DENOUEMENT
iii. house of eyes
❝LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE IS IN BIG, BIG TROUBLE.❞
THE SOUND OF a million shards of glass shattering-.
Inhaling a deep breath of air, the petrified blonde-haired female shot up out of her bed, her hand on her chest as she tried to calm down her breathing after the memory had come to haunt her once again – she should have been used to this by now; it had been around a month, but healing takes time – she had to remind herself of that every now and again, but she still hated the person whom she had become. She wished that she could go back to simply being the bubbly blonde with no issues or worries, but her nightmares didn't seem to let her, not letting her to forget the day her life flipped around and everything... including herself... had to change.
As she was thinking, the blonde was unaware that her rapid movement had caused her two roommates to glance over at her, the pair of them already being awake and now looking at her with confused and worried eyes, wondering what had startled the girl so badly that she seemed like she had to take a few moments to breathe as soon as she woke up. However, once Sydney noticed their wondering eyes, she simply waved them off with her hand, the small motion telling them not to worry about it and it instantly falling to the back of their mind as they dismissed it as a small nightmare – everyone had them, right?
Slightly groggy after her sudden wake up call, Sydney slowly got ready for the day of her, hiding the bags under her eyes with what seemed like layers of concealer. However, despite her changing her physical appearance so much so she seemed more awake, her body language gave it away easily – the slowness of how she walked and the way her eyes kept slowly closing before shooting open again – she'd have to fix that, somehow. As she brushed through her hair and styled it for the day, the blonde thought about how she could wake herself up, before she thought of the perfect idea that didn't require much effort or much more thinking, especially when you had the queen of talking in your room: gossip.
"So, Nina completed her initiation task." Sydney announced, mainly glancing towards the nerdy roommate that she had through her mirror, considering that Mara wouldn't have been aware due to her sleeping when Nina escaped the attic.
"Really?" Mara questioned, her eyes widening at the news and she turned her head to face the blonde, wanting to know everything that had happened, and more importantly, if she managed to make it out without facing the wrath of their housekeeper, "Did Victor catch her?"
"No, she was amazing!" Amber chimed in, and it was obvious that the new girl had already gotten into their resident rich girl's good books due to the smile that was on Amber's face as she spoke of Nina, "Can you even imagine going into that creepy attic? Ew."
"I wonder how annoyed Patricia is going to be when she wakes up and sees Nina back in her bed." Sydney spoke up, knowing that the purple-haired girl resented the new girl for "taking Joy's place" – it was probably going to cause a lot of conversation, most of which Patricia would not be happy joining in with.
At that, Mara pursed her lips together as they thought about their friend, a worried look crossing across her face, "She won't be happy; she seriously thinks that Nina has something to do with Joy's disappearance."
"Why doesn't she just believe Victor? It's not like he's a bad guy, or anything." Amber questioned, which was a good point – Victor was their housekeeper and had a legal obligation to take care of them as their guardian whilst they stayed at Anubis House, so if he had anything to do with Joy's disappearance or any harm came to her, then he'd be in a lot of trouble.
"Exactly." Sydney supported her fellow blonde, just as she had finished doing her hair and had now began to make sure she had everything for the day ahead of her, "I mean, Victor said that her parents had taken her out and there are many reasons why a family would do that suddenly." Sydney would know that rather well, knowing that she had almost not returned to Anubis House a few weeks ago, but didn't let them know that as she continued, "Yeah, it's odd, but it's not completely out of the question, I suppose – Nina arriving may have just been very bad timing, like Fabian said."
"Do you really think Patricia is going to believe that?" Mara asked, causing them all to send a look to one another, knowing that their anger-filled housemate would certainly not believe that, and she would continue trying to make Nina's life hell until they found out what had happened to Joy and where she was.
And with that question in the air, Sydney decided to leave the room and make her way downstairs, hoping that food and conversation with the rest of the Anubis House residents (especially with all the gossip about the initiation ceremony) would wake her up. However, she found herself being the first student there, with Trudy just beginning to set up breakfast.
"Oh, hi, lovely!" Trudy greeted her with a smile that made the blonde feel a million times better – honestly, Sydney did not know how she would have coped in Anubis House without Trudy Rehmann, "Be a love and help me set out food."
"Only for you, Trudy." Sydney joked, sending the woman a small smile before she helped her, putting all the food on the table and setting out some plates and cutlery just as the Anubis House residents began to pile into the room.
"Looks good, Trudy!" Alfie commented, a humongous grin on his face as he scanned the food on the table whilst walking into the room, Jerome following in behind him.
"Yeah, and there's a lot of it." Sydney told him, trying to balance three plates on her arms to take it over to the table so she didn't have to make a lot of journeys back and forth from the kitchen to the dining table, but eventually she raised her head, looking at her two friends with puppy-dog eyes, "Help, please."
At her expression and her struggling and mildly shaking arms, Jerome let out a small chuckle before nudging Alfie, telling him to come with as they approached the girl, but then the blonde male halted, crossing his arms over his chest as he looked at the girl, a smirk forming on his lips, "What's in it for us if we help you?"
"I don't hit you." Sydney answered with a dead-pan look on her face, although the boy remained still, wanting a better reward than that so she released a sigh, rolling her eyes as she thought for a few seconds, before coming up with a decent answer, "You get to be the first ones to grab the food."
Instantly, Alfie took one of the plates from the girl, his smile managing to grow even wider, "That's good enough for me."
Knowing that he now had to help, Jerome shook his head, but then took a plate from the girl, walking beside her to place their plates on the dining table, before he went to take a breakfast muffin from the plate, "I'm starving."
However, before his hand could come into contact with the muffin, he pulled his hand back and began to clap, the whole room breaking out into applaud as Nina entered the room, showing that she had managed to escape the haunted attic without getting caught by Victor, which everyone was stunned at. At the warm welcome, a large smile came upon Nina's lips whilst she sat into her seat – Sydney was pretty sure it was the first time that the new girl had smiled whilst at the dining table with the entire group, but wasn't surprised; it must have been the first time at Anubis House where she actually felt accepted by everyone.
"We were certain Victor was going to get you." Jerome told the girl with an impressed tone to his voice, whilst he stopped his applaud and actually managed to get a breakfast muffin this time without retracting his hand back.
"Yeah, either Victor or the flesh-eating zombies." Alfie added, putting on a scary voice as he did his "spooky hands", which both Nina and Sydney let out a laugh at, whilst the latter sat down alongside Jerome, the pair of them digging into their meal whilst engaging into the conversation.
With a small shrug, Nina decided to play cool, acting as though she was less scared than she actually was in order to seem brave, so that she couldn't be teased by a certain purple-haired girl, who sat at the end of the table, "No zombies - mostly rat bones."
"Cool." Alfie responded, and it was evident that the new girl had scored a few brownie points for the pranksters, with all of them being shocked and impressed with her bravery and courage, and how she managed to not get caught by Victor.
"I don't know which one is worse really – zombies or rat bones." Sydney spoke up absent-mindedly, not thinking much about the actual topic she was talking about as she stuffed food into her mouth; she would die for Trudy's cooking.
However, Jerome was confused by his friend's statement, snapping his head towards her with a tilted head and narrowed eyes, "You don't know what is worse between flesh-eating corpses or small bones that can't hurt you?"
Nodding slowly, Sydney soon seemed to understand his point, as she pointed to him and came to a conclusion, "You make a valid point - the zombies are worse."
"Was it really scary up there?" Mara asked, wanting to know what the attic was like as none of them had ever dared to go in there, partly because of Victor but also partly because of the creepy stereotypes that surround attics.
