Patricia

Ask me or anyone who knows me any time, any day or any point in the year and they will say with complete confidence that I am not a morning person. My motto is that if the alarm clock only has three figures, it's too early to be awake. If it weren't for Trudy's cooking, I'd have set the record for most detentions earned due to tardiness.

So when Mara woke me up at six-thirty in the morning with the news that Anubis house was doing a first day of school group photo, I wanted to smother her with the pillow she'd yanked out from under me.

"It's too early for group photos," I complained instead, burrowing down under the covers.

I could almost hear Mara roll her eyes. "Patricia, we agreed on this last night. We're seniors remember? This is our last year together before moving on to the A levels."

"I don't remember discussing that," I grumbled into my mattress, wishing I had my pillow back.

"That's because the rest of us decided it while you and Eddie were off doing who-knows-what before bedtime," Mara replied, and I felt my cheeks burn but didn't comment, because while I knew perfectly well that we had spent the time making out in the laundry room, Mara most certainly did not need to know that. "Will you please help me wake up Joy?"

I pressed my hands into my cheeks for a few seconds in an attempt to cool my blush and swung my legs over the bed. It took all the upper body strength I possessed, but I managed to push myself up into some version of a sitting position to see Mara tickling Joy's feet.

"That's not going to work," I informed her. "Joy sleeps like a rock on most days lately."

"What about the other days?"

I shrugged. "I'd bet my lifesavings she could snooze through a hurricane."

Mara sighed and placed her hands on her hips. "Patricia are you going to help me or not?"

I forced myself to my feet and waved a hand dismissively. "Relax Mara, there's a trick to it." Walking over, I grabbed Joy's comforter with both hands and yanked it off of her.

The effect was instantaneous. Joy practically exploded out of bed as though she'd just been shot from a cannon and was halfway into her uniform before she realized no emergency was taking place. Confusion settled onto her face as she looked around in bewilderment. "What's going on?"

"First day of classes Joy, we're taking a group photo," I explained as Mara and I headed over to join her in the closet.

Joy remembered the photo but was confused as to how she'd woken up until she saw her comforter on the floor, at which point she realized what happened and we playfully bickered about it for the rest of the morning.

"Fine," I threw up my hands in mock surrender as we walked into the dining room where the boys were already waiting. "Next time I won't wake you up, I'll just let you sleep right up until either your alarm clock or Victor wakes you up."

Joy shuddered. "Well when you put it that way I actually prefer cruel and unusual punishment."

"Cruel and unusual punishment? Joy don't you think that's a bit dramatic?" Mara asked innocently.

Joy stuck out her tongue. "If anything I'm underplaying it."

"I do love a good conflict," Jerome smiled, looking extremely satisfied. "Tell me Joy, what's this one about?"

Unwilling to give him anything to tease us about, my roommates and I chorused, "Nothing," and took our seats at the table. I inhaled deeply, loving the smell of Trudy's breakfast.

While we waited for the other girls to come down, Mara and Fabian grilled Eddie about the new teachers and Jerome, Alfie and Joy and I tried to stay awake. By the time Nina and Amber finally came down we'd resorted to pinching each other to stay conscious.

"Finally!" Jerome moaned as they trudged into the room. Actually Amber flounced, seeming preppy as ever; but Nina trudged and looked exhausted. "Get enough beauty sleep Millington?"

Rather than answer, Amber flipped her hair and gracefully perched herself next to Alfie. I watched suspiciously as Nina just about collapsed into her chair before dropping her head to rest on her arms that she had folded on the tabletop.

"You alright Nina?" Eddie asked. She lifted her head, blinked once, and managed an exhausted sounding noise before dropping her head back down with a thump. I raised my eyebrows in amusement before grabbing another slice of toast from the center of the table.

"Very articulate," Joy noted.

Nina didn't even bother to respond, her head refusing to move from its place on the table.

"Oh sweetie you look exhausted!" Trudy fussed as she marched back into the dining room. Gently raising Nina's head she pressed her hand to her forehead in concern. "When on earth did you get to bed last night?" Nina mumbled something unintelligible and managed some sort of shrug and Trudy sighed. "Come now dearie you're asleep in your seat. Maybe you should stay home from school today."

