A/N: I'm so sorry it took so long, I've been really busy! Aghhhhh forgive me please!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Chronicles of Narnia or House of Anubis.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

Breakfast and Drama

ALFIE

"Come on, mate, wake up."

"Nooooo," I groaned.

"Alfie, c'mon. It's time for breakfast."

I groaned again, but finally sat up, rubbing my eyes sleepily. I could hear Mick in the bathroom brushing his teeth and sighed. I was tempted to go back to sleep, but the thought of the delicious breakfast waiting for me tempted me more. I threw on some clean clothes...at least, I hoped that they were clean...and brushed my hair, and then headed out the corridor, nearly bumping into Amber on the way.

"Good morning, Amber," I said cheerily. "Looking as beautiful as ever."

"Hi Alfie," Amber said dully. "And thanks."

"What's wrong?" I asked, lifting an eyebrow. Amber was like an open book. You could easily tell when she was happy and when she wasn't, and right now, she definitely wasn't.

Amber turned to me, giving me a glare, as if to say "How could you not know what was wrong?"

Okay, maybe sometimes, Amber isn't like an open book. But I think all girls are supposed to be hard to figure out.

Or maybe they just are to me.

Suddenly, the events of last night came rushing back. Nina claiming to have been to Narnia with Jerome, Jerome completely denying everything, Nina running from the room in tears. "Oh," I said suddenly, widening my eyes. "I thought that was a dream."

"I wish," Amber grumbled, yawning and turning to go down to the dining room. I quickly followed behind her.

Breakfast was delicious, just like all the other meals had been. Except I think it probably would've tasted better if the table wasn't so unusually tense. Obviously everyone still had their minds on Nina's trip to crazy-town.

Whatever, I was not going to let a hormonal fifteen-year-old girl ruin my appetite. I hungrily piled food into my mouth, while everyone else simply picked at theirs. Except for Mick, of course, who was always hungry. He wasn't involved in the huge drama last night, anyways. Eddie was, however, and although he was eating a little more than the rest of us, he wasn't eating that much. Which was saying something, because Eddie is a big eater. Maybe I should write this moment down in history or something...

"What's with all the long faces?" Trudy asked, frowning as she entered the dining room. "Isn't everyone enjoying their food?"

I gave her a big thumbs up. "I am, Trudy!" I said through mouthfuls of pancake.

"Oh, Alfie, learn some manners, would you?" Trudy waved her hand, although she was laughing slightly. "Where's Nina?"

Everyone turned to stare at the vacant seat next to Amber. "She slept in," Amber explained, not looking up, her brow furrowed. I frowned, wishing she would smile. Usually, Amber's happy, bubbly personality practically lit up the whole room.

"Drama queen," Patricia said under her breath. Eddie shot her a glare. "Sorry," she said flatly, not sounding sorry at all.

"Doubt it," Eddie muttered, shoving a bite of pancake in his mouth. Patricia rolled her eyes, picking at her food.

"Oh." Trudy said awkwardly, finally picking up on the obvious tension in the room. "Well, alright then. Just call me if you need anything." Wiping her hands on her skirt, she quickly exited the room, leaving us sitting in silence.

I glanced at Jerome, who was pretty quiet, too. That was unlike him...after all, he usually didn't care much about other people or their problems. I didn't see why today would be any different. I shrugged and looked away. It was probably nothing - he was probably just tired. I knew I was.

Amber sighed, blowing her perfectly straight blonde hair out of her face, and throwing a napkin over her plate. "I'm not hungry," she declared, pushing her chair back and leaving the table. I frowned as I watched her leave.

"Yeah. Me neither," Fabian added, sighing, and he stood up and left too.

Patricia groaned. "Really? Just because Nina has gone mad doesn't mean the rest of us have to, too," she stabbed a pancake on her plate with her fork.

"Patricia..." Mara warned quietly.

"No, Mara. You know what? I have hadit. Everyone's been so busy fretting over Nina!" Patricia said, rolling her eyes. "Has everyone forgotten that there's a war going on? There are more important things to worry about than Nina right now! Besides, it's none of our faults that she's so desperate to seek attention that she has to make up some dumb story."

