The theme song started. This time it was a waltz.

Nate was dancing with what looked like a store mannequin. It was wearing a tight purple dress and had long flowing brown hair.

Nate spun around to the beat, oblivious to the fact that everybody could see him. Or he knew and didn’t care. Either way, he was dancing away with his eyes closed and a blissful expression.

Nate kept dancing until the very end, vanishing from view just as the book fell from the sky.

It opened to a blank page and a quill appeared and started writing.

Rule 8 - Contestants will not be allowed to enter a contest without their badge.

The theme song ended, and the scene changed to Nate’s bedroom.

Nate woke up to the pounding of a hammer.

He rubbed his eyes, and slowly got out of bed.

He threw on a pair of tan cargo shorts and a grey t-shirt. On the front of the shirt was the outline of a typewriter in blue, and the keys read “Old School”

He opened the door to see what the noise was.

Two men in jeans and flannel shirts were kneeling by the front door. Just as Nate was about to ask, they stood up and left.

“Check it out, we’ve got our logo.” Luke was giddy with excitement.

“Logo?” Nate asked.

“Oh, yeah. You fell asleep during all that. Each room now has a name and logo. We’re the silver platypus”

“Silver platypus? That’s not a very intimidating name.”

Nate walked over and inspected the door. There was a large silver platypus curled into a circle.

“Though I’ll admit, I like the logo. It’s peaceful.”

“Are you kidding?” Dave walked over. “Platypus is perfect for us. They’re a mix of so many other different animals. Just like we’re a mix of people and genres. I couldn’t be happier.”

“We even got swag,” Luke pointed at several boxes in the corner.

“Was somebody banging, or is my head still ringing from my dream?” Alice walked out of her room with a big yawn. She was wearing black fleece pants with skulls on them and an oversized pink t-shirt with a kitten yawning on it.

“It was hammering, but it’s over now.” Nate rubbed his forehead. “Do you have anything for headaches? And what was that about a dream? I seem to remember having an unsettling night as well.”

“Already ahead of you,” Luke passed Nate a bottle. “I had a weird dream too, but that can wait. Alice, look! Look! Look!” Each Look was punctuated by Luke pointing frantically at the door with both arms. He dragged her over to the door and pointed at the platypus. “We’re the Silver Platypus room.”

Eventually, everyone had come out of their rooms, and Luke showed them the door one by one. Once they were all gathered they went through the swag box.

There was a box of computer paper. Stacy opened it and squealed. “Letterheads” She grabbed a handful and passed them around.

Nate immediately noticed that the paper was much thicker than normal, and the letterhead had flowing scripted writing The Silver Platypus room with a picture of their seal at the top of the page.

There were several smaller boxes. Luke opened one and dropped it in excitement. He picked it up again and pulled out a ring.

“We got rings!!” The rings were in the shape of a platypus curled in a circle, just like their seal.

“Oh these are simply adorable,” Alice was trying to find one that fit her.

Dave grabbed one of the last two boxes and opened it.

“New badges,” He held up a handful. They had their name, picture, and room logo on them. They were glued to strong magnets.

Dave handed them out until he got to Nate. “I guess this makes up for me forgetting to give you the old one,” he chuckled as he handed over the badge.

“You only need them during contests, so most people don’t risk wearing them around every day.” Stacy was already heading to her room to put hers somewhere safe.

The rest of them followed suit and quickly gathered again.

Stan held up a sign that said

Me next

Luke handed Stan a box. He opened it and made a happy chittering sound, and held up a sign.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Embosser stamp

“How did he have that ready?” Nate tried to ask, but he was ignored.

“Stamp me,” Stacy handed Stan a piece of paper. He carefully placed the stamp in the bottom corner and pressed down.

He looked at the paper and nodded before passing it back to Stacy. Nate could see several spots on Stan’s back moving, as though tails were wagging inside the coat. He shrugged it off. They wouldn’t listen to him anyway.

“Oh, it’s absolutely amazing!” Stacy looked at the paper. The words Silver Platypus Room circled around their seal.

“I can’t wait to print out my first story with this stuff,” Nate looked around for the printer.

“Over here,” Alice grabbed the box, tried to lift it, then settled on dragging it across the floor.

It was underneath the television. She filled the paper tray with the new paper.

