DENOUEMENT
vii. house of intruders
❝IT WAS PROBABLY JUST A NIGHTMARE.❞

AS SOON AS the screech had happened, Sydney and Mara instantly shot out of their beds and rushed over to Patricia's bed, trying to figure out what was wrong with her as they attempted to calm her down simultaneously – she claimed that she screeched because she saw a man at the bedroom door, which was creepy, but also very unlikely. They would have had to enter through two heavy (and also, locked) doors, that definitely would have made a sound to wake somebody (especially Victor). Furthermore, they would have then had to get all the way upstairs and through the corridors without being seen by a single person in Anubis House – all of that just to wait in a doorway seemed rather stupid, and quite impossible.

Although, the two girls didn't tell her that they thought her claim was absurd, and simply tried to calm her down for the next few minutes until a bunch of people began to come through their door until all the residents of Anubis House were in their bedroom – a policeman had even been in at one point, whom Victor called to investigate, but was now downstairs with the housekeeper to talk about the incident, after he had told everyone that there had been no sign of anyone having broken in. Whilst Victor was downstairs, Trudy attempted to calm down the purple-haired girl, taking Sydney's seat as the prankster moved over to where Jerome and Alfie stood.

"I saw him outside the door, and he was staring right at me." Patricia told everyone, still frightened about the situation and causing people to begin to comfort her, before she turned to face their housemother, who was to the side of her and had an arm wrapped around her, "You believe me, don't you?"

"Of course." Trudy told her, whilst everyone continued to murmur and whisper to her that it was okay, wanting to get her to relax and calm down as soon as possible so that all of them could go back to sleep.

Despite the incident that had occurred last night and the interruption of sleep that everyone had, all of the Anubis House residents (minus Patricia, who hadn't gone back to sleep after the incident) were still forced to get dressed and go to school, meaning that they had to face the results of their French test, even though everyone's minds were still thinking about whether or not the purple-haired girl actually saw a man last night.

"Do you think she actually saw someone?" Jerome questioned, with him and Alfie leant against the lockers to the side of Sydney's, whilst the girl began to take out the books that she needed for the French lesson that they had next.

"What if it was an alien? It'd explain how he got in and out so quickly without leaving a trace." Alfie suggested with a grin on his lips, whilst the boy beside him let out a chuckle at the idea, knowing it was ludicrous.

"Here's another explanation: it didn't happen." Sydney stated with frustration laced in her tone due to having to have the stupid conversation once again (it had been the only thing she'd heard all day), making sure that she had everything that she needed before she shut her locker and began to make her way to French class with the two boys following behind her, "It was probably just a nightmare – no biggie; I get them all the time."

"What?"

Oh no.

Upon realising her mistake, Sydney's eyes had significantly widened, before she regained her composure and decided to act like she didn't hear Jerome, slipping into her seat casually and getting out her textbooks, not looking at the boys as they went to their own seats, confused looks on their faces as they shared a glance with one another, wondering what the girl had meant. Knowing that the pair could easily tap her on the shoulder and ask about it, Sydney prayed that Mrs Andrews would arrive faster – which was something that she'd never wished for in her entire life, as that meant class started sooner.

However, it seemed as though luck was on her side as, fortunately, the teacher entered the room and caused everyone's conversations to come to a halt, the chatter in the room becoming significantly less as she made her way to her desk.

"Morning, everybody." She greeted, getting the same greeting back to her from all the classmates in unison, before she continued, "I have your French test papers to hand back here."

Nevermind – maybe Sydney didn't want Mrs Andrews to arrive earlier afterall.

It seemed like Sydney wasn't the only person who didn't want their French tests back, as the blonde-haired girl noticed Mick lower his head, wincing slightly as he prepared himself to see the letter 'F' on his test paper – little did he know, that he'd get one of the highest scores thanks to Mara Jaffray.

Upon having his test paper handed back to him, he picked it up, expecting the worst, until he saw the letter and stared at it, confused, for a few moments, "I got an A? I got an A!"