"I thought it would be worse. It was actually kind of cool." Nina admitted to the group, giving them very little details about the space above them but also surprising them at the same time, whilst the girl continued with a shrug, "I might move up there."
"Don't you think she was brave?" Amber questioned, wanting everybody's opinions on what the new girl had done and how courageous she had been, and everybody nodded in agreement with the blonde – minus Patricia, whose glare had never been so filled with hatred and rage as she stared down at Nina from the other side of the table.
"Even you have to admit, Patricia, Nina passed her initiation test with flying colours." Fabian said to the purple-haired girl, hoping that everyone would now get along just fine and that all the tension surrounding the house would vanish, although Sydney could already tell that was not going to happen from the look on Patricia's face – pure annoyance.
"No." Patricia responded, causing everyone's face to contort to one of confusion, wondering why the new girl hadn't passed her initiation test when she had done everything asked of her, which made the girl elaborate, "She didn't bring anything back, did she?"
"Well, actually..." Nina began, trailing off as she reached her hand into her bag that was to the side of her, pulling out a cobweb-covered and extremely dusty book, that was undeniably from the attic.
At the sight of the old book, Sydney and Jerome began laughing out of shock that she had actually brought something down, the latter beginning to clap once again, whilst Alfie pointed at the girl, mildly shocked as he said, "Yes!"
However, unlike everyone else, Patricia managed to get even angrier at the sight of the book, dropping her food onto her plate before she shot up out of her seat, storming out of the room with a huff escaping her lips. No matter what Nina did and how many tests she passed, Patricia was not going to like her until she thought that Joy was safe, which didn't seem to be happening anytime soon.
"Patricia, wait!" Mara called after the purple-haired girl, who didn't even halt in her footsteps or look back at the nerd, continuing to walk away, which forced Mara to stand up and hurriedly follow after her, the mood turning sad as everyone's smiles fell of their faces.
Leave it to Patricia Williamson to kill a mood.
"Well, that took a turn..." Sydney murmured after a few seconds of awkward silence, slowly digging into her food once again as she spoke.
Of course, her jokester friends, who took absolutely nothing seriously, saw her comment as an invitation to try to lighten the mood with yet another food fight (this time, with foods that were less sloppy than spaghetti), and thus Alfie grabbed a breakfast muffin, tossing it at Jerome's face and hitting him in the nose.
Normally, Sydney would laugh at the sight, especially since his jaw dropped with shock at the impact and he looked rather irritated – it was a sight to see, but she knew that if they began a food fight now then they would never get to school in time, so the girl released a sigh, mumbling, "Oh, not again."
As soon as people saw Jerome reaching forward for the bowl of breakfast muffins, the dining hall quickly cleared out with the Anubis House residents running out of the room, not wanting to be hit by food just before class. Sydney, however, had a different approach, which made her stand up from her seat and move so that she could reach both of them.
"You two are absolute children." She stated bluntly, before pushing down both of their heads into their plates, using their faces to crush their muffins and laughing at the hilarious situation.
Although, Sydney then realised that there was absolutely no way her two friends would not get revenge on her for doing this, so quickly decided that it was a good idea to run away before they could catch her.
"Get her, Jerome!" Alfie called out to his friend, who was closer to her, as soon as he felt her hand leave his head, lifting his head up from his face and watching the crumbled bits of muffin fall back down onto his plate.
Sydney truly did try to run away, but her blonde best friend was way too close to her for the attempt to even be worth anything, with Jerome having caught her wrist quickly and pulling her back to the table. Not giving her any time to call out any protests, he used his free arm to grab some salad from the bowl in the middle of the table and threw it at her, making sure it went all over her face like the breakfast muffin went over his – he was pretty certain there were some crumbs in his hair.
However, before it could get any worse (though it was already bad, considering that the trio had food covering their faces), Sydney quickly snatched her wrist out of Jerome's grip and removed the salad from her face, taking the initiative as the (slightly more) responsible one and grabbing her two friends by the collars on their shirts and pulling them out of their chairs and out of the dining room.
"But I didn't finish breakfast!" Alfie whined with a pout forming on his lips, him reaching his arms out to try and reach for the food on the table, despite how far away it was from him.
"I don't think there was anything to finish – you threw it at him." Sydney responded, motioning her head towards Jerome near the last part, as they entered the entrance hall and went by the stairs, the blonde finally letting go of them.
"And you smashed our heads into it!" Alfie protested, trying to prove to the girl that she had also caused havoc at the table, which she was very much aware of.
"I had to stop your fight in some way." The blonde-haired female answered, making up an excuse to why she joined in that seemed semi-responsible, although she honestly just wanted to smash both of their faces in food.
"By contributing to the fight?" Jerome questioned, trying to show that Sydney was just as innocent in the fight as they were and supporting his roommate, but it simply caused Sydney to stick her tongue out at him.
Crossing her arms over her chest, the smirk did not leave Sydney's face as she said to them, "Maybe you should be more civilised next time at the meal and then I wouldn't have to smash your heads into the food."
"But, you-."
"Nope!" Sydney interrupted, letting out a small laugh as she began to ascend the stairs, leaving the pair looking at her, confused, "Go get cleaned up and I'll meet you back here."
The pair of them rolled their eyes at the girl, but followed her commands anyways, before she called out again:
"Oh yeah, Tweedledee and Tweedledum!" Sydney spoke up, causing the pair to turn around back to face her, wondering why she had given them those nicknames and why she had called for them again.
Although, it all became apparent when they turned and saw her phone lifted up, having retrieved it from her pocket, and the sound of a camera shutter going off – she had taken a picture of the pair with food covering their faces, and their expressions made it a lot more funny, with the two of them looking extremely confused.
"Great picture – thanks, guys!" The blonde called out, before rushing up the stairs and to her room to get cleaned up before the two of them could chase after her and make her delete the photo, leaving them simply stuck in place, confused at what just happened.
Confirmed: Sydney Anderson was a chaotic mess.
However, her being a chaotic mess did definitely not stop the two boys from adoring her and being their friend, hence why the trio met up a few minutes later (with no food on their faces, surprisingly) in the entrance hall of Anubis House, ready to leave the house to attend the first lesson they had that day: English. Fortunately, that wasn't as bad as science, but that didn't mean Sydney liked it.
"Oh, I forgot what you looked like without food on your face." Sydney commented, a smirk on her lips as she saw the pair waiting for her whilst she descended the steps.
"No difference, really, I look great either way." Jerome quickly responded, a smirk on his lips as he approached the girl and instinctively did her tie for her once he saw it undone – it was a habit for him now.
"Urgh!" Alfie groaned, putting his finger to his mouth as he pretended to throw up, causing the pair of blondes to turn to him and roll their eyes, though he didn't stop, "Just kiss already, but please, let me turn away first!"
"Is there a leftover breakfast muffin in the kitchen?" Sydney asked, glancing up at the blonde boy beside her, who turned to her in confusion.
"No – I think everyone went back in after we left, thinking it was safe from the attack of food." Jerome informed her, causing a frown to appear on her face, "You hungry?"
At that, Sydney shook her head, "No, I just wanted to throw something at him."
"Yowza." Alfie responded, quickly turning away from the pair as they chuckled slightly, following him out of the house as they actually began their walk to school, with Sydney in the middle of the two boys as they walked.
"So, what do you think about the newbie?" Sydney asked the pair, knowing that the trio tended to have the same opinions on people in the school, and wondering what they had thought about her, especially after the initiation ceremony.
Personally, the small girl thought that their new student, Nina Martin, was a good addition to the Anubis House – she seemed to be nice enough and she joined into the conversations, going along with their jokes too. On top of that, she stood up for herself against Patricia and had the courage to do something that none of them have done – go into the attic. She really was an interesting girl, and Sydney didn't mind making friends with her, despite what Patricia thought.
