━ DENOUEMENT ( jerome clarke. )

43 ⊳ HOUSE OF BARRIERS.

DENOUEMENT
xliii. house of barriers
❝IT'S CUTE.❞

WITHOUT A DOUBT, the amulets that had been taken from the students were the most important thing whirring through the minds of those in the secret group for the remainder of the day, especially since the amulets allowed them to go into the tunnels. Thus, it was still the topic of conversation as the six members of the secret club finished their break and found themselves walking down the corridor together, defeated looks on their faces.

"What are we going to do?" Nina Martin inquired, considering that the members of the group hadn't really come up with a plan to get the amulets - probably the most important thing that they needed in order to actually complete the task - back, "Without the amulets, we'll never find the mask - the mission's done, over, caput, and so am I."

"You never know, Victor might suddenly become all nice and..." Amber Millington suggested, though simply the start of her claim was absurd, as nobody had ever really witnessed their housekeeper suddenly become nice, which caused all of the members of the secret group to shoot her a doubtful and incredulous look, which she soon noticed and caused her to defend her suggestion, "What? It could happen."

"Sure, right after Patricia becomes a guidance counsellor." Fabian Rutter told her, mentioning yet another absurd idea - Patricia Williamson wasn't exactly the best person to turn to for calm and reasonable guidance, so it'd be ludicrous if she actually did become a guidance counsellor, and it seemed as though the purple-haired member knew that herself.

Letting out a laugh, Patricia Williamson soon dismissed the seemingly insane idea presented by the nerd, telling the group, "Like that's gonna happen."

"So, what's the plan then?" Sydney Anderson quizzed, bringing them back onto the important topic that they had been talking about prior as they needed to get their amulets that led them into the tunnels back, and preferably, extremely quickly.

"We just have to keep an eye on Victor - he'll slip up eventually, then we're back in business." Patricia Williamson came up with an idea - a seemingly simple one - that led to all of the members of the group nodding in agreement as they continued to their lessons.

One person who wasn't in their lessons at school that afternoon was Jerome Clarke, who had visited the familiar prison once more in hopes of finding out the secret that his father had wanted to tell him numerous prison visits ago, but couldn't due to there always being someone else there - the first time it had been Sydney Anderson, and the second time it had been Poppy Clarke, who had unexpectedly turned up and crashed the so-called 'party'. Finally, Jerome Clarke and John Clarke were alone, and the secret that the former had longed to find out about since first hearing about it was within his grasp.

"So, why did you want to talk to me alone?" Jerome asked his father - they had been having a decent conversation for the past few minutes as they reconnected and tried to patch up the pieces that they had missed in each other's lives, but the secret had been nagging at the male prankster all throughout the conversation, so he assumed it was time to finally ask what the big secret was and find out what he had to do for his father.

"It's about something that happened a long time ago." John informed the boy, starting the story and setting the scene, whilst also making sure that his son knew that he wasn't the same reckless person as he had been all those years ago - he had changed.

"It doesn't involve a jewelry heist, does it?" Jerome jokingly responded, letting out a small chuckle at his attempt to lighten the atmosphere - as soon as the blonde-haired boy had asked about the secret, the tone had changed and become much more serious, and the male prankster didn't particularly do serious much, so he had attempted to lighten it.

However, it had the reverse effect, instead making the mood a lot more serious as the father didn't let out a small laugh and/or deny the claims, simply telling his son, "Close."

"What?"

"When I was at Anubis House, about your age, someone dared me to steal something very valuable." John began to explain the situation to his son, not wanting the boy to think less of him but also knowing that he wanted to fix his mistakes - his soon soon encouraged him to continue, so the older man elaborated on what the valuable object he had stolen was, "A gem from The Frobisher Shield - a sports prize; every school wanted to win, but we held it year after year... but, after that moment, everything started to go wrong for me." The older man sighed, clearly reminiscing on bad times in his life until he soon realised an error - there had been a few things that had gone amazing in his life, and one of them was sat right in front of him, causing him to quickly correct his mistake and perk up in his seat, "Oh! 'Part from you and Poppy, of course!"

At the compliment from his father, Jerome couldn't help but let a small grin cross his lips. For the longest time, he had always thought that his parents didn't want him and/or care about him, yet he was now being told that he was one of the few things that didn't go wrong in his father's life - it was nice to hear such compliments, and also weird. It'd take a while for the blonde-haired boy to get used to it completely, but he liked it.

Meanwhile, the father of two continued to explain the situation and inform his son about the task that the older man wanted the younger to complete, despite how absurd the entire situation seemed to be, "The story is that if the gem goes missing, it's thirty year's bad luck, and... I want you to find the gem and put it back in the shield."

"And, suddenly everything's... uh, parole and picnics, then?" Jerome asked, knowing that even if he found the valuable gem and put it back into the shield, it wasn't going to reverse all the damage that had potentially been done by it - it wasn't going to make his father get out of prison, nor would it reverse everything the man had missed.

Hastily, the father quickly attempted to explain his peculiar decision to attempt to reverse his damage, telling his son, "Listen, there are some things I know I can never make amends for - like everything that I've missed out on with you and Poppy."

"It's okay-." Jerome began.

"But, there are some things - small things, like this - that I can try to put right, but... I can only do it with your help." John continued, wanting his son to help him as he knew that he couldn't exactly find the gem and put it back into the shield himself considering he was stuck in a prison, "So, what'd you reckon? Team Clarke on the case together?"

"How hard can it be?" Jerome asked, unaware of the ordeal that he was thrusting himself into as he agreed to help his father try to return the valuable gem he had stolen long ago, "Find the stone, put it in the shield, and bam - done! Where do I look?"

With a smile gracing his lips, John soon began to provide the rest of the information that his son was going to need in order to complete the quest he had tasked the boy with, "Well, there's this deserted old building in the school grounds: the Frobisher Library..."

So, it was safe to say that, after his prison visit to his father, Jerome Clarke was on a little bit of a mission to discover more about the Frobisher Library in order to help him with his father's (and now, his) task to put things right as he returned back to Anubis House that afternoon, arriving into the entrance hall just in time for dinner and also just in time to see Sydney Anderson making her way down the stairs, the smile on her lips quickly spreading and becoming wider at the sight of him.

Upon noticing him, Sydney Anderson hurried her steps and got to him a little faster, soon meeting him by the door and wrapping her arms around him tightly for a hug that was quickly returned as she smiled up at him, soon inquiring, "How did the visit go?"

"Well - really well." Jerome confirmed with a nod, his grin (that he already had from seeing his childhood best friend) widening as he thought of the visit he took to his father, which he soon decided to tell the female prankster about, "He actually told me about..." He lowered his voice to a whisper, not wanting anybody around to hear, "...the thing. Speaking of which," Soon enough, he directed his sights elsewhere - to Fabian Rutter, who had descended the steps and went past the pranksters, about to enter through the living room, so the male prankster hastily approached him whilst the female simply followed behind as Jerome began, "Rutter, you spend an unhealthy amount of time in the library."

"No!" Fabian denied, "A normal amount, I would say."

"Would you?" Jerome asked, seeming quite intrigued by the information - honestly, his childhood best friend was a little bit confused by his intrigue, but presumed that it was probably due to the secret that his father had told him, so simply went along.

"I wouldn't." Sydney protested, knowing that the nerd constantly spent an extremely absurd amount of time (for her, anyways) in the library - though, the statement caused the brunette to shoot a mildly frustrated glare at her.

"Anyway..." Jerome quickly brought the attention back to himself, forcing the nerd to stop glaring at his childhood best friend and turn to him instead as the male prankster asked,  "...have you ever noticed an old suit of armour whilst you were nerding out in there-?"

"I was not nerding out, thank you!" Fabian snapped, clearly a little frustrated by all the stereotypes being forced upon him just because he visited the library a little bit more than the female prankster, who visited it (willingly) never in her life.

"He was totally nerding out." Sydney concluded with a nod, knowing exactly what the brunette boy was like and how he'd have probably been soaking all of the information from each and every single book that he read in the weird place.

"Don't you start." Fabian muttered, rolling his eyes in the process as he knew that if the female prankster began to tease him then she'd never stop (he'd been a victim of it many times), and thus he soon turned back to Jerome, giving him the answer that he desired, "Um, yeah, yeah, there's one on the ground floor. Why?"

Jerome's eyes widened, "Oh, no reason."

Quickly dismissing any questions that could have risen from the suspicious behaviour, Jerome patted the nerd's shoulder before he made his way into the kitchen, where a few other residents of Anubis House, plus Victor Rodenmaar, resided and thus only leaving the members of Sibuna in the dining room at that moment. As Jerome separated himself from the secret group and walked away, Fabian sent a puzzled look to the person closest to the male prankster as he wondered why the boy seemed to be so interested in the library, though the female simply shrugged before moving to sit in her own seat.

"Look at the straps!" Upon sitting down in her seat around the dining table, Sydney Anderson had overheard the instruction come from the lips of Nina Martin, whose voice had been a whisper yell yet still audible to those around the dining table, thus causing all of the members of the secret group to quickly snap their heads towards the kitchen (where the American had been gesturing), "It's Victor - he's wearing the amulets."

"He's wearing all of them." Fabian announced once he noticed the housekeeper had numerous of the necklaces around his neck - the older man had made it impossible for the students to even retrieve one of the amulets, as he kept them around his neck.

"Well, isn't that great?" Sydney sarcastically responded, rolling her eyes and resting her head on her hand as she felt extremely defeated and annoyed by the entire situation - how were they meant to get the amulets back if they were around his neck?

"What should we do now?" Patricia inquired, wanting to know the plan that the members of the group were planning to do in order to get the amulets back.

"We just have to wait until he goes to sleep or something, then we can take them off him." Nina suggested, making the plan seem pretty simple - although, if there was one thing that the members of the secret group had learnt over the time they had been sneaking around and doing insane tasks, it was that nothing was ever simple.

However, they all had something else on their minds instead, with the purple-haired member of their group disgustedly calling out, "Ohhh, Victor in his pyjamas."

"That won't be a pretty sight." Sydney winced, shaking her heat at the mere thought of such an unpleasant sight - she couldn't imagine her strict and powerful housekeeper dressed in pyjamas, though she assumed that it'd be a pretty comical sight.

"Ugh, I may actually throw up." Amber announced, as she didn't do well with anything that wasn't good-looking - their evil and strict housekeeper dressed in pyjamas was most certainly far from good-looking, and honestly, Sydney was rather surprised that the fashionista hadn't dramatically fainted just by the mention of such a terrible thing.

"What if he never changes his clothes?" Nina quizzed, which was also a good (but disgusting) question to pose as it was rare to see the housekeeper dressed in something other than his regular attire - the only time the residents of Anubis House saw him in an outfit that was somewhat different to what he typically always wore was when he was doing work that'd get his clothes dirty, such as that moment in time.

Victor Rodenmaar, at that moment, was in the kitchen alongside a few other residents of Anubis House, giving a few of them some orders that caused them to pass him the tools that he required in order to work on the sink. Due to the work being pretty dirty and liable to cause a lot of mess, the man was dressed in a white shirt and without his typical waistcoat and tie. Yeah, him not changing clothes that often seemed... a little probable, though that didn't make it any less disgusting for the group members, all of whom turned their noses up at the thought as an expression of disgust became plastered on all of their faces.

Well, all of them except Amber Millington, who was the member who they assumed would have been the most disgusted by the thought of someone not changing their clothes.

Instead, the fashionista looked like she had just had a brain wave, an expression of mischief slowly falling upon her face as the cogs in her brain turned, concocting a plan that she thought to be absolutely brilliant and thus soon put into motion.

"Then we make him." Amber told them, pushing herself out of her seat with a grin plastered across her lips as she ordered the members of the group to, "Watch."

"Uh, Amber." Fabian began, not exactly being too confident in the fashionista's ability to form a plan that'd get the amulets back from their housekeeper - though, albeit his protests, the fashionista resumed to get up from her seat and pass by the nerd, soon entering the kitchen with a skip (quite literally) in her step.

Witnessing the extremely joyous nature of her perky blonde roommate, the female prankster couldn't help but to facepalm, watching the entire ordeal begin to go down with hesitant eyes as she told the members of the group bluntly, "This is either going to completely fail, or be absolutely genius - there's no in between with Amber Millington."

Despite the hesitation they all felt, all of the members of the secret group continued to watch the fashionista put her plan into motion, turning around in their seats so that they were able to look into the kitchen and witness the bubbly blonde pull the drain in the sink - yes, she had pulled the drain in the sink that their housekeeper was working on at that moment, meaning that a whole lot of mess would have just gotten over him.

It wasn't just the grumpy old housekeeper who got covered in mess either, apparently, as Jerome Clarke (who stood beside the sink in order to give the older man some tools to help, thus causing him to get a little bit of mess over him, but not as much as their housekeeper) quickly backed away and recoiled from the sink, his yell of the fashionista's name mixing in with the frustrated cry of their housekeeper, whilst Eddie Miller (also present in the kitchen, though further away from the sink and closer to the entrance, thus safe from harm) began laughing at the ordeal, alongside the rest of Sibuna.

And, the laughter only became more boisterous once the housekeeper showed himself, with Victor Rodenmaar standing up from underneath the sink and revealing the gunk that covered his clothes whilst he looked over at the culprit of the seemingly 'accidental' mess and snapped, "Look what you've done, you! Ugh, you silly girl! Look at this mess!"

"I'm sorry, Victor! I didn't see you there!" Amber Millington quickly apologised, acting rather frantic about the mess that she had created and feigning innocence.

"There's no harm done." Vera Devenish assured them all as she made her way past, having come out of the laundry room after hearing all of the commotion taking place.

"Victor, you should probably take a shower." Nina Martin suggested, calling over to the housekeeper from where she sat in the dining room as the group continued to go with the impromptu plan that the fashionista had forged within seconds.

"Definitely, like, right now." Fabian Rutter agreed, trying to get the strict and now dirty housekeeper to go into the shower ASAP so that they could get the amulets quicker.

"Yeah, you don't want to stink." Sydney Anderson chimed in whilst she pushed herself out of her seat and went into the kitchen, going towards her childhood best friend and checking that he was okay and clean considering that he was close to the sink.

"No, thank you, I am quite alright." Victor Rodenmaar denied the suggestion, ruining the plans of the secret group somewhat and instead taking off his dirty shirt (fortunately, for the eyes of the students, wearing a t-shirt underneath), and giving his orders once more, "Somebody get me a clean shirt from the laundry."

"I'll do it." Alfie Lewis hastily volunteered, practically shooting out of his seat the moment that the offer was suggested (quite suspicious, but nobody questioned it) and soon grabbing the dirty shirt from the housekeeper, shaking it - yeah, disgusting.

"Lewis!"

At the cry of his name, the boy in question basically bolted to the laundry room, not letting another single second pass in order to ensure he wouldn't get screamed at more.

Although, that didn't mean he didn't concoct a brilliant plan of his own as he went into the laundry room, because it turned out that Alfie Lewis was a little bit (or quite a lot) of a genius, and thus had a suspicious and mischievous grin plastered upon his lips once he returned with a seemingly clean shirt for their housekeeper. Whilst he may have gotten away with having a mischievous grin from the rest of the Anubis House students, there was one who knew him fairly well and thus had her eyebrows furrowed in suspicion as she watched him pass the shirt to their housekeeper. Only a few moments later, when he sat back down in his seat and it was still only the members of the secret club around the table, did Sydney Anderson speak up:

"What did you do?"

Yeah, she knew him a bit too well.

It turned out that Alfie Lewis had actually thought of the amazing plan to cover the 'clean' shirt in itching powder that he had stored in his endless box of things that the three pranksters typically used in their schemes. Thus, it was a little later when the members of the secret group were hiding behind the door in the girls' corridor, watching their strict housekeeper and waiting to see whether the itching powder was going to work. From Sydney Anderson's experience with using the itching powder (when she had covered the clothes of Alfie Lewis with it, and had also used it on several other victims), it had worked fairly well and pretty quickly, so she expected nothing less when used on Victor.

And, Sydney Anderson seemed to expect correctly as it was only a few minutes later when the voice of their housekeeper, a little bit muffled but still audible, reached their ears, "Vera, would you please fetch me some soothing skin lotion?"

As Victor Rodenmaar left his office (also the amulets inside the office) and descended down the steps in order to find the housemother he had been calling for, Alfie Lewis slowly opened the door and peeked out, waiting until their housekeeper was out of ear-shot and then declaring, "Wow, it worked - I'm definitely getting more of that stuff."