Letting out a loud cheer, the jock quickly jumped out of his seat and hugged Mara tightly, presuming that he managed to get such a high grade due to her tutoring, whilst the nerd told him, "I knew you could do it."

As Mick had his arms wrapped around Mara, Sydney turned to see Amber Millington's reaction, knowing that she wouldn't be rather happy about her boyfriend hugging somebody who had a crush on him.

Sydney's assumption was proved to be true, noticing that the fashionista had a scowl on her face as she watched the pair, before speaking up herself, "What's going on?"

"I got an A." Mick announced happily, returning back to his seat and turning around to face his girlfriend, who got up from her own seat and grabbed the boy's test, examining it whilst he continued, "I'm sure I didn't get all of these, but maybe I just did some really good guesses."

"Stranger things have happened, eh, Mara?" Jerome stated with a sly tone to his voice, whilst Sydney let out a small chuckle from behind him – that was enough to make Amber Millington even more suspicious of Mick's weirdly high grade.

Due to her suspicions, the fashionista quickly turned in an attempt to grab Mara's test paper so that she could compare the two test papers, having a strong suspicion of what could have happened (and being absolutely correct with that suspicion), but the nerd quickly grabbed her test and hid it before the blonde could manage to get a glimpse of it, thus keeping the secret for even longer.

Considering that the nerd wanted to keep the tests a secret, that meant that she still had to complete all of the tasks that Jerome told her to do in order to keep him quiet, and that's exactly how Mara, Jerome, and Sydney ended up in the drama hall within their break, with the nerd scraping tons of gum from Jerome's shoes, whilst the two pranksters seemed rather relaxed. Jerome had his feet up on the table and his hands behind his head, whilst Sydney was sat beside him, partially resting against him as the two of them watched the girl scrape the gum off his shoes.

Honestly, Sydney pitied Mara slightly, as she knew that she wouldn't like scraping gum off Jerome's shoes (she was also aware that the prankster had stolen Alfie's gum and purposely put more gum on his shoes, to give the girl a harder time), though it was somewhat deserved as she shouldn't have cheated for Mick – it'd teach her a lesson, at least.

"I just don't know how I managed to get all that stuff on them." Jerome lied, referring to the gum on his shoes as he watched the nerd struggle to scrape it off, finding amusement in it.

Rolling her eyes, Sydney nudged the boy slightly in his stomach, wanting him to be nicer to her roommate, as she mumbled sarcastically, "Yeah, I wonder."

"It doesn't even make sense that one shoe could step in so much gum!" Mara complained, a small huff leaving her mouth as she continued to struggle to get the gum off – it wasn't exactly a surprise she was struggling; she was using the end of a spoon to scrape it off - a knife would have been easier.

"Just unlucky, I guess."

"Has anyone seen my gum?" Alfie asked having entered the room, and upon noticing a piece of his gum on the table, he picked it up, blissfully unaware that it had been on Jerome's shoe, "Huh, thought I'd left it in the science lab."

And with that said, he threw it into his mouth.

"Alfie, no!" Mara and Sydney both cried out in protest simultaneously, whilst Jerome chuckled – all of them rather disgusted as they were aware of where the gum had been, although the boy dismissed their cries and motioned for Sydney to move so that he could sit down next to them, causing her to scoot onto Jerome's lap, the boy instantly moving his hands to steady her – it was the normal.

Then, Amber entered the room, seeming rather irritated as she approached the group, her eyes on one person in particular, "Hey, Mara, what's going on between you and Mick? You were acting very strange earlier."

"Nothing, Amber," Mara responded to the blonde exasperatedly, tired of the entire situation as she closed her eyes from frustration whilst she continued to talk, her voice laced with frustration and annoyance, "Please, let it go. I'm not even tutoring him anymore."

However, that did not stop Amber Millington.