"Seems cool." Alfie responded, confirming the girl's suspicion of them all beginning to like the new girl, and Sydney nodded in agreement with his statement, as she did think that Nina was pretty cool after her little stunt, "I mean, she managed to go into the creepy attic."
It seemed like they all agreed, as Jerome began to nod too, giving his opinion on the girl as he added on, "Yeah, she's got guts. Although, jury's still out – we're still pranking her at some point."
"Of course we are, but maybe let her get over the initiation ceremony first." Sydney responded to the boy, knowing that they had pulled a prank on every single Anubis House resident – Nina was not going to be an exception.
"Speaking of pranks and jokes..." Alfie began, trailing off slightly which caused the trio to come to a halt, the two blondes turning to face the body and expecting for him to continue.
However, he didn't speak anymore words, and before anyone could say anything or even realise what he was doing, Alfie had taken off one of Jerome's shoes and took his blazer from off his shoulder, breaking out into a sprint.
"What? Wait, I-." Jerome mumbled, the two blondes having wide eyes as their glances kept darting between one another, and the form of Alfie that was slowly getting smaller as he ran away, "Wait, Alfie!"
That's when Jerome must have realised what had actually happened, as he suddenly shot off, sprinting so that he could catch up with his friend and get his belongings back, whilst Sydney just stood still, a look of bewilderment on her face as she watched the retreating figures of her friends.
"Wait, hold on." Sydney mumbled, before she glanced up once again, beginning to break out into a run herself to catch up to her friends whilst she yelled out to them, "We were meant to be walking together, idiots!"
After way too many minutes of non-stop running (in which Sydney was pretty sure she saw Fabian and Nina looking a little bit cosy with one another, but had shot past them so quickly that it was honestly just a blur), the blonde girl had eventually caught up with her two idiotic best friends once they had all reached the school.
As soon as she made her way up to them, noticing that Jerome now had his shoe and his blazer back, she leant on his shoulder whilst she got her breath back, small pants leaving her as she sent them both a small glare, muttering, "It is way too early for exercise."
Shaking his head at the girl, Jerome released a chuckle at her statement as he slid his shoe back on, before speaking up himself, "I've been thinking-."
"Well, that's peculiar." Sydney interrupted with a smirk on her lips as she did so, clearly in the mood to tease her blonde best friend as he rolled his eyes at her.
"Shut it, Anderson." Jerome simply responded, nudging her slightly before he turned back towards Alfie, continuing what he was saying before he got interrupted, "You should do something for Amber."
"Oh no." Sydney groaned, not even attempting to hide her hatred for the idea as she knew that whatever plan they came up with was going to fail, partly because she knew Jerome's idea was going to be terrible, and partly because she still didn't think Amber liked Alfie, despite the kiss that they shared yesterday.
Ignoring the groan that had come from the girl beside him and hoping that Alfie wouldn't become hesitant of his plan due to it, Jerome continued, "You know, something 'romantic'."
"Do you have any idea about what something 'romantic' is?" Sydney asked the boy with her eyebrows raised at him – of course, she knew that he flirted with a lot of girls and he had a few girlfriends in the past (though they weren't very serious and typically broke up within a few months), but his flirting was bad and there was a reason his relationships never seemed to work out.
"Of course I do!" Jerome protested, scoffing at the idea of him not knowing what a romantic gesture was as he pretended to be confident, although Sydney still wasn't convinced, her eyebrows still raised at him.
"Oh, really?" The female responded, placing her hand on her hip as she shook her head at the boy, suddenly becoming intrigued at what he thought a romantic gesture was, and deciding that there was no harm in hearing the idea, "Come on, let's hear this plan then."
"Well, she made the first move with that kiss, now you need to follow it up with a few moves of your own." Jerome suggested to their best friend, whilst Sydney rolled her eyes, already expecting for this to go terribly.
Surprisingly, she hadn't heard much about the kiss that Amber and Alfie had shared since it happened; she never managed to find out why Amber had gone off-script and kissed the boy right in front of her boyfriend, or how it had affected her relationship with Mick, probably because everyone was so busy with the initiation ceremony. However, Sydney didn't recall seeing Mick ever since it happened, but then again, she never really paid attention to Mick Campbell unless she had a prank set up for him.
After having heard the beginning of Jerome's new idea to make Amber and Alfie fall deeply in love with one another, Alfie began to nod vigorously as he seemed to already like the plan, despite not hearing much about it, "You're right! Like what?"
"Oh, The Maestro has a few tricks up his sleeve." Jerome assured his friend as the three of them continued to walk to their lessons, this time with none of them chasing one another or stealing the other's shoe, thankfully.
"Oh, I'm sure he does." Sydney mumbled, not exactly trusting that Jerome's plan would have the outcome that Alfie desired, and knowing that most, if not all, tricks that Jerome could come up with would end badly.
Alfie, however, was confused at their response, asking, "Who's The Maestro?"
"Me," Jerome answered, although their friend still looked confused, making Sydney chuckle slightly whilst Jerome elaborated even more, "I'm The Maestro!"
"Oh, okay, but you gotta let me know when you change nicknames. I mean, last week you were 'Captain Spaghetti'." Alfie responded, finally understanding who 'The Maestro' was – although, their friend did have a point; Jerome gave himself a lot of nicknames that it was sometimes hard to keep up.
"Ooooh, that was a fun day!" Sydney exclaimed, a smile forming on her lips as she remembered that her blonde friend had given himself that name after having helped Trudy with cooking the spaghetti, and then starting a food fight with it in which he covered absolutely everyone in his meal, "Almost as fun as the day his nickname was Gerbil - oh wait, that's every day!"
At the nickname, Jerome sent a strong glare to the girl, acting as though he was mad even though all of them knew he wasn't and it was all pretend, a simple warning sign for Sydney to shut up and not use the nickname again – not like she'd listen. Of course, Jerome knew this and dropped his angry act, resulting in him shaking his head and sighing as they entered the English classroom, the two boys sitting in their chairs whilst Sydney sat atop their desk.
"Speaking of that, Gerbil, we're both very amused." Sydney mumbled quietly so that Alfie didn't pay attention to them as she lifted her phone so that Jerome could see the text conversation that she had with his sister, having sent her the picture of Jerome and Alfie with food all over their face.
"I should have never introduced you to her; she's a bad influence on you and gets you to torture me for her – it's bad enough I have to deal with her in the breaks, but I have to deal with her through you at school." Jerome gritted out, shaking his head as he read the texts of his sister laughing at his confused facial expression and the crumbs all over his face.
"Nope! Poppy and Sydney, Anderson and Clarke, whatever you want to call it – the best partners in crime in the whole world." Sydney stated, jumping off the table and sitting in her own seat, which was on the table next to them anyways.
"I thought that was Jerome and Sydney!" The boy protested, knowing that the pair had been together for basically their entire lives and did everything together – they were the partners in crime, Jerome and Sydney - not Poppy and Sydney; it didn't even sound as good.
However, after thinking for a few agonisingly long seconds, Sydney jokingly shook her head and stuck her tongue out at the boy, making him roll his eyes as he knew that she was joking – as much as Sydney loved and adored Poppy Clarke, nobody could replace Jerome Clarke to her; not even his own sister.
And thus, the pair of blondes could be seen together once again after school had finished and they had managed to get through all of their boring days, with them managing to only get one detention due to talking too much in Mr Sweet's lesson. Neither of them knew where the other part of their trio had gone, as Alfie had bolted out of their last lesson as soon as the bell rang and hadn't been seen since, but Sydney had sent him a text message to tell him that her nor Jerome would be back for supper, which he responded with the thumbs up emoji, which Sydney thought was good enough to mean that nobody would come looking for them or create some theory that they'd been kidnapped, like the theories that had been made about Joy.
