Okay I'm pretty sure the names are off... but I'm just writing the chapter titles as I'm given...

Chapter 2

House of Locks

"Did you hear what I said?" Patricia growled getting close up in my face. "Where's Joy?"

"Back off," Eddie told her with a scowl. "She told you already she doesn't know where Joy is!"

"Well do you? Two Americans show up and Joy disappears! It's not a coincidence!" Patricia insisted.

"I don't even know who Joy is never mind where she is," Eddie told her with a 'so move on' look. My roommate wasn't done though.

"WHERE'S JOY!" She screamed at me.

"Look can we start again?" I asked pitifully. "I'm Nina, from America and Joy was gone when I got here so unless she's hiding under the bed…"

"Patricia Williamson, what is going on?" Victor asked coming down from the attic. I never imagined I'd be happy to hear his slimy voice, but in that moment I was thrilled that he could sort out this mess.

"That's what I'd like to know," she told him shortly. "Where's Joy?"

"Joy has left," Victor told the hot-headed girl evenly, but that only bothered Patricia more.

"What do you mean she's left?!"

"Her parents came to school this afternoon and removed her," Victor told her as if this was the last thing he wanted to be doing.

"But… that's impossible! Why would they do that?" Patricia muttered more to herself than Victor.

"Maybe they don't want their daughter sharing a room with someone mad enough to scatter a girl's belongings across a hallway," Eddie suggested. I shot him a 'not helping glare', but Patricia took his words as a confession of guilt.

"What did you do to Joy!" she screamed in his face. "Joy would never leave without saying goodbye, or her phone, or bunsy-bun!" While I didn't agree with Patricia on much, it did seem odd she'd left so much behind. Still, if her parents hadn't told her it was happening she must have been in a rush as she packed.

"Give them to me and I'll forward them on to her," Victor told Patricia clearly exasperated. Patricia seemed unwilling to oblige, so with a hard glare Victor repeated himself, "Give." Reluctantly she handed them over before denying Victor's request to put Nina's stuff back in the room.

"I'm going to phone Joy and see what's going on!" she screamed before stomping into the room.

"How are you going to call her when she left her phone here?" Eddie snarked. "Or are you so dumb you forgot that already?"

"Eddie!" I cried just as Patricia gave him the death glare.

"I don't know who you are," she began with fear inducing words, "Or what you're doing here, but I'm going to find out what you did to Joy."

After Victor left and Patricia stormed off, Eddie gave me a look before tossing my stuff back into the room. "Well aren't you lucky to have to room with that."

"I'm sure she's not so bad," I told him even though I knew it probably wasn't true. "She's just worried about her friend."

"Well obviously they weren't that good of friends if this Joy left without saying goodbye," Eddie pointed out before leaving to wash up before dinner. Sighing I re-made my bed before heading down to face this dinner which surely wouldn't be fun.

I was about to walk into the common room and introduce myself when Eddie grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth, "Shh. They're talking about us."

"Maybe the new kids are alien twins and they abducted Joy," one of the boy suggested with a tone slightly too serious.

"They're complete freaks," I heard Patricia tell her friends. "And the boy is a complete jerk."

"But you really think they did something to Joy," a level-headed girl asked. "Patricia, that's a big accusation."

"I know Joy wouldn't just leave without saying goodbye. That's not her," Patricia assured. Though no one was calling her out over being ridiculous, I knew all my housemates didn't believe we'd kidnapped Joy.

"Dinner!" Trudy called from the kitchen. Clearly not ready to miss a meal even for the benefits of eaves dropping Eddie released me and strolled into the kitchen where everyone was already seated.

"Hi I'm Eddie and I like to kidnap best friends," he told them with a grin before pulling up a chair between a well-dressed blonde and another girl with a darker coloring.

"Nina," I told them with a smile before noticing there weren't enough chairs.

"Here, take mine," a brunette boy told me quickly. "I'll go find another."

"Thanks," I told him with a smile.

"Looks like Fabian has a crush on the alien. Careful or she'll eat you," and African American (wait it would be African British wouldn't it? I hate political correctness) kid said with a grin. Ah. So this was the one who swore aliens existed even if he didn't actually believe I was one.

"Shut up Alfie," the boy, Fabian, told his friend with a gentle smack. "I'm just being friendly."

