This story takes place near the end of the term (Februray~March).

One day, out of the blue, the student council suddenly called Yuki out and declared that unless the Literature club (Yuki's original club) publishes something within the next week, the Literature club will be disbanded, which means the club room (currently taken over by the SOS-dan, which is not recognized by the school) will have to be vacated and returned to the school. It was clear that the student council president was using this as an excuse to get rid of the SOS-dan.

Haruhi finds out, and naturally, declares war on the president, and took up the task of creating a student magazine in order to save the Literature club (and their room). Haruhi gave herself the role of "Editor-in-Chief" and demanded one piece of fiction from each of the SOS-dan members (+ from innocent bystanders like Taniguchi and Tsuruya-san). Through lottery drawing, the topic were distributed like this:

Mikuru: Fairy-tale
Yuki: Fantasy Horror
Koizumi: Mystery
Kyon: Romance

After this, the SOS-dan entered crunch mode, throughout the story, we got to see various interesting "work in progresses" from Mikuru and Yuki. (Mikuru's fairy-tale featured Mikuru's own drawings, but the story made no sense because Haruhi kept on modifying her own historical warfare contents into Mikuru's fairy-tale :heh:. Yuki's fantasy horror actually provided a surprising look into her inner thoughts.)

Nobody wants to read Koizumi's mystery, so it wasn't mentioned at all. :heh:

Finally, Kyon's romance novel. After much pain and deliberation, Kyon finally wrote a story (well, more like a journal) about a time when he went to watch a movie with a girl back when he was in the 3rd year of junior high. Koizumi, however, noticed that the story had a hidden twist to it through the various "clues" left behind by Kyon. In the end, what Kyon has written isn't a romance story at all (it's not even fiction).

Haruhi, on the other hand, didn't notice the clues and demanded to know who the girl was, which resulted in the horseride scene above. :heh:

In the epilogue, they somehow managed to complete and publish the Literature club magazine, and the student council allowed the Literature club to remain (although they still won't admit SOS-dan's existence).

Oh yeah, Kimidori Emiri returned in this story as the student council clerk. We find out in this story that there's more to her than what we thought...

This story is very similiar to "Mysterious Sign" as it involves the SOS-dan accepting an investigation request from a fellow student.

The story takes place in the lazy days of early March, the final exams are all over, and all that's left for the students is to wait until spring break (and after that, a new school year).

One day, a classmate named Sakanaka-san showed up at the club room and asked Haruhi for help with a certain problem: she thinks there might be a ghost in her neighbourhood.

Apprantely, Sakanaka is a dog-lover herself, and walks her dog (it's name is Rousseau, a West Highland White Terrier. Haruhi calls it "J.J.", for some reason) everyday. But one day, her dog suddenly began avoiding going into a certain area on their walk path. And after asking around, she finds that other dog-owners in the area are having the same problem too: their dogs won't go into that certain area either. On top of that, one owner's dog suddenly became mysteriously sick, and had the vets stumped.

Anyway, Haruhi took the usual preparations (dressing Mikuru up in Miko costume, and asking her to learn some exorcism spells) and set out with the whole gang to investigate.

Upon arriving at the scene, through J.J.'s help, Koizumi finds that the "dog repelling zone" is a circular area originating from the riverside. The gang heads there, and Haruhi got Mikuru to recite the Heart Sutra (which, as pointed out by Kyon, is probably sacriligious, since the Heart Sutra is a Buddhism mantra, while Mikuru's Miko look is representative of the Shinto religion. :heh: ).

Soon after that, they encountered a jogger running past them with his dog. Surprised, Haruhi asked him how he got his dog to enter the area. The jogger said his dog didn't want to enter the area at first either, but after forcing the dog into the area a few times, the dog no longer fears the area anymore.

The "mystery" appeared to have been dispelled at this point, but a sudden twist came a few days later, when Sakanaka-san's dog also fell sick, with exactly the same symptoms as the other owner's dog.

The SOS-dan makes a second trip out to Sakanaka-san's place, there, Yuki finds out that the dog is infected with a type of alien mechanical lifeform (virus), which she called a "silicon-based coexisting type information lifeform element" (珪素構造生命体共生型情報生命素子). At this point, Yuki and Kyon began discussing the deeper aspects of how we define "life", as well as about the concept of spirits and souls.

(A memorable moment here is when Kyon asked Yuki whether or not spirits are actually real. Yuki, after showing a troubled look (that only Kyon can tell, of course), made an expression "like someone trying to hold back from laughing at a joke he's about to tell" (that only Kyon can tell, of course), and said

"That's a prohibited subject" ("それは、禁則事項")
(Yuki was copying Mikuru :heh: ))

After figuring out the problem, Kyon and Koizumi deliberated a plan with Yuki to "cure" the dogs by removing the virus from them (Yuki wasn't allowed to destroy them because, according to her creator, they are beneficial existences). To do that, Shamisen was required as a vessel to contain the removed viruses. The procedure was a success (which was performed under the guise of aromatherapy, to fool Haruhi and the dog owners), and the dogs became healthy again.

In the "epilogue", there was a discussion between Kyon and Koizumi about the implications of the incident this time. Kyon mentions the possibility that Haruhi's using her power again to cause odd events to occur again, but Koizumi denies that and says Haruhi's powers has not been used for a quite a while now. As a matter of fact, Haruhi has been absolutely stable for the past few months, and that's the problem. Since Haruhi's so stable, it's possible that some aggressive parties might be itching to cause some troubles (again) in order to get a reaction from Suzumiya Haruhi. The alien virus event this time may just be a sign or premonition to that.

This story really revealed more about Haruhi's personality than anything else. Also, we get a feeling that Kyon has really gotten to know Haruhi's personality after being together with her for a whole year.

Also, like the hints provided in the "epilogue", this story felt like a foreshadowing to another serious big event. Now, since Shoushitsu (vol.4) was a serious story about Yuki, and Inbou (vol.7) was a serious story about Mikuru, maybe we'll finally get a serious Haruhi-story in vol.9? ^^;

Since it turns out that Ryoko and Yuki are the same type of entity, is there any explanation given as to why they are so radically different in their mannerisms, presence or absence of emotions, and the way they interact with the humans around them?

Yuki was created specifically for one purpose, observation of Haruhi. Though she's supposed to be 'interactive' as well too lol

Ryoko is Yuki's subordinate, she's probably a 'newer model' a MKII or something. They probably created her with more human emotions and placed her in the same class for direct actions and approach towards Haruhi.

Who the heck is John Smith?!

None other than the narriator himself... there's bizzare circumstances around that