peckenpaugh | Three Thorntrails Visit Mr. Potkin

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Three Thorntrails Visit Mr. Potkin

There's a mystery afoot, and Thorntrail has just the Scooby Crew to solve it. Armed with some pictures and a whole lot of gumption, Lionel Lovelace, Jupiter Quigley and Claudia Vega go in search of Mr. Potkin, hoping to find answers about Mr. Qualls and a mysterious young man in a cool leather jacket.

It's not hard for the trio to spot Mr. Potkin carrying a rather precarious stack of boxes from the Home Mag-Ec classroom, and they hurry to catch up with him. The always affable Mr. Potkin is happy to help a couple students, even if it means standing there with nine feet of boxes in his arms while they show him grainy pictures on a cell phone.

"I guess thirty years is longer than I thought," he says, squinting to get a better look at the phone. "Looks like a nice kid, we must’ve hung out, but I don't even think I could tell you his name these days."

While the lack of information on the Mysterious Young Man is disappointing, the Thorntrails segue seamlessly to another topic: Mr. Qualls, who seems to know him. And with each question — is he from the area? does he have a family? how long has he worked at Peckenpaugh? — Mr. Potkin's usually pleasant demeanor falters a little more.

"I don't—I'm really not sure," he stammers, frustrated. "Okay, I know he was here when I was in school—he was fascinated by my Walkman. And I’m almost certain he was alive, but..." Mr. Potkin doesn't finish his sentence, his train of thought apparently leaving the station without him. He brings himself back with a shake of his head. "I hate to say it, but I can’t remember if he was still alive."

With this leg of the investigation seemingly gone cold, the three Squatches have just one more question before they send Mr. Potkin back on his way, and they try to be as casual and discreet as physically possible:

”Do you know how Mr. Qualls lost his memory?”

Mr. Potkin huffs, an impatient sound rarely (if ever) heard from the gentle teacher. "Lost his memory? How in the world should I know? Maybe ghosts get dementia, maybe he already had it, I really don’t know. And you know Lionel, Qualls—” Something behind his eyes seems to pop. Mr. Potkin hangs, brow furrowed, lips parted, a thoughtful scowl that bends more harsh as he tries to grasp something that seems to be right on the tip of his tongue. “What’s…”

He doesn’t finish the thought. The air around them changes, a faint, strange smell like mildew. Mr. Potkin’s legs buckle and he falls suddenly, brick shithouse of a teacher reduced to a pile of rubble before the students’ very eyes. Papers, quills and home ec supplies scatter as the boxes tumble from his suddenly limp hands. His eyes roll back into his head. Above, the lights dim and flicker and on the floor, Mr. Potkin is unresponsive.

Until, suddenly, he is. It’s hard to say how many seconds ticked by after that initial crash, but he’s coming around by the time Ms. Gunzenhauser’s joined the teens to crouch beside him. “Perce, come on, let’s get you to the infirmary,” Ms. G says as she helps the giant art teacher up. “Can you stand?”

“I donno what happened,” Mr. Potkin says, clutching his head, any trace of that anger or agitation he had held a few moments earlier gone. In fact, he seems confused to be here at all. “Must’ve...slipped and fell?”

“Would you three please clean all this up,” Ms. G says to the three Thorntrail sleuths. “And then wait for me in my office, please.”

It seems Ms. Gunzenhauser is most pressed with getting Mr. Potkin to the infirmary and she hurries off, leaving the Thorntrail seniors to follow her orders. Among the scattered contents of Mr. Potkin’s box they find a single obsidian stone shaped like a cicada’s shell.

[As this happened in plain sight, in the middle of the halls of central classrooms during the day, UP TO 7 STUDENTS MAY HAVE WITNESSED THIS. Please comment below to acknowledge that your kid saw this go down. These spots are first come first served.]
[WITNESSED BY: (5/7) Atlas, Armani, Viola, Trudy, Valkyrie]

While Mr. Potkin makes a pretty quick recovery, Mr. Hobgood handles his classes and club meetings for the rest of the day and Monday. It seems Healer Greatheart is keeping an extended eye on him, and Mr. Potkin will not be returning to his class responsibilities until Tuesday.

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Ms. Gunzenhauser sweeps into her office ahead of the students and gestures for them to take a seat in front of her desk, but she doesn't sit herself.

"Mr. Potkin is with Healer Greatheart now. He seems to be coming back around," she informs them, though it feels like she's speaking more to herself than her guests. "He doesn't know what happened, though. Do any of you care to elaborate?"

Her words are free of accusations, but her tone is hard as nails and intolerant of bullshit. She expects the truth, no matter how incriminating.

Claudia doesn't want to speak first. Her stomach hurts. Her hands are sweaty. She's not used to being in trouble. It happens, but usually for something inconsequential, like missing curfew or wearing a skirt just a hair too short.

She's never been involved with a teacher just... collapsing.

But she also doesn't know for certain if they were involved (they were just questions! You can't cause a stroke or a seizure with a few questions... can you?). So she keeps her mouth pressed firmly shut and fiddles with the hem of her skirt, and when Ms. G looks her way, she carefully avoids her gaze.

Edited 2020-02-21 17:17 (UTC)

Jupiter makes Big Eyebrows at Lionel, ostensibly assigning him the honor of going first, but actually trying to suggest that he should use his teacher destroying super powers to get them out of detention.

Potkins is going to be alright, Ms. G says, and that's the first bit of good news they've received all day. Their conversation with Mr. Potkins was bad. Even before it got Bad. No memory of the leather-jacket boy, wiped or suppressed memory of Qualls as a student. And then... agitation? At being asked about how Qualls lost his memory. What does it matter to Mr. Potkins? And, had he been about to say something? Specifically to Lionel? He thought so, but he can't be sure.

