DENOUEMENT
viii. house of confrontation
❝THIS IS A CULT; I'VE LITERALLY GOTTEN MYSELF INVOLVED IN A CULT.❞
"KNOCK, KNOCK!"
UPON hearing the familiar words, Jerome and Sydney stopped their conversation and turned their heads to face their friend, wondering what his joke was. The trio of pranksters were in the history classroom among other students, it being filled with chatter as everyone waited for their teacher to arrive, and thus Jerome and Alfie were in their own seats, whilst Sydney sat atop their desk.
With a humongous smile on her lips, the blonde-haired girl playfully rolled her eyes, deciding to go along with the joke as she asked the boy, "Who's there?"
"Control freak." The boy answered, already beginning to chuckle at his own joke with a grin on his lips, which informed Sydney that her friend thought that his joke was legendary and that he'd be very deflated if they didn't like it.
"Contr-." Sydney began, continuing the infamous knock, knock joke and following the 'rules' of it, but then her eyes narrowed as the boy cut her off, interrupting her.
"Okay, now you say, 'Control freak who?'"
At that, Jerome let out a small scoff, shaking his head at the boy, whilst Sydney's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, not understanding the joke for a few seconds before she realised – Alfie was being a control freak by telling her what to say. Upon realising, the blonde-haired girl chuckled, playfully slapping the boy's arm.
"That was terrible, mate." Jerome informed him, shaking his head until he lifted his head up upon hearing Mick and Amber walking into the classroom whilst talking about having a picnic date, causing the prankster to smirk as he teased the boy beside him, who still had a crush on resident rich girl, Amber Millington, "Poor, Alfie. Operation Amber is definitely no picnic."
In response, Alfie slammed his head down on his desk, the smile he had on his face mere moments ago now being wiped away due to the defeat he felt, meanwhile Sydney leant over and flicked Jerome in the forehead, shaking her head at him.
"Okay, settle down, everyone please." Mr Winkler called out as entered the classroom, his presence immediately being felt as everyone quieted down and sat into their seats, with Sydney quickly slipping off the table and going into her seat, "Right, let's talk Prospective Parents' Day, shall we? Seeing as there's been such a poor show of volunteers, I've decided to allocate you your tasks myself." Everyone let out a groan, nobody wanting to help out on the day, "I think you'll all find I've catered to your academic strengths."
"That's Mick doing nothing, then." Jerome commented, leaning back into his chair smugly as everyone let out a laugh at his joke, whilst the jock sent a glare towards the prankster.
Soon enough, it was lunch and as Sydney went to leave the classroom, she found herself dragged back into it by Patricia Williamson, who forced her to stay in a classroom for the first few minutes of their lunch so that the pair of them could do some homework that neither of them had done and was due in next (they also had a Shakespeare test that neither of them had revised for), and thus the female prankster told her two best friends, Jerome and Alfie, that she'd catch up with them afterwards, as neither of them cared much about the homework or studying and wanted to mess around.
And, mess around they did, as when Sydney and Patricia eventually finished all her homework and did very minimal studying, they left the classroom only to run into the two pranksters, who had apparently gained a new member of their group to replace Sydney whilst she was gone - a skeleton from the science lab, that they seemed rather amused with.
"I leave for a few minutes and you replace me, huh?" Sydney joked, shaking her head at the boys as she acted upset, "Guess I'm just that easily replaceable."
"Get over yourself." Jerome chuckled, playfully hitting her arm as they all laughed at one another, whilst Patricia shook her head at them.
"See you later, weasels." The purple-haired girl called, quickly walking away from the group as she saw Mara down the corridor and caught up with her.
Once the girl had left the group, Sydney turned around back to her friends with furrowed eyebrows as she questioned, "So, why exactly do you have a skeleton?"
"Why not?" Alfie responded, a grin on his lips whilst he picked up the skeleton's hand and began waving at the girl with it.
Nodding in agreement with his friend, Jerome patted the skeleton's skull as he had a similar grin on his lips, telling his friend, "It's adorable."
"Very." Sydney mumbled, rolling her eyes at their stupidity before she glanced around the corridor, knowing that if they were caught with the skeleton by a teacher then they'd get in trouble, "Okay, if you're going to keep this... thing... with us, then we're going to have to go elsewhere before Sweetie catches us - I don't think he'd like us messing with his science things; especially me."
"Do you still think he's out to get you?" Alfie inquired as the trio (plus the skeleton) made their way down the corridor into the drama studio, knowing that teachers never hung in there and simply passed by - it was just a hangout for typically Anubis House residents, normally.
Shaking her head, Sydney pointed at the boy as she declared, "I don't think - he is."
However, their attention was turned over to Nina Martin as they entered the drama studio, seeing her sitting alongside Fabian Rutter and Amber Millington as she exclaimed happy to the male of the three, "You've got it!"
