WICKED Is Weird (The Fever Code)

"Focus, May."

"I'm-"

"Don't just try, do it."

I sighed heavily, glaring at the woman in front of me before looking back at the table.

That stupid cube was mocking me.

600 squares, 6 neon colours, all mixed up, and I needed to solve it in 50 moves or less.

I'd been stuck on this puzzle for more than a week, and I wasn't the only one. It was like an exam for our spatial and logical thinking, and to my knowledge only 9 or 10 kids had solved it so far.

Each of us got an hour a day to work on it, and I for one was starting to get fed up with the thing. I must've tried it at least 4 times in the past 50 minutes, and I wasn't getting any further. It just wasn't-

Oh.

"It's not possible." I said, my voice certain as I looked up at Ms. Wilmer and tilted my head to the side a bit. "I'd need at least 400 moves, wouldn't I?"

The woman's stern look fell away as she smiled.

"Very good, May." She nodded, taking the cube off the table and placing it in the mix-up machine. "Let's get you to the cafeteria, it's nearly lunch."

I smiled back (a rare thing for the teachers to see, but I was proud of myself), and nodded, following her out.

It had been nearly a year since the Crank pits, and while our group still occasionally wandered the hallways (sans Thomas and Teresa; we hadn't heard a word about them since that night), we never went anywhere near the ladder to the roof. Most of our nights we actually spent sleeping, and most of our days we focussed on class.

But this was one of those rare times at WICKED where for most of the day, our classes were cancelled. Given the actual number of us (which was around 60 at that point, at least for Group A), they needed every teacher to be running the exam at once in order to give us all our hour a day. The cafeteria, gymnasium and library were all open (and filled with guards) for us, and they were actually letting us decide what to do.

When we arrived at the cafeteria, there were only 11 boys scattered around the room; everyone else was obviously either in the test, were waiting to start it, or had failed it for the day and had been sent to the barracks (they didn't want the kids who'd passed to share the answers, so they were keeping us separated).

I smiled as I saw Newt sitting at our usual table. He'd solved it a couple days ago, and I'd missed the guy! I headed over and grabbed both of his shoulders from behind, making him jump.

"Hi!" I laughed, letting him go and sitting next to him. "You miss me?"

My smile fell just a bit as he quickly shook his head, as if snapping himself out of something.

"Uh, yeah," He answered, returning my smile even though he sounded a bit distracted. "You've solved it, then?"

I decided that he wasn't gonna tell me what was up, so I'd have to figure it out for myself using my mystical powers of deception.

Meaning, I pretended that I hadn't noticed his oddness and put my normal smile back on as I groaned.

"It's a trick question!" I complained, crossing my arms and rolling my eyes as he laughed at my reaction. "That's just mean!"

"Yeah well, that's WICKED for you, isn't it?" He turned back to his lunch as one of the kitchen staff placed a tray for me on the table, smiling kindly as I thanked him before walking away.

I shrugged, nodding in agreement and started working through my apple slices, while watching my friend out the corner of my eye.

This was the second part of my cunning plan: if he thought I hadn't noticed, he wouldn't put any extra effort into hiding whatever it was that was bugging him.