"...this is true. All right. I unhappily condone this strategy."

"Hopefully it was a weird one-off accident and stops now."

"Yeah. Hopefully."

But in case it's not he reads the kids' minds in gym class. 

He is expecting this to be completely horrible so he makes a field trip of it, getting surprise grant money from the National Foundation For Children's Physical Education to take them out to a ropes course with a zipline and a gorgeous view all the way to the sea. They take turns doing the zip line. He supervises and reads minds and stares out at the horizon, listening through Macalaure's ears to Macalaure singing in a cathedral at the same time.

The kids are mostly having a lot of fun, either because they're doing the zipline thing or because they're getting out of classes and getting to spend time talking to their friends. When they're not immediately having fun they think about lots of stuff.

This kid is worrying about how he's going to fix things for his dead brother, who he reanimated a couple months ago. This kid seems to be thinking exclusively about artistically terrible lyrics for his band. This kid is thinking about spells that he can do to make his parents stop giving him a hard time about not getting his homework done. This kid is worried that his brother is raising some kind of evil monkey goblin in their basement. This kid is in the middle of an elaborate fantasy about raping one of his female classmates. This kid is terrified that people are just - not seeing her, at all sometimes, it's like she's invisible? This kid is missing his friend Willow, who everyone now knows is dead. This kid thinks ziplining is the BEST THING EVER. This kid seems to actually be a zombie. This kid is very clearly suicidally depressed. This kid is plotting Star Trek fanfic. This kid is really worried about the fact that she keeps losing six hours of time on alternating Thursdays because tomorrow is an alternating Thursday. This kid is thinking about whether racecar driving is more or less dangerous than hockey. This kid is periodically thinking about kissing boys and then telling himself that he needs to STOP because that's GAY and he's not GAY. This kid is thinking about asking a girl out but is super worried that she's going to find out that he's half-demon. This kid is worried that someone is going to figure out that his dummy is sentient and has an ancient vendetta against a race of demons. This kid is trying to figure out how she can avoid showering at home, because she doesn't want her foster brother to get sent back to his old house but she thinks he's found a way to spy on her in the shower. This kid is thinking that high school was way less interesting when she went twenty years ago, and also doesn't seem to be a kid.

Well, okay.

What the fuck.

Uh, where to even start. 

He should check in on the reanimated brother and the potential monkey goblin. He should pay close attention to Ms. Alternating Thursdays tomorrow. He should invite the girl who thinks she's invisible to apply for the ...fencing team? archery club? that he's starting up, fuck, why did he take this stupid job. He should invite I'm Not Gay too, because there's probably something to be done there. He needs to get the suicidally depressed kid some music. The half-demon is probably fine? Right? Half-demons don't have any particular issues? He did not know that zombies would tend to continue going to school like nothing happened but, uh, that seems promising actually, he'll pass it along. The dummy.... eh, that's not that big a deal probably. 

Why is anyone who isn't legally obliged to go to high school in high school?

High school students get to do great things like go ziplining and win awards for being beautiful and popular. But it's so much harder in this body - it's uglier and fatter and she can't get it to move right. It's terrible. If she doesn't do something soon she won't be able to be a cheerleader at all.

Uh, okay. That's a promising candidate for the person who lit the cheerleader on fire but it's honestly way down his list of priorities right now. 

After they get back to the school he has Macalaure meet him with a Walkman.

"This is kind of dubious, you know."

"What, don't you do it?"

"Yeah, but, uh, more consensually, I can tell people that it's religious music and it'll make them feel happier and they should listen specifically paying attention to effects on their mood and see if they like them -"

"Well, we work with what we've got."

"It seems like you're kinda doing the 'a problem exists somewhere where I can see it, I have ridiculous resources, I guess I'd better throw them at it' thing."

"I mean, yeah? If you guys think that instead we should spend all our effort on malaria eradication then you can cut me off, it's not my job to figure out if this is better than that." He pockets the Walkman. "Thanks."

"Yeah."

"A lot of your classmates have problems," he tells Karen.

"They're teenagers going to a magical high school with like a twelve percent mortality rate. It'd be sort of weird if they didn't. Any we can do anything about?"

"I have a cure for depression but I need to figure out how to explain to kids why they should take it. Someone's a zombie but I guess that's just fine? There's a reanimated brother and a monkey demon to check on. It seems like the cheerleader may have been lit on fire by a bitter forty-something woman in a teenager's body who wants to make the cheer squad."

"...OK, I'm gonna need five seconds to process all of that." Pause. "You have a cure for depression?"

"Yeah. - it's undergoing clinical trials and stuff, it just takes forever to get something legal to distribute as medication in the U.S.. We've been working on it for decades but supposedly it'll go faster now that we have more people in the government."

"OK. Solid. I don't actually know what to do about forty-something women possessing teenagers and the fact that they can do that is pretty creepy. I can check on the monkey demon if I have a location, and - whose brother and in what sense is he reanimated?"

"Chris Epps, dunno what kind of reanimated except that he didn't think he could just get back to his old life."

"So worse off than zombie guy. - does the zombie thing scale? Like - it can't be that bad, if we haven't noticed..."

"Yeah I passed it along to people who might be interested in that. I'm guessing it's a pretty local effect but still."