In The Orbit (Part I)

31. Harold

After Kesselhof drags Strom away, Dipper sighs.

"He won't be back within twelve hours. I don't know why we couldn't just let it go this one time..."

Fifi moans and puts her head on the table. Khan awkwardly pulls his dress down. Azalea sits right there on the floor and Karma sits and looks around with her eyes wide.

"While we are at it, why are you wearing that?" Dipper asks. "Wait, I'm not trying to offend, but that doesn't really seem like... your style."

"Ohhh," Khan says. "Yeah... I was in a hot tub and someone stole my clothes..."

Dipper chuckles. "Well, I suppose we should get you guys fed and ready to go."

"You think I can eat right now?" groans Fifi.

"Do you want to starve later?" Khan replies.

"No, but I am way too tense, I will puke if I eat right now," she retorts.

"You should eat a little something," says Dipper. "Let's get a little snack in the cafeteria."

As soon as we leave the office, we run into Kesselhof.

"Where did Strom go?!!" she screams.

"That's a good question," I murmur under my breath.

Dipper and Kesselhof walk off a little ways down the hall and motion for us to stay here.

Fifi breaks into a flurry of wondering out loud.

"Shut up!" Karma hisses. "Listen!"

"-just vanished. Disappeared!" Kesselhof was saying.

"Did you check the feeds?" asks Dipper.

"Yeah, it shows him leaving the hospital, but one of the cameras in that hall is apparently dysfunctional. So we don't have the footage of him from there. We have Hower checking the elevators and other halls right now."

A static-y voice comes from Kesselhof's SmartScreen. We can't catch any of it except "classroom... hiding in the closet..."

I internally think of a super mean closet joke and don't share it. I don't need to be known as that asshole.

We see them start to walk back towards us and we begin to talk amongst ourselves to disguise the fact that we were eavesdropping.

"Back to your rooms! I will see you to your room Fifi! Dipper will see you to yours, boys! And Kela will meet you at yours, girls! Now move it we have to hurry!" Kesselhof orders.

Dipper walks silently with Khan and I to our room. We put in our password, K0I P0ND. It is good because of the zeros. I am proud of that password.

I haven't noticed how messy our room was until Dipper saw it. There are clothes scattered everywhere. The bed is unmade and a pillow is on the floor. There are empty bags of chips that I had left lying around. Our towels are haphazardly tossed over an armchair, which left a damp spot.

Dipper stops cold for a second. He sighs. "Ok. I have to do a search. Would it help... if I came back in like five minutes so you guys can clean up a bit?"

Khan and I look at each other. We both hate cleaning.

"Fine," I say and Khan shrugs. We spend the five minutes clearing up most of the stuff. We put all of the clothes in a laundry pile and the trash in the trash bin. Then I get an idea. I pull out my SmartScreen and call Strom. To my surprise, he picks up.

"Harold. Let me go. I can't do this. Have a good time. Bye," he says, and hangs up, but not before I hear something crash in the background. I call him back, but he doesn't answer. I call him back again, and the answering machine says that the number is no longer valid. Leave it to Strom to completely disconnect himself from the world.

Khan bends down to pick something up and flashes me his butt.

"Ew don't bend over!" I shriek.

Khan smirks and bends over right in front of my face. And then shakes his butt around.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a second.

"I have a better butt than McKendall Laurie, don't I?" Khan taunts. McKendall Laurie was the hottest girl in Columbia Falls, with a big round butt, a small waist, and full boobs, perfect proportions.

"No. No you do not. Please, just stop. It's-"

Khan slaps his own butt and waggles it one last time just as Dipper walks in. Khan freezes and Dipper puts his hands slowly in the air, a sign of confusion and helplessness.

Khan finally comes to his senses and launches himself away from me, knocking me back onto the bed in the process.

"Oookay..." says Dipper. "I can pretend I never saw that if you make a deal with me. I am technically supposed to report that, because it is romantic action, which is prohibited. I can ignore whatever happens here at night if you guys can just give me one thing."

Khan and I look at each other in complete confusion.

"I'm straight..." Khan tells us slowly.

"It's okay, I won't report you guys," Dipper explains. "You guys just have to let me store something in your room..."

"We don't care if you report us. If they would separate us into different rooms I would be so happy actually, I don't even like-" Khan stands on my foot and pushes down. He is barefoot and I am wearing shoes, but it still hurts.

"We can do that," says Khan.

"But-" I interrupt.

Khan digs his elbow into my side, adding to the pain. My eyes start to water.

"Just show us where." Khan grins and lets his foot and elbow off.

"Sounds good," Dipper chirps, and leaves without investigation.

As soon as he is out of earshot, I turn to Khan and shout, "WHY WOULD YOU AGREE TO THAT?!?! WE COULD GET IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!"

Khan puts a hand on my shoulder. "Calm down, Rolder. We have an officer on our side, so now we can get away with stuff. And also, we are way too important in this program for them to just kick us out if they find drugs in our room. And, do you see how he didn't investigate?"

"I suppose... but I don't like the idea that we are storing drugs in our room."

"Hey, you know, if it's here, we could take advantage-"

"NO!" I scream.

"Dude, calm down, I was kidding. We're on school property."

"You are so confusing, Khan, you know that?"

He shakes his head and winks. I hate it when he winks.