Midnight City

Chapter Twenty-Six

Two days after we had arrived back from Brazil, Avery, Fidelia, Kermit, Tadpole and I made our way to the dining room. For dinner it was spaghetti and meatballs, and the spaghetti wasn’t over cooked, and the tomato wasn’t watery which meant our other Chef was back.

I grinned as I plated up. ‘I don’t want to be mean, but I really was getting sick of watery tomato sausages.’

‘Everyone was getting sick of watery tomato sausages.’ Tadpole said, and spooned a large serving of spaghetti into his bowl.

‘Everyone.’ Fidelia emphasised, and gestured wildly around the room at all the people digging into their meals hungrily.

I took my plate over to an empty table so there would be enough room for my friends to join me. Avery sat down next to me and shoved his fork into his spaghetti. He sighed loudly.

‘What?’ I asked, and set my fork back down beside my bowl.

‘Nothing.’

‘You just sighed like-’

‘It was a happy sigh Mags, a happy sigh.’ Avery chuckled.

‘There’s such thing?’ I asked.

‘To me there is.’ And he leaned over and kissed my forehead before going back to his food.

‘Ew, gross, gag, vomit.’ Fidelia spluttered and stuck her tongue out.

I glowered at her just as Wyatt sat down.

‘Hi Wyatt,’ I smiled.

‘Hey,’ Wyatt said quietly. He was normally pretty quiet, but in that past month or so it had seemed like he had started talking a lot more.

‘What’s up?’ I turned to him, trying to read his facial features.

‘Today is Tuesday.’ He replied and stabbed a meatball with his fork.

Tuesday was Wyatt’s day for testing. I then spotted a small white plaster on the underside of his forearm, and saw the blood seeping through.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked in a hushed tone.

‘They missed the vein three times in row. You would think that after testing me every Tuesday for thirteen years, so six hundred and seventy-six times, they’d memorise where my veins are.’ Wyatt grumbled before pushing his plate away from him, his fork still standing upright in the meatball.

‘You’d think after thirteen years we’d know their names, or be able to tell them apart at least.’ I pointed out.

‘I swear there’s a new one every month!’ Karoline added, taking a seat across from me.

‘Actually,’ Fidelia started, as if preparing her case to make a very valid point that we’d all missed out on. She did this quite often. ‘You’re right.’ Those were two words I’d never heard from Fidelia.

‘Last month was hot male scientist, and the month before was clipboard man, and the month before was Linda!’ Fidelia continued.

As if on cue, Linda strode into the dining room and walked over to our table. ‘Magdalene, may I have a word love?’ She smiled.

‘Sure.’ I nodded and stood up. ‘I’ll be back soon.’ I told everyone else, and followed Linda out of the dining room.

I hoped that she wasn’t going to take me too far from the dining room, because that would end in disaster. Luckily she didn’t though, and we ended up in one of the classrooms.

‘So, Mags how are you?’ Linda asked, taking a seat on one of the white desks.

I had a feeling that asking how I was, wasn’t what we were here for. ‘I’m alright, pretty tired though.’