Kenya pulled on the plastic udder and thought, for neither the first time nor the last, that whoever designed the milk dispenser in Weston was the worst human being who ever lived.

The dispenser was aluminum, molded into the shape of a realistic cow's rear end, with a pink plastic udder sagging below. Each of the four teats dispensed a different kind of milk: skim, two-percent, whole, chocolate. Weston was famous for its cereal selection; the humiliation of using the milk dispenser, Kenya thought, was the price students had to pay for such variety and wonder. She imagined a University Food Services honcho releasing a mirthless chuckle as he watched her squeeze the two-percent teat on a closed-circuit monitor.

Griffin Weston, Director of Food Services under turn-of-the-century University President Anthony "Three Teeth" Delmonico IV, believed that a hearty bowl of grains and oats was the cure for most any ailment – physical, mental, or sexual – and so he planned for his namesake dining hall to serve nothing but cereals, porridges and various flavorless mushes. "Three Teeth" did not see eye-to-eye with Weston on this, however, and so a compromise was reached. Weston would serve a variety of foods, but would always maintain a healthy selection of cereals (though, to suit the palate of "Three Teeth," most of those cereals would contain more sugar than Weston considered beneficial).

Today cereal is available in Weston Hall for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the selection is wide and varied and frequently rotated. To a base of twenty perennial favorites - your basic Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Frosted Mini-Wheats, Lucky Charms, etc. - University Food Services Cereal Specialist Rhonda Wilkins adds a thirteen-item weekly special selection that she chooses from a pool of over 200 (and constantly growing) obscure, upscale and international cereals. Some of these specials - Crab Crunch from Japan, for instance – are experiments, noble failures that are quickly whisked offstage. Others, like the bizarre but impossibly delicious KRÜMMFAUVEN!, inspire red-markered calendar-Xing countdowns and mad rushes on Weston by devotees when they make their quarterly appearances, so be sure to check the upcoming listings posted on the bulletin board in the Weston lobby.

At her table she sliced a banana over her Cheerios and waited for Joanie. Afternoon practice had been brutal; for some reason Coach Klaven had it in for Joanie, and took it out on the whole team in suicides. Marcy even threw up, right there on the court. Joanie didn't say what it was about, didn't even shower, just took off to grab a bus. They always had dinner together, though. Kenya was sure she'd show.

Kenya chewed her cereal and surveyed the room. Not too many new faces yet, but the old guard had already started to reclaim their territory. Bathrobe Billy sat at his customary table in the far north corner, worrying a few strands of his thinning hair and mouthing along as he read Atlas Shrugged. A trio of hulking Ambassador linemen surrounded a circular table near the center of the room, dwarfing it like three adults at a child's tea party. To her right, two of the pale Scandinavians from Sluke huddled over a shared plate of chicken and rice, as if protecting it from predators.

Three girls Kenya recognized from her hall in Mary Rutherford sat two tables over from hers. One of the girls, a chubby brunette, waved to her, but made no motion for her to join them. Kenya waved back. She had no desire to join them. The entire freshman and sophomore Volleyball Lady Ambassador contingent was clustered on Miss R 2-North, but even their sistren on 2-South preferred to keep a respectful distance, regarding their statuesque hallmates with a mix of awe and suspicion, as if the Lady Ambassadors really were strange diplomats from another world.

Maybe we are. At 5'11", Kenya was far from the tallest on the team, but still she towered over the other second-floor girls; brushing her teeth with them in front of the mirror in the shared bathroom, she had insane visions of herself as a gangly mama bird teaching her chicks proper beak care. And the freshmen she'd seen so far were tiny: pocket-sized bundles of overripe curves, squirming with unfocused energy like newborn puppies. Kenya had never been so small, nor so young.

