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[Transcript]

        In the halls of Bayview Biddle School, two deeply depressed Death Cultists had huddled to conspire.

        “...You’re tellin’ me you haven’t heard a thing? No new orders? Nothin’?” uttered Coach Oop in a furtive oink. He had only halfway donned the mental mask of Brother Hog, the new, numbing persona that had replaced his Ape identity.

        “I’m in all the same evil group chats that YOU are, Oopsy,” drawled a languid Sister Cat, indulging in the cheap thrill of indifference. Miss Baxter’s good side was her dark side; she relished any chance to make a heel-turn towards the camera, becoming her best self by unabashedly exhibiting her very worst behavior. “What makes you think that I know something you don’t?” 

        She grinned at Coach Oop’s skeptical reaction. 

        “I mean, I do, if we’re comparing intellect and hygiene tips... but the OBVIOUS normally eludes you, Brother Knucklehead! Have you finally found your footing on the first rung of the ladder? Picked a peaceful perch upon the pecking order? Developed a taste for the HUMBLE PIE you had your snout shoved in last night?” Sister Cat laughed derisively. “Even as an Ape you couldn’t climb the frozen food chain—that rigid, frigid hierarchy we’re all told leads to SUCCESS—but I think a licking from its cool whip was exactly what you needed, even if it saw you tongue-lashed to the cold steel’s weakest link. Maybe I’m projecting, but I think that you enjoyed it! You’ve always been a glutton for punishment, after all... and what an added treat it is to find out that your just deserts were actually GOOD for you! Good for YOU! I think you should be PROUD you’ve learned your place, let alone your ABCs and shapes and colors, as a caveman left adrift amidst modernity—”

        “OKAY, OKAY! Would you RELAX already?!” growled Brother Hog. “It’s always meow meow meow with you, Rose. You’re like your dang litterbox: full of—” He paused as a gaggle of children walked past, moving noisily from one class to the next. “...YOURSELF,” he finished in a lower rumble. “You’re just gropin’ for a punchin’ bag, and I’m in reach. I can tell from the dang dark circles under your eyes that—”

        “You really DO know your shapes!”

        “—that you lost just as much SLEEP over OUR dark circle’s DARK DEBACLE as I did. But you’re square in the—you’re closer to the thick of it than I am. Don’t deny it! Any chump could tell you’re Razor Rex’s lapcat of choice from the drool stains on her robes—”

        “Long may they trail, like silken shadows, in Her wake!” Sister Cat proclaimed in zealous singsong. “A wake held by the worthy in funereal procession, and in memory of Death, for She has killed the very concept with Her blah blah blah, etcetera, etcetera.” Her fervor faded as she sunk back down to ornery impatience. “What do you want from me, a soothing little sermon? ’Cause that’s all I’ve got to give you, and I’m SO not in the mood.” Baxter batted at Coach Oop’s haunted whistle like the bored cat that she was. “Find some faith and patience on your own until the sun goes down, okay? Razor Rex and I, rapturously intertwined though we may be, have very healthy boundaries.” Miss Baxter tossed her hair. “She only texts me back... after dark.”

        “There wasn’t supposed to be anything BUT dark from LAST NIGHT ON, unless you friggin’ FORGOT!” Coach Oop shot back in a harsh whisper. “That’s what we were workin’ for! That’s what I—!” He shook his head to shake off thoughts of everything he’d sacrificed... too often on an altar and against the tribute’s will. “It was all supposed to be worth somethin’! Everything I did, every ghost and ghoul and haunted tool I fed to her...! She told us it was gonna—everything was supposed to change!”

        “It did, unless YOU forgot. The symptom is going around,” scowled Sister Cat. She didn’t need to be reminded that the Phantom Threat Authority’s eternal darkness had failed to descend upon her hometown. She’d been looking forward to texting Razor Rex 24/7, after all, once “after dark” meant yet another round of shadow.

        Coach Oop thrust a finger towards the view beyond the window.

        “Name one thing that’s different—that’s changed for the better—’cause I’m not seein’ any answer to my prayers out there in Davy Jones’s model friggin’ city!”

        Rose Baxter scowled at her Death Cult companion. She thought about the bland breakfast she’d had. She thought about her parents’ nagging and the price of gas and healthcare. She thought about her disrespectful students and her boring, thankless job.

        “There’s an island with a skull on it,” she finally replied.

        “There’s ALWAYS been an island with a...” Coach Oop trailed off and clutched his head. “Hasn’t there always been a...? Rrggh...”

