[March 28th] Hidden library village

[Alfred F. Jones]

America set his bag down and immediately took his iPod and removed the headphones, putting it on speaker mode and turning it up just a little too loud. He felt the need to share his awesome hip-hop with Japan - did they have hip-hop in Japan? He had no idea.

And then he brought out the 100 pack of pencils. Only a few were sharpened and most of them were untouched except for when America felt the urge to build something out of them. He took a sharpened pencil out, opened up his own laptop, and stared at the empty word document within.

He bit the pencil. He stared at the huge pack of pencils. He stared at Japan. He stared out the window. Time passed. The urge to build something was rising... He hummed along to some old school Jay Z to further distract himself.

[Honda Kiku]

Of course, Japan expected America to be hard at work at his paper and he really did not want to get in the way of that. He calmly ended up browsing through 2ch in the meantime, trying his best to ignore the music which was probably already drawing attention.

He couldn't help but notice, of course, while glancing over occasionally how America wasn't exactly doing any work at all.

[Alfred F. Jones]

"Sooo..." America said, taking another pencil out of his box as he did so, and placing it on the table parallel to the other pencil he already had out, "What're you writing your paper on?"

He just wanted to know. Not to copy, but to make sure whatever he did was more awesome than what Japan did.

America grabbed another pencil and started building the epic pencil cabin, one long and thin graphite-filled wooden log at a time.

[Honda Kiku]

"I have already finished my paper." The day it was assigned too. Of course, it was a little strange he was in a library when he had already completed it, but he did come to just enjoy the quiet. That was clearly not happening anymore.

Japan tilted his head. What exactly was America doing?

[Alfred F. Jones]

America's eyes boggled. "You finished it?!" God, everything he'd heard about Asians being smarter than everybody else was obviously true. That was some hardcore dedication to education! "References and everything? Title page? Double-spaced?"

It really was shocking. It sounded impossible. If America was the greatest hero of all time, Japan must be the greatest teacher's pet.

America typed up a title page quickly in an attempt to catch up, nearly forgetting his pencil cabin.

[Honda Kiku]

"Yes, references, title page and double-spaced all included."

And no, he was not a teacher's pet. He merely had to prioritize! How was he supposed to keep up with his rigorous one-comic-an-event schedule if he had other things to worry about? Japan needed to plow through his assignments to free up enough time to keep drawing. Which he was doing before he had to keep America company.

It wasn't that impressive.

[Alfred F. Jones]

America thought it was impressive! The title page, when America turned his screen to face Japan to show him, read, How I Plan to Increase the Value of the Dollar (Or Alternatively, Why Pennies are Awesome and Why We Should Keep Them).

"Cool subject, huh? I'm going to devote at least a page to the fact that Lincoln's on the penny!" he said, excited. The problem would be finding references, but you could just reference any old penny for that, right?

[Honda Kiku]

"How... interesting." America was certainly creative. "And how exactly do you plan to do such a thing?" What, it could come in handy if it was a valid idea. Doubtful, but worth a shot.

In the meantime, Japan also opened up another file and plugged his tablet in. Might as well do something productive if America wasn't really going to.

[Alfred F. Jones]

America? Have a valid idea?? You obviously don't know him well enough yet, Japan.

America thought he did, however, and attempted to explain his intricate plan. "Well..." he started, then paused to build mystery and interest, and also to think of something that might possibly make some sense on the fly. "Well, you see... Ever since America was born, the value of the dollar has been decreasing and stuff right? And the value of the penny, too! Some people even want to get rid of pennies all together but that's silly because Lincoln's on the penny and he was awesome! So my plan is to make more pennies! Like, put more pennies into the dollar! You know? 200, or maybe a thousand pennies in a dollar, and that'll make the value of the dollar go up! Easy!"

[Honda Kiku]

Have a very confused stare, America.

"Would that not only... decrease the value of the penny? A dollar will still be a dollar, but the pennies will be worth even less if you have more equaling one dollar." Or did Japan simply not understand how America's money worked? Perhaps he had a lot to learn.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Japan did not understand, no. He didn't get it at all. America understood, and he knew that his plan was the bomb.

"No, no! That makes pennies MORE valuable because there will be more of them! And since after a few years, pennies turn all gross and green, making more of them means we recycle more of them and recycling is the green thing to do!" America liked doing green things, recently. In fact, before school started he'd bought a backpack made of out hemp. He didn't know what hemp was, but apparently it was about as green as you could get, and that made him happy. Plus, it was a cool backpack. Win win!