The words were barely out of her mouth when Nina shot to her feet like cannon. "No!"

I snorted as Trudy just about jumped in surprise at Nina's enthusiastic response. "No, Trudy, I'm fine. Just not feeling like much of a morning person at the moment that's all. But I'm completely fine I promise! I can go to school no problem!"

Trudy blinked in confusion. "All right, hon, if you say so. You certainly are a fair bit more lively than you first appeared. If you say you can go to school, you can go to school." Nina breathed out a sigh in relief and slumped back into her chair as Trudy left the room again.

"You know Nina," smirked Jerome as he leaned back into his chair with a rather content look on his face. "I do believe that's a first in this house. Someone practically begging on their knees to go to school, rather than faking an illness to get out of it."

"What about that time I got back from the hospital?" Alfie protested, but Jerome shushed him. Nina rolled her eyes and made a face before propping her chin up with her hand.

The group picture took about seventeen tries to get right but we were having too much fun to complain by the end. We eventually settled on a pose that I personally was very proud of when Trudy showed us the small screen of the digital camera. From left to right, Eddie was holding me by the waist as I rested my elbow on his shoulder and Joy was leaning against my back, hand on her waist and hip popped. Amber was on her tiptoes, blowing a kiss to the camera and simultaneously giving Alfie a side hug while Alfie ducked away from Jerome who was trying to give him a noogie. Mara was on Jerome's right, laughing as she wrapped a hand around his wrist to protect Alfie and Nina and Fabian were opposite Eddie and me, and both were blushing like mad because Amber had convinced Fabian to have Nina climb onto him piggy-back style.

But of course someone just had to point out that we'd spent so much time on the picture we were going to be late if we didn't run. While I personally couldn't care less if I was tardy or not – and Amber was in favor of being fashionably late – Mara turned an unnatural shade of white upon hearing the news and so we all hauled tail to get to the school building as fast as we could to prevent her from having an full-scale meltdown.

We managed to get to class on time, although Alfie looked ready to collapse – Amber had made him carry her so she wouldn't accidentally sweat – and Nina was still practically asleep on her feet. The nine of us slid into our desks for first period Environmental Science with Sweetie, and Eddie and I made sure to sit in the back. It was the first day of school, which meant permission forms, and classroom maps and a whole bunch of other stuff that made me want to vomit for the first half an hour. But for the last fifteen minutes we had 'quiet time' to get a head start on the worksheet that would be homework, which meant Eddie and I spent the last fifteen minutes engaged in a heated paper football contest.

Sweetie kept meandering around the classroom under the pretense of 'interacting with the students', but no one was fooled. He made trips to where Eddie and I were goofing off roughly every twenty seconds, so we all knew he just wanted to make sure we weren't getting too friendly back there. What was funny about it though, was that he really should have been worrying about Mara and Jerome if anything. At least some part of them was toughing each other throughout the entire class and Jerome spent all of 'quiet time' with his hand on her leg.

"Think he'll notice?" I muttered to Eddie as I lined up the little paper American football for my shot.

Eddie snuck a glance at his dad who was still eyeing us like a hawk, completely oblivious to how Jerome was twirling a strand of Mara's hair with his finger and snickered. "As long as we're purposefully sitting out of his direct line of sight? Not likely."

I released and the tiny hard triangle flew through the goalpost known as Eddie's fingers. "Touchdown!" I grinned, sticking my tongue out. Eddie rolled his eyes and so I smacked him and told him not to be a sore loser as the bell rang.

I mostly dozed through the rest of my classes, knowing I could always 'borrow' Mara's notes if we had a quiz coming up. I did make some marginal sort of effort to stay awake though. Amber had drilled it into my head that if I was going to date the headmaster's son then I had to at least try to do well in school; so for second period Calculus, third period Literature, fourth period government, fifth period drama and sixth period history I actually managed to get through the teacher's introductions before I completely lost interest.

But by some sort of unholy miracle or something, seventh period French, the one class Eddie and I sat in the front row, actually wasn't all that terrible at first. All the girls – yes even the ones with boyfriends – all whispered excitedly when the teacher showed up to class a few seconds before the bell rang.

