Chapter Twelve

Penelope

"STOP!" Aidene yelled. Her face twisted in rage. I had forgotten she was here.

"We are going to be late for dinner," She said, trying to keep her anger in control.

All five of us walked silently to the dining hall with an angry atmosphere weighing heavy on our shoulders. The setting sun stood out beautifully against the velvet purple sky that was seen through the huge windows on the side of the building. The small, warm, white twinkling warm white lights surrounding the hall lit up, making the whole hall look almost magical. I was too tired and angry to enjoy or relax at all despite how amazing the evening would have been on another occasion.

We exited the main school building. We headed towards the dining hall walking through the slowly darkening lawns, only dimly lit by the light from the other building since there were no lights on the lawns for some reason.

The dining hall was already packed by the time we arrived. We unanimously decided we were sitting together without speaking a word. We grabbed whatever salvageable food was left and sat down at one of the empty tables in the corner.

We ate our food in silence; my mind wandered, thinking about how my mom would be feeling right now.... Would she miss me?

My train of thought was interrupted by Aidene loudly putting down her spoon and knife on her plate.

Anne looked up from her plate of nothing but a lot of chicken nuggets and a singular brussel sprout from the salad bar, all untouched since the time we sat down.

"If we are going to survive detention together we need to be at least a little cooperative," She sighed.

"Yeah we are going to be stuck there for a while," Roy said.

"Roy. You have like nothing against anyone over here. Aidene clearly has something against Anne and the other way round. I don't like Anne and the feeling is mutual and Valentina... I actually don't know about her." Penelope deadpanned.

"I can punch Roy. Then he will have something against me" Aidene suggested.

"Please don't punch me," he said quietly, backing away a little.

"Ok, but if we cooperate it doesn't mean that we are on the same side," Anne said.

"Preach sister" Aidene added.

"Wait what do you mean by 'not on the same side'?" Roy said, clearly confused.

"Did you see Kaleb's face when Rayners %$@$^* punched him?" I chuckled, having a sudden flashback.

"Yeah," Anne said suppressing a laugh.

"He was like WHAAAAAAAAAAA!" Aidene said dramatically leaning backward and flailing out her arms. It earned a few seconds of laughter.

"I wish he had longer hair instead of the semi-bald haircut or whatever that is, I could have pulled it like he did to my hair" Aidene sadly supplied getting back into her seat.

"How is your face?" Valentina asked, pointing at the dark purple fist-shaped bruise forming on Aidene's jawline.

"I will live as long as I can breathe," Aidene said, pumping her chest.

"Kaleb will probably be running next time he sees Aidene," Valentina supplied, laughing.

"Like this?" Aidene said getting off her seat and did one of her dramatic enactments of Kaleb running and falling down. This led to loud laughs on our table and odd looks from the other ones.

All of us stopped laughing. Until... Aidene started off again. She would stop for a while looking like she was done laughing and fall suddenly into another fit. This went on for about a minute. Scaring and confusing us slightly.

"I think I got it!" Anne said suddenly.

"Got what?" I asked.

"Let's say that Aidene's main laugh is the earthquake and then she stops and then comes the aftershocks her brain keeps vibrating after the first laugh," Anne said bring her hands to her head shaking it slightly. That ended up giving Aidene another one of her 'aftershocks'.

"Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense," Aidene said once she was done.

"What?" Valentina asked to which she didn't get an answer.

Aidene's eyes widened suddenly and looked at Anne. She started jumping up and down on her seat. Her food laid forgotten (not like there was much on her plate from the beginning anyway).

"Can we please tell them?" Aidene begged Anne.

"Tell them what?" a clearly bewildered Anne said.

"You know"

"No, I do not know"

"Well first of all I am pretty sure laughs don't work like that and two the other thing before the fight"

Anne's mouth formed an 'O' realizing what Aidene was talking about.

"Eh" She shrugged.

Aidene taking that as a yes explained everything from the time Natalie told her the story to the trap door.

"I thought that was only a story..." It was unbelievable really.

"...and did you at some point just say that you sneaked into our room in the middle of the night?"

"Umm... Ignore that" Aidene said guiltily.

"You are horrible at keeping secrets," Anne said.

"You would be surprised." Aidene sang.

We had a few moments of silence as we let the thought of the secret floor sink in. I was mostly stumped. I was rarely stumped when it came to knowing the students and the school(I think I mentioned that before) and these two girls had managed to do that several times in the course of only one week.

"Let's go search for the diary then," Valentina said,

"Agreed, Free information and more if you let me join" A smirk appearing on my face. I could do with some mischief. This school was anything but fun and I was getting seriously irritated with how much Aidene and Anne seemed to know about the school, I might as well keep up with them.

"Well Anne let it be officially written down you are a killjoy," Aidene said.

"I am in," Anne said, clearly not having a choice in this.

"Uhh... I am not coming, this feels like an only-girls thing soo.." Roy trailed on.

"No one %*@$& asked you, Roy." I said.

"This is the start of a beautiful friendship, one that will face hardships and problems. But will bloom into a wonderful, magnificent piece of art. One that will last ages unforgotten.A bond that shall not be broken even when the darkest of forces invade the world. We will swear loyalty, honor, and respect to each other. We will hold each other's hand..." Aidene started ranting the speech in an overdramatic voice.

"Okay, okay we get it. Stop, please I beg you" Anne pleaded.