Here’s a riddle for you: you’ve witnessed them before, you’ve seen them everywhere, and, if you’re a girl, then you’ve been a part of one before. A dance group? No. A slumber party? No. A pack of girls? Ding, ding, ding. Ten points for you.

I often find myself hanging out with my friends when one of them will get up and say, “I’m going to get cookies. Do you guys want to come with?” This is followed by nearly the entire group getting into formation (and not the Beyoncé kind) for the journey from the Great Hall to the Commons.

It was during this that a thought occurred to me: I didn’t want cookies—shocking I know. So, if I didn’t want cookies, why was I going with? In that moment, I began an investigation in which the results could reveal the secret behind the strangest tendency to take to the halls of BSM.

Using my superior social skills and ability to ask the right questions, I began conducting interviews with my fellow female students asking a single question: why do girls travel in groups? “I don’t I really know, but every time I walk into the theater bathroom there are like four girls packed into the big stall,” sophomore Megan Daubenberger said as she executed a perfect hair flip.

Armed with this new information and fierce ambition to discover the truth, I continued to explore the secrets behind this squad mentality. I traveled all the way from the North Building to the senior hallway (I know, it was a long journey) searching for my next interviewee. “Duh, I can’t afford to be judged for getting cookies by myself” said sophomore Maria DeCesare when I finally managed to corner her in math class.

With two successful interviews under my belt I decided to see what information I could get from the group of our student body that’s on the observation side of the situation: guys. “It’s because they’re like wolves and believe in safety in numbers,” junior Leif Anderson said.

I guess the secret behind the strangest riddle to puzzle the student body lies within the number of people we can fit into a bathroom stall, judgement based on cookies, and our wolf-like tendencies. Who could have guessed?