"Bonjour classe," he announced, and we robotically replied, "Bonjour monsieur," as he put his bag down and picked up a piece of chalk. "My name is Monsieur Duval," he introduced himself, writing the name on the board, "And I will be your advanced French teacher this term." The girls all tittered excitedly and I rolled my eyes, already preparing to use Eddie's shoulder as a pillow.

He exceeded my expectations however, instructing us to find a group and play 'Never Have I Ever' in French. I grabbed Eddie's elbow and immediately turned to snatch up Joy before anyone else could, and we settled in to our table until Mr. Duval called 'time' and we resumed our original seats.

Things seemed to take a turn for the worse after that though, Mr. Duval lectured us on how he expected our full attention and cooperation at all times in the class, how he would be a tough grader and yadda yadda yadda. I was halfway through a yawn when trouble struck.

It took me ten seconds to realize Mr. Duval had stopped talking, and another five seconds to look up and see that he was scowling at someone to my right. It was another two seconds before I realized it was Nina.

Her hand was propping up her head and her eyes were closed and I could tell even from two seats over that she had fallen dead asleep.

"Would someone care to wake Miss Martin?" I held my breath as Fabian pulled Nina's hand out from under her and her eyes snapped open, palms slamming into the table as her head jerked up. "Yeah, hi, what, hi, um, I'm awake, I mean…" I closed my eyes, willing Nina to stop spouting out the first thing that popped into her head.

"So kind of you to join us Miss Martin. I trust you're well-rested by now?" Mr. Duval raised an eyebrow and I thought Nina's cheeks might spontaneously combust they were so red as she shrunk into her seat, looking like she wished it would swallow her up. "Well since Miss Martin here obviously thinks she knows the material well enough to sleep through, what say we don't let her tell you about the class's next activity?"

The classroom was silent but one glance at Joy and I could see her smug smile. Nina slowly stood up and walked over to where Mr. Duval was tapping his foot, nervously playing with the sleeves of her jacket. She opened her mouth, and then closed it, cheeks turning an even brighter shade of red as she quietly asked him what we should do.

Mr. Duval gave her a tight smile, and answered, "I thought the class's time would be best used if you instructed them, in French of course, to read the Counte de Monte Cristo chapters 1-6, making sure to answer the questions at the end of each chapter."

The class let out a collective groan but Nina looked relieved and I smiled, knowing Mr. Duval could not have picked a better punishment for her. She straightened her shoulders and rattled off a long string of French I only understood about every sixth word of, and when she was finished I fought the urge to cheer, settling for leading the class in a round of applause instead.

Nina sat back down and I turned just in time to see Mr. Duval wipe a rather ugly look off his face and replace it with a smile. "Alright everyone, you know the assignment. Chapters 1-6, get started."

Everyone groaned again but reluctantly got out our books. I let my mind wander the whole time, making sure to flip pages every so often so Mr. Duval would think I was being productive. Eddie nudged my shoulder with about five minutes to go and motioned to Mr. Duval, who was reading at his desk. He scribbled something on a piece of paper and slid it across the desk to me. I carefully snuck it into my book before looking down to see he'd written, 'SPITBALLS?' in his usual messy scrawl.

I flipped it over, wrote my answer and shoved it back, smirking when he raised his eyebrows as he read my reply. 'We don't have any straws doofus. And your handwriting's terrible.'

Eddie turned the paper over again, scribbled something and shoved it back. My appreciation for him rose another four levels when I read, 'STRAWS IN MY BACKPACK. FOR EMERGENCIES.' I looked over at him and raised my eyebrows in a challenge before writing a suggestion on the other side, 'Ten points if you hit the book, twenty if you hit his nose?' and passing the note back.

Eddie grinned when he read my answer and gave me a thumbs up, before quietly sliding me a blue straw out of his backpack and tearing off a piece of paper from the sheet we'd been passing back and forth.

He handed me the paper and I stuck it in my mouth, gesturing to him that we would go at the same time. Eddie nodded, excitedly sucking on the paper before we put the straws in our mouths, carefully lined up the shot, and fired.

I hid the straw under my desk and waited just long enough to see my artwork smack into Mr. Duval's eye as Eddie's thwacked him on the nose before ducking my head down as though I'd been reading.