“Not everyone at once now,” She tried warning them, but the printer was already whirring to life.

Stacy was beside Nate, helping him add the printer to his phone.

Within a few minutes, everybody had finished printing. Luke took the job of sorting out the papers, while Stan was in charge of embossing them. A few times he held up a sign that said No Room and sent them back to change their margins and print it again.

Nate only had the one story, but he held it up in the air, looking at it, a massive smile plastered across his face.”

He noticed something and walked over to the lamp to double-check. “Hey guys, these pages are watermarked as well.”

“With our logo?” Stacy asked.

“No, with the Csick logo.” Luke whistled as he looked at the paper for himself. “These pages are proof that we were here. If we ever tried to tell anybody. But just sending this into a publisher would be enough, you wouldn’t have to say a word.”

Nate looked at his story and realized just how much it was worth. An open door to almost any publisher worldwide.

The room turned serious as the thought sunk in. It was also a stark reminder that this might be their last day here. They might not be able to add any new stories to their portfolio.

“Are you thinking about the contest today?” Nate looked around the room and was met with silent nods.

“Don’t worry. We can get through this. We’re the Silver Platypus room for jello’s sake.”

“Say, who else had a weird dream last night?” Luke tried to change the subject.

“Oh, I dreamed of the sea.” Nate sat at the table. “And something else.”

“That’s normal, seeing as we’re on a boat.” Jaz replied. “But you’re right. I dreamed of the ocean too.”

“It was more than just the ocean though,” Nate tried to explain, but he couldn’t remember anything else about it Trying to remember his dream was like grasping at smoke. Nate groaned at the comparison.

Stan held up a sign

Mermaids

“Yes!!” Everyone exclaimed in unison.

“Well, mermaids aren’t real.” Nate wasn’t sure if he was telling them or asking. He had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The writer was at it again.

Just then the front door burst open. “Everybody! There’s a mermaid!!” A woman in her forties was standing there. She had long wild black hair that refused to stop moving. Her eyes were deep blue and had a slightly crazy look to them. Her face was gentle and had the beginning of wrinkles around her eyes and mouth.

“Mom!” Several of the group shouted out and ran over to her to give her a giant hug.

“I’m their adopted mother while they’re here.” The woman known as mom said with a slight chuckle. “I couldn’t get rid of them if I wanted to.”

“By the way, I’m Nancy.” She maneuvered an arm away from the mass of bodies crowded around her. Nate reach over and shook her hand.

“I’m Nate.”

“I know. I heard all about you.”

Nate could feel his face start to turn red. He looked away, but it was too late.

“Oh, nothing bad of course. I couldn’t wait to meet you, but wanted to give you time to get familiar with the gang.”

“Did you see our platypus!?” Luke asked, with a slight bounce.

“I did. I think it suits you very well.”

“What room are you in?” Stacy asked.

“I’m in the scarlet viper room.”

“Now that is an impressive name,” Nate whistled.

“Come on, let’s go see this mermaid,” Matt and Dave had both let go of Nancy and were waiting eagerly.

“I’ll meet you out there,” Alice looked down at what she was wearing. “I’m going to get changed.”

“It’s in the rear pool,” Nancy told Alice before leading the group out the door.

Within minutes they were at the back of the boat, There was a large rectangle pool, with chairs lined up around the sides. An empty lifeguard tower sat in the middle.

There was a small group of people gathered around the mermaid. Apparently, they were trying to keep this quiet. Nate didn’t blame them, too many people and they would miss their chance to talk to a real live mermaid.

His group finally merged with the group around the mermaid and Nate got a look at her.

She had fiery red hair that glowed in the sunlight. Her face and skin were a pure mix of blue and green. The colour seemed to change as she moved. Nate noticed that her skin was actually tiny scales.

Her features were human, with a nose and ears. Her eyes were the same shade of red as her hair.

She was wearing a pair of sea shells over her breasts, tied with seaweed. Nate groaned at the author’s lame attempt to avoid nudity.

Nate blinked and suddenly she was wearing what looked like a bikini top. It was made of seaweed that was tied or crocheted. Nate didn’t know enough about crafts to say what it was. It was adorned with specks of coral and seashells. The result was a reflective rainbow.

Is that better? The voice spoke directly to Nate’s thoughts.

Yes, actually. Nate wanted to be snarky but he had to admit that he was impressed.