"Got what?" Jerome questioned, rather intrigued by the exclamation, whilst he announced the presence of the pranksters in the room, causing them all to quickly snap their heads to face them.
"I've got looks, brains, charm." Fabian quickly answered, whilst the girl beside him went back to reading through a book, "You know, all those things you don't have, Jerome."
"He got you good, Clarke." Sydney chuckled, nudging the boy playfully with a smirk on her lips, rather proud of the nerd for coming up with such a comeback so quickly.
"Your girlfriend was missing you, Rutter." Jerome stated, presenting him with the skeleton and moving his arm so that it was easier to move it towards the nerd.
Joining in with the joke, Alfie grabbed the skeleton's hand and waved it at the boy, putting on a high-pitched voice as he said, "Hello!"
Whilst Sydney was laughing behind them and shaking her head at their stupidity, Jerome moved the skeleton towards the nerd, imitating a high-pitched voice himself as he put the skull next to Fabian's head, "Kiss me, kiss me, darling!"
Irritated with the distraction, Fabian pushed the skeleton away from his face, causing Sydney to jokingly remark with a teasing smirk on her lips, "Well, if you treat all the girls like that, Rutter, then you'll never get a girlfriend."
At that, Fabian rolled his eyes at the girl whilst all three of the pranksters were laughing among themselves, until Jerome suddenly stiffened, his laughter coming to a halt as his eyes seemed to notice an MP3 player sat on the table, "Alfie."
Of course, they messed with the MP3 player.
Upon noticing the MP3 player, Alfie's eyes widened as he quickly took the skeleton from Jerome, making a small noise of realisation, whilst the blonde-haired boy turned to face the group, nervously telling them, "Well, as stimulating as your non-conversation may be to each other, it's a little bit dull for the likes of us, so we're going to kick up a storm somewhere else."
Quickly, the two boys turned and left the room (taking the skeleton with them, of course, and making sure to wave goodbye to everyone with its plastic hand), and Sydney, confused, shrugged at the group before turning and jogging to catch up with her friends, resting her hand on Jerome's shoulder as she caught up to the boys.
"So, want to tell me what that was all about?" Sydney questioned, quirking her eyebrow up as she glanced in between them and waited for them to tell her the answer.
"We may or may not have recorded over Amber's audio files on her MP3." Alfie answered, a grin appearing on his lips on his face as he remembered the fun that he had recording over them, "And, by may or may not, I mean we did."
"I gathered." Sydney stated, shaking her head at the pair before asking, "Was it funny?"
"What do you think?" Jerome responded, considering that they were pranksters and jokesters – being funny was their entire thing, so it came second-hand to them.
At that, the blonde-haired girl chuckled before giving the two boys high-fives, thinking that the prank was rather funny and something not too dangerous – afterall, what audio files that Amber Millington had could be important?
"Ah, Alfie, Jerome, Sydney – just the people I wanted to see." Mr Winkler called out upon having exited Mr Sweet's office and seeing the trio of pranksters, now with the addition of a skeleton, "I have some errands to run, so it would be great if you could sort out the costumes for Prospective Parents' Day for me and give them out to everyone; they're in the drama studio – it might take a while." He told them, before his eyebrows furrowed upon seeing the skeleton and he pointed at it, confused, "And, uh, take... that... back to wherever it came from."
"Ay, ay, Captain." Sydney joked, a smirk on her lips before the teacher turned and went out of the school building, causing the girl to wonder what he was up to, but simply shrugged before she turned to face the boys, pointing at Alfie, "You like costumes, so you deal with them. Jerome and I will deal with Skelly, here."
"Oh, yes! I can check out my robot costume!" Alfie exclaimed excitedly, about to run away before he looked back at the two, pointing at them with narrowed eyes, "Is this just a way to get rid of me so you two can go on a date?"
Rolling their eyes, the pair of blondes simply ignored the boy, turning around and going to the science labs with their skeleton friend, whilst their human friend called out after them for an explanation, before giving up.
The next time that they saw their human friend, Alfie Lewis, was when they began to make their way to Anubis House after dropping the skeleton back to the science lab (which was thankfully empty, with Mr Sweet being in his office and thus, he couldn't lecture them about borrowing it) and after hanging out for a while – they had already gone back to Anubis House once to change into more comfortable clothes, before they went back to the school grounds and had given each other (mainly Jerome giving Sydney) piggy backs – however, it was almost supper, so they had to return back to the Anubis House once more, which was when they caught sight of Alfie Lewis. However, the boy didn't notice the two blonde pranksters behind him, probably because he was way too focused on the numerous boxes that he had stacked on top of one another in his hands, hoping that they wouldn't fall.
And, upon seeing a smirk grace the lips of the boy beside her, Sydney Anderson knew exactly what Jerome Clarke was planning, causing the girl to question him, "You're going to knock him over, aren't you?"
