“I AM SOOO SORRY, Mr. Mann,” I said, hurrying over to him.

And I meant it. Even though he was the most boring teacher ever to walk the halls of HVMS—or the planet—I had nothing against the man and I certainly hadn’t meant to bean him in the head. It wasn’t his fault he was so … gray.

There was another thing. Up close like this, and seeing Mr. Mann all shook up and stuff, there was no way we’d been right about the whole Niki Blister thing. If Mr. Mann was a missing Aussie rock god, I was President of the United States.

We helped Mr. Mann to his feet. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and winced. A vivid red mark showed exactly where the corner of the album sleeve had connected.

“What the hell was that about?” he barked. “I know I’m new around here, but is that how you treat every new teacher in this flaming town?”

I began babbling about how my hipster wave had gone wrong and how I’d forgotten the album was there, but Kasey pushed me aside.

“What Rafe’s trying to say is that he didn’t mean it,” she said. “He’s an idiot.”

I opened my mouth to defend myself, then closed it again. Then I opened it to say something else but forgot what I was going to say.

“See?” Kasey said, gesturing toward me.

Mr. Mann looked at her. “You’re Australian,” he said.

Kasey nodded. “Last time I checked.”

“And what was it you threw at me?” Mr. Mann picked up the record and examined it. While he did, it was Kasey’s turn to nudge me with her elbow. I looked at her and she raised her eyebrows. Mr. Mann was staring at the album sleeve like it was the golden key to the lost city of Atlantis, or maybe like he’d seen a zombie or something. It was hard to tell. He looked like this:

“Mr. Mann? Are you okay?” I asked.

His face had drained of blood and his hands trembled, while the S-shaped scar on his left cheek throbbed like a neon sign. A single drop of sweat ran down his forehead, reached the end of his nose, and fell with a splat directly onto the face of Niki Blister on the album sleeve. The impact seemed to wake Mr. Mann from his trance.

“GOTTOGOBYE!” he blurted and, dropping the album sleeve like it was radioactive, bolted out of Gudonya as fast as his gray tracksuit legs could carry him.