Oops! My Croissant Started a Coup! | Complete (ONC 2021 Longlister)

7. Did that Croissant Just Talk?

Less than two hours later, I was sitting cross-legged on my bed, still wearing my purple star pants, while Olivia's jaw dropped.

"You have GOT to be kidding me!" she bounced on the bed so hard she vaulted her phone across my room like that one kid who gets bounced off the trampoline.

"I wish," I said, gesturing to the man in black standing in my doorway.

"You have to admit it is kinda cool, though. Having accidentally made a viral tweet so viral you might affect international politics, and now you have your own security detail. I mean, who saw this coming?"

She took a big bite of the ice cream cone she was holding and then unceremoniously started jumping up and down, waving her hand in front of her face and shouting, "Cold! Cold! Cold!"

"You always do this, Liv. You hurt your teeth and give yourself brain freeze and for what?"

Her tone became sombre, and she narrowed her eyes, immediately ceasing her dance. "For ice cream. Obviously."

The look I attempted to put on my face would probably remind you of your mother when she came home from work and you still hadn't managed to take out one bag of trash. But the look that ended up showing on my face was more like a squiggly line that a toddler made when attempting to draw his father. This, probably, was the reason both Olivia and I burst into laughter, causing the men outside my door to rush inside, batons raised and radios at the ready.

"It's an ice cream emergency!" Olivia shouted when she saw them come in.

"Quick! Where's the sprinkle thief?" I added, doubling over from a stitch in my right side. "Ow, ow. I can't breathe."

A breeze blew through my open window and cooled my heated face slightly. I reached for my water glass in a desperate attempt to cool down and appear normal, but we once again completely devolved into a fit of laughter.

"Remember... remember that time when you wanted to see what would happen if you mixed your ice cream with your still hot popcorn?" The tears streaming down Olivia's face made it difficult to take her seriously.

I have no idea what the security men were doing because I was too busy trying to suck oxygen into my searing lungs to notice anything else. "I was eleven! I should be forgiven by now!"

"Wasting ice cream is a serious crime. Why else would the monkeys attack us for it?" She pointed to the man in the doorway, who was clearly listening in on our conversation. That or a very humorous anecdote was being told by one of his colleagues over the radio.

"Okay, but seriously," I whispered once the laughing had mostly subsided and Olivia was stuffing the last dripping bits of her ice cream cone into her mouth. "I have no idea what caused this whole croissant mess. Did you see the tweet? Did it get hacked or something?"

"I don't think so. Just looked like a croissant sandwich to me." She shrugged before adding, "I mean, it was an exquisite croissant sandwich but, it didn't seem like it would start any political upheaval."

"I wonder how it happened..."

A croissant enters the internet, sliding through the streams until it reaches the blue confines of Twitter posts. Then, hopping off its little candy cart, and carrying a small briefcase, he walks to work.

"Hey, Bob." He waves to a donut who tips his top hat in return.

"John," returns the donut.

The air swirls around them as more breakfast foods flood the area, mixed in with inspirational quotes and creative sunrise photographs. Soon, the croissant reaches his destination and hops onto the plate, making sure to take his secret messaging with him. Then, he waits for the photograph to be taken, hiding the message in the very layers of his dough.

'It is time to start a revolution. The time is now. Rise up.'

He closes his eyes and waits for the flashing to stop. Then, accompanied by a nice caption, he makes his way to the posting area and hops on the conveyor. First level, like always.

But soon, his plan begins to work. His message is out. He climbs the ladder toward the top, being shown to more and more people. Showered with more and more likes. Comments and retweets. He has done it. He has gone viral. The time is now. The coup has begun.

Olivia shook me out of my reverie. "Whoa, Harper, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine I was just... maybe... asleep a little? I don't know. Sorry. What were you saying?"

"I was saying that I think the man at the door is trying to speak to you about what happened with the croissant. And maybe what's going to happen tomorrow. You're clearly tired, so I should maybe go." She trailed off, probably wanting me to jump in and confirm her suggestion.

"No. Stay. I need a breakfast friend tomorrow and I don't want these strangers to be the only people in my house tonight."

"Okay, but you are getting some sleep." She poked my chest like she was my mother.

"Just as soon as I get the debrief or whatever about what the heck I'm supposed to be doing tomorrow. I am going to get arrested, you know. Hey! Maybe you can film it and put it on Twitter for me." I tried to laugh, but the fear was creeping into both of us.

Mr. Anderson led me off to my kitchen table where he laid out the plans for my arrest — pretty straightforward grab and go, apparently. Which basically meant that I had to just pretend to try to escape and then let them take me into the prison. I would be flown over to Kyrcaliai in the morning and arrested by nightfall. So I guess Olivia filming the whole thing was out.

"So," I asked when he finally finished blabbering on about prison life or whatever. "What about my tweet caused a coup?"

"We've been through this, Harper. I don't know. There seems to be some indication that the tweet contained some kind of call to action. We can't figure it out exactly, but we've got an entire team piecing it together from interactions and shares. It's gone viral and our primary focus now is calming it down, but it's going to take some time to figure everything out. And one thing we don't have right now is time. The country could destabilize overnight."

Comforting. "Well, let's just hope balance or poise are in no way relevant to this task and then we should be okay."

He did not laugh, but the corner of his mouth did turn up slightly. "Let's just hope you can get through these lessons while paying enough attention to retain anything."

"You caught me."

I spent the rest of the night huddled over the notes on the kitchen table eating dinner while Olivia stole my food and the men in black suits tried to answer all of my questions. I'm not sure I retained any of it, but by the next morning I was posting a professionally crafted breakfast tweet, hugging Olivia, and flying off to a foreign nation to be arrested.

So a normal Wednesday, really.