Impulsively, the two blondes decided to skip supper and make their own (out of very unhealthy snacks and sweets from the shop) and eat it outside on the grass within the school grounds, and it was probably the best impulsive decision that the two had made. The pair of them couldn't stop laughing as they shoved different sweets in their mouths, filling themselves with sugar whilst also joking around, pushing one another and tossing sweets at the other.
The two of them definitely enjoyed their impulsive "supper" outside than the supper that they had been having the past few days, stuck at the dining room table with an awkward tension engulfing the room as Patricia glared at Nina with hatred roaring through her – honestly, they were both surprised that Patricia hadn't attacked Nina in her sleep, especially since they were roommates.
"I cannot believe Sweetie gave us detention! Again!" Sydney cried out, lying back onto her blazer as she did so, watching as Jerome continuously tried to catch marshmallows that he was throwing into the air in his mouth, "I swear, that man is out to get me!"
After failing once again, Jerome took a break from marshmallow-throwing to respond to the girl, noticing that she had now lay down and decided to follow in her footsteps, lying down beside her as he responded to her, "Of course he is."
"You know, one thing that I actually can't believe is that Amber kissed Alfie; still not over that." Sydney mentioned the incident which had shocked the two of them, and that she honestly kept wondering if it actually happened due to the idea being so absurd, and thus she turned to face Jerome with narrowed eyes, "Did you bribe her to do it without telling me?"
At the idea, the boy chuckled, wondering why he hadn't thought of that idea before, but then shook his head as he answered her, "Nope – not guilty."
"Wow, Alfie actually managed to kiss Amber Millington – the Amber Millington – before I've even had my first kiss; I don't know whether to be proud of him or sad for myself." Sydney declared, chuckling slightly as she did so, realising how odd the situation was – they had always told Alfie that his crush on Amber was ridiculous.
Suddenly, Jerome sat up as he looked at his friend with wide eyes, exclaiming, "You haven't had your first kiss?"
"Go ahead, shout it out to the whole world and make me feel worse about it, Gerbil." Sydney responded sarcastically, considering that she didn't care too much about not having her first kiss yet as she still thought she had plenty of time ahead of her and it'll happen whenever it does – she didn't want to rush being kissed for the first time due to her age, "Anyways, why are you so shocked? You know I haven't had a boyfriend; everyone thinks I'm dating you to even bother getting to know me, and if they do then you and Alfie chase them away."
"When have I ever done that?" Jerome asked with a scoff, although when she remained silent, he glanced back to see that she had an eyebrow quirked up at him.
Yeah, she was right.
"Okay, listen..." Jerome began, trailing off as he realised he didn't know what to say, and thus he simply shook his head, telling the girl, "Yeah, I don't have an excuse."
"I don't care either way." Sydney informed him, waving him off and causing the boy to look at her curiously, wondering why she didn't care, making her elaborate, "When my first kiss will happen, it'll happen. I don't see the point in actively trying to make something happen or rushing something, so if it happens, then whatever. I mean, all of my best friendships have simply just happened, so why not go about a relationship the same way?"
"And by best friendships, you mean me?" Jerome questioned, even though he already knew the answer considering that the two of them had been best friends and at each other's side for years.
And, Sydney was very much correct in saying that their friendship "simply just happened", as neither of them were forced to be friends. As kids, the pair just gravitated towards one another and stuck to each other's side, finding more and more that they had in common with one another as they grew up and watching everyone else get taken out of boarding schools, whilst they stayed. Soon enough, it was Sydney and Jerome against the world – Anderson and Clarke.
At the dumb question, Sydney rolled her eyes at the boy beside her, deciding to tease him slightly as she shook her head, "No, I meant Alfie."
"That's it." Jerome declared, putting down the bag of sweets that he had just picked up and, instead, lifting Sydney up from the ground, her squealing as he did so, especially as he began to spin her around.
Fortunately, a ding caused the pair to snap back out of their own little bubble, having heard the notification chime from Sydney's phone inside her pocket and forcing Jerome to gently put her down as she reached inside, taking out her phone as she looked at who had messaged her, rolling her eyes as she saw the message.
"It's Alfie – he says that both of us need to go to my room now and that it's urgent." Sydney informed the boy, confusion taking over her features as she wondered what could have happened in her own room to be so urgent, and why her two roommates weren't dealing with it or hadn't texted her themselves.
Letting out a groan, Jerome glanced down at the packets of sweets and then back at Sydney – he had been enjoying his time a lot more than he would have done at the house, and he really didn't want it to end, causing him to question, "Do we really have to go?"
"Yes." Sydney insisted, taking the packets of sweets and shoving them into her bag, before grabbing her own blazer and Jerome's, passing it to him and causing him to begrudgingly take it from her, following her back to the house.
However, it really was not worth it.
Within a few minutes of leaving their impromptu "picnic/supper", Sydney practically burst through her bedroom door, wanting to know what chaos had happened, whilst Jerome trailed behind her. However, confusion fell upon her face as the only thing out of place in her bedroom was that Alfie was stood in there, a wide smile on his face as he was next to Amber's bed, which now had some sweets on it which spelt out a message for the girl.
"Are you kidding me?" Sydney mumbled as she slammed her head against Jerome's shoulder, frustrated that she had rushed back to the house just to look at a message on her roommate's bed.
"We should have stayed out." Jerome responded, shaking his head and equally as frustrated as Sydney at the situation, considering that he had enjoyed his time outside and would have been rather happy to spend at least half an hour continuing that.
"Just read it!" Alfie encouraged them, seeing as the pair hadn't even looked at what his message had said yet, and evidently the boy was very proud of it, and thus the two blondes stepped forward, examining the message.
"Meet me in the laundry room tonight? Eleven PM? Kiss, kiss, kiss. A" Jerome read it out, beginning to feel less irritated and finding the situation rather funny, realising that he could have a little bit more fun with the situation tonight, "The laundry room – now that is classy."
"That's dumb, right?" Alfie said, the smile on his face having disappeared, which now caused him to look sad, deflated, and disappointed that his plan wasn't as amazing as he thought it was.
"Maybe change it to the kitchen or your own bedroom?" Sydney suggested, actually wanting to help Alfie, considering that he genuinely loved Amber and, after the kiss, there may have been a chance for him – though, Sydney still didn't have her hopes up too high.
"No, no, no, no. It's not dumb at all! It's very..." Jerome protested, trailing off as he came to a pause to think for the right word to describe his friend's plan as, "...intimate."
"Yeah?" Alfie asked for reassurance, the smile that he had previously coming back onto his face as Jerome restored his faith that he had in his plan – which, in his eyes, couldn't go wrong in any way and was absolutely perfect.
"Yeah."
"Honestly, I'm just surprised that they had one, never mind two, question mark sweets! And look at how many letter Es they have, and Xs!" Sydney exclaimed, wondering how big the pack of alphabetical sweets Alfie bought was, and how many he bought, and whilst she was thinking about those questions, she thought of one more which caused her to turn to her friend, "Anymore of these left, Alfie?"
"Did you really think that I wouldn't eat them all myself?" Alfie asked with a small laugh, which would have normally made Sydney deflate, but she remembered the many bags of sweets in her bag, and thus didn't particularly care too much, but the alphabetical sweets would have been a nice addition, "Well, see you."
With that, Alfie made his way out, leaving Sydney and Jerome in there, watching him leave as they waited for him to close the door, hearing it shut before they began their conversation, with the female giving a look to Jerome to ask him what he was thinking.
