After the mysterious note came into the Shield‘s offices, I, too, was intrigued.

THE M IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS. What could this have to do with the STEM Center?

With nothing but a Shield Guy’s intuition and a half-formed understanding of what “STEM” stands for, I set out to investigate. From certain unnamed sources, I gleaned that, traditionally, STEM stands for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.” The note, of course, implied that the M referred to something entirely different. As a starting point, I generated a list of words beginning with the letter M:

• Miasma,
• Michael,
• Martha,
• Mark,
• Malt,
• Mend,
• Mess,
• Minty,
• Malnourished,
• McQuaid Jesuit High School,
• Mystify,
• Mormon,
• Maine,
• Match,
• Magic,
• Madness,
• Metal,
• Melt,
• Medium

After establishing this fantastic list, I began my research. Out of these, Miasma and Melt seemed the most promising. I Googled “what miasma means,” and, apparently, it is a really bad smell. This is intriguing. The STEM Center is where we have Anatomy and Physiology classes, and thus is the site of myriad deceased felines. Perhaps this is the source of the elusive miasma.

On the other hand, it might, in fact, be “melt” that the M stands for. Melt has four letters, and STEM also has four letters. This is intriguing, of course.

Additionally, melting is what ice does. Ice does not have four letters, but “burn” and “fire” do. I needed to find a link between melting and burning.

Covert espionage yielded the following video of the STEM Center. I have no idea how I managed to escape with this video totally undetected.

This kind of evidence is very convincing. Here we have fire, which has four letters, and it’s on ice, which melts, and “melt” has four letters, and it begins with M. I decided to pursue this lead.

What does “melt” really mean? The New Oxford American Dictionary says that “melt” comes from an Old Norse word meaning “digest.” This is intriguing. When do we digest? When we eat, of course! This is why we cannot eat in the STEM Center. If someone were to eat food and then digest it, he might think about the way the food was melting in his stomach, and then realize that “melt” has 4 letters and begins with an M, and then he’d realize that the M in STEM stands for “melt.”

You can tell that the bigwigs are trying to hide this truth because nobody ever speaks of it. With a certain amount of extortion, I was able to convince a source connected to McQuaid to confirm my theory. As he wishes to remain anonymous, I shall refer to him as Borales. For the purposes of this article, let’s say he teaches Latin. I confronted him with the facts I had gathered, arguing with this evidence that the M in STEM stands for “melt.” Mr. Borales responded:

“Okay, you people keep changing this on me. Whatever.”

This is obviously an assent. Thusm I present you with my conclusive evidence that the M in “STEM Center” stands for “melt.”