Clearly not getting the answer that she desired, the fashionista took matters into her own hands, quickly moving to the side of Mara and grabbing her bag, beginning to rifle through it to find the proof that she wanted, knowing that she had been involved with Mick's suspiciously high grades and having a theory which she needed to prove to be true.

"Hey, that's private!" Mara protested, shooting up from where she sat and dropping everything in her hands as she went to grab her bag in an attempt to stop the girl from finding the proof that would reveal everything, but it was too late – Amber already had Mara's and Mick's tests in her hands and was comparing them.

There was a moment of silence.

"Funny – you and Mick must be like, psychically linked or something." Amber commented dryly upon seeing that both of them had the exact same answers – another rookie mistake; there needs to at least be some discrepancy and difference between the tests.

"Busted." Jerome remarked, an amused look on his face considering that he found the entire situation extremely entertaining – that was, until, Sydney nudged him in the stomach; that, he did not find entertaining and/or amusing.

Snapping her head around to face the pranksters (more specifically, Jerome), the nerd's eyes widened as she accused him, "You creep, you did this!"

"We never said a word, promise." Jerome informed her, raising his hands in defence of the pranksters – which was true, if the boy had an agreement with someone, then he tended to stick to his word.

At that, Mara turned her eyes on Sydney, being aware that the girl was always with the boy and could read him like a book, and thus would be able to tell if he was lying, "He's telling the truth; we didn't tell. You're just..." The female prankster paused, attempting to think of the right words to say as she hesitantly finished with, "...really bad at cheating - so no, Jerome isn't a creep... at least, for that reason, anyways."

With a roll of his eyes, Jerome nudged Sydney in her side for insulting him (even though he was very much aware that she was joking), causing her to turn back to him and stick her tongue out at him, before they both turned upon hearing Amber speak up.

"Sydney's right; why are you calling him a creep, anyways?" Amber questioned, irritation laced in her tone as she continued, "You're the creep – stealing my boyfriend by helping him cheat!"

"I'm not stealing your boyfriend!" Mara practically cried out, denying the accusation made against her before she informed the girl, "And, Mick doesn't know anything about it!"

"What? I don't get it." Amber inquired, clearly puzzled at how the two of them could have cheated without one of them being aware about it, and she turned to the three jokesters for answers.

"I love this part." Jerome began, a smile on his lips whilst he sat up a little straighter, holding onto Sydney so that she didn't fall off him, before he continued, telling the fashionista, "She did it for him secretly."

"You are unbelievable." The fashionista started slowly, her eyes darting from the nerd to the test papers as she continued, asking, "Did you really think you could get Mick by doing that?"

Within seconds, Amber had slammed the test papers down and, before anyone even had the chance to intervene, grabbed Mara by the shoulders in an attempt to pull her to the ground, making the nerd release a scream as they wrestled, the room erupting into chants whilst Sydney's eyes widened in shock at the actions of Amber Millington, shooting up out of Jerome's lap as she wondered how to stop the fight – who knew Amber Millington had it in her?

Cautiously, Sydney rushed towards the pair, attempting to pull their arms away from each other as she tried to break them up, but both of them were tougher than they looked – especially Amber, although she had a lot of anger to fuel her strength. Honestly, Sydney thought she had no chance of stopping the fight by herself, and she knew that it was a horrendous and stupid idea to put herself, physically, in the middle of them unless she wanted her eyeball scratched out by Amber.

"Ding, dong! Round one!" Jerome called out, leaning forward into his seat as he tried to grab Sydney's wrist in an attempt to pull her back and away from the fight, but she shrugged his grip off, snapping her head back to face him with an annoyed look on her face.

"Not helpful!"

"Woah! Cat fight!" Alfie shouted, a crowed beginning to form in the room so that they could all watch the fight, whilst the female prankster sent a sharp glare towards her friend, frustrated that neither of them were helping and simply encouraging them.

"Really not helpful!" Sydney snapped, turning her head back towards the fight and grabbing Mara's shoulders, trying to drag her away from the fashionista who had a rather tight grip of her.

