budget shift with us.”
“Exactly right,” Alana chimed in, glancing up briefly. “What he said.”
“I care about the arts! And lots of other kids at this school do too!” Renée insisted. “You know, fine, don’t reschedule, I’ll be there anyway. I’m Lady Macbeth-” She gasped. “I mean, the Scottish Queen.”
“I heard that!” Doug shouted from across the cafeteria.
“Shut up!” Renée yelled back, her temper flaring. She was running out of patience. “As I was saying, I’m the Scottish Queen, so I’m only in certain parts. I will make it to the meeting, the vote won’t be unanimous, and the movement won’t pass,” she declared.
Warren set down his fork and leaned forward across the lunch table, his fingers laced beneath his chin. “In that case,” he said, smiling faintly. “I suppose we’ll see you there, Renée Minkowski.”