Everything is black for a few minutes when Wilbur slowly opens his eyes and finds himself in his room, laying in his hovercraft bed with an ice pack on his head. He suddenly gains a headache, so he holds the ice pack and squishes it onto his head. He sits up as he hears the levitation platform coming up and he looks to see Carl reaching the second floor, holding a bowl of hot soup.

"How're you feeling, champ," he asks?

"Like I had a building fall on me," Wilbur groans.

"Then you're might need this."

Carl walks over and places the soup on Wilbur's lap. Wilbur grabs the spoon and takes a sip.

"That girl is a psychopath," he says.

"You did kinda push her, though," Carly retorts.

"Was that a proportionate response?"

"No, but neither was getting angry over your own mistake."

"I would have made it out on my own."

"Didn't sound like it to me."

"I was rusty, alright? I haven't done this in two years. Besides, I was wearing an eyepatch, it threw me off."

Wilbur heavily sighs in frustration. Carl thinks about what could be bothering Wilbur. It couldn't just be messing up on a time adventure because he's done that many times. Immediately, a theory comes to mind.

"You know what I think," he grins?

"What's that," Wilbur asks?

"I think you're not as sore about having to be saved as you are embarrassing yourself in front of Magena."

Wilbur widens his eyes in surprise. He realizes a disadvantage of having a friend who knows you; when they easily figure you out.

"W.. Why would I care about that?"

"Admit it, junior. You like her."

"No, I don't."

"You devoted a lot of time to her the past couple days and you've never invited anyone to one of your trips before-"

Wilbur covers his ears and loudly sings the "Hampsterdance" song to avoid the conversation. This lasts for twenty seconds until he looks at Carl, who gives him a look that says "Own up to it." Wilbur gives another heavy sigh before finally saying

"Alright. Maybe I have a certain measure of admiration for her."

"Well, she does seem like your type," says Carl. "Attractive, smart, unconventional."

"It doesn't matter. She passionately hates me."

"You could try apologizing."

"And then what?"

"I'm thinking with a girl like that, you need to take things slow. Gain her trust and wait for her to be comfortable enough to start a relationship."

"What if she refuses to trust me?"

"Hasn't stopped you before."

Wilbur considers Carl's point. He's always followed his father's example of "Keep Moving Forward." Thus, whenever he has a goal, whether it be time traveling or avoiding trouble with school and/or parents, he never gives up until he achieves it. Perhaps, winning over an edgy, supernatural girl shouldn't be any different.

"You're right," says Wilbur. "I've gotta go."

Wilbur leaps out of bed and grabs his hoverboard next to his bed. He jumps off the second floor, somersaults onto the first floor and zooms out the door. Carl looks in that direction, smiling with pride for his little buddy. But, he turns around and realizes Wilbur spilled the soup all over the bed. Carl groans, knowing that he has to clean it up because Wilbur certainly won't.

Magena enters her home, still fuming from before. She sees that the hall is completely empty and assumes her parents must be working in their office.

"Mom! Dad! I'm back from the doctor! Hope you're ready to be grandparents!

She puts a hand to her ear only to hear no response.

Like I expected any different.

Later that night, Magena is in her room. She wears grey camisole and shorts pajamas but still has her makeup and necklace on. She holds a jar of ants she got from Lizzy's Pet Shop and plans to feed them to her spider.

"Sorry to do this guys," she says to the ants, "but it's the circle of life. Nothing personal."

She opens the jar and pours the ants into the spider web. After feeding Brody, she grabs her mutant spider guitar. She sits on her mattress with her ankle resting on her knee and adjusts the strings. She starts to think about her dispute with Wilbur. Just when she thought he was different and even interesting, he takes his bruised ego out on her. She even almost cried over him. She would have never forgiven herself if she did. She decides to take her mind off it by playing a song. She strums her guitar, closes her eyes, and begins to sing.

"You seem to replace

Your brain with your heart

You take things so hard

And then you fall apart

You try to explain

But before you can start

Those crybaby tears

Come out of the dark"

Without her knowing it, Wilbur flies up to Magena's center window on his hoverboard. He attempts to throw a hand-sized rock at her window. But, he sees her sitting almost right on the other side. He thinks to himself that the rock would kill her or worse (anger her). With that, he drops the rock which accidentally hits a squirrel. Wilbur also notices Magena playing guitar and singing. His nosey instincts kick in and he gets the idea to turn on his earpiece in order to hear her. Luckily for him, she still has hers on, so he can hear her perfectly.