"Wait, can you get me some?" Sydney Anderson inquired quizzically, knowing that she was due to commit some pranks (not crimes, just pranks) and that the itching powder would continue to be a nice addition to things she could use to prank people with.

"Last time you had itching powder, you and Jerome used it to prank me." The boy declared, remembering how the pair had covered all of his clothes in itching powder the prior term and it had been extremely frustrating to deal with.

"Yes, and...?"

"You'll just prank-."

"Okay, enough about pranks. We need to go now." Nina Martin cut off the prankster pair's bickering, reminding them that they had a limited amount of time to get into the office of their housekeeper and find the amulets before the man himself returned.

Thus, not wanting to waste another second, four of them (Nina Martin, Fabian Rutter, Amber Millington, and Sydney Anderson) went to rush towards the office in hopes of finding the amulets, leaving the other two members of the secret group (Patricia Williamson and Alfie Lewis) to keep watch for their housekeeper - though, Alfie Lewis seemed to care more about other matters as he soon spoke up.

"That's it?" His voice caused the female prankster to come to a halt whilst the rest went onwards, and the blonde turned around on her heel to look at the boy quizzically, wondering what he meant as he continued, "No one's going to tell me I'm a genius?"

"You're a genius, woo!" Sydney declared, grabbing both of his arms and throwing them in the air - she even waved his arms around crazily for a few seconds so that the boy felt as though his amazing plan was actually being congratulated, before the blonde allowed them to fall back to his sides and she ordered, "Now, genius, keep watch."

With that being said, Sydney Anderson left her friend there so he could continue to look out for their strict housekeeper alongside Patricia Williamson, and the female prankster rushed back to the office, joining the three other members inside with rifling through all of the cabinets and drawers inside the office of Victor Rodenmaar in hopes to find their amulets. However, all that the members seemed to find was different irrelevant pieces of paper and nothing that even resembled the important amulets, and thus the members were becoming more and more frantic as the seconds ticked by.

"Hurry up. He'll be back in no time." Patricia informed them, briefly coming into the office to tell the members inside that they needed to speed up the pace whilst Alfie continued to keep watch from outside the office door, peering over the bannister.

"We're doing our best." Nina assured the purple-haired female, a distraught look on her face as she seemed to find no sign of the amulets that they needed, "Where are they?"

"Fifteen seconds." Patricia warned, the slim time frame causing the female prankster to move away from where she had been looking initially (one of the many cupboards that seemed to have hardly anything in) in order to help her fashionista roommate with the many drawers that she was rifling through, "Ten seconds."

"Hurry up, seriously." Alfie told them, making the female prankster work as fast as she possibly could alongside her fashion-adoring roommate to finish looking through the drawers, hoping that they'd find the amulets inside as they wondered where the older man had managed to hide the amulets - they appeared to be nowhere in sight.

Where were they?

"Come on, guys, you've got five seconds." Patricia warned, and only a few seconds later did the frantic purple-haired member rush into the room, announcing "He's coming back!"

Knowing that the consequences were going to be most severe if they were caught inside the man's office, they were aware that they had lost their chance to get the amulets back and decided to spare themselves of a punishment, practically pushing and shoving one another out of the office in order to go faster and rushing back to hide behind the door leading into the girls' corridor, so that they wouldn't get caught. However, they were amulet-less, and that was not what the members of the secret group had intended.

Of course, they were frustrated and annoyed with themselves, the aura of disappointment hanging above them as they failed at their task. However, that weight above their shoulders managed to get a whole lot heavier when the members of the group watched Victor Rodenmaar return to his office, seemingly not noticing anything out of place and casually sitting down in his seat, before he opened a drawer within his desk and took out the amulets, placing each one (minus the one in the dollhouse) around his neck.

They had been in his desk the whole time.

It was safe to say that frustrating discovery dampened their moods an additional amount, and an extreme aura of heavy disappointment hung above them and caused them all to dip their heads lower, downcast expressions plastered across every single one of them.

Not wanting to be at the rather dangerous risk of spying on their housekeeper for much longer, the members of Sibuna soon returned to the room that was shared by three of the members (Nina Martin, Amber Millington, and Sydney Anderson), with Patricia Williamson shutting the door behind them as she frustratedly declared, "If we don't get the amulets back from Victor, there's no way we'll ever get back in the tunnel!"

"We can kiss the mask goodbye." Nina Martin added with a huff, crossing her arms in the process - they were all disappointed, but considering the curse stemmed from her and she was technically the reason they were all searching for a mask, she was the most upset.

"Don't worry. It could be worse." Amber Millington assured her roommate whilst putting a nice and comforting arm around the female, rubbing her shoulder whilst the American rested her head on the fashionista's shoulder - however, the bubbly blonde, who really didn't understand volume, loudly whispered to the rest of the group, "It really couldn't."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're terrible at whispering?" Sydney Anderson inquired, knowing that their roommate had most certainly heard what the fashionista had said and any assurance that she may have received had faded away due to the words.  

"You, quite a few times." The fashionista confirmed.

"Let me add another time to the list - you're terrible at whispering." Just to put the point across in order to perhaps stop the perky blonde from continuing to badly whisper, the female prankster made sure that her roommate truly knew the facts.

And, before the girl who couldn't whisper was able to protest against the claim, the sound of Victor Rodenmaar reached their ears as he began his nightly speech, allowing them to know it was close to curfew, "Whoever you are, wherever you are, know this: it's nearly..."

"Pin drop." The six of them finished, their tone only being a mutter as all of them rolled their eyes at the speech that they were very familiar with by that point.

Due to it being close to curfew and their housekeeper being extremely strict, that meant Patricia Williamson, Alfie Lewis, and Fabian Rutter had to leave the room, due to their bedrooms being elsewhere in the house - thus, following the rules, the first pair of the trio started towards the door until the last member forced them to come to a halt, calling out, "No, no, wait. We can do this, we can do this, we can get them back."

"How?" Patricia quizzed, seeming rather hopeless about their plans to get the amulets back after they had failed what seemed to be their only chance only a few moments prior, "We blew our one chance of grabbing them when he took them off."

"So, we take them whilst he's got them on." Fabian suggested in retort, causing a few of the members (Sydney included) to look at him rather strangely, wondering what exactly he was inferring and thus soon causing him to elaborate and explain his plan to the members, "Say he was super tired - like, the most tired a human being has ever been, ever."

"Wait, doesn't that kind of rely on him being human?" Alfie pointed out jokingly - although, considering that their housekeeper was around one hundred years old and looked far from that age due to taking the Elixir of Life many times, the question about whether or not he was actually still human could have been posed.

Although, Sydney joined in on the joke and didn't think about the Elixir of Life - she instead thought about the many times the Anubis House residents had suggested that the housekeeper was a vampire, and thus she let out a small chuckle as she agreed with her friend, "Ah, we're going to struggle then."

"Yeah, okay." Nina agreed with the plan that her ex-boyfriend had made, ignoring the two pranksters as she quickly made the new and impromptu plan clear to all of them, beginning with, "So, we keep him up all night, and then when he does fall asleep..."

"Nothing will wake him." Fabian finished.

"And we make our move." Nina added, wide grins coating all of their lips at their new plan - honestly, Nina and Fabian made an amazing duo together, not even in a romantic sense, but simply in terms of making plans together and figuring things out.

"Messing with Victor." In the mind of Sydney Anderson, their next task was something that was able to be summed up quite simply by saying that they were just going to mess with their housekeeper all night, and that was a job that she was most certainly going to enjoy, especially since she had spent a majority of her time at the school messing with the teachers - she just now had an excuse to do so, and it contributed to the quest, causing her to inquire, "Why haven't we got this task sooner?"

It appeared that Alfie Lewis thought the exact same way as his blonde-haired friend, especially since the pair loved to mess with people (especially teachers), and he soon agreed with the female as he said, "Yeah, this is gonna' be good."

Thus, the plan was soon set in motion, with there being four ways that the members of the secret group were going to mess with Victor Rodenmaar. Amber Millington was due to run outside and set off the security light, whilst Fabian Rutter and Nina Martin were due to set off some extremely loud rock music using a bluetooth speaker as they hid in the cabinets, and Patricia Williamson also claimed to have an idea that was going to cause her to enlist the help of Mara Jaffray, so that left Sydney Anderson and Alfie Lewis - two parts of the trio of pranksters - to come up with a great trick that'd keep Victor Rodenmaar awake. Yeah, it was safe to say they had lots of experience in that field, and they had come up with a rather hilarious and very noisy way to keep their housekeeper awake.

Though, the prankster pair had to wait for their favourite fashionista to complete her task first, as Sydney Anderson had remained upstairs for a while to make sure that everyone else knew what they were doing with their tasks, and thus she needed to ensure that she wouldn't accidentally come downstairs and run into Victor Rodenmaar past curfew when he came in after checking on the security light. So, when Amber Millington returned to the bedroom that belonged to the three girls, declaring that point one had been handed to Sibuna, the female prankster had begun to make her way downstairs.

Meanwhile, Jerome Clarke had a mission of his own that night, which led to him turning on the lamp on his bedside table and slowly getting out of his bed as he prepared to sneak out of the house, hopefully without anybody catching him. Yeah... he soon failed that.

"Hey, dude." The voice of Alfie Lewis rang through the room, causing the blonde-haired male to startle slightly and place his hand on his chest in order to calm himself whilst Alfie sat up and turned on the lamp beside his bed, observing the all-black look that his roommate had opted to wear despite the array of colours in his wardrobe, causing him to inquire jokingly, "Robbing a bank?

"Not tonight, this is something else." Jerome answered, being quite vague and continuing to prepare what he needed for the risky and probably stupid task ahead of him until he halted, thinking of something that'd help him and causing him to turn to his roommate hopefully, "Alfie, I could use your help - Sydney's too, if she's awake."

"Oh, she's awake." Alfie confirmed, knowing that the blonde female was due to arrive at any second in order for them to complete their plan to keep their housekeeper awake, "She'll be here-."

"Sup' losers." It was as though she had been summoned as the voice of Sydney Anderson, plus the small sound of the bedroom door swinging open, cut the boy off from what he had been saying whilst the female prankster entered the room and shut the door behind her.

"Now." Alfie finished, rather surprised that he had managed to get the timing so perfect - he truly was a genius, or maybe a psychic; who knows?

"Why are you awake and..." Sydney started, her questions being directed towards the blonde boy in the room as, once she had closed the bedroom door, she turned around to face her childhood best friend and then had noticed that he was dressed in all black - suddenly, she had to take a moment.

As much as the female prankster tried to keep her eyes from checking him out (and, she most certainly tried extremely hard to stop her eyes from moving in the slightest), the eyes of the female apparently couldn't help themselves, with her eyes travelling up and down his (rather hot) outfit, forcing the girl to pause for a second as she tried to scramble together her abruptly messed up thoughts and hide her somewhat blushing cheeks. Though, that part was made a little bit easier due to the darkness in the room, though the two bedside lamps that had been turned on did make the blush slightly evident.

Eventually, she managed to speak once more, though her words were rather slow at first as she tried to figure out the right thing to say, "...not that I'm complaining, but why are you dressed in all black and like you're about to break into some place?"

Upon her having guessed exactly what the boy was planning to do that night, Jerome let out a rather nervous laugh, "As I was saying, I could use both of you to help me."

"I don't know, dude - we've got a lot on tonight." Alfie informed him, sending a hesitant glance over to the female in the room who was also involved in his plans, before he turned back to face his roommate, inquiring curiously, "What's your thing?"

Considering how suspicious her childhood best friend had become when she had mentioned breaking into a place, Sydney Anderson was able to guess what the boy was doing and sighed, telling the boy,"Please tell me you're not breaking into a place."

He blinked, before telling his two friends in the most calmest tone possible, "I am going to break into the Frobisher Library in search for a long-lost gem in an ancient suit of armour."

"And you're breaking into a place." Sydney concluded, releasing a deep sigh as she wished that her presumption had been incorrect - it turned out, she knew her childhood best friend way too well, even at times she wished she was wrong about him.

Although, the revelation made a small gasp be released from the throat of Alfie, with him perking up at the rather exciting opportunity, "Oh, that sounds awesome."

"I mean... yeah, it kind of does." Sydney reluctantly agreed - she may have been the more sensible one out of the trio, but that didn't mean she was serious and boring; however, there were a few issues with breaking into the library that she soon brought to light, "What about the alarm?"

Yeah, it turned out that wasn't an issue, as the boy soon took the key to the library out of his pocket, holding it up whilst a grin remained on his lips, "Swiped it from Jasper's desk today. We don't have to worry about anything so long as we don't touch the exhibits."

"But, if the alarm does go off, Victor comes running, right?" Alfie inquired, and the female prankster knew exactly where the boy was heading with his question as the two of them shared a look - scrap their original plan, forcing their housekeeper to go all the way to the library was going to keep him up for much longer; it was brilliant.

Jerome's head tilted, "Potentially, yes but-."

"I'll do it!" Alfie excitedly declared, not needing anything else to be said for him to agree as he ripped off his covers and leapt out of his bed, practically marching to the wardrobe to get some darker clothes that'd allow him to hide in the shadows better.

"Thanks, mate." Jerome suspiciously responded, sending the boy a rather puzzled look due to his sudden eagerness, but he seemed to dismiss it once the boy left to go to the bathroom in order to change outfits - that left him and his childhood best friend alone in the room, and he soon turned towards her hopefully, "You in?"

"I don't know." Sydney answered, pretending as though she was still thinking about it and that her decision on whether or not she wanted to go and help them break into the library was undetermined as she continued, telling the boy, "It does require me willingly entering a library, which I don't think I've ever done once before in my life."

At the rejection, the corners on the lips of the male prankster fell ever-so-slightly, yet it was still noticeable to someone like his childhood best friend, who took note of every detail about him. She had witnessed how his slight smile had transformed into a frown, and both of them knew that Jerome Clarke really wanted for Sydney Anderson to come along - they always did everything together, and everything was much more fun together. It was Anderson and Clarke, and... honestly, Jerome should have known that the female prankster most certainly wasn't going to let him break into a library without her.

"Can't go two seconds without me - can you, Clarke?" Sydney inquired, her lips tugging into a smirk in the process whilst the boy had soon realised that she had been joking about not knowing whether or not she wanted to come.

And, of course, the frown that had appeared on his lips soon faded away, being replaced by a humongous grin as he realised that his best friend was going to come with.

"You do realise that this is, without a doubt, the stupidest plan you've ever had." Sydney informed him with a faint giggle leaving her lips, before she declared (just so the boy knew what her decision was for definite), "Of course I'm in."

"Even if it means willingly entering a library for the first time in your life?" Jerome asked, the grin still present on his lips as he stepped a little bit closer to his childhood best friend, his hands unconsciously and instinctively gently holding onto her waist.

For some reason, a reason that neither of them were aware of, when his hands touched onto her waist it was somewhat like a spark had gone through the both of them, though neither of them voiced it aloud - it was simply an electric shock or something, right? Either way, the feeling was rather peculiar to the both of them and nerves suddenly began to eat away at them, but they didn't know why. It was odd. It was really odd, but... it felt nice and comforting, in some weird sort of way.

Giggling a little, Sydney managed to bring herself even closer to her childhood best friend, as though she craved his touch and wanted to be close to him at all times, and the pair had ended up with their arms wrapped around one another due to their closeness, before she glanced up at him with an extremely soft and adoring smile on her lips, then she said, "Hey, when it comes to new things, who else better to do them with than with you?"

Yeah, it appeared that when the female prankster did something new, she always (whether it was intentionally or unintentionally) ended up doing it with her childhood best friend, Jerome Clarke, and it always ended up working out. They really were a great pair.

Considering that both Jerome Clarke and Alfie Lewis had opted for the all-black look, Sydney Anderson was also subjected to doing the same and having a wardrobe change. However, it was a little bit too risky to go back upstairs due to the members of Sibuna constantly making their housekeeper move around, so she once again stole a silk, black button up shirt from her childhood best friend, matching the one he had on (technically, it wasn't stealing - he watched her do it with an adoring look in his eyes, and never actually protested against it) and then changed in the boys' bathroom. Fortunately, she had decided to wear black jeans earlier, which was why she only borrowed a shirt from her friend and simply tucked it into the jeans so it wasn't so baggy on her.

Then, the trio made their way to the library.

