Chapter 15: (August 31)
"Oh man, this is totally not going to end well, is it?"
Amanita, Nomi, and Sun were situated in the Dining Hall of the Schoolhouse. The smell of lunch food wafted out from the kitchen, and Amanita's stomach grumbled in response.
"Okay, let's hurry this up, I need to eat." She winced as Sun approached, her face frighteningly calm for what was about to happen.
"If our plan works, you won't be eating for a while," Nomi muttered under her breath, "So I'm going to go stand over there now."
Amanita nervously began reciting the script she and Sun had memorized that morning in-between classes. Nomi had called Sun yesterday, knowing that the girl was probably the most suitable and willing for this situation.
"Hey, bitch. Yeah, you!" She moved up to Sun, pretending to bump into her angrily. "Are you the one who stole my boyfriend? Yeah, it's totally you. I can't believe it. You're a man stealing whore!" She slapped Sun, and everyone in the room gawked at the scene. Sun, whose back was to the crowd, smiled and readied herself in a fighting stance.
"Oh dear Acting Gods, please protect me," Amanita whispered. Louder so that the other students would hear, she yelled, "Oh, you want to fight now? I will mess you up!"
On the other side of the room, Nomi covered her eyes and grimaced. She hadn't wanted the two to actually hurt each other, but Sun had stated that the only way to make it believable was to land a few punches. No one could argue with a bruise.
Looking back up, she saw Sun lightly kick Amanita down on the ground, and then slap her in the face. She felt someone else next to her, and turned to see Capheus staring at the fight.
"She's pretty incredible, no? I wish I could be like that," he said, sounding rather wistful.
Nomi looked at him incredulously. "Capheus! She is literally pummeling my friend into the ground."
He shook his head sadly. "Such a shame. Why must two people fight?"
"You know why we need to get into the office. You're in my head too. We need to find out what happened to that woman," Nomi heard a high-pitched curse, most likely from Amanita, and continued, "so that we can help her."
The fighting was getting serious, and the other students were crowding around now, chanting in various languages, "Fight, Fight, Fight, Fight!" Food was thrown in the air, and Nomi narrowly missed being hit by a stray slice of ham. Looking over the heads of a few teenagers, she saw adults moving through the riot, making their way towards the two girls.
"Right on time…"
/
Sun and Amanita were escorted to the office by several security guards. One of them, a burly man named Baldur, knocked on the frosted glass pane of the door.
"Come in," a voice called. It was chilling, and sounded faintly British.
The burly security guard opened the door. The other two guards released the girls, and closed it loudly behind them.
Amanita turned away from the entrance of the office, and stared at the man in the large leather chair. The window behind the desk illuminated the trio, and the man's hair shown shockingly white in the noonday sunlight. Looking away from his desktop computer, he frowned at the two girls and gestured for them to sit. As they settled in, he began to speak.
"To start off-."
Sun, however, never found out what the Headmaster wanted to "start off" with, as at that moment, step two of Nomi's plan occurred. Scooting away from her chair, Amanita dashed out of the office, zipping past the security guards.
"Hey, what are you… Get back here!" Baldur shouted. Another man swore loudly in Faroese. Matheson sighed and stood from his desk, shutting the door as he followed the security guards.
Moving quickly, Sun clasped the drive from inside her left boot and stuck it in the computer's USB port. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she hoped that Amanita was a fast enough runner.
32%, 46%
Amanita could be heard protesting loudly down the hall as the men caught up with her.
67%, 80%
The security guards and the Headmaster were coming back, the sound of footsteps becoming louder against the tiles outside.
98%, 99%
Finally reaching 100, Sun grabbed the drive out of the port, sticking it in her shoe once again. She had just sat down in the chair when Matheson reentered, holding Amanita by the arm. He paused in the doorway, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Sun. She looked right back at him, raising her eyebrows in defiance. Sitting Amanita down rather harshly, he stood at the side of his desk.
"Never, in all my years of being Headmaster at the Board, have I seen such a fight in the Dining Hall. Tell me, why shouldn't I just kick you both out of this school?"
Sun looked at him and replied coolly, "My father has invested much money since the beginning of the school year. It would be a shame if his only daughter was not allowed a spot here, no?" Her face held no expression, and Matheson turned his attention towards Amanita after a few seconds.
"And you?"
"Uh, I'm in the gifted range, and I'm also cute?" She smiled and placed the back of her hand under her chin, blinking rapidly in an attempt to bat her eyelashes.
He rolled his eyes -a feat neither Sun nor Amanita believed he could be capable of- and motioned for them to stand.
"I won't suspend you because I've read your files, and you both seem to be good students. Although I don't much like your flippant attitude." He directed this towards Amanita with a glare, but continued his lecture. "I also realize this is your first month here. However, you will attend detention for the next three weeks, and you will double on the chores tasked by your Prefects. Starting with cleaning up the Dining Hall."