"Someone's turning the handle

To that faucet in your eyes

You pour it out

Where everyone can see

Your heart's too big for your body

That's why it won't fit inside

You pour it out

Where everyone can see

They call you crybaby, crybaby

But you don't even care

Crybaby, crybaby

So you laugh through your tears

Crybaby, crybaby

'Cause you don't even care

Tears fall to the ground

You'll just let them drown

You'll just let them drown

Crybaby, crybaby"

As Magena sings, Wilbur listens to every word and note, and he can't believe what he hears. Her voice is so morose yet gorgeous, it's as if she had a vocal chords transplant with Pat Benatar. And the lyrics are so sad and miserable, he wonders if she's singing her feelings. He can feel the emotional pain in her voice. It makes him faintly emotional himself.

"You're all on your own

And you lost all your friends

You told yourself that it's not you, it's them

You're one of a kind

And no one understands

But those crybaby tears keep coming back again

Someone's turning the handle

To that faucet in your eyes

You pour it out

Where everyone can see

Your heart's too big for your body

That's why it won't fit inside

You pour it out

Where everyone can see

They call you crybaby, crybaby

But you don't even care

Crybaby, crybaby

So you laugh through your tears

Crybaby, crybaby

'Cause you don't even care

Tears fall to the ground

You'll just let them drown

Crybaby, crybaby

You'll just let them drown

Crybaby, crybaby

You'll just let them drown"

While singing, Magena gets so lost in her song, she rises from her mattress and floats in mid-air without realizing it. She levitates around the room as she strums the metallic strings of her guitar. She even becomes intangible without will and phases through the wall. Wilbur watches Magena float in the sky while she plays. He's spellbound by the glow of the full moon shining over her and the mood it adds to the song.

"I look at you and I see myself

And I know you better than anyone else

And I have the same faucet in my eyes

So your tears are mine

They call me crybaby, crybaby

But I don't even care

Crybaby, crybaby

I laugh through my tears

Crybaby, crybaby

'Cause I don't even care

Tears fall to the ground

I'll just let them drown

Crybaby, crybaby

I'll just let them drown

Crybaby, crybaby

You'll just let them drown

Cry aby, crybaby

I'll just let them drown

Crybaby, crybaby

You'll just let them drown"

When Magena finishes singing, Wilbur snaps out of his trance.

"So is that just a hobby," he asks, "or do you plan to make a career out of it?"

Magena turns around in shock of her uninvited audience. She would bite off his nose for prying into her personal life, but she's surprisingly used to it by now.

"I'm not even gonna bother," groans Magena.

She floats her way back to her room, but Wilbur hovers in front of her.

"Wait," he says! "I wanna to talk."

"Funny. That's the last thing I want to do."

Magena phases through Wilbur and the wall into her room.

'I just wanted to apologize! Also, I liked your music."

After a few seconds, Magena phases back outside and gives a defeated sigh.

"Let's hear it," she says.

Both Wilbur and Magena hover down to the ground. Wilbur hops off his board and Magena leans on the wooden outer wall to get comfortable for Wilbur's apology.

"The pirate incident is on me," he says. "And you were right. You did me a huge favor yesterday and I should have been more appreciative. It's just that I don't usually bring anyone on my time travel exploits. I've never met anyone worth sharing that experience with. So, I don't know how to cooperate with a partner."

Magena begins to blush a little. She's flattered that Wilbur sees her that way. Also, she can see that he genuinely regrets his actions. She' aware that she has similar problems, so she could be more understanding.

"Well," responds Magena, "I don't cooperate with anybody, myself. So, I can't entirely fault you on that."

"So, you forgive me?"

"Sure."

"Cool. So listen, I know I haven't made the best first impression, what with constantly getting on your case. But, it looks like we both can't stand school and neither of us is gonna get by on our usual methods. I think if we hang out together enough, it can make the next two years more bearable. So, whatta you say? Can you handle wasting your time with a cocky idiot?"

