Epic Escape (9 page)

“She lost them,” Megan said, her voice rising. “She lost all of them.”

Veronica flushed and gave Megan a betrayed look. Riley’s smirk started small and got big.

“What more can happen?” Megan felt tense, ready to snap. “Why can’t we get home? When’s this going to stop? What--”

Chase grabbed a tray and got in the lunch line. “I could eat.”

Megan turned to take his head off, but something in his eyes and his pragmatism calmed her. She breathed out and life returned to her body.

Familiar with the procedure, they dropped into the queue. The line smelled like pizza day with fried sides.

“Tapioca or Jell-o?” The lunch lady poked at the Jell-o mold with her serving prongs and the gelatin jiggled around embedded orange slices.

Riley couldn’t take his eyes off the motion. “That was us. I was that orange wedge.”

“Roots or hooves, kid?” the lunch lady asked Chase.

“Dude, take the tapioca,” Riley urged.

Chase pointed and the lunch lady slapped Jell-o on his tray. “Hooves it is.”

“Why’s she calling the gelatin
hooves
?”

Riley jabbed a finger against the sneeze guard directly in front of the tapioca. “You really don’t want to know.” He received an enormous scoop to the tapioca.

Chase said, “You’re not a vegetarian, so it’s okay that you swam through a vat of hooves.”

“Gelatin’s made out of a hoof?” Megan said, “And it was in my hair?”

Veronica gestured toward the tapioca. “Vegetarians can swim through animal hooves. They just probably shouldn’t eat them. Unless, maybe they could if the hoof fell off naturally.”

Megan’s stomach turned. She skipped the desert section and moved ahead.

When Veronica caught up to her, Megan whispered, “You and Riley are cute together.” She examined the pizza station. Once slice of pepperoni and one slice of cheese remained.

Veronica’s gaze moved from the blue streaks in Riley’s black hair down to his tattoo. “My parents would never let me date him. Never.”

“Maybe.” Megan stepped up to the glass and assessed her two choices. “Which is best?” she asked a nearby student.

The tall skinny guy ignored her. He held up two fingers to the server, indicating he’d take the cheese and the pepperoni. The lunch lady shoved the wide metal spatula under one slice, and scooped up the second on top of it.

Ichabod held out his tray and he last two slices landed on his plate. Megan’s lips tightened and the server shoveled the remaining option on her plate.

P
lop.
The pale dense square of vegetarian lasagna landed in the entrée slot. A limp piece of broccoli tried to escape from under one of the pasta layers, but the noodle collapsed on the green stem, refusing to allow freedom. Megan knew how the broccoli felt.

She sighed and followed Veronica over to a lunch table. Food would help. She could make a plan on a full stomach.

A nearby student nodded at Veronica. She nodded back. The guy bared his fangs at her, raised his eyebrows and waved his index finger toward her, then back at himself, as if to ask,
you and me?
Veronica shook her head emphatically.

This whole thing was so weird.

Riley sank beside Veronica, his eyes not leaving the other guy’s face. Sensing defeat, the vampire moved on.

Chase’s mouth smirked and he slid in too, ignoring the table of jocks waving him over. He spooned up some of the gelatin. “Yum.”

“Really?” Megan asked. “You chose the Jell-o?”

A pale-skinned guy appeared at her elbow. “Join me for lunch.”

Megan swallowed and shook her head.

Veronica widened her eyes. “Check his teeth.”

The guy smiled, revealing normal teeth. Megan rose, closing in for a closer look, and was stopped by the tug of Chase’s hand.

He pulled her back down. “She’s with us.”

The move made her feel all glowy. She lowered back beside him and smiled.

Chase scooped another bite of the gelatin.

Megan thought about the article and swallowed. She knew what to do. “If you’re going to kiss me sometime, you have to stop eating hoof.” She took his bowl of gelatin and tossed it to the table behind her.

The gelatin hit the table, sprung from its container, and landed on a student one table over. That student glared at the wrong kid and threw a roll straight at his head.

Her attempt at intriguing Chase had devolved into a middle school level rumble. The vampire skimmed a cookie Veronica’s way. The treat landed beside her hand, more flirt than food fight. Veronica giggled.

Riley snagged a pizza slice off a nearby tray and lobbed it at the vampire’s head.

The food fight escalated, but Megan could only focus on one thing--Chase, or more precisely, Chase’s hand. He traced the camisole’s straps across her shoulder. “Am I going to kiss you sometime?”

Tingles sprang to life everywhere he touched. Megan couldn’t answer him, and heat filled her body. She couldn’t believe she’d said that. It must’ve been the hunger talking. She opened her mouth to try and form an answer. Before she could, a teacher with the privilege of serving as cafeteria monitor interrupted her attempt.

“Watch those hands.” The teacher frowned at Megan. “See? You got him in trouble. No spaghetti straps young lady. You’ll have to come with me.”

Megan didn’t want to go anywhere with anyone. She bit her lip and hesitated. Chase removed his letter jacket and passed it over. She quickly put his coat on, becoming compliant with the dress code.
By wearing Chase’s letter jacket.

“Fine.” The teacher looked up at the flying lunches. A tiny fairy flitted through the air, taking advantage of the food fight to snag choice morsels. “You there, those better not be your fangs.” The teacher went after him.

“How are we going to get out of this?” Veronica said, sounding more mystified then deterred.

No one answered.

A glob of gelatin flew toward Riley. He threw himself sideways and dodged as if the gelatin were explosive.

Splat.
The goo blobbed onto a girl walking behind him and oozed across her waist. She turned to glare at Riley.

