Page 56 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

This. Is.Such. Bullshit.

I take my tray and make a beeline for the kitchen. I hurry up to the first cook I spot and thrust out the tray with its blatantly pink sticker. “What is this?”

The cook—a guy that could have been my age or a year younger—gives me a condescending scan before sneering at me. “Your food,” he says.

“Why don’t I get stew?”

“Because we don’t make special food around here.”

I frown at him. “Special? What are you talking about?”

He dismisses me with a flick of his hand and then pushes me aside with his shoulder. I start after him before someone calls out a few yards behind me. “Orders from the top.”

I turn to another cook. “I don’t understand.” I put the tray down on a nearby stainless steel workbench. “I don’t eat anything special. I just want normal food like everyone else.”

“Well, we got told you’re vegan and have these—” the guy shrugs, working his shoulders for a second “—lactose-gluten-sodium allergies and shit.” He points at the tray. “That’s pretty much all we got that you can eat.”

“But…I’m not.”

He shrugs and turns back to peeling potatoes.

“Can’t I—is there any normal food left? Even just some bread?”

“Not for you. Not unless our orders change.”

“Okay, so who?” I storm up to him, stabbing a finger at the floor. “Tell me who gave the order.”

Another shrug. “Ask Apollo. He’s the one who came and told us.”

Apollo?

The guy with the video camera?

What. The. Actual. Fuck?

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

What if Sister Miriam’s the one who told me to film you in the first place?

But that doesn’t make any sense. None at all. Sister Miriam can pretty much watch me all the time. More so than Apollo can, if she wanted. I mean, she literally stripped me down in the laundry room to take my measurements.

Another prank then? I’d thought breakfast was my own bad luck, but maybe someone had taken off the post-it at the last minute, seeing it was the only tray left uncollected.

Or maybe he wanted to makesureI got another serving of gruel.

Why?

Why the hell was I being targeted like this?

My mind scrambles as I head back to the dining hall, leaving my disgusting lunch behind. I’m starving, but I’d rather pass out from hunger than be subjected to a prank like this.

I meet Apollo as he’s coming back inside the kitchen. He’s wheeling a much smaller trolley than the one he uses for the students. There’s still one wide, covered tray on it that looks similar to the one Reuben brought to Father Gabriel’s room the other night.

“Hey!”

He’s walking backward, dragging the trolley after him as he pushes open the door with his back. He smirks at me over his shoulder. “How ya doing, pretty thing?”

“Who told you I couldn’t eat normal food?”

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