Vanilla

Twenty Three

A/N: Hello Beans! It's the same long chapter. I hope you're getting used to my new update time, because I am (I know I repeat this a lot but some people have still been asking) and will be writing from London for the next three months. There is no update next week on Wattpad (I will release bits on Inkitt so if you'd like to go over there...) because it's Flight School update week eeeheeeee. 

Enjoy the chapter! And let me know what I should do for Vanilla's birthday special, since October is coming up realll fastttt.

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[Vanilla]

Chef Palmer was known to despise students who never understood the concept of punctuality. In fact, she wanted so much to prevent this that she had a list of names pinned to the noticeboard at the front of the class marking out the number of times (and number of minutes) someone was late. This called for the construction of a decent apology in which I'd commenced the moment Leroy and I parted ways, devising ways to word an excuse that didn't necessarily sound like one.

Either way, it didn't help that my mind had been thoroughly occupied with all the investigative journalism I'd been doing for Layla Tenner's oddly lacking performance in the cross-year. That, and the um. The other thing.

Bracing myself, I knocked twice and waited for a cue. Surprisingly enough, it never came—which was odd because I was so sure that Chef Palmer would have, by this point, been waiting at the door and preying upon whoever it was she was expecting. Nerves numbing the tips of my fingers, I pushed open the door and was at once met with the most unexpected round of applause and erupting of cheers.

"Congrats, man!" "Honestly didn't think you could do it." "You weren't disqualified!" "Guess it wasn't luck that you were good in class."

I had mixed feelings about the things I was hearing. One; I'd never in my life had to react to cheers and applause since, well, there wasn't a need to be doing that and two; I couldn't quite tell if the cheers were actually compliments or something else disguised as such. It was fairly hard to tell the distinction.

Either way, I wasn't the sole receiver of this rare phenomenon because the next thing I knew, Si Yin was waving at me from the front of the class, standing beside Chef Palmer with the strangest smile on her face. It resembled a cross between insane joy and her greatest attempt to prevent it from showing on her face, resulting in what seemed like a demon-possessed grin.

"What, are you going to stand at the door all day, White?" Chef Palmer's impatience and her smiles were apparently not mutually exclusive as she gestured for me to steer clear of the doorway. "Stand beside Xu and let me continue."

Afraid to defy her orders and incur the wrath of the palm—I mean, our homeroom teacher... was what I meant, um. So I stepped in, slowly and warily, without so much as sparing the rest of the class a glance. Needless to say, all eyes were on us and it wouldn't have taken a genius to figure this out.

"As I was saying," Chef Palmer went on as soon as I took my place beside Si Yin, tightening my grip on the strap of my bookbag for assurance. "For two out of the three first years participating in the cross-segment to be from our class is a great achievement and I want you all to learn from Xu and White. As leading examples of strong-willed, professional and adaptable budding chefs, I will be appointing them as class president and vice-president respectively. Any objections?"