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"You know what's a really stuck-up name?"
Mara startles at the sound of my voice as I lean against the locker next to hers, casually smiling at her. "Oh, Ashley, you scared me," she remarks before looking at me confused. "What—what are you talking about?"
"Atticus," I answer my own question nonchalantly.
Her eyes widen and she closes her locker, inching closer to me. She whispers, "You know?"
"And Jerome knows," I confirm with a nod. "We saw you kissing. And we're both very surprised."
Mara sighs and concedes, "I know, I know, he's not really my type—"
"I'm not exactly sure what your type is," I comment. First Mick the Jock, now Atticus the Teenage Criminal? At least one of those made sense eventually. The other just...doesn't seem like it ever will. "Listen, Mara, everything I've heard about Atticus Monroe—I mean, you were there for the thing with the bird and the window, same as me. He was suspended for a week."
"I know, but he's changed, I swear. He's really sweet."
"Mara, I'm just worried about you," I tell her sincerely. "I don't like the things I've heard, despite his pretty face. You are Mara freaking Jaffray, who wouldn't kill a fly and deserves a boy who'll treat her right. I'm just worried Atticus isn't that boy."
"He has been treating me right, Ashley. Promise."
Well...maybe Atticus really is sweet to her. I mean, kind of hard to be anything but when it comes to Mara, but I do know that people are capable of change. Maybe even Atticus Monroe's capable of changing.
I sigh lightly and nod. "Okay. I believe you. But if he hurts you, I will be having words with him, and probably the rest of the house will be, too. Oh, speaking of the others, you are planning on telling them you're dating him, right, and soon? Because things get out."
Mara frowns. "What do you mean?"
"You kissed in a public place. Atticus likes to brag. They're gonna find out," I add in a sing-song tone with a tense smile, trying to lighten the mood. "Well, anyway, to sum up: I love you, Mara, and will hurt him if he hurts you."
"Thank you, I think," Mara replies with a genuine but a little confused smile. "And I'm happy to return the favor. If Jerome ever hurts you—well, he wouldn't, but still—I'll hurt him...with words, of course, because like they say, the pen's mightier than the sword."
"See, now this is friendship," I remark as I gesture between us. "Speaking of Jerome, I have some unfinished business to take care of, so see you in class." I walk away from her, down the hall to Jerome at his locker. I grab his arm. "Come on."
"Uh, where are you taking me?" Jerome questions, barely managing to shut his locker as I drag him away.
I quickly check to make sure the nearest classroom is empty of both students and teachers before pulling him into it. Before he can say anything, I resume our earlier kissing by pulling him down to me. Should have about five minutes before class begins, so that means at least two minutes free for us to do this. His hands grip my waist, stepping us backwards until I hit one of the desks.
But guess what? We don't even get twenty seconds, because the world seems to have it out for us and refuses to let us have more than twenty seconds to kiss. We have the absolute worst luck.
"Oh, I've been looking all over for you guys!"
"I'm gonna kill him," Jerome mumbles.
"Not if I do it first," I mutter.
Alfie comes into the classroom, like he hasn't noticed what we were doing, and takes a seat at the opposite table. Make this interruption number twelve. "Do you think I hold Amber back?"
Jerome replies, "It wasn't at the forefront of my mind."
"I mean, am I stopping her from realizing her true potential? Is she better off without me?"
My eyebrows furrow and, ignoring the look Jerome gives me, I question, "What are you talking about? What's up with you?"
Alfie continues, "See, on the other hand, what's better than dating a guy who can create animal-shaped food with his mouth?"
Okay, this is way weird, even for Alfie. What's going on with him? I look back to Jerome, who has his palm on his forehead. "What'd you do to him?"
"I didn't do anything," Jerome says. "He did this to himself."
Not that that clears things up any. I turn back to Alfie with a sigh. "Alfie, as much as we would love to hear you wonder if your relationship is worth it, and I really do want to know where that's come from, we're sort of doing a thing in our relationship, so...could it wait 'til lunch?"
"What?" Alfie asks, and then the bell rings. He looks up, and then around the classroom we're in. "You guys know you're in the wrong classroom, right?"
"So are you," Jerome points out plainly. Alfie laughs lightly, and then suddenly his face falls and he scrambles up from the desk and runs out of the room before you can say 'interruption.' "So that's, what, the fifteenth time he's interrupted us since we started going out?"
"Thereabout, probably," I say. Alfie seems to hold the record for most interruptions among everyone in Anubis House. "I'm starting to think he's got a sixth sense."
—
There's an empty seat beside KT in history class, so I decide to take it and give her smile. KT's tapping her pencil against the table thoughtfully and suddenly stops and turns to me as I sit down, whispering, "Hey, uh...what do you know about getting into Victor's office?"
I look at her confused before realizing. "God, what did you and Eddie do?"
"Victor confiscated my key last night," KT informs me in a lowered voice. Guess this explains the confiscation question she asked Joy. "Eddie and I were trying to figure out what it unlocks, and we tried Victor's office, but he caught us and took it. Eddie said you might know how to get in there to get it without Victor knowing."
So I left KT and Eddie alone, and they managed to accidentally let Victor know about the key. Sort of a rookie move. "I mean...I know things, but—"
Joy unwittingly interrupts the serious conversation from the table beside us, pulling a sheet of paper out of her binder as she says, "Look, I have been meaning to show you this." She leans over with the paper so KT can see it. "I've gone back three generations on my mum's side."