"Intimate?" Sydney questioned, repeating the adjective that the boy had used to describe what the date in the laundry room would be like, "Oh yes, the smell of old socks and unwashed and dirty clothing will definitely provide a flirtatious atmosphere."
"I know, right." Jerome smiled sarcastically, picking up the letter 'A' sweet, which stood for Alfie's name and would tell Amber who the message was from, and dropping it into Sydney's mouth before she could even protest the idea, "You asked if there were any more left – that was one left."
Rolling her eyes, Sydney swallowed the sweet in her mouth, knowing that it'd be rather disgusting if she spit it out and placed it back down now, before she responded to Jerome, "You do realise this is going to cause a lot of chaos in people's relationships and hurt people's feelings – the few things I don't like in pranks."
"It won't; it's just mild entertainment, I swear." Jerome assured the girl, although she still looked hesitant to go along with it, causing him to release a sigh, "If it gets bad then I'll fix it."
"Well, if you weren't going to fix it from your own accord, then I would have forced you to anyways." Sydney informed him with slight laughter falling out of her lips, before she remembered the many packets of sweets that she had in her bag, "Do you want to continue our very healthy supper, but now in my bedroom?"
"If I don't, then you're going to eat all those sweets yourself and probably end up throwing up from eating too many, so I think it's best if I join you." Jerome commented, moving to sit on Sydney's bed as she took the sweets out of her bag, throwing each packet at him as she managed to get them out.
However, halfway through the packets, she halted, turning around to face the boy with a smirk on her lips as she jokingly asked, "Are you just using that as an excuse to hang out with me?"
Rolling his eyes, Jerome, who had just gotten a sweet from out of one of the packets, threw it at her, "Get over yourself."
Both of them knew she was right.
A few hours later, the pair had managed to finish all of the sweets (with a few of them being scattered around the room after being thrown everywhere) and also had the chance to watch a film, Jerome's arm having been absent-mindedly slung around the girl throughout the entire thing. However, a while after the film had ended, Jerome had received a flood of notifications on his phone, all of them being texts from Alfie, who was spamming him and telling him to come downstairs to help him decide an outfit for his date and prepare him on what to say and how to act – which, of course, Sydney rolled her eyes at whilst Jerome gained a big smirk, saying goodnight to the girl before he raced downstairs to help his friend.
Half an hour later, the bedroom door swung open once again whilst Sydney had her phone pressed to her ear, the other half of the date stepping into the room - Amber Millington, of course.
"I've got to go." Sydney quickly spoke into her phone, barely listening to the response before she hung up the call, glancing up and seeing that Amber was fortunately not paying attention, her eyes narrowed in curiosity as she kept them locked onto the message on her bed, a smile breaking out onto her face.
"I knew he wanted me back!"
Before Sydney could say a single word, Amber had raced out of the room, only to come back in a few seconds later, this time whilst dragging Nina in behind her.
"You see, my plan totally worked after all." Amber told Nina, pointing at the sweets on her bed so that the new girl would see what she was talking about, "Mick wants to meet me in the laundry room tonight. I obviously made him wild with jealousy and now he wants to apologise for his bad behaviour with Mara and kiss and make up."
With that, everything clicked into place in Sydney's mind as she realised why Amber had kissed Alfie – it was to make Mick jealous, of course.
"I'm sure that's true, if he's the one who sent the message." Nina responded, having realised that there was no sign of who had actually sent the message and thus looking towards Sydney, knowing that she was best friends with Alfie, who had a wild crush on the fashionista.
Amber, who had already opened her wardrobe and began looking at outfits to wear for her date, halted for a moment as she snapped her head back to face Nina, shaking her head at the girl, "Of course he is! Nina, sometimes I think you miss so much because you're an American."
At that, Sydney couldn't even hide her laughter as she pointed at her roommate, jokingly agreeing with her, "That is totally it, Amber."
"See, Sydney gets me!" Amber smiled, clearly not noticing that she was joking, before she began to ask questions, eager to find out more, "Did you see Mick do this?"
Shaking her head, Sydney pursed her lips as she tried to think of what to say, as she didn't want to lie to the girl, but she knew that she couldn't tell the complete truth either, "Whoever sent the message must really like you, Ambs, you're a really lucky girl."
"I know, right!" Amber agreed, her voice very high-pitched as she did so, before she began listing everything great about her, "Looks, money, personality, brains – I've got it all!"
"You sure do." Sydney and Nina responded simultaneously, the two of them looking at each other and letting out small laughs – the new girl really wasn't so bad.
"Now, what about this dress?" Amber questioned the pair, pulling out an expensive looking dress and holding it up to her body whilst it was still on the hanger, showing it to the two girls before deciding herself and throwing it on the bed, before groaning, "I can't find the perfect dress – what did you wear to your date, Sydney?"
"My what?"
"Your date?" Amber repeated, although it made nothing clearer to the girl, who had certainly not been on a date in her life, and thus glanced over at Nina in hopes that the American would clear it up for her.
"You and Jerome weren't at supper and Alfie said that you two had gone out on a date." Nina answered, making Sydney release a large sigh as she honestly should have expected for her best friend to do something like that, and she made a mental note to kill him tomorrow.
"So, what did you wear?" Amber questioned, wanting to know about all the details of her favourite couple's first "date", meanwhile Sydney just leaned back against her bed, not responding, causing her fellow blonde's eyes to widen, "Sydney Anderson, please do not tell me that you went in your uniform on your first date-!"
Hoping that she could block out her roommate's screaming with her headphones on, Sydney quickly slid them on, although she could still hear Amber yelling and she wondered if the rest of the house could too. Who was she kidding? People in Egypt could probably hear Amber Millington yelling.
"-with Jerome Clarke! I have been looking forward to you two dating for years and you have to dress up when you go on dates!"
She really was going to kill Alfie Lewis tomorrow morning.
Speaking of her two favourite pranksters, she took out her phone (still ignoring Amber and not exactly paying attention to what she was doing – she felt sorry for Nina, who was still trapped in the room and was probably going to be forced into looking at all of Amber's dresses) and sent a text to Jerome, telling him what Alfie had said to the rest of the house and Amber's reaction to the message.
Meanwhile, after dressing Alfie in a less-than-flattering outfit (he had a graphic t-shirt, some worn-out jeans, a blue blazer, and a red bowtie that wasn't even done correctly on – it was horrendous), Jerome heard his phone beep whilst his friend checked himself out in the mirror, and wasted no time to take his phone out of his pocket and check it, reading the message from Sydney.
"Did you tell everyone that Sydney and I were on a date?" Jerome asked his best friend, already knowing that the answer was going to be a 'yes' as it was definitely something that he would do.
"Was it not a date?" Alfie inquired, though he knew that the pair weren't going to officially label it a date, but the text that he got sent from Sydney describing what they were doing definitely described a date, so he called it that.
"No!" Jerome answered, sending a quick response back to Sydney which told her that he was speaking to their best friend about his terminology-use and that he looked "fabulous".
"Oh, come on, dude! It was so a date!" Alfie exclaimed, trying to make him see that how the pair were was a lot more than "just friends" like they kept claiming, "Sydney texted me saying that you two were decided to skip supper at the house and instead have your own unhealthy supper alone."
"Because that's what we did – how is that a date?" Jerome questioned, still not understanding his friend as, in his mind, him and Sydney were just acting like friends as they hung out together.
"Dude, how do you not see it?!" Alfie cried out, getting frustrated at how blind they were – he was almost certain that he was going to have to push their heads together soon if they didn't realise themselves, "Your "hangout" consisted of: you two alone; food; laughter; conversation, and I bet you two flirted! That is a date!"
"How about you focus on your own date?" Jerome responded, not having a good comeback to what Alfie said and thus deciding to change the topic, knowing that his friend had to leave for his date soon anyways.
