There's a certain sameness to all public school buildings: cinderblock walls with rubberized paint in a nondescript color, tight-pile carpets in industrial grey, plastic-and-stainless-steel furniture, and a pervasive atmosphere of institutional oppression. One view of the desktop in front of you – graffiti etched into the lacquered wood with repeated scratches of a hundred ballpoint pens – tells you exactly where you are.
Someone gasps to your right. You turn to see a teenaged boy in the next desk beside you, staring at you like you just appeared out of nowhere. Which, actually, you just have.
You hear a woman chuckle to your left. You turn to find an even younger Inez – gawky-looking, her limbs already grown to adult size but her body still that of a child. She doesn't have braces or acne, but she might as well: the very image of thirteen.
"Really?" you ask her. "Right in front of someone?"
"Don't act so high and mighty," teen Inez chides you. "I've seen you push those limits more than once."
"Yes," you agree, "but –" You finish your thought by gesturing with both hands at the boy sitting next to you.
"Oh, Randy doesn't mind," Inez assures you. "Do you, Randy?"
You both turn to face him. He glances back and forth between the two of you, a dull-witted look in his eyes. "Uh. No."
"See," Inez tells you.
"What's he going to think?" you ask.
"Randy," she asks over your back, "what do you think?"
"I'm hungry," Randy answers.
"Randy went all through middle and high school stoned out of his mind," Inez explains. "If he remembers this long enough to tell anyone, they won't believe him anyway."
You turn back to Randy, waiting for him to weigh in on the subject. He's already turned his attention back to the spiral-bound notebook in front of him, where he's coloring in a sketch of some Escheresque impossible shape.
You twist around in your seat now – tough to do since the chair and desk are all one piece of furniture – to view the rest of the room. It's a standard-sized school classroom, with a variety of educational, inspirational, and cautionary posters on the walls. There are thirty desks set up in haphazard rows, but only your three are occupied. You shoot a glance at the front of the room, but the teacher's desk is empty.
"What is this?"
"Hell," Inez says cheerfully. "Lincoln Middle School, to be specific. Eighth grade."
"Where is everybody?"
"Oh – we're in detention."
You motion towards the front of the room. "Where's the teacher?"
"Banging one of the janitors," Inez answers matter-of-factly. Randy chuckles without looking up from his drawing
You turn back to Inez. "What did you do to get detention?"
Inez giggles again. "Actually, I'm not sure. I spent a lot of time here in eighth grade."
"Really?"
She smiles. "I had a lot of fun that year."
"I suppose it would be too much to ask you to come back home now."
"Why should I?"
"Because that's where you belong."
She scoffs.
"Okay, then: that's where you're from."
"I'm from a lot of places."
You sigh. You wonder whether she's acting this way because she's in the body of a adolescent or she chose to take you back to her adolescence in order to get away with acting this way.
"So," she asks, "what do you think of tic-tac-toe now?"
"You've ruined the game for me forever."
"I'm sure you'll find other ways to fill your day," she assures you. She starts ticking off on her fingers. "So: we decided that an activity must present you with choices in order to qualify as a puzzle. Now we've learned that not everything that looks like a choice actually is one. Now we're going to take a closer look at the dead ends."
"Oh god," you moan, "do we really have to?"
Inez stares back at you, her eyes searching your face. Then she says, "No," and sits forward in her seat again, her hands folded daintily on her desk.
"I'm sorry, Inez. What were you saying?"
No answer. If Inez is playing games, then you just committed a technical foul. And apparently now you're going to be spending some time in the penalty box.
"Tell me about the dead ends, Inez."
No answer.
"Please?"
No answer.
You glance back at Randy, who has flipped to a clean page and started sketching the same shape again. You turn back to Inez with a sigh.
The fact of the matter is that you really were sick of being dragged back and forth like this. Really, she's doing you a favor. There's no reason to be upset: she just gave you exactly what you were asking for.
"I have my own house key, you know," you tell her. "I can just go."
No response.
"Inez?"
No response.
You sigh again, deciding to: