SPOILERS: This chapter and further chapters contain spoilers for Academy A - Chapter 11.

78.)

"The piano room in this story definitely seems like the most likely place for a ghost to hang out," Blossom said. "Pianos are inherently haunted and suspicious. Pianos are made out of elephants and so that's basically a graveyard you're playing when you tap tap tap those keys."

Blossom was sitting on the sofa while she read, while she ate pieces of cut-up fruit.

"What do you mean, pianos are made out of elephants? Is this another weird Blossom association that doesn't make sense to anyone else?"

"No?" Blossom said. "Ivory for piano keys comes from elephant tusks?"

"There's no way that's true..." I muttered, pulling out my phone to Google it.

"Shh, I'm reading."

"I don't wanna spend the night in daycare," Blossom did her best fraidy-cat voice for Daisy and rolled her eyes. "I do."

Then Blossom giggled.

"Nightcare. Ahaha. You're so fricking clever, cupcake."

"Huh, they were made of elephant tusks..." I was reading an article about it.

"I told you that they were! I know some things, you know."

Blossom kept reading and looked back up at Amy after a moment.

"Everyone's bailing on Wendy, the poor girl. If you were Wendy, I'd stay with you to the end, even if it meant going to NightmareCare, cause that's the kinda gal I am."

Said the girl with her unbroken spheres.

"It looks like they aren't made with elephant tusks anymore... wait, is this where ivory comes from? Like, is all ivory from elephants?" I punched in a new Google search. No, not the color. Ivory the... material? Yeah, let's try that.

"Yeah! Ivory was a hugely valuable thing for the longest time and we wound up hunting elephants to endangered status. I was vegetarian for a while when I was Dorky Blossom and I thought it would make a difference, cause I learned all the ways animals get hurt and it made me so sad."

Blossom was quiet for a little while after that as she kept reading, and she shook her head in disbelief.

"I don't know how she can change her own diaper so easily. It's really hard."

"Practice," I told her. Then I went on with my research. "Yeah, ivory is made from tusks and teeth... so can you, like... craft ivory? Like, can you melt it, or... I dunno. Like how you shape ore?" I was well and truly down a rabbit hole.

"I'm not sure, I used to think that each piano key was one elephant tusk and that meant it was like a hundred elephants for one piano and that made me sadder."

I switched articles. "I don't think you can melt ivory... you just carve it or sand it or whatever... wait, how many keys does one tusk make?"

"I don't know the answer to that question. I used to think one key per tusk, but I'm certain that's wrong and oh my GOSH she changed into her 'darkest set of pajamas' to sneak around at night and that's SO CUTE. That's such childish thinking!"

"The internet says 45 keys per tusk, which is like... most of a piano, right? How many keys are on a piano, anyway? Did you know that they used ivory until the 1950s? That's really recent..."

"Mhm, and I think a lot of people who own pianos might be the kind of people who'd own a piano from the 1950s or before?"

Blossom was both reading and discussing pianos, and she audibly gasped when she got to the part about Wendy climbing out the window. And then paused to consider.

"Can you get hurt at the Academy?" Blossom asked, just getting to the point where Wendy climbed out the window. The next line answered her question for her. "Poor Wendy..."

"She'll be fine," I hand-waved. "There are 88 keys on a piano, but only 52 are ivory. So what were the other ones?" Another Google search.

"Maybe ebony? Like in the song? Ebony and Ivory? I wanna believe it's about race relations amid racial tension, but it could be about pianos?" Blossom scrolled, then frowned, then tried to scroll more. "Noooo you can't end it there!"

"Ebony is a type of dark wood that is used for piano keys... but really I guess any dark wood can work? Like sugar pine or spruce?" The more you know. "Oh, you're done?"

"Yes, and you can't end it there!"

"Well," I smiled, "think of this as an incentive to have me back next weekend."

"I don't need incentive! I'm the one who begs you to come back. You gotta give me more, cupcake! Pleeeeaaaase!"

