Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I am not one of the authors of Spirit Animals.

Meilin quietly mused over what had occurred in the last… how many days? She could not keep track.

Her mind replayed the scene when her father, General Teng had died. With his last words, he had told her something about betraying and bile. She wondered what he had meant. Was it possible that he had been one of the infiltrators in Zhong? No! She shoved that horrid thought into the back of her brain.

Jhi snorted. Meilin glanced at her, briefly disturbed. The panda slowly and heavily clumped to her feet, chewing a bamboo stalk between her teeth, although how she had gotten it was a mystery to Meilin.

Suddenly, Rollan burst into the room. Meilin, startled, was a bit too slow to conceal the sadness on her face, though, she quickly wiped it off, embarrassed that he, out of all people had seen her true emotion. She adopted a proud and haughty look.

" Come see! Apparently Keith is asking Lenori out! " he said, an edge of excitement creeping into his voice.

" Where?"

" At the Moon Tower!"

Meilin prided herself on ignoring trivial things, like this event, but she had to admit it- she was curious, but not surprised. It had been evident that Keith had had a crush on LEnori forever.

Together, they raced to the Moon Tower. Up there, there was a bit of whispering. Meilin cocked her head and frowned. She couldn't hear Keith or Lenori. Beside her Rollan grinned. A prank? There was nobody there, at least not what she could see, except for the piles of instruments.

Then, out of nowhere, came a nervous shout. "April Fools!"

A groan. " Connor, you weren't supposed to say that yet!" came Abeke's voice in a location Meilin couldn't pinpoint.

" Sorry," Connor said sheepishly, as he extracted himself from the instruments.

" Umm… so what's the prank?" Meilin asked.

She suddenly heard a grunt, and a second later, a bucket of cold water came rushing down on her head, leaving her completely soggy.

" Ha! You look like a drowned rat!" Rollan snorted.

Meilin shook her head, her hair sending out droplets of water splattering on the boys. "Why me?" She asked, then continued. " You could have played the prank on anybody else!"

" True, but you were the one who needed cheering out of us all, " Abeke said.

Meilin smiled, the first one since her father had died. "Thanks."