𝙸 𝙲𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚜

𝚂𝟹𝙴𝟷𝟷: 𝙳𝚞𝚗-𝙳𝚞𝚗

Inspired by Community S3E17: "Basic Lupine Urology."

Frank POV

New Rome Community College is represented by two separate yet equally important groups of people: those who know the education is a complete joke, and those who care about their biology projects. These are their stories.

Frank takes a picture of the scene at hand. "Who could have done such a thing?" he mutters as Bob the janitor sweeps away the remains of his study group's terrarium. It's not just any terrarium. It's worth half their final grade. That's about twenty percent of their overall grade in the compost bin—literally, assuming Bob can get all the glass out of the remains.

"Thank you for reporting this," he says to Bob.

"Yep! Happy to help!" Bob says. He goes back to sweeping while humming a gentle, "Sweep, sweep, sweep!"

Hazel crouches down on the floor and draws a chalk outline of where the crushed terrarium was found at about six o'clock this morning. It's hard to know exactly what time this happened, especially since Bob can't read analog clocks. Go figure.

The classroom has become a full-on crime scene, complete with yellow tape leftover from last year's Halloween party, and photographs of the victim terrarium.

"We're going to find who did this, Frank," Hazel says. "There will be justice."

"You're right," Frank says. "And I know just the place to start."

✎✎✎

The dining hall fills up fast on a rainy day, which means two things: there's a significant lack of entertainment from outdoor drum circles and Frisbee games, and seating fills up fast. That means that the likes of Percy Jackson can be found sitting with the likes of Chiara Benvenuti and the Stoll brothers watching Holly and Laurel Victor thumb wrestle across a half-booth-half-table.

"One, two, three, four, I declare I thumb war..." the Victor twins chant in unison.

"Five, six, seven, eight," Travis Stoll chimes in as he collects bets in a mason jar.

Percy throws a wrinkled dollar bill into the jar and then takes a sip from his blue raspberry Kool-Aid Jammer. That guy doesn't need alcohol to have fun. He only needs juice pouches. Frank wonders what his tolerance is like. Does Percy even know what a sugar high is anymore?

Hazel clears her throat and hooks her sunglasses on the neck of her blouse. "Jackson, Percy?"

Percy chuckles. "Levesque, Hazel?"

"We just need to ask you a couple of questions if you'll come with us."

He pulls his dollar out of Travis's jar. "I'll catch you guys in the next round," he says before following Hazel and Frank out into the hallway.

Frank opens the voice memos app on his cellphone and presses record. "Where were you last night?"

"That's a little vague, but I'll do my best," Percy says. "Hmm, so I was supposed to check in on the terrarium. Only thing is I forgot and didn't get to the lab until about eleven at night."

"What were you doing that made you forget?" Hazel asks.

Percy clicks his tongue. "It's so stupid guys..."

"It's important that we know this," Frank says.

"I was in my apartment looking at pictures of different freshwater fish online. Estelle—that's my little sister—really wants a pet fish, and I'm trying to find one that's pretty enough for her, but that'll also be easy enough for her to care for on her own."