The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 21 : Dusk's Brunch

Dusk rose late the next morning. It was a holiday. The 7th day of the week and an off day for the entire university. So naturally there was no early morning training either.

Dusk was exceedingly tired after a full day, party and 4 drinks. She blissfully slept till her communicator rang. She groggily picked up the Sixth-Sense and answered without looking at who had called. Her mother's voice came through the headphones...

"Dusk!!! Is it true that you went to a party yesterday? And you were shown on National News? The mayor came by in the morning and told me about it. He showed me the clip. I knew it was a bad idea to let you go to college! You are not studying but partying and spending money on expensive clothes, food and drinks. You are going to get into bad company, ruin our reputation and your life."

Dusk sat up. What was her mother talking about? Why was she angry? "What did the mayor say? He couldn't be unhappy about this. What did he say?"

"Oh, he was very pleased. Kept slapping your father on his back and saying well done. But I know he was being sarcastic. He also kept saying that now everyone knows of our village thanks to you."

"Mom!", she said in exasperation, "You have a problem if he praises me too? Yes, I have been to an event on approval of my Dean, who was also there at the event. The event was being covered by many national news channels and I was interviewed because of my project and scholarship. The reason Mayor is happy is because he recommended my name for the scholarship.

"If you can't be happy for me, at least don't bad-mouth me. This is pathetic. I don't want to speak to you anymore." She cut the call and fell back into bed feeling sad. Her family did not seem to have any appreciation for her. The good things she did still seemed to be meaningless to them and they would try to find fault there too.

She looked at the time and saw it was already past 11 am. There were now over 500 messages, few of which were marked as "Priority" while few were also marked as "Priority-Official". Priority could be any message sent by anyone who considers it as a priority. But Priority-Official would mean it is an important message from someone who is a government official. She decided to tackle those.

One message was from the Brigadier informing her that he would like to schedule a review session with her... at 11 am. She also saw a message from the Mayor of Longburn, congratulating her and thanking her for the publicity. There were some messages from the Dean and the President of the University, one from Susco.

One more from Sargent Bear, two messages were from her professors congratulating her. One was from her previous professor in Regis Cybera College, who to a great extent, was responsible for her reaching Ci'gazze.

She answered them all quickly and then called the Brigadier. On hearing that she had just woken up, he good-heartedly asked her to come at at 3 pm.

Meanwhile she saw one of the missed calls were from Piggon. She called her back and was rewarded with a screech of excitement from her friend. Piggon had already gone and spread the message throughout her group already and they were all sending their congratulations to her.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! You are so amazing. And so quiet. I had no idea you were going to be on all news channels. You have to meet me! How can you keep quiet about this? Have you had breakfast yet? No? Ok, meet me at Student Square. We will have a brunch at the 'Harmony Café'. It's an amazing place. Meet me there in half hour. I am starving too."

Dusk did not want to refuse her only real friend in the university. She agreed after a bit of resistance. She got out of bed and saw her roommates sitting at the table with some of their friends.

"Ooohh! Look who is up! The Village Princess! Yea, Yea, Yea." One of the girls said. All the other girls giggled.

"All bow to the new national hero!" Another one said.