I had to literally bite my tongue to keep from exploding with laughter when Mr. Duval positively yelped, and jumped up, swiping at his eye as the class looked at him in confusion. He finally managed to dig the spitball out of his eye and looked around angrily, one hand on his hip and the other tightly squeezing the soggy ammunition. The class was dead quiet but I could see Alfie and Jerome trying not to laugh.

"Who is responsible for this?" Mr. Duval demanded, his voice short and clipped.

Eddie and I grinned at each other but stayed silent, making sure to keep our best attempt at a confused look on our faces.

"Well? Speak up." Mr. Duval paced in front of the class, waiting for an answer that didn't seem forthcoming. His eyes roamed the classroom before landing on a head of curly hair and a tight smile rose to his lips. "Miss Martin?" Nina blinked and pointed to herself, as though there were another Miss Martin he might be talking to. "Was it you?"

Nina shook her head wordlessly, opening her mouth to deny the accusation but Mr. Duval didn't give her the chance. "Well if it wasn't you then who was it? No one else in class has caused any trouble."

I rolled my eyes at the unfair tactic. Of course no one else had caused trouble yet, it was the first class of the year for crying out loud. I watched Nina carefully, guilt starting to creep its way into my chest but I snared it down. I'd confess if she actually got in trouble for it, but right now he was just giving her a hard time.

"I'd like you to think very carefully about your next answer Miss Martin." Mr. Duval walked towards her, taking his time and I could see Nina's grip on her book become white-knuckled. "Was it you?"

Mr. Duval's interrogation was interrupted by the sound of a chair falling to the ground. "It was me, I did it." I didn't fully comprehend what had happened, and had to pinch myself to make sure I'd seen what just happened correctly. But even with my fingernails digging into my arm, I still saw Eddie standing defiantly, his chair on the ground, and I knew I wasn't imagining it. Mr. Duval had zero proof Nina had done it, and I'd bet half the things I own she doesn't even know how to fire a spitball. Why would Eddie have confessed to help Nina just on the off chance that one of six of her teachers might hold a grudge against her in a class she couldn't possibly fail?

I felt a surge of something hot and angry rise up in my chest, filling my lungs with jealousy and I scowled at my book as Mr. Duval walked over. Before he could even open his mouth however, I stood – much less dramatically than Eddie had – and folded my arms. "I did it too."

Mr. Duval gave us a boring lecture on respecting the faculty and blah, blah, blah before sending us both to Sweetie's office where we received not one, but two weekend detentions. I was tempted to complain, but since he was my boyfriend's dad I bit my tongue and settled for dramatically scoffing, which Eddie called me on as soon as we were able to head to our neighboring lockers.

"He could've at least given us regular detention," I groused. "Did he really have to make it on the weekend?"

Eddie shrugged, spinning the combination and pulling his door open. "Well if you ask me – "

" – which I didn't," I quipped, grabbing my notebook.

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Eddie winked. "Like I was saying, if you ask me I think he did us a favor."

I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud. Slamming my locker with a 'bang' I leaned against it, arms crossed. "Oh really? How is him taking away our already limited free time possibly doing us any kind of favor?"

Eddie mimicked me, shutting his locker and leaning against it with a teasing grin on his face. "Well, detention's meant to give us an hour for homework, so the faculty only check in on us at the beginning and end. Think about it Yacker: You. Me. All alone, with no adult supervision for a full sixty minutes?" he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and I shoved him, stalking towards the doors so he wouldn't see me blushing like mad. Eddie laughed and jogged to catch up with me, throwing an arm around my shoulders as we walked out of the building and towards the dormitories. "You know you love me," he smirked, and I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah, about as much as I love poison oak," I quipped.

Eddie gave a dramatic gasp, and stared at me like I'd just dropped out of the sky. "Why Yacker! I had no idea you were so fond of rashes!" I responded with an elbow to the stomach and he fake-gagged, making me laugh. "You know, one of these days you're actually going to hurt me and I'll land in the hospital, rack up a fortune in bills and then die and then you'll feel really bad and wish you'd been less violent."

I shrugged, fighting to keep the smile off my face. "There's no way you're dying before I do, you'll live longer just so you can make sure it says 'Yacker' on my tombstone."