Honestly, travelling around the school grounds at night was a little bit petrifying, considering how old all the buildings looked plus all the history (and mystery) that the ground rested upon. Of course, Sydney Anderson wasn't scared of the dark, but walking across the grounds during the dark - the same lighting that they typically had in the tunnels, or at least being very close to it - made her wonder whether the trio were currently walking above the tunnel system, because the female prankster truly doubted that the tunnels managed to only stay below Anubis House.

Although, her thoughts were abruptly cut when the blonde felt a vibration from her jean pockets, causing her eyebrows to furrow whilst she took her phone out of her pocket and switched it on in order to read the text message she had just been sent.

Point two - Sibuna, courtesy of Nina Martin and Fabian Rutter, alongside a cabinet, a bluetooth speaker, and some extremely loud rock music.

Considering that the text had been sent as a mass text (they didn't use a group chat for the secret group, just in case somebody saw it, and they all promised to delete any messages that contained the club name in it), Sydney Anderson ripped her gaze away from her phone and looked a little bit ahead of her to where Alfie Lewis was walking, noticing that he had glanced back at her and had a grin on his lips - he had received the text too, and now it was time for them to achieve point three for team Sibuna.

However, first, they had to actually get to the library.

"You know, I think this is the least amount of colour I've ever seen you in." Sydney commented, wanting to keep her mind off the tunnels that were potentially below them as much as possible, and thus picking up her steps so she was walking beside her childhood best friend rather than behind him, and she admired the outfit that he was wearing once more, because he truly did look astronomically good in it, "It looks nice, Clarke."

"Just nice?" Jerome inquired, a smug look on his face - honestly, he hadn't intended to pick an outfit that actually looked good on him (then again, anything looked good on him), nor did he particularly like the lack of colour his outfit held due to him typically always wearing some sort of colour, but he most certainly did enjoy the compliments he was getting from the outfit, especially since they were from Sydney, though he didn't know exactly why he preferred compliments from her, "Oh, you can do better than that."

Instead of continuing to compliment him and his all-black outfit like he clearly wanted her to, the blonde-haired female instead gave him a playful warning as she told him cheekily, "If your ego keeps inflating, the compliments will become insults."

Obviously, Jerome protested against that happening, because being insulted (whether it was a joke or not) was worse than being complimented and thus pointing out to the blonde-haired female prankster, "But then you'd be lying."

"You wouldn't know that." Sydney responded, smirk present on her lips.

"I know when you're lying." Jerome argued, which was very true as he always knew when she was lying to him, which was why she never did it unless it was playful - of course, she had withheld the truth from him in order to be in the secret group, but she had never lied.

Knowing that she couldn't argue against him, and being fully aware of how she was never able to lie to the boy regardless of the stakes, Sydney simply said, "Shush."

"Just because you know I'm right." Jerome stated, chuckling slightly in the process as he watched the stubborn and competitive female struggle with her beginning to lose their so-called 'argument', so he nudged her to give in, "Come on, admit it."

And, of course, she was never able to go against what the boy told her, and despite her stubbornness and her competitive nature, she found herself caving, "Yes, fine."

In order to (playfully) rub in her loss a little bit more, Jerome had the wide grin of a winner plastered upon his lips as he quizzed,  "Was that so hard?"

"It was very painful." Sydney admitted, a pout on her lips that the male prankster found his eyes falling down to for a moment or two - it was a little bit cute he thought, even though they were just friends... totally just friends, and absolutely nothing else - right?

"Well, if it makes you feel any better," Jerome began after he had realised that he had been staring at her lips for a moment too long and thus let out an awkward cough to clear the slight tension that had grown between them, and then he continued as he revealed, "I think that you... somehow, manage to wear my clothes better than me."

"I rock anything, Jerome, we know this." Sydney responded, the confidence excluding off her as she did a little twirl to show off her outfit - though, the confident aura was broken as she did almost stumble considering they were walking, but the male prankster managed to quickly grab her and keep her steady before they continued walking.

Jerome always caught her, huh?

After letting out an awkward giggle once the minor mishap was over, the female quickly decided to change topic and continue as normal, untucking the silk button-up shirt that belonged to her childhood best friend to show how long it actually was on her, as she claimed, "I cannot believe this actually fits you - your shirts are so ridiculously long."

If Jerome Clarke thought Sydney Anderson looked adorable before when she had pouted, she had managed to look much more adorable (if possible) in that moment with her basically being swallowed by the shirt - yet, she also looked insanely attractive due to the all-black fit and the addition of the silk shirt, which he praised his past self immensely for buying it. Jerome Clarke thought he was slowly becoming insane, because he was not allowed to think those thoughts about his best friend - there was absolutely no way.

Not wanting to be caught staring at her once more, the boy soon composed himself and let out a faint chuckle, stating the truth as he revealed to her, "That's adorable."

And, the odd feelings returned - the warmth creeping up on them and the... butterflies... in their stomach that had been bubbling throughout the entire conversation seemed to become much more prominent after that single compliment - it was odd was mere words were able to do - and both of them simply hoped that the darkness not only hid their bodies from anyone else who happened to be walking around the school grounds at a ridiculous time, but also hid their blushes from the other person. Neither of them understood what the peculiar feelings were, and it was puzzling. Having had a few crushes before and a few girlfriends (all of whom ended badly and nothing was ever really there), Jerome Clarke had a small suspicion - a tiny feeling - that it may have been an emotion that he didn't think he'd ever associate with Sydney Anderson, but he refused to admit it.

Maybe he had a fever? Perhaps he was sick?

Whatever it was, there was absolutely no way that he felt 'The L-Word' towards Sydney Anderson, his childhood best friend, right? Even if he did, she didn't like him back, right?

"So, do you want to tell me why you decided to break into a library in order to find a suit of armour that has a priceless gem inside of it?" Sydney inquired, quickly changing the topic in hopes that the weird feelings she felt would soon go away if she did - of course, she was also curious at why the three students were breaking the law and had been meaning to ask the entire time, "I mean, I assume it's for your dad."

Jerome's eyebrows furrowed, "How did you know?"

"You went to visit him earlier today and told me that he told you about the thing, then proceeded to ask Fabian about a suit of armour in the Frobisher Library." Sydney pointed out to him, a smirk on her lips, "The puzzle pieces kind of put themselves together."

"Well, I can't keep a secret from you for long, can I?" Jerome responded - of course, it wasn't like he had ever intended to hide the reasoning they were breaking into the library from the female, he just hadn't had chance to tell her until that moment, so he soon told her, "My dad wants to put as many things as he can right - he stole a gem, so he wants to return the gem and put it back into the Frobisher Shield, but he needs my help to do it."

"So, you decided to break into the library?" Sydney asked, her eyes narrowed - she still was in slight disbelief that the trio were about to break into a library, despite it not being the weirdest thing that she had done that term (that award went to being cursed by an ancient spirit who wanted to get a mask at the end of a humongous tunnel underneath the house she lived at for a majority of the year that was filled with death traps).

"Were there any other options?" Jerome responded, not knowing how else he would have been able to look for the suit of armour in the library and get the gem from it.

"Plenty." Sydney claimed, somewhat wondering why the male prankster hadn't simply gone to the library when it was open and looked for the suit of armour and then went to grab the gem when nobody was looking, causing her to tell the boy once more, "I still stand by what I say about this being the stupidest plan you've ever had."

"Last term." Jerome reminded her, making her recall (though, it wasn't like she had forgotten) how the boy had given a ton of information about the quest and the secret group to Rufus Zeno in order to get some money and stay out of danger.

"No, that was the most dangerous plan you've ever had." Sydney informed him, still standing by what she said (partially due to her stubbornness), "This one is just stupid."

"You're so cute when you say such nice things to me, Anderson."

And, the blush came back with a fierce force.

"And... kiss!" The voice of Alfie Lewis came from ahead of them, causing the pair of blondes to glance up with wide eyes to see that they had already reached the library and hadn't noticed due to them being so distracted with one another, and also to see that their best friend was staring right at them with a wide grin on his lips - they had both totally not forgotten that there was an additional member with them who was only a few footsteps ahead, and thus was able to hear all of their conversation and flirting and had been internally screaming about it the entire time as he hoped they'd kiss.

Unfortunately, they did not.

Instead, the trio soon found themselves in the library, with the door being unlocked by Jerome Clarke with the use of the key that he had swiped prior and thus not triggering the alarms - that meant that the two members that were in the secret club had to trigger the alarm by touching one of the exhibits, which the blonde-haired male prankster wasn't going to let them do so easily as he wanted to be in and out of the library undetected. So, Alfie Lewis had already heightened his fun-meter, treating everything as a humongous game and being extremely dramatic so that it was natural for him to 'accidentally' touch or smash an exhibit without Jerome Clarke becoming suspicious.

Thus, Alfie Lewis was extremely playful as the trio began to search around the library, with him waving around his flashlight and casually stepping towards the exhibits - so casual that it didn't elicit a response from Jerome Clarke - as he claimed, "This is cool."

"How?" Sydney Anderson inquired, not particularly understanding how breaking into a library, of all places they could have broken into, was the definition of 'cool'.

"It's like being a ninja." Alfie continued, his excited grin plastered across his lips as he revelled in the fact that he was acting a bit like a ninja.

"Ho-?" Sydney started to ask once more, but soon cut herself off when she realised that they were wearing dark clothes, sneaking around, and they were meant to be quiet (though, the last one was somewhat failing), "Okay, I sort of see that."

Resuming his act (or, probably an emphasis) of craziness, the boy then changed his voice to one of a dramatic film narrator, doing 'ninja' hand gestures nearby the exhibits as he spoke, "Ninja in the library - book ninja!"

"Aren't ninjas meant to be quiet?" Sydney quizzed, considering the boy was being far from quiet for somebody who was meant to be acting like a ninja and was thus subsequently failing at doing so - although, the hand movements seemed pretty accurate based upon the few ninja movies that the female prankster had watched alongside the two boys.

"Sorry, I'm returning these books late." Despite the comment made by the blonde-haired woman, Alfie continued to talk and made a little story up, pretending to be two different characters and portraying them by changing his voice a little, and as he continued he began to flail his torch around, "'Oh, that's okay. Now, feel my steel!"

"Alfie!" Jerome snapped, forcing his roommate to come to a halt with his torch-flailing and look at the blonde with widened eyes, who then instructed him, "Concentrate." Thinking that the boy had settled, the blonde-haired male prankster soon brought them back to the task at hand, "I can't see a suit of armour anywhere - how about you?"

Wanting to help her childhood best friend, Sydney instantly went to answer his question and began to glance around the library, shining the torch around the entire space yet seeing absolutely nothing, "Nope. Fabian said it was on the ground floor, right?"

"Yeah, it's not-." Whatever the blonde boy had been saying was soon cut off, with his attention soon being directed towards his roommate upon seeing that the boy looked like he was about to smash one of the exhibit cases with his torch, causing him to hastily cry out, "Alfie! Careful - those cases are alarmed."

Acting casually once more, the boy actually looked around the library in search for what they had come to the place to find - the suit of armour with the valuable gem inside, though he soon declared, "Nope, no armour here - maybe it was moved or someone borrowed it."

"Why would someone borrow a suit of armour?" Jerome inquired, lowering his torch a tiny bit whilst his eyebrows knitted together in curiosity, not particularly understanding his roommate's logic behind the suggestion - yet, Sydney nodded in agreement with Alfie.

"For a costume party, maybe..." Alfie began, shrugging slightly, and then he let out a small gasp, his face lighting up whilst he thought of a much better suggestion, "...or a war!"

"Admittedly, two very good reasons." Jerome reluctantly admitted.

"Yeah, I can definitely see one of us borrowing a suit of armour for a costume party." Sydney confessed, knowing that at least one of the three pranksters (most likely Alfie) was crazy enough to actually do that, and then an excited grin spread across her face as she inquired, "Wait, can we actually do that for the next costume party?"

"How big is it?" Alfie questioned, wanting to get a visual representation of what he was meant to be looking for in his head and wondering if he was meant to be squinting for a small suit of armour, rather than a big one that would have been visible to them.

"Man-sized, Alfie." Jerome answered matter-of-factly.

"So, we could use it for a costume party?" Sydney inquired, with that being the only information that she took from the answer, mainly because she really wanted to see someone borrow the suit of armour for the costume party - however, her statement caused her childhood best friend to shoot her a small look, forcing her to raise her hands in mock defense as she spoke up once more, "Just saying."

"If it's man-sized, it would be pretty easy to see, right?" Alfie questioned, making them wonder if the suit of armour was actually in the library at all, considering that not a single member out of the three of them had seen a single sign of the suit of armour.

"You'd think." Jerome responded, shining his torch around the room once more and taking a final glance before he disappointedly shook his head, telling the other two pranksters, "Let's just get out of here."

Not exactly paying attention to what was occurring behind him, Jerome Clarke made his way out of the library and simply assumed his two best friends were behind him - bad assumption, like, probably the worst assumption he could have made, because little did he know that Alfie Lewis and Sydney Anderson had stayed behind by the exhibit case, watching their friend make his leave before they sent similar grins to one another - grins that screeched that they were about to cause some mayhem in the typically peaceful library. Oh, and some mayhem they did indeed cause, because only a few seconds later did the pair violently shake the case in front of them, forcing the alarms to begin blaring.

At the sudden noise and the red lights flashing around the room, Alfie Lewis let out a small chuckle whilst his partner in crime, Sydney Anderson, wore a smug smirk as she was glad their plan had actually worked and that their housekeeper was going to be kept up for a little longer, being forced to make his way to the library in order to check it.

And, what did that mean?

Well, it meant that the pair, before they quickly made their escape from the library in order to rush back to Anubis House, were able to happily declare, "Point three to Sibuna."

Thus, the results of the competition were soon in, with there being four points to Sibuna and left Victor Rodenmaar with no points. When the trio of pranksters had been making their way back to Anubis House, Alfie Lewis and Sydney Anderson had both received the text from Patricia Williamson, alerting them of how she had scoured the fourth point. Somehow, she had managed to enlist the help of Mara Jaffray in order to prank Eddie Miller (because both of them had apparently declared him their nemesis) which led to him having a bucket of orange peel fall onto his head and caused him to smash something, subsequently making a lot of noise that alerted Victor Rodenmaar of their disturbance. Due to that, Patricia and Eddie now had detention with the housekeeper (Mara apparently fled from the scene, so the man didn't catch her), but the purple-haired girl still thought that the prank and keeping the housekeeper awake made the detention worth it.

Sibuna won, as always, and now the members of the secret group (minus Nina Martin) were all gathered in the room that belonged to Sydney Anderson, Amber Millington, and Nina Martin, as they waited for the latter to return from checking on their housekeeper. Meanwhile, they tried to keep themself awake and amused, and their entertainment came in the form of Alfie Lewis shining a torch at Amber Millington - riveting content.

Before the boy managed to blind the poor fashionista, the arrival of Nina Martin forced him to switch his torch off as they gave their undivided attention to the American, who soon began to tell them what she had witnessed, "Okay, so Victor's just gone back into his office looking pretty zombie-fied. Now, we just have to wait until he falls asleep, and then we make our move - but, in order to do that, we all have to stay awake, okay?

"Yeah, we should do some things to keep our brains active." Fabian Rutter suggested, though he soon gave the group another idea that most certainly wouldn't have kept them awake - it was like he was trying to make them fall asleep as he declared, "Like chess."

Of course, Sydney Anderson had played chess before and was actually an above average player at the board game, but she didn't play it very often due to how boring she found it - she recalled that the last time she played it was last term, when she had played it alongside Jerome Clarke and Mara Jaffray. It was safe to say that she wasn't very eager to play chess.

"Or we could tell spooky ghost stories." Alfie Lewis piped up, clearly excited by his own idea and trying to convince everyone else to go along with it as he turned on his torch, shining it underneath his chin to provide 'spooky' lighting.

Unfortunately for him, the convincing of Alfie Lewis appeared to not work as well as he had hoped, because only a few seconds later did the goth girl of the secret group reject the suggestion, complaining, "Oh, Alfie, your stories are so boring."

At the insult, the boy's face had dropped and his lips had fell into a pout, causing his blonde-haired best friend beside him to pat his shoulder sympathetically to provide comfort, before she glanced around to the members of the group and chimed in with her idea, "How about we think of some pranks that I can pull?"

"You'd use them on us." The nerd of the secret group pointed out... which, she couldn't even deny because she most certainly would have used their own ideas against them.

"It's been some time." The female prankster responded, a smirk slowly creeping onto her lips as she did so - it truly had been some time since she had pulled a prank, and she knew that one was soon due.

