“Hey Lillia,” Oka said, sitting across from Lillia. She didn’t have the same reverence for Lillia’s majesty. “Did you ever have etiquette training?”

  “Why do you ask?” Lillia asked as she finished a sip of tea a her book down.

  “Because you’re all polite and stuff,” I said, spotting the cover of her book. "Hey, is that Three Beams you're reading?"

  "Three Beams?" Oka asked.

  "It's that dystopian book series with the big love triangle." I said. "I read the first one, but I haven't read the sed yet."

  "Well, there's more to it than that," Lillia said. "It's a sweeping epic of a war torn world, about freedom fighters trying to take back their world from a corrupt regime, and of course the nomad pirates seeking to pick up the pieces from whatever's left of the rubble when the fighting ends."

  "But the main hook of it is the love triangle." I said.

  "Is the love triangle why you're reading it?" Oka asked.

  "No, of course...not," Lillia said. "Definitely not anything to do with the romance aspect of it, although Giris having two potential suitors, her childhood friend Dain, and the dashing nomad pirate Miel, and the intricacies of having a main character with two people ied in her...say, we're getting a bit off track, aren't we?"

  "I feel like there's a lot to unpack there," Oka said.

  "And unpack it we will at some point," Lillia said, looking as flustered as someone as well kept together as her could look. "But not here and now, obviously. Did you have ettiquite training of any kind at your school?"

  “My school retty strict,” Oka said. “But even they would have trouble in our current mission.”

  Pretty strict seemed like an obsely mild way to describe Oka’s school growing up, but she had nerves of steel about her time there.

  “And what mission is that?” Lillia asked.

  “Kalei wants to be less mean,” I said.

  “Hm,” Lillia said. “That would be incredibly difficult. In addition to how she behaves in css, I py games with her online sometimes. I have unique experience hearing from her…me filled side.

  "She doesn't say anything like bad, does she?" I asked.

  "Nothing hateful, don't worry there," Lillia said. "But she doesn't hold back at calling out pying skills, whether it's one of us or someone who's btantly around twelve years old. She shows no mercy."

  "Wow," Oka said.

  "I hope I never py a game with her that she yells at me for..." I said.

  "What have you tried so far for Kalei's isuses?” Lillia asked.

  We expihe euation so far to her. Lillia took another sip of tea. She looked closely at the teacup she was holding. There was a small cra the hahat made her sigh. “They checked out the good tea set again…”

  “Who did?” Oka asked. “You check out tea sets?”

  “Yes, farden parties and the like,” Lillia said. “Those three Kanibari girls, Rain, Amara, and KJ; I keep gettien by them when the checkout period opens. But that’s irrelevant to your situation, isn’t it?”

  “A bit,” I said.

  “I give it my best shot,” Lillia said. “Teag her, I mean. I have had a few etiquette lessons, and I imagihis could be fun.”

  “I’m suddenly scared for Kalei,” I said, seeing the subdued glee in Lillia’s eyes.

  “Oh, I won’t be too harsh on her,” Lillia said. “Just as much as she needs.”

  “Now I’m suddenly scared for her,” Oka said.

  “Could we stop at my room first?” Lillia asked. “There’s something I o grab first.”

  * * *

  We somehow male Kalei from our room and bring her back outside. We found her moping, too bummed out to eve past the main menu of one of her games.

  “So I’m just gonna say I’m immediately ed,” Kalei said. She ositioned against one of the stone walls of the school, while Lillia, Oka and I stood across from her. Lillia had the tea set she checked out in a box near her feet, telling us she didn’t trust us enough to be too close to it.

  “Whatever for?” Lillia asked.

  “Because of that squirt gun you’re holding,” Kalei said.

  Lillia had stopped at her room to grab a giant squirt gun rifle that she had apparently kept hidden from everyoil now.

  “Why do you have that again?” I asked.

  “My roommate is very annoying,” Lillia said. “So I got this Blorpo brand Ultra Annihitor squirt gun in a mutual agreement with her for the sake of my sanity. When she reaches an uable level of annoyance, I squirt her with this. I feel as though the same principle be applied here.”

  Kalei gulped. “That thing isn’t like super dangerous, is it?”

  “It’s a standard Blorpo brand squirt gun,” Lillia said as she pumped the squirt gun a few times.

  “That doesn’t really answer my question.” Kalei said.

  “She’s actually doing pretty good so far,” Oka said.

  “Then give her the reward.” Lillia said.

  “ht!” Oka said.

  “Huh?” Kalei asked. Oka ran over and gave Kalei a piece of dy.

  “When you do good, you get dy,” Lillia said. “When you do bad, you get a shot from this. The three of us are going to present sarios to you, and you have to react politely. Got it?”

  Kalei nodded. Lillia’s iy had Kalei pretty mupletely under her trol, which was very strao see.

  “First up,” Lillia said. “It’s the day Tyrant Rangers es out, but the cashier tells you it’s been deyed one more day due to a shipping error. What do you say to them?”

  “Screw that!” Kalei said. Lillia sprayed her in the face. “Oh, e on! Tyrant Rangers is unfair!”

  Oka read off a card Lillia had prepared for her. Lillia had gotten really into the idea of this as we got set up and had e up with a whole lesson pn’s worth of material.