        “HA! Don’t hurt yourself, big guy,” scoffed Sister Cat, resting an unsympathetic hand upon his shoulder. “You see? Our goddess works in mysterious ways. I’m sure that, any moment now, Razor Rex will summon us to Nevermoor—GREAT name, by the way, now that I remember that I know it—where she’ll tell us all about how this was ALWAYS what she’d planned.” Miss Baxter found her own sinister smile faltering. “What’s... one more school day... in the grand scheme of eternity?” 

        Torture—THAT’S what it was. Rose was bored out of her skull. She wanted to be in her skull, and thus no longer bored. She wanted to be a horrible Halloween princess in her grim reaper goddess’s post-apocalyptic shadow harem, and never have to have a job or pay the bills ever again. To reach that brighter, darker future, Sister Cat would keep the faith. She’d sunk far too much cost into this fallacy to falter at the finish line!

        “I didn’t sign up to serve an absent god, Rose. I wanted one who—who actually LISTENED! And this delay, this friggin’ single school day, could mean life or death for us, kapeesh?!” sputtered Coach Oop, leaning in still closer. Darn it. DARN IT! Life and death weren’t MEANT to be MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE anymore—not after last night’s ritual...! “Ain’t you put two and two together yet, math teacher? Razor Rex was barkin’ about sabotage. The PTA was shattered, she said, which means that we’re OUTNUMBERED at the Biddle School. This is enemy territory!”

        “Outnumbered? What, by Davy Junior’s hall monitor squad? You’re worried that we’ll get beat up by Baby Cody’s cult of zero personality?” 

        Sister Cat giggled wickedly, though her dark heart wasn’t in it. Somewhere down the hall, a horde of Student Council soldiers were conducting mass arrests, but Baxter couldn’t know that, since she super didn’t care. 

        “Be not afraid, Brother! The twelve-year-old can’t hurt you. For one, our favorite little leech is surely locked up in a Witch-resistant vault somewhere—”

        “Which is where WE oughta be! Heck, Rose, I never woulda come to work if Ollie wasn’t here!” He couldn’t convince his son to do anything—not even to play hooky for his own darn good and safety. Coach Oop met Baxter’s uninterested gaze with grave concern. “All of East Island belongs to the Witch. You can’t feel it like I can... but don’t you get it?? If a full-blown free-for-all breaks out between the PTA’s bigwigs, both our families are gonna be caught up in her web!”

        Miss Baxter rolled her eyes.

        “Oh, yes, great idea. Get REALLY SCARED of Fauxbia. I’m sure that healthy fear will serve you well, Brother Hog... perhaps on a platter with an APPLE in your mouth.” She studied her nails with glib disinterest. “Well, maybe your particular flavor of unctuous, dribbling dread isn’t the healthiest fear you could feed her... but she can always skip the overdone ham and only eat that aforementioned apple! It’s a wicked Witch’s favourite fruit, after all! And Davy’s a doctor, isn’t he? Then an APPLE should work just as well as GARLIC would to keep that repellant mosquito away. I’m sure that sweet, old Fauxbia will spare you out of gratitude. ‘That’s SOME pig,’ she’ll write in webbing, and the whole farm will applaud!”

        “Keep your apple—if a student ever liked a pest like you enough to leave one on your desk. Right now, we could ALL use a doctor deterrent,” Coach Oop grumbled, thrusting his hands into his pockets. The flow of middle schoolers in the hallway was increasing; soon the cover that their commotion had offered would become a crowd too close for Death Cult conspiracy comfort. “It ain’t just our own claws at our throats. We made a lotta noise last night, and now the Consortium and its suits are closin’ in. Did you hear who took that vacant nurse position?”

        “Enlighten me,” droned Sister Cat, who truly did not care. As a perfectly normal young woman, Mary Rose Baxter had never had much fear of Mr. Spender and his ilk. The vampires gave him a wide berth, since he had, like, sunshine powers or whatever, but the worst that he could do to Rose was weird her out with his behavior and appearance. The higher-ups took care of any other snooping spectrals that Master Whatsit’s danger-zone dojo didn’t snap up first. Baxter seldom spared a thought for the “Consortium,” or whatever it was called. If yet another spectral had shown up at Bayview Biddle School, Rose couldn’t see how it would change her boring, BORING, brain-draining business as usual in the slightest—

        “It’s that Doctor Zarei.”

        Miss Baxter nearly spat out her coffee (which she’d finished at least an hour ago).

        “That woman’s always been on the keepaway list,” Coach Oop continued, “but she was only ever here on errands up ’til now. Hardly ever set a foot on solid ground. Sister Lizard thinks the Ghost Ship business might’ve lured ’er deeper inland...”

        “Uh-huh.” Miss Baxter wasn’t listening. She was busy weighing several different drastic choices in her head, all of which were deeply inadvisable.

        “Sid wants reports on what she’s up to, but I don’t friggin’ work for—”