"I don't have any more to give," I said with a pout. "And I definitely don't have enough time to write another chapter." It was mid-morning and I knew we had to go back in the afternoon. "Plus, I don't really know what I want to happen next... I mean, I do, but not a whole chapter's worth."

"Well clearly she's going to find the ghost and the ghost is going to be like 'Wendy you're stinky!' and she's going to be like 'how can you tell, you don't even have a nose' and then the ghost will be like 'mhm and I can still tell you're stinky'."

"Clearly." I rolled my eyes. "What do you actually think? Do you think she'll find a ghost in there?" Of course, I already knew the answer.

"I don't think so, but I hope so? If that makes sense? Like I think her finding a ghost would help readers accept that the Academy could be more paranormal than they think?"

"Hm..." I nodded, processing her theory. "Do you think it's paranormal? The Academy?"

"I think it is. I think it's like gods and demons or something. You know what they say about science seeming like magic to primitive-by-comparison people, right? So maybe it IS all technology."

"Interesting thoughts." I couldn't give anything away, obviously. Even if I wanted to, it would be disrespectful to her as a reader! No matter what she said, she wanted to find out the answers for herself.

We didn't do much else that morning. Academy Works talk diminished and we started getting ready to leave. I was on cloud nine; I'd finished two entire chapters in one weekend!

When we got in the car, I sunk into the passenger seat, lost in a bout of introspection. Blossom seemed worried for a few minutes, as we pulled out onto the main street, but it wasn't anything to worry about. I had been trying to distill the conditions that motivated me to write. I needed to manufacture inspiration.

"Maybe we could do another scene thing next weekend?" I asked.

"I'd love that." Blossom nodded her head and bit her lip, a little self conscious about how eager she seemed.

"Any ideas...?"

Blossom looked a little unsure. I probably did too. Honestly, I had no idea what scene we could reenact. Or maybe something that isn't from Academy Works? We had only really done the first one together and then the wetting one on Thursday. Blossom was the roleplay expert, not me!

"Well...hmm, do you wanna do something you've written? Is there a scene you'd like to see how it plays out in person? I can play either role."

"Not really," I sighed. We were making our way to the freeway. "I just want to get some inspiration for Academy Works. I don't even know if this will work."

"Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's do something from an earlier Academy, maybe a scene from I or B or T? That could get your brain working in a different way, focused on different things?"

"Okay... but no scenes in particular come to mind?" I actually was kind of afraid of messing up. Blossom's scene wasn't a real scene, and that somehow felt a little easier. I could use my natural penchant for writing to improvise rather than fitting a script.

"Well, how much character play do you wanna do? And how much of like... diaper baby stuff do you wanna do? I'm game for anything, you know that. So if you wanna do the Cold Room we can do the Cold Room. If you wanna do the removing the ability to count for Academy T we could do that. Or Ai in her crib with Nana?"

"I... don't know..." Actually, talking about it was starting to stress me out a little. I had hoped we would just come up with something simple, but maybe planning a week in advance wasn't conducive to simple. "We could think on it? I know you don't really text about this stuff..." Speaking of. "Why don't you text about this stuff?"

"Nothing is safe in a sorority house," Blossom laughed.

"That makes sense..."

"I think you're thinking too much, cupcake. Getting all up in your head. Try being more like the me you thought I was in highschool; dumb and vapid and pretty. You already got the pretty part worked out~"

I rolled my eyes. She made it sound so easy. Just be dumb! But if it were that easy, I wouldn't have anxiety.

"I'll just think about it over the week, I guess. We can talk about it on the drive up Friday?"

"I'm excited! Worst case scenario, we get dressed up cute, go out on a date, pretend one of us is into it and one of us doesn't know, and do some classical bedroom roleplay. It'll be fun!"

"Uh..." I stared blankly at Blossom. A date? Like a fake date? How would that even go...? If some girl told me she was into diapers and I didn't know anything about it? I couldn't see that having a very good outcome.

"Trust me; writing legitimate fiction about girls becoming babies is your purview, setting up dates is mine."