  “I am ahead of you in li the cafeteria,” Oka said. “I grab the st piece of dessert that you wanted.”

  “Well, how close are you in this sario?” Kalei said. “Cuz I’d hit you with a swift kick to the back of the khehat dessert!”

  Lillia gave another squirt. “You…wouldn’t really do that, would you?” She asked.

  “The water’s kind of refreshing,” Kalei said. “I just wanted another spsh, you know?”

  “Hmmm,” Lillia said. She turned up a dial on the squirt gun and sprayed at Kalei again.

  “Ow! That hurt, what the hell!” Kalei shouted. “I didn’t even say anything!”

  “You had it ing for that knee line,” Oka said.

  Kalei growled but stopped herself as Lillia aimed again.

  I . “Hey, my card just says, ‘Zeta does something that annoys you’ in brackets. That’s not nice!”

  “Kalei, what would you do in this situation?” Lillia asked. “Knowing that the squirt gun is set to pain mode if you choose poorly.”

  Kalei winced. She straio answer.

  “I just grin and bear it,” Kalei said. “There are some things people do you ’t ge.”

  “I still think that’s kind of mean of both of you,” I said.

  “I’m gonna give Kalei a dy because it was at least an improvement,” Oka said. Lillia nodded.

  “We’re making ial progress here, Zeta.” Lillia said. “It’ll be easier as we move along.”

  The sed wave of questions were more like natural dialogue. Kalei responded fine-ish to Lillia and got more dies from her, but was snippier with Oka and I.

  “I think the problem is she’s too used to you to turn it off,” Lillia said.

  “You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here.” Kalei said.

  “If you’re not around her, maybe she won’t be so keen to put her rudeness at the forefront.” Lillia said.

  “Again, right here,” Kalei said.

  “So it’s our fault?” I asked.

  “Not really,” Lillia said. “Just that it’ll be more of an uphill climb trying to ge her behavior around you.”

  “What are you thinking then?” Oka asked. “Solo lessons on tea set etiquette?”

  “I don’t want to learn tea set etiquette, please,” Kalei said.

  “I only have an hour left with this set anyways before I have to return it,” Lillia said, gesturing to the tea set. “So whatever it is, it has to be within the hour for today.

  “Oh, tea set! That gives me an idea!” I said. “Do you know if the love trio is holding a garden party today?”

  “Presumably, if they checked out the good tea set I ’t imagihem using it for anything else,” Lillia said.

  “Whehey not having a garden party?” Oka asked. “I feel like that’s all I ever hear them do. Well, that and the intense romantisioweehree.”

  “It’s perfect,” I said. “Kalei, are you ready for the ultimate test?”

  “Not really,” Kalei said.

  “The’s go!” I said.

  “I said not really,” Kalei said. “If I had the squirt gun, I’d be spraying all of yht now because this is decidedly rude.”

  “Kalei, she said let’s go,” Oka said.

  “Yes Koridia, we don’t have a lot of time,” Lillia said.

  Kalei sighed. “Fine.”

  “I don’t know why I even bothered to e with,” Kalei said as we basically shoved her forward into the indarden.

  “Because you want to learn to be less mean, right?” I said. “So this is your ultimate test.”

  “Zeta came up with this pn,” Oka said. She paused to see if Kalei was gonna make a snide ent about that, but she didn’t.

  “See? She improved a bit!” Oka said. Lillia gave a slight, proud nod.

  “Well, what’s this pn?” Kalei asked. “And I knew she came up with it, I was there when she came up with it!”

  Kalei was a bit steamed with us, so Lillia’s theory that being away from us might help seemed to have some merit.

  “Also yes, you did not tell us the pn so I’d like to hear it too,” Oka said. “You told us that one part. But I’d like to hear the others."

  “I mean, we could gleam the basic premise from her versation,” Lillia said.

  “Yeah, but I wanna hear Zeta say it!” Oka said. “My girlfriend came up with a cool pn and I wanna hear her expin it!”

  “Aren’t they being insufferable already?” Kalei asked Lillia.

  “Quiet,” Oka said. “Zeta, go!”

  “So as you heard, the love trio is hosting a garden party right now,” I said. “Yonna go to this and be o them for the whole thing.”

  “I ’t do that! Do you know how annoying they are?” Kalei snapped.

  “Oh, I get it,” Oka said. “That’s why this is such a big test!”

  “Maia ’t even be around them that long.” I said. “If you hahem, you cool off, and Maia will be impressed once we tell her.”

  “But we haven’t even successfully trained or anything!” Kalei said. “How are you gonna bump me up to a challenge like this when I couldn’t even do the baby easy one?”

  “You did moderately well on my challe least,” Lillia said.

  “That’s why we’re going to try something different here,” I said. “Oka and I are gonna hang back.”

  “As we’ve said before, your snappy ebacks might decrease without Oka aa around,” Lillia said.

  “Also, if you’re mean to Amara in particur, you not only fail but I’m gonra disappointed in you.” I said. “I mainly want to grade you on how nice you are to her.”

  “How e?”

  “Probably because of that Elisa i in social studies,” Oka said. “Right?”

  “You know me very well,” I said.

  “Alright I got it, you two leave already?” Kalei asked.