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The house wasn't safe. And our lunch break was nearly over anyway, so immediately, Eddie and I agreed to find another empty classroom to sort this all out in. As the six of us pile inside, I close the door, swallowing. I'm not liking the fact that one of us has betrayed Sibuna.
"But it can't be one of us," Patricia insists, like she has been the entire walk over. "We're the good guys, remember. Are you absolutely—"
"Sure?" Eddie finishes as he glances at me. "Yes. My visions, what she hears, they've... never been wrong before."
"We're sure," I state certainly, yet nervously. Frobisher's voice told Eddie that there were two vipers in our nest—and one of them is me. He still thinks I'm going to help him. Eddie hasn't mentioned it yet, but he will. I won't go to Team Evil, never.
"I don't believe it," Fabian says, his eyes and voice hurt. "I trust all of you with my life. I have trusted all of you with my life before."
"Yeah, but if one of you," KT says, and I take note of her phrasing here, "has gone rogue, you could sabotage everything that we do."
"You?" Alfie quotes. "It could be you."
"Yeah, but isn't."
"Well, it isn't me!" Alfie says. "Team Evil would want someone smart or super grouchy."
"Hey!" Fabian comments.
Eddie cuts in, "Look, whoever it is, you'll have to make a mistake sometime."
"Well, in the meantime," Patricia says, "how can we trust each other?"
A tense silence follows. I look at Eddie, taking a deep breath, and finally, I give the answer. "We can't."
—
The tension between us is too much to bear. That's why, for the rest of the day, we wind up splitting up. I stuck by Eddie the whole day, sitting next to him in every class we had. Alfie was by Jerome, Fabian was by Mara, Patricia by Joy, and KT by Willow. Even the others could tell something was wrong, but no one asked.
I don't like not being able to trust them. Especially considering the only person I can absolutely, unequivocally trust didn't destroy the phonograph is Eddie. I really did not want to be at the point where the only person in Anubis House I can trust is him.
"Have you gotten any of those weird feelings?" Eddie asks me in a whisper at my locker, keeping his voice low so none of the others hear. "Like, about anyone in Sibuna?"
"I..." I have to take another deep breath, one of many. "I've been getting some since last night. I thought it might have been Patricia but now I'm worried it's KT."
"What about Fabian or Alfie?"
"Not about them. I think them, we can trust."
"But Patricia and KT..."
"Look, Eddie, I can't be sure. It's just a gut feeling and in the past, I'm not exactly sure my gut has had an extraordinary track record, all right? If it did, I wouldn't be the way I am."
Eddie sighs, glancing at the others. "All right. So you can't be sure who it's about. But it's about one of them. What did Jerome say earlier? Why did he have Lily's diary?" So I fill him in on the conversations earlier, from how my boyfriend stole the diary this morning to him finding the hieroglyphics Lily dreamed of the same year Frobisher was cursed. "And Fabian knows about the hieroglyphics?"
"Yeah, he took a picture."
"We have to get him to delete that. Until we know who we can trust, you and me have to translate those on our own."
I nod reluctantly. "Yeah, I'll talk to him. Or you're his roommate, you can. I'm surprised you aren't suspecting Jerome of anything."
Eddie shrugs. "No, he wasn't in the vision. And he doesn't even know we got into the secret room. You can still trust him. Are you going to tell him anything else?"
"Definitely not," I state. "We have a traitor and someone tried to kill us. Besides, he might be a little busy going forward. He texted me at lunch, he managed to talk Joy and Mara into letting him direct the play. So I don't think he'll be asking about what we're doing. He's out of it."
"Good. Frobisher might have already turned one of us, we don't need one of our temps going to the dark side either."
"I'm glad you finally realized Joy and Jerome are temps and that sometimes they help."
"More like Joy helps and Jerome meddles."
"Fair enough."
—
After school ended, I changed out of my uniform into a pair of jeans and a yellow blouse as quickly as I could, eager not to spend a lot of time in the same room as Patricia. This entire thing is insane. How could the adults have gotten one of us? We've tried to make sure we're never alone—and, I just realized, done a terrible job at it.
Buddy system. We gotta find a way to implement a buddy system and make it work when this whole thing is over. But, you know, first we gotta figure out how to end this.
Eddie sits beside me on the couch, unintentionally causing me to screw up the sketch I'm drawing. I'm procrastinating starting on translating the hieroglyphics, scared of what Lily saw in her dream. But what if there's something relevant to stopping Frobisher and Ammit? I don't know. I just know it's gonna extremely hard translating it without Fabian's help, and Eddie's not gonna be any help at all. Maybe I can ask Joy.