"So, you admit it was a date?"
"Alfie."
"Fine, fine!" Alfie sighed, giving up as he looked at himself one more time in the mirror, before glancing back at his roommate, "Jerome, are you sure this is a good idea?"
"Of course I am." The boy answered, attempting to give his friend all the confidence in the world as he stepped forward and adjusted his bowtie, "Look at you – you're a single, successful guy, in a very shiny suit. What girl could resist, Alfie?"
"Yeah." Alfie mumbled, not seeming as confident until he repeated it, him slowly becoming more and more confident as time went on, "Yeah, you're right! I'm a catch!"
"You're a catch!" Jerome repeated, making his friend believe in himself more and become so confident for his date that he didn't think anything could go wrong.
"See you, mate." Alfie said to him, clapping him on the shoulder before leaving for his date with Amber, who thought she was going on a date with Mick instead.
"Yeah, see you - good luck!" Jerome called out to his roommate just before the door shut, before bringing his hands to his face and bursting out into laughter whilst he brushed his hair back, "Poor, sweet, stupid fool."
At the sound of his phone dinging, he pulled it out once again, seeing a text message from Sydney. Upon seeing her contact name, he thought of everything that Alfie had said to him about their hang-outs being like a date, and it took a few seconds, but he shook his head.
"Nah."
And with that, he opened the message, with her telling him that Amber had almost finishing styling her hair and won't shut up – even her headphones couldn't block out the noise of Amber Millington; impressive.
It was going to be one disappointing night, and Sydney frowned at that after having sent her text message to Jerome, watching her excited roommate in the mirror as she did the finishing touches to her hair. With the help of Nina, she had finally chosen a dress to wear after going through way too many – Sydney didn't even think she had that many clothes in her wardrobe, nevermind just dresses.
And when she saw her roommate beginning to pack her things away and put on her shoes, Sydney slid off her headphones whispered to her (due to Mara being asleep), "Good luck on your date, Ambs."
In response, the fashionista smiled, slowly opening the door and creeping out, and Sydney could have sworn she saw Fabian and Nina out there too, but she didn't care – she was tired, so she sent a text to Jerome to tell him that Amber was on her way and that she was going to sleep, and that was that.
She noticed the location instantly, yet again.
The sight was enough to make her palms turn clammy and for her heartrate to speed up, suddenly feeling as though there was no way she could get enough air to her lungs.
She had to breathe. She had to remember to breathe.
She had the familiar phone in her sweaty hands, her head buried in it as her thumbs typed away another text message as though it was instinct – she heard people talking but blocked it out, the sound being a distant hum. She knew who was talking to her, and she so desperately wanted to lift her head up and listen to them – to tear her attention away from the text conversation and to engage in this conversation, but her body refused her orders, until the screech rang out.
With the screech still ringing in her ears, she shot up from her bed with her heart hammering in her chest, a slight pain being caused due to this as she held her head in her hands, trying to rid herself of the headache she said as the screech died down. This was now a common occurrence, and she hated every single second of it – each time she woke up, she had never been more grateful for the day to start.
Releasing a sigh, the girl decided to lift her head up, but her eyes widened as she noticed that Amber's bed was empty, still being made, despite her date having been over ages ago. Confusion and worry filling her mind, the blonde hastily grabbed her dressing gown, putting on some slippers before rushing downstairs and going to the laundry room, where she knew the date had taken place.
And as soon as she entered the room, a sympathetic and sad sigh left her lips as she saw Amber, still dressed in her date outfit, sleeping on top of the washing machine, with her hair a mess obviously having moved around a lot during the night.
"Oh, Amber." Sydney cried out, feeling ridiculously guilty as her eyes scanned her roommate, wondering why she hadn't left and what had happened to her – and just at that moment Trudy walked in, ready to wash the clothes before she had to begin breakfast.
"Oh, hi, Sydney!" She said chirpily, before noticing Amber and putting down her basket of clothes, "Amber?" She turned to face Sydney, "What's happened to her?" At that, Sydney shrugged, and Trudy tapped Amber's arm, calling her name again which eventually woke her up.
"Mick?" Amber questioned, presuming that the voice waking her up was her boyfriend, as her eyes were still closed, and Sydney felt her heart break – she knew that this would end badly.
"Well, this is a first: Amber Millington voluntarily stepping foot in the laundry room." Trudy joked, trying to cheer the girl up, until noticing how distraught Amber truly was, "What's up? What's the matter?"
"Boys." Amber answered in a moan, her eyes puffy and turning red as tears stung them, and a smile not being evident on her face – the exact opposite, in fact.
"Oh, love, come here." Trudy sighed, giving the fashion-loving girl a tight hug, which Sydney soon joined in on, "Well, I suggest you two go freshen up - especially you, Amber, unless you want to go to school smelling like Alfie's old socks."
As she said that, Trudy peeled off one of Alfie's old socks from her back, and Sydney had to refrain the laugh she wanted to make whilst Amber jumped down from the washing machine and walked off to get ready, before Sydney sent a smile towards Trudy, before also leaving.
However, instead of going upstairs to get ready, she first decided to knock on Jerome and Alfie's door first, wanting to speak to the former of the males and to lecture him about his recent "prank", although she heard no response, causing her to slowly open the door, peeking through it to see that Jerome was asleep – which made sense, it was still rather early.
Walking into the room, the blonde girl glanced around, picking up a pillow which had been thrown to the ground within the night by one of the boys, and tossed it at Jerome, hitting him in the head and causing his eyes to snap open in shock, filled with annoyance before he noticed the girl stood in front of his bed.
Rubbing his eyes groggily, the boy's expression faded more into confusion, with a hint of irritation still there, considering that he did not expect to be awoken by getting hit by a pillow, "Do you mind?"
"No, not really." Sydney responded, their voices quiet as neither of them wanted to wake Alfie (who was peacefully sleeping), and thus Jerome moved to the side, allowing Sydney to sit on his bed so that he could hear her whispers better, "Amber's upset - I feel bad."
At that, Jerome's face softened slightly (though, it was very slight) as he knew how much Sydney actually cared about the people in Anubis House and how much she hated pranks causing harm to people's feelings. She only tended to participate in pranks that caused people to be scared or annoyed for a few minutes, and left Jerome and Alfie to the pranks that upset some people, hence why she was labelled as the slightly more responsible one out of the trio, and the more likeable one.
"It's my fault, not yours." Jerome assured the girl, brushing his hands over his face as he released a small sigh – he should have guessed that it would have caused upset to people, but honestly, he didn't care too much about them until it made Sydney feel bad.
Speaking of Sydney, as Jerome removed his hands from his face, he noticed that the girl was still in her pyjamas, covered in a fluffy dressing gown. It was obvious that she had raced down to check on Amber as soon as she realised the girl's absence from their room, as her hair was rather messy and she still looked slightly tired, rubbing her eyes every now and again.
It was kind of adorable.
Honestly, Jerome really wished that the two of them could stay in his bed and cuddle all day – maybe it was the fluffy dressing gown, or just how close he was to Sydney – but he knew he couldn't do that as they had school, meaning that the pair of them had to begin getting ready soon.
"Go get ready," Jerome instructed her, tapping her arm slightly to motion for her to get up and go, sending her a reassuring nod as he told her, "I'll fix it."
Knowing that the boy couldn't lie to her, just like she couldn't lie to him, Sydney took his word for it and nodded in agreement with the boy's plan, feeling a little bit better as she left his bedroom and went to freshen up, knowing that she had an entire day of school ahead of her, and her morning had already started off badly, which – believe it or not – was a horrendous sign.
