The Numbers on Our Arms

Chapter 19

As the bell rang for lunch, Remi and Blyke rushed from their classes to the cafeteria and met up with Isen along the way. Once they reached the end of the lunch queue, they headed to find a table around the centre of the rom.

"At least it isn't triple chocolate cake today," Isen said after he finished his bite. "The last time it happened, we had less than half the normal turn out."

"You did?" Blyke exclaimed, eyes wide. Then he took a pause to consider it. "Shouldn't they have ran out of cake before that happened?"

He shrugged. "They decided it was good to make extra that time. It was barely a week after John was suspended so I guess they originally prepared for him to be there, like a month in advance or something.!

"Would it have really been that big of a deal?" Remi questioned, obliviously pursing her lips in doubt.

"Did you see how Seraphina and John fought that one time when he first joined?" Isen replied to her, screwing up his brow in confusion. "I would have wanted to be several miles away from that if John actually used his ability that time. Even if Seraphina didn't, there are so many others here that could take the last slice. Didn't you and Arlo fight over it that one time?"

"It was all in good fun," she replied. "However, with Seraphina and John, that time was before they were friends and before Seraphina changed to... what she is like today. That was so unbelievably long ago and I don't think that it is a reliable situation to compare this to."

"Hm, maybe." Isen paused. "But I still would not have wanted to be there."

Blyke nodded. "I know."

When they cleared up, Remi and Blyke rushed off to the Safe House whilst Isen went in to check with Cecile at the Newspaper club.

Remi brought in a moveable whiteboard from another classroom only to find that the only whiteboard pens they had were red. "Um... I guess Miss Swallow doesn't keep her pens there. Or they fell off." She paused. "Hopefully, that isn't the case." She turned to him. "Do you know where the spare whiteboard pens would be kept?"

"This is an empty classroom with no classes," he replied. "I don't think they would keep spare whiteboard pens in here, but you could ask Mrs Herts next door."

She nodded and knocked on the classroom door to see the teacher eating at her desk. The teacher called her to come in and she asked, "Please may I borrow a pen, miss?"

"Is this for the Safe House?" she asked, peering up from behind her rectangle glasses.

"Yes," she replied.

"As long as you return, and I'm sure you will, then you can," she said and pointed out to a pot of pens on the other side of the whiteboard. She took a few – two black and one green – and then left to see Blyke again.

"I've got some," she stated with a laugh when she rushed over to him. She checked that each pen worked with a line on the whiteboard to find that one of the black pens didn't work but left it on the desk that was near the front of the classroom. Then she rubbed out the pen marks with her sleeve.

Blyke smiled at her as she went to the boxes. She pulled out some of the banners and glanced up to the board.

"Don't use the table again," he said as he glanced to her and then back again. He had brought up a slideshow on his computer that had some of their suggestions.

"I'm not going to hang them that high," she replied as she pulled up a standard chair out to put them around the display board. She pinned the tops of the bunting to each corner and the centre before getting down. Then she moved over to the board and hung one bunting over the top.