"Me? I would never!" Jerome sarcastically responded, placing his hand over his chest as he pretended the accusation hurt him, before he proved the accusation to be true as he began to walk faster to catch up with his friend.
Sydney nodded, "He's going to knock him over."
Having to speed up her own pace quite considerably to catch up (Jerome had much longer legs than her, and it was extremely unfair, in her opinion), as soon as she got through the door of Anubis House, she turned into the living room just in time to see the boxes fall onto the ground, with Jerome having knocked into them.
"Hey, these are the costumes for Prospective Parents' Day!" Alfie yelled out, knowing that he had the job of making sure that they were okay and handed out to everyone without getting ruined – the boxes filled with those costumes falling to the ground was really not in his plan.
However, Jerome simply did not care as he let out an evil laugh, pulling out one of the costumes from the box as he did so, "Suck it up, Alfie." He continued to unfold one of the outfits, it seeming to be some sort of weird dress as he looked at it in confusion, questioning, "What is this?"
"You're just jealous," Alfie stated, causing the boy to lift his gaze from the atrocious dress to his friend in confusion - he most certainly was not jealous, but Alfie clearly was unaware of that as he continued, doing what seemed to be a robot dance as he did so, "because Jason asked me to perform, instead of you."
"I really don't think that's it, Alfs." Sydney commented, shaking her head at the boy whilst Jerome tossed the dress back into the box.
"Sydney's right - like a bunch of boring parents with no taste whatsoever is really my idea of a great audience-" Jerome replied sarcastically, but had been cut off as Amber Millington stormed into the room, Fabian Rutter and Nina Martin trailing in behind her as she slapped Jerome's arm unexpectedly and rather harshly, "Ow!"
Evidently angry and annoyed at the boy, Amber sent him a small glare after she hit him, declaring, "That was for going through my stuff!" She then spun around and hit Alfie's arm just as harshly, stating, "That was for recording over my files!" She turned once again, slapping Sydney's arm (a little less harsh than the other two), saying, "And that was for encouraging them!"
"I did what now-?" Sydney questioned, confused, but her question was overshadowed as the blonde turned and hit Jerome once again, not declaring a reason why for that one.
And thus, the boy turned to her in annoyance, "Ow! What was that one for?!"
"Just for fun." Amber told him, shrugging slightly whilst her angered expression was replaced with a bright smile after having hit the boy once again, which was mildly amusing, and Sydney probably would have laughed if she wasn't confused at why she, along with her friends, had just been slapped on their arms by Amber Millington.
"So, how much did you hear, or, understand?" Nina questioned, causing the female prankster's eyes to narrow in confusion until she realised.
"Oh, is this about the MP3?" Sydney asked, remembering how odd the two other pranksters had acted upon seeing it and the prank that they had told her about, whilst her question caused the American to nod, "I heard none of it – that was all these two idiots."
"So, what did you hear?" Nina asked, glancing at the two boys more specifically this time after knowing that Sydney had no involvement in it – that made her slightly happier, as she genuinely liked the female prankster and thought that she might be useful at times, especially with sneaking around; she didn't want Sydney to be a threat to Sibuna.
"Well, if you must know, we only heard that one bit." Jerome answered, before pointing over to the fashionista of the group and adding, "And, you, by the way, have some really weird taste in recorded books, Millington."
At his answer, Fabian, Nina, and Amber all let out sighs of relief and had rather big smiles on their faces, making Sydney's eyebrows furrow as she wondered what was on the audio files that the group didn't want anyone else to hear – they had been acting extremely suspicious, and just as she was about to call them out on it and ask about the files, Mick Campbell came storming into the room, standing directly in front of his girlfriend, still wearing his uniform and with a box of strawberries in his hands.
"Hi, boo! I-," Amber began cheerfully, before she cut herself off and her face dropped significantly as he shoved the strawberries into her hands and anger was displayed across his face – he was evidently upset, and it seemed like the girl realised why as she started once again, now with a much less cheerful voice, "I'm so sorry, something came up-."
"We're done, Amber." Mick yelled out with frustration laced in his tone; the declaration causing everyone's eyes to widen or their jaws to drop in shock, but it seemed that wasn't all as the boy continued, shouting out, "And I hate it when you call me boo!"
Silence filled the room as the jock stormed out.
Slowly, Amber turned around to face Nina, shock and devastation evident on her face as she questioned, "Did he just dump me?"
"You bet he did!" Jerome confirmed, evidently amused and entertained by the public breakup that had just occurred despite how much the girl was clearly hurting, and thus Sydney slapped his arm, making the boy snap his head towards her, "What was that for? I already got enough of that from Millington!"