"Eventually." Jerome added to his sentence once that he saw the bedroom door shut, knowing that he couldn't end his fun now (there was no way he could have ended it in a simple way anyways, considering that the damage had already been done), but he knew that he'd end it within a few days, before Sydney became more hurt by the plan.
Unlike Sydney had predicted, the day didn't go terribly despite the morning she had. Of course, all of her lessons (minus the ones she had Mr Winkler in) were very boring, and she had a strong desire to cause some havoc, which first started when she found some balloons hiding under her bed, presumably for some other prank.
Although, they still went to good use, with her and Alfie having filled a lot of them with water and tossed them all at Jerome during their lunch break, and causing him to have to go back to Anubis House and quickly change before lesson started. It was something to cheer Alfie up, and the blonde was glad to see her best friend with a smile on his face after the date had gone horribly, which was kind of Jerome's fault in the first place – so it was also partly revenge. The two best friends had given each other a high five, not being able to stop the laughter tumbling out of their mouths as they watched their blonde best friend begrudgingly made his way back to the house, completely soaked.
The next prank was a classic and stupid one that Sydney had done to Mrs Andrews, having put a whoopie cushion on her seat just before the teacher entered class. Of course, she hadn't paid attention to what was on her seat and simply sat down, and the noise rang out among the entire class. Whilst Mrs Andrews had a good idea of who had put the whoopie cushion there, suspecting that all three of the pranksters had something to do with it, she had no proof and they all denied it, so she had to let them go, simply resuming with her lesson as though nothing had happened.
Then, Sydney had science, and everyone knew how much the blonde hated science due to how boring she found it, and thus she took it upon herself to spice it up a little bit – more specifically, to spice up Mr Sweet's cup of coffee. The head teacher had stupidly left his drink on his desk unattended, not looking at it whilst he gazed around at people's work, numerous times, which gave Sydney many perfect opportunities to sneak out of her seat and go to his desk, adding an extra drop of chilli sauce to his drink each time he wasn't looking.
The first few times, Sydney hadn't been caught and the teacher didn't seem to recognise a difference to his drink, only feeling a slight difference in the after-taste, like a tingling sensation. However, after a lot of drops were added, he noticed a definite difference to his drink, his face bright red after he had drank from his drink, which had gone from slightly warm at the beginning of the lesson to completely spicy, and he couldn't figure out why until he turned around, seeing a mischievous Sydney Anderson standing by his desk, a small bottle of chilli sauce in her hands.
And that was exactly how the girl managed to get stuck in the head teacher's office, her being practically dragged there once the lesson had finished as she had tried to leave without him noticing, but he unfortunately did. Now, they were both sat in the chairs, with the older having a disappointed look on his face, along with a slightly stern one, as he stared at the blonde-haired girl.
"I hope you have a good explanation for this."
"I have an explanation that explains why I did it, although I don't know if it's your definition of good." Sydney told him, being very careful with her word choice as she dealt with the head teacher, though she was very familiar with this surrounding by now.
"What is it, then?" He asked, wanting to know why exactly the student put chilli sauce in the drink that he had been looking forward to drinking during that entire science lesson, but had instead caused him pain and suffering – his mouth still burnt.
"I was bored." Sydney answered honestly, but then thought of a better excuse and sat straighter in her chair, stammering it out, "Wait, no, I was testing!"
"Testing what exactly?" Mr Sweet asked in confused, wondering how the blonde girl was going to attempt to get herself out of this incident this time – he thought it was a shame, honestly, he actually thought Sydney was a lovely girl who could get good grades in school if she actually focused on it and stopped doing pranks; she reminded him a lot of his son.
"Well, you see, we were in a science lesson, and science is all about reactions and mixing things together-." Sydney began to ramble, making everything up as she went along.
"I mean, I think it's more than that, but go on."
"-So, I decided to test what sort of reaction would happen if I mixed together chilli sauce and coffee, in the name of science." Sydney finished her explanation, a smile on her face as she hoped that her ramble would get her out of another detention – she really should have expected one, though.
Releasing a sigh, the staff member pulled out Sydney's file that he had stored in his desk – she had seen in many times after being called into this room to discuss her behaviour and her grades over the past few years – and began to rifle through some documents inside it, reading some things before humming, saying, "Well, considering that it's your first prank on a staff member, according to my records, since we've returned, I'll let you off with a warning this time, Miss Anderson, considering there was not much harm done. However, I won't be so nice next time – if there's a next time, which there best not be."
"That's... a lot better than I thought it'd be." Sydney mumbled, her eyes slightly wide as she considered the words that her head teacher had just said, "Wow, thanks, Mr Sweet."
"Now, go, and don't have me bring you into this office again." Mr Sweet told her, dismissing her with his hand and causing the girl to quickly get out of the seat, grabbing her things as she went to the door, walking out of the office and shutting it, with a smirk on her lips.
"Yeah, I'll be back in there soon." Sydney murmured to herself, chuckling at the small comment and finding herself amused by... well, herself, before she noticed Jerome and Alfie stood at their lockers, engaged in conversation.
"I just can't believe that Amber was expecting Mick instead of you." Sydney heard the blonde boy say as she approached them, already knowing what they were discussing and causing her to release a small sigh, making the pair aware of her presence and causing Jerome to turn to her, "Oh, hey, how was Sweetie?"
"Surprisingly okay. After I rambled about how I was technically being scientific by testing to see what reaction chilli and coffee would make when mixed together, I managed to get away without a detention – although, I think that was due to my stellar record so far and not my rambling, but he said that there best not be a next time." Sydney told both of them, explaining what had happened in the office mere moments ago.
For a second, the trio looked at one another, giving each other a small look before they all spoke up simultaneously:
"There's going to be a next time."
With that, the three of them burst out laughing at one another, glad that they all knew each other so well and were so close to know what the other was thinking. As the laughter died down, Alfie continued to rifle through his locker, putting a few things into his bag, whilst Jerome leant against his own locker.
Of course, Jerome wanted some more fun, so he decided to speak up and get back to the topic they were talking about previously, "So, Alfie, do you reckon someone messed with your message?"
"Duh, what do you think?" Alfie asked sarcastically, becoming annoyed at the mention of the topic and his tone becoming slightly sour – it was obvious that he was still upset that his plan didn't work and that his love for Amber was still, very much, unrequited.
"But who would do that?" Jerome questioned, causing the female out of the trio to roll her eyes, wondering how Alfie could not see through the blonde boy and realise that it was him who had messed with the message.
"Mick, obviously!" Alfie yelled out, causing Jerome to let out a laugh, which made Sydney elbow him somewhat harshly in the ribs, which Alfie didn't notice as he was too busy shutting his locker door.
"Yeah, Mick, of course. I should've thought of that." Jerome muttered, rubbing where Sydney had hit him whilst he sent the girl a glare, although he knew that she was probably slightly irritated that he hadn't fixed the situation yet – especially since he said he would.
"He's trying to wheedle his way back in with Amber – looks like he succeeded." Alfie continued, and hid admit of defeat made Sydney pat his back reassuringly, which he smiled at, thankful that he still had his friends, but his smile slowly turned into a frown as he leant against his locker, his mind clouding over with Amber's rejection once again.
"No, no, no, no." Jerome said quickly, putting his hand on Alfie's shoulder before he continued what he was saying, trying to assure his friend that everything was okay, "Amber's still got the hots for you, man, without a doubt."
Once again, Sydney dealt a blow to Jerome's side, wondering what he was doing and why he was igniting the fire once again, when it was almost gone. However, the boy simply gritted his teeth, hoping that Alfie hadn't noticed Sydney's behaviour as he forced a smile onto his lips, not letting his friend see a reaction.
