"Dude, have you ever wondered..."

Jason groaned loudly. Any time Chad started out a sentence with 'have you ever wondered' it could only mean one thing. "No, Chad no, don't say it... last time you were wondering something I was up all night trying to figure out how the hell does a salamander whistle when they have no lips!"

"Really?" Chad's expression was that of genuine curiousity when as he turned to look at his friend. "And what did you figure out?"

"They don't!" Jason stared at Chad for a moment, waiting for the realization to sink into the expression that the brown-winged windian was currently carrying on his face. Unfortunatily, he had a long wait ahead of him as Chad just continued to stare blankly. Jason rolled his eyes and tried again. "Chad, salamanders don't fucking whistle!"

"Really?"

"Really."

"At all?"

"No!"

"Oh." Chad stroked his goatte lightly. "Well then... I guess that wasn't a salamander after all."

David nodded as he took another drink from his soda bottle. "Told ya, man. Salamanders also aren't five feet long."

"Dude, it was late." Chad rolled his eyes. "You have to give me some credit here..."

"Alright, first of all crawling around under the school at three in the morning is a stupid idea. Period. Second of all it didn't help with the fact that you had just pulled an all nighter and was buzzed up on a bag of chocolates and six cups of coffee..."

Chad waved his finger at Jason. "Hey hey, and who's idea was it to put off actually cramming for the test until the day before we had to take it?"

The three windians exchanged glances and immediatly changed the subject.

"So anyway, have you ever wondered..." Chad studied the little pinecone that he was holding in his hand. The Windian Trio was currently over at the park, they had been there ever since school ended a couple of hours earlier. Chad was stretched out on a bench, staring intently at a pinecone that had managed to hold his attention for the past ten minutes. Jason was actually attempting to complete some of his English homework, he had a clipboard in his lap with a piece of paper clipped onto it, a pencil to jot down a few notes, and was slowly getting through the reading in a book called The Last Stand that had been assigned to him in English class. The red haired windian was sitting on the other end of the bench, a little less sprawled out then Chad was, but between the two windians the entire bench was now unusable for anyone else who wanted to sit down. This of course left David standing behind the bench, leaning over as he spoke with his two friends, the half empty bottle of now flat orange soda in his hand. Both David and Jason pretended not to listen to Chad as the windian continued to muse to himself outloud.

"... if you could throw a pinecone so hard and so fast, that the friction of it traveling through the air would be so strong it would cause the pinecone to errupt into flames and effectively burn itself out before hitting the ground?"

That was just too much. Jason set down his book, dropped his pencil onto the clipboard and just stared at Chad. "How do you do it?"

Chad blinked in amazement and looked over at Jason. "Do what?"

"That! Dude, we just got done talking about how last week you were fucking crawling under the school like an idiot, ran across a five-foot shadow that whistled and thought it was a salamander, and even a week after David and I tried to explain to you that it was probably one of the janitors wondering what the fuck you were doing, you just now caught on that, no, it wasn't a salamander. And now, here you are, contemplating something that sounds like what Mr. Jackson would put on one of his tests just to fuck with our brains! How do you do that? How do you go from complete idiot to spontanious musings about science and the world?"

Chad considered that question for a moment before shrugged. "I don't know? Frankly I just thought it would look kinda cool... you know... throwing a pinecone really hard and, POW, watching it like, errupt into flames. Wouldn't that be cool?" The windian raised his eyebrows and flashed a genuine grin that caused Jason and David to exchange worried glances.

"Man..." David looked over at his friend. "How much sleep did you get last night?"

"Uh..." Chad paused for a moment as he counted something on his fingers. "I think maybe.... fifteen minutes? Something like that."

"What the fuck were you doing up all night?" Jason stared at Chad in amazement. The brown-winged windian just shrugged and stretched.

"Honestly I don't remember, all actions that I partook of between the hours of 6pm yesterday up until now have been escaping my memory. Lack of sleep has made me unable to realize and retain information, however, I assure you that whatever I was doing last night must have really been worth the effort of staying awake, because if it wasn't... well um..." Chad stroked his goattee and paused. "... what was I talking about?"

"Dude." Jason kicked his friend and chuckled. "Go home, get some sleep. We can go fuck around at the beach or something later, but you seriously need some sleep right now."

"Sleep..." Chad shook his head. "I do not understand the meaning of the word."

Jason rolled his eyes. "Sleep, the act of being unconcious by choice and not because I've punched you in the face anytime recently."

"Ah... sleep." Chad blinked. "You know, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea." The windian staggered up from his sprawled position and stretched. "Yea, I think I'll go home and do just that... dude, if I actually wake up again today and it's not too late, let's go do something?"

"Sure." Jason nodded.

"Oh hell..." David paused suddenly, a look of realization passing over his face. "I completely forgot, I need to get home. Mom wants me to watch the little terror today, and I think she's got a friend coming over."

"The terror has friends?" Chad chuckled. The windians were referring to David's little sister, Jessica, who had this deep set belief that all of Torana revolved around her and that she was able to get everything and anything she wanted simply by throwing a huge temper tantrum. This unfortunatily worked most of the time. David nodded and shuddered.

"I can't do it! I can't go home! Not when there's going to be two of them!"

"Aw shit." Jason sat up and stretched, popping his back and neck. "I'll go over with you. We can lock the little midgets up in the bathroom or something and raid the freezer."

"Sounds like a plan." Chad chuckled. "Alright, so... if I wake up and it's still light out, I'll head over to David's to grab you two, alright?" The idea was agreed upon by the three windians, and they each made their way away from the park and towards their newfound destinations.