If the food didn't kill him, the boredom, or chores would. Ripley had been at this so called school for a month and he hated it. There had to be some kind of law about about kids working. These so called 'chores' sucked! The person in charge of dolling them out particularly didn't like him after Ripley had won money from a bet off of him. Could he help it if he had the magic touch when it came to bets and knowing if someone was a loser or not? That earned him a month worth of scrubbing toilets, floors, and the stairwell. It was the chore everyone hated because no one listened to the hour rule about letting the stairs dry and tramped down them causing the floor to become dirty again. After Ripley had thrown a brush at someone's head, he'd been relegated to bathrooms. After washing his hands and changing his clothes he still smelled bleach! It made eating something else since he couldn't really smell anything which was an improvement. "Jail food, has to taste better than this stuff," he reasoned.

Sitting outside watching a game of pick up basketball. People had learned not to take bets with Ripley when it came to guessing on the outcome so he sat by himself bored. His mind wandered, wondering what if he could beat the odds and find a road where he could hitch a ride to civilization. Odds seemed to be his forte, so he had a good chance right? Dropping his head backwards he nearly screamed seeing that he wasn't quite alone as he'd thought. Twisting around he blinked at the person on the bleacher behind him. "Hi. Want to make a wager on who will win?"