Well, that had done it.

Eddie loudly threw down his fork, which clattered to the table with a bang. "Would you shut up and mind your own business, Patricia?"

Patricia's eyes widened slightly, surprised - Eddie had never really been properly angry at her before, at least not like this - but then she scowled at the American. "What? Don't want to listen to me talk poorly about your dear old sister?" Patricia mocked.

"Do you just get some sort of satisfaction from hurting other people?" Eddie demanded. "Are you so insecure that you have to bully everybody to feel better about yourself?" Patricia opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. "No, I think you've yacked enough, Patricia. You know what? You need to stop taking your stupid anger from your dad leaving to fight in the war out on Nina and get over it." I gasped aloud. No one ever mentioned Patricia's dad - we all knew it was a sensitive subject. You could see the hurt flash in Patricia's eyes at the mention of her father, but almost immediately her facade was put back up and she scowled.

But Eddie wasn't done."Because Nina's not crazy and she's not insane so you can stop talking about her like she needs to be sent to a mental ward. After all, it's not Nina's fault that no one likes you...other than your precious friend Joy, of course." He taunted. "Face it Patricia, everyone's sick of your whining and complaining. I'm not even sure how everyone has been able to put up for you so long, you're so bloody annoying. What else are you good for, anyways, other than being nasty and whiny and a bully? Oh, right, nothing."

Patricia stared at him, open-mouthed. For the first time in her life, it seemed that she was at a loss for words. My eyes widened. No one had ever talked to Patricia like that - no one had dared to. It just simply wasn't done. I admired Eddie for doing so, but at the same time, it was a low move. Even for him. "So why don't you just do everyone a favor and invest in a better attitude or something. Your constant yacking is about to make me jump off a building." Shoving his chair into the table with an angry huff, he stormed from the room.

"I wish you would!" Patricia screamed after him. "It's not like anyone would miss you, slimeball! Other than your BLOODY LUNATIC SISTER!"

The whole table was dead silent. In fact, now would be a perfect time for Victor's "It' ten o'clock, I want to be able to hear a pin drop" speech. Patricia shoved her chair back with a loud screech, standing up. "Patricia..." Joy spoke up softly, but Patricia ignored her, marching out of the room and slamming the door shut behind her, leaving all of us sitting there with our mouths open wide.

Mara glanced around awkwardly. "Um, I think I'll go to the library," she muttered softly, standing up and shuffling out of the room.

That left Joy, Jerome, Mick, and me. I glanced at Jerome, who looked surprisingly calm and at ease.

"Hey, mate. Are you going to eat that?" Surprisingly, it was Mick that broke the silence this time. He was talking to Jerome, who wordlessly shoved the plate towards him. Mick grinned in thanks and immediately dug in.

"You know, I'm really not very hungry," Jerome declared, standing up. He left, just like everyone else had. I stared after him, a bit perplexed. I wonder what his problem is. I looked down at my plate, which was completely bare, and then glanced around at the rest of the table, which just consisted of Mick and Joy, sitting in awkward silence. It didn't look like anything interesting was going to happen, so I sighed and left.

As I headed up towards the room that Mick and I shared, I passed by the door to Nina and Amber's room. Curiosity getting to the better of me, I casually stopped by the door.

"Nina, you've got to get out of bed sometime," Amber was saying, trying to sound as gentle as she possibly could.

"I'd rather not," Nina answered softly, her voice sounding muffled.

"Nina, please..."

"Amber, I said no." Nina nearly shouted.

Deciding I didn't really want to hear the rest of the conversation, I passed by, stopping at the door to Jerome and Fabian's room. Jerome lay across his bed, looking through a small leather book. He hadn't noticed me yet, so I cleared my throat. "Oh. Hey, Alfie," he sat up, setting the book to the side.

"Where's Fabian?" I asked, glancing at the empty bed.

Jerome shrugged. "As if I know."

"Oh," I said. "What were you reading?" I asked, nodding towards the leather-bound book.

