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So that's how the Anubis House residents find ourselves lined up in the hallway, the boys on one side and the girls on the other. And for some reason Willow Jenks is here, too, for reasons entirely unknown to me. She must have snuck in when we weren't looking. For the record, just because it bears repeating: she is not and likely will never be an Anubis student.
"I am missing a parcel," Victor informs as he walks down the middle of the hallway. Oh, great, he's lost taxidermy tools or something. What, is he accusing us of stealing it?! Like we have any use for any parcel of Victor's, especially if it's got taxidermy tools in it. "It was addressed to me and delivered to Anubis House."
"We don't know where your precious delivery is," Joy states with an eye-roll to go along with it.
"Then we shall have something of a wait."
Willow gasps from where she's standing beside Amber, meaning she's on the other side of me. "Cool! I love hanging with these guys."
"But you are not a resident of Anubis House," Sweet points out the obvious as he points his finger at her.
Willow smiles. "I know. I just love the whole Anubis vibe." I raise an eyebrow, leaning forward to look at her. I know what she meant, but putting it like that makes her sound like she's referring to the god himself rather than the house, and I know better than most how not-fun the 'Anubis vibe' is. "We never have fun stuff like this at our house."
"What part of this do you consider fun?" I question Willow incredulously.
"Oh, all of it," Willow replies with a grin.
She thinks all of it's fun? Personally I like to call this 'What Has Sibuna Done Now?' or WHSDN? for short, because usually when all of the Anubis House residents are forced into the same room by the adults, it's because of something Sibuna did. Except I'm pretty sure we didn't do anything this time considering there's been no reformation of Sibuna, so.
"Out," Victor orders bluntly of her.
Willow pouts and tilts her head. "Our odd-jobman isn't funny like you."
"Get out!" Victor booms, and this causes her to jump and quickly grab her bag from the ground. "I am not an odd-jobman!" Willow scurries off and out of our sight. Despite how much it sucks to be yelled at by Victor and how she's not used to it like the rest of, I and the others laugh lightly. Victor, an odd-jobman? "I am a domestic maintenance manager."
Our laughter gets cut off when he turns around and gives all of us a sharp glare. As Victor starts walking down the hallway again, a phone chiming starts to ring out. It's not from anyone on my side of the hall and seems like it's coming from the boys' side, and judging by the look on his face (like he's just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar) it's Alfie who's responsible for the ringing phone—which oddly doesn't sound like his phone at all.
"Is that my phone?" Amber asks.
"Oh, yeah, yeah," Alfie says, nervously pulling her phone from his pocket. "Must have picked it up."
But Victor takes the phone from him. "I'll take that."
"Do you think maybe we could get this over and done with?" Jerome questions.
"You may leave as soon as I have my property," Victor answers, facing us to continue his useless interrogation. "So, who has it? Mm?"
You know, it wouldn't kill him if he were to be just a little more specific about this missing parcel of his. I roll my eyes, noticing Amber mouthing something to Fabian. It's so subtle I hardly catch and am confused—until I realize that they know about this parcel. Oh, my God, the code! That's it! That's what Victor's looking for!
Unfortunately for them, and for the rest of Sibuna, Victor notices that as well. He stands in front of Fabian and interrogates, "You, boy, have you seen my parcel?"
"No," Fabian denies.
"Give me your bag," Victor orders. Fabian gives it a hesitant glance. "Give." Victor forcibly takes the bag from him and begins to search it. "Mr. Sweet, please search his locker."
With both men distracted, I nudge Amber and mouth to her, 'Alfie has the parcel?' Amber nods and mouths back, 'It's the bracelet.' That clunky, Egyptian-looking, and definitely cursed bracelet Alfie claimed to have gotten for her. He stole it from Victor?! Oh, this is bad.
Fabian tells him, "You're not gonna find your parcel in my bag."
"Do not speak back to me," Victor snaps. "I had thought your behavior would improve now that your American girlfriend has gone, but evidently not. She was a very bad influence on you, on all of you."
