Banished (TMR Fanfic)

24

The next few hours were a blur of working hard in the Map Room, even though the maps were already corrected. Newt came to get me and I dropped my pencil in surprise — I hadn't realized he had come in.

"C'mon, Neil," he said, smirking as I threw my pencil at him and missed. "Dinner's ready — roast beef and mashed potatoes, but Fry got his hands on some veggie patties for you."

The dinner was delicious. Alby left to go get Thomas out of the Slammer, and I was glad to see that he was already his old, confident self.

I finished just as Thomas came over with Alby, grinning. The Walls were starting to grind close and I stood up, pointing at a plate of roast beef and potatoes that Fry had left for him.

"Hey Thomas!" I said cheerfully. "Minho should be coming soon — here he is!" Minho jogged over, balancing a plate of dinner on his left hand and a plate of cookies on his right. As he approached our table, I snagged a couple of cookies for myself and chomped them down, sighing as flavor flooded my mouth.

"That is a-maze-ing," I declared as Minho smiled.

For the next hour, I wandered around, laughing with a couple Gladers and ending up with Chuck, who was stealing cookies when Thomas and Minho weren't missing. I shushed Chuck and his face turned red from the effort of keeping his laughs silent. The sight made me giggle but I shut up when Thomas glanced around, looking confused.

"Did you hear something?" he asked Minho and Minho shrugged his shoulders, shoveling food into his mouth like a pig. Chuck shook with noisless laughs, ducking his head and covering his mouth with his hand. I buried my head into my arms to keep my laughs from bursting out.

One of the Gladers called them over and the two stood up, leaving their food unguarded. I looked around quickly, then darted out of the bush we were hiding behind and sprinted over to the plates. I grabbed two more cookies and ran back to Chuck, crouching so I couldn't be seen from the table and waiting for them to come back.

When they did, Thomas was the first to notice something was off. "I could've sworn there were six cookies left," he mumbled, completely mystified. Minho looked and frowned.

"Yeah," he said. "Think an animal got out or something?"

"Your animals like sugar that much?"

Chuck let a laugh slip from his lips and once that was out, there was no stopping the onslaught that erupted from him. After that, I couldn't stop mine either and Minho found us rolling around on the ground, tears running down our faces, howling with laughter with a platter of cookies stacked next to us.

"Gu-u-uys," he whined, drawing out the word to show his annoyance. "Not cool."

Then Alby's voice rang out through the Glade, yelling, "PICK YOUR PLACE!"

The Gladers cheered and began to clean up. Then I spotted people pulling off their blankets and stratigically placing them around the West Wall. I turned to Minho, confused, and asked, "What in God's name is going on?"

"Sometimes, we get these really awesome sunsets and Alby's great at spotting one before it actually happens, so when that happens, we get to clean up early and just rest for the evening before bed," he explained. "It's a lot more fun than it sounds, because the Cooks like dishing out extra treats." Then he smirked.

For a moment, I was thrown because why would Minho smirk at me? But then I noticed he was smirking at something behind me and I turned around to see Newt with his hands jammed deep into his pockets and a strange pinkness to his cheeks.

"Um, hey, Neil," he mumbled, his eyes trained down on the ground. "I was just wondering if, um, I could show you something..." He trailed off and Minho jumped in for him.