Our class entered the food building once again and went to the cafeteria on the second floor. However, I noticed something unusual – in one of the fancy rooms on the second floor near the entrance to the cafeteria, there were many important looking people gathered. They all had black hair, black clothes, and black sunglasses, which made them look real mysterious. I wondered what they were up to briefly before entering the cafeteria and being distracted by the food, and the Brockhampton playing in the background.
Today, in order to decide where I was going to sit, I got out – you guessed it – my Lucky Penny. I was able to get a few flips in before being approached by an older looking boy with a striped blue and green polo shirt and curly blonde locks that flowed down to his shoulders, like the mane of a Spanish lion.
"Why hello there," said the boy in a deep, breathy, personable voice, closing his eyes and raising his hand as a form of greeting. "You seem lost."
"I'm fine," I replied, clasping the Lucky Penny in my right hand. "Just trying to find a seat is all."
He put both of his hands to his side and looked surprised. "A seat?" he asked. "If you're looking for one of those, you can come sit at my table. There's a few empty seats, so you're welcome to join us."
"Sure," I agreed a bit hesitantly, glad to have the decision made for me, but a bit apprehensive about this new guy. He led me to a nearby table, and I was relieved to see that there were a few people I already knew from my class sitting at it, specifically, the ones that happened to be in my assigned group for class activities. That meant I was sitting with Julia, Jacques, and Owen, as well as this new guy and another boy I was unfamiliar with.
"Heeeey, Maddie," shouted Owen, standing up and waving as we approached the table. He seemed a bit excitable for some reason. Maybe he had convinced someone to play charades with him. I ended up choosing a seat between Jacques and the boy who had led me to the table.
"Hi, Jacques," I mentioned, sitting down before gesturing to the two unknowns. "Who are these two?"
"They are the pen-pals of Jacques and Owen," explained Julia matter of factly. "Normally, Tim and Zak would seat themselves with us as well, but Tim… doesn't want to be around us, and Zak is sick."
I was temporarily confused as I imagined Zak doing a 360 ollie kickflip off a half pipe in space on a bedazzled skateboard with flame decals. "Isn't Zak always sick?"
"She means unwell," explained lion boy, with a slight chuckle, before putting both of his hands up in a disarming way. "i do agree though, Zak is indeed sick." I was starting to like this guy a bit. Suddenly, I remembered how Jordan had reacted when I said I had liked Zak. I backtracked my thoughts a little bit. I didn't like like him, but he did seem very friendly. The background music changed to Falling in Reverse.
"How rude of me," continued the boy, arching his eyebrows apologetically. "i've forgotten to introduce myself. My name is noam, but "noam" is a bit of a weird name, so i just go by shep instead, because my last name is... shepherd." He spoke with the sincerity of someone revealing his last will and testament. "and please, when you use my name, spell it with a lowercase s." It was a bit of an odd request, but I didn't see a reason not to comply with it.
shep continued nonchalantly. "i'm Owen's pen-pal, and that young man on the other side of Jacques there is his pen-pal." he gestured towards the other unknown, a dark haired boy wearing an oversized white v-neck backwards and black skinny jeans. He looked a bit like Geoff from The Wiggles.
Jacques' pen-pal cleared his throat and spoke in a voice impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger. "Greetings, Kindergartener. I am Graham Turver!"
"BAAAAH!" went Jacques between mouthfuls of fruit salad. Yummy yummy.
Graham's eye twitched in annoyance. "I said, my name is Graham Turver!"
"BAAAAH!"
Owen tilted his head sideways and put a finger to his sharpie beard, an expression of innocent curiosity on his face. "You keep saying that, but is that really your name?"
Graham gritted his teeth, shut his eyes, and shook for a few seconds in his seat as if he had been physically scruck. "...Fine," he spat, making sure to annunciate each syllable. "My surname is actually Turner. But it would behoove you to pronounce it Turver!"
Jacques was silent following that statement, meaning that Graham must be telling the truth now. To be fair, I kind of understood Graham not wanting to be called Turner – that was the name brand of the cylinders that adults used to store dirty diapers. It would be like not wanting to be called Sloan, or Kohler, or another brand name for toilets.
"Okay," I replied. "Nice to meet you two." Now that the formalities were out of the way, it was time to decide what I wanted to eat. I got the Lucky Penny out of my pocket and stood up, eyeing the dining options around me. Unfortunately, the soup, and therefore the oyster crackers, were quickly eliminated with a flip of the Lucky Penny, followed by the hot bar and the sandwich station. I kind of regretted giving my last butter sandwich to William at that point, but it wasn't a huge deal. If I was lucky, I could always get another one.
After the final flip, the Lucky Penny decided that I should get one of the Big Mouth portable pizzas. Unfortunately, there was a line to get to them, so I went to the end of it. I happened to notice that I was right behind Randy.
"Hey," he said, noticing me coming up behind him. "No cutting in line." Was this the only thing he cared about?
"I'm not cutting," I said, crossing my arms a bit defiantly. Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out behind us. "Hey Maddie, hey Randy." It was Jordan. "Did you two decide to get pizza too?"
"Of course," said Randy. "Pizza has all of the five essential food groups in it, making it part of a balanced breakfast*."
"But Randy, we're at lunch," responded Jordan.
"Sort of," I replied, closing my eyes and putting one of my hands behind my head. "The Lucky Penny decided for me, since I was having a tough time choosing what to eat." I showed him the coin.
"Yeah, I've seen you flipping that a few times," admitted Jordan. If this had been a TV show, there would have been a flashback to the first day of centers, where I had flipped the Lucky Penny before talking to Jordan. "How does it work?"
