The Miracle Clinic

Chapter 28 - Cracking Down On The Pencil Black Market (1)

"Bahaha! Some dude tried to get you to pay 5 bucks for a pencil?!" Alex laughs.

"It isn't that funny," Elizabeth sighs.

The two are standing inside of Amnestor's classroom attending a club meeting for The Miracle Clinic. With them are Ronnie and Marcus who are off to the side, Amnestor who is at his desk sipping coffee, and X who's in the corner of a room working on a test.

"So did you buy it?" Alex asks.

"Of course I didn't!" Elizabeth replies.

"Heh, that surprises me," Alex teases.

"What does that mean?" Elizabeth inquires.

Trying to ease the tension in the room, Ronnie says, "Well it is kinda funny that some dude thought he could sell you a pencil for 5 bucks, at least it's just like that guy and nobody else is doing it."

"I don't know," Marcus begins to say, "Earlier today I saw some dude try to sell a used post-it note for 50 cents."

As the group continues discussing, they hear the door to the classroom slide open as a student walks in.

"Hi, is this where The Miracle Cylinder is?" the student asks.

"It's Clinic but yep that's us," Ronnie says with a grin, "What's the problem?"

The student is a fellow freshman by the name of Carli Kim. She has medium-length black hair, a denim jacket over a striped shirt, pink pants, and red shoes. She's also carrying several flyers in her arm.

Carli sets the flyers down on a desk causing the other club members to take a look at them.

"Buy 1 Pencil Get 1 Double The Price?" Alex reads aloud from one of the flyers.

"Get your new protractor for the low low price of...," Marcus begins to read aloud before shockingly gasping, "200 dollars?!"

"Pizza Party outside Mister Jefferson's room, price of admission is 5 blueberry muffins?" Elizabeth reads confused.

"Where did you get all these?" Ronnie asks.

"People kept on handing them out to me when I was just walking down the hall, a bunch of my school supplies keep going missing so I have to pay for them constantly," Carli laments, "but their prices keep on going up every day!"

Hearing that somebody actually bought the pencils, Alex tries to hold back his laughter while Elizabeth & Marcus cover his mouth.

"Dude she's a foreign exchange student, she probably thought it was normal!" Elizabeth whispers to Alex.

"Please don't laugh man," Marcus whispers.

As Carli looks confused at what Alex, Marcus, & Elizabeth are doing, Ronnie places a hand on her shoulder before giving a thumbs up and saying, "Don't worry Carli, we'll create a miracle and track down the cause of all of this!"

Carli looks at Ronnie, smiles, and replies, "Thanks, I wasn't sure if you guys could help me but I heard a lot of good things about you all at the carnival!"

Carli leaves the classroom and as soon as she leaves, Alex groans, "Does anyone know how to figure out this whole thing?"

"Yeah guys I have no idea what the fuck I am doing," Ronnie admits.

"Y'know, we could all tell by like chapter 5 that that was the case," X Locke replies.

Everyone else in the room just glances at X confused, however, X clears his throat and adds, "Look, if you want to get knowledge on how to help Carli with the pencil thing, maybe see if others have a similar issue."