"You're not pranking us." With a small eye roll, the nerd told her his decision firmly, not wanting to become a victim of her pranks again; he was already the victim of her teasing constantly, and he thought that was bad enough to deal with.

"How about we count sheep to keep us awake?" Amber Millington gave her own idea, though it wasn't exactly a great suggestion and every single member of the group (except from the fashionista herself) noticed the contradiction in the idea and laughed to themselves, rather dumbfounded by the bubbly blonde's lack of intelligence.

Apparently, Amber saw absolutely nothing wrong with her suggestion and actually began to follow through with it, starting to quietly count sheep to herself until Patricia spoke up and informed the fashionista, "Counting sheep does not keep you awake, Amber - it basically does the opposite."

"Ohhh, that's why it never worked." Amber realised, halting her counting of sheep - however, it appeared that the damage was already done as the fashionista soon began to yawn.

Oh no.

"You see, this is why we don't count sheep." Sydney pointed out to the fashionista, releasing a heavy sigh - if the fashion-loving blonde was already beginning to yawn, there was absolutely no way that she'd make it throughout the rest of the night.

"Snap out of it." Patricia demanded sternly, knowing that none of them were allowed to go to sleep - they had to stay up in order to get the amulets bad.

"Oh, Amber, no." Fabian said worriedly.

"Fabian, we all need our beauty sleep - some of us more than others." Amber tried to reason with the nerd, glancing over at the purple-haired remember at the last part and seeming to imply something.

"Hey, I saw that!" Patricia cried out incredulously, pointing a finger at her accusingly before she continued, "I swear if you fall a-."

The words of Patricia Williamson were cut off by a yawn, and that was when the members of the secret group slowly began to realise that they were doomed - there was no way all of them were staying up throughout all of the night.

That became further evident when the yawns had soon travelled over to Alfie Lewis, with him becoming the next victim of the tiredness slowly taking over each and every single one of them.

And the next person was Sydney Anderson, who realised that yawning truly was contagious in that exact moment, and the tiredness she had felt a little bit of beforehand suddenly became overwhelming.

"This is not good." Nina Martin stated, her widened eyes filled with worry as she watched the three members of the secret group slowly fall more and more into the land of the tired - on the bright side, she still had Fabian Rutter who seemed wide awake.

Nevermind, he yawned too.

From then on, it was a frenzy of yawning from every single member in the group other than Nina Martin, who watched with an incredulous expression as she wondered what to do as the room began to fill with the sound of yawning and muffled talking, as people tried to speak through their many years.

"I am so sorry." Alfie said through his yawns, clearly trying to stop his tiredness but absolutely failing.

"This is why you don't play Sims all night." Sydney groaned, releasing yet another yawn - honestly, if she hadn't spent a majority of the night beforehand playing The Sims in order to get over her fear of death, she probably would have been completely wide awake at that moment.

"Guys!" Nina cried out.

Yeah, it was safe to say that every single member soon ended up falling asleep.

Despite the failed attempt at staying awake, the task to get the amulets back had been completed by Nina Martin and Fabian Rutter during the night. Apparently, the pair had woken up and snuck out by themselves to get the amulets from a sleeping Victor Rodenmaar, so that meant the amulets were, once again, around the necks of those in the secret club that morning when the women of Sibuna were heading out of the girls' corridor in order to meet the two men of Sibuna downstairs in the entrance room. Although, when the females opened the door that led out of their corridor, they were able to see that their housekeeper was oblivious to the theft that had taken place in the night and was still fast asleep - not wanting that to change whilst they were around, the women quietly snuck downstairs to meet the two men of Sibuna.

"Is Victor still asleep?" Fabian Rutter whispered once the women had made their way downstairs and had met up with the two men who had been waiting for them.

"Sleeping like a baby." Patricia Williamson answered, a small smirk on her lips as they knew that their mischievous plans had actually worked and that the housekeeper was probably going to sleep for a little while longer due to the small amount of time he was able to sleep that night due to their tricks.

"A very loud sleeping baby." Sydney Anderson added, noting how the housekeeper was snoring pretty loudly when they had crept past, probably due to how exhausted he was.

"Well, lucky old Victor." Amber Millington grumbled, clearly not that pleased about how little sleep she was able to get that night - it took a few minutes for the female prankster (who had been woken up and practically dragged out of her own bed by Nina Martin) to convince the fashionista to actually get out of bed instead of having a few more minutes to add to her 'precious beauty sleep', though the fashion-loving female eventually agreed to it once the prankster threatened to put glue in her conditioner.

"I don't think he'll see it that way when he realises that all the amulets are gone." Fabian Rutter pointed out, knowing that the strict housekeeper was probably going to feel a lot less than lucky and be absolutely furious that the amulets had been stolen from him.

"That's why we have to get to school before he wakes up." Nina Martin told them, and the members of the secret group nodded in agreement as none of them particularly wanted to face the wrath of Victor Rodenmaar, "Tonight, we go back to the tunnels."

With that being said, all of the members began to head to the exit of Anubis House, leaving Sydney Anderson and Alfie Lewis to look at them all with incredulous looks, because the pair of pranksters did not particularly enjoy going to school early anyways - however, going to school without having breakfast was a much bigger issue for the pair.

"Guys, what about breakfast?" Alfie Lewis questioned, sending a glance back towards the dining room in hopes that the group would agree to turn back to quickly grab something - however, they kept walking to leave the house.

"Exactly, and what about my tie?" Sydney Anderson quizzed, calling out after them as a whisper-shout in order to keep her voice as quiet as possible so that she didn't alert their housekeeper and wake him up - although, her tie was still undone around her neck, due to her not having run into Jerome Clarke that morning (she presumed he was still getting ready, because he took quite a long amount of time trying to make his hair perfect).

"Breakfast is more important!" Alfie argued, desperately wanting to eat and divulge into the usual delicious spread that he typically had before he went off to school.

"I agree with you, but my tie still needs to be done!" Sydney declared, grabbing her tie and messing with it in an attempt to tie it herself - the keyword there was 'attempt', because it soon fell apart and went back to dangling around her neck as she gave up.

Soon enough, Amber Millington and Nina Martin burst through the doors of Anubis House once more upon realising that two people hadn't followed, and the girls releasing heavy sighs as they grabbed the arms of the two pranksters, pulling them along with them to head to school early despite the lack of food and the lack of properly done ties.

Fortunately enough for Sydney Anderson, she had managed to avoid the teachers before her lessons so that they didn't yell at her for the un-done tie around her neck, and it seemed as though she wouldn't have to hide from them for much longer as she soon found the man she had been trying to find all morning, seeing him making his way down a corridor and (presumably) to his locker, so the female prankster instantly rushed beside him and linked their arms together as she greeted him cheerfully, "Hey!"

"Hello." Jerome Clarke responded, a grin falling on his lips at the unexpected presence of his childhood best friend - however, when he turned to look at her, a small chuckle left his lips as he noticed something, "And, your tie is undone, I should have guessed."

"Well, I still can't do it myself." Sydney Anderson reminded him, laughing at the situation herself before she informed the male prankster of her efforts that morning, telling the boy, "I tried, and it was a disaster."

"Come here." Jerome instructed, amusedly shaking his head at her as the female prankster stepped closer towards him, allowing him to reach up and begin doing her tie for her.

"You okay?" Sydney inquired, noting that there was something peculiar with the boy because his grin wasn't as wide as it typically was when she was around him, so her eyebrows were furrowed whilst the boy finished her tie and the pair of them continued walking to his locker, "You seem off."

"I just..." He began, though he cut himself off with a heavy sigh before he continued what he was saying with a downcast expression, telling his childhood best friend, "I'm disappointed, I guess. My dad was really relying on me to find the gem, and I failed."

"You haven't failed - you've just started looking." Sydney assured him, trying to keep his hopes up and cheer him up - she hated when he was sad.

"Yeah, but it's not in the library." Jerome argued, considering that the library was the place where he was told that the suit of armour was going to be, but it wasn't and now he had no idea where to look.

"So, it'll be elsewhere." Sydney pointed out to him, "And, when have you ever given up on something, Jerome?"

"You make a point." Jerome agreed.

"I always do." Sydney responded, her smile slowly forming again as she noted that the boy seemed a tiny bit better, "This matters to you a lot, right?"

"It's a bonding thing. Some guys go fishing, Clarke's track down priceless jewels - it's how we roll." Jerome explained to her, not as though she was going to question it - she was always right by his side and supporting him, "He needs me to do this for him."

"And you will." Sydney declared, being absolutely confident in her answer as she knew that her childhood best friend never gave up on anything, and she wrapped her arms around him as she told him truthfully, "I'm proud of you, you know?"

"Thanks, Syd." Jerome smiled - a genuine smile.

Someone else who, at that moment, had a genuine smile - one that was noticeable a mile away and practically beaming as she skipped down the corridor and approached the blonde pair of pranksters - was Mara Jaffray, who excitedly squealed, "Hi!"

"Oh, someone's excited." The female prankster announced - of course, Mara Jaffray typically seemed quite happy, although she was obviously a little bit happier that day.

"I think we'll have to call the excitement police."  Jerome declared with a slight chuckle, nudging his childhood best friend right beside him as they wondered why the nerd was so excited that day - from what the two pranksters recalled (though, they weren't the best source of information when it came to school) they did not have any tests that day.

"No, I have a meeting with Mr Sweet, and I can't wait." Mara revealed, also revealing that the two blonde pranksters were right about the lack of tests they had that day and letting the two of them breathe a little bit better with the knowledge that they didn't need to quickly cram for some sort of test ahead of them.

"See, I normally avoid Mr Sweet." Sydney told the nerd, knowing that she'd probably cry if she had a meeting with the head teacher and then perhaps jump out of a window and run for the hills to avoid it - she wasn't the biggest fan of the man, unless there was something else involved that made seeing the teacher a lot more fun, which she soon mentioned, "Wait, is there an opportunity for me to prank him during this meeting?"

"No." Mara rejected sternly, wanting the meeting to go smoothly and not have to worry about a prank interrupting them midway through, "I'm interviewing him for the website, I've been telling Damian all about it." At the mention of the rebellious boy, a loud groan of frustration and annoyance came from the mouth of Jerome Clarke, causing the female prankster who knew exactly why he had groaned to stifle a small laugh whilst Mara glanced over at the female confusedly, asking, "What's wrong with him?"

"Damian." Sydney bluntly answered, shaking her head amusedly at the boy until she suddenly halted in her actions upon hearing her phone chiming, forcing her eyebrows to furrow in confusion whilst she took her phone out of her pocket and glanced at the caller, "It's my aunt - I've got to take this. I'll see you in a bit, yeah?"

Of course, they weren't going to say no and not allow her to take the call, so the two nodded in agreement and gave the female prankster the opportunity to answer her phone as she made her way down the corridor in search for some privacy that'd allow her to speak to her aunt and her cousin without interruptions. Thus, Mara Jaffray and Jerome Clarke were left alone, so the former of the two approached the latter with a smirk plastered upon her lips as she remembered something from that morning.

"So, are you going to tell me how your little date went this morning?"

At that, Jerome's eyebrows knit together as a look of perplexion took over his features, and he soon found himself repeating the words that he had just heard, "My date?"

"With Sydney - you both skipped breakfast." Mara revealed, explaining exactly why she had thought that the blonde-haired duo went on a date that morning - though, since the male prankster hadn't been with his childhood best friend that morning, the new piece of information that she had skipped breakfast too made his eyes narrow suspiciously, "Actually, now that I think about it, a lot of people skipped breakfast this morning."

"I wasn't with Sydney this morning." Jerome clarified.

"Oh." Mara hummed, releasing that she (alongside the other housemates who had actually attended breakfast that morning) must have been wrong about the pair of blonde pranksters not attending to go on a morning date, but the nerd was an inquisitive soul, and that led to her asking, "So, why did you skip?"

"There's a limit to how much sugary flaked corn I can take in a lifetime - I may have peaked early." The male prankster lied, although his lie was pretty obvious as all of the Anubis House residents were fully aware that they typically had large spreads with lots of different foods for breakfast and not just sugary flaked corn.

"You're a terrible liar, Jerome." Mara informed him.

"I resent that. I am a brilliant liar." Jerome protested, knowing that the only person who he couldn't really lie to was his childhood best friend - apart from that, he'd like to believe that he was a very good liar that not many were able to see through.

"Either way, I know something's up. You can tell me - you know I don't judge." Mara assured the boy, though the last statement caused him to send her a small look as he was fully aware that the nerd didn't approve of anything that was against the law or messy, "Okay, I'll try really hard not to judge."

"Okay." Jerome reluctantly agreed, knowing that the nerd was never going to stop pestering him if he didn't inform her, so he found himself halting and leaning against the wall as he announced, "Last time I visited my dad, he asked me to do something for him."

"Bring him some paperbacks?" Mara, being the hopeful nerd that she was, suggested - although, her suggestion was soon proved to be wrong as the male prankster told her the correct answer - one that she most likely wasn't going to approve of.

"Find a priceless gem in an old suit of armour."

"Okay, I was way off." The nerd declared, her jaw slightly dropped at the revelation whilst she also seemed a bit puzzled - the news had obviously left her with a few questions that she, of course, soon found herself asking, "I thought he was trying to go straight?"

"He is - it's to make up something bad he did before." Jerome explained to the brunette, but she still didn't particularly understand it all due to her only liking things that were right in the books - whether that was the law, or answers in math class.

"By making you steal a gem?" Mara inquired, shaking her head at the unlawful ordeal as she found herself disagreeing against it and protesting as she pointed out to the blonde, "Two wrongs don't make a right, Jerome."

"Sorry, Mara, what was that about not judging?" The prankster spat back, soon causing her to be quiet as she realised that she had unintentionally been quite rude and judgemental about the situation, despite the promise she had made prior in an attempt to avoid that - although, the blonde-haired male soon decided to let the nerd know that there wasn't much to worry about regarding him doing another wrong to make up a past one, informing her, "Anyway, it doesn't matter. I failed. Sydney and I looked all over the library for the suit of armour - it's gone, and he needed me to do this for him."

"You really care about this." Mara announced, causing the male to nod in agreement as finding the gem for his father really mattered to him, and it was evident to anybody who spoke to him about it that he cared drastically about it for his father, and not himself, "You're putting another human being before yourself - I might cry."

"Oh, whatever, Jaffray." Jerome muttered, playfully rolling his eyes at her before the pair took their own paths and separated, with the nerd eventually attending her meeting with the headmaster whilst the male prankster found himself walking around the school.

Walking around the school was exactly what the female prankster, Sydney Anderson, had also found herself doing a while later - though, she was doing it with a purpose, as she was taking interesting photographs using typical and ordinary settings, one of those being a corridor. Thus, she had her camera in her hands as she made her way down the corridor, only really paying attention to things that she could photograph rather than what was happening around her, which was what led to her letting out a small yelp when a hand excitedly yet unexpectedly gripped onto her arm, pulling her to the side of the corridor. Once the blonde-haired prankster spun around, wanting to know who had just grabbed her, she laid her eyes on Mara Jaffray, who somehow seemed even more jolly than she had been prior to her meeting with the headmaster.

"Nice to see you too." Sydney greeted, still a little bit in shock due to the sudden and abrupt contact with the nerd before she then took note of how her smile was somehow wider and brighter than beforehand - the brunette must have been having an absolutely  amazing day, and the female prankster soon pointed it out, "You look happier than before. Did the interview go well?"

"Extremely well, plus you did no pranks which was a bonus." Mara responded, quite thankful that her ex-roommate hadn't committed any pranks in order to annoy the head teacher, as that would have most certainly ruined her interview.

"Trust me, I wanted to." Sydney revealed, letting out a small chuckle in the process - of course, she would have adored to prank the head teacher during his conversation with the nerd, and she had many ideas that she would have been able to carry out easily, though she didn't exactly feel like having to deal with the wrath of Mara Jaffray when she already probably had to deal with the wrath of Victor Rodenmaar once he realised that the amulets had been stolen from him within the night.

"Well, I appreciate you not pulling a prank during my interview." Mara informed the blonde, "But, there's something else that's made me this happy."

"There's a trigonometry test coming up and you're... weird." Sydney guessed, knowing that her ex-roommate really enjoyed tests, especially ones that were for maths and science, and also loved just... anything that was related to education in the slightest - basically, they were complete opposites when it came to education.

"No, but I do love a good trig test." Mara responded.

"I know I've said it before, but I'm saying it again: you disgust me." Sydney bluntly told the nerd - obviously, it was a joke and the nerd didn't actually disgust her; it just baffled the prankster that somebody was actually able to enjoy education and tests.