After she finished her first bowl of Cheerios, Kenya sliced another banana over a second. Strictly speaking this wasn't on the Klaven-approved Lady Ambassador diet plan, but Kenya'd never heard of anybody getting fat off Cheerios and bananas. She liked a high cereal-to-milk ratio: just enough liquid to get all the Os wet, to take some of the crunch off and provide little bursts of cold sweetness as she plowed through a mound of bland grains.

In the corner a guy approached Bathrobe Billy's table. He was short, with a bushy brown beard that made him look older, though Kenya thought even without the beard he was definitely too old to be a student. On his tray he had only orange food: a pile of carrot sticks, a few slices of cheddar cheese, a mound of Doritos, a quartered orange, a bowl of orange Jell-O, and a glass of Orange Crush from the fountain. He stood next to the table, holding his tray, and talked to Billy. As the bearded guy talked, Billy started to shake: gently at first, then violently, and then he was throwing Atlas Shrugged at the wall and running from the dining hall, the terrycloth belt of his bathrobe flapping behind him like the finish-line ribbon at the world's saddest footrace. The bearded guy sat in Billy's deserted chair and sucked on an orange slice.

The girls from Kenya's hall stared gape-mouthed at the lobby long after Billy had exited, then burst into that weird morse-code laughter that conveyed not recognition of humor but a mix of performative confusion, condescension, and, most of all, a deep, churning fear. One of them said "Okayyyy...?"

She'll be here. We always eat dinner together. Maybe that was it. Maybe she just needed some time to herself. They didn't have to spend like every waking minute together. Factor in being roommates on top of team stuff and the other thing, and it's no wonder Joanie wanted to take a little me time.

But that hurts, you have to admit it. You haven't needed or wanted "me time" since you met Joanie. You can barely conceive of a "me" anymore. You and Joanie are a unit. A union, indivisible.

Kenya took another bite of cereal. It had been in the milk too long, and the Os were getting soggy. Kenya pushed the bowl away. It looked like three guys at a table across the room were getting into an argument. Or two of them were, anyway: some strapping blond kid and this mouthbreather Kenya vaguely recognized from around the Box last year. The other kid at the table looked like he was trying to fold up into himself like an armadillo. Kenya couldn't tell what they were arguing about, but she could see the blond kid's face, and it was turning from golden-brown to an angry purple, though his eyes betrayed no hostility. The mouthbreather spread his arms out wide (look, another bird, Kenya thought), and this really seemed to piss off Blondie.

They exchanged more words. To Kenya it just sounded like barking, but even from here she could see Blondie mouth the words go fuck yourself. Then the mouthbreather flipped his cereal bowl into the blond kid's lap, spilling milk and what must have been Lucky Charms marshmallows all over the place. The third kid gave a startled cry and half-jumped, half-fell out of his chair. Blondie calmly stood up, said something to the mouthbreather, too soft for Kenya to hear, and then punched him in the face. The crack of what had to be a broken nose brought conversation to a halt. Another yelp from armadillo-boy. The mouthbreather staggered, blood flowing from his nose, and then collapsed. Blondie brushed as much of the milk and cereal as he could off his shirt and shorts, then walked to the kitchen entrance. He emerged a minute later with a mop. He grabbed a handful of napkins from a dispenser and shoved them at armadillo-boy, who knelt and tried to stanch the flow from the mouthbreather's nose. Looks like he'll be breathing through his mouth for a while longer, thought Kenya, and she grinned, like an idiot. Blondie started to mop up the spilled cereal.

Joanie wasn't in their room when Kenya returned to Miss R. There were indications that she'd been here recently, though: the desk lamp illuminated, this morning's clothes flung in the general direction of the laundry hamper, flip-flops still wet from the shower. And the elephant--

Kenya grabbed the stuffed purple elephant from its spot atop the mini-fridge. She shook it, hoping to hear that reassuring sound. Nothing. She unzipped it and pulled out the baggie with the little silver box. She tore open the baggie, opened the box: empty.

Joanie had taken all the gunpowder.