"Nina, Sydney, what do I do?" Amber questioned the pair, making the prankster's eyes widen in shock as she really had no idea, but she understood why the fashionista asked the two girls – afterall, she had become a lot closer to Nina recently, and was also close to Sydney as they had been roommates previously and the prankster had supported her throughout all the drama with Mara and Mick.
"Go after him! I think..." Nina suggested for the pair of them, thankfully having an idea because the prankster certainly did not, although she didn't seem so certain in her idea as she added, "Not my greatest area..."
"What's the point? He already made his feelings pretty clear..." Amber began, her eyes drifting over to Mara Jaffray, who had been sat in the living room reading Romeo and Juliet the entire time and had watched the breakup happen alongside everyone else, "In front of everyone."
Needless to say, the supper that night had been ridiculously awkward and filled with silence – even a food fight between the pranksters didn't cheer it up, and it didn't ever seem to get better, with Patricia Williamson being upset and confused over something that she didn't tell her roommates about until the next day, whilst they waited for Mr Winkler to arrive.
Sydney had been joking around with Jerome and Alfie, when the purple-haired female practically dragged her off the table and towards where her and Mara were sat, claiming that they had to have a "girl talk", which then turned into a talk about how Mr Winkler said he'd help her figure out what happened to Joy Mercer (who Patricia still thought was dead), but then acted weirdly after speaking to Victor.
"And, when he came out of his office, he'd gone all strange." Patricia announced, although Sydney simply shrugged as she didn't really believe the purple-haired girl; Mr Winkler had probably had a conversation with Victor about how the "dead girl" was perfectly fine and had become sick of Patricia.
Perfectly timed, the teacher quickly entered through the classroom door, greeting everyone happily as he called out, "Morning, everyone!"
Wasting no time, the purple-haired girl jumped up from her seat and approached the teacher, presumably to continue to harass him about what happened to Joy, causing Sydney to release a sigh, sharing a glance with Mara before she slipped off the table, returning to her own seat nearby the pranksters, who were playfully hitting one another and fighting amongst themselves.
Soon enough, Patricia went back to her seat, looking rather annoyed with the answer that she had received from their teacher, whilst he turned to the class and began to talk, "Okay, as I'm sure you're all aware, it's Prospective Parents' Day. Is everyone clear on their individual tasks?" In response, everyone nodded and some even had smiles on their lips – in fairness, Prospective Parents' Day was a lot better than any normal school day due to the lack of lessons they had.
For some reason, Mr Winkler had entrusted Sydney Anderson with helping to show the parents around with Amber Millington – perhaps due to her great comedy? It certainly wasn't due to her responsibility or her sensibility.
However, whilst everyone was setting up there was hardly any parents, hence why Sydney, who physically couldn't do her task at that time, found herself in the drama studio, her head resting on Jerome's shoulder as they sat down on the chairs, watching Alfie practice his dance in his robot costume (although he didn't have the head of it, as it was in the hands of Jerome), whilst Sydney was taking a video of it on her phone to add to the collection of weird pictures and videos she had of the boys.
"Honestly, he's rather good at the robot dance." Sydney whispered to the boy beside her, who let out a small chuckle whilst he brushed through his hair with his fingers.
"Yeah, but it's not going to help him win over Amber, is it? Even if she's single now, she's never going to date him." Jerome responded, causing the girl to roll her eyes – he was right, as Amber Millington only went for a certain type of guy in which Alfie did not fit the criteria, but Jerome's advice that he gave to the boy certainly didn't help.
"Okay, so now that you admit that, are you going to stop giving him terrible advice?" Sydney questioned him, hoping that he agreed even though there was a high chance of him not agreeing as he loved to tease the poor boy – it was amusing, at times, but sometimes it really upset their friend and Sydney hated seeing him without a smile on his face.
At that, Jerome placed his hand to his heart, pretending to be hurt as he sarcastically spoke, "Me? Give terrible advice? Never!"
"The last time you gave him advice on how to get with a girl he got slapped across the face and his vampire fangs flew out of his mouth and hit Patricia." She stated, proving her point as she crossed her arms over her chest, giving the boy a look as she did so.
"Okay, it's not my fault he's bad at pick-up lines." He defended himself, so she rolled her eyes and flicked his forehead, "Hey! Just for that, I'm going to continue giving him advice - I'm going to give him some right now."
"Oh no." Sydney sighed, resting her hand on her head as she watched the boy stand up from the chair, taking the robot helmet with him as he approached Alfie, causing the girl to quickly shoot up and follow behind him, hearing as Jerome began to talk to him, encouraging him.
"You see, this is your big chance to win Amber's heart, dude." Jerome stated, causing the boy to nod in agreement whilst the prankster continued, "She's been dumped, she's vulnerable. She needs a sensitive guy like you with a big shiny shoulder to cry on."
"I don't know, man, Jason said I can't get the costume wet." Alfie informed him, not wanting to ruin the costume or go against the rules that his teacher had set him, which made the female prankster between the three almost burst out into laughter.
