House of Anubis: Triad of Memphis

House of Tension/House of Insults

With a bit of research, Jonah discovered what language to phrase on the sheet of paper had been written in. They left it on Mr. Carroway's desk, and then all crowded around the base of the stairs, Jonah and Jared sitting down, and Lucille and Sarah standing up.

"Okay, so apparently that note was of words in Arabic," Jonah explained, "which also happens to be the primary language, which also happens to be a language Jared can read fluently."

"And translate to English instantly," Lucille added.

Jared, Jonah, and Lucille exchanged glances toward eachother until Sarah inquired as to why they were doing that. The three of them discarded it and continued to assess the phrase.

"'Deliver us and we shall deliver you'," Jonah recited.

"Maybe it's a pizza parlor, and they're making a deal to exchange pizzas?" Jared suggested out of the blue.

The others stared at him.

"How," Sarah began, "out of all things possible, did you assume that?"

"I might just be hungry," Jared shrugged.

"What if Mr. Rainier and Mr. Carroway aren't what we make them out to be?" Lucille suggested.

"What? They're like..." Sarah trailed off, trying to think of what Lucille could be inferring.

"Top secret agent spies," Jared concluded. "That's my guess."

The others did their best to ignore that comment and continued to discuss.

~~~~~
During rehearsal, both William and Rachel were hindering the progression through scenes, and it came to the point when Mr. Duval halted everything to address it.

"What is going on with you two?" he asked. "A few days ago, you were spectacular and now-now you're just..."

"Poop?" Niamh finished. She was standing over to the side of the stage with a bird prop and mask in hand.

"Precisely."

Rachel and William glanced at eachother and then retracted their eyesight away from one another. Neither of them answered his question.

"If I had time to recast, then at this point I would've," Mr. Duval continued during their lack of response, "but this play is in six days. We have to be perfect in six days. So whatever is going on between you two-" he pointed a finger which bounced between the both of them, "-you have five minutes to resolve whatever tension there is, and then I want to witness the best rehearsal to have been performed yet."

He walked off backstage.

William gestured toward the seats in front of the stage, and the both of them hopped down and took a seat. Rachel hesitated, but she still became the first to initiate the conversation.

"Let's just pretend everything is alright and get through this," Rachel sighed.

"But everything isn't alright," William replied. "You're mad at me for some reason-"

"-I have every right to be mad at you."

"Rachel, I don't even know what I did," William admitted.

"Of course you don't."

"And obviously you don't realize what you've done either," William added.

"I've done nothing wrong," Rachel denied.

"You kind of broke his heart," Niamh chimed-in, listening from the stage. When Rachel glanced over at her presence, Niamh shrugged.

"Seriously?" Rachel raised her eyebrows, directing her attention back to William.

"Kind of," William muttered in repetition of Niamh's words.

"Oh."

"When he realized you were dating Tyler," Niamh added on. "He was so determined to one day tell you how he felt but then you just went and crushed his heart. Into a million tiny pieces. Which each then broke into even smaller pieces...Not to over-exaggerate or anything."

"But you broke my heart," Rachel revealed to William. "I was only trying to make you jealous."

"Only?" William repeated. "Well you only managed to make me feel terrible. And why would you lie to me like that? And why couldn't you just say something along the lines of 'do you like me, William'?"

"I'm not the only bad guy in this situation!" Rachel raised her voice as she noticed William becoming angry with her. She was quite angry with William herself.

"Well we're solving nothing by arguing," William declared, standing to his feet. Tears could be seen forming in his eyes. "So, why don't we get this play over with, yeah?"

"Wait, William-" Rachel stood to her feet as well.

"-after all, you are the Capulet to my Montague-"

"-Will-"

"-and then eventually you'll have to explain this all to Tyler-"

"-he...already knows..."

"Even better!" William announced much to enthusiastically for it to be authentic. Rachel didn't even dare believe he was actually happy about that. "That's fantastic and you know what Rachel?" He dropped his voice down low as he attempted his best to blink the tears away and muttered so that only she could hear. "I think I'm ready for the next scene."

~~~~~
Later that day after William, Rachel, and Niamh had returned to Anubis house, Jared found Niamh in the living room, sitting on the couch with her knees drawn up. She seemed to be thinking heavily.

"What's up?" Jared asked, plopping down on the couch across from her.

"We're not friends," Niamh glared.

"I'd hate to think we were," Jared chuckled.

Niamh rolled her eyes.

"Does nothing I say satisfy you?"

Niamh shrugged.

"Seriously though," Jared reverted back to the original subject, "whatever you're thinking about must be important. Perhaps I could help?"

"You're being nice to me..."

"Ugh, you're right," Jared realized. "It may have something to do with this girl-"

"-I didn't ask for your whole life story, Smith," Niamh cut him off. "Don't you have better things to do like...hang out with your secretive circle of friends or learn to read?"

Jared hesitated. "H-how did you-"

Niamh hadn't come the realization of what she said until moments after she said it. But as much as she wanted to, she found it impossible to apologize, and instead continued with her insulting ways. "-I may have overheard it from somewhere at some time. Now, scurry off because honestly if you can't read, you have bigger priorities than wasting my time."

Jared froze for just a second and then left the room. As she watched him leave, Niamh realized that might've been the harshest thing she had said to him.

~~~~~
Niamh may have just made a big mistake...We'll have to wait and see how this all turns out. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as usual, here are the discussion questions.

What do you think that note to Mr. Carroway means?

Who do you side more with between Rachel and William? (basically, Rachel is blaming William for it all, and William is blaming Rachel)

Should Niamh apologize to Jared?

Until next time, Aristocrats!