"Would I still disgust you if I told you that I know where the suit of armour is for Jerome?" Mara quizzed, a smirk falling on her lips as she did so, and the statement caused the eys of the female prankster to widen dramatically - that time, it was Sydney Anderson who looked the happiest, with the grin that had appeared on her lips somehow managing to be wider and brighter to the ones that the nerd had been holding all morning.

"You know? Oh my gosh, he'll be so happy! Where is it?" Sydney excitedly inquired, her words coming out extremely rushed due to how happy she was that her childhood best friend was going to be able to find the gem and complete his dad's task.

"Sweetie uses it as a coat stand in his office." Mara informed the prankster, which made the blonde chuckle a little bit as it was odd to use a suit of armour as a coat stand and it was just another thing that she was able to use against her headteacher, "I thought that he'd prefer the news if it came from you, plus I have a study session with Damian soon."

At the mention of the nerd and the rebel spending even more time together, the eyebrows of the female prankster furrowed as she wondered what exactly was happening between them - the question had really been on her mind ever since she heard them talking to one another a while ago, and the rebellious boy had claimed that he liked her whatever side she showed, "What is happening between you and Damian?"

That time, it was the eyebrows of Mara Jaffray that furrowed, the question puzzling her slightly and causing her to quiz, "What do you mean?"

"You spend a lot of time together, that's all." Sydney responded, which was very much true - the rebel had visited Anubis House quite a few times in search for Mara Jaffray, and they seemed to constantly hang out at school in order to study, "Plus, he's Damian - extremely flirty, and I really do not know how you constantly cope with him."

"He's not that flirty." Mara argued - if the female prankster had been drinking something at that exact moment, she would have spit it out everywhere, because the claim that Damian Cyrus was 'not that flirty' was completely and utterly ridiculous; the boy had made a name for himself within the first few days of him being at the school and he'd managed to keep it upheld since, with constant talk about him travelling the halls.

"Do you ignore all the talk about him kissing a ton of different girls every single day?" Sydney asked, knowing that plenty of people had been kissed by the rebellious boy and all of them typically thought that they were something until they saw the boy kissing someone else - from what the female prankster was aware of, Damian held a current record of managing to kiss seven different girls in one day, and somehow hadn't received a slap across the face for doing so.

"They're rumours - he's not actually like that." Mara protested, causing the female prankster's eyebrow to quirk up because she truly did not believe that the talk was only just rumours - afterall, the rebellious boy had tried to flirt with her countless times, "Perhaps he used to be, but he's changed now. Anyways, we're just friends - I've got to go and meet him now, though, so can you make sure to tell Jerome?"

"I will, and thank you, again. This means a lot, Mara." Sydney told the nerd, the pair of them sharing a brief hug before they went on with their day, and the rest of the female prankster's day began at Anubis House, where she soon found herself rushing towards in order to find her childhood best friend and tell him about the good news.

Thus, later, Sydney Anderson found herself back at Anubis House, practically bouncing up and down with excitement as she couldn't wait to tell her best friend about what she had found out during the day. Due to that, whilst she entered the living room in search for the blonde-haired boy, the female prankster had a humongous smile covering her lips, which somehow managed to grow even wider once she had set her sights on Jerome Clarke - he was casually reading a book as he sat on the sofa, though he soon lifted his gaze from the book as his childhood best friend sat right beside him, and he looked over at her and witnessed the gigantic grin on her lips, and he couldn't help but smile too.

"You seem happy." Jerome pointed out, instantly putting the book that he had been reading face down (in order to keep track of his page) on the coffee table in front of them before he turned to face the female prankster once more, wanting to give her his full attention like he always did - he always paid attention to Sydney, "It's nice to see."

"Well, do you want to guess why I'm so happy?" The blonde-haired female inquired, knowing that her childhood best friend probably wouldn't get the answer exactly.

"It's either that you've somehow managed to get past three days on Sims without your household dying, or you've come up with a new prank to do to Sweetie." Jerome guessed, knowing that both of those things would have caused the girl immense happiness as all of her Sims somehow managed to die before she had even played three days of the game, and she enjoyed annoying their head teacher tremendously.

Considering that getting the gem probably involved messing with their head teacher a little bit, the blonde-haired boy had managed to partially guess the good news, so the female prankster tilted her head a little whilst she answered, "Somewhat."

"One day Sweetie's going to expel you." Jerome chuckled, amusedly shaking his head at the fellow blonde - honestly, he was surprised that the pair of them managed to get away with everything that they constantly do, especially the female half of the pair, as she constantly targeted their head teacher as though he didn't have all of the power.

"I don't think Sweetie could ever expel anyone - his name literally says he's sweet." Sydney responded, and she was quite right in her statement - nobody in Anubis House could have ever imagined their head teacher being so angry to the point of expelling anyone, and they hadn't ever even heard of and/or witnessed somebody being expelled, "But, if he did, you'd miss me, right?"

Yeah, a high school life - or, just a life in general - without Sydney Anderson by his side sounded like torture to the blonde-haired boy, and of course he would have missed her - he missed her when she skipped class or disappeared with her secret group for the afternoon - but, Jerome being Jerome, he decided to tease her as he playfully responded, "Hm, I don't know."

"Oh, really?" Sydney replied, her eyebrow quirking up in the process whilst a smirk fell upon her lips - there was an issue with the blonde boy teasing her, and that was that two people could easily play at the teasing game, and it turned out that, not only was the female prankster stubborn and enjoyed winning, but she also had a piece of information that she was able to hang above her childhood best friend in order to win the game, "Well, I guess you don't want to know where the suit of armour is afterall."

Instantly, Jerome's eyes widened and his jaw dropped slightly - shock and disbelief was quite evident on his face as he looked towards the blonde-haired female, who had stood up from her place on the sofa, and he cried out in surprise, "Wait, you found it?!"

"Mara found it and then told me to tell you, so all the credit goes to her." Sydney explained to the boy, knowing that they wouldn't have been able to find the gem if it wasn't for the brunette nerd and thus not wanting to take the credit from her - however, she did want to tease her childhood best friend, which was what led her to pretending as though she was going to walk out of the living room as she added, "But, if you don't want to know where it is-."

"Sydney, no!" Jerome protested, hastily shooting up from his place on the couch and reaching out to grab his childhood best friend's hands, lacing their fingers together whilst it forced the woman to come to a halt, a smirk being plastered upon her lips as the man spun her around and gently pulled her towards him, the pair of them ending up rather close - practically chest to chest - as he begged, "Don't do this to me, please."

Sydney Anderson was stubborn - everyone knew that, including Jerome Clarke - so, neither of the blonde pranksters expected for the woman to give in so easily and to simply tell the boy about the whereabouts of the suit of armour because he had asked her to. Honestly, Sydney was seconds away from making a deal with the boy - he did something for her (though, she hadn't thought of what yet) and then she would have told him where the suit of armour was - yet, things didn't exactly go to plan.

Instead, Sydney had found her words stuck in her throat as she noticed how close the pair of blonde pranksters were to one other, and she wasn't the only one who had noticed it - Jerome had too. It was very close - close enough that they were able to feel each other's breath hitting them and they were only an inch away from one another. Of course, there had been many times Sydney Anderson and Jerome Clarke had been so close to one another - a lot of which mimicked how close they were in that moment - yet, that moment felt so different but so right, as though they were meant to be that close to one other. It was... peculiar. So many things between them recently had been the same as always, yet there was a different feeling to it - one that neither of them were able to place.

There was a tension of sorts between them - not a bad tension, of course, but there was a tension that both of them had noticed. It was overpowering; there was no way that one of them wouldn't have been able to notice it. Their smiles had wiped away, replaced by an expression of... well, neither of them knew what it was - they just knew it felt right.

Change was something that the female prankster didn't deal with well, especially not after the death of her parents, so feeling a whole new emotion that she couldn't place was extremely weird to her. Of course, she had recognised that something between her and her childhood best friend had changed, but she didn't know what exactly that was. Despite the unknown emotion that she felt being rather comforting and seeming right, Sydney Anderson didn't want to feel it for much longer without knowing what exactly it was, and thus she soon found herself clearing her throat and taking the pair of blonde pranksters back to reality, though it took a few seconds for them to fully return out of their minds and made them blink a few times before one of them actually spoke.

"I couldn't hide it from you for long anyways, idiot. How could I deny you?" Sydney spoke through nervous laughter as she referred to the gem that they had been talking about prior to their moment - yeah, she hadn't intended to give away the location of the gem so easily, but her mind had drawn a blank after experiencing so many weird emotions, "According to Mara, Sweetie uses it as a coat stand in his office."

"His office?" Jerome repeated confusedly - he now understood why the female prankster had said that he was somewhat correct with his guess about her happiness being due to her having a prank to pull on their headteacher, but he didn't understand why the headteacher used a suit of armour as a coat stand and/or how he was going to get the gem, which was what caused his eyebrows to furrow as he took a step back from his childhood best friend, clearly in thought for a few moments, "Now, that is interesting."

"Indeed it is." Sydney agreed, "I have to go - Amber and Nina need me for something." That something was their secret club, Sibuna, as they already had plans to sneak into the cellar to try to get past the tunnel of fear considering that they now had the amulets back - however, the female prankster most certainly wasn't going to leave the boy to come up with the ideas all by himself, so she soon found herself making more plans with him as she told him, "But, we'll think of some ideas on how to get into his office later, yeah?"

Of course, those plans were a little bit later and Sydney Anderson first had to deal with some prior engagements, which was what led to her soon making her way down into the cellar alongside all the members of her secret club, minus Patricia Williamson. During their task to keep their housekeeper awake the previous night by many different pranks and schemes, the purple-haired member of the group had been caught by the strict man as she pulled a prank on Eddie Miller, which led to the pair of them having detention that they were called to just as the members of the secret group went to go down through the oven passageway. However, Fabian Rutter reminded them that they were still able to get past the tunnel filled with their fears with just five of their members, and thus the group soon found themselves going ahead into the cellar anyways.

"So, Patricia's doing Victor's evil chores, so it's just us tonight." Nina Martin informed the group as the shelf into the antechamber opened up and all of the members of the secret group made their way inside, stopping just before the bookshelf to look at one another as the American member of the group grabbed her amulet that hung around her neck and asked, "Everyone got their amulets?"

In responde, all of the members nodded in agreement as they all (minus Alfie Lewis) grabbed their own amulets to show them off, and the fashionista of the group declared, "Sibuna, back in action again."

"About time, too." Sydney Anderson muttered, glancing at her amulet in her hands - despite it only being two days since they had gone into the tunnels, it seemed like it had been so long due to everything that had happened; they faced their fears, then they had the amulets stolen, so they put itching powder in their housekeeper's clothes which then allowed them to ransack their housekeeper's office in search for the amulets that they didn't find, so then they tried to keep him awake all night and Sydney Anderson and Alfie Lewis did that by helping their friend to break into a library in search for a valuable gem that was in a suit of armour (which wasn't even in the library), they then managed to get the amulets back and they had figured out where the suit of armour actually was.

Yeah... it had been an eventful few days.

And, despite the seemingly happy ending of all that chaos, the members of the secret group still had to worry about what lay ahead of them, as all of that chaos may have ended but they were fully aware that they surely had a lot more chaos to come which may not have a happy ending - due to that, the group was on edge, thus they tried to prepare themselves for absolutely everything and anything, which led to Amber Millington asking worriedly, "Does anyone else worry about Victor coming looking for the amulets again?"

"Well, if he does, he won't find mine. Look at me." Alfie instructed, having an excited grin on his lips as it was clear that he was very happy about what he had done with his amulet - when the members of the group followed his instructions and looked over at him, they couldn't see it on him and the boy soon went to speaking again as he said happily, "Where do you think it is? Around my neck, right?" Nope, "Maybe my wrist." Also nope, "Both wrong! Boom!" He shouted, putting his foot on a nearby chair and lifting up the bottom of his trouser leg in order to show off the amulet that was taped to his lower leg, "Check it. Alfie Lewis doesn't make the same mistake twice."

"So, I take it you won't be doing that again?" Sydney asked.

"Why? It's a perfect method-." Alfie began to respond, though his words were soon cut off by his own very loud cry of pain which he had released upon quickly ripping the tape off his leg - even just the sound of the tape ripping off his leg was enough for the members of the secret group to know that the action had hurt immensely, and all of them winced.

"That's why." Sydney pointed out.

"Yeah, I won't be doing that again." Alfie confirmed, pain evident on his face whilst he began somewhat limping as he moved his foot off the chair and back to the ground.

"Oh, Alfie, did you remember the walkie-talkies?" Fabian asked, referring to the walkie-talkies that the members of the group had used the prior year when the jokester had gone into the cellar by himself in order to get a sample of the elixir and to find the demisphere that they had been searching for at the time.

"Oh, ten-four, little buddy." Alfie responded, taking out the two walkie-talkies that were familiar to all the members of the group - though, they were even more familiar to both Sydney and Alfie, considering that the pair had continued to use them after the mission last term, "Just a little walkie-talkie speak - over and out."

"I can't believe you still have these." Nina announced as the boy passed over the walkie-talkies to her and the boy beside her (Fabian, of course), and the female was clearly somewhat shocked about how the boy had kept the walkie-talkies.

"Yeah, they were under the bed." Alfie told the group, nonchalantly shrugging as though it wasn't a big deal as he lied, "I'd forgotten about them, actually."

That was a humongous lie, and everyone knew it - of course, the fact that it was a lie was made a little bit more obvious by the small snicker of the female prankster, and thus Amber didn't waste another second in voicing her (very right) accusations as she looked over at the playful pair, "You two still play with them, don't you?"

Alfie scoffed, quickly correcting his ex, "You don't 'play' with walkies, Amber. They're used for very serious forms of communication and counterintelligence all over the world."

"So, who's A-Dog, Syd-ster, and the J-Meister, then?" Nina inquired, both her and the nerd beside her lifting up the two walkie-talkies to show off the names that were written on the back of them - Nina's had 'A-Dog' written on it, whilst Fabian's had 'J-Meister & Syd-ster' written on it (plus, small writing underneath which said 'ANDERSON AND CLARKE FOREVER'), considering that the blonde pranksters shared their walkie-talkie.

"They came with the radio." Alfie announced (of course, being yet another lie) as he hastily reached forward and took the walkie-talkie that belonged to Sydney and Jerome out of Fabian's hand, passing it to the female prankster quickly.

"Syd-ster is a very cool name, I'll have you know." Sydney defended her nickname - honestly, it had taken a while to come up with her nickname considering that Sydney wasn't exactly a name that was easy to give cool nicknames to, but the three pranksters had soon decided to simply take the nickname of her childhood best friend and try to work it to make a nickname for the female prankster, and thus Jerome had eventually come up with the nickname 'Syd-ster', with it taking the ending syllable of 'J-Meister'.

"I see." Nina nodded, a grin on her lips - however, the grin soon faded away when the female decided to get the members of the secret group back on track and facing the more important things that lay ahead of them, causing her to soon question, "So, who's going to go down to the creepy tunnel of doom first? Rock, Paper, Scissors?"

Knowing that was a fair method, the members of the group all nodded in agreement before they played the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. In the end, all of the members of the secret group had played scissors, although one member had done differently and had played with paper - that somebody was the very unfortunate Nina Martin.

"Great." Nina Martin muttered as she now knelt in front of the tunnel that had been opened up by Fabian Rutter - since she was the one who was going into the tunnel, she had one of the walkie-talkies (the one that had the nickname for Alfie Lewis) in her hands, whilst Sydney Anderson had passed the other walkie-talkie (the one that had the nickname of herself and her childhood best friend) over to Fabian Rutter, knowing that he'd prefer if he was able to speak to his crush as she entered the petrifying tunnels.

"Alright, I'll be on the other side of the walkie-talkie, and I'll talk you through it." Fabian explained to her before he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and assured her, "You'll be fine. Just... be careful."

"I'll try." Nina responded warily, releasing a rather heavy sigh as she glanced back towards her impending doom - the tunnel of terror - before saying, "Let's just get this over with."

And, with that being said, she climbed into the tunnel.

Whilst the remaining members of the secret group who had managed to get lucky in the game of Rock, Paper, Scissors watched anxiously, the unlucky member began her journey through the tunnel of terror. Nina was the only member out of the five present who had yet to enter the tunnel, so nobody really knew how she'd react. Alfie Lewis had gone into the tunnels first, and he was then followed by Amber Millington who had gone after him in an attempt to save him, only to get herself stuck there. In order to get Amber Millington out, Fabian Rutter had gone into the tunnels and rescued her. Then, Sydney Anderson had rushed in to get Alfie Lewis out. Now, it was Nina Martin's turn.