Eddie chuckled and I ignored how when his laugh went all raspy like that it made my stomach flutter. "I'm not going to lie, that is an extremely tempting idea." He held out his hands in front of him as though envisioning exactly what it would look like. "Here lies Yacker. She who could never keep her mouth shut."

"Glad you're so anxious to see me dead," I crossed my arms and turned my face in the opposite direction, letting him think he'd just messed up big time.

"Wait, no, that is not what I meant." Eddie got two steps ahead and started walking backwards so he could face me while talking. "I am not anxious to see you dead, in fact I really, really don't want you to be dead, that was a joke and I thought you knew it was a joke and I feel like you can't be holding this one against me but if you are I'm sure you have a legitimate reason."

I stopped walking and placed my hands on my hips, raising an eyebrow as Eddie intently searched my face for any sign of forgiveness. I gave him his answer by hooking two fingers into his collar, pulling him in and kissing him squarely on the lips.

I have faced down pendulums of doom, evil ravens, Victor the twisted headmaster and a whole manner of trials, but one of the scariest moments of my life was when I told Eddie I'd never kissed anyone else. It wasn't something I'd ever intended to tell him, but I'd avoided kissing him for a while when we finally became official because I was worried I wouldn't be as good at it as he was and he'd eventually cornered me and demanded to know why. When I finally caved and told him I didn't have a whole lot of kissing experience, he'd had the nerve to laugh – laugh – and I'd threatened to beat him black and blue before he got his breath back enough to tell me that if that was the case then he couldn't wait to help me practice.

And all that practice paid off quite well if I do say so myself. Back when we first started dating, when Eddie cupped my face I would've simply broken off the kiss, having no idea what to do. When he leaned into it I would've pushed him off and walked away, and when the hand not cupping my face cradled my wrist I would've snatched my hand to my chest and called him a moron. Now, I let his knuckles trail across my cheek and thought I might explode with pleasure. When he leaned into the kiss I leaned back, drowning in the feeling of his soft lips on mine. And when his other hand gently brushed against my wrist, fingers fiddling with my bracelets, I linked his hand with mine, feeling my skin catch on fire everywhere he touched me. His knuckles moved across my cheek to let his hand tangle in my hair and when his fingers curled into a fist, giving my hair a gentle tug I involuntarily made a small noise of pleasure in the back of my throat and Eddie broke away grinning. "What was that?"

I ignored the twenty shades of red my cheeks had become as completely as I ignored his hand still in my hair. "What was what?" I asked innocently.

"That noise you made," he grinned, eyes dancing with mirth.

I rolled my eyes and shoved him, claiming he was hallucinating and resumed the walk back to Anubis house, letting him catch up on his own.

When we finally got back, Eddie was looking more smug than I'd ever seen him and the rest of Anubis was relaxing in the commons area with the exception of Nina who had fallen asleep on the couch.

"What's up with Nina today?" I asked, swinging my bag off my shoulder and unceremoniously dropping it on the floor.

Amber was the one to answer, speaking up from her spot on the armrest next to Nina's head. "I honestly have no idea. I mean, sure she was up until like half past midnight but she fell asleep before I did and I'm fine."

"Wha – " Mara's jaw practically hit the floor as she gaped at Amber's careless admission. "What in the world were you two doing up at twelve-thirty last night?"

I winced as Amber got that 'blank faced deer caught in headlights' expression she gets whenever anyone catches her in a lie, eyes darting back and forth and I stepped in to help out. "Amber insisted on giving Nina a back to school makeup tutorial," I sat down next to Joy and Eddie sat next to me as I hoped the answer would satisfy Mara, but if anything she just looked even more confused.

"But how do you know that?" Mara asked me, eyebrows drawn together as she tried to puzzle out what had happened last night.

I paused a half beat before shrugging as though it were obvious. "Amber dropped her hairspray can and it woke me up so I went to go see what the noise was."

"Speaking of noise, you two made such a racket with those spitballs Mr. Duval decided to give us an assessment tomorrow on what we learned last year, just to make sure we didn't forget everything over summer break." Seeing as that was pretty much the worst segue way ever, I had no doubt Fabian had interrupted to change the topic and I was immediately grateful for it.

I moaned and dropped my head against the couch. "It was summer vacation, of course we forgot everything!" I rolled my eyes. Honestly, what teacher doesn't know this?

