Ransom flexes his hands into fists. “Archer, you are no longer a student at this school. Lucky for you, or you’d be in quite the pickle, following up last night’s display with this morning’s shenanigans. Jake, I’ll see you in my office, after you detain that animal—”

His words cut off abruptly, and not everyone notices at first, since they’re all still whooping and hollering at the goat, trying out names for it and skipping out of the way as it continues to race around the cafeteria. But I see it right away: Ransom, faltering. He grabs the back of the chair next to him to steady himself. Then he closes his eyes, like he’s suddenly overcome with a wave of nausea or wooziness. Before I can fully comprehend what’s happening, he has collapsed to the ground, his body splayed out on the ancient wooden floorboards.

“Ollie,” I say, pointing in Ransom’s direction.

“Is that Ransom?” he asks, jumping up to see.

“He collapsed. I saw him grab the back of that chair. And then…” I make a falling gesture with my hand.

Maude jumps up on her seat, craning to see. Jago and Theodora head into the crowd to get a closer look.

“Someone call the school nurse. Or 911!” a voice shouts. Word has gotten around that Ransom has fallen. That he fainted, or had a heart attack, or something. The whole room erupts in chaos, and that seems to only rile up the goat, which has now leaped right onto a table and is eating the food off every single plate.

Within minutes, paramedics arrive and rush to Ransom’s side. I watch them load him onto a gurney and slide him out the double doors as quickly as they possibly can. The goat being long forgotten, now all anyone can talk about is Headmaster Ransom. Is he going to be all right?

“The plasma,” I whisper to my friends. It’s got to be the reason he collapsed. “His treatments are as experimental as you can get,” I tell them. “I doubt he even has a doctor on board, advising him. For all we know, that cocktail he injected in his arm last night was lethal.”

For all we know, Headmaster Ransom is dead.

Jake

The rest of Saturday, all anyone can talk about is Ransom’s collapse. We have next to no information about what hospital he’s been taken to, what condition he’s in, or if he’s even alive. All anyone can do is speculate. Theories abound, but none of them come close to what I believe is the truth: that Ransom’s risky experiment may have killed him.