"If you want to win the girl's heart, you have to follow my four step plan." Jerome told him, which made the girl beside him quirk her eyebrow up - this four step plan was something that she'd never heard of before, and she was pretty sure that he was making it up on the spot - if he did have a four step plan, then it hasn't been successful for him.
And thus, Sydney pointed that out to him, a smirk on her lips as she told the boy, "You have a four step plan for others to get a girlfriend, but you can't even get a girlfriend yourself, so it doesn't seem that successful, Jerome."
"Ignore her." Jerome instructed his friend, sending her a brief glare before he turned back to the boy, beginning to tell him the so-called "amazing" plan that he had, "Step one: attention – make sure she notices you. Step two: intention – show her you're interested, because women want to be swept off their feet."
"Be noticed, sweep her off her feet." Alfie repeated, showing that he stood whilst the girl between them let out a rather large sigh, clearly not believing that the plan will work.
However, Jerome ignored the sigh and continued, "Step three: longing."
This time, it was Alfie who let out a sigh - however, instead of it being a frustrated one like the female had, it was a dreamy one, the look also clouding his eyes as he mumbled, "I've already got that one covered."
Clearly, Alfie didn't understand 'Step three: longing' - he was talking about how he was longing for Amber, when step three in the boy's plan meant that Amber had to long for Alfie - which... was probably not going to happen.
"No! She has to long for you! You have to be her hero." Jerome quickly corrected him, which snapped him out of his dream-like state, and instead made his face contort to one of confusion, the idea perplexing him.
"Hero?" Alfie repeated, evidently confused by the plan and wanting the boy to elaborate and explain more to him, which the blonde-haired boy soon did, clearly happy to do so as it would amuse him for a while.
"Look, try to be more of an iron man than a tin man." The prankster instructed him, encouraging him slightly as he placed the helmet on Alfie's head, causing the boy to do a superhero pose and Sydney burst out laughing at the pair of them.
"Idiots."
As much as Sydney would have loved to stay with the pair of pranksters, Amber Millington soon came over to the girl and grabbed her arm, dragging her away from them so that they could go to the entrance of the school as parents began to arrive earlier and they were forced to show them around the school - aka, Amber showed them around the school, whilst Sydney zoned out and simply followed along.
That was until she heard the voice of Mr Winkler, "Amber, can you please help Mick man the history stall; Patricia seems to have disappeared and I'm sure Sydney can deal with the parents herself."
"I can?" Sydney mumbled under her breath, knowing that she had done literally nothing since Prospective Parents' Day had begun, except from saying 'hi' to a few children and their parents – furthermore, considering that Mick and Amber had only just broken up, it would be rather awkward if they were both at the history stall.
Thankfully, Mick jumped in to rescue Sydney from dealing with the parents alone, awkwardly turning to the teacher as he begun, "Uh, I don't think that's a very good idea, sir. I mean, we... uh-."
"He dumped me, sir, from a very great height." Amber cut the boy off, telling the teacher exactly what happened which made him, and also Mick, rather awkward as he didn't exactly know what to say.
"Oh, uh, right, sorry to hear about that, um." The teacher stammered out, not even deciding who should help the boy at the history stall as he quickly left the scene, not wanting to be in the tension-filled conversation even more.
"So, down here we have the drama department." Amber began once again, turning towards the family they had been showing around the school and motioning for them to continue following her, as the two girls made their way down the corridor – that was until someone pulled on Sydney's arm, dragging her over to the side of the hallway whilst Amber and the family continued onwards, not even noticing that the girl had gone.
Normally, Sydney would have snapped at the person or tried to get the hand off her, but she already knew exactly who it was – Alfie, who had dragged her over to the side where him and Jerome were putting up some displays.
"Was that really necessary?" Sydney questioned the boy, who gleefully nodded with a smile on her lips, causing her to roll her eyes before she examined the displays that they were putting up, "Surprised that you haven't drawn all over these with a sharpie, or something."
"I was tempted." Jerome muttered, the trio chuckling at that before he motioned towards the family that Amber was now dealing with by herself, "You looked like you needed rescuing – didn't exactly seem too happy to be there."
"I was actually having a blast. Amber took over all the work for me; I think that she's a natural at speaking to people, so I didn't have to do anything – I just zoned out and followed behind them." Sydney informed him, crossing her arms over her chest as she leant back against the wall, briefly glancing over to the girl that she was talking about before turning back towards her friends and noticing that Jerome's attention had been taken elsewhere, a grin on his lips.
Just as Sydney was about to follow his eyeline to see what, or who, he was looking at, he instead gave it away, the boy mumbling, "Hello, Miss Robinson."
"Doing a good job there, boys – and girl." Miss Robinson commented as she made her way down the corridor, causing Sydney to subtly roll her eyes, knowing that her comment would only encourage the blonde boy beside her even more – and he certainly did not need any more encouragement.
