━ DENOUEMENT ( jerome clarke. )

45 ⊳ HOUSE OF DOUBLE-CROSS.

It turned out that she was extremely wrong.

That was why only a few minutes later, after a conversation with Poppy Clarke, did both Nina Martin and Amber Millington decide to storm up to Jerome Clarke, who was in the midst of a conversation with Alfie Lewis as the prankster pair stood by their lockers, unaware of the two girls who were about to angrily rush up to them.

"Syd's just texted - she's outside taking some pictures." Jerome Clarke muttered, reading out the text that he had just received from his childhood best friend before he slid his phone back into his trouser pocket, not having any use for it any longer.

"I'm surprised she's not here with us, considering how weird you were acting all last lesson." Alfie Lewis pointed out, casually throwing a few of his school books into his locker as he turned to face his roommate, "I don't know, it's almost as if you were... concentrating."

"Take that back." The blonde-haired boy snapped, pointing a finger at the boy as he had a reputation to uphold - one that meant that he did not concentrate in class in the slightest.

Although, he did have to admit that he was concentrating a little bit in the last class that they had, but that was only because he had to keep his mind from getting distracted and turning to other topics that would simply stress him out - those topics being the gem and also his random and intrusive thoughts about his childhood best friend that he was starting to see as something a little bit more...

"It's the gem." and Sydney, but at that moment, the gem was a little bit more important to him as it was literally gone - also, if he told the rather excitable boy beside him that he was beginning to see Sydney as something other than his childhood best friend, he probably would have screeched in the middle of the corridor and drawn attention to them.

"What? The one your dad stole, my goose ate, and Mara washed down the pipe?" Alfie summed up what had occurred with the poor, poor, poor gem that had already suffered through so much.

"Except there is no way the gem could get all the way down." Jerome pointed out, releasing a sigh as he leant his head against his locker and thought about when the pipe had popped off and their housemother had glanced inside before declaring that there was no gem in sight, "Vera." Jerome realised, his eyes widened with pure shock as he thought that perhaps he'd be able to get the gem back if he did enough snooping around, "Vera looked before Sydney and I could - her back was to us."

"You think she stole it?" Alfie chuckled, finding the idea a bit hard to believe as there was no reason, as to what they knew, why their seemingly innocent housekeeper would want a gem so badly that she'd steal it from a student.

"I don't know Alfie - all I know is that it's the only thing that makes sense right now." Jerome argued - though, he couldn't exactly discuss the topic more, as that was when Nina Martin and Amber Millington suddenly came down the corridor and harshly grabbed the boy, dragging him away from his roommate and causing him to cry out confusedly, "Woah, woah, woah!"

Once the pair had successfully dragged the boy to the other side of the corridor, they released him from their grip and stood in front of him, crossing their arms and staring at the boy who just glanced at them with confusion in his eyes.

"Have you two started a strange girls acting strangely club? Because, right now, it's going very well." Jerome inquired, knowing that he hadn't done anything to annoy the pair that he knew of and so there was probably only one thing that they wanted to talk to him about - Sydney, "Wait, is this another one of your lectures about me and Sydney?"