For the next hour and a half, the letter from the IGE burned a hole in my pocket. Throughout the time Dr. Boyd was training the Gifted Champions I could hear the faint crinkle in my pocket with each movement. Mack had explained that when we leave for the ADEPT we had to leave at different times.
And Mack was of course taking the ADEPT Test. The age range was from 9 to 65, ending the retirement age for British citizens. Many of the regulations were held to a British standard because the ADEPT test was co-founded by Harriet McCeath, a descendent of the founder of McCeath (the other founder of adept, if you're curious was a Japanese pirate by the name of Madam Ching and while the Japanese culture is fully incorporated into ADEPT, it's a silent agreement by England and Japan's elite that we just use 'Japanese founder' as nobody wants to recognise one of the defining woman in education testing was actually a murderous pirate).
Of course, when McCeath had first introduced it the regulations were very different. Surprisingly, given the history of change in the scientific and academic community (see: any of the scientists in the past x amount of years who were stoned, burned, or shunned for their views), constant change to the regulations of the ADEPT test was welcomed. Though, supposing that a woman who never married and a Japanese pirate lord had invented it, a step from the norm is not really a surprise.
Mack would be accompanying the Gifted Champions as they went to England for the final. I would be leaving beforehand. Austin and Lucy had planned the six months check in with a social worker via a skype call, but Mack had managed to swing a trip to England so the two could watch the Gifted Champions the week after. Usually in the English adoption process, staying in the country is a huge issue until the social workers are sure of the family, but a quick use of Mack's Spy Basics let me into the files and I realised that the Orphanage I was at, despite it's apparent prestige, was incredibly corrupt.
It's always the rich ones.
(If some of the residents of the orphanage were mysteriously offered places at very nice boarding schools around the country, one being a certain child who had a book dedicated to her, well, that's nobody's business).
Anyway, as a teacher Austin, writer and well known in his field, he had gathered the funds to bribe the hell out of the orphanage. Hence the fact that I was shipped off to California within a couple of months of knowing them.
Seriously, they could have been like, killers or mercenaries. Oh, or bad parents.
Lucy is pretty much always texting me very mom things like 'wear a sweater' even the temperatures are higher than peak summer temperatures in England, and Austin has apparent high expectations for me. So eh, they couldn't be that bad, right?
Anyway, I deviate. Going back to England means seeing Lily again, and Catherine, and maybe even Harley would schedule me in in between trying to sell my books. I mean, her being my publisher and it being so close to the deadlines to get the final draft ready for printing, we had been skyping, calling, and thank god for One Drive, but seeing her in person would be fun.
Damn it, I was even missing Daniel, the stupid St Philips child.
God, McCeath's is probably dying on the sport fields without me.
I glanced up to see if Dr Boyd or Anton was looking, before reaching for my phone and throwing out a quick text to Lily, asking how my beloved football team was doing, before turning the volume on silent and placing it face up on the desk next to my notebook.
I saw Anton frown and raise his eyebrow from the corner of my eye, and skilfully avoided looking that way.
She replied just as the period bell rang, and I turned to put away the notebook I was doodling in before checking her response.
[Message received: Walking Kaine (1)]
Team fine; second place in girl's league. Philips beat us last game tho
I felt myself pulling a face without really meaning to. Second place was definitely nothing to frown about, but I sense the oncoming gloating from Philips 11. Daniel had been waiting to beat the McCeath Sparrows since we were twelve. The last time they had won our biannual game was the year before he got on the school's team, and I never let him live it down.
It wasn't until I was throwing the pen in my bag and handing it to Anton to carry for me that I realised Asha had a curious tilt to her head.
"What?" I questioned. She flushed, realising she had been caught staring and shrugged.
"Nothing. It's just ... I noticed- you've always got pieces of paper everywhere. It's like there's always someone picking up some doodles you've dropped on the ground. I don't know how you can pretend to be organised." I could feel my brows furrowing in confusion, wondering if I really did have this trait. I mean, we were in a school. Even if I wasn't actually meant to be in this class, I still had things to do.
Had she heard the letter in my pocket, rustling around still? I mentally dismissed it as paranoia, I had walked in on her cleaning up my writing notes more than once. I guessed that was what she was referring to.
I really did have a lot of paper lying about most of the time.
Instead of debating with her, I shrugged my shoulders.
"I fell out of a tree as a child and broke my arm; paper hording is like petty revenge." Instead of getting the joke, her face filled with concern.
"Oh my God are you alright?" Jean, who was waiting for Asha to move so she could get out from behind the closed benches, laughed loudly.
"Hell, Asha, someone's going to sell you glass and call it diamond." Jean proceeded to nudge her out of the way, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
"I can tell glass from diamond." Jean caught my eye over Asha's shoulder and rolled hers. Another metaphor lost.
"I know you can, Asha." I reached out to pat her head in a playfully condescending way, and the image of Anton doing that to me a few days earlier flashed across my mind. My hands clenched automatically, and I went for punching her lightly instead.
I was probably spending too much time with that douchebag. He was beginning to rub off on me.
"C'mon, Dunce. I need to get my books out of your locker." It broke Asha's pout, and we shared another eye roll, this time at Anton's expense, as I turned to face my boyfriend.
"Why do you have books in my locker?" I asked, to cover up the fact that I had actually totally forgotten that I had a locker in this place.
It wasn't like it was necessary, I live like two minutes away in the adjacent building, or ten minutes away, in Austin's house.
"Because you never use it, and it's closer to the science buildings than my locker."