Magena thinks about this. Wilbur is right. Her impression of him makes it difficult for her to trust him. However, he seems to be the only person she can stand to be around. He appears to be determined, confident, adventurous, and very strange. He could possibly make good company. Even if this friendship doesn't work, she could always move on. After all, she is no stranger to disappointment.

"... I've wasted my time with worse."

The teens smile in agreement and shake hands.

"On a lighter note," Wilbur says, "you've given me an idea."

"Letting me use my powers instead of sword fighting," Magena snarks?

"...That, and for our project, we'll combine your two favorite things; plants and music."

The idea sounds interesting to Magena. She may even consider applying herself for a class assignment.

But, no promises.

When Thursday comes, during the afternoon, Mr. Hayashi has his students present their projects. Each pair of partners displays their projects on two desks. Hayashi takes a look at one project at a time to grade them.

He finally approaches Wilbur and Magena in the back of the room to look at their project. The two each stand on one side of the project display. On one desk, there's a large potted plant with a stereo sitting on the other desk behind.

"So," says Hayashi, "What've we got here."

"Well," says Wilbur, "we decided to conduct an experiment on plant behavior to different types of music."

Wilbur reaches into his pocket and takes out the remote to the stereo.

"First, we'll demonstrate with some upbeat jazz music."

Wilbur presses the play and the stereo plays the jazz music. The music makes the leafy plant wiggles around as if dancing to the peppy music.

"Imposing," Hayashi praises. "And great choice of a music piece."

Wilbur presses pause and then hands the remote to Magena.

"Now," she says, somewhat enthused, "we'll demonstrate with some heavy power metal."

"... Okay," Hayashi says, awkwardly.

Magena presses the volume button and raises the volume up to maximum.

"Should you be turning the volume up that high," concernedly asks Hayashi?

"This is necessary to the demonstration," Magena explains.

Wilbur reaches into his pocket again, pulls out a pair of earplugs, and puts them into his ears. Magena holds onto the pot with one hand and uses the other hand to press the play next button. Before anyone knows it, the entire room fills with loud guitar music, chaotic drumming, and psychotic shouting. The music is so loud, it literally blows everyone away. Hayashi holds onto the potted plant for dear life. The other students are blown to the front of the room. One kid gets hit in the face with a watermelon, used for one of the projects. Wilbur and Magena's plant aggressively shakes back and forth like an intense rocker. The windows in the room shatter from the deafening music. Magena finally stops the music and lets everyone fall to the ground. The painful groans of her peers make her smile like a sociopath.

"Was that actually necessary," asks Wilbur, taking off his earplugs?

"It was for my amusement," bluntly responds Magena.

While no one is looking, the head of Spike pops out of the pot with the plant on top.

"So, where's my payment," he asks?

Magena digs into her monster skull bag and takes out a roll of toilet paper.

"I can only imagine how much you need this," she comments.

She hands the toilet paper to Spike by placing it in his mouth. He says "much obliged" through his teeth, but he's incoherent. He pops back into the pot with his toilet paper before anyone can see him. Mr. Hayashi crawls back to Wilbur and Magena to give them their grade.

"A minus," he moans.

He lets his head slam onto the floor, so he can recuperate.

"A minus isn't bad," Wilbur comments.

"I know I'm satisfied," retorts Magena.

"By the way, you never told me where that fish thing came from."

"Well, my dad tried making tuna salad muffins for breakfast that day. Didn't go well."

Magena talks about that morning Baruch baked breakfast for her. It was his way of trying to be a better parent, but it didn't impress Magena. Still, she couldn't refuse breakfast made for her. Unfortunately, he has no cooking experience, so the muffins made her sick. She got stuck in the bathroom for nearly an hour, almost making her late for school, not that she would care. Upon hearing this, Wilbur is somewhat disgusted by the description but is happy to finally get an explanation.

The two teens have a feeling that this newfound friendship may actually work out the way they want. Only time will tell if they are right.

The song in this chapter was Melanie Martinez's Crybaby (clean version). And the science project scene was inspired by the youtube video, Vinyl Fair by ShadesofEverfree.