Chapter 10 The Cafeteria
On the PA Headmaster Gagliano announces the first day of school lunch.
"Today we are serving chicken wings, chicken tenders, or a vegetarian option of chicken pot pie, minus the chicken. Regular salad bar and sandwich Build Your Own Deli are open. No soup and instead we'll be serving vanilla ice cream, first come first serve because it's soft serve ice cream. We only got 5 tubs enough to feed 125% of the student population so 1 in 4 won't be getting seconds. Anyways, enjoy. There are munching sounds on the PA before it turns off."
While everyone is rushing to the cafeteria including Marconi, Edgar pulls him back. He says to Marconi, "Hey don't sweat it, we got it covered".
He leads them to an unmarked door, it leads to the tunnels.
"Oh yeah", Marconi thinks.
"Once in a while, we get a chance to head to the teacher's lounge and get gourmet food, but today we'll be headed to the cafeteria", Edgar explains
Then Edgar walks up to a torch in the hallway and knocks a code. Knock, slap, knock… a window shutter slides open and passes them the food. Edgar then proceeds to knock 3 times and received meals.
Preston explains, "his dad is head of security, special privileges."
They then head down and get out of a fake office. Then they make a few turns and go to the cafeteria. The whole place is crowded, everyone is either in line or saving spots for their friends.
Here Tobias heads up to a group of large eighth graders, they seem quite intimidating and they are laughing quite loudly. They're all muscular and are jocks, they are all wearing different sports shirts, but they get along quite well. "Ahemmm", Tobias coughs and they scoot over.
Marconi whispers over to Preston, "What's their relationship?".
Preston whispers back, "every kid has his secrets, just let it go. Plus it's Tobias, no one really knows". Marconi looks around, everyone seems to have formed their own cliques.
Then Edgar walks toward the normal student section. Preston says, "Edgar's going to say hi to his girlfriend. He claims they're childhood friends, but I don't buy it. I've been friends with him as long as she has and their way closer than that. Her name's Rachel, normal girl likes to draw, have plushies, and cute stuff".
Edgar looks to be blushing and is holding a ducky momo figurine on his way back. They start eating and talking like most kids do during lunch. Marconi doesn't mention Rachel, suddenly he asks, "are we getting the ice cream the headmaster mentioned".
Tobias answers "no such thing as free lunch. The ice cream line is miles long, it's easier to just buy it from 'him'. Don't ask."
Soon they finish their lunches and dump them into the trash can. Marconi sees James leading over a broomstick watching over the cafeteria in the corner of his eye. It surprises him because he thought he would be playing video games on his computer. James the janitor gives him a wink and Marconi's group heads to the playground.
At the playground everyone is headed in all directions. Marbles, TCG's, Instagram photos, jump rope and balls are scattered around.
Edgar explains "Here's the law of the playground, anything that you value others will value, so be careful with your belongings. Finders, keepers as they say. Joseph Seligman runs an exchange, if you want something you can trade it. Marbles, baseball cards, device rentals, he can get them all for the right price. He's perfectly clean so the ASB don't touch him.
Rumor has it that he has some of them on his payroll. If you want the best ball, lunch spots, lunches, or anything he can probably get it. Mind you he's no fixer, just a currency middleman that keeps the playground running. Of course bullies want to get a cut, they get a 'discount' because the wrath of the public is scary. If they strong arm him too hard the whole playground system would breakdown and the bullies would have an angry mob of students coming after them.
Stay away from the scary looking ones and don't take the shark's money. He's a student loan shark and he has the demeanor of one to.
If you need, call Claire Sawyer, she'll handle any case. Again there are no fixers at this school, the ASB makes sure of that. Now introductions are over lets play handball."
Preston goes over to the bushes and a small fifth grader hands him a ball, Preston's name is on the bouncy ball. Preston hands over a golf cap to the young lad and the kid rustles off. Edgar explains "he's honorary king of the fifth graders. He won the racing competition back in fifth grade. So he has some sway on the lower classes."
They wait in line and play a few rounds of tetherball. As always Marconi, is just average and it takes Tobias, Preston, and a little help from Marconi to finally beat Preston.
Then they head to the Handball wall. Tobias comments, "looking at the sun we have 15 minutes of recess, let's not get locked out again and actually get to class. I hate the general auditorium, I had to go there my first period and it was english. General english with 100 other kids sucks, at least it's the first day though."
Marconi chimes in and he challenges Edgar to a 1v1 match, "yeah i got a Russian english teacher. Thick accent, super long name, anyone know him?".
"Nope, but I heard he's an Uber Driver" Edgar responds and he waits a moment before hitting a nice and low slider and the ball skips across the blacktop.
"Dirty", Preston interjects. The ball hits the wall and rolls, "rollie, do over" Tobias reading a book calls out. "I've heard those way too many times, Edgar's got skill, but no luck".
Marconi bounces the ball twice and calls "cherry bomb" hitting the ball above the red line.
"Rainbow", Edgar returns.
"You got me", Marconi admits and Preston's up. Now it looks like a match between two professional ping pong players where they slam the ball against the table.
Preston gains the upper hand and Edgar does that thing where he runs across the court at full speed to hit the ball. You can see Edgar running out of steam as his running form gets more sloppy and desperate. Then Edgar angles it just right to do a slider, but just before it hits the wall it bounces once more. Tobias is up.