Fortunately, the effort became a little easier as Mick Campbell (who the fight was all about) rushed into the room, seemingly appearing out of nowhere. His eyes widened as he noticed the fight occurring, before he became even shocked upon noticing who it was between, causing him to run forward and grab the shoulders of his girlfriend, telling her to let go whilst trying to pull her away from Mara in an attempt to break up the fight.

This was way too chaotic.

Turning his head to face Jerome, who was rather amused as he watched the fight, Mick rolled his eyes, motioning for him to help Sydney as he yelled at him over the sound of the crowd "Don't just sit there, you idiot!"

Releasing a huff and rolling his eyes, evidently not wanting his amusement to be over so soon, the boy reluctantly stood up from his seat before he rushed over to help Sydney in an attempt to pull Mara away from the feisty fashionista, who apparently had a very tight and strong grip.

Reminder: never mess with Amber Millington.

However, as Amber and Mara were released from the grips of one another, with Mick having pulled away his girlfriend, the nerd snapped her head around and pushed the two pranksters away, slapping their arms off her as she shouted, "Get off me!"

Due to the harshness of Mara's push, Sydney almost ended up stumbling into a table until Jerome quickly reached out, one of his hands grabbing the girl's wrist and pulling her out of harm's way, before his other hand wrapped around her waist and pulled her closer into him, her practically becoming pressed against him as he steadied her and made sure that she was okay.

Confused with everything that had just taken place, Mick turned to face his girlfriend, finally letting go of her now that the fighting was over, and asked her, "What are you doing?!"

"That's right – take her side!" Amber snapped at him, irritated that her boyfriend was defending somebody who wasn't her, "Just because she cheated for you," The girl continued, grabbing the two tests that she had thrown down earlier to show the boy as proof, "doesn't mean you have to defend her!"

At that, the jock took the two tests out of his girlfriend's hands, glancing over them and examining them before he looked up at Mara, who stood there silently, asking with betrayal laced in his tone, "Is this true?"

"I was just trying to help. Your answers were so... wrong." Mara confessed, adding an attempt to defend her actions, but it only seemed to make things worse.

"Do you really think I'm so thick that I can't do anything without your help?" Mick asked the nerd – he'd trusted her and asked her to help him, but he didn't want her to help him by cheating for him; she'd given him false hope that he actually got a good grade himself.

"No, of course not! Not 'anything'!" Mara cried out, tears stinging her eyes as she argued with her crush and her secrets became known to the room – her good girl and stellar student reputation had just taken a large hit, especially in Mick Campbell's eyes.

"I could get kicked out of school for this." The jock stated angrily, tossing the test papers to the as he looked at the girl for a few seconds, before stepping backwards and putting his arm around his girlfriend, "Come on."

Glaring at Mara harshly, the 'it' couple made their way out of the room, whilst the nerd stood still, watching them leave with a devastated look on her face – everything had gone so wrong in the matter of seconds.

"Mara..." Jerome called out, causing the nerd to spin around to face him as he pointed at his shoes, which she had dropped on the table before the fight had started, still covered in chewing gum that the girl had yet to scrape off, "You missed a spot."

In response, the nerd sent him a harsh glare whilst the female prankster, now sat on his lap once again as the two of them returned to their previous seating arrangements, hit his arm, glancing back at Mara with a worried expression, watching as she shook her head before running out of the room, presumably to go and find Mick once again.

With a disgusted look on her face, Sydney reached forward and carefully picked up the shoes on the table, holding them with as little fingers as possible as she turned to Jerome, offering them to him and making sure they were as far away from her as possible as she told him, "Get scraping, Clarke."

With a groan, he let the girl drop his shoes into his hands, before he reached forward for the spoon and spent the rest of his break picking off the gum that he had purposely put on there, and Sydney and Alfie made sure to laugh at him, snapping a few photos as well to send to Poppy, who Sydney knew would love the photos and have a good laugh at them – it really was karma for Jerome Clarke.

