Hal and his family would never have lived here if it weren’t for his Dad being well-off while he was alive. It was a surprise to him that the house was still theirs even after the money Dad left them had run out. Mum said there was a huge money transfer to her account a week before the day Dad decided to take on the Base by himself. It must have been from Dad. Sometimes, he wished he’d wake up to news of another large money transfer. But he can only wish. 

Cat caught up with him and soon, they were walking to the bus stop, Cat raving and going on about her usual ramblings and Hal nodding along patiently, humming at the right intervals and pauses. He wondered why Cat decided wake up early enough to come over to his for breakfast, instead of him heading over to Cat’s to wake her up and having breakfast at her place while she got ready.

“You have no idea how much they are working her. Both of them. But Mama especially.” Cat seethed, talking animatedly, her hands flying here and there in the heat of her own words. “First it was Dr. Mender with his dead sister’s newly discovered calculations on this weird device that is supposed to be ‘the future of the world’ because he’s too stupid to figure them out himself. Then those lazy pharmaceutical scientists at IOSMB are being such good for nothing idiots— two are on holiday, one refuses to work but has managed to get himself so far up the manager’s—” and she rambled and swore and cursed. Most of the vocabulary she used would make Grandma do two summersaults before landing on Cat’s chest waving a cross at her.

Cat’s mother was retired scientist who got referred to by young scientists trying to find their bearings and try their hand at making an impact on the world as everyone knew it. She works as a pharmaceutical scientist at the Institution of Scientific and Medical Breakthroughs— IOSMB— in their town. Her father was a physics professor at the college under the institution, and at the moment, he was busy managing the science exhibition about to take place at his college. Cat and her sister, Ana Maria, seldom saw their two overworked parents taking a deep breath.

Hal had mixed feelings about this. On one hand, Cat’s parents had great jobs. Good, reputable, well-paying jobs. But then, they were overworked and rarely seen relaxing. Or seen, in general. Hal on the other hand, saw his mother a lot, usually at part time jobs they shared, but the poor woman struggled to make ends meet with her job as an actress in the drama company she worked for, even with her working extra hours alongside Hal as a waitress at the café near the flower shop. Even with both him and Lou taking afterschool jobs everyday.

Delta, who completed their group of three, arrived at the bus stop two seconds before the bus left, almost missing it, which she was no stranger to. Hal could see her red head of curls, as he settled into a seat at the back of the bus, bobbing in hurry outside his window as she ran to the door before it closed. She squeezed in between Hal and Cat, breathing heavily.

She patted down her wild mane of auburn cruls and fixed her crooked Harry Potter inspired round glasses before she started with her usual greeting. She didn't even need them, her eyesight was perfect. “So, did you know—do you know?”

Cat huffed silently. “When you start like that, we usually don’t know,” she said, as if restraining a hundred alternative answers.

Delta smiled cheerily, unfazed, tiny dimples forming on her chin. “The Castillos joined Evemore High!”

Cat rolled her eyes at the news. “Yeah, heard that.”

Hal, on the other hand, was frowning, caught off-guard. “The Castillos?”

“Yeah,” Delta said, shaking her head in mild disbelief, “the sister-brother duo. Jasmina designs, Kylian models. Kylian’s a skilled actor—”

It was Hal’s turn to roll his eyes. Honestly, sometimes he wondered who was dumber: Him or Delta.

“I’m aware. I just didn’t know they were coming.”

Delta raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Heard of Instagram? Twitter? Social media in general?”

“Ah,” Cat sighed, her expression sour, “the pleasures of being ignorant like you.”

“You live under the biggest rock, Hals,” Delta said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah,” Cat shrugged, “but sometimes that’s a good thing. Like right now. I would do anything to not have them in our school. Or maybe I can move away…”

“You admire, adore, gush about, love and follow Jasmina’s work, but you hate the pair with a passion so strong humans have yet to find a device that will save the world if and when, God forbid, those emotions get let out.”

Hal being the one next to the window, stared out of it, wondering, tuning out his friends’ voices. The Castillos coming to school was nothing out of the ordinary. Celebrity children frequently transferred to their school. There must be at least fourteen heirs to big conglomerates currently studying at Evemore High. It was a prestigious school after all. Hal looked down at the uniform he wore, which he wouldn’t be able to afford if it weren’t for some absurd scholarship they managed to find for him out of pity because of some prearranged agreement between his father and the Evermore branch in the past. About some research he did for them in the past. And there were enough students in there to remind him he didn’t deserve that scholarship, nor to be there. The only relief he could find was there was only one more year he needed to grit his teeth to get through.