"Thank you Trixie!" I glanced over to see Alfie pointing at me in triumph. "You see Mara? Not everyone makes sure to review last year's notes at least once a week over break."

Mara blushed and tucked her chin to her chest, muttering weakly about good study habits.

"Mara, there is a fine line between good study habits and flat out nerdy," Joy assured her, laughing when Mara moaned and buried her face in her hands.

"The difference is that Mara's probably the only one of us who's going to pass the French test tomorrow," Jerome defended her and I shrugged, about to point out the obvious before Eddie beat me to it. "Assuming of course, you don't count Nina who's been fluent in French since she was three years old?"

Jerome waved his hand dismissively. "Doesn't count. Like you said, Nina's fluent. She'd have to actually try to fail the test."

The subject of our conversation suddenly jerked awake, clawing at her throat and sucking in gasping breaths, making everyone in the room practically jump at the sudden movement. "Neens?" Amber asked carefully, once Nina was breathing like a normal human being again. "You all right?"

Nina nodded, pressing the heel of her hand into her forehead. "Yeah, sorry about that."

"You're not possessed by an alien are you?" Alfie peaked out from behind the curtain where he'd hid, and I sincerely hoped I was not the only one at a complete loss as to how he had gotten over there so quickly.

Nina managed a laugh as she swung her legs off the couch and relaxed back into the cushion. "I thought you gave up on your whole 'aliens are coming to kill us' theory two years ago."

"That doesn't mean I can't still be suspicious," Alfie snapped, looking nervous but still coming back over when Amber called him.

Without any more distractions, we managed to get a reasonable amount of studying done before Trudy called us over for dinner, which was by Anubis standards completely normal, and considering Alfie only tried to strangle Jerome once, if anything the meal was peaceful.

Joy and I quizzed each other on last year's vocab terms afterwards, and it took me the longest time to remember the differences between 'poison', poison, and 'poisson', fish so I didn't even notice Eddie and Nina were gone until I realized it had been an hour since dinner had ended and he hadn't once teased me since.

I got up to look for them, and they weren't anywhere downstairs so I headed up to the girls' floor and heard voices coming from Nina and Amber's room.

"I still think we should tell them about, this… whatever it is that's going on with us. " Sounded like Eddie. Also sounded suspicious.

"We're not telling them." Nina. "They don't need to know, and it's simpler this way. What do you think will happen if Patricia finds out?"

I froze when I heard my name, my hand on the door. What didn't they want me to know about? There was silence and then a sigh and Eddie's voice came drifting out. "I just feel guilty keeping this to ourselves."

"Just think of it like when you didn't tell us who your dad was. You managed to keep that secret no problem," came the answer.

"Well hopefully this secret won't get broadcast to the entire school." There was a laugh, and unable to help myself any longer I opened the door and walked in to see Nina and Eddie. Hugging. And not your cute, quick little, between two friends hug, but rather an arms around each other, gripping tightly, looking very cozy with each other hug.

Eddie caught sight of me and immediately jerked away from Nina, who's eyes widened when she turned around and saw me. "Patricia!" she immediately whipped a smile out of somewhere and did her best to appear casual. "What's up?"

I ignored the blood pounding through my ears and plastered a grin onto my face. "Nothing, I was just wondering if you could help me with some… irregular verb conjugations."

Nina looked beyond relieved and quickly nodded, grabbing Eddie by the arm and yanking him downstairs while I followed, jealousy zipping through my veins. I barely heard a word of Nina's advice the entire time she was talking. In fact, I barely heard a word anyone else said the entire evening. I went through the motions of showering and brushing my hair and teeth, hoping at any second I'd wake up and find out the whole day had been a dream and I hadn't overheard any conversation. But it never happened, and as I lay in bed all of my thoughts were still being taken up with either analyzing or ignoring the exchange I'd overheard. There was no way Eddie was cheating on me, and even if some divine force determined to screw up my life convinced him to do it, there was no way it would be with Nina. Right? This kind of thing where the boyfriend falls in love with his girl's best friend who's dating the guy's friend, that kind of thing only happens in movies. Not real life.

That was what I tried to convince myself of right up until I fell asleep, and given that I still had envy coursing through me I couldn't help but feel that I'd royally failed.