Once school was finished and everyone was back home, having changed into more comfortable clothes, Sydney found herself helping to set up for supper, alongside Trudy and Patricia, telling the latter about the fight that had happened during the day.

"Let's just say: I don't think I ever want to get on Amber's bad side after seeing her in action today." Sydney said to the purple-haired girl, the pair of them bringing dishes over to the table and placing them where they had to go as they laughed.

However, Sydney's laughter soon came to a halt as she noticed that their housekeeper had appeared in the hallway, a serious look on his face. Having noticed the girl's laughter suddenly stop and her attention being elsewhere, Patricia quickly spun on her heel, her eyes meeting the man stood behind her.

"Alright, Patricia? I just need to speak to you about last night." Victor informed the girl, causing the blonde-haired prankster to quickly put her head down, sorting out some cutlery awkwardly as she was not a part of their conversation.

However, Patricia shook her head as she told the man, "I don't want to talk about it."

"Can you describe to me exactly what this man looks like?" Victor asked the girl, whilst Sydney grabbed another dish from their housemother and brought it over to the table, noticing Victor walking further into the room as he continued, "It's very important."

"Get away from me!" Patricia cried out before she bolted past the housekeeper and out of the dining room, causing Victor to glance over at Sydney, who was stood awkwardly with a bowl of fruit in her hands with wide eyes.

"I'll- uh, I'll..." The girl stuttered, glancing around the room nervously before she quickly put the bowl of fruit down, pointing in the direction the purple-haired girl went as she continued, "I'll go speak to her."

With that, the blonde quickly rushed out of the room to follow her friend, going down the corridor to the entrance just in time to see her almost run into Nina, who had just come downstairs and grabbed her to stop them from colliding, before noticing the distressed look on her face.

"Woah, Patricia, are you okay?"

"Oh, let me guess, just like everyone else in this place, you're worried about me!" Patricia sneered with a strident tone, before she shook her head at the American and continued, "Well, I don't care what you all think of me, I know there's something going on!" She cried out, brushing past the girl and storming up the stairs, only to stop halfway and to turn back to face Sydney, snapping, "And stop following me!"

At that, Sydney's eyes widened, and she put her hands up in mock surrender, waiting until the goth had entered the girl's hallway before she let out a nervous chuckle and turned to face Nina, scratching the back of her neck awkwardly, "Guess that's me told, I-."

However, Sydney cut herself off upon noticing Amber beside them, knocking on the wood of the staircases, making her eyebrows furrow in confusion as she turned to face the fashionista, squinting her eyes as she pointed towards her in confusion, Nina also shrugging at the sight of her.

"I... Do I even ask?"

"I wouldn't if I were you." Nina advised, making the prankster shake her head before she released a sigh, turning on her heel and going down the boy's corridor until she reached Alfie's and Jerome's room, knocking on their door.

As she walked down the corridor, she noticed that Nina's eyes watched her carefully, as though she was waiting until she was out of hearing range so that she could speak to her roommate, making Sydney suspicious as she wondered: What was Nina Martin hiding?

Firstly, she kept the attic key and continued to go into the attic after her initiation ceremony, until she had to give it back to their housekeeper. Secondly, she'd been sneaking around in the night. Thirdly, she sabotaged a floorboard. Fourthly, she tends to be late to lessons, alongside Fabian Rutter. Lastly, she acts weird and seems to have quite a few secret conversations, starting with Fabian and now with Amber as well.

However, she simply shrugged it off and entered the prankster's room, deciding that she'd ask Nina about it some other time and that, at that particular moment in time, all that Sydney Anderson wanted to do was hang out with her best friends and avoid the piles of homework she had stacking up in her room, which was definitely the reason she slept over in their room last night.

Obviously, she was a stellar student who followed all of the rules.