"I thought Miss Denby said the family tree thing was scrapped," I remark.
With a smirk, she responds, "She doesn't need to know I carried on with it, does she?"
Patricia snipes again, "Better leave a big space on KT's for the children her and Eddie are going to have. Not that it means anything to me."
I raise an eyebrow at her, replying dryly, "Really?"
"Patricia, I've explained this," KT says politely. "I've got a lot of stuff going on in my life and none of them is Eddie."
"And the other day," Joy adds, "you thought it was Nina he was into."
"Like I said, I couldn't care less," Patricia insists.
Again, I reply dryly, "Really?"
Miss Denby puts a stop to all that just by simply walking in and greeting, "Hello, everyone. Hope we're all in the mood for the 1500s." At the various groans throughout the class (mine among them), she adds, "I'm feeling the love. Willow, can you give these out, please?"
Willow happily takes the stack of papers Denby hands to her and eagerly gets to passing them out. She stops at the space between my and KT's table and Joy and Patricia's. "Oh, family tree, you drew a tree!"
Joy sternly whispers her name with wide eyes. KT quickly folds up the Mercer family tree and hides it from Denby's sight as she tells our teacher, who is looking at them inquisitively and with crossed arms, "No family trees here, Miss."
"Not even a family twig," Joy adds innocently.
"Good, because Mr. Sweet said we're not allowed to do them," Denby replies. "So, if there were one, I'd expect it to be got rid of before I saw it, wouldn't I?" Her tone, knowing but not condescending, has me looking at her surprised and KT and Joy to smile.
"Don't worry, guys," KT tells us. "For a teacher, she's actually cool."
—
When class ends, Fabian's the only one who remains seated even while everyone else, including Miss Denby, leaves. I'm about to leave myself when I see him still at his desk, entirely focused on something. "Fabian. Bell just rang."
"Hm?" Fabian says, glancing up at me. I walk over to his desk to see what he's working on. It looks like an aged parchment with symbols—no, those are hieroglyphs—on it. "Oh, Ashley."
"What's that?"
"This?" Fabian asks, sighing as he looks between the parchment and his notebook, where he's got things jotted down. Someone's been busy. "It's—that code Alfie offered me this morning. I'm looking at it now, and I think I've almost got it. Here, look at this."
He hands me it and then turns it over in my hands so I can see the words written in English on the back, much easier for me to read immediately than the hieroglyphs. The Keeper, the Seeker, and the Enabler. I read them out loud with a frown. "What does this mean? Where did Alfie get this?"
"He didn't say, but it's really very interesting," Fabian tells me, speaking quickly like he always does whenever he gets really excited about something Sibuna-y. It's nice to hear again. "Look—look at this one. This hieroglyph, here, it means Egypt."
"Okay, understandable, I guess, since they're Egyptian hieroglyphs."
"And this one, I've been trying to figure it out." He points at another glyph. "It's two combined, do you see?"
"Yeah, I see," I tell him. I tilt my head at the symbol, quietly humming. "Well, this one means 'sun.'" He raises an eyebrow at me. I grin and nod, adding, "I told you I had a lot of hieroglyph stories to tell you. I found an online class and took it over the summer. You're not the only one who can read hieroglyphs anymore. And, this second one...dark? Dark sun? Does that make sense?"
"Dark sun?" Fabian repeats, snatching the parchment back. He looks at it, then jots down the two words. He gathers his things and scrambles up. "Come on, we've got to find Alfie and Amber." The couple are in the lounge, and Amber's frantically searching for something. Fabian greets them, unfolding the parchment, "We've got it, we've got it."
"Not my phone," Amber strangely enough tells the others in the room, who look like they're searching as well. "Keep looking."
I glance at her oddly but drop it as Fabian continues, "Well, actually, Ashley got it. Okay, what do you think that symbol means?" He points at the one we—read: it was me!—just translated.
"Wild guess," replies Alfie, "there's a colony of giant talking wildebeests on the moon."
I snort at that. Fabian says, "Wha—no. No, it means 'dark sun.' Ashley figured it out."
"I like my answer better."
"Dark sun?" Amber repeats. "What does that mean?"
Fabian sighs. "I don't know."
"But you want to find out, am I right?" Alfie asks. "Both of you?"
Amber adds, "Does this mean you're in, Fabian? And you as well, Ashley?"
Well, whatever Fabian's choice is, I know for a fact that I want to be a part of whatever this is. I should probably help KT get her key back from Victor and give her and Eddie some tips on how not to make such a rookie mistake next time first, but I'm sure they can...probably handle that on their own while I'm doing this. I mean, I'll help them if they ask but this—suspicious hieroglyphs that somehow fell into Alfie's hands—this is way more my thing. And, I mean, I did just help translate them and given us a confusing breakthrough.
Mystery of the week: figure out what the rest of the hieroglyphs mean, then figure out what the Keeper, the Seeker, and the Enabler are.
As Fabian starts to deny his clear involvement into our hieroglyphic foray, Victor's voice suddenly says from behind us, "You!" Fabian swiftly hides the parchment in his blazer pocket as the four of us spin around. What's Victor doing here? "You will stay here. Mr. Sweet will round up the rest of the Anubis residents. Nobody will leave until I have my parcel. And when I find out who has taken it, they will be removed from this school."