"Well, one side is heads, and the other side is tails. Depending on which side it lands on, I can decide to do or not to do a certain thing."
"That's pretty cool," said Jordan, peering through his little glasses.
"Okay, now it's my turn to ask you a question." I said. "I always see you holding that little notebook. What is it?"
"It's his diary," said Randy. He sounded like he was about to cough when he pronounced the 'r' in 'diary'.
"It's not a diary!" insisted Jordan, looking down out of embarrassment and scratching his curly, brown hair. "It's… something else."
"Ooh, are you keeping secrets?" asked Randy, again sounding like he was about to cough when he pronounced the 'r' in 'secrets'. "That's against the ru-ules. I'm gonna tell Mr. Pony, and they're gonna make you read your diary in front of the whole class."
Jordan became very fearful. "fine," he mumbled. "I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else."
"Sure," I agreed, extending my pinky. "Pinky promise." we shook on it, and Jordan looked like he felt a little better about it.
"Like I said, it's… not a diary," resumed Jordan. "It's… my stamp collection." He gingerly removed the notebook from his pocket and opened it to reveal many old, rare, and limited edition stamps.
"Wow," I said. "I never knew you collected stamps."
"Yeah," he replied, avoiding my gaze and shutting the notebook quickly. "cuz I don't really like talking about it. I don't like collecting stamps. It's a stupid hobby."
Though I would never have said it to his face, I did kind of agree with him.
"Then why do you even collect stamps if you don't like it?" asked Randy, a bit disgustedly.
"Because… my parents make me do it. I don't like collecting stamps, but ever since my parents discovered that I had a talent for it, they've been making me collect them."
"Huh? Why?" I asked, a question mark appearing near my head.
"They always tell me that if I start collecting stamps so young, by the time I'm grown up my collection will be super valuable, and that it'll make me rich," Jordan said. "But I don't care about stamps at all. What I really want to be one day is a dentist." He sounded a bit like Hermie the elf from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
"That explains why you like brushing your teeth so much," I said as the background music changed to Kenny Chesney, and I remembered our conversation from yesterday. "But I'm confused. Doesn't being a dentist also make you a lot of money?"
"I think so," answered Jordan. We were so absorbed in our conversation that neither of us noticed shep stealthily appear behind Jordan in line.
"I think you should just do what you want to," I assured Jordan, and he looked downward in embarrassment. If he had been wearing a snapback, he probably would have used the brim to cover his eyes. "At least you have something you want to be when you grow up. I still have no idea what I want to do."
"You'll figure it out someday," he halfheartedly encouraged me. Randy walked past us, holding his portable pizza in his hands. Before I had realized it, I was at the front of the line.
"Hi," I said. "One portable pizza, please." A minute later, I had my pizza in hand, but the lunch lady noticed that there were two people behind me remaining in the line.
"Sorry kiddoes," she began. "There's only one pizza left right now, until the next batch finishes baking in about - " she glanced at the oven in the back of the kitchen - "twenty minutes."
shep closed his eyes and put his hands up disarmingly. "What a shame," he commented, "but it's fine. You can have it, since you were here first."
"No, I couldn't," insisted Jordan. "I'd feel bad making you wait for so long afterward."
Neither of them seemed to want to back down, so I came up with a clever idea. "I know!" I said, snapping my fingers. "You guys can flip for it?"
"What do you mean?" asked shep, looking surprised. "You mean, like flip that coin?" I nodded and took the Lucky Penny out of my pocket.
"Yeah. Whoever wins the coin toss can have the last pizza."
"That sounds fair to me," agreed Jordan. shep nodded as well.
"Okay," I said, prepping the Lucky Penny. "Heads or tails?"
"Heads," replied Jordan, looking straight at me.
"Guess that means i'm tails," said shep. I flipped the coin, and for a tense second, time stood still as hopes, dreams, and portable pizzas were at stake. I caught the Lucky Penny and put it on the top of my other hand.
"...Tails," I observed after revealing the result.
"Aww," said Jordan, clearly regretting not just taking the pizza when shep offered.
"i guess tails never fails," commented shep, accepting the final pizza. "Sorry about that, Jordan. Better luck next time, i guess." You could almost see the heart popping up between shep and his portable pizza as he strode back to the table.
"It's okay, Jordan," I comforted him. "If you go over to the hot bar, you can get a hot potato instead."
"Yeah, that's good too," he admitted, seemingly more upset about having lost the coin flip than the portable pizza. He walked off, and after grabbing some Yoohoo chocolate milk from a nearby cooler, I followed shep back to the lunch table we were both sitting at.
Meanwhile, in the camera room, the two security guards panned over from the portable pizza line to a table near the sandwich station, where William was using his sandwich-making skills to help improve Chuck's butter sandwich.
"Y'see this, boss?" asked one of the guards.
"I-is that… a butter sandwich?" asked the third person in the room, who had dark hair, dark clothes, and dark sunglasses.
"Yep," replied the other security guard. "And if you notice, guy, they ran outta portable pizzas as well."
"incredible..." breathed the third person.
"s'clear t'see, doc," continued the first guard, "that these kids ain't be eatin' very healthy."
"Yes..." mouthed the third person. "*Contrary to popular belief, pizza does not actually contain all five essential food groups."
"So w'dy'a say, chief? Is this 'nough t'execute operation: nutrition?"
"We will see," answered the third person, straightening up, collecting themselves, and adjusting their tie. "I will report this evidence to the Overtakers."