Lionel feels eyes on him and looks up. It's Jupiter, and he pieces together that he's supposed to speak. Fine. Sure. "We um-- We were just asking him--" He scratches behind his right ear and thinks. What to say? It's tricky. What can he say? It's no longer just an issue of privacy -- PROTECT QUALLS -- it's now a matter of public safety. This area of investigation is dangerous.

Lionel gets an idea. He fishes for a piece of paper and starts scribbling something down. He folds up the sheet and offers it to Ms. G. "We asked him this. And when we did, he tried to answer but he-- he short-circuited. His eyes rolled back. He collapsed. For a moment I smelled--" he thinks, "--old wood." It was all eerily reminiscent of what he's seen happen to Qualls. When you try to open a corrupted file, sometimes you just need to restart the computer.

"You can read it if you want. But..." be careful, he thinks and leaves unsaid.

The note reads: How did Mr. Qualls lose his memory?

Ms. Gunzenhauser takes the note from Lionel and unfolds it. She's quiet for a moment as her eyes scan the page—longer than it should take her to read the single line of text, but any fears of Lionel's teacher-killing superpowers are put to rest a moment later. Ms. G neatly folds the note back up, places it in her pocket, and looks back to the students.

"I don't think you should be asking questions like this," she tells them. "Especially not to Per—Mr. Potkin. He won't turn you away, even if..." She pauses and takes a breath. "I would just advise against it."

Ms. G's tone isn't harsh, but Claudia still looks away and flinches when she speaks. She doesn't like being scolded, doesn't like having her dumb, impulsive mistakes rubbed in her face.

"Yes ma'am," she answers, all sweetness and contrition. She understands Ms. Gunzenhauser's position, but she also knows if she promises to never ask another teacher a strange or invasive question again it would be a damn lie.

"Oh, yeah, for sure," Jupiter says, her head bobbling up and down, wearing the wide-eyed look of someone who was genuinely frightened by what she saw and didn't just translate Ms. Gunzenhauser's words to Actually, you should totally keep snooping because it's super cool and badass.

Lionel relaxes -- just a little -- when Ms. G reads the note and lives to tell the tale. He's not entirely sure why she is unaffected. Or why they shouldn't be asking these questions. Or why she almost called Mr. Potkins by his first name. But clearly Ms. G knows things. "Advise against or prohibit?" Lionel asks, not quite ready to be dismissed. "I'm trying to help my teacher. The more I know, the better I can do that."

"The seniors put Mr. Potkin in the hospital," Cicero says with absolute conviction. "I think he might be dead."

"WHO DIED??" Cedar screeches from way too far away and tries to close the distance as quickly as possible. But they trip over their own shoelaces and land facedown in the middle of the hall first, and they're just gonna... lay here for a second.

Home Mag-Ec position is cursed pass it on.

Comment here if you'd like one of your characters to have witnessed three senior Thorntrails break Mr. Potkin.

I’m sorry I need for Atlas to have seen his sister do a murder I just
I gotta

He better be careful his quigley teacher killing powers don't manifest when he least expects them

Now they just have to learn to control/ weaponize it...

oh i need this for armani fomo addams pls

Dibs!

can Trudy be a witness?

Desperately hope she's jealous Claudia questioned a teacher to death first

you know my girl so well

Can Val see this???

I love when we tag things like this as a gift

what else is it really

maybe we should stop trying to kill the teachers

There's plenty of adults out there to replace them

How do you think we got the current crop anyhow

Viola is now 100% sure that Lionel is in the Illuminati

Our main goal was to make everyone think that Lionel has teacher killing magic powers

Secret Quackenbush

It's like the cursed DADA position at Hogwarts

But less cool

Instead of being cursed by a dark wizard not qualified for the job it's just cursed because half the kids in this school are too

Edited (I noticed I wrote the wrong word like 3 hours after posting it and it's still bothering me) 2020-02-21 23:31 (UTC)

WOW. Wow wow wow. OKAY. Alex and Jenny are like, "Hey, does Lionel wanna talk to Potkins about the photos?" and I'm like, "Um, yeah, that sounds like a good idea and maybe they can also ask if he knows how Qualls lost his memory" and then they're like, "Oh yeah, cool, good idea," and then this morning I wake up and LIONEL IS A MURDERER.

Amazing :))

Twitter is telling me that today is Ben Appreciation Day :)

Twitter is telling me it's #FursuitFriday

Holy shit this just triggered a memory. In middle scho

Holy shit this just triggered a memory. In middle school, a friend secretly organized "Cheer Up Ben Smith Day" and my locker was full of nice notes from my classmates. I feel like many of them were like, "Don't know why you need cheering up, but you're great!" and I recall my reaction was basically the same, "This is great, but why do I need cheering up?"

fdsajhdfl Do you find that you exude melancholy

Hmm I would say my middle school years were my most melancholic and angsty... but only by relative standards. I was still super happy and am one of those people who genuinely says they liked every year of school 🤦🏻

Harrison big sigh

You were nice to Holland so we had to do something bad to Harrison

It's true, Holland having nice things unbalances the world

He's tired of worrying about adults, please just let him be the teacher

"Hello Harrison. It's Lionel. Please, come look at these cursed images and listen to my cursed questions."

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Three Thorntrails Visit Mr. Potkin

MEETING WITH MS. GUNZENHAUSER

MEETING WITH MS. GUNZENHAUSER

MEETING WITH MS. GUNZENHAUSER

MEETING WITH MS. GUNZENHAUSER

MEETING WITH MS. GUNZENHAUSER

MEETING WITH MS. GUNZENHAUSER

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MEETING WITH MS. GUNZENHAUSER

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