For a while, no sounds were heard and the members of the secret group waited patiently for any sort of check in from the American - however, Fabian soon lost his patience and raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth, asking, "Nina, can you hear me? Are you okay?"

"I'm here, Fabian." Nina's voice came over from the walkie-talkie, allowing for the nerd to let out a very small sigh of relief whilst his crush continued to tell the members of the group how her experience in the terrifying tunnel was going, "So far, so good. There's not much room to maneuver in here."

"She'll be okay." Sydney assured the nerd, noticing how a look of panic had crossed his face and thus putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Of course, the statement of the female prankster soon had to be contradicted, which was exactly why the voice of the girl in the tunnel came through the walkie-talkie once more, seeming a lot more frightened than she had been prior, "Oh, oh."

"What is it? Are you alright?" Fabian hastily inquired into the walkie, hoping that nothing had happened to his crush and that she was completely okay.

"Flashlight just went out." Nina informed them - that was rather odd, considering that Sydney was almost certain that her roommate didn't have a fear of darkness, so the flashlight flickering off wasn't something to do with the tunnel that seemed to know all their fears and implement it in all its terrifying ways.

Yeah, that really was not good. After watching many horror movies alongside her two prankster best friends, Sydney liked to say that she was quite an expert on the genre, and thus knew when bad/spooky things were about to happen because so many horror movies following the same structure surely had to mean some of it was based on reality. With that idea stuck in her mind, the female prankster knew that lights unexpectedly switching off was the first sign of disaster about to strike, with the second sign being strange noises. Knowing that her best friend was also aware of that fact (as he watched many horror movies alongside her and her childhood best friend), Sydney shared a concerned look with Alfie (her anxious eyes meeting Amber's as well for a brief second) as they prepared for something horrible to happen.

"T-The tunnel can't be that long." Fabian declared, though he didn't seem too confident about his statement and it wasn't exactly clear whether he was trying to convince Nina of the statement or himself due to his stammering, "You must almost be there already."

"It's dark in here. I can hardly move." Nina announced, sounding as though she was struggling quite a bit - the situation of being hardly able to move sounded rather familiar to those who had entered the tunnel prior (especially Alfie, considering the tunnel literally began to collapse on him), although another issue soon seemed to present itself as the American let out a gasp that caught their attention once more, "I hear noises - bad ones."

Second sign - peculiar noises were the second sign that disaster was about to strike, according to a majority of horror movies made in the world ever. Of course, that didn't particularly ease anybody's worries, instead causing all of the members to share yet a worried glance and for nervous signs to begin to shine through them - Sydney had already begun to quietly drum her fingers onto her legs whilst the rest of the members had eyes that were darting anywhere in search for something to give them some sense of comfort.

"No, it's just your mind - it's playing tricks." Fabian assured the girl, though his tone wasn't exactly assuring - he sounded just as panicked as the girl in the tunnels, and the two roommates of the girl in the tunnels soon found themselves linking arms to try to help the other calm down during such panicked times.

Although, it seemed like everything was just getting worse and worse as the agonising seconds ticked by and panic continued to seep into the children whilst they waited for a response to come through from the woman crawling through the tunnel of terror.

There was no response.

"Nina, can you hear me?" Fabian desperately cried out into the walkie-talkie, yet he still received no answer from the female and worry continued to overwhelm the four members who hadn't gone into the tunnels whilst the nerd continued to shout, "Nina? Hello?!"

"Fab-." Nina's voice finally came through the walkie-talkie, though it didn't exactly assure the members waiting for her much as the walkie-talkie was crackling quite a lot and making it extremely difficult for her words to be audible, so group only picked up bits and pieces of what the woman in the tunnel was trying to tell them, "-you-."

"Nina?" Fabian tried again.

Again, no response was heard and they had fallen into silence, not even hearing the same small crackles as they had done prior from the walkie-talkie, and it was evident that none of them knew what to do as they stared at one another with wide and panicked eyes that managed to widen even more when the members of the secret group heard a screech from a very familiar voice come from the back of the tunnel.

Something bad had happened.

"Nina? Nina, are you there?" Fabian concernedly inquired into the walkie-talkie as he wondered what had caused her to screech and whether or not she was okay - although, his worry managed to get worse than it already was when there was no response from his crush, forcing him to inquire further, "Talk to me. Are you there?"

"Should I go in?" Sydney volunteered, being seconds away from kneeling down in front of the tunnel in order to crawl in and try to find and then perhaps save her roommate.

"No, not after last time." Alfie denied with worried and furrowed brows, grabbing the arm of the female prankster to pull her back away from the entrance to the small fear-infested tunnel - honestly, he had guessed that she was going to try to go into the tunnels, considering how he knew of her selfless trait, so he was very much prepared to stop that.

Of course, Alfie was fully aware that the prankster had managed to get over her fear of death (he had watched her murder an entire town of Sims) and thus would have probably coped with the tunnel a little bit better than she had done last time, but he really did not want to risk anything when it came to his best friend's mental stability - yet, Sydney was ready to risk that for her friend as she protested against the boy, "But, Nina-!"

Cutting off the panicked words of the female prankster, the sound of something creaking filled their ears and caused all of the members of the secret group to turn their head confusedly to try and figure out what the noise was. However, the confusion soon swept away and instead their jaws dropped with surprise when they laid their eyes on the source of the creaking noise - the wall that was a dead end had begun to open.

"It was a door!" Amber cried out excitedly, similar grins falling upon all of their lips as they realised that they had just completed the next task and were able to go ahead through the tunnels and perhaps find the Mask of Anubis a little faster "Nina did it!"

"And, now we just go right through, like the map said." Sydney pointed out, remembering how they had been stuck on the dead end for so long and had been confused about how the map told them they just went straight ahead despite there being a wall in the way - well, the wall was no longer in the way and they were able to just go straight ahead.

"Nina, can you hear me?" Fabian quizzed, wanting to try to get in contact with the saviour of the quest once again as they hoped that she'd be back soon - if she'd done something to complete the task, then surely she had to be on her way back out of the tunnels.

"Yep, I'm nearly back. You should be able to see me soon." Nina's voice came through the walkie-talkie, now being fully clear and audible as she informed them of her whereabouts - clearly, she was right about being able to see her soon, as only a few seconds later did the exact same voice came from the tunnels beside them rather than the walkie-talkie, "Little help here?"

Following her plea for help, all of the members of the secret group hastily rushed over to the tunnel in order to bring her back up so that she was standing up again, and once she was doing so, the nerd of the group didn't hesitate to inquire, "How was it?"

"Honestly?" Nina responded, "Like being down a long, dark tunnel with bugs and a skull."

Considering that all of them had been in the tunnels and had experienced immense fear due to it, it didn't take much longer for the members to begin agreeing with exactly what the female had said as it related to their own experiences in the tunnel, with Alfie agreeing, "Sounds about right."

"Yep." Amber nodded.

"Definitely." Sydney muttered, shivering slightly as she recalled the petrifying incident in the tunnels - honestly, she didn't really care about or frightened by how small or dark it was inside the tunnel, or the many bugs there were inside; it just creeped her out how it knew and was able to show their fears, plus how far it was willing to go to scare them.

Speaking of scary things, Nina soon added to her experience as she informed the group of an additional thing that she had to face in the tunnels, "And, there were voices."

"Voices?" Fabian repeated, his eyebrows furrowing whilst he glanced around at the other members of the secret group confusedly as he wondered if any of them heard voices as well but hadn't mentioned it - however, when they seemed perplexed by the revelation as well, he presumed that the answer was a no and declared, "Well, that's new."

"I had flashbacks, but that was just due to the crash." Sydney pointed out to them - whilst she was in the tunnels, she had heard the screams of her parents and those calling for help, but they were all a part of her flashbacks coming back to haunt her due to the scythe that she had seen in the tunnels; the tunnel wasn't a direct cause of it and hadn't made her hear the voices on purpose, but the tunnel had been the catalyst for it to occur.

"They were weird voices." Nina informed them, seeming quite concerned about the voices and allowing them to know that whatever or whoever she heard must have really messed her up - yet, she seemed to dismiss them somewhat, "It was all in my head, but still..."

"Well, you're safe now, and you did it!" Fabian revealed gleefully, motioning to how the wall that had signified a dead end beforehand had opened up and was now allowing them to walk straight through like the map showed them they were able to.

At the sight, a humongous grin fell upon the lips of the American female as she became eager to go ahead and see the next task, knowing that seeing it sooner would allow them to complete everything faster and find the mask that the spirit wanted so badly in order to get rid of the curse placed upon them - being aware of that made it so that they didn't waste any time, "Okay, let's see what Frobisher-Smythe has in store for us next."

"Oh, I cannot wait." Sydney muttered sarcastically, knowing that she typically hated most of the traps that the man had set for the group (or just anybody who wanted the Mask of Anubis) as they always resulted in an almost death occurring in the group - it was safe to say she wasn't a big fan of him, despite how respected he may have been due to his work.

"For Nina." Amber stated, putting her right hand over her right eye like they always did.

"For the mask." Fabian continued, following the actions of the fashionista.

"For Sibuna." The five members of the secret group finished simultaneously, with them all covering their right eye with their right hand whilst grins were evident on their lips - and, with that, they went ahead feeling as though they were able to conquer anything as long as they stuck together as a team, as long as they stuck together as Sibuna.

And the members of the group soon laid their eyes on what they had to conquer next in their search for the Mask of Anubis, and it was safe to say it was quite peculiar, just like all of the other tasks that the secret group had managed to pass. Despite the fact that the members of the secret group probably should have been used to seeing odd things after going through so much just in the past few weeks, the sight in front of them still caused all of their jaws to drop with surprise. Red, blue, and yellow coloured strings covered their next room, intertwining with one another and making what seemed to resemble a gigantic and coloured spider web.

"No way." Fabian breathed out.

"This just keeps getting weirder." Nina muttered, shaking her head as she voiced her opinion about the tunnels and the next odd task that they had to face.

"Thanks again, Frobisher." Sydney said her signature phrase, not exactly thrilled that the tasks that led them to the mask kept continuing and that they were  somehow managing to get even stranger each time - everything had began as normal as secret passageways and a curse were able to, with the tasks being a simple passcode or pulling the right book, and then it had changed to people almost dying with every single task and the female prankster wasn't particularly the biggest fan of it.

"I'm detecting a definite theme in here." Amber declared as the members of the secret group glanced around for any other signs as to what they were supposed to do to pass their next task successfully.

Whilst glancing around in order to find any small details that may have aided them in the task, Fabian had soon discovered something on one of the walls and had become fascinated with it, staring at it for a few moments until he spoke, "Neith."

"What's a Neith?" Sydney asked confusedly - unlike the nerd, she didn't know everything about ancient Egypt and was simply aware of the basic facts and what she had learnt through being a part of the secret club and, due to that, the names of the deities and what they represented were unfamiliar to her.

"Neith is the spider-headed weaver goddess of war." Fabian answered without hesitation, being fully educated on a majority (if not all) of the Egyptian deities, and his information made it evident to the members of the secret group why the room seemed like it was a humongous spider web - as terrifying as that sounded, there was a positive to the spider web and it was that it brought the most colour that the group had actually seen within the typically dark and bland tunnels; that had to be a good sign, right?

"Weavers of war." Alfie repeated the words that the brunette nerd had spoken a few moments prior, worry evident in his tone as he continued sarcastically, "Yeah, cause those two go together really well."

"Look at that spider over there." Nina instructed, pointing over at one of the walls and causing all of them to turn their heads to where she had told them to, noticing exactly what had caught her attention within seconds as it was hard to miss, "It looks like an indentation - I think something goes in there."

"I'm hoping not a giant spider." Amber spoke, considering that the indentation did look like a humongous spider and the fashionista despised spiders, even baby ones - if they had to deal with a spider that was bigger than their bodies, then the fashionista probably would die right then and there.

"Me too. I don't know if I could cope with your screams." Sydney declared, knowing that there was absolutely no way that the fashionista would be able to complete the task if it involved a real spider, especially not one that was gigantic, as the perky blonde typically almost burst the prankster's eardrums at the sight of the tiniest spider.

Wanting to investigate further, the nerd of the group reached out and went to touch one of the strings in front of him, but soon found himself halting whilst his eyes narrowed, and he soon commented, "Weird."

Upon taking a closer look at the strings, it was evident that there was some sort of liquid dripping from them. Considering all the death traps that had been included thus far by Robert Frobisher-Smythe, it was safe to assume that the liquid upon the strings most likely wasn't safe to touch, so it was probably also a good idea that the nerd had halted and decided against touching the string once he had noticed that some strange substance was covering it.

"That's where we have to get to." Nina announced confidently once she had examined the room, gesturing to the web marking covering a wall that was on the other side of the room with her torch.

"So, let's go then." Alfie said, not wanting to waste anymore time and wanting to get past their new web-covered task in order to find the Mask of Anubis and be rid of the curse upon them as fast as physically possible - due to that, it was safe to say that the boy didn't completely think his actions (or the consequences that they may have come with) through fully and he soon found himself going ahead.

Of course, all of the members of the secret group protested against his reckless actions and called out for the boy so that he'd remain safe, but it was already too late. Not thinking about the repercussions, the boy had put his hand on the substance-coated string in front of him, which soon forced him to think about the repercussions that his actions had as he released a loud cry of pain and instantly pulled back his now throbbing hand.

"Ah, that really hurt!" Alfie complained - well, at least they knew that the substance that coated the string was actually harmful to them now.

Wanting to make sure that her best friend was okay, Sydney didn't hesitate in grabbing the boy's hand and examining it with worried eyes, noticing how it was extremely red and looked very sore, causing her to quiz her friend concernedly, "You okay?"

Considering that the only pain he felt was in his hand and he didn't feel as though the string had affected elsewhere, the boy nodded in agate emend whilst the others observed his hand in order to try to figure out what the string had done to him, with the fashionista of them commenting, "It's like a bee sting."

"Or a spider bite." Nina gravely added, relating everything back to the spiders that the entire task seemed to revolve around - a spider bite made a lot more sense than a bee sting, and there were only two outcomes to a spider bite in the mind of Sydney.

"Okay, so you're either going to die or you might become Spider-Man." Sydney informed the bitten boy, honestly not being too sure whether him becoming Spider-Man was a very amazing or a horrendous idea; on one hand, it meant that she'd be best friends with a superhero and that he'd be able to do some cool things, but on the other hand, the female prankster was not certain if the boy was able to handle such responsibility and would probably just mess around with his abilities constantly - although, Alfie seemed to like the idea of him potentially being able to become the superhero.

"Oh, Spider-Man - cool!"

"I think there's some kind of venom on all the threads." Fabian told them, causing the pranksteames to fall out of the daydream about superheroes that they had fallen into and back to the task ahead of them as they looked around the room once more, "What are those? Some kind of... hooks?"

Yeah, they were definitely hooks, and there were three of them on the strings - how odd.

"Hooks? What do you think they're for?" Nina pondered, as they had a lot more questions than answers at that moment and that caused the American to sigh heavily before she gave her instructions to the secret group, telling them, "Let's just call it a night, guys. We'll come back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, okay." Amber agreed to the suggestion with a nod, but then she hummed thoughtfully for a few seconds before she told the group in a totally non-suspicious manner, "I have this weird feeling I'm going to be ill right around then."

Soon enough, it was the next morning - the day that they were going to go back into the tunnels to figure out what exactly they were meant to do in the spiderweb task. Although, before they were able to investigate the peculiar task ahead of them, it was time for breakfast, so Sydney Anderson had found herself in the kitchen alongside Vera Devenish that morning, helping the housemother set up breakfast by checking that nothing was burning and by moving the many dishes over to the dining table. However, as she moved the dishes over to the dining table and had her back towards the kitchen, she didn't notice Jerome Clarke (whom she had spent the night with and tried to help him come up with ways to get into their head teacher's office, to no avail) sneaking into the kitchen and quickly taking a picnic basket from Vera Devenish and then he bolted out of the kitchen before his childhood best friend turned around. Once the blonde-haired female spun around, she noticed that her housemother was just finishing the pancakes and quickly went towards her to take the pancakes over to the table, not suspecting a single thing.

