Jacob woke up with his eyes glued shut from sleep. Rubbing them open, he saw a bouquet of flowers sitting at the foot of his bed. He picked them up. On closer inspection he could see a note attached. I love you it said with a lopsided heart.
Oh, these must be from Emma, he thought with a slight smile forming on his face. He wasn't quite sure how to feel about the reversal of roles with a girl giving him flowers but he had to admit that whatever these were(he couldn't identify them for the life of him) the yellow, puffy flowers were strikingly beautiful against his blue bed sheets. He made his way downstairs and into the kitchen. Emma was sitting at the table with a plate of pancakes in front of her.
"Thanks for the flowers," he said, giving her a peck on the cheek.
"Flowers?" Emma asked, knitting her eyebrows. "I didn't give you any flowers."
"Yeah, very funny, I know it was you,"
"I'm serious, Jacob! Why would I lie about that?" she said.
There wasn't a hint of a smile on her face. She really wasn't joking, he realized.
"Ok, if you didn't put them there, who did?"
"Well, when did they get there?" she asked.
"Must've been sometime last night, when I was sleeping."
Emma looked upward in concentration. "Well, Claire and Olive left for Girl Scout camp yesterday, and I can't imagine Miss Peregrine, Bronwyn, or your parents doing something like this. It must've been some sort of prank by one of the boys."
"Oh," he said, feeling silly. "It'd be a waste to let these flowers dry out, though. They're pretty." Jacob took a vase out of the cabinet and filled it with water. "If it's just one of the boys playing a joke, it's a very weird one. The note attached said 'I love you'"
"Wow, that is peculiar, even for them," she admitted. A smirk grew on her face. "Maybe one of them really does love you."
He couldn't help but giggle at that suggestion. "Yeah, right. Who do you think it is? Millard? Horace?" He bit his lip to keep from bursting out laughing. "Enoch?"
"That's ridiculous. We both know Enoch has one emotion and that's anger." she deadpanned, causing them to both laugh harder.
Horace stomped into the room. "What are you two laughing about? It's seven in the morning, people are trying to sleep."
"Sorry," Jacob whispered. "We'll quiet down. We were just laughing at these flowers someone left in my room. Was it you?"
"What? No, why would anybody other than Emma be sending you flowers?"
"That's what we're wondering!" Emma whispered sharply.
"Well, if you excuse me, I'm going back to bed," he said, exiting the room.
"Sweet dreams!" she cried after him. The two waited for the sound of his footsteps up the stairs to end before resuming their conversation.
"So I guess it wasn't Horace then," he thought out loud.
"Maybe Hugh? He's had a large collection of plants ever since… well, you know…."
He nodded grimly in understanding. None of them dared to say her name.
"I'll go ask him then."
He held her in an embrace, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead before walking out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the guest room where Hugh and Millard were staying. The door was open and Hugh was watering an aloe vera.
"Oh, hi Jacob," he greeted without looking up from his plant. "Didn't see you there."
"Hey," he said. "Someone left me some flowers on-"
"What kind of flowers?" That had caught his attention. "Describe them to me."
"Um… they were these fuzzy yellow round things."
Hugh rolled his eyes. "I'm going to need more than that. Were they bilateral or radial? What was the leaf division and arrangement? How many petals?"
He stared at him blankly.
"Nevermind, just let me see them."
Jacob led the way down the stairs and into the kitchen, passing Emma who was still working on her pancakes. Hugh examined the flowers on the counter.
"Oh, acacias! Did Emma give these to you?"
"No, we're still trying to figure out who did," she said.
"Oh, what a relief! I was going to say, you seriously messed up your flower language. Yellow acacias symbolize either friendship or secret love."
"Hmm… and the note I got said 'I love you', too," he muttered. "Well, if it wasn't Hugh, I guess that just leaves Millard or Enoch."
Hugh shook his head. "It couldn't have been Millard. If he left the acacias last night, I would've heard him get up. I'm a light sleeper."
"There's no way it could be Enoch!" Emma shouted "That's so unlike him!"
"I guess there's only one way to find out," he said, and with that he bravely walked to Enoch and Horace's room.
Jacob stood outside the door trying to muster the courage to knock. Enoch was never a fun person to talk to and could be openly hostile at times, especially towards him. Just as he was raising his fist to rap the door, it opened, and there was he was.
"Can I help you?" Enoch asked in a tone that suggested he was less than willing to help.
He stood there for a few moments, not sure what to say. "Uh, I was just wondering, did you by any chance leave me flowers?"
The younger boy paused. "Yes," he said in an uncharacteristically shy manner. "Did you like them?"
He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but it hadn't been this. "I suppose they were nice,"
"Well, don't say I never gave you nothing," he said, and with that he slammed the door in Jacob's face. What a weird kid, he thought to himself.
Enoch sat on the foot of the bed, shaking from the adrenaline rush.
Horace rolled over and put a pillow over his head. "Just tell him you love him, I'm trying to sleep," he groaned.
"I'm sure he already knows, unless he's an idiot."
