"Do they not. Why am I unsurprised by this information. Also, he's a good egg, but Orion is also a little bit of a himbo."

"...what's a himbo? Don't answer that if it's in, like, Indonesian. Anyway it is normal for enclavers to hire out their maintenance to somebody and the somebody cuts a few classes and gets it all in and gets to sit with them and has lots of chances to prove their value to an alliance. Perfectly respectable for a brown-nose."

"Himbo is an English slang term for somebody who is, what was the phrase, 'pure of heart, dumb of ass.' I have no interest in devaluing his heroics but I commented that everyone was traumatized about the graduation hall and he was like 'why, they've never been there.'"

"We stare at it in Mal Studies often enough! Once in a while one of the illusions gets a bit too convinced of itself and convinces somebody else too with its teeth!"

"I hadn't actually been aware of that, I just explained that death is very scary."

"The mal studies auditorium isn't far from the language lab, if you ever care to have a look."

"I probably will do that, I haven't actually seen a maw-mouth from the outside yet." 

"They're the oozes covered in eyes, there's two of 'em, can't miss 'em."

"I'm not worried about recognizing them, I just have a pathological urge to see them."

El nods. And piles on the pasta.

And when the cafeteria closes Kareen heads over to the Mal Studies classroom.

There it is, with all the mals in the graduation hall displaying themselves in full-color illusory glory.

Wow.

It's not like Kareen is allowing herself to get confused about whether maw-mouths are a bad thing. They really really are. She is at this very moment talking to a maw-mouth victim who would really rather be dead. 

But all those eyes. 

She wasn't prepared for them to be so beautiful. 

She leaves the mal studies classroom before anyone else can come in and witness her having an incredibly inappropriate emotional reaction. Probably the mural doesn't count as meeting for the purposes of Dragon Fairy Elf Witch, but no harm in trying, right? Right. She tries. It doesn't work. No surprise at all. 

Anyway she's got to get to her afternoon study groups.

She waits until a reasonable opening comes up to mention that she's heard maintenance hatches are a thing, they sound very handy, she would like to copy one if an opportunity should present itself. 

Several people promise to tell their maintenance friends.

At dinner, Salad Girl, the one who wears a sword on her back and has a gnarly scar across her throat and who looks like the best thing that has ever happened to her is whatever the most recent vegetable she obtained was, offers Kareen a maintenance hatch with a bow.

Kareen beams and takes it and hands it back. "Thank you!" 

"You're welcome!" IS THAT EGGPLANT. LIFE IS AMAZING WITH EGGPLANT IN IT

That is eggplant! Salad Girl's delight in vegetables is endearing. If it's a lifelong thing merely enhanced by the Scholomance's terrible food, her parents were probably delighted. 

Off she goes with a lot of eggplant and a little pork and rice and her maintenance hatch.

"Got a maintenance hatch," Kareen reports to El at breakfast the next morning. 

"...shall I alert the press?"

"Oh, sorry, I'm incredibly nosy and always want to know things, sometimes I miscalibrate what to tell normal people."

"So the answer is yes, if we had a school newspaper you'd tell whoever wrote articles for it," El snorts.

"Yeah, that's accurate. I've considered putting out a newsletter myself, but I keep having other things to do with my time."