Only a few minutes later did the Anubis House residents begin to pile into the dining room, laying their eyes on a humongous spread upon their dining table and quickly sitting in their chairs to dig in. Meanwhile, Sydney Anderson (who was sorting out drinks for everyone as Vera Devenish had to quickly sort out the laundry) had a small smirk on her lips as she saw her fellow housemates beginning to come into the room, knowing that her friend was due to enter any moment with a small surprise.

And, as if it was on cue, the comfortable and quiet talk in the room had been cut off by Alfie Lewis' yell, which was loud enough that it was audible from the boy's bathroom, "Sydney, what have you done?"

"Ah, music to my ears." Sydney Anderson mumbled, chuckling in a mischievous manner slightly whilst everyone in the room turned their heads towards her with questioning eyes, wondering what devious tricks she had pulled on her best friend that time.

Soon enough, their questions were answered - not by Sydney Anderson, of course. Instead, their questions were answered by the boy who had released a boisterous screech a few moments beforehand, as he soon stomped into the dining room still wearing his pyjamas,  with a... well, they weren't exactly able to tell what expression he held on his face.

Why?

Because a Spider-Man mask was duct-taped to his face, in reference to the spider bite that he had received yesterday. At the sight the mask-wearing boy, Sydney Anderson couldn't help but to let out a loud laugh - honestly, she put way too much effort in just so that the small trick would work, because it was a massive pain to try to duct tape the mask to the boy's head without him waking up. In conclusion: it was worth it.

"I never would have seen you as a Spider-Man fan, Alfie." Joy Mercer commented from where she sat in her typical seat around the dining table, giggling slightly in the process, "I always thought you were more of a Hulk fan."

Ignoring the giggling girl, Alfie Lewis turned towards his female blonde best friend in desperate need of help as he inquired, "How do I get this off?"

"It's just tape." Sydney Anderson pointed out to him, knowing that the duct tape probably wasn't that hard to take off and that people only tended to struggle with taking duct-tape off if they also had their arms and legs taped - although, it may have hurt a little bit.

"Duct tape!" Alfie reminded her, being way too scared to rip off the tape in case it hurt him - as he had said the day prior, he never made the same mistake twice, and ripping normal tape off his leg yesterday hurt an immense amount - nevermind duct tape.

"That's still tape." Sydney argued, not exactly understanding what the big deal was and reaching towards him in order to rip it off - though, just before the female was about to grab a piece of the tape and harshly rip it off him, the boy ducked and moved away.

Knowing that he was at high-risk of having the tape brutally ripped off his head if he stayed in the dining room for much longer with the mask still taped to his face, the boy released a large huff (that was somewhat muffled due to the mask) before he stormed off in attempt to find a pair of scissors that'd allow him to cut off the duct-tape. Oh, how Sydney Anderson wished that she hid the scissors in that exact moment.

Yet, Sydney Anderson wasn't able to think about how she should have hidden the scissors for much longer, as her thoughts abruptly cut off when she unexpectedly felt familiar arms wrap around her and she felt herself being lifted up into the air and being placed upon the shoulder of her childhood best friend as he carried her in a fireman's lift. Out of all the things she expected to have to deal with that day (such as: Alfie looking like Spider-Man, Alfie actually becoming Spider-Man due to the bite, the web task ahead of them), she did not expect to have to deal with being carried over her best friend's shoulder.

"Wha-? Jerome?" Sydney incredulously shouted out, her eyes wide with pure shock as she didn't particularly register what exactly was happening at that moment as she began to be taken out of the dining room - however, once she realised what was happening, the female prankster looked towards her housemates around the table who were hysterically laughing and cried out at them, "Guys?! Are none of you going to help me?!"

"Nah." Joy Mercer answered, a smirk on her lips.

"This is more entertaining." Patricia Williamson pointed out, chuckling slightly at the entire incident - they had witnessed the blonde-haired boy sneak up behind his childhood best friend and give them a small signal to shush in order to unexpectedly grab her, so they knew that the blonde pair were about to cause some mayhem yet still found it funny.

"You two are no help!" Sydney responded, grabbing onto the couch as they passed by it in order to try to stay in the dining room for longer so that somebody would rescue her, "Anyone else? This is kidnapping!"

"Have fun, Sydney!" Fabian Rutter instructed the blonde with a wide grin on his lips, sending a taunting wave to the female prankster that constantly teased him.

"This is why I dislike you, Rutter!" Sydney declared, her words being an obvious joke (somewhat) - their friendship was based on not only weird quests, but also mutual friends, teasing, and fake-hatred, alongside trying to help the nerd get with his crushes.

"Live on the wild side a little!" Fabian ordered her, a smirk on his lips as he referenced the phrase that the pair constantly used to taunt one another after the female prankster had told the same words to the nerd when he wore a helmet on a bike.

"Oh, I'm going to-!" Sydney began her threats, but soon cut herself off upon realising that threatening people wasn't going to help anything and thus turning to someone else desperately, "Nina?!"

"You don't seem like you need help to me." Nina Martin responded, nonchalantly shrugging at the entire ordeal whilst a small grin was on her lips.

"Or to me." Mara Jaffray chimed in, a similar grin upon her own lips - for a long time, she had wanted the pair of pranksters to realise their feelings for one another (especially because she used to be roommates with the female prankster and witnessed how many times her and her childhood best friend hung out), and that want had only increased when she had become closer friends to them and had spoken to Poppy Clarke numerous times about the pair, with the younger sibling claiming that they're 'disgustingly cute'.

"Make sure to update your social media - I want to know everything after!" Amber Millington demanded, the biggest smile on her lips as she witnessed her friend about to go on a date (according to her, anyways) - the smile would have been a little bit bigger if the female prankster wasn't simply wearing her uniform on the date, but the fashionista just took what she was able to get with the Sydrome content.

"All of you are traitors!" Sydney spat out, barely holding her grip onto the couch whilst Alfie Lewis (now without a Spider-Man mask attached to his face) came back into the room, and the female prankster didn't hesitate in calling out to him, "Alfie!"

"This is what you get for making me into Spider-Man." Alfie declared, laughing slightly at how fast karma had managed to come around for his best friend before he noticed that her fingers holding onto the couch were the only thing stopping the blonde pranksters from leaving the room - thus, he came towards them and peeled the female prankster's fingers off the couch that she had been using to keep them there, him and Jerome (with the blonde's free hand) high-fiving whilst the jokester happily exclaimed, "Off you go!"

"Eddie, Eddie! Save me!" Sydney practically screeched out, desperately reaching out to him as they passed the American male who was just entering through the living room.

"Is this normal around here?" Eddie Miller inquired, sending a rather weirded out look to the pair of blonde pranksters before he simply shook his head and brushed past them to go into the dining room for breakfast, letting out a very small scoff, "Brits."

"This is kidnapping! I'm being kidnapped!"

"You really should just give up." Jerome Clarke advised the girl on his shoulder with a faint chuckle - he hadn't said anything the entire time simply because he knew that nobody from Anubis House was going to agree to help her (it was one of their favourite ships), and that she'd probably end up giving up resisting anyways - just as he predicted, the girl simply flopped, letting her arms rest instead of reaching out for people as the male prankster took her out of Anubis House and towards the picnic he had set up.

Meanwhile, Vera Devenish had rushed out of the laundry room upon hearing a lot of commotion, only to briefly see what was occurring just before the blonde pranksters left, and truly she still didn't understand what had just happened as she blinked a few times before quizzing, "What did I just see?"

It was Amber Millington who gave her an answer, though it wasn't a particularly helpful answer to give to somebody who didn't understand what other ships there were except from the boat and water type of ships, "Sydrome, Vera, Sydrome."

Indeed it was Sydrome, and the people involved in that ship soon found themselves outside, with Sydney Anderson still being atop of Jerome Clarke's shoulder in the fireman lift until the blonde pairing finally reached their destination, and the latter of the pairing gently brought the female down until she was safely sitting down on a picnic blanket.

"Kidnapper." Sydney huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting as she pretended to be mad - yeah... it didn't exactly work all that well, and she just looked adorable to the blonde-haired boy who sat down in front of her.

At the (extremely adorable) expression, Jerome let out a faint chuckle and amusedly shook his head at her before he quizzed, "A very handsome kidnapper though, right?"

"Whatever you say, Clarke." Sydney responded, playfully rolling her eyes at him and stopping her rather terrible act of pretending to be mad, before she gestured at the entire picnic that surrounded the pranking pair and inquired, "What's all this?"

"Well, you stayed up for a majority of the night trying to help me think of some ways to get into Sweetie's office, so I thought I'd do something to make up for that." Jerome explained to his childhood best friend, wanting to show his immense gratitude for everything that the female prankster had done to help him with things regarding his father and how she constantly stuck by him and supported him no matter what, before he then pointed out to the female, "Plus, we haven't had a picnic in a while."

"You make a decent point. Thank you." Sydney replied, a grin on her lips whilst she took out two breakfast muffins from the picnic basket, passing one of them to him and taking one for herself that she took a small bite out of, eating it, before she quizzed curiously, "So, have you thought of any ideas?"

"I might just stake out his office - see how many times he leaves and whether he keeps the door unlocked for enough time that I can sneak in and find the gem." Jerome answered with a nonchalant and casual shrug, presuming that it wasn't going to be that hard to find a slot when the head teacher left his office for enough time that allowed the male prankster to find the suit of armour inside and get the gem from it.

"Sounds like a good idea. I mean, the offer for me to cause havoc in the science lab is still there." Sydney informed the boy - when they had been coming up with ideas during the night, the pair of pranksters had debated the idea of the female prankster making a mess in the science lab in order to get the head teacher out of the office, though perhaps Sydney only wanted to do that because she hated science and it messed with Mr Sweet.

"See, that sounds like a good plan, except I don't want you to get a detention." The male prankster stated, knowing that he'd probably be bored if his childhood best friend received a detention and thus wasn't with him during one of their breaks.

"It's the perfect opportunity for me to mess with chemicals." Sydney protested, still very much eager to mess around in the science lab even if it meant that she received a detention - after all, she had received many detentions in her time at the school due to her many pranks that were usually on Mr Sweet, so another one surely wouldn't have hurt.

"No - you'll blow something up, probably yourself." Jerome argued, knowing that the female prankster didn't listen in science and thus didn't have the slightest clue which chemicals mixed with what and how they'd react, so her messing around in the science lab was probably an extremely dangerous accident waiting to happen.

Not exactly being able to protest against that point because she knew that the male was most certainly correct in his statement, Sydney Anderson found herself simply giggling at the correct claim whilst a bright and toothy smile fell upon her lips - happiness simply radiated off her, and she was very much like a ray of sunshine. Describing her as a ray of sunshine made a lot of sense, actually, because people, despite constantly being told to not look at the sun due to it potentially blinding them, couldn't resist looking anyways - and, Jerome Clarke really couldn't resist looking at her, his eyes lingering on her and watching her giggle for a few moments. A ray of sunshine really fit her well, he thought. Something else about sunshine was that many people claimed to be happier whenever the sun was out, and perhaps that was true because the male prankster soon found a soft and adoring smile growing upon his lips as he watched the female giggle.

She was cute, huh?

Oh, wait - Jerome couldn't think that about his best friend, so as soon as that thought came through his mind, he shook his head and decided to quickly change his thoughts to focus on something else, going back to the topic of the suit of armour inside their head teacher's office as he asked, "It should be simple enough to just sneak in, right?"

"Maybe." Sydney responded with a simple shrug as her giggles came to a halt, though her smile still remained on her lips - she watched the boy in front of her for a few seconds, noting how he'd gone into his thoughts due to his somewhat narrowed eyes and his furrowed brows, and she soon spoke her thoughts, "It's cute to see you like this."

The words had broken him out of his thoughts, his gaze meeting hers once again whilst he tried to ignore the many feelings that had just hit him and asked curiously, "Like what?"

"Caring, for someone other than you or me." Sydney answered, quickly elaborating before the male prankster received the wrong impression of her and thought that she assumed he was emotionless all the time despite knowing each other for years, when that was far from the case, "I always knew you had that side of you - you just typically hid it until now."

"You've always told me to lower my mask - guess I finally did it." Jerome declared, feeling a sense of pride as he did so - honestly, he never really noticed when he had lowered his mask and had began to let people in, it just casually happened over time.

"You didn't do it because I told you to - you did it because you wanted to." Sydney corrected him, not taking the credit for his progress regarding the comfort he felt with his true self - then, she decided to get back onto their more important topic once more, telling him determinedly, "Now, let's sort out how we're getting this gem, right?"

If Sydney Anderson had known that trying to help her childhood best friend retrieve the gem inside of the suit of armour inside their head teacher's office would have led to the pair of blondes doing statistics or any sort of educational subjects, she probably would have not been so eager to do it. Of course, she still would have helped out, because it was Jerome Clarke. However, that didn't mean she was necessarily happy about it, and yet she still contributed her input whilst the pair were sat in the drama studio, with Sydney Anderson being sat atop Jerome Clarke's lap as he had an arm around her to make sure she didn't fall off, and then had a notebook in his other hand.

"How's the stakeout going?" Alfie Lewis inquired as he made his way into the drama studio and set his sights upon his two best friends, soon sitting in the chair that was beside them and glancing at the notebook that the male prankster had in his hands.

"Not good, my friend, not good at all." Jerome Clarke answered honestly, which was very much true - the blonde pairing weren't exactly having much success with their mission to sneak into their head teacher's office, despite the statistics that they had worked out.

"We've been watching Sweetie all morning, and it's been ridiculously hard not to prank him during all of that time." Sydney Anderson informed the boy, recalling an incident that had occurred merely a few minutes prior when they had been outside of his office and the female prankster had begged her childhood best friend to let her silly string the head teacher when she exited the office - she was soon dragged away.

"Did you know he leaves his office, on average, three times an hour?" The blonde-haired male prankster asked his roommate, despite knowing that it was incredibly unlikely for anyone to know that fact.

"I did not know that." Alfie confirmed.

"He's gone for approximately four minutes, forty-two seconds, and do you further not know that he leaves his office unlocked, on average, none of those times?" Jerome finished listing the many facts that the blonde pairing had managed to collect during their stake out - it turned out that sneaking into their head teacher's office was much more difficult than the pair had originally anticipated.

"Oh, you're really rocking those stats." Alfie responded, rather amused.

"All morning." Sydney added, resting her head against her hand due to her exhaustion that was caused by too much paying attention to education-related things as she groaned frustratedly, "This is the longest I've listened to numbers for in my entire life."

"I mean, what does he think is gonna happen if he leaves it open for four minutes?" Jerome inquired, rather frustrated and irritated by how careful their head teacher was - all that they wanted to do was sneak into the older man's office and steal a suit of armour so that the male prankster was able to get a valuable gem that was stolen by his father years ago out of it; that was extremely normal, right?

"People like us will come in and take stuff." Sydney and Alfie answered his question simultaneously, sending an obvious look to their mutual best friend.

"True." Jerome reluctantly agreed, understanding that the older man probably left his office locked every time he left due to the reasons why they wanted him to leave it unlocked - so, rather than hoping for a miracle that the older man was going to leave his office unlocked for at least one time, the male prankster decided on a new plan, "That is why we have to think up a wild goose chase to get Sweet out and me in."

"You want a wild goose chase, eh?" Alfie repeated, thinking for a few seconds whilst his roommate released a heavy sigh and the blonde pranksters went back to looking at the statistics in the notebook - and then, brown eyes widened and a huge grin appeared on Alfie's lips as he literally sprung forward in his seat, announcing, "Got it covered."

Instantly, the pair of blondes turned to face their best friend inquisitively and rather surprised, with the male between the two quizzing curiously, "You have? What is it?"

"Don't you worry about it, buddy. I'll arrange everything - just sit back and prepare to be amazed." Alfie instructed them, doing a small rainbow with his hands as it was clear that he was extremely excited and enthused about his probably absurd idea.

"Good amazed or bad amazed?" Jerome warily asked, his eyebrows knitted together as he didn't particularly trust his roommate when it came to plans - considering that the boy didn't know whether to get his crush some flowers or an adoption certificate for a baby vulture, it was probably a good idea not to trust him with plans or any sort of decisions.

"Eh, amazed amazed." Alfie declared, quickly getting up from his chair and leaving the drama studio before they could quiz him about it in order to arrange whatever his plan was that was going to leave them 'amazed amazed' - they didn't have much hope.

"It's bad amazed, huh?" Sydney muttered, resting her head on the male prankster's shoulder and releasing a small sigh at her friend's antics as she spoke.

Whilst he threw the notebook that had all the statistics onto the table in front of them, the male prankster confirmed, "It's definitely bad amazed."