"Men, Miss Robinson, men." Jerome corrected her – his bad attempt at flirting, as he didn't want the teacher to see him as a boy and wanted to appear older and more mature, though he most certainly was not.
"You keep telling yourself that, Jerome." She responded before she walked away from the three pranksters, and as soon as she was down the corridor, Sydney began to giggle to herself, amused at the expressions on Alfie's and Jerome's faces.
"You know what, I love her." Sydney declared, still laughing at the comment the athletics teacher made – it had definitely put her higher in the list of Sydney's favourite teachers, despite her being an athletics teacher and the prankster absolutely hating exercise.
"Man, why do none of the chicks round here take us seriously, dude?" Alfie complained, which caused the female within the group to turn to face him, looking him up and down to point out that he was still wearing his robot costume, though he made a face at her, not understanding what was wrong with his outfit.
At that, Sydney released a rather large sigh, putting her hands up in surrender as she stated, "I give up."
However, Jerome clearly did not give up, putting his hand on Alfie's shoulder as he spoke up, "I refer you to step four of my plan, Alfie: heroics. What do you need to become a hero, Alfie?" At the question, Alfie shrugged, so Jerome answered himself, "A damsel in distress."
"Oh, I am out." Sydney groaned, pushing herself off the wall and walking away from the pair with a shake of her head in hopes to find Amber Millington – the girl whom she had been dragged away from earlier.
Eventually, after checking numerous different classrooms and wandering around the school aimlessly, Sydney Anderson finally found the girl that she was looking for near the art stall, about to approach her until she noticed Mick Campbell doing the same thing, which caused her to stand to the side, away from them, as she pretended to look at some of the art on the walls until their conversation was over.
However, before their conversation was over, the smell of smoke engulfed Sydney's senses and her eyes narrowed in confusion, spinning around on her heel to see a ton of smoke coming from behind Amber as she spoke to Mick, who also seemed confused by the appearance of smoke (which Sydney hoped he'd pointed out to her). Just as the blonde-haired prankster was about to alert the girl, a small boom sounded and more smoke seemed to appear, causing Amber to shriek seconds before Alfie, still dressed in his robot costume, appeared seemingly out of nowhere, rushing forward and tackling the girl to the ground in order to "protect her".
Sydney's eyes widened with shock as she watched everything happen, and as more smoke filled the room, the girl used her tie to cover her mouth and nose to stop inhaling the smoke, which had now caused the fire alarm to begin blaring around the school.
"It's cool!" Alfie assured Amber, despite literally knocking her to the ground seconds ago – and that's when it hit Sydney that all of this was 'Step Four: Heroics' out of Jerome's stupid four-step plan, "It's cool, I've got you, you're safe."
Hastily, Mick helped Amber up to her feet, and once she was up, she turned around to the boy, yelling, "You knocked me over, you idiot! What are you doing?!" However, her eyes then looked the boy up and down, glancing over his robot costume, and then adding, "More to the point: what are you wearing?"
Leaving the question unanswered, Alfie deflated, watching as Mick slung his arm around Amber and took her out of the room, presumably to evacuate, which caused Sydney to approach her friend, knowing that if he'd have pulled that stunt, then Jerome had to be nearby somewhere, probably laughing at it, "Where's Gerbil?"
However, her question was soon answered as he pointed towards the corridor, making the girl notice a boy, approaching Miss Robinson, wearing a neon yellow vest and a fireman's helmet in his hand, along with a pen and a folder – of course. Thankfully, Miss Robinson sent him a scowl before snatching the pen and folder out of his hands, leading some students to safety alongside Jerome.
Shaking her head, Sydney pointed in between the two pranksters, turning to Alfie as she told him, "You two are absolute idiots."
Due to their idiocy and the smoke that had now filled the school, everyone was evacuated to outside of the school whilst Victor had ran inside to find out what the source of the smoke was, and they were waiting for him to return. In the meantime, Sydney and Alfie had approached Jerome as soon as they located him outside, with the former slapping his arm (she would have gone for his head, but he was still wearing his fireman's helmet).
"Hey! That plan was genius!" Jerome defended himself to the girl, before turning his eyes on Alfie and continuing, "I've taken it up to the next level with Esther - she saw how maturely I handled that situation. I promise you: ten seconds and it'll be mission accomplished."
"You seriously cannot think that." Sydney responded with her eyebrows raised at the boy as she was almost certain that the athletics teacher was less than impressed with the prankster, mainly due to the looks that she had been throwing the trio of pranksters in the past few minutes.
Soon enough, Victor came out of the school with a still-smoking sarcophagus head, pointing at it – presumably, what Jerome and Alfie used to cause the smoke, which was practically confirmed as the boys began to snicker at the sight of it.