What a load of garbage, 'bad influence.' Because I knew Nina, I'm who I am today. I know who my family is. I know where my home is. I know who my home is. None of that would have happened without Nina Martin. She changed me, she changed all of us, simply by coming to this school and befriending an elderly Sarah Frobisher-Smythe. She was the original Sibuna, she was the one who brought us all together. There are too many things that wouldn't have happened with Nina, too many to list. Bad influence—how dare he?
"I'm sure she would be very proud of your pathetic defiance."
"Yeah, I'm sure she would," Fabian retorts.
Victor walks back over to him, staring him down. Suddenly Eddie steps into the middle of the hallway, declaring, "I have your package." Wait, what? KT says his name harshly, Sweet says it questionably, and I say it confused. Amber elbows me and I immediately shut my mouth again. "It's in my room. I've had it the whole time."
"Then go to your room and get it," Victor sneers. What's Eddie playing at here? "And we shall discuss your punishment later in my office."
"Whatever you say, Vic."
—
After that, we dispersed now that Victor had an answer (if not the answer) to where his missing parcel is. Right now Fabian and I are sitting across from each other in the lounge in silence. Everything Victor said about Nina—the most ridiculous things I've ever heard! Calling her a bad influence.
"I can't believe I'm phone-less," Amber says as she and Alfie come in. "How am I going to cope?"
"Books," I suggest with a smile.
Amber mocks me, sitting beside me. Alfie offers her his phone, "Oh, you can have mine."
"Oh, that's so sweet," Amber says, taking the phone. Alfie might regret that, knowing her penchant for texting. "Although I guess it is your fault it got taken off me in the first place."
Alfie looks between Fabian and me, remarking, "I don't get why Eddie would say he had Victor's parcel."
I shrug in response, not understanding that myself. Fabian agrees, "Yeah, and where does Victor get off saying that stuff about Nina? 'A bad influence'—she's not a bad influence."
"But she is definitely an influence," I add. "Just a good one."
Amber smiles widely. "You're both in, aren't you?"
"Of course I'm in, thanks to him," Fabian states with a nod to Alfie.
"There's not a world where I wouldn't be in," I comment with a grin. Seems we're getting Sibuna back together!
Amber squeals happily. "Yes, this is gonna be so cool!"
I laugh at her happiness as Alfie asks her, "Yeah, does stuff like this happen in fashion school? I don't think so."
"Alfie, I'm not going to fashion school."
Before either half of the conversation, Sibuna or fashion school, can go any further, Patricia and Joy come in to join us. Patricia says, "Business as usual with Victor this time, then?"
"I have to have it out with him," Amber states matter-of-factly. "He has to understand I'm lost without my phone."
"And Eddie had Victor's package?" Joy questions. I shrug in response, knowing full well the real culprits are sitting right next to me, and not understanding why Eddie would say that. Seriously, why would he—no, wait, KT's key. Of course. Seems Eddie and KT are going rogue on me. Kind of rude they didn't tell me. "What is that about?"
Amber says, "I think it's time we told you guys what's actually going on."
—
So we took turns explaining the truth of what's actually going on. Alfie explained how when Amber unwrapped the parcel, believing it to be one of her presents instead of something belonging to Victor, he claimed he'd gotten the bracelet inside for her because he'd forgotten. When he got to the code part of the mystery, that's when Fabian and I took over explaining what we managed to translate, even though 'dark sun' doesn't make much sense. Amber pointed out how she successfully got Fabian to agree to this (singling him out because of his initial reluctance). So now Patricia and Joy know everything and are as involved as we are, which is pretty cool, honestly.
Right now we're in Sweet's biology class and we're all sat at a table together while he lectures, but I don't really think any of us are focused on science right now. Joy's saying, "I can't concentrate. I'm too excited."
"Call me boring," Patricia replies, "but I'd like maybe one term without a life-threatening situation."
