Puppeteer

Ch-29

Finally, with only 15minutes left from lunchtime, the crowd had disappeared, and the few kids who wanted free food wandered towards us. However, with the stern look of Violet and Nina, they walked away quickly. (Go girls! )

Seeing we didn't have many customers anymore, the teacher told us to start packing up. (After him doing no work!)

Looking down on the containers, I just realized all my cookies were gone (wow!). Ast's banana bread was also gone, as his friends all came rushing and bought all of it. Oh the look of Ast's face then.

He'll probably brag about his banana bread being gone after 5minutes the bake sale started for around 3weeks. Or maybe more.

 At least he's a better cook than Nina. Much better.

While I was distributing the remaining cupcakes equally to the containers (which all looked about the same), a familiar voice interrupted me, "H..Hi! Is the bakesale over?"

It was that Angela girl again. With some more girls.

I looked towards Violet, trying to scrunch up her reaction. Her eyes brightly for a moment, but when she noticed that her friends were here to gape at Ast, her shoulder sagged.

"HI guys. Lovely to see you." Sarcastically she smiled towards her friends, who giggled. "Hi momma! Having fun?" "Yeah, what about you guys? Here to see dolphin man? Otter? Or Mr I'm-Not-Supposed-To-Know?"

The stupid girls giggled again. "Ah, it's nothing!" "Then how about buying some baked-goods?" Ast smiled, probably noticing the tense atmosphere. My life saver!

"Oh hey As-Ash!"

.. Ash?

"What did you bake?" Angela blushed so deeply, it didn't take a Puppeteer to figure out what was going on. No doubt Violet noticed-no nevermind. Her quizzical expression didn't disappear, but her eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

"Sorry to say, all of my banana bread is sold out." Emphasizing his point, Ast dusted his plastic container which was once filled with banana bread. The girls then all turned their backs towards us, and started whispering.

"I told you we should've come earlier!" "But I was too nervous" "Oh my gosh Angela"

"Do you guys want these cupcakes? You can have them for free." Violet offered, probably trying to get rid of the girls to actually start packing up.

 "You're such an angel Violet! Thank you so much!" the tall girl beside Angela happily took one of the tiny cupcakes, and the others followed the suit.

Holding her tiny cupcake out to Ast, Angela exclaimed, "Do you want this cupcake? And could I please touch your hair? It looks sooo soft!" Ast, ever the polite person (canine), shook his head "No, and no." "Awwww please?" Angela, pouting persisted, and I could see the irritation build in Ast. "Like I sai-"

For once, the teacher behind us (What was his name? Mr Donaldson?) did his job and told off the girls "If you're not going buy anything, please leave the poor kid alone girls." I kept a straight face, trying not to laugh at the girls. Meeting Ast's eyes, I could see he agreed.

Once they left, Violet took out her wallet from her bag. "The cupcakes were worth $0.50, and since they took 4, I need to pay $2.00, right? Mr?" Surprisingly, he said no.

"They were not being sold, so just leave it. You guys can take the remainder anyway." Huh I didn't know that.

"Why did they call you Ash?" Violet straight on asked Ast the question I was itching to ask. Atta girl! "On the first day of basketball practice, the coach misread my name as 'Ashley' from 'Astley' and yelled what idiot came to boy's basketball instead of girls basketball."

I spat out the water I was drinking. "Hey...Why the hell didn't you tell me?" "Because, it's obvious you'd tease me. Why didn't you tell me about the Eevaan thing?" "Ah." "Anyway, my team calls me Ash, and I guess those girls heard that I was Ash from food-tech." "Ast, do you take food-tech for options?" "Yep! For the food!"

I was just about to say something when the bell screeched. Mr Donaldson looked up from his phone and lamely commented. "You guys can take the leftovers." as if we didn't already pack all the remaining baked goods in our bags. But nonetheless, we nodded, and left to our next class.

"What do you guys have next?" Violet asked again. "We have...urm.." "Maths" I supplied for Ast. "Where are you going?" "Hard materials." "Cool!" I realised my mistake as soon as I said it. Crap. I ended the conversation way too quickly.

As I was sending SOS to Ast with my eyes, my eyes caught a figure running towards our direction. It was- "Nina!" With my brightest smile, I welcomed her. Her eyes narrowed, obviously questioning why the hell I was being so weird. Ignoring that look, I started a fresh new conversation. "Why did you take so long? The council meetings aren't usually that long, right?"

"This idiot from year 9 proposed we should ban PDA." "PDA?" Violet intervened. "Public displays of affection." Ast, sniggering, answered her. We all ended up laughing then.

As we drew closer to our maths class, Violet said "I need to go that way. See you later guys!" So we waved her goodbye till the last second, and ran to class.