Chatoyant College, Book 13: The Teeth

Chapter 6: Potluck Breakfast

Edie decided that if she was stuck inside the building, she might as well go have a long, hot shower. Unfortunately, it seemed that a lot of other people in the building must have had the same idea, because there wasn't much hot water left. Either everyone else had used it up, or the fog had done something to the hot water. Since it was a comfortable, warm temperature inside without the heaters running—though Edie was not about to open her window to see what the outdoor temperature was like—the former seemed more likely.

After she'd showered (at least she was clean now) and dressed, she grabbed up her trusty supply of bread and peanut butter and went looking for her friends. Corrie was still out of the room, but Dawn and Naomi were home next door, and they were able to fetch Annie and Roe from their own rooms as well.

They all brought food (except Naomi, who offered to make up for her portion with some pot, but they all agreed to just give her free food), so they came up with a nice spread for breakfast—two kinds of bread and one of crackers, peanut butter, cheese, sour candy, dried apricots and plums, popcorn, and some slightly wilted baby carrots.

"I talked to Link this morning," Roe said as she carefully arranged popcorn on her slice of peanut butter toast. "He and Troy are fine, but they have no idea who was killed, either. Of course, they live in Darnel, so it definitely wasn't anyone in their dorm."

Edie's stomach squirmed with guilt. She hadn't even thought to check on people in other dorms. Of course, most of her friends lived here. She knew a few girls in other dorms, but she wasn't sure if she wanted to bother with any of them.

No, Darcy and Zip lived in other dorms. She hadn't heard from either of them; she should check. If it was one of Leila's former friends, or someone from the Circle of the Goddess, well... she would still care, she would still be upset, but they weren't worth checking on.

"I should check on people," she said, sticking an apricot in her mouth and getting up. No new emails; neither Darcy nor Zip had sent anything to her.

"I had emails from a couple of the girls from the Rainbow Alliance," Annie said. "Tia and Marianne. They don't know who it is either."

Naomi frowned. "I talked to Jerry and some other people, but didn't think to ask if they had any idea who was missing. I guess they don't know, if they were worried enough to check on me."

Edie finished writing quick emails to Darcy and Zip (she remembered to ask Darcy if her friend Theresa was okay too), then realized that Derwen might have heard something by now. "I'm going to go see if Derwen wants to join us," Edie said.

"I'll head down with you," Dawn said, standing up quickly. "I'll see if Rico is interested. You don't mind the room getting crowded, do you?" She smiled at Edie.

Edie smiled back and shook her head, opening the door. "Not as long as it's all friends."

Dawn sighed as they headed for the stairs. "Rico was right. All this speculation isn't a good idea. They should have just come out and told us who's dead—the way things are, rumors are just going to fly around and everyone's going to get freaked out."

Edie nodded. She could hardly disagree with that. "I'm sure they thought it was a good idea, but it may not have worked out the way they expected. Maybe they were going to have teachers make announcements in today's classes, but they didn't expect the fog."

"They probably should have," Dawn said, then just shook her head as she stopped at the fourth floor.

Edie kept going to the third floor, where she knocked on Derwen's door. The faerie answered, frowning, but smiled when she saw Edie. "Hey! Have you heard anything?"

"No," Edie said, disappointed that Derwen didn't seem to know anything either. "Just a lot of rumors. I sent emails to Darcy and my friend Zip to see if they're okay. A bunch of us are having breakfast in my room—do you want to come?"

"I guess I'd better eat something other than pretzels eventually," Derwen sighed.

"Bring the pretzels. We're making it a potluck."

"I have some tea if we want, too. We can borrow my roommate's electric kettle."

"Oh, that would be great! Are you sure she won't mind?" Edie tried to look around the room, but she couldn't see anyone else in there.

"Nah. Here, take the pretzels."

Edie took the bag of pretzels, and the tea, too, and carried it upstairs while Derwen carried the electric kettle. Edie wondered how she was able to touch it, given that it undoubtedly had iron in the metal, but decided not to ask. The answer was probably very complicated.