CHAPTER 20

"I ate them!" Maryann said quietly.

"You what???!!!!" Lisa exclaimed in shock.

"All four?????!!!!" Sarah exclaimed in surprise.

The three of them stared at Maryann in disbelief.

Maryann nudged her head to the corner of the room where the trash bin was.

They all turned to look at the corner and saw four huge tins of cookies on top of each other, making them taller than the bunk beds to show how huge the cans were.

Lisa laughed out; "Those tins can't be empty, come on Mary, you can't finish that. I have eaten those cookies before. I have a family of nine, and we all couldn't finish a tin in five days," Lisa said jokingly.

The three of them sighed out in disbelief after hearing what Lisa said.

But Maryann's stomach growled loudly again as she yelped in pain.

The three of them ran to the corner to open a tin and take some cookies out for Maryann, but were all surprised when they checked all four tins, and the four tins were all empty.

The three of them turned back in shock as they looked at the tins and back at Maryann, after seeing how deep the tins were and not even a single crumb of cookie was found in any of them.

Lisa walked up to Maryann and touched her forehead while asking her; "Are you okay?"

Maryann pouted as she shook her head.

"Did you really finish those cookies??" Lisa asked Maryann, her eyes wide in shock.

Maryann nodded.

"And you are still hungry??" Sarah asked, her eyes, too, were wide in shock.

Maryann nodded.

"Hold on a sec…." Lisa said as she removed her hand from Maryann's forehead, "When were the cookies brought in?" Lisa asked everyone.

"We don't know!" Sarah and James replied in unison.

"I probably have a good memory and don't remember seeing when the cookies were brought into the room," Sarah said.

"Me neither," James added.

"Seeing how big these tins are, it'd need lots of help to even lift one, so how come the four tins were brought in, and no commotion was caused?" Lisa asked.

"And even if we were busy, we would still have noticed, so how did the four tins get into the room without a sound?" Sarah asked.

"I brought them inside," Maryann said quietly.

Sarah swiftly took off her face mask.

Lisa touched her chest, with her mouth and eyes wide open.

James sat reluctantly on his bunk bed as the three of them exclaimed loudly in shock and unison; "All four??? By yourself???"

Maryann nodded.

The three of them stared at Maryann in shock as they almost lost their balance.

"And you are still hungry?!" James asked Maryann calmly.

Maryann nodded.

"No! No! No! You can't eat anything again today, or you will die!" Lisa said as she sat beside Maryann and patted her.

Maryann's stomach growled even more loudly and longer the third time.

Sarah said calmly and quietly; "I think it's vice versa. If she really doesn't eat again, she might really die."

The three of them looked at Maryann in shock as she yelped in pain.

❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Maryann walked restlessly out of the White Change room to the garden.

Her friends had promised to get her food whilst she waited inside, so she wouldn't cause any trouble outside, and she knew perfectly well that her mind would never let her beg, but she'd rather steal.

James had said he would ask a co-worker for some cookies, Sarah had said she would check the diner while Lisa had said she would check for leftover food in the kitchen.

They all left after telling Maryann to wait in the room, but she was too hungry to heed such advice and decided to walk round the garden instead of waiting in a room without food and her friends.

As she walked around the garden, the guards stared at her as she walked around, but she didn't flinch, because she wasn't doing anything wrong.

As she walked further into the garden, she noticed so many apple trees, the leaves were fresh, but most of the apples were on the floor.

The apples on the floor were either soft, or rotten, or dry or half soft, half rotten, while the ones on the trees were so ripe, they looked like they would fall in a minute.

Maryann ran towards the tree and looked at the floor filled with apples;

"Don't they eat apples here? Look at these big apples going to waste," Maryann said as she looked round the environment, before she started checking out the apples on the floor.

She picked up an apple, "Too dry!" She dropped it and picked another one, "Rotten!".

She picked another one, "Too soft".

She scampered through the whole ground trying to find a good apple but couldn't.

Then she looked up at the tree and found over-ripe ones. "Maybe I should just climb up and pluck some," Maryann said in happiness.

But as she approached the tree, about to start climbing, she paused and jerked back to the reality, that she was in the White House and didn't want to get into trouble and later face the President in embarrassment.

"No, I will eat the ones on the floor instead, I have to abstain from trouble," Maryann muttered as she sat on the bare floor while resting her back on the bark of the apple tree.

She picked up an overly soft apple, wiped it on her clothes and ate.

Her stomach growled, but she patted it as she ate the soft apples.

Maryann ate over ten apples and was still digging in. She stood up, gathered over fifteen more apples close to where she sat, so she didn't have to stand up again and look for them.

She wiped two apples and held one apple in each hand, biting from both her left and her right hand.

After finishing the first set of apples, she was about to pick up another set of apples, but paused in action when she noticed the shadow of a figure in front of her.