The library was a small place, on the outskirts of the city, close enough to hear the rumble and roars of cars traveling around the heart, too far to intrude the peace, it was the perfect location for the group to retreat from the rowdiness of city life, over the years, they’ve begun to develop a sentimental attachment to the place. Even though it was decrepit and quite ominous, Lucia couldn’t help but feel an underlying sense of nostalgia whenever she visited the building and her companions shared similar feelings. So, they made it part of their schedule to visit it every couple of days. While most visits were not for a special occasion, they would always decide to choose the library as their “secret spot” whenever there was a particular thing worth discussing. This would be one of them. The four of them sat around a small circular table, Lucia’s gift set in the centre. Magnus was reading the note attached to it. “Whoever gave you this gift is very... Poetic,” he started “Well, they definitely know their way around words, that’s for sure,” Cynthia added, scanning the gift “Though, it’s quite early for Christmas presents, wouldn’t you think?” Lucia nodded in agreement. “Perhaps that’s all it is, just a Christmas present, that you just happened to get early” Aiden said, raising his head from a book he had been reading, adjusting his reading glasses “Perhaps the ‘Final bell’ your note speaks of is one of the jingle kind?”
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“That does make sense, but it wouldn’t explain the mysterious delivery guy” Lucia reminded. They had been thinking about possible reasons for the existence of the mysterious gift, and every potential reason was cut off, one way or another, leaving them cerebrating for hours on end. “Final bell... You reckon it’s talking about the final bell for school?” Cynthia wondered, “Good thinking! If that’s the case, we can open it afterschool tomorrow, no?” Lucia asked, they inclined their heads in agreement. She took the gift and put it in her bag, replacing it with a textbook, “I suppose we should start revising then, we can talk more about this later”. Hours drifted by as they worked, Cynthia was busy typing on her laptop, Lucia and Magnus were busy scribbling down notes from a bulky study guide while Aiden slept. The daylight became redder and softer as the sun lowered itself from the apex of the sky. Beams of which penetrated the library room, making the better half of it shine with golden glory, while the other half sunk into a deeper darkness. From that darkness emergeda boy with short dark brown hair and amused green eyes, he smirked at the group as he walked, they groaned at his presence. Jake Wyatt, brother of Aiden Wyatt and a very contemptible person. He was insufferable and would always go out of his way to become the most obnoxious personality wherever he went. What was worse for Lucia is how comparable they were in intelligence; they were rivals for that exact reason, and she wanted nothing to do with him, whereas Jake enjoyed pestering her and her friends constantly like an annoying cockroach. “Well, well well, would you look at that, looks like a buncha spods in their natural habitat” he smirked, eyeing them individually. “Get out of here, Jake,” Cynthia snarled “You’re better off away from here if you have nothing else to do but provoke us”, Jake narrowed his eyes and shrugged “I’m here to study like the rest of you, I have no malicious intent today”.
“That would explain why you called us ‘spods’ right?” Magnus sighed. “Touché! I digress from that remark nonetheless,” He laughed, skimming through the books in the bookshelf next to where they were sitting, picking a thesaurus up and spinning it on his finger like a basketball. “I would love to bury the hatchet, but I wouldn’t be caught dead with geeks like you,” Lucia raised her eyebrows, “But, you know that you’re with us here now, right?” she asked, “Today is an exception, tis the season to be jolly after all,” Jake snickered, “Speaking of which...” He turned to Lucia’s bag and snatched it, holding it above her head “Have you got me any gifts?” He fluttered his eyes in a sarcastic innocence. “Give that back, I haven’t got the energy for this,” Lucia said, giving a long weary groan with arms outstretched reaching for the bag “I will do no such thing!” He said withdrawing the bag from her grasp, “What have you got in here...” Unzipping the bag and shaking it, they watched as all the contents within it collapsed onto the floor. Ignoring the look of anguish from Lucia and the glares from Cynthia and Magnus, he analysed the contents of the bag, “Books, books and more books” He sighed “Lucy, do you have anything at all interesting going on for you?” But then, his eyes caught sight of the gift, glimmering in the glow of the evening sun, he crouched down and looked at Lucia once again “What is it?” He asked with genuine interest, though breaking off after glancing at her, she was stone-faced and looking up at him with an ill-concealed fury. Jake enjoyed the visage, and continued his mockery, “Give it back,” she said calmly,
“Why would I do-”
“I said, Give. It. Back” She repeated, each word dripping with venom, “Make me,” He grumbled defiantly, Lucia stood up from her chair and turned to face Jake, squaring up with him and looking him dead in the eyes, he returned her the same stone-cold stare, his smirk diminishing.
“Now now guys, we don’t need to fight over it, I'm sure we can compromise” Cynthia started, laughing awkwardly, Magnus nodded nervously, despite her attempt to negotiate, they continued to glare at each other. “Are you going to give back the gift, or am I going to have to break the hand that’s holding it?” Lucia asked, “Go ahead and try that, I dare you," He growled, rolling up his sleeves, balling his fists. “Not too fond of the nerd-on-nerd aggression you all seem to be having going on right now,” Aiden started, yawning, clearly oblivious to the dispute that had just happened as he slept. He got up from his chair and swiftly moved in-between the two, breaking them up, beckoning them each to take a seat, which they took, regardless, Lucia and Jake leered at each other. Magnus and Cynthia exchanged perplexed looks, among many other things, Aiden had a talent for de-escalating situations, especially with Lucia and his brother. “What brings you here? You hate the library,” he asked Jake, who broke his eye with Lucia and turned to Aiden, “Exams,” he shrugged “Sounds fair, we’re all here for the same reason then?” Magnus asked, they all nodded in unison. All apart from Aiden, “I thought we were talking about Lucia’s Christmas present?” Which was answered with facepalms from everyone around the table. “A Christmas present you say?” Jake asked, pirouetting the gift on his finger, “Bit early for that, wouldn’t you think? Might have to confiscate it until Christmas eve ATLEAST,”
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“Don’t you dare” Lucia began, slamming her fist on the table, causing everyone to jump. “Put a sock in it, will you? This is a library for crying out loud” Cynthia whispered,
“Jake, give her the present back, it’s not even confirmed to be a Christmas present yet,” Aiden said, scratching his head, “Fine, whatever, hey Lucia? Can you catch?” he grinned; Lucia nodded with slight scepticism. Jake stood up from his seat and hurled it past Lucia and onto the window, cracking it with a rowdy crash, distorting the light in twisted and distorted patterning. At that moment, Jake jumped from his seat and bolted towards the door. His inciting had worked, and Lucia was inflamed, with blood boiling so hot, it obfuscated her train of thought. She jumped from her seat and trailed with significant pace, leaving Magnus, Cynthia and Aiden to watch on and discern the impending misfortune that would follow.
