VIII. Hush-Hush Secret
The next morning, Amanda peeled her face off the pages of Diana's diary. Her hair was a mess and she had fallen asleep with the pages imprinted to her left check. She was sure that she had informed the News Crew of her discovery and had won a celebratory dinner for her efforts, but as she quickly discovered that was all a dream. To add insult to injury, it was a Monday and she was late for classes. FUCK.
Amanda took her time getting ready and figured no matter what she was already late anyway. As she walked to class a couple of senior professors watched her walk past, glaring at her for not being in class. Amanda glared and shot back.
"I know I'm late! I'm goin', I'm goin'. Jeez, untwist your granny panties." Amanda sulked into her class twenty minutes late and threw herself into her chair. She looked over at her teammates who were trying not to look at her.
Amanda whispered over to Jasminka.
"Why the hell didn't you two wake me up this morning?!"Jasminka stopped with the cookie hanging out of her mouth and whispered over.
"We tried but you were dead asleep. We barely made it to class on time with no breakfast." Jasminka pleaded, nibbling on the rest of her cookie. Amanda sighed. She had been so involved in Diana research she was slipping in her team leader duties. Shit, but getting to the bottom of Diana was important. She was so close to exposing her, she just needed to get to the News Crew's clubroom at lunch and show them the diary. Oh shit.
Amanda looked around the room, afraid someone could hear her thoughts. The diary was still in her room on top of her bunk. She had forgotten to hide it! The rest of the class passed with Amanda worrying that someone for some reason would slip into their room and find it. Once the bell rang, Amanda turned to her teammates only to see a mad Constanze holding up a sign that said "GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER."
Amanda face-palmed.
"I know. I know. I've been busy with other stuff and I promise I'll make it up to you both but I need your help. You gotta come with me to the News geek clubroom at lunch okay, it's important. Please, I promise I'll use my extra meal swipes on you guys."
Stars in her eyes, Jasminka clapped excitedly as Constanze eased up but still eyed her team leader with skepticism.
As they walked to their next class, Jasminka leaned over to Amanda.
"So what was the book you fell asleep reading?"
Amanda looked around the busy hallway with worry. Diana or her teammates could be anywhere ready to hear that she was the one with Diana's diary.
"That's part of the 'hush-hush-sercret-can't-talk-right-about-it-now-stuff'. Look once we gather in the clubroom, I'll explain it all, I promise." Amanda said.
The closer they got their next class the more Amanda relaxed. She hadn't seen any members of the blue team and figured that they were super early like they always were. Those stuckups had to be teleporting to their next class, Amanda couldn't imagine using magic for class unless she had to.
But as luck would have it, as the green team turned the corner, the Diana was between them and their next class. Amanda tried to put on her cool, relaxed demeanor but it was a struggle. Diana was so gifted in magic, what if she could read Amanda's mind, and figure out that she in fact had her diary? Amanda shuttered to think about it.
Diana was ahead of them walking angrily down the hall. The hallway was quieter with less students so little conversations could be more easily heard.
A group of students chattered in the hallway with one of them telling a story.
"-Yeah, ahahahaha. Then the banana turns to the girl and says,' I love her!'"
Diana's head whipped to their direction, with a withering glare. She turned sharply on her path to class, marching straight over to the group of students. She stopped right behind the student talking and loomed over their shoulder.
"If you have something to say about me, then say it to my face!" Diana demanded.
The group went dead silent. A student turned around with confusion.
"W-we weren't talking about you, Diana. Mary and me were talking about the anime we watched last weekend and -"
"Oh, really I didn't just hear you say something about me, Diana?!" Diana attacked, stepping toward the cowering student, who was sweating bullets.
"Nonono! W-we would never! Right Mary?"
Mary stopped nervously playing with her long blue ponytail and stepped forward to calm Diana. Amanda walked by quietly, thankful for the distraction.
"She's right, Diana. I understand your confusion but we really were just talking about anime." Mary smiled sweetly. Diana blushed red, all the way up to her ears.
"I see. Well, then mind your words next time." Diana said, curtly. She was about to turn away when Mary spoke again.
"You should join us! Tonight we were going to watch Howl's Moving Castle. It would be really fun if you and your team showed up. There's going to be lots of snacks and I know I'd like to hang out with you outside of studying." Mary said, looking at Diana with earnest eyes.
Diana managed to turn a darker shade of red and turned away briskly.
"That's not p-possible. I have far too many responsibilities. Have fun without me." Diana said marching quickly away. Amanda watched near the classroom door as Diana walked inside. Amanda saw the small tears in her eyes and a tense jaw and debated once again if she was doing the right thing. When she thought back the diary still resting on her bunk, Amanda knew she was in too deep to back out now.
As soon as the bell rang, Amanda bunched up her papers and urged her teammates to meet her at the clubroom ASAP. After racing through the lunch line and almost knocking over Hannah, Amanda stopped out of breath outside her dorm room. She opened the door and sighed with relief, it was still there just as she had left it, Diana's Diary.
YES, no one knew it's contents except for her and Diana. With new energy Amanda scooped up the diary and galloped to the News Network clubroom.
Amanda burst inside and held Diana's diary aloft. Several pages of Joanna's notes stacked up near the door went sailing to the floor below.
"I'VE GOT! THE HOLY GRAIL OF DIANA'S SECRETS! This is gonna blow this story wide open!" The red head declared, almost knocking over some of Kimberly's camera equipment.
Joanna shot up from her desk. "How about you stop knocking things over and tell us why you-"
Amanda wasted no time and quickly raced to one of the huge double sided whiteboards in the corner of the room. Wangari, back from her lunch break, walked into the room and watched Amanda flip over the whiteboard.
Kimberly stumbled over Wangari, amidst all of the equipment in the clubroom.
"Wangari, you gotta do something about her! She almost broke my camera lens and just look at all of Joanna's notes!" Kimberly insisted gesturing to the floor and Joanna scrabbling to reorganize everything.
Wangari sighed. "I guess this is what I get for being gone for more than 10 minutes." Amanda stuffed a biscuit into her mouth as she scribbled something on the board.
"I have the perfect plan to sneak into the Cavendish estate. Seriously, it's not big brain thinking it's some galaxy brain level shit." Amanda smirked.
Wangari spoke up. "Amanda, as much as I love chasing a story, if you're going to break into someone's house, you need a solid lead, otherwise it's a needless risk."
Amanda stopped abruptly as the door gingerly opened revealing Jasminka and Constanze.
"Of course! Evidence, you need evidence. I got it in spades. Look inside the diary! There on the table." Amanda said as she grabbed more dry erase markers and proceeded to write using both hands.
Everyone else gathered around and looked at the pages that Amanda had marked with sticky notes. After a few minutes Wangari put the book aside as the others kept reading.
"I'm not even going to ask you how you got that. We'll just refer to it in the story as a group of letters that YOU conveniently found in the garbage. Now what's this plan?"
Amanda stopped scribbling and stepped back, like an artist admiring their masterpiece.
"The plan is this!" Amanda smiled gesturing toward the whiteboard. It resumabled a written down football play complete with arrows and circles.
"Okay I'll go through the plan step by step. But you gotta keep up. It's success depends on everyone doing their part." Amanda explained.
Joanna crossed her arms. "And what if we decide that you're plan is stupid."
Amanda smirked and shrugged. "Then I guess you guys, can't claim any credit when all of this is over. How about this. You let me explain and then you guys decide if you want in or you wanna LET this story get away."