"What exactly are you planning, Zoe?" Leo asked skeptically as he took cover behind a large concrete pillar. A can of orange soda hissed just over his head and exploded with a loud smack against the wall behind him. The hallway now smelled like a sticky fast-food joint.
Zoe triumphantly pulled out a pair of extremely bright, neon yellow goalkeeper gloves and three handballs from her bag. "The principle is simple, Leo. These chairs behave like wild animals. And what do wild animals do when you throw them a ball? They run after it."
"Those are wooden chairs, Zoe! Not Golden Retrievers!" Leo whispered desperately.
"Just trust me," she replied coolly. She crouched down, fixed her gaze on the herd of three-legged biology chairs, which were still nervously pawing in front of the teacher's desk, and got ready. With a perfect, powerful throw, she hurled the first handball across the hallway. The ball tapped loudly on the floor and rolled toward the large stairwell.
Indeed, the unbelievable happened: The front chair jerked its backrest toward the sound. Its wooden legs clattered excitedly on the linoleum. With a loud, wooden creak, it galloped after the ball. The other two chairs immediately followed, like a flock of sheep that had discovered a new toy.
"It works!" Leo marveled, staring at Zoe with his mouth open.
"Of course it works. I'm a genius," Zoe said, patting herself on the shoulder. "Now only the final boss duo remains: the voracious teacher's desk and the soda machine. I'll distract the machine. I'll run at it in a zigzag pattern and block its line of fire. As soon as it needs to reload – that always takes about three seconds – you run in from the side and fire your deactivation beam. Got it?"
Leo looked at the Q-Fluctuator in his hand. The device was now vibrating noticeably faster, and the poisonous green light pulsed impatiently. It felt as if the energy inside the machine was becoming unstable every second.
"Okay," Leo said, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Three seconds. If you get hit, we have a big problem in gym class tomorrow."
"Nobody's hitting me," Zoe grinned, pulled her cap low over her face, and jumped out from behind the pillar with a sporty leap. "Hey, you oversized refrigerator! Looking for trouble?!" she shouted at the machine.
The vending machine turned around sluggishly. Its red lights blinked angrily. A deep, mechanical growl sounded from inside. The chase was on.