Second Boardroom

"Oh, brother," I sighed. "What a disaster."

"Like, yeah," Claire agreed.

"..." said The Haitian.

"Send them in," I commanded over the intercom.

The four entered the boardroom. They were nervous. They were frightened. They were mildly sweaty.


"Well, this is a first," I said, "no winning team? What happened?"

Ciera pointed her thumb over at Koma. "The Wizard of Oz here just had to pick Alaska."

"I know you're Australian, Captain," I said to the purpley villain, "but I'm sure you know Americans suck at geography. We'd never officially realize that Alaska is indeed on the same continent. It feels too far away to be part of the Continental US, so it isn't."

He was clearly thinking terrible things about me in his mind, but remained silent.

I turned my attention to Mr. Muggles. "I like that you stepped up to be El Jefe this round, but you really didn't impress me."

"I really have no idea who I should fire," I admitted. "I thought last week's decision was tough, but this one's tough. Maybe I should fire two of you, one from each team, what do you think about that?"

Before either of them could answer, I posed the question to Claire. "What do you think, Claire Bear, should I fire two of them?"

"Like, totally," she answered.

"What do you think, Haitian? Who should I fire?" I asked my trusted right-hand man.

"It seems to me that Koma performed poorly. The only reason he seemed to want to go to Alaska was to eat a penguin. I truly don't understand the rationale. And he had so many typos. It really made Wolverine look like a literary scholar."

"So, you think I should fire Koma?" I asked.

"Hey, so you guys don't like penguins," Koma interrupted, "I get it. They're not for everyone."

Claire offered her own suggestion, "Why don't you, like, fire Mr. Muggles? I know he's cute and all, but, like, Mom really misses him, and this is, like, his second time in the boardroom."

"That's true," I nodded. "Mr. Muggles. You didn't do a great job leading this task. Your team did perform well, and maybe if they would have gone after some local competition, they would have won. Whose fault was that?"

He barked.

Jon interpreted, "He says, 'Jon did an excellent job, and he shouldn't be fired.' Aw, thank you puppy. That's really sweet."

Mr. Muggles growled.

"Jon...." I looked at the intergalactic gladiator. "You know, you did reasonably okay. Reasonably. I mean, maybe you did great, but going up against Gyrobo...well, that's tough, right?"

"Right," he replied.

"So, I don't know. I suppose you held your own." I looked at Ciera, "Maybe you should have quit while you were ahead, huh? Again as The Boss....didn't work out so well this time, huh?"

"It's all Koma's fault. Koma, Koma, Koma."

"She makes a good point," I said.

"No, she doesn't," Koma responded.

"Yes, she does!" Ciera countered.

"Koma, you know, the post really did have a lot of typos," I said. "Have you considered investing in a spell checker? I gotta disagree with The Haitian on eating the Penguin, though. Maybe I wouldn't have done it myself, but it was a good use of a lower lifeform, and, like you said, he didn't make the cut. But do you think you were a bit strict if nobody at all made the cut? I mean, even the CIA can find a job or two for imbeciles."

"This is really tough," I continued, "Really tough. I'm still considering firing two of you. I don't know if I should or not. Jon's reasonably safe. He didn't do a great job, but I don't think he was the reason Team One lost. Ciera was The Boss, and while she did a good job getting a faculty advisor, maybe she didn't take charge enough to steer her team in the right direction. Koma made a lot of big mistakes this round, but I'm okay with the penguin-eating. He takes risks, but sometimes that can be, well, risky. And Mr. Muggles is here for a second time. Maybe you could have done more for the team. You seemed to delegate well-enough, but other than signing off on Xavier's school, it doesn't seem like you did much else."

I gave them each one final look. "Well," I said, "I have to fire somebody, maybe two people, so let's hear it. Who do you think I should fire? Why shouldn't I fire you?"