The High 5

Chapter 13: Calamity High

Along with Kite, Bel and Hozei had been arrested as well. Both soccer and cheer-leading practices were cancelled. School continued as per usual, but by the end of the first period, everyone had completely read the article on the school's website and had heard about the arrests. Rumors traveled all around throughout the entire day, but Aivie and Sun ignored them. If they had listened, they would've heard that much of the rumors were ridiculing whoever had written the article. Indeed there were barely any condemning whispers roaming the halls about Kite, Bel or Hozei.

Gloom was in the air when the Five walked through the front door of the Daye home, especially where Aivie and Sun stood. As soon as Serena saw them, she dropped the basket full of laundry she was holding, and went into overdrive.

In the kitchen, Colette was painting a dispirited Aivie's nails a darker shade of blue, and a lighter shade of blue. Serena had placed a small saucepan to simmer on the stove with water, filled with orange peels and cinnamon sticks, while she poured pancake batter over strips of bacon in a frying pan. In the living room, Mace and Rion were both playing the same video game on two separate handheld game consoles, while a despondent Sun watched them while on the couch with one eye through a tiny lifted flap on a teal blanket.

While she was cooking, Serena decided to completely read the article on her phone. Aivie and Colette tried to examine her facial expressions as she read it from where they sat at the kitchen table, but Serena currently had on an excellent poker face. Finally, Serena had finished reading it, and set her phone down on the counter.

"Well?" Aivie asked.

Serena flipped over one pancake in the frying pan. "Well, as an unenthusiastic, non-practitioner of law, I can confidently say that whoever wrote this had nothing to back it up with."

The article on the school's website had more than just words written, but also a few colored photos that claim to have caught Kite, Bel and Hozei in several instances of dealing, or using the drug.

"The entire thing is just about what they saw, no other witnesses. These pictures are vague, and none explicitly show the drug in question. The article itself for the most part seems plausible, except for the beginning where they mention something about experiments or whatever, but it really looks like this might all just be one huge misunderstanding."

Aivie inhaled deeply as the air now smelled with a heavenly scent of oranges and cinnamon. "A misunderstanding...that has to be it."

Colette couldn't stop her blatant eye-roll. "Cuz God forbid Mr. Perfect, isn't so perfect."

Aivie scoffed, "what?"

"Look Vie, I know you got mad respect for the guy, but you gotta know that everybody has their secrets."

"Yea, thanks Ms. Jaimes, the thought never occurred to me. I got it now."

Colette scoffed back, "hey, all I'm saying is that you shouldn't be so upset that he might not be so neat and tidy. I'm not surprised that it's the rich white folk fooling around in a business like that."

They hadn't noticed Serena watching them with her head slightly turned and from the corner of her eye.

"Hey," Aivie mimicked, "all I'm saying is that I don't even really care about the possibility that he might dealing, or even doing drugs. It's how I came to know it. Someone had to expose him, like they had dirt on him for years! I then when I we confronted him before class this morning, a part of me just couldn't stop feeling that a part of him was lying to us about it, like he actually does know something about this. He can't do that, not about these huge things that could get him stripped of his positions. I'd rather he tell me that everything's going to shit and that he might lose his presidency, than him telling me that everything's fine but a second later he's getting arrested. He just...just promised that he was going to make the biggest changes that no one's ever seen. Today, tomorrow, for as long as he lives..."