One rule that she certainly had to follow was actually attending school and her classes, despite how much she didn't want to, which was exactly why she found herself in class the next day, waiting for Mr Winkler to arrive. Fortunately, to ease her boredom, she had Jerome and Alfie on the table next to her, with the former of the pair throwing jellybeans to Sydney as she tried to catch them in her mouth, failing miserably.

"Right, everyone settle down, please!" Mr Winkler announced as he entered the room, causing everyone to fall silent whilst the pair of blonde pranksters hastily packed away their jellybeans, "Okay, before we start the class, the school is having Prospective Parent's Day next week, and I would like some volunteers to help me show the outside world what a talented bunch you all are."

"All of us: talented?" Sydney spoke up, repeating his words as she pointed around at the class, her eyebrow quirked up before she scoffed, "Are you sure about that, Mr Winkler?"

As the teacher went to open his mouth to respond, the door swung open and the athletics teacher, Miss Robinson, entered the room with students following behind her, instructing them to take a seat whilst the students glanced at the intruders, confused as they wondered what was happening.

However, the sudden appearance of the teacher made Jerome sit straighter in his seat, perking up and a grin appearing on his lips as he mumbled, "Aw man, Miss Robinson."

With a roll of her eyes, Sydney leant over towards him and flicked his arm, causing him to let out a whine of pain as he turned to her in confusion as she spoke up, "Student and teacher relationships are bad."

"So is elbowing people in the gut!" Jerome cried out, not-so-subtly leaning over the aisle to weakly push the girl's arm, them both softly chuckling at one another, not noticing that Alfie was pointing at the two of them in disbelief and shaking his head.

"Uh, Miss Robinson, I'm in the middle of a class here." Mr Winkler announced to the teacher, quickly approaching her as he motioned to all of his students which he already had in seats, ready to learn.

"This is my classroom, Mr Winkler." Miss Robinson informed him, clearly not in the mood to negotiate as she continued, telling the teacher, "If you look on the timetable, I've had it booked for weeks."

"Shall we-?" Mr Winkler began, motioning outside so that they could talk about it privately, not wanting to cause a scene in front of the students – however, Miss Robinson shook her head, definitely not wanting to discuss or negotiate.

"I don't think so."

"Damn, she's feisty." Sydney muttered under her breath, chuckling slightly at the encounter, before she turned her head and noticed that Jerome was bent down in a peculiar way, causing her to narrow her eyes as she wondered what he was up to.

However, it soon became apparent as she glanced under the table, noticing the red lace in his hands that he had begun to quickly tie around the chair leg – more specifically, Alfie's red trainer laces. Upon seeing it, Sydney let out a small giggle and shook her head, the sound of her giggles causing Jerome to gaze up at her and send her a small thumbs-up, a cheeky grin on his lips as he did so – well, it looked like Alfie was now ticked off from the list of people they were pranking, although Sydney had the idea to hide his favourite Jester's hat, instead, but she supposed that making him trip over worked too.

"Okay, quiet everyone, please." Mr Winkler instructed, turning to face them and evidently giving up on trying to keep the classroom, as it seemed as though the athletics teacher would not budge and he didn't want any conflict, "Can you go to the drama studio and we'll carry on there."

Following his instructions, everybody began to quickly pack their things away and stand up, moving to leave the classroom until a thud and a small yelp was heard, causing everyone to snap their heads back around, laughing as they saw Alfie on the floor, the two pranksters beside him as they acted innocent (though Sydney was quietly chuckling to herself, shaking her head at the two boys).

"Right behind you, Mr Winkler." Alfie muttered, glancing up at their teacher who had turned back upon hearing the noise, sending a small glance at Sydney and Jerome, who he knew were probably the people who had caused the boy to trip.

"Come on." Sydney sighed, quickly kneeling down to untie the knot to free the boy from the chair, before the two of them stood up and joined Jerome once again, forming the trio of pranksters once more as they made their way out of the classroom and went to the drama studio to resume their lesson, making jokes all throughout.