"I got Fabian to delete the photo," Eddie informs me, lowering his voice. "I made sure. He wasn't happy about it but I think he gets we gotta be careful."
I nod, quietly sighing. "This sucks. I feel like I can't breathe."
"We're going to figure out who it is and then we can work on it."
"Speaking of the photo," I say, "uh... I was thinking about asking Joy to help me translate it. She's not involved with Sibuna in any way currently, I can just tell her I found these pages stuck together in the diary and wanted to see what it says."
"And if she asks why you're not asking Fabian?"
"I don't know, use the Sisterhood as an excuse."
"What?"
I don't give him an answer about it, instead directing my attention to Mara, who's trying to get my attention. While I say, "Yeah, Mara?" KT comes in and hesitantly takes a seat.
"We," Mara motions to Joy and Jerome, who are setting up chairs behind the couch, "were wondering if you would want to do make-up and lighting and sound for the play once we get a clear view of it. You know, a one-woman-crew, like with that play Nina and Amber wrote."
Sounds good to me. Everyone has to be involved somehow, and this is much better than being on stage. I give her a thumbs-up. "I'm in. I had a lot of fun then. Actually had me thinking about a Broadway make-up career for about ten seconds."
"West End's closer," Joy points out as Fabian sits in the chair near us and Patricia beside me. "Oh, you know what show has great make-up that you could probably do one day? Phantom of the Opera."
"Right, yeah, I saw that movie."
"I prefer the stage show."
"Right, if we're done talking about Lon Chaney," Jerome remarks pointedly, earning a glare from Joy and a raised eyebrow from me (he's just trying to annoy us, he definitely knows that we're not talking about the silent movie from almost a century ago), "I thought we were doing something here."
Mara clears her throat and nods, getting down to business. "Attention, everyone. We will now be doing auditions for the male lead."
Willow squeals and says to Alfie, "I hope you don't forget me when you're famous."
Alfie responds, "Oh, don't worry."
"Just in case you didn't get the memo," Mara says, "it's obligatory." Obviously she's now talking to the other boys, neither of who are jumping up from their chairs. "Unless you want to flunk drama." Eddie and Fabian reluctantly stand. "That's more like it. Who's up first?"
"Oh, me!" Alfie exclaims, taking advantage of the fourth and empty seat they set up. He's awfully excited for someone who was one half of a camel for our previous play.
And here to ruin everything once again is Victor, which Jerome points out. "Ah, Victor, no, no, no, no, no. Students only. But don't give up on your dream."
"Babe," I warn, making a cut-it-out gesture with my hands.
Victor's eyes are narrowed again, kind of like when he came in here that day and set his sights on Eddie, except now he's got his sights on Jerome. I sit up straight, watching carefully as Eddie shoots out his hand to stop me from standing.
"A very large," Victor says finally, looking away from Jerome, "very expensive chocolate cake has been stolen." Oh. Alfie... Alfie! Wait, why does Victor care so much about a chocolate cake? "Yes, stolen! Would anyone care to confess?" No one says anything. I'm confused—it's not like Victor would have had any personal attachment to this cake. "No. Just as I thought. Very well. You will all stay here whilst I conduct a room search."
A room search. The phonograph. The waxwork!
I jump up from the couch, following Fabian and Eddie out as Mara shouts at us, all of Sibuna, that this is unprofessional. I all but push Fabian into his room as the six of us crowd around the mannequin which is still sitting on the bed like an actual human. Victor went upstairs first to search, which gives us some time.
"What do we do?" I ask nervously, my eyes shooting from one to another to another.
"Try under the bed!" KT suggests. I give her a wide-eyed look, shaking my head. "What?" I mock her quietly, but it's the only plan we currently have as everyone but KT and Fabian helps to lift the waxwork off the bed. No, we can't put it under, that's the first place Victor would look.
"Nothing, just—" Fabian says. "You came up with that idea pretty quick."
"Meaning?"
"That you seem good at hiding stuff."
"Which is just what someone who really is hiding stuff would say to hide their own guilt, Fabian."
I snap my head up, glaring at the pair. "Stop it! Now is not the time! You both need to stop and help, because we're all screwed if Victor finds this!"
"Window!" Alfie suggests.
"If we saw him in half," Patricia says, "which just seems—" As Eddie tries to turn the direction we're going, he knocks stuff off. "Someone who's not evil."
"Oh, okay, wait," Alfie says again, "put him on the bed. We can use him as a novelty coat stand." Alfie throws his jacket onto the waxwork's head.
"It's like magic," Eddie says sarcastically.
