Chapter 5

Tria walked home from school slowly, absorbing what Chloe had told her. This was a big thing, but she or anyone she knew has never heard about this. It was a big robbery. Well, not just one, many robberies. To add onto that, the police dismissed it as something that wouldn’t happen again. That was just because from two other robbery times the robber stopped after 4 robberies. Is it legal to do that? And doesn’t a pattern become definite in 3 repeats, not two?

Tria then stopped thinking for a bit. She had already walked far passed the All3yway. Whoops.

This time when she got in, she sat at the end of Pal’s table. This way, he could tell her his stories, but he couldn’t bother her too much. When he saw her, he scooted across the bench to sit beside her. So much for that thought.

“I made up a story!” said Pal in his usual old excited voice. “It’s about me, trying to get King Tut out of being the king. Obviously, I failed, because King Tut is here now, and if I didn’t loose in my idea, Tut would not be as much of a history piece.”

“Well,” said Tria. “You’d better go on telling me before you give too much away!” Just like last time, Pal’s story was very interesting. Once the people sitting around her and Pal heard it, they fell silent to listen. By the time he was half way through, (at the part where he finds the secret tomb where “The Pal treasures” were hidden) everyone was listening and except for the occasional whisper, it was only Pal’s voice. It wasn’t even a formal story- the grammar was bad, and all stuff like that- but the story was so good, you would come from miles just to hear it.

At the end of Pal’s story, everyone clapped. “That’s the most attention you’ve got in years!” Tepo said, still clapping with his big, oil covered hands when everyone else had stopped. “And it was good!”

After that amazing story, not even Chloe would have time to brainstorm or jot down notes about the robberies before going home. That’s what Tria had come here to do, but it was already supper time and she just can’t keep being late like this.

As suspected by Tria, her mother asked her about what she was doing, staying late after school. At first, she would have said “The All3way,” quite easily. But if she told her parents, they would want to go on family trips there. They would find out that this place was really not something that they would have wanted to go to. A very old and dirty cafe filled with laughing seniors.

“Um, just volleyball after-school practice. It’s something that the school’s doing. Lily’s there too. Sorry, they didn’t send a permission form.” Tria lied nervously. The last part was right, but the truth is, Volleyball school practice starts next week, and it’s not after school. It’s at break time. “Um, next week they’re changing it to during school,” Tria added quickly, trying to cover up as much as she could.

“Great!” Tria’s mother said, handing her some leftovers of the fusilli bucati. Tria was always good at volleyball, but fusilli bucati and any other noodles never taste as good when they’re not fresh.