"Agreed," I add with a heavy sigh. Not that I didn't see this coming from a mile away, but still. "I think I'd even take just a week at this point. We've only been back, like, two days. Although you have to admit—life-threatening situations seem kind of on-brand for this house."
"Yeah, I think I've gotten myself into one of those already," Alfie mumbles.
I look at him confused, wondering what's been going on with him today, while Joy says to Fabian, "Hey, I'd love to help you with the hieroglyphics."
"Yeah?" he says. "Yeah, yeah, I'd like that." Joy beams and Fabian looks my way instead. "Ashley, you already figured one out. Do you want to help with the rest? Three heads are better than two."
"Uh, yeah, totally," I agree, briefly noticing Joy's grin fall slightly. "Told you, I took that online class for this exact reason. You, me, Joy—it'll be fun."
Joy's grin picks back up as quickly as it had disappeared. "Great! I love it when things go totally Sibuna."
"No, Joy, like I said," Fabian responds, "there's no Sibuna without Nina."
Oh. This again. I think I'll let him say it one more time before pointing out that Sibuna's a group effort, not just one person, even if Nina was our leader. It's all of us. Our permanent members—Fabian, Amber, Alfie, Patricia, and myself—and our temps—Joy and Jerome. Although like I've said before, I do consider Joy an official, permanent Sibuna rather than just a temp. All we need is to officially get Sibuna back together and get her in the woods to initiate her in and that would be that.
I sigh, sharing a brief glance with her, as Eddie and KT finally join class, way after the bell rung. Where did KT even go after Eddie claimed to have had the parcel? To the house with him or something? Eddie explains their lateness, "Sorry, all sorted, just a misunderstanding."
"Good, good," Sweet says. "Well, hurry up, take your seats. As I was saying..."
Patricia watches KT and Eddie warily as they sit down at a table together. Joy and I share another look. I assure her, "Patricia, there's nothing going on with Eddie and KT. There's no reason to be jealous."
"I'm not jealous," Patricia claims. Joy scoffs at that, but acts innocent when Patricia glares. "I just think there's something fishy about KT. Don't you?"
"Uh, no."
—
I put in the combination to my locker and open it up, putting away my stuff and grabbing what I need for next close. After doing that I close the door, and jump when I notice Jerome's leaning on the locker next to mine. "You scared me. How did you not make a sound?"
"Years of practice," Jerome replies, giving me a short kiss. "So, I was thinking—movie date tonight?"
"Sounds fun," I agree, and he grins. Too widely for him not to have ulterior motives. I narrow my eyes at him. "This is a trick. You're gonna put on some horror film, aren't you?"
"Of course not," he says, clearly feigning offense. I look at him doubtfully. "Why would you think I'd put on a horror film?"
"'Cause you want an excuse to hold me, which is actually 'cause you get scared and want someone to hold you. I know all your tricks, Jerome Clarke, and you've already pulled this on me once. You were a lot more subtle that time, too."
"I don't get scared," Jerome claims, putting his arm around me as we start to walk. I laugh loudly. "But I will admit to wanting an excuse to hold you."
"You know you don't need to put on a horror film to do that, right?" I question.
"Yeah. So, tonight in my room? Say, 7:30?"
Before I can agree to the time and place of our movie date tonight, Alfie pops up out of nowhere and sets his hands on our shoulders, pulling us to a stop in the middle of the hall. "I think I've done something really bad."
"Interruption number thirteen," I remark with a glance to Jerome.
"Number sixteen," Jerome corrects before looking at him. "I'm sure it can't be that bad, Alfie. It can wait two minutes—"
Alfie interrupts, "No, no, this won't keep. I've really messed things up for Amber. If I tell her, she might hate me."
"I might hate you."
You know, maybe watching a film in the same room Jerome shares with Alfie, who holds the world record for interrupting us, isn't such a smart idea. Especially since Alfie's having what sounds like some really dramatic Amber problems and has apparently decided we're the best ones to help him.
I look over at Jerome again. "Maybe my room instead?"