"Okay, maybe we can stick him in a hall closet for right now," I remark. "Get him back when no one's looking. Alfie, make sure Victor's still upstairs." Alfie nods and leaves the room.
"What about the wardrobes?" Eddie says, earning a dumbfounded look from the rest of us. "Right. First place he'd look."
Alfie runs back in. "The black crow has landed. I repeat, the black crow has landed!"
"If Victor's coming, just say 'Victor's coming.'"
"Victor is coming!"
The door opens, but it's not Victor. As we all scramble to stand in front of the waxwork, my eyes widen when I see it's Mara. Oh, this is even worse. Which, of course, is debatable.
"Unless you guys," she says, seemingly unaware we're acting super suspicious, "come and audition right now, I'll have to give the part to Victor."
"No, no, no," Alfie speaks, "I'm ready for my close-up."
"Wait, wait, Alfie," Eddie says as he begins to follow Mara out for his audition. "I have an idea."
"What?"
Eddie explains his plan—apparently, when he and Alfie went to go get the waxwork from the secret room, they ran into Mara, Joy, Jerome, and Willow and lied and said it was a prop for the play they knew nothing about. So, we should go with that idea. KT, Fabian, Patricia, and I left the room so Eddie and Alfie could make the waxwork look nothing like Frobisher, waiting anxiously for them to come.
And then Eddie carries the waxwork into the living room, which is now wearing a green and white striped scarf, a straw hat, and a zombie mask. Trudy laughs as Sibuna watches carefully, and I can tell, the writers and the director are just plain confused.
"Hi, boys and girls," Alfie begins his audition, "I'd like to introduce you to my friend The Amazing Archie."
Trudy's in stitches. "Alfie... that's brilliant. That is so good."
Alfie continues. "What's that, Archie? You want to tell the people how talented I am at playing heroes?" Yeah, he's not going to get this role, evident by the three choosing who gets cast writing on their clipboards at the same time. "Wait, no, no, I can do more. Like impressions! I can do impressions. I can do Victor." Alfie clears his throat and lowers his voice a few octaves. "It's ten o'clock, and I want to hear—"
"—exactly why you stole that cake, Mr. Lewis," Victor himself finishes, coming into the room.
"Um, cake," Alfie says. "Um," and now he's speaking through Archie/Frobisher-waxwork, "have you seen any cake, boys and girls?"
Victor sarcastically laughs. "How very amusing. I know you took it, boy."
"So you found evidence in Alfie's room?" Trudy asks.
"No, I don't need evidence. The gluttony of Mr. Lewis is well-known to all. You will serve a detention with Miss Denby."
Trudy comes out of the kitchen, confronting Victor head-on. "You could hardly punish him without proof. Besides which, I just witnessed him wolf down four and a half helpings of lasagna. Does that sound like a boy who just ate a giant cake?"
That's it, I'm gonna embroider a pillow that reads Thank God for Trudy. Honestly, this woman is the best person I have ever known. One of these days, I swear I'm gonna accidentally call her Mum.
As the rest of the house agrees that it doesn't sound like it at all, Victor gives up on pinning the crime on Alfie (which Alfie did commit, but Victor has no proof). Victor lets him know that he's watching him before he leaves.
Alfie lets out a relieved sigh. "Thanks, Trudy. Now, where was I?"
"Next," Mara states. Alfie frowns and picks up the waxwork. "Fabian?" Alfie moves from the audition chair as Mara gets out of her own chair to convince Fabian to come audition. "Fabian! Fabian Rutter, come on." Mara brings Fabian to the front, an extremely nervous and protesting Fabian, I should add. Joy's gonna be his audition partner. "Okay, so you're two strangers. It's a cold, stormy night. And you find yourself drawn together." Mara pushes Fabian and Joy together and they awkwardly step away. "Aaaandd... action."
"Wait, I thought I was the director," Jerome says.
I lean forward and tell him, "Let her work, babe. She did write the cliché cold, stormy night."
Mara looks over at me, but doesn't say anything to me. Instead, she repeats, "Action."
I have to hold back a chuckle as Jerome mumbles to me what he's even doing here, and Fabian begins his audition. Well... bit of a stretch, the word audition. He's horrible at being fake-freezing-cold, which is surprising considering he was so good playing the character pseudo-inspired by Victor in Nina an Amber's play.
"It's cold and stormy outside, isn't it?" Fabian improvises horribly.
"Yes," Joy responds.
"Y-y-y-you seem nice."
"Oh, cut!" Mara calls. "You're more wooden than Alfie's dummy."
