Elsewhere, Katie—having decided to apologize to the punk girl Janis—blew off the Plastics' activities for the day.
Knowing exactly where to find her, Katie headed straight to the basement of that flamboyant guy Damian's house.
When the small basement door opened and Janis saw who it was, she looked surprised—pleasantly so. Then she deliberately put on a stern face and said, "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be hanging out with your 'queen bee'?"
"I'm here to apologize. Janis, I'm sorry—I shouldn't have treated you like that last time," Katie said sincerely. "We're friends, aren't we?"
Honestly, Janis hadn't been mad at Katie for a while now. As a friend, she just needed a graceful way to make up and move on.
Katie coming over in person to apologize was the perfect opening.
"Janis, who is it?" Damian's voice drifted up from inside the basement.
"It's Katie. She came to apologize to us," Janis replied.
Hearing that it was Katie, Damian immediately came to the door and warmly invited her in. "Oh my God, Katie, come in! Sit down. Tell us all about the Plastics—what do they even do on weekends?"
Damian was extremely curious about girls' lives.
Seeing that both of her friends were being friendly, Katie finally relaxed. Then she couldn't help venting. "You wouldn't believe how boring the Plastics' weekend activities are. Regina actually made us do this thigh dance her mom choreographed—for two weekends in a row…"
Yes, in order to make her daughter stand out—and to satisfy her own… unique tastes—Regina's mom, Amy, had choreographed several new routines for the cheer squad.
Besides the thigh dance, there were chest-shaking dances, waist-twisting dances, hip-swaying dances—pretty much everything.
Those bold, overtly suggestive routines completely blew Katie's mind.
And being relatively conservative by nature, she found herself seriously uncomfortable with all of it.
"Wait—like, a thigh dance that attracts boys? That sounds amazing!" Damian exclaimed.
But when he caught Janis shooting him a deadly look, Damian immediately dropped the excitement, cleared his throat, and put on a look of disdain. "Is that all the Plastics do on weekends? Wow. How lame."
In reality, what Damian was thinking was that compared to the Plastics dancing every weekend, he and Janis spending their weekends in a dark basement was even sadder—and kind of pathetic.
Hearing Damian say that made Katie feel like she'd found a kindred spirit. She kept ranting. "Exactly! Other than dancing, all they do is sing, try drinks, and do makeup. Such a waste of time…"
In Katie's mind, doing all that was far worse than just going home to study.
After all, Katie had been homeschooled for years and was actually a straight-up academic overachiever. Otherwise, Ms. Sharon wouldn't have invited her to join the math Olympiad team multiple times.
Meanwhile, Janis noticed Damian listening to the Plastics' activities with increasingly bright eyes—clearly drifting in the wrong direction.
So she quickly cut Katie off. "Okay, Katie, that's enough."
Then she continued, "Let's talk about you. What's your real reason for coming here today?"
"I want to make up with you guys," Katie said bluntly.
"And then?" Janis asked, shooting Damian a look to stop him from interrupting.
"Um…" Katie thought for a moment before saying, "Taking down Regina—that was our original plan, wasn't it?"
"Very good. You passed the test," Janis said, stepping forward to hug Katie, officially accepting her back.
Given how much Janis hated Regina, as long as you were against Regina, you automatically qualified as her friend.
Next, Katie shared her recent progress. Because she'd been continuously feeding Regina those "nutrition" bars, she'd successfully caused Regina to gain several more pounds.
She also said she planned to stir up conflict between Gretchen and Karen, trying to isolate Regina and break up the Plastics from the inside.
"You've done well. I'll keep backing you," Janis said approvingly. Then she lowered her voice mysteriously. "And I found something new—perfect for using on Regina. It'll ruin her body even faster."
As she spoke, Janis pulled out a box of high-calorie energy bars from a nearby cabinet.
Judging by how smoothly she did it, she'd clearly been planning this for a while.
Just as the two girls happily plotted Regina's downfall, Damian spoke up from the side. "Um… don't you think you're being a little too cruel to Regina?"
Regina had become the "queen bee" largely because of her killer body. It wasn't hard to imagine how miserable she'd be without it.
That thought sparked a tiny bit of sympathy in Damian.
"Huh?"
Janis and Katie turned around at the same time and shot Damian a vicious look.
"Okay, okay, I get it," Damian said, unable to withstand the double glare. He obediently shuffled off to squat in the corner.
…
Elsewhere, Team Captain Aaron drove his beat-up secondhand pickup to the school athletic field.
Looking at the empty campus, he faced the rising sun and began his training.
…
This is the correct version currently being read—the officially published text.
Meanwhile, on the road to Houston, ever since Mike finished explaining Schrödinger's Cat, the car had fallen completely silent.
Finally, Little George broke the silence, laughing awkwardly. "Oh, so that's what it is. I thought it was literally just a story about a cat."
In truth, Little George hadn't understood Mike's explanation at all. He was just trying to ease the awkwardness.
George, who was driving, nodded along with a clueless expression. "Yeah, I get it too. Cats—pretty simple…"
To be fair, George didn't understand either. He was just going along with it to avoid embarrassment.
Honestly, neither of them had much interest in science. Cats, dogs—whatever. They didn't really care.
In the back seat, young Sheldon tilted his head and stared at Mike for a long time, as if trying to see through him.
Finally, he admitted, "Mike, your explanation was very thorough. But do you know about the Tortoise Paradox?"
Clearly, Sheldon still hadn't given up on trying to outdo Mike.
The Tortoise Paradox describes a fast runner chasing a slow-moving tortoise. From a purely theoretical perspective, if time and distance are infinitely divided, the runner can never catch up.
Of course, in reality, distance can't be infinitely divided, which means the paradox doesn't actually hold.
Sheldon was hoping to stump Mike with this problem.
Unfortunately for him, Mike—having grown up in the age of information overload—really did know a little bit about all kinds of weird trivia.
So he replied, "First of all, the Tortoise Paradox doesn't actually hold up…"
After stating his conclusion, Mike could tell Sheldon was challenging him on purpose. So he countered, "Sheldon, do you know what a Möbius strip is?"
"Huh?" Sheldon paused, then said smugly, "Of course I do. But I'd like to hear your explanation first."
Clearly, for a nine-year-old, Sheldon's knowledge base still wasn't quite broad enough.
Mike didn't call him out on it and casually explained the Möbius strip instead, mostly just to pass the time.
Up front, George and Little George were completely lost. Finally, George had had enough. "Alright, they can keep talking science. Let's talk about fun things to do in Houston."
Little George nodded in agreement. Honestly, listening to the back-seat conversation was putting him to sleep.