(...)
Jake dashed through the streets, turning corners sharply to shake off Lucia, moving in and out of alleyways, though unsuccessful in his attempts. As he ran, he kicked over as many trash cans as possible to side-track her just to find out that she had gracefully hurdled each of them and was slowly catching up with him. He glanced to his sides in pessimism and clutched an empty bottle of perfume, he smiled as an idea began to formulate, gripping the bottle tighter, he accelerated forward with the adrenaline he had, until he felt a reasonable distance between him and Lucia. And with an elegant twirl, he pitched the bottle at her while blowing raspberries. It landed on her eye, shattering on impact, stunning her; not for long, but just long enough for her to become unconscious of her surroundings, tripping over a toppled trashcan and flying face first into the floor. She cursed as she rolled around on the ground clutching her face in pain. “Oh shoot!” Jake said, running over to her side, crouching over by her side. "Bullseye,” He whispered, simpering, he straightened himself up and lent her a hand, which was defiantly slapped away by a furious Lucia. “Look at what you’ve done, you moron,” She spat, still clutching at her eye “What did you throw at me,”.
“Glass perfume bottle,” He shrugged
“A what?”
“You know the thing people put on to make sure they smell nice before a date or something? Yeah, I threw that,”
“Are you deranged? Why would you do something like that” Lucia hissed “You could have done some serious damage!” He shrugged once again.
“There you are!” Magnus and Aiden strode over to the two, “Lotta distance you two covered in...” Aiden looked at his watch, “Two minutes?” They stopped and looked at the scene ahead of them, “Blimey! What happened here?” Magnus asked. Lucia slowly raised a vindictive finger at where Jake should have been... He was gone? Aiden helped Lucia to her feet while Magnus followed the exit to the alleyway to search for Jake. “Move your hand” Aiden requested; Lucia shook her head “I'll just call my mom to pick me up” She said, leaning on the wall, rumbling through her pockets to find her phone “You two should go, I’ll be fine,”. “Are you sure you’ll be okay on your own? You should atleast head back to the library to return your things,” Magnus reminded, returning from the main road, “seems like Jake went AWOL” he sighed. “Your brother is despicable,” Lucia turned to Aiden “He can be a very trying person to deal with, I’ll admit,” He replied, “you two could get along, you just need to give each other patience, I’m sorry about your eye though”.
“Let’s go back to the library, you can get picked up there” Magnus said, walking away from them, Lucia and Aiden following.
(...)
Cynthia, Aiden and Magnus sat by the library table, Cynthia sitting down with her arms crossed in frustration. The glass cracking from Jake’s reckless behaviour compelled library staff to check up on all the commotion, by this time, everyone but her had left in the scurry, leaving her to answer to their outrage. Lucia had been picked up by her mother early on account to her injury and Jake had retreated into the shadows once again. The silence between the three of them was awkward. Very awkward. “Your brother has definitely gone round the bend, he just can’t seem to leave us alone,” She started. “He may not be the full shilling, but he isn’t crazy” Aiden sighed “Easy for you to say, you’re his brother, blood is thicker than water, no?” She replied, Aiden thought of a witty rejoinder, but refrained from joking around under the circumstances.
“Can you talk to the guy atleast? Tell him to tone it down a little, I mean have you seen what he did to Lucia’s eye?” Magnus retorted, “Okay! Calm down, I will see what I can do” he said, with placating hands, The library has gotten dark and the golden rays of light that emanated from the cracked windows shifted silver under the luminous glow of the moon which sat in an endless dark pool dotted with stars, little glowing spheres that twinkled and glimmered in the sky. Cynthia noticed something laying below the far window, half concealed in darkness. It was Lucia’s gift; she must have forgotten it on the way back. She stepped towards the wall, picking up the gift and scanning it. Although Jake had thrown it with quite some force, the box seemed intact, still being in pristine condition, she placed it on the table and continued to analyse the box. “You know, for something so lightweight, according to Lucia, it’s powerful, broke the glass” Magnus said, “I noticed that actually! I sure wonder why that is” She asked.
“Well, I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, when we’re allowed to actually open it”
“Yeah, do you wonder why she’s waiting for tomorrow to open it?” Cynthia asked. “Not really, it did say it on the note after all, would be rude to just ignore their request, considering they got her the gift” Aiden answered. It was a fair point. Packing their bags, they decided to call it a day and leave the library, although the sky was crystal clear, there was puddles on the ground outside the library showing that it had rained not too long ago, perhaps while they were studying, the moon danced around within the reflection of each puddle, a marionette to the irregular flow of the water which glowed against the light of the lanterns. They continued to walk towards the bus station.
“We will find out about whatever is within that box in due time, we’ll have to wait though” Aiden started, looking at his watch once again,
“Time is key.”