"To be fair, improvisation is not Anubis House's strong suit, Mara," I say. "I mean, I once accidentally told Vera we were going to a zombie convention."
"Who's Vera?" KT asks.
"Our housemother last year," Joy answers. "Trudy left for a time to work at this Egyptian exhibition the school hosted, and we got her. She nearly got Mara expelled because Mara reported on her lying to get the job. Needless to say, we didn't like her."
"Hence the zombie convention," Alfie says. Actually, it was when Vera was, like, possessed or something and when she snapped out of it she asked us why we were standing in front of the attic door, and we all improvised horribly.
Mara sighs deeply, pulling Joy to the side. I guess they're out of luck for male leads now, considering Eddie didn't audition because he and Patricia were talking in the hallway. I walk over to them, setting a hand on each of their shoulders. "You guys know you don't need a male lead, right?"
Mara looks at me. "What are you talking about? Of course we do. It's a love story."
"Yeah, well, guys aren't always involved in love stories," I point out. "Change James to Jamie, you've still got a pretty good love story. Or you could make it a sisterhood story. Or a love story with two girls. Basically, you don't need a guy."
"It could be a good idea," Joy points out. "Except not Jamie. For some reason, Atticus always called me that and not my actual name."
"I know, right?" I agree. "He called me Amber once. Amber."
Mara looks down at her script. "No guys. Joy, maybe we should rewrite this with that in mind. But maybe first we should audition Eddie since he didn't get a chance."
"Oh, I'm not gonna stop you," I say, pulling out my phone. "I need new blackmail material anyway. Him crashing his dad's car over holiday and getting us arrested is nearing its expiration date."
"Eddie crashed his dad's car and got you arrested?"
"Yeah, wasn't fun. I started writing my will because he doesn't know how to drive on the right side of the road which is the left side, not the right side."
Mara's eyebrows raise and she looks over to Eddie. "Eddie, you have to audition. So, come on."
—
Eddie's audition was, as expected, horrible. He wasn't into it at all and I got the feeling that neither Joy or Mara wanted him to be the lead of their play, so they were quick to usher him away even quicker than Fabian and they immediately left to begin rewrites. Shortly after that, Jerome went to his room grumbling about how he wanted to be the one to say action and cut and that it was his right as director. That left nearly everyone in Sibuna, plus Willow. Fabian and Patricia are missing in action.
But they're not missing for long, because while Willow was reassuring Alfie that his audition was good and hilarious, Fabian came to get us. He looked upset, and that led to where we are now, everyone but him in our Sibuna room, lined up as he paces along us. I think he figured it out, who our traitor is. I mean, still don't understand why my hairbrush is sitting beside KT's mug, along with a compact mirror that I'm pretty sure is Patricia's.
"I can't believe you betrayed us," he says finally, stopping at the end of the line by me and KT. There's a tense pause as we wait for him to say something else, to name our traitor directly. "KT."
"KT?" I repeat, turning to her. "What's he talking about?"
"I thought you were our friend," Alfie says, shaking his head as I take a step back from KT. No, it can't be. It can't be her.
"I am!" KT insists. This is wrong. This feels wrong. Something's off about this, I can feel it. "My mission—the reason why I'm here—was to stop Team Evil."
"Or," Patricia says, "have you been working with them all along?"
A short scoff comes from Eddie. "She is a Frobisher, after all."
"I'm not the traitor!" KT exclaims.
I shake my head, trying to understand. "Wait, wait, wait, wait, how do we know? Fabian, why do you think it's her?"
"This is why," Fabian says sharply, whipping out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He unfolds it and shows it for everyone to see. Fingerprint results—the fact that Fabian knows how to run and match fingerprints doesn't surprise me at all. But it still doesn't add up for me. KT wouldn't really be that careless, would she?
"I would never betray Sibuna," KT states firmly, and there's something in her tone that's making me want to believe her. "You've got this so wrong."
As KT heads toward the door, Fabian tells her, "If you walk out now, you'll only look more guilty."
KT leaves without another word, slamming the door shut behind her. I stare at the door for a few seconds, turning to the others. "There's something off about this," I say in a soft tone. "She's American, it's the home of CSI and Law and Order. If she was going to destroy the phonograph, I think she'd know better than to leave her fingerprints, even if she thought Fabian didn't have a way to match them."
"So what?" Patricia says in that usual snarky tone. "Someone framed her?"
"I think there's more to this," I admit. "Let me try and figure it out. But until then, none of you talk to KT. Fabian, we need to fix that phonograph, and... be careful."
( obviously the next canon thing i'm changing is whatever happened with the play which tbh i don't...really remember what happened with it in the show,, )