K. C. A

FOURTEEN

Once again, it was my most favorite day of week, Saturday.

As I sat quietly in a cab on my way to Casa del Cibo, I thought about the events of the past week. For each day of the week, Tyler, Claire and I used one of the numerous items Claire provided us with, and our popularity increased each day on social media.

Tyler and I tagged Clarisse and Alex in most of our posts since they had a lot of followers, some of which were our classmates and a few seniors. I had even dared to tag Kim in one of my posts. As strange as it may sound, she did nothing significant about it, she just yelled insults at me and told me never to tag her again.

I had spent most of my evenings making TikTok videos with Alex, who was a bit skeptical at first but was still excited to spend time with his little brother.

The most shocking event of the week occurred on Thursday, three of our classmates, Carl, Mason and Jade, joined us at our lunch table.

Mind-blowing right?!

Tyler and I made sure to avoid Jake and his friends, although, it seemed as if they were uninterested in bothering us or, so we thought. By the end of the day on Thursday, an extremely embarrassing flyer had circulated amongst our mates. The flyer had a picture of Tyler from Kate Jackson's party in nothing but his underwear and a picture of me from the ninth grade when Sophia Edgar poured her mashed potatoes on my face because I accidentally stepped on her foot. The flyer was tagged, 'the legendary cave man and the absurd fart boy.'

To my surprise, the flyers did not affect our slowly rising popularity as adversely as I had expected. Yes, there were giggles in the hallways as we passed by and even louder giggles in the classrooms when we walked in, but, Carl, Mason and Jade still sat with us during lunch on Friday and I overheard a few people saying that they believed the pictures on the flyers were fake.

The taxi came to a halt in front of Casa del Cibo. I paid the driver and walked into the restaurant. As soon as the door was closed behind me, I scanned the restaurant for my friends and spotted them seated on a table beside one of the windows, chatting and laughing.

Tyler loved to talk and Claire loved it even more, so it would have been a surprise if I walked in and found them seating across from each other with sealed lips.

"Hey guys." I greeted when I got to them.

"Finally!" Tyler exclaimed. "Now can we order?" he asked, turning to Claire.

"Sure." Claire replied, then she narrowed her eyes at me, "You're late." she said through gritted teeth.

"You said to meet by noon." I replied in defense.

"Exactly, and by my time, its five minutes past noon."

"Well unlike you guys, I actually need a cab to get here."

A waiter finally arrived at our table after Tyler's ceaseless beckoning. "Can I get your orders?" she asked, showing off her entire thirty-two teeth that would have looked better if they were shielded by her bright red lips. It would have been more bearable to gaze upon her horrible dentition if her smile was genuine.

I buried my face in the menu I had just retrieved from the table. This was the first time I had the opportunity to look at the menu of the restaurant, and as I browsed through it, I realized why the restaurant was named House of food. The menu contained four segments, breakfast, brunch, lunch and dinner. Under each segment, there was an extensive list of various healthy and unhealthy meals, drinks and snacks including vegan dishes. I had eaten at many restaurants but I had never encountered any that served this many dishes.