Chương 124: ANOTHER LUNCHTIME MISADVENTURE

Lunch was straight after art. I had left my lunchbox in the classroom, so I left my gang to go fetch it. After that, left on my own, I naturally made my way to my usual lunchtime abode. It felt a little strange now that I was there. It felt like I hadn't been there for a while—and something else. {Approaching vampire} I stopped short at this warning and backed away slowly and carefully, easing myself back into the school building. It would seem that I had lost territory.

I considered reclaiming it, but after having stolen their valuable fight dog, it might be better to lie low and not get into another vampire-related conflict. My Wolfie was keen for a fight at the thought of it. Bloodthirsty thing, my Wolfie. Can't be helped—it was an Alpha wolf, a fighter type at that. But not in school. There was some kind of treaty, right? And if I did get into a real vampire conflict outside packlands, we might have to spend hours in the Green Packland Council meetings to sort it out.

Luckily for me, Wolfie wasn't keen on long meetings. So my Wolfie and my hair settled down again. But now, where should I eat? If I went back to class, those two girls would probably be there doing weird stuff. If I went to the cafeteria… no, I didn't want to deal with the crowd and noise and smells there. I'd rather pick a fight with a vampire and endure long lectures and council meetings. The picnic bench with my friends? But Jasmine and Pearl would not be there. It would just be the guys…

which was all right, but the other boys might kick up an embarrassing fuss over a girl on their turf again. And then it occurred to me—why don't I just eat here? There was no one along the hallways. This section of the school was pretty deserted, really. I walked to the empty stairway. It was really quiet. I carefully checked for vampires. The air was pretty still, so it wasn't easy to catch the little pocket of lifelessness—not in the abyss of life in a still and empty section of a school building.

Well, I didn't sense anything. I chose a step on the empty stairway to sit on and opened up my lunch bag. Today, it wasn't the usual paper bag. It was a cloth bag. There were no nicely wrapped sandwiches or fruit! Not even crackers. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. There was a thermal box. I slipped the rest of my lunch bag off it and opened the box. Oh! Mini sausages and bell peppers on the side and a creamy pasta.

I recognized it as the good smell that was in our kitchen this morning. I found a fork in the lunch bag and popped in a mini sausage. So yum! But it was the pasta… wow. My mouth had never felt so happy. It was enough to put me in a good mood. If Keys kept cooking like that, I'd keep him as my dog forever. After my meal, I put everything back into my lunch bag and went to hunt for some Coke. I didn't want to use the vending machines at my usual place that had been usurped by an unknown vamp.

I also didn't want to go to the picnic bench by the boys' turf. That left either the machines at the back of the cafeteria or the machines at the student foyer. The problem with the student foyer at lunchtime was the students. Everyone who wasn't at the cafeteria would be there. In fact, I'd heard that during school hours, the student foyer was strictly senior territory. Which left the locker area near the front entrance. So yes, that was where I was headed.

As I went, I kept expecting something to happen, but nothing did, even though I was on high alert, and I gulped down my Coke very quickly. I barely tasted it. I crumpled the can and dropped it in a bin. Then I heard the patter of footsteps. Two pairs of feet… not too large, around my size maybe. They were rather noisy, one of them sounding uneven. I slid over to the other side of the vending machine so I wouldn't be seen.

"Awww… I can't believe you lost it. We're going to be in so much trouble for this." The first voice was a boy. He sounded familiar.

"Maybe I left it in my locker." The other voice was also a boy. He sounded familiar too.

"Why is it that whenever I'm with you, we are either falling over, losing something, running away from something, or getting lost?" Boy 1 complained.

"Awww… Keanu, it's not so bad," Boy 2 laughed weakly.

"Sometimes good things happen too." I heard Keanu groan. Wait—Keanu… I knew that name? Not from my class… now why did I know this name?

"River, that's not your locker," Keanu said.

"Oh, oops." River said and moved to work on another locker.

"That key is gone," Keanu mourned.

"We are doomed."

"It's probably somewhere here. Eh, it's stuck again! I must be the unluckiest guy alive. I always get the lockers with stuck doors," River whined.

"If only that's your only problem," Keanu grumbled. The two boys sounded like they were trying hard. They made a lot of grunting noises. I waited for them to open the locker, find whatever they were looking for, and leave. Maybe I could just walk out and leave, but wouldn't that surprise them? What's taking them so long? Ding! My phone chimed, giving me away. Grrr…

I decided to just take out my phone and scroll through it, pretending I was just minding my phone in a corner of an empty locker area all this while like an antisocial creep. It's not cool, but what other choice did I have?

"Did you hear that?" River asked.

"No," Keanu said.

"Don't get distracted. River!"

"I definitely heard a sound," River said. He started moving in my direction. I moved to rest against the side of the machine and flicked at my phone screen as if I had been doing this all the while. The notification was from my calendar app: Killion is sharing a calendar. Who's Killion? I opened it. The calendar was empty. My phone chimed again. I opened my message app: KEYS ~ Share your calendar with me, Goddess. A loud exclamation and a tumbling of bodies.

I pushed myself off the machine to see River and Keanu in a tangled heap on the ground. How did two people fall over on a completely flat surface like that?