What Lies Beneath ▸ House of Anubis [1]

chapter two. house of attitude

☾ ☽

Anubis House had been modernized, but it's still incredibly obvious that it was built over a century ago. Honestly, I'm surprised it's still standing. Especially with the Tweedles living here as long as they have.

After we arrived back to the house, Patricia started going on and on about a new girl in Joy's bed—and she's serious about it. She wouldn't even let me go into the room to change out of my uniform and shoved a pair of jeans and a t-shirt into my hands when I even tried to open the door. So not only am I wearing a random t-shirt I actually use as sleepwear, but I also have no proof that there's actually a new girl who's going to be sleeping in our room.

"I can't believe no one's got Joy's home number," Patricia complains. I glance at her while filing my fingernails, rolling my eyes. She's been on this for the past ten minutes, and all the while, I've been tuning her out while thinking about asking Amber for a manicure later.

"Because this is her home," Amber replies. "Just call her phone."

"Amber, keep up. I told you she left her phone behind."

"So text her."

I laugh loudly at that as Patricia taps Amber's head and says, "Stupidity leak."

"So they've already got someone else in her bed?" Fabian questions.

Patricia nods. "Yeah, it's that girl we saw in the taxi. She's American, and she's, like, totally obsessed with it. She said it, like, a hundred times."

I perk up. An American, eh? "Wait, I won't be the only one with a foreign accent anymore?" I say, looking around. The unanimous reaction is to roll their eyes. "Awesome! Someone new to make fun of."

"Ashley," Patricia says sharply, her famous glare trained on me. "Our roommate is missing. Priorities."

"Go to an Australian boarding school, you'll feel the same."

Mara speaks up, "And Joy's just gone? That really is weird."

Alfie straightens in his seat beside me, reaching for my nail file. "Maybe," he says, using the file as a finger pointer, "Joy's been abducted by aliens and this new girl's one of them."

I snatch the file back. "Area 51 really is on your list of top vacation destinations, isn't it?"

Clarke eggs him on, "Yeah! Maybe the new girl is an alien in a flesh suit."

I put on a thinking face. "If I send you two to Area 51 together, they'll surely experiment on you... BRB, looking up flights to New Mexico."

Clarke reaches over Alfie and hits my shoulder, which gets him the same punishment as payback. Without looking at us, Alfie grabs each of our wrists and holds them in mid-air to stop us, just as Patricia says, "We were planning a romcom boxset marathon tonight. You know Joy's romcom obsession! How can she have just gone like that?"