Gathering the attention of everyone outside, Mr Sweet clapped his hands and announced, "Everyone! Back inside, please. Apologies, visitors, just a bit of spirited fun – we pride ourselves on having a sense of humour in this school!" The head teacher let out a fake laugh, before quickly walking away from the visitors and approaching the three pranksters, who lifted their heads, "Clarke, Anderson, Lewis, my office – now."
"Sydney had nothing to do with it." Jerome quickly informed him, causing the girl to snap her head over at him, confused – whilst it was true that she had nothing to do with it, the trio of pranksters normally just let themselves all get tarnished with the same brush when it came to their pranks, especially Sydney and Jerome – if one got punished, then the other did too, but she wasn't going to exactly protest if she didn't get in trouble.
"Fine – Clarke, Lewis, my office." He stated with a huff, not wanting anymore hassle, and thus causing him to quickly leave, probably to go to his office whilst Alfie's head lowered upon hearing the news – this plan did not go great for him at all; first, he got shouted out by Amber for it, and now he was summoned to the head teacher's office.
Speaking of the fashionista, her conversation with her now ex-boyfriend soon came into the prankster's hearing range, all of them beginning to pay attention to it just in time to hear the jock reject her once again (Alfie obviously perked up at this, a smile appearing on his once deflated face), telling her that they didn't match and that they were "mates, not dates".
"Yeah, I know what you're saying." Amber responded with a nod, though it was obvious she was faking it from the sadness that appeared in her eyes – however, the girl managed to keep calm until the jock walked away, storming up to the pranksters, and glaring at the boy in the robot costume as she yelled, "Thanks a bunch for ruining everything... again!"
Of course, that made the boy's grin fade once again, whilst Jerome had to cover his mouth to stop his laughter, causing Sydney to slap his arm before she rushed forward, catching up to Amber and placing a hand on her shoulder.
As soon as she felt the hand on her shoulder, the fashionista spun on her heel, embracing her ex-roommate in a tight hug as a small tear fell down her cheeks, "I really love him, Syd."
"I know, Ambs, I know." Sydney comforted her, although it was rather awkward considering that she didn't particularly have much experience in breakups, causing her to gently pat the girl's back before pulling away from her, "How about we go back to the house and see if Trudy can bake us something? Her baking is the cure to everything, you know."
With a very faint chuckle, the fashionista nodded in response, wiping away her tears before the pair linked arms, returning back to the house as the prankster attempted to cheer the girl up on their journey, deciding to tell her some little embarrassing things about her friends after what they had done to her
"Wait, do you really have a picture of Jerome in a dress?" Amber questioned as the pair were just about to enter Anubis House, a huge grin on her face at the news, "You have to show me that sometime!"
Just as Sydney went to respond, her eyes narrowed upon seeing a glowing, green light in the entrance hall of the house, and she cut whatever she was about to say off as she pointed at it, asking the girl beside her, "Do you see that too, or am I going insane?"
Amber didn't answer.
Confused and wanting answers, Sydney stepped closer, shrugging off Amber's hand which had tried to reach out and grab her back, and peeked around the door (which was open), seeing Nina Martin. Her and Fabian Rutter had been at Anubis House all day, with their tasks being to help their housemother with baking for Prospective Parents' Day, although it seemed like she was doing the furthest thing from baking as she reached into her shirt, pulling out a locket from underneath it and following the green, glowing light, which had shot out towards a wall.
Numerous times, Amber attempted to pull her back, but Sydney had pressed a finger against her lips to shush her as she continued to watch the scene – she had been so entranced by what was happening, she hadn't even noticed the new chandelier that had been installed, from which the green light had been coming from.
Approaching the wall, Nina pressed her locket against where the green light was hitting, causing the panel of the wall to open and the light to disappear, the American letting out a gasp as she reached inside and pulled out a weird looking object, the panel shutting once again seconds after, whilst the girl lifted up the peculiar object to the light as a humongous smile fell on her face.
"What in the world." Sydney breathed out, not being able to stay quiet anymore, though her voice caused Nina to snap her head to face the two blondes in the doorway and let out a gasp, whilst Sydney began to ramble – she had been caught now, so what was the point of being silent? "What was that green glowing light? How did your locket open the wall? What is that artefact-y thing?"
"Is that the next clue?" Amber questioned, rushing forward to the girl and taking a look at it, which made the prankster even more confused as Nina glared at the fashionista.
"Amber!"
"Clue? What do you mean next clue?" Sydney inquired, stepping further into the house as she looked at the two with very suspicious narrowed eyes, causing the girls to share a glance with one another.
"We should tell her." Amber declared to the American, before turning to face the prankster with a small smile on her face as she added, "I trust her."
Hesitant, Nina was silent for a few seconds as she thought, before she released a sigh upon realising that there was no way out of it – Sydney had seen way too much, and clearly was very suspicious, "Okay, we'll tell you, but you cannot utter a single word to anyone."