Oh, and bad amazed it was.

For a while, the blonde pairing had simply sat together (quite literally, as Sydney Anderson remained on the male's lap) and the two of them made hilarious jokes as they waited for their best friend to arrive with his plan, but they eventually got fed up of waiting as the boy took a lot more time than they had originally anticipated. That was what led up to the blonde pairing beginning to make their way towards the head teacher's office during a slot that (according to their statistics) he was meant to leave his office, with Jerome Clarke leading the way whilst the female prankster followed behind. For a few moments, they assumed that the office was empty due to the incessant ringing of a phone that came from inside, and they presumed it wasn't being answered due to the head teacher not being in there. Just as they were about to try to open the door and got within reach of it, the ringing stopped and the sound of their head teacher answering the call filled their ears.

"Great." Jerome sarcastically muttered, rolling his eyes at the entire situation - this was turning out to be so much harder than he had originally thought it was going to be.

However, Sydney's attention was taken away from the task at hand and was instead put towards their mutual friend who had been missing for a majority of the first half of the day, and now stood further down the corridor with a large, rounded object covered by fabric underneath his arm and was telling it to shush, causing the female prankster to point towards the boy as she mumbled towards her childhood best friend, "Uh, Jerome."

Confused, Jerome glanced towards his fellow blonde prankster only to notice that she was looking at something with a strange look, causing him to follow to where she was pointing at and lay his eyes upon the exact same thing that she had - now he understood why she had such a weirded-out look on her face, and he inquired, "What is that?"

Upon noticing that his two best friends had seen him, Alfie Lewis soon hastily beckoned the pair over towards him, causing their weirded-out looks to become even more intense before the female prankster decided that she really wanted to find out what the boy had, so she grabbed Jerome's hand and intertwined their fingers together before dragging him towards their mutual best friend, grin evident on his lips.

"Well, it took a bit of organising, but-." Alfie began, explaining why he had been missing for such a long time and had even missed a few classes - he had been getting together his plan that was apparently going to leave the two pranksters 'amazed amazed', and with how long he had taken, surely it had to actually leave that impression on them.

"Alfie, where have you been?" Jerome frustratedly inquired - the blonde-haired boy had been stressed ever since his roommate had left, and had soon given up on him actually giving them an idea that was going to help them sneak into the office.

The answer to the male prankster's question came from a loud honk.

Yeah, a loud honk.

Instantly, the blonde pranksters snapped their heads to face the source of the loud sound, their eyes wide with both horror and shock as they had been startled by the sudden noise. It wasn't particularly hard to guess what the source of the noise was - the large, rounded object (suspiciously shaped like a bird cage, Sydney had recognised after the sudden honk) that was covered by fabric, not allowing them to see what was inside, although they now had a small idea as to what it was. As the pair of blonde pranksters turned to one another and shared an extremely cautious look, their mutual friend simply chuckled to himself.

Oh, they were so doomed.

"Alfie, buddy, what have you got in there?" Sydney inquired, her words slow as she hoped that the assumption that she had was going to be completely and utterly wrong.

Apparently, Jerome also hoped that the assumption that they had was going to be wrong, as he quickly added to his childhood best friend's statement, practically pleading with his roommate, "Please, please don't tell us what we know you're going to tell us."

"You said you wanted a wild goose chase, so I got a wild goose." Alfie informed them gleefully, as though it was the best idea that he had ever thought of in his entire life, "Well, a caged one, but it's close enough, right?"

Warily, Jerome and Sydney (with the latter stepping onto her tip-toes) peeked through the top of the fabric to look inside of it, hoping that the boy wasn't actually being serious but soon having their hopes destroyed as they laid their eyes on a literal goose inside the cage that soon honked at tem, causing the two pranksters to instantly move away from the cage whilst the female prankster instantly facepalmed and murmured, "Oh, my gosh."

Meanwhile, Jerome was much more impressed than his female counterpart, whisper-shouting to his roommate, "You really have! Where did you get it?!"

"Alfie knows people." The boy declared.

"People who have geese?" Sydney quizzed, wondering how he had managed to find somebody who was willing to give a goose to somebody temporarily in such short notice.

"Precisely." Alfie nodded.

"But, Alfie, buddy, 'wild goose chase' - it's a figure of speech." Jerome explained to his roommate, knowing that when he had informed the boy about wanting a 'wild goose chase', he did not intend on actually having a wild goose run around the entire school.

"Yes, but that's what got me thinking - does it have to be?" Alfie inquired, still defending his absolutely absurd plan that was undoubtedly going to cause absolute chaos and probably get the trio of pranksters into immense trouble if they were caught.

"Yes!" Sydney cried out incredulously, being absolutely done with her friend as everyone knew that the term 'wild goose chase' was never meant to be used literally.

Throwing a small but somewhat irritated glare at the blonde-haired female prankster, the boy simply rolled his eyes and turned back to face his roommate in order to further prove his point that a literal wild goose chase was an absolutely amazing idea as he inquired, "What would happen if this thing started running around the school?"

"Mass panic." The two blonde pranksters answered simultaneously, not understanding where their mutual best friend was going or how he was going to prove that an actual wild goose chase was an amazing idea, and the male prankster went to continue with, "Pand-!"

Not allowing him to finish what he was saying, the goose loudly honked once more from inside the covered cage and cut off the boy's words, instantly forcing him to release an 'oh' out of surprise and shock as the sudden noise startled him quite a bit. However, Alfie didn't even bother to let the male prankster finish and continued to prove his point.

"Exactly!" Alfie cried out, trying to make them understand why his plan was incredibly smart as he quizzed knowingly, "And, who would come running?"

Oh.

Yeah, it all made sense now, and perhaps the boy was a genius - as the pair of blonde pranksters figured out exactly what the plan was, large grins spread across both of their faces whilst they gave the answer simultaneously, chuckling a little bit, "Mr Sweet."

"And with all the confusion, I doubt he'd even have time to lock his door." Alfie declared, a smile on his lips as the pair had finally figured out exactly what his plan was.

"Do you remember when I said that breaking into the library was, without a doubt, the stupidest plan you've ever had?" Sydney asked, remembering what she had said a few nights ago as she asked the question more specifically to her childhood best friend who soon nodded in return, allowing for the female prankster to continue as she revealed, "Well, this may top it."

"Are you still in?" Jerome quizzed.

"You're messing with Mr Sweet." Sydney pointed out, letting out a quite small, yet still audible and rather adorable, giggle as she announced, "Of course I'm in."

"And let the wild goose chase begin." The male prankster declared, causing the three of them to take a hold of the cage that held the goose (that had begun to honk continuously as they lifted its cage) and begin to move it to a decent spot to let the caged goose loose.

Soon enough, the caged goose was not caged for much longer and had began to flap its wings about whilst it made its way down the corridor, being ushered around by Alfie Lewis as everyone in the corridor had wide eyes at the sight of a literal goose making its way down the corridor - it wasn't exactly something that they saw everyday, despite how odd the school actually was. The entire situation was absolutely hilarious, and Sydney Anderson couldn't help but burst out laughing every time the goose let out a loud honk or approached an extremely petrified student - she had even taken her camera out of her bag and had taken a few photos of the entire situation, because there was absolutely no way that she was not going to photograph a literal wild goose chase.

And, it was safe to say that the wild goose chase had made everything within the school become absolute chaos within a matter of only seconds - people were screeching hysterically and running around trying to frantically escape the honking goose. Of course, the trio of pranksters had caused a lot of chaos within their time at the school - however, the wild goose chase had to be their wildest stunt yet.

"Alfie, you are actually a genius." Jerome Clarke declared, watching the entire ordeal occur whilst himself and his childhood best friend stood next to one another against a wall, witnessing everything become completely insane in front of their eyes.

"When he said we'd be 'amazed amazed', he really was not joking." Sydney Anderson muttered from beside him, snapping another photo of students running around aimlessly in an attempt to escape the boisterously honking goose; the female prankster was honestly surprised that the head teacher hadn't already come out due to the amount of noise there was right outside of his office - there were a lot of screams and quite a bit of honking.

As though her thoughts had been read by the older man (which was rather a creepy thought, considering that the female prankster typically thought about how much she hated his subject and many pranks to pull on him), Mr Sweet soon burst through the door from his office in order to figure out what all the commotion was, only to lay his eyes on it - a literal goose - and he pointed towards it as his eyes widened with pure horror, screeching, "That's a goose!"

"Oh, I wish I could record all of this." Sydney muttered, her words only just being audible through her hysterical laughter as she watched the horrified expression on her head teacher's face and hurriedly, yet subtly, snapped several photos of the hilarious sight.

"Be careful, Alfie! It'll bite!" Mr Sweet cried out, noticing how the boy seemed like he was attempting to catch the goose when he was actually just trying to rile it up more to cause more chaos that'd allow his two friends to rush into the office - soon enough, they saw their slim window of opportunity to sneak into the head teacher's office.

"Okay, no more time for pictures - we have to hurry." Jerome announced, causing the female prankster to hastily put her camera safely into her bag (the camera came before anything else - it was her baby) before the male prankster grabbed her hand, intertwining their fingers as they rushed behind their head teacher and into the office.

They had made it in, and now it was time to find the suit of armour and get the gem.

Thus, Sydney Anderson hastily closed the office door behind the pair, whilst Jerome Clarke threw his bag to the ground and quickly began to pull coats off the suit of armour that was in the corner of the room. After carefully placing her bag down by her childhood best friend's (she would have thrown it if she didn't have her camera inside), the female prankster soon joined the boy and aided him in taking off all the coats, and within a few seconds they had their eyes locked on the suit of armour, hoping that the gem was inside.

And, whilst they probably should have been focused on getting the gem out of the suit of armour, Sydney was a little bit distracted as she heard her head teacher yelling at the goose from outside the office, and she could have sworn that she heard the man instructing the poor goose to 'sit' as though it was a trained dog, causing her to laugh once more before she asked through her hysterical giggling, "Did he just tell a goose to sit, of all things? Really? I mean, does he think it's trained?"

"That doesn't matter." Jerome told her, having snapped out of his daze on the suit of armour as he began to rattle the arms of the suit of armour, hoping to hear the gem inside so that they were able to find it quicker and get it out of the suit as fast as possible, "Come on. Come on, where are you?"

"Save yourself, Alfie!" Mr Sweet screeched from outside.

Normally, Sydney Anderson would have burst out hysterically laughing and probably peeked out the office door to look at what was occurring, but there were more pressing matters that she had to deal with as her childhood best friend took the sword that the suit of armour was holding and carefully placed it on the ground, whilst the female prankster began to investigate one of the arms and the boy (after placing the sword on the ground) shook the leg that the sword had been near, hearing something rattle inside - the gem - causing him to mutter triumphantly, "Got you."

Knowing that they had to act quick, Sydney didn't hesitate in kneeling down beside the boy whilst the two of them began to quickly shake the leg in order to try to get it off or get the gem out - really, they probably should have thought about what  the statue was going to balance on if they took off an entire leg, but that didn't really cross their mind as they simply just wanted to get the gem and get out before they were caught.

"In the office, Alfie!" Mr Sweet shouted - well, it looked like they were merely seconds away from getting caught, which was something that they desperately didn't want.

So, Sydney and Jerome shared an alarmed look with one another, their eyes widened as their minds went frantic, wondering what they were supposed to do next and what the quickest route that'd mean they'd get the gem and be able to get out of the office was. Apparently, it was to shake the leg of the suit of armour even more frantically than they had done prior, and that was exactly what Jerome Clarke found himself doing.

Bad idea.

Why? Well, because the leg soon ended up being pulled off the suit of armour entirely, causing the male prankster to fall back towards the ground with the leg in his arms. Typically, Sydney's attention would have gone to the suit of armour to stabilise it first, but the sound of something clattering against the ground (other than Jerome) caught her attention and made her suspicious eyes turn to look towards the source of the sound - however, when she turned, she then noticed that the suit of armour was rocking and was a few seconds away from falling on both her and her childhood best friend, causing her eyes to widen with shock and for her to shoot up in order to try to stabilise it, whilst Jerome simply cried out numerous and repeated 'no's in hope that was going to save him. Either way, regardless of what each one of the pranksters did, it was too late.

The suit of armour, now in pieces, had fallen upon Jerome Clarke.

"Jerome!" Sydney worriedly cried out, quickly kneeling down beside him once more and hastily pushing the numerous pieces of the suit of armour off him and to the floor, before she grabbed his hand and pulled him back up into a sitting position, putting her hand on his cheek as she examined him for any injuries, "Are you okay? Did it hurt you?"

"I'm fine." Jerome assured her honestly.

Letting out a breath of air at his safety, the female prankster then turned to look at the numerous pieces of the suit of armour that was now broken and scattered everywhere across the office floor, glancing back to her childhood best friend cautiously as she inquired, "Was that supposed to happen?"

"Well, let's just say that's now how I planned it." Jerome answered, knowing that the suit of armour tipping over and falling atop of him so that it'd shatter into several pieces had never been his intention - he preferably wanted it to stay together, believe it or not.

"You had a plan?" Sydney asked, her eyebrow quirked up - she had not been made aware of any plans whatsoever, and she doubted that her friend had made one and had simply decided to rock into the office and hope for the best; the best did not happen.

"Not exactly."  Jerome responded, before he motioned towards the broken pieces of the suit of armour that surrounded them and instructed, "Let's sort this quickly."

"In the office, Alfie, in the office!" Mr Sweet's voice screeched from outside the door, making their eyes widen once more as they realised their doom was near.

"Remember what I said about being fine?" Jerome inquired, his voice wavering slightly due to the worry he felt due to them being on the verge of getting caught, and the female gave a small nod that urged him to go on, "I take it back - it's not fine!"

And that much was obvious as the handle on the door to the office began to spin, notifying them that someone was seconds away from opening it. Without a second thought, the pair of pranksters instantly and hastily threw themselves against the office door in hopes that'd keep whoever was on the other side out, sitting against it worriedly whilst they closed their eyes and hoped that Alfie Lewis was going to be able to stop their head teacher from opening the door to his office that they were currently in.

"Don't open, sir! Stop!"

▲▼▲

[23.08.2020]

NOTE: this chapter is now the longest in denouement thus far. this is highkey my favourite episodes, perhaps in the entire series but definitely in season two, so i decided to combine them for extra madness - that's probably why this chapter is 29k words, whoops.

i also referenced a few things from season one in this chapter, which you probably recognised! i referenced the itching powder prank that sydney and jerome did on alfie in season one, and i also referenced the 'live on the wild side a little' phrase from sydney and fabian's bike journey - it's sort of their inside little joke that they'll constantly reference throughout the book. i also referenced the time that sydney, jerome, and mara played chess with one another!

also perhaps it saying that sydney always tries new things with jerome and that they always work out well is a hint to smth idk what that could possibly mean at all

in the scene with sydney and jerome flirting on their way to the library, i just imagine alfie being ahead of them and the shot sometimes showing him whilst he's playfully rolling his eyes as he listens into their conversation but also having a huge grin on his lips because that's his otp flirting right in front of him. he'd also be mouthing 'kiss' repeatedly throughout that scene.

speaking of that scene, jerome in a black fit. if you follow me on twitter (my username is lilysbadchoices), you've probably heard about this a lot because it's all that i've tweeted about over the past few days because he looks HOT and i'm never getting over it.

oh yeah and i'm trying to keep mara and jerome's friendship there still, bc i want her to be a part of this whole plot and not just have sydney replace her.

what do you think about damian? is he a playboy and mara's too good to see it? has he actually changed? is everything just rumours?

when they're talking about mr sweet being too sweet to expel someone may be a hint to smth as well that u can probably guess but what do i know? i'm not the writer i swear

oh btw sydney and jerome realise they're in love soon. jerome's sort of beginning to realise now but denying it, he'll actually admit it soon.

anyways, a little life update/why i haven't been posting so much: i'm going to keep this brief because i'm not particularly in the mood to talk about it that much right now, but my dad has been getting rushed to hospital for the past few weeks now but has constantly been sent home and told to come back if his condition got worse. he went back to the hospital a few days ago for a scan, but ended up being admitted to hospital and has stayed there since - they don't really know what's wrong with him and have done a few scans and injections, but we're hoping for the best right now. i don't particularly trust the hospital (bad experiences there plus an unusually high death toll) that much, but he says he's okay. obviously due to covid, i haven't been able to see him much in person (i saw him once when we took his things up) but we've facetimed and texted. i'm also a little stressed due to college, but i'm trying my best to get through it.

thank you for your constant support and i love you all so much.