Rising Shards

It wasn't particularly difficult to find where Chickadee had gone. We sat huddled together a bit on a hill overlooking the beach, where a big party was happening. Kalei scanned over the tables filled with food and snacks with a pair of binoculars. The party was lit up with torches, and everyone seemed to be having fun.

"Looks like it's mostly Wildfire Hearts," Kalei said. "But definitely some Falling Shards dudes there and probably some folks from our side, too."

"The prefects are going to have a field day with this, I will tell you that much," I said. "This many people out after curfew? Let's just say, I'm thinking some in school suspensions are coming."

"I don't have the energy for a good comeback to something that dorky," Kalei said, handing the binoculars back to Roux. "Why do you have these on hand?"

Roux shrugged. "You'll never know."

"Never know when it'll come in handy?" I said.

"No, that you'll never know," Roux said.

"We could be here all night trying to decipher Roux in ominous mode, let's just get down there," Kalei said.

"Seriously! I see the freaking microwave!" Oka said.

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" Kalei asked.

"Because you and Roux suck up all the air with your banter, ugh!" Oka said. "Sorry, that was mean. I just really want to microwave batteries and I'm very mad Chickadee stole that from us."

"Did you see her down there?" I asked.

Kalei shook her head. "But there's like a hundred kids out there so she's probably down there somewhere."

"Does this party have a secret password, or like a pin that lets you in?" Marmalade asked. "Do we need disguises?"

"How would they even enforce that?" Roux asked.

"I dunno, in movies when they have to sneak into a party there's always some secret code," Marmalade said.

"You've convinced me," Roux said. "I say we vote on what the secret password could be, then rank them based on how likely they are to be the real code. Once we've come to a consensus, then we strike."

"Or we could just walk down and join the party," Kalei said. "We can spread out so they don't kick us all out."

"But Team Starlight's strength is in our unity, we have to stick together!" I said.

"No we don't, I don't know where you pull that stuff from," Kalei said. "Well, probably loosely adapted from Raina Starlight novels."

"Can we all just quit it for five seconds and go get our microwave back?" Oka said. "This doesn't need to be a big operation, let's just get it! I bet I could roll all the way down right to our treasure, then sneak back here with it without anyone noticing."

"I admire the enthusiasm, but please don't roll down the hill, that sounds very dangerous," I said.

We split into groups to draw less attention to ourselves as we approached the party, with Aira, Michi, and Roux as one and myself, Oka, Kalei, and Marmalade as the other.

"It's probably good to get you away from Roux for a bit, you're getting really heated," I said.

"I'm not getting that heated, that's just how we are," Kalei said.

"Kinda cool you're still friends with someone you knew growing up," Marmalade said.

"It'd be cooler if it wasn't Roux I was stuck with," Kalei said, patting Marmalade's back. "You would have been a badass childhood friend."

"Eh...heh..." Marmalade rubbed the back of her head, adjusting her hat.

Kalei sniffed at the air. "That smells so good, what the hell. I'm starving."

There didn't seem to be any security for this big party. I had never been to anything like this, and was already hiding behind Oka, who confidently marched right to our microwave. I expected someone to yell at us or Chickadee to do another dumb prank, like revealing this was all a trap, but nobody paid us much attention. Kalei kept swiping food as we passed by it, devouring it quickly.

"Oh, got a text from Michi," I said. "They say this was set up by seniors, so not necessarily a Wildfire Hearts thing. Neat!"

"What's not neat is what's ours being stolen from us," Oka had her hands on her hips, sizing up the situation by the microwave, which had been plugged into a long extension cord. Two boys stood in front of it.

"I know these fellas, let me handle this," Oka said.

I wasn't sure if these two were from Falling Shards, but they looked kind of familiar. Were they in our classes? I couldn't remember.

"Yo, Sandwich!" Oka said, pointing at one of the boys.

"That's me?" Sandwich (?) said.

"And also yo to Not-Sandwich!" Oka said, moving her point to the other boy.

"That's unfortunately a nickname of mine, yes," Not-Sandwich (?) said.

"We need to take that microwave," Oka said.

The two boys looked at each other. I felt bad for not remembering them if I had classes with them last semester.

"The chick that brought it–" Sandwich started.

"That's Chickadee," Oka said.

"Sure, she told us to not let anything that isn't food get swiped."

"Well, this got swiped from us," Oka said. "Actually, is she still around? It might be an issue if she is."

"I dunno where she went," Sandwich said. "I guess you can take it back if it's yours. Can we at least finish reheating our grilled cheeses?"

"I suppose, but if Chickadee shows up you have to bash her with the microwave," Oka said. "Or just block her when we run off."

"We can do the latter," Not-Sandwich said.

We all stared at the microwave as the boys reheated their grilled cheeses.

"Kinda funny," I said, trying to fill the silence. "Someone named Sandwich making a sandwich, heh, hah...."

My attempt resulted in a somehow even deeper silence, which I didn't think was possible. Even the music playing seemed to get quieter. My only reprieve came when the microwave dinged and the guys got their sandwiches out. They rested their cheesy snack on their knuckles for gave each other a fist bump, somehow not dropping them in the process.

Oka dove under the table and popped up behind it, not hesitating to take her microwave back. "Remember our deal! Chickadee is sneaky and annoying so she's probably hiding somewhere nearby."

Sandwich saluted, and Oka took off, jogging away from the party.

"Hey, wait!" I said. We all had to dive under the table as well to catch up with her, as the rows would take forever to walk back around.

"Oh my sweet microwave," Oka said, hugging it close to her. "I'll never let anyone steal you again. Soon you will be full of exploded batteries."

It seemed like we were finally making some progress on this strange quest. I felt a twinge of worry, like Stella was going to pop up out of nowhere and ground me for doing something so stupid. As I texted the others a status update on where we were, I saw that it was just about time for the sparkly snow to occur. We were fortunately oddly close to the spot as well. It may have been my imagination, but I swore I could see glimmers start to appear, little sparkles of the light from the moon and stars reflecting on the snow. If I really wanted to ask Oka to the dance, I'd have to do it quickly.

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