The French Fry Conspiracy

It is Monday again. After being off school for a week during spring break, Hannah returns to the monotony of her regularly scheduled life in junior high school.
A parade of undergrads marched by, eager to get their hands on Monday's special, french fries. Seeing her sister among them, she remembered she was supposed to take Chloe to the museum that afternoon. She debated whether she should do that, or work on the article she had yet to submitt to the school newspaper. At the very least, she would have to reschedule her interview with the "innocent" Maryanne. Like many of Hannah's friends, Maryanne was a bit eccentric. Well, maybe a little more than a bit. She was always scheming ways to get rich, and half of her ideas seemed always to be about becoming some sort of jello tycoon. She had told Hannah she had gotten inside information from a reliable source about something she called "the french fry conspiracy." Marianne believed French fries were served in every cafeteria because the government wanted to control the student's minds, (or was it the McCain company?) Hannah looked at her watch and wondered whether there would be enough time to do the interview during lunch break. After she bought her fries, Hannah looked around for a clean table to sit at. Most of the tables were already full. Students usually stayed in the cafeteria after they finished eating and waited for lunch to end so they could go to class.
"Hannah, come sit over here!" called a friend, Madison. She was sitting at a table with Maryanne, and Maryanne's best friend, Roy. Roy and Mayianne had been busy thinking up a scheme to contribute to their infamous plan for world domination. It wasn't going very well. Roy would make suggestions to improve the plan and Marianne would contradict everything he said. Luckily, Madison had enough shrewd practical common sense to put an end to their argument before a fight broke out.
"Marianne, I'm going to have to cancel the interview," said Hannah. "I promised over three weeks ago to take Chloe to the museum.

Roy was distraught after having to listen to Marianne's French fry conspiracy for the 38th time that day. He'd been counting. He told Marianne he thought her ideas were incoherent. Madison stepped in again when she noticed how heated their argument was getting. She was always the one to diffuse her friends' arguments.
From the far side of the cafeteria, another student wandered over to their table from the lunch line. He had been the last person waiting in the line and all the other tables were already full in the cafeteria. He looked a little out of place because he was a lot younger and shorter than the other students around the table. He was most likely a 7th or 8th grader. He introduced himself as Lewis and asked Hannah if the seat next to her was taken. Hannah thought he looked about her sister's age.
"Would you, by any chance, want to go to the museum after school with Chloe?" asked Hannah. He said he would. Most of the students in junior high knew each other, because it was a small school. Lewis and Chloe had been in the school band together last year.
After school, Lewis and Chloe went to the museum while Hannah went over to Marianne's house with the intention of interviewing her on the conspiracy. It was Marianne's birthday so they invited Roy over too, but he declined. He said he might stop by Marianne's house when she learned proper etiquette, which would probably be later that day. Madison couldn't come over either. She planned on doing a little espionage. This meant she would be spying on her cousin, whom she believed was really someone impersonating her cousin. Little did she know about the counterespionage going on.
"Can I get you some tea?"
"Sure Maryanne, that'd be great."
She had forgotten to pick up tea bags while she was in town, so Maryanne served Hannah a teacup of hot water instead. Hannah found this to be unconventional, but she didn't mean to be rude so she drank the water. She then looked in her book bag for a pen and paper while Marianne ran around the room in her basement and closed all the curtains and shut the blinds.
"You know that this IS going to be in the school paper, right?" asked Hannah, wondering what all the secrecy was about.
"Yes," said Marianne, "But you didn't hear it from me." She winked. Marianne then explained how the government originally made French fries with the intention of using them to brain wash an army of llamas. The llamas mission was to infiltrate an enemy fort containing secret documents and retrieve information on the whereabouts of doctor Melamine. Doctor Melamine was a mad scientist believed to be hiding somewheres in a jungle. Their plan had backfired because the llamas were treated unfairly and became unwilling to do their master's bidding. Now the government was on the second stage of the test, feeding the mind controlling French fries to students. If the government got their message across to students, a message about the dangers of climate change, then they would be in trouble.
After their trip to the museum, Chloe and Lewis went to Chloe's house. She turned on the television. The television asked "Who will stand up against climate change?" Lewis leapt to his feet, intent on taking action. Since there was nothing on but commercials, Chloe and Lewis traded baseball cards and then decided they would go deep sea fishing. Chloe called Hannah to get her sister's permission to go fishing. Marianne insisted that Chloe not get into a boat until the government stopped making the sea monsters pay taxes.
Roy dropped by Marianne's house, just as he had promised. He had bought an expensive gift for his best friend, on account of it being her birthday. Marianne reflected upon her childhood, contemplating her days miss spent as a youth while Hannah recited a limerick in honor of the occasion.
Madison lived far from town and had to take the bus home, so she was only just getting home. Her parents weren't home, so she went to her uncle's house next door who was an alchemist. Normally, he'd have been very involved in his work, trying to turn metal into gold. Right now he was having a coffee break. Madison asked him if her cousin was home. Her uncle said her cousin had been at the museum all day and was going to go deep sea fishing. Madison called Marianne from her uncle's house to warn her and Hannah not to go fishing. The person who had been impersonating Madison's cousin would also be on the boat and was trying to destroy everyone's shadow. She had seen him do this before to his own shadow during her many hours of surveillance. He would stand on his own shadow until it disappeared, which was usually around noon or after dark. Horrified by this news, Hannah was relieved Marianne had advised her not to let Chloe go fishing.