"Just a book of pranks," Jerome answered casually, although his eyes glinted mischievously.

I lifted an eyebrow, stepping inside the room. "Mind if I take a look?" If it had something to do with pranks, I was interested.

Jerome shrugged again. "Sure."

I sat down next to him on the bed. "Why don't we plan some pranks?" I smirked. "After all, everyone's distracted right now, what with the whole Nina thing. It'd be a perfect time to pull a prank," I pointed out.

Jerome smirked too, although he looked a lot less enthusiastic than he normally did when it came to prank planning. "Excellent idea, Alfie," he agreed.

And so we planned. By lunchtime, we'd had five perfect plans completely mapped out and ready to be put into action. We'd laughed and snickered as we'd picked perfect targets and perfect ways to pull each prank, but something was different. It took awhile for me to figure out what it was, but then I realized it was Jerome. He wasn't as mischievous or light-hearted, and he didn't laugh as loud as he normally would when I would make a joke. And to be quite honest, he wasn't as enthusiastic about planning the pranks that I thought he would be.

I considered asking him what was wrong, but then I thought better with it. After all, if anything important had happened, he would've told me, I reasoned with myself.

I knew this was a lie, though. Jerome wasn't the most open person in the world. If Amber was an open book, then Jerome was closed one that was locked in a safe two hundred feet underground. He didn't open up to anyone, not even me. I'd only known him for a little over two months, but it wasn't hard to figure that out. Everyone thought he was a terrible person...and it was true, he wasn't exactly Mr. Nice guy. But I think, that if you really, really picked away at the shell covering him up, you'd be surprised at what you'd find there.

EDDIE

I couldn't even believe the nerve of that girl. How dare she insult Nina, right in front of me and then look surprised when I gave her a piece of my mind? Maybe I wasn't a good brother a lot of the time but I knew one thing - I wasn't going to sit there and listen to my sister be talked about like she was some lunatic. And do you know what? I don't regret a single thing I said.

I was pacing angrily back and forth in a random room I was in...it was all hung with green, and it had a little harp in the corner. I might would've been able to admire how pretty it was if I hadn't been so angry.

Suddenly, I heard heavy footsteps come down the corridor. Hesitantly, I stepped out of the room to see what it was. There was Patricia, walking briskly down the hallway - probably to get to her room. The corridor with all our rooms was just around the corner. I was about to go up to her and yell at her some more, when I stopped.

She was crying.

She wasn't full on heavy sobbing or anything. After all, this is Patricia we're talking about. But she was definitely crying. Her lower lip was trembling and she kept angrily swiping at the tears that streamed down her face.

It was a while before she noticed me standing in the middle of the hallway, but when she did, she froze, her eyes wide. She looked almost...mortified.

I stared at her, my mouth hanging open. "Patricia-" I finally stammered out, but before I could say anything else, she shoved past me and practically skidded down the hallway and around the corner. In nearly three seconds, she was gone, leaving me alone in the empty corridor, staring after her, open-mouthed.

I hadn't really known Patricia for a very long time. But I could easily tell the difference between crying people and non-crying people. For instance, Amber and Mara seemed like crying people, meaning they looked like they cried easily and quite often. Jerome however, seemed like the type of person that never cried. Ever.

And I would've placed Patricia in the latter group.

So unless some really tragic event had happened in the past few minutes since our fight, I'd hurt her really badly.

So? Who cares? She needed to be put in her place and someone needed to tell her that she can't treat people like rubbish, I told myself.

But that didn't stop the really sick feeling in my stomach.

A/N: Yaaaay, Alfie's point of view! Also, lots of Peddie drama...what's going to happen next? You're gonna have to find out!

I'm so cheesy.

Anyways, please review and I'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as I can! Thanks for reading! :)

P.S. Why don't we make it fun and I'll leave a question for y'all to ask? (because I feel like it) What's your favorite song at the moment? Mine is It's Time by Imagine Dragons. I've literally been listening to it all day. (I'm SO going to see Perks of Being a Wallflower by the way)