Amanita raised her hand. "Hi, yeah, question: when can we eat?"
/
Nomi was once again in the basement of House 1 when the door opened and in walked Sun and Amanita.
"Do you have the drive?"
Sun took it out of her pocket and threw it towards Nomi. It made a perfect arc as it spun through the air, and landed in her palm.
"Well it didn't go that badly, then…"
"'That badly?' Nomi, it went pretty bad." Amanita tilted her head so that the bruise on her cheek was visible in the dim light of the storage room. "Look at what's happened to my beautiful face. Models everywhere are weeping."
Sun smirked and opened the door. "You'll be fine."
Amanita waited until the girl left to mimic her. "'You'll be fine, blah blah. That girl could snap a tree with her pinky. In her sleep."
Nomi shook her head, brown strands of hair falling in her face. Pushing them back impatiently, she stuck the drive into her laptop. "You know, you should be careful with what you say. She's in my head too."
Amanita sat in one of the foldout chairs, counting her fingers. "So you have, like, seven other people in your head, right? And Sun's one of them. So is Kala. Geez, it all sounds weird. And that's coming from me."
"Tell me about it. I can't believe you're taking this so well. Most people would scream and run the other way if they knew. Or lock me up in a mental institution."
The other girl smiled, and held out her hand across the table. Nomi took it reassuringly, interlacing their fingers like growing vines.
"Lucky for you, I'm not most people. And I was pretty kick-ass today. Even Baldur couldn't take me without a fight."
"Nice. Now let's see what's on this," Nomi replied, opening the documents from the drive. Most of it was standard, such as tax information, donors, and test scores.
"We have a hot tub? How did I not know about this?" Amanita scoffed, pointing at the information on the screen.
"You probably wouldn't, since it's the teachers' hot tub. Glad all our money is going towards their well-soaked bodies." Nomi scrolled through the documents, placing the ones that weren't needed in the trash.
"Wait, wait, wait." Amanita stood from her chair to get a better look at the screen. "Open that one. Yeah, the email."
"It's from the police… It says they were looking for the disappeared 'Laura M. Alvira.' But then here, Mr. Matheson said she'd quit the day she disappeared."
"That's impossible. Kala said she saw Alvira, like all sick and stuff, after dinner the day she disappeared."
"She saw her in her mind. But why would she quit the first day of school, right after classes that morning? That's what doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense right now." Nomi sighed and closed her eyes, rubbing them with the back of her hands.
"Here, let me see it." Amanita slowly turned the computer towards her. " Well, she must have gone after her classes were over, so around noon. Then… she probably left the school grounds to go home, if she lives in Hoyvik. And…. She disappeared? We're definitely missing something important."
"Yeah. If only we knew what that was."
"Oh, Nomi! One more thing: Sun wanted me to give you this. She says she found it in her English textbook."
Nomi had a feeling she already knew what it was. And, just as expected, Amanita drew out a tarot card from her schoolbag, placing it face up on the table.
"This is ironic on so many levels..." Nomi squinted, trying to discern the details in the picture.
The image was that of a man holding a lion. Above the man's head was an infinity sign, and below, the title of the card: Strength.
/
"All right?" Myra smiled as Kala walked in, throwing her bag on her bunk bed.
"Yes. Did you see the fight in the cafeteria? I was at the library, but heard it was awful."
"I'm afraid so. I was there, but a lot of people were gone before it started. It was between Amanita and Sun, although to be honest I didn't realize that Sun had a boyfriend, or that Amanita wanted one. It was all quite strange…"
Kala noticed that the girl played chess by herself, and sat down on the ground to watch attentively.
"Would you like to play?" Mira asked as Kala settled on the floor. "I also have Clue, Life, and Sorry. Or we could play blackjacks."
"I'm fine. How is your poetry? You haven't been writing as much lately."
"Oh, I finished! I gave it to Camille… do you know Camille?"
Kala shook her head, indicating that, no, she didn't know who Camille was.
"Well," Myra continued, pushing a rook off the board, "She's from France. Pretty gifted at music and the like. I asked her if she'd turn my poems into a song, so she's working on that. I think you two would get along quite nicely if you met. On another note, how's Rajan?"
Kala shrugged lightly and sighed, moving a piece to capture her friend's pawn.
"Hmm. Okay." The redhead smiled, and tapped her fingers on the ground as she mulled over her next move. "Well, it'll all fall into place."
Kala looked up in time to see a serious expression flash across Myra's face. It was gone in an instant, however, and the girl was back to her normal, friendly demeanor.
"I suppose…" Kala mused, but she was bothered by a growing uneasiness.
A/N: My Internet stopped working overnight due to a power outage, but I finally got it back (thank goodness). Here's Chapter 15. Next chapter coming on Friday the 7th. We'll meet new character(s), and the mystery will continue... I hope all of you have an awesome day, drink plenty of water, and enjoy your week!
~C.o.D.