Winter Break is heeeeeeeere, no homework 'til the new yeeeeeeeeear!...
Speaking of Piper, her day wasn't all that different from Henry and Charlotte's. She relied on the caffeine until she got home, where she proceeded to collapse on the couch and fall asleep.
She was waken a few hours later by her mom. "Evening, sleepy head."
"Hi," Piper mumbled, still tired.
"You okay, sweetie? I haven't seen you take a nap in years."
"Oh, yeah, I, um, woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep." It was sort of true.
"Oh, okay then. Your brother's on his way home. We're having chili balls for dinner tonight."
"Okay."
Piper dragged herself upstairs to Henry's room. There was still a bit of a mess, but nothing unimaginable. She cleaned up a little before hearing voices downstairs.
"Everything's already out on the counter, Henry."
"Thanks, Mom."
"Charlotte, you're welcome to stay."
"Oh, I'd love to, but my mom's expecting me."
"Okay, bye, sweetie."
"Bye, Mrs. H. Bye, Hen.
"Bye."
Piper watched Charlotte walk away towards her house. Jasper wasn't with her; his house was on the way to Henry's from Junk N' Stuff.
Piper walked downstairs. Her mom was on her computer, writing a work email, and her dad was doing needlepoint. Henry was working in the kitchen.
Piper quietly crept past her parents and stood behind Henry. She was really tempted to scare him, but decided not to.
She tapped his shoulder, and he jumped anyway. Last night's incident left him a little, well, shaken up.
"What?" Henry whispered, not unkindly.
Both of them glanced over their shoulders; their mom was doing something on her computer, facing the other direction. Henry was the first to turn back.
"So… you didn't say anything… right?" Piper whispered.
"Of course not," Henry whispered back. "Neither did Charlotte." He suddenly gave her a strange look. "You didn't say anything, did you?"
"Of course not!" Piper yell-whispered. She lowered her voice back. "Do… do you not trust me?"
Henry looked up from what would soon become chili balls, making eye contact with his little sister. "Pipes, a year ago, if you told me you knew who I was, I would have freaked. The fact that I'm not ratting you out to Ray is huge." He looked back down. "Both our butts are on the line here. And Charlotte's. Even Jasper's."
Henry looked like he wanted to say something else, but instead went back to the chili balls. Piper nodded and started to leave before she remembered something.
"Henry," she whispered, "remind me to talk to you about something later."
The meal seemed to drag along forever. Henry and Piper ate their food as fast as they could without their parents noticing, but even so, Mr. Hart made them listen to a story about how he almost tripped on his way home from the grocery store this afternoon, and Mrs. Hart chose that night to ask all the extra "How was school?" questions.
When the siblings finally did escape (ten minutes after they had both finished eating), they went to Henry's room and sat on the now-rightside up and sewn couch.
"So?" Henry said, having expected Piper to talk first.
Okay, here goes nothing. "Okay. So… when I overheard-"
"When you eavesdropped."
"Whatever. When I heard you guys talking about Minyak, you also talked about that secret shoplifting organization, and earlier, when I was up here cleaning-"
"How many times have I told you to stay out of my- oh. Right. Go on."
"So anyway, when I was up here, cleaning your trashed room, I thought about something. What have you guys asked the guy? Like, did you have the cops ask that kid to give you information about where you can find his dad?"
What the butt is she talking about? Oh. Right. I remember. It took Henry a minute to remember the whole thing with the guy holding her sack and his dad running a secret shoplifting organization. Wait. Henry smacked his forehead. "Of all the flipping questions we had the cops ask that guy, no one thought to ask him where we could find others."
"You guys are stupid."
"Shut up."
Piper went back to her room to get ready for bed. Henry did, too, but not before sending a text to Charlotte.
Henry: We are idiots. We didn't think to ask that guy where we'd could find other people.
She didn't respond until the next morning, having already fallen asleep.
Charlotte: See, this is what happens when you guys didn't listen to me. I texted Ray after he left to make sure the cops thought to ask him that.
Henry rolled his eyes. Of course she thought of that already.
Much more awake than they were yesterday, Henry and Charlotte snuck into the empty school auditorium to hide behind seats and call Ray. The school didn't care about electronics before the bell rang, but during school hours, cell phones were a big no-no. Not that every teacher (cough cough Ms. Shapen) bothers to enforce it.
Unlike Mr. Claudio and Ms. Zaslow, whom Henry and Charlotte had for their eight period classes, respectively. They hadn't been able to sneak out of lunch, so they both gotten bathroom passes. Some questionable looks would be received later if they took too long.
"Good thing there aren't any drama classes right now," said Charlotte as they crouched down. "Didn't you make out with Bianca down here once?"
Henry blushed furiously and flipped his watch open.
Ray answers on the fourth ring. "What's up? Is something wrong?"
Heck yeah, thought Henry and Charlotte. "Kinda," Henry answered. "Ray, did the cops ask the guy-"
"Jack."
"What?"
"His name is Jack, not 'the guy'."
"Okay, then. Did the cops ask Jack if he knew where to find his dad and the others?"
"Uh… no. They told me he kept trying to say something, though… oops."
"Yeah, oops," said Charlotte. "I texted you, by the way."
"What? No you didn't, I would've seen it."
"Check your phone."
"Fine, I'll check my- oh." Sure enough, Ray's phone was showing several text messages from Charlotte. "Uh… it was on silent?"
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
"Just go talk to Jake, Ray," said Henry.
"Jack."
"Okay, whatever, we gotta get back to class."
"Fine, I'll have Captain Man talk to him."
"You are-"
"You know what I meant!" Ray hung up.
Rolling his eyes, Henry smacked his watch shut. "He had better not call during class."
"Yeah," said Charlotte as she began standing up. "Let's just get out of here before-"
"Who's there?!" A loud, angry voice echoed through the auditorium. Both of them knew it was Mrs. Kook, the crazy drama teacher. She was nice enough, but really strict about who comes into the auditorium when it's not for a show.
Well, shoot. Henry grabbed Charlotte's arm and yanked her back down, and they both had to keep from crying out in pain because she landed right on top of him.
They heard footsteps walking towards their row. Go, go, go!
Henry and Charlotte army crawled through the aisle and hid before Mrs. Kook reached them. They crawled until they reached the door and heard the teacher open the other door before bolting.
It was a good thing no one else was around, because Henry decided to use his Hyper Motility to get them away faster. They speed-walked back to their classes.
"That," breathed Charlotte, "was way to close."
"Yeah," said Henry. "Meet at our lockers after school like usual?"
"Yep."
"See ya."
"See ya."
Weeeeeee wish you a Merry Christmas-
Okay, okay, I'll stop singing now. I don't know who out there celebrates what holidays, so I hope whatever seasonal traditions/holidays all y'all had or will have were/will be wonderful. :)
Ciao, and Happy Reading!
P.S.: I snuck two Easter Eggs (or, for the season, Christmas Ornaments) into this chapter. Hint: they are both references to plays.
P.P.S.: I've decided to make this a 25 chapter fic... so, sadly, it's almost over, but once I've finished I can chose a new one.