"Has anyone seen Mick?" the blonde who appeared to be wearing a tiara asked looking around. When no one responded she stood and went off to look for him.

"Let me guess, Mick's the quarterback and she's the head cheerleader," Eddie suggested causing one of the boys a well styled blonde, to laugh.

"Wrong football, but yeah Amber and Mick are an item. I once said they had an IQ of a pea, and they were pleased. Perfect couple."

"Shut up Jerome that's mean," the darkish skin girl told him with a roll of the eyes. "I'm Mara by the way. Welcome to Anubis House."

I was about to say thanks when Patricia started yelling again, "Is everyone going to ignore the fact that Eddie did something to Joy while Nina just walked in and took her place?"

No one answered, but instead the alien boy started picking up the spaghetti with 2 forks and stuffing it in his mouth. "Stop it Alfie that's disgusting and you're probably going to choke!" Mara cried while Jerome and Eddie just giggled.

"Dude if you're going to stuff it in your mouth at least do it right," Eddie suggested before picking up a giant meatball and stuffing it in his mouth whole.

"Boys don't play with your food," Jerome reprimanded before 'accidentally' tossing spaghetti on both of them. (At this point Eddie did start to choke, but soon enough he looked okay.)

Mad, Alfie tossed the spaghetti back and soon enough we were in a full out food fight. Before I could even process it, I had spaghetti dripping from my hair and Patricia just dumped a bucket of water on me.

"Classy Patricia," Fabian scolded.

"What?" Patricia asked innocently. "It was an accident." I felt like ringing her neck but instead settled for ringing out my shirt.

"Are you okay?" Fabian asked looking at my soaked body.

"Yeah I'm fine I just feel like my sweater is shrinking to my body," I told him weakly. Why did Patricia have to be so mean?

"So when are you going to tell us what you know about Joy's disappearance?" She asked for what had to be the millionth time. I was about to tell her, again, that I knew nothing when Victor came into the room calling my name.

"Nina! Phone call for you… what's going on?" he questioned when seeing the mess.

"Nothing," Patricia told him her good-girl voice ringing in my ears. "Just Nina spilling water everywhere."

Unwilling to start a fight I wiped the last of the spaghetti from my body and went to answer the phone. I would not let Patricia win by seeing me cry.

"How's Harry Potter land?" joy and regret filled me at Gran's sweet voice. I desperately wanted to tell her how miserable I was and how I wanted to go home, but instead I settled for the usual lies. She needed to think I was happy and had friends because the truth hurt too much. I was miserable, but I had to stick it out. It couldn't possibly stay this bad forever. When she finally hung up I let myself have a moment of tears as i try to processed every horrible thing that had happened in the last few hours.

"Is everything okay?" God no. I lifted my head to see Fabian standing there awkwardly as he saw the tears streaming down my face.

"Yeah, yeah it's fine. Just… allergies," I lied with a fake smile. "You guys have cats, right?"

"No," he told me sadly clearly not fooled by my weak veneer of happiness.

"Must just be this new sweater," I told him before running up the stairs to be miserable in peace.

A few hours later I was ready to face the music and went downstairs to read a magazine, by myself, if only to show Patricia that she didn't bother me as much as she thought she did.

Though I knew I wouldn't be able to avoid her, I had hoped Patricia would have stopped accusing me of kidnapping Joy by now. Unfortunately, it seemed she was still going on about it when once again I was subject to her interrogation. "So are you going to tell us what you did with Joy?" she asked walking into the room a few minutes after me.

"I don't know," I told her before mumbling, "As I told you a hundred times already,"

"What did you say?" she growled.

"Nothing," I told her with a sigh. I would not steep to her level and start a fight. I would keep calm.

"Still trying to find your girlfriend?" Eddie asked when he walked in the house from where he'd been yelling on the phone outside. (Someone has anger management issues.)

"Shut up Eddie you're being no nicer than her," I pointed out. Maybe I shouldn't insult one of the only people who was even remotely kind to me, but Eddie didn't seem like the kind of guy I wanted as a friend.

"Whatever," he told me before heading to his room. Unwilling to stay in the awkward silence any longer I threw down my magazine and turned in for an early night.

Also, I don't normally like Beta's because I hate being told what to do, but if anyone is willing to get some spoilers and tell me if something makes ANY sense at all I'd love someone to help me with this. :)