In response, Sydney pretended to zip her lips closed and lock them, before pretending to throw the American the key, the pair of them smirking at one another whilst Amber smiled happily, glad to have an addition to their secret club – which was apparently called Sibuna – Anubis backwards, which Amber had come up with.
Soon enough, they had dragged the girl into the creepy attic, which they were apparently still getting into by picking the lock with Nina's hairclips, where Fabian Rutter resided (his face was rather hilarious as he saw an extra addition to their group). However, they then sat down and told the girl absolutely everything about their secret club and their suspicious behaviour suddenly made a lot more sense to the girl – Nina had been told to find some treasure hidden in Anubis House by Sarah Frobisher-Smythe - who was apparently still alive and resided in the old people's home down the road, calling herself Emily Grant. Once they had told her everything, Amber sent her a wide smile, very much excited about having her friend in the group.
"Welcome to Sibuna!" She practically squealed, before her eyes then narrowed and her voice altered, with her adding, "Well... somewhat – you'll have to make a sacrifice."
"A sacrifice?" Sydney repeated with wide eyes, glancing around the room in shock before she put her head in her hands, mumbling to herself, "This is a cult; I've literally gotten myself involved in a cult."
"It's not a cult." Fabian assured the girl, chuckling slightly at her idea of Sibuna as a cult, before he elaborated on what the fashionista meant by sacrifice, "It's not that type of sacrifice."
"Yeah, all that you need to do is burn an object that is important to you and swear that you won't tell anybody – including Jerome and Alfie -about this club, or anything we find in it." Nina explained, sending the girl a reassuring smile to ease her worries, also to make sure that the prankster didn't think that the three of them were in a cult, as that would probably get reported instantly.
"It's a really important thing – we'll set a date for yours." Amber declared, which Sydney nodded in agreement to, as talking about Sibuna seemed to be distracting the girl from her breakup and cheering her up, so why not?
"Nina, can I see the puzzle piece?" Fabian requested, causing the girl to pass it towards him as he examined it, admiring it, "What did it look like when the sun shone through the window?"
"Amazing! Incredible! So... wow..." Nina listed off as she remembered the beautiful sight that she had seen, and the blonde prankster nodded in agreement from beside her.
"It was pretty cool." Sydney agreed, before she let out a small chuckle and informed them, "Although, definitely confusing for someone who has no clue what's happening."
At that, the four of them laughed, with the three original members of Sibuna sharing a glance with one another. Adding a new member was always going to be a risk, but it seemed like the risk worked out in the end as they realised that Sydney Anderson was a good asset to their team and also friendly enough. Despite the worry that all of them had felt initially, they were now really glad that the was part of their group.
"Do you think there's something hidden inside the clue, like the one before?" Nina asked the nerd of the group, who shrugged in response, clearly needing to look and examine the piece more before he was certain.
"He frightens me." The little girl's voice (which was apparently young Sarah Frobisher-Smythe) from the phonograph was heard, causing them all to direct their attention towards it, "He spends a lot of time in his cellar with dead animals – dead animals that he stuffs – but what frightens me the most is his raven, Corbierre."
Chills.
Chills wracked through all of Sydney's body as she heard those last few words, and she could've sworn that her entire body froze, as everyone glanced at one another with wide, shocked eyes.
"What did she just say?" Amber questioned, hoping that she had misheard the name – unfortunately, she did not, and it was creepy because there was a raven downstairs who also went by the name of Corbierre, a coincidence, right?
The voice continues from the phonograph, with the little girl stating, "I'm more convinced than ever that he's responsible for the deaths of my parents, but I can't prove anything."
At that, Sydney let out a panicked breath, trying to keep her mind focused on the voice instead of letting it drift to the memories that plague her every single night – she had to focus and listen to what it was saying, and not let her thoughts take over for once.
Gasping, the little girl exclaimed, panicked, "He's coming!"
The next words said on the cylinders were not said by Sarah Frobisher-Smythe – instead, it was the voice of an older man whom the girl was evidently petrified of, and now, so was Sydney Anderson and the rest of Sibuna, as they were very familiar with the voice that came left, saying the phrase that they had heard every night.
"You have five minutes, and then I want to be able to hear a pin drop."
Terror coursed through Sydney's veins as all of the members of Sibuna shared a glance with one another, their eyes having become even wider and clouded over with fear whilst their minds became like a maze, trying to think of how it was possible that the same man on the phonograph – the man being accused of murder by Sarah Frobisher-Smythe - was a man they all knew rather well.
"Victor?"
▲▼▲
[08.05.2020]
NOTE: sydney is part of sibuna! honestly, i love syd being a member of sibuna and i feel like a lot of her iconic lines are said in the group and it's how she gains some of my favourite friendships within the book.
i love you all!