“Why are you all human?” The mermaid cut through Nate’s thoughts. She was looking around at the group of people.

“I cast a spell last night to change you all into mermaids.”

“Well, I dreamed of mermaids,” Nate pipped up.

The mermaid looked at him, “What is your name, boy?”

“Um… Nate.”

“You say you dreamed of mermaids, Nate. Is that right?”

“I did too,” A voice from the crowd.

“So did I,” another voice joined in.

It became clear that everybody had been dreaming of mermaids last night.

“Cheap wand,” The mermaid took out a fancy pink wand with a pink jewel on top. “That’s what you get when you buy a wand from that genie site.”

“Genie site?” Nate was confused.

“You know, genies give you three of them.” Stacy had caught on.

“Oh, Wi…” Stacy covered his mouth before he could finish.

“What are you doing? You can’t say the company name here, what are you trying to do? Get us sued?”

Nate gently pushed her hand away. “Sorry.”

“What are you going to do with us now?” A voice cried out, shivering with fear.

“I’ll deal with you later,” The mermaid said with a hiss. She dove underwater, swam back and forth a few times then burst out of the pool and landed in the ocean.

The group dispersed, talking in low voices. Alice walked past them towards the rest of the platypus room.

She had changed into tight black leather overalls. They were studded with silver spikes, and a plague doctor’s face was embroidered on the front of them in bronze and white.

“Did I miss it?” She asked as soon as she was close enough to hear.

“Yeah, sorry.” Nancy started leading the group away.

“Why was it here?”

“It tried to turn us into mermaids, but the wand was a knockoff so it just gave us bad dreams.” Dave replied.

“Well, that solves that mystery at least,” Alice said.

Nancy led them to the cafeteria where they got a table large enough for the whole group.

Nate was impressed with the variety of food. They still had dinner items as well as the standard breakfast fare.

“Why do they have dinner food out?” He asked once they were all back at the table.

“Some writers are night owls and sleep during the day. There are special classes for them, and some contests even have a day and a night option.”

Nate nodded. He was a bit of a night own during summer vacation. It was hard changing back to school hours once it was over.

“So how did you guys meet?” Nate started in on his scrambled eggs.

“We met at a bowling tournament.” Dave had his chair turned sideways, and was sitting on one leg. “She taught us how to bowl, and was nice to us. We became friends.”

“I prefer these hooligans to the rest of the Scarlet Vipers. Not that they’re bad people. They just remind me that I’m old. The Silver Platypus group makes me feel young again. They’re like the children I never had.”

She looked off in the distance, and Nate knew better than to ask.

“So, is everybody ready for this contest?” Luke asked between bites of pancake.

“We got this!” Nate cried out.

“Yeah we do!” Dave responded with enthusiasm.

The rest of the group sounded off with positive replies, even Nancy joined in.

Dave looked at his watch. “Want to head over?”

The group agreed. They cleared their plates and headed to the exam room.

“Wait, we need to grab our badges.” Luke suddenly remembered.

“I have mine,” Nancy took hers out of a pocket and used the magnets to clip it to her shirt. “Nate, did you read the rules and agree to them?”

Nate shook his head and frantically dug around for his phone. “I can do that later. For now, I just have to agree to them.”

He found his phone and quickly hit the button agreeing to the rules.

The group made its way to the Silver Platypus room and they got their badges, attaching them to their shirts.

They got to the exam room, where a line had formed. Several teachers were wearing green, and checking badges with their phones before waving them on through.

The line moved quickly and before he knew it, he was at the front. One of the teachers held up her phone to Nate's badge and checked the screen.

“You really put it off,” she said, waving him through.

Once inside, Nate was shocked at the size of the room. It was a wide-open space with thousands of small school desks. It was well lit and seemed to stretch on forever. The group found a cluster of desks together and sat down.

Nate noticed that each desk had a power outlet built-in. He plugged in his computer and made sure everything was working. The app was displaying a timer, counting down to the start of the contest.

The group was oddly silent as they each followed Nate’s example. They sat watching the timer.

“Good luck,” Nate said when there was a minute remaining.

The room had filled up but was still almost dead quiet. His words came out much louder than he had thought, and he looked around in embarrassment.

Nobody seemed to have noticed, and his group responded with a chorus of Good luck.

The timer hit zero