"Didn't look that way when she was pushing me out of the room." Alfie mumbled, not believing Jerome's words for once as his eyes remained locked on the ground, trying to hide how upset he truly was, though it wasn't exactly working.
"Oh, Alfie." Sydney sighed, the guilt eating her up alive and causing her to bring him into a half-hug, one of her arms slinging around her best friend, which she hoped would make him feel a little bit better.
"Okay, look." Jerome began, pulling their friend away from the locker and moving to the opposite site that Sydney was on, also putting his arm around him as the three began to walk, with Jerome continuing to talk as they did so, "Twenty says that I can get Mick totally out of Amber's life by the end of the week, and pave the way for you to move in there – easy." By that point, Alfie had a smile back on his face, and Jerome moved his arm off his friend's shoulder, switching which hand he was holding his blazer in and holding his free hand out, "Twenty."
Not understanding that Jerome wanted money, Alfie, instead, gave him a high five, thinking that's what he meant, and the awkward interaction made Sydney release a rather loud sigh as she facepalmed, knowing exactly what Jerome wanted from their friend.
"No, I need payment in advance – cashflow problems." Jerome told him, causing Alfie to sigh, finally having understand what he meant and putting his hand in his pockets, but Sydney felt way too guilty to let him do that, so before Alfie could even get the money out, Sydney had put a twenty-pound-note in Jerome's hand.
"There you go, Alfie, I'll pay for you." Sydney informed the boy, a smug smile on her lips as she kept her eyes on her blonde best friend, watching as the grin he had previously dropped from his face.
"No, it's okay, Sydney-." Alfie began to protest, continuing to take the money out of his pocket, but Sydney refused, shaking her head vigorously at the boy and forcing the money back into his pocket.
"It's fine, Alfie. I want to see you happy, so it's the least that I can do." Sydney said, coming up with an excuse that wasn't all a lie, which made the boy let out a laugh, now feeling extremely happy, which became even more evident as he began to bounce away, expecting the two blondes to follow him.
However, they didn't, with the pair of them standing in the hallway as Jerome slapped the twenty-pound-note note back into Sydney's hand, grumbling, "You're smart, Anderson."
"I know, Clarke." The girl simply responded, a smirk coating her lips as she put the note back into her pocket, before turning to face him with a serious expression on his face, "You're not toying with our best friend's emotions, Jerome. Fix this mess."
With that being said, she turned and, after catching a glimpse of Alfie's bouncing figure down the hallway, quickly walked off so that she could catch up with him, hearing Jerome release a groan behind her before she heard his footsteps following behind, just as she expected.
"So, Alfie, what do you say we have a movie night tonight – the three of us? Last time we had one, you didn't join us." Sydney suggested, deciding that she would do whatever she could to cheer up Alfie, even if it meant watching a ton of alien films that would have him talking about alien conspiracy theories for a week.
"Yeah, sounds great! Man, I can't wait!" Alfie agreed enthusiastically, the smile on his face getting even wider, beaming almost, until he turned to the girl with a serious look, questioning, "Although, can it be a sci-fi movie?"
"Alien?" Sydney asked him, a smirk present on her lips as she was already well-aware of what the boy was suggesting by asking for a sci-fi movie, and of course, he nodded several times, the smile popping back up onto his face, "Of course we can!"
"What are we doing now?" Jerome asked, having only just caught up to the pair as he placed his hand on Sydney's shoulder, being rather confused at what they were talking about.
"We're having a movie night tonight - the three of us." Sydney informed him, letting him in on their plans for that night, which he would have been involved in anyways considering that the movie night was taking place in his room – he couldn't exactly get away from it and be kept a secret from it.
"The theme tonight: Aliens!" Alfie added, completing the sentence with the added bonus of jazz hands, which the three of them chuckled at, the blondes finding it amusing how much their friend was obsessed with the creatures.
"Isn't every movie night theme with Alfie aliens?" Jerome questioned whilst Alfie opened the door into Anubis House, knowing that most nights when they had a movie night involving the three of them, they tended to be forced into watching a sci-fi film, which had something to do with aliens in it.
Just as the blonde female went to respond, she heard booming footsteps descending from the stair case, causing her to glance up to see Victor coming down the stairs, despite him typically remaining in his office, which is when Sydney knew something was wrong.
"Coats, bags, now." Victor called out to them, not even sparing them a glance as he demanded for the trio to give him their personal objects, which caused the three of them to look at one another with narrowed eyes.
"What for?" Alfie inquired, confused at why they were suddenly doing a bag search, because the three of them certainly didn't have anything unauthorised – at least, they didn't think so.
"I need to search them." Victor stated simply, as if they couldn't guess that by him announcing that he had to do a bag search – Sydney swore that the teachers thought that the students were dumb and lacked common sense.
"What for?" Sydney repeated Alfie's question equally as confused as the other two boys.
"None of your business." Victor answered the girl gruffly, which made Sydney scoff.
"Well, evidently it is if you need to take our personal belongings." Sydney retorted, not exactly happy about having to give away her things, even though she had nothing to hide in there – honestly, she just sometimes liked giving Victor a hard time.
"I have been asked to do so, Miss Anderson, now give me your coats and bags so that this doesn't take longer than required." Victor demanded, clearly irritated by their constant questions and not complying with demands.
"But we haven't got anything in them." Jerome protested, though the housekeeper didn't listen to them, not taking 'no' as an answer.
"No buts. Give them to me." Victor stated, taking their blazers and bags, and Sydney sighed, giving hers up, it's not like she had anything to hide anyways, "You can have them back in half an hour."
"I know we're the pranksters here, Victor, but not everything is always our fault." Sydney joked, releasing a small laugh as she did so, "You think too low of us."
"I think I don't think low enough." Victor grumbled; his eyes narrowed as he glared at the three of them harshly, although they were rather used to his stare by now, after having been in his office numerous times for many different pranks.
"You wound us, Victor, truly." Jerome responded sarcastically, putting his hand to his chest whilst the blonde beside him let out a small chuckle.
As that was said, they heard the door open once again, causing them to turn around to see Mara and Patricia entering the house, with the nerd looking at the four in confusion, "What's going on?"
"Bag search." Sydney answered with a roll of her eyes, still not particularly fond of the idea of having her personal belongings rifled through, despite her not having anything to hide – if they had asked politely, she might have agreed.
"Why?" Patricia questioned defensively, whilst Mara simply handed her stuff over to Victor, not being the type to argue with the menacing housekeeper.
"Patricia?" Victor spoke up, motioning for the student to pass him her belongings like the rest of them did so that he could search them all, like he apparently had to.
Although, all of them snapped their heads towards her, wondering what she was doing as she refused his order, shaking her head and holding her things close to her, "No."
Instantly, Sydney knew that Patricia Williamson had something to hide – something that she had hidden within her belongings, hence why she didn't want to give it to the man - and if Sydney could figure that out, then so could their housekeeper.
Sydney's assumption was proven correct as Victor took a step towards the female, having taken note of her refusal as he questioned her, "Something to hide, Patricia?"
"What's gone missing?" She asked, not answering his question – however, it made Sydney's eyes narrow in suspicion, as their housekeeper had never mentioned that something had gone missing; Patricia had just given herself up.
"Something very valuable indeed, and whoever has taken it is in deep, deep trouble, now, give." Victor demanded, there being hesitance for a few seconds until she loosened her grip on her backpack, causing the housekeeper to instantly take it from her hands, before he made his way up the stairs, probably to retreat there until the rest of the students came.
Once they heard the office door shut, knowing that Victor wouldn't be able to hear them if they were quiet, Sydney leaned over to Patricia, whispering, "Looks like someone is in deep, deep trouble."
For once, it wasn't Sydney Anderson.