The Donut Shop ✔️

'E' Stands for 'Exceptional Work'

As Ethan arrived at the student council room after school, he nearly turned back when he saw Tweed and Mara bickering. Unlucky for him, though, Mara spotted him and beckoned him inside. He sighed and reluctantly ducked in. 

The whole weekend, he kept thinking of ways to reunite Mrs. Heifenmeir and Thomas Red, and eventually, he settled on something that he thought might work, with the right amount of luck (and places to hide). 

"Ethan, do you think that penguins have knees?" Mara asked with her arms crossed over her chest, clearly annoyed by something Tweed had said.

"Well, what did you say?" Ethan asked her, and her look brightened into something of smug satisfaction.

"I argued that penguins do have knees. When you look at a penguin's x-ray, you can clearly see knees," she finished and seemed to gloat that he was inquiring about her argument.

"Okay... then penguins do not have knees," Ethan said, and Mara's jaw dropped with a look of furor and a tad bit of confusion.

"The boys! The boys for the win!" Tweed shouted, and Ethan rolled his eyes at his friend's stupidity. But he was right. The boys were a force to reckon with, especially on Tik Tok. Mara just scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"As if. You two, get to work on those posters," she said with a snappy tone, and Tweed's grin grew wider.

"Is the little baby upset that the boys are the most powerful movement on earth and nothing to reckon with?" Tweed mocked her, even going so far as to place his hand on her head to emphasize her short height, but she knocked it away.

"Don't touch me. Get to work!" she shouted, and with a few dying laughs, Ethan strolled to the back table, where the construction paper, along with three frantic-looking freshmen, were looking for scissors to slice the paper.

As Tweed joined them and began searching too, Ethan looked up when he heard a different voice join the room.

"Hey, do you have one more person I can borrow to help hang streamers?" 

It was the boy from the hallway, the one with the dark brown hair and the impeccable taste in clothes, the one that had defended him when he presented his ideas to the council. His eyes scanned the room, and once they fell on Ethan's, he gave a slight nod of recognizing him. Ethan's eyes flitted to the floor.

"You okay, man? Your face looks really red," Tweed said with concern, and Ethan mumbled that he was fine as he noticed that he held a pair of scissors in his grasp. He tucked the scissors underneath the construction paper.

Mara glanced around the room, and her gaze fell on the most manic freshman, a girl with wide glasses and frizzy hair.

"We only needed four people working on posters, so one of the freshmen-"

"I'll do it!" Ethan yelled, then slapped a hand over his mouth. Tweed's eyebrows furrowed, and he cocked a brow at Ethan's sudden declaration. Everyone, except the boy with the brown hair, was looking at him as if he was some undiscovered specimen.

"Okay, come with me," the boy said and gave him a small smile. If it was even possible, Ethan's face grew redder, and he was sure that by the time the streamers were hung, he would have turned into a tomato.

Entering the gym beyond the freshmen year, the time everyone is required to take gym class, was surreal and felt very wrong, but nevertheless, Ethan continued, hot on the trail of the mysterious boy.

"Are you good with heights?" the boy asked him, and he almost didn't hear the question because of his own nerves, but he shook his head.

"No. I'm horrible with heights," he said, and the boy waved him off, telling him that he would pass the streamers. Ethan agreed.