“So if we get tattoos to remind us of this trip, what kind will you get?” Megan said, looking at Riley’s bicep.

That distracted Veronica. She flinched and wrinkled her nose. “We’re not getting tattoos.”

The ferocity of the food fight increased. Riley held up his tray to block a second projectile. It seemed prudent to make a move, so Megan slid under the table and crouched behind her tray, holding the slick plastic high in front of her.

The shrill sound of the lunch end bell slammed a halt on the food fight, and sent the students scurrying, crawling, and flying away.

Veronica’s hand appeared under the table, and she helped pull Megan up. She wore a slightly superior expression, but the tilted chin and raised eyebrows lacked power, given the blob of casserole stuck in her bangs and the mushy orange piece of something clinging to her ends. What was it? Cheetos dipped in some liquid, ranch-flavored dressing maybe. Megan smiled and straightened her hair.

Riley assessed the exits. “We have a choice. We can go to class or we can skip and hit the streets.”

“We should go to class,” Veronica said. She’d never cut school in her life.

Ignoring Veronica’s suggestion, Chase grabbed Megan’s hand in his larger one and headed toward the exit.

Riley smiled, clearly favoring that idea, and followed. Veronica trailed last, looking down the hallway wearing a frown, but when they reached the door, all four walked through.

T
hey landed in an office wearing grey business suits. Grey surrounded them: grey carpet grey walls, and grey cubicles--a place where happiness goes to die.

A woman wearing a dark wool suit and an in-charge expression held up a thick stack of papers. “The time for fun and games has ended. This is work. Sign and date each of these sheets.” The manager handed them each a pile. “Also, we still need volunteers for the corporate audit. Are you helping with the timelines or the metrics?”

“No,” Riley said.

She huffed out a sigh. “Fine. The auditors will be here in the morning, so no one, and I mean no one, leaves until all work is complete.”

Chase glanced around with a frown, and strode toward the door.

The manager frowned at him and pointed to four cubicles. The cubicles behind her displayed nameplates with their names on them:
Chase, Veronica, and Riley.
None read
Megan
. Megan stopped the manager. “Um, I’m Megan, where should I sit?”

The manager pointed at a cubicle bearing
Hetta
on the nameplate. “We don’t use nicknames here.”

“Megan isn’t a nickname, it’s my real name.”

The manager stared pointedly at the stack of paper in Megan’s hands. “How many of those forms have you completed?”

Megan didn’t answer.

“And you’re worried about your nameplate?” The manager muttered under her breath but not so quietly that Megan couldn’t hear the words, “Overlarge ego.”

Megan tried not to squirm. “Okay, yeah, sorry. I’ll finish.”

“See that you do. We need that stack completed by five o’clock.”

Chase jiggled the door handle. The handle wouldn’t budge, but he persisted, ignoring the manager standing over him.

The manager said, “Take your break now if you must. I’m not saying
no.
But, of course, that means others will have to cover your pages.” The manager took the stack of papers Chase had tossed on the grey carpet. “Like I said, I’m not saying
no
. But I believe you will see it’s best if you all sit in your chairs.”

Chase continued to ignore her so the manager turned on Megan, adding Chase’s papers to her pile. “A few more, Hetta. Keep them in order.”

She left them, and Megan entered the cubicle marked
Hetta
. The hallway had been overheated, but here in the cubicle a vent whistled overhead and blew cold air straight down on her. She grabbed a pencil holder and put it on the stack so the top sheet wouldn’t fly off.

Riley popped up over the wall separating her cube from Veronica’s and said, “Hey Hetta.” He sounded out dueling banjo chords and tapped a rhythm on the top of the cubicle wall. Megan tossed a pen at him and he disappeared, but she could hear him and Veronica through the wall as clearly as if they were sitting right beside her, which essentially they were.

Veronica said, “We should get started.” Paper rustled until Riley tapped his fingers in a rhythmic sound. “Will you play something for me sometime?” Veronica asked him.

“I don’t play.”

“Yes you do.”

“My brothers would kick my ass if I they caught me fooling around with music.”

“For me?” Veronica asked. “Sometime?”

“No.”

“Please, I love your voice.”

“Maybe.”

Megan popped her head over the wall. “Did ya’ll see a vending machine? I’m thirsty.”

The manager came out of her office. Riley, seated on Veronica’s counter top, ducked low, leaving Megan exposed, as if she were the tallest object in a field in the middle of an electrical storm. Heat covered her face again.

The manager said, “Hetta, when you’re done doing--” she paused as if considering what Megan was doing, “
that
. Ask Mr. Steve for the copier code. We’ll need those papers in duplicate, and I have to have signatures on each form.”

Megan dropped back down. She left her cube and searched for a nameplate marked
Mr. Steve
. None of them bore that name. She stopped a woman in the hallway. “Um, excuse me. Hi. Where does Mr. Steve sit?” Evidently, there was something deeply offensive about her question because the woman glared at her, before she tugged at her tight dress, and wordlessly pointed at a gold nameplate on a wooden door.

Okay, then. “
Thanks.” The grey carpet changed to wood flooring, indicating Mr. Steve’s elevated status. Megan adjusted the hem of her jacket and lifted a hand to knock.

“Psst.” A harried lady popped her head from behind a cube and handed Megan a file folder. “Hey, Hetta, you’ll need this.”

Megan took the folder. “Okay, thanks, um, my name’s Megan.”

The lady nodded, before her head disappeared behind the wall.

Tap, tap, tap.

“Enter.”

M
r. Steve wiped his nose on a handkerchief and spoke without looking up, “What?”

“Um, hi, I’m supposed to get the copier code from you?”