"And you didn't think to ask if you could use it?" I questioned. Asha pulled an equally unamused face.
"How did you get her locker combo?" If I didn't know Anton half as well as I did, and I wasn't looking at him currently, I'd still know he would be smirking at that question.
"Out of all the type of locks in the world, the combination padlock is literally the easiest to break into, and then you know the code for the second-time round." He told us, pride in his voice like he wasn't admitting to having extensive breaking and entering knowledge.
"Also, Bostan hasn't changed the lock from the quad zero combination." I blushed, not wanting to admit that I hadn't actually even remembered I had a locker, never mind actually going to it to change the lock.
"It was a hiding in plain sight theory." I told them, avoiding Asha's Mom Look. Whatever was on her face right now, I knew it would be something between the lines of 'Don't you know anything about security' and 'thieves' with about three exclamation marks, regardless of the fact punctuation can't be transferred through sight.
"You changed the combo, though, didn't you?" She asked, turning the Mom Look onto Anton. I assume he's grown more immune to it than I have, because he shrugged instead of looking cowed.
"Of course," though his tone was pure sarcasm. "I wouldn't what anyone breaking in and reading all of Bostan's crumpled up paper." We had, by this point, gotten to the end of the hallway where Asha would split off to go meet up with Harred. We'd each slowed down to finish our conversation before we broke off, and it left enough time for Asha to laugh.
"Even your locker's filled with paper? I told you, you're a mess." She giggled, pushing her backpack further up her arm so she could give me a side hug. "I'll see you two later. We're ordering pizza tonight, remember." Anton forwent the hug in lieu of a wave, and stepped back.
"Yeah, yeah. Tell Harred not to order his crappy pineapple pizza again." He shouted to her retreating figure.
"Hawaiian or bust, Sabonni." She replied, not even bother to look over shoulder.
"Honestly, those two are meant for each other." He told me, his lips drawn down in a frown.
"Hawaiian isn't that bad," I shrugged, a smile crossing onto my face before he even reacted. If he was any other person, I could imagine him letting out an exaggerated gasp. It was Anton though, and he merely hung his head.
"I could handle the competitiveness, the anger, the idiot heiress, but fruit on pizza?" It was almost as if he walking talking to himself, the question was asked so quietly0 like he had been betrayed.
"You know, Harred told me that tomatoes had such high acid that people thought they were poisonous when really they were just stupid enough to eat them off lead plates. Like, they're both fruits, both high in acid, both savoury enough to be put on pizzas..." Anton cut me off with a deliberate sigh, and asking, almost resigned, as if he knew what I was going to say,
"Where are you going with this, Dunce?" I shrugged.
"All I'm saying is tomatoes and pineapples are basically the same thing." He sighed, a little less forcefully this time, but still altogether resigned.
"I can't believe Austin and Lucy let you out in public."
"Only with at least two bottles of water." I told him, fishing in my pocket to reveal an unopened message on the front alerts from Lucy telling me it's too hot to not stay hydrated.
We'd reached the lockers, and he paused at mine, quickly changing the dials to 0000 and unlocking the padlock, all the while muttering about how this was supposed to be a school for intelligent people.
I ignored the obvious opening for a joke when he muttered something about losing IQ points around me.
Inside the locker was an undecorated mess, about five books and what looked like the bedding of a small rodent.
"Do we have mice or something?" I questioned, siding in and pushing the scraps of paper around.
"You tell me, a bin not good enough for your scraps anymore, Bostan?" I glanced up at him in confusion, remembering the earlier conversation about the paper in my locker.
"They're not mine; I guess the person before me didn't clean it out before they left?" I shrugged, flicking the pieces further into the locker.
"I've been using this locker for months. There's a lot more than when you first came." Anton's voice sounded worried, like there was something worrying about the scrap pieces of paper shoved in my locker.
I idly picked one up, flatting it out against the side of the side of the locker.
You should have stayed asleep.
Anton sucked in a quick breath, glancing down at the note as he read it over. I followed his gaze, reading the note and dropped it.
They were talking about the coma.
My eyes were wide, seeking out Anton and as soon as they met his we reached out to grab at the scraps.
Get the information at old swimming hut at 10:30 tonight.
Anton's read.
You should have died.
Mine read. We picked through them, running over the various threats and questioning the meeting point. The ones on top or the newer ones were mostly furious threats about my previous non-compliance. The older ones were more concise, asking for bank details, vague threat about my secrets. Commenting on the things I had done that day.
"What the hell, Bostan? Is someone trying to blackmail you?"
"Nice observation, Sabonni." I snapped, flinching when he touched my arm. His grip loosened slightly, then immediately grew firmer.
"You don't think ..." I looked up at him from the note, and saw his hesitation.
"Mack is a good driver, he spent time in the states drag racing." I told him. His breath hitched, and he threw the paper back down.
"This is ridiculous, you've both got some messed up secrets, and I know you know him as more than a teacher, and that information I found on Mcceath's? You knew I was Russian despite not telling anyone, and now you've been targeted? That crash wasn't an accident! Someone's actually trying to kill you, Dunce!" He kicked the side of the lockers, making them shudder, and I took a step back unconsciously.
"I-" He whipped around facing me full on as he stared into my eyes. He face was angry, and concerned, and the brow was crumpled with worry than made my heart pound. The papers forgotten, he grabbed both of my arms.
Despite everything I knew of him telling me the opposite, his voice was soft and unbreaking when he next spoke.
"Who are you, Jane?"
Right, we good? See you in another two years, haha