CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The next day, sitting in his office, he glanced at the clock.
Twelve-forty. She'd be here any minute now.
How could he even phrase it? "Oh hey, I'm not accusing you or anything, but I'm pretty sure you might have destroyed museum property and endangered our department?
" It seemed ridiculous to Xeno. Still, he could be pretty certain that she'd visit him in his office, she often did when they were both free.
Still, as the clock ticked down and he waited in his office, he couldn't piece together what he wanted to say without coming off as rude or awkward. By the end of the half hour, his only advice to himself was to ask her offhanded questions.
Suddenly, the door to his office swung open. Aruda was here.
As she entered, he noticed she seemed affected by the prank war. Strands of her usually flawless grey-streaked jet black hair escaped her neat bun and lazed across her head, and her usually bright eyes looked more sullen than usual. There was no way that she was guilty, surely.
"Xeno?" she asked tentatively, "Are you alright? You seem to be thinking about something." Her brows furrowed in concern.
He brushed it off. "No, I'm fine, just.. thinking about everything that's going on."
"I've missed you." Aruda said with a smile. "It feels like we haven't talked in a while." She paused, considering her next words carefully. "You really should make up with Jess, you know. She won't show it, but I'm sure she misses you, too."
"I was just going to ask you something, out of pure curiosity." He began, changing the subject.
"I'm listening." Replied Aruda.
"I'm only curious. Where were you before the work party started?" He leaned back slightly in his chair, hoping that the relaxed change in his demeanour would make this feel slightly less like an interrogation.
"The last one? It's been a couple of weeks, I can barely remember.." she said.
"Please try." He replied, with perhaps more than a slight edge of desperation in his voice.
"Well, all right." She said, eyeing him suspiciously. "I think I went home to prepare, then came in fashionably late, like I usually do. Why?"
"Is there anyone who knows where you were?" He was grasping at straws now, but he had to be thorough if he was going to accuse anyone
"Xeno, stop it. You're acting strangely. I don't like it, if you're implying what I think you are." She leant forwards, looking at him over her half-moon glasses.
"Aruda, please, this is important." He urged.
"Fine. I've got my home security cameras if you really don't believe me." She said coldly.
He was taken aback by her sudden hostility. "No, it's really not like that. I only meant to-"
Aruda's expression was annoyed bordering on angry as she looked at him, and Xeno could almost swear he saw her bottom lip quivering.
She began, "You know, they asked me questions like this, back when I got framed last time.
If it weren't for my home security cameras, they would've fired me.
After all I've given to this place. The raise wasn't worth it, Xeno. "
"I'm sorry. I didn't know." He said honestly. "Who framed you?"
"So many questions today." She responded, clearly still upset.
"If you must know, I'm pretty sure who it was.
But I never got any proof, and it would've looked too suspicious after my near miss with getting sacked.
" She became closed off, leaving Xeno with even more questions.
He decided to limit himself to just the one; he didn't want to put his friend through any more interrogation.
"Who do you think framed you?"
She looked at him seriously. "Crossley." She stated, almost spitting both syllables.
She said it with such sincerity that it almost seemed to Xeno that she was one hundred percent certain that it was he who had framed her; and everyone else was ridiculous for even suggesting anything else. "Will that be all?" She asked.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, I-"
But Aruda was already leaving. "I'll e-mail you those tapes of me coming home that you wanted so much." She said, moving a loose strand of hair away from her eyes.
"Please, I promise I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; I just wanted answers." He could tell it was cold comfort as he said it, but he still wanted to rectify things.
"You want my advice?" Asked Aruda, from the doorway.
"Stay away from this whole sabotaging business.
Silly people take it too far, and you'll end up losing your job.
Or worse, we all will." And with that, she was gone.
He felt sick with guilt. Worse still, despite proving her innocence, talking with Aruda had opened up even more questions for him.
Why was she so completely certain that Mr. Crossley had framed her? How did he even do it?
Xeno's head swam until his phone alarm went off. Right, he was supposed to give a talk to those secondary schoolers. Or were they Uni students? He couldn't be sure. He was so completely, utterly muddled.
He got ready in the centre of the planetarium, turning on the interactive whiteboard, when the doors opened. Someone from Palaeontology that he vaguely recognised was showing people around. He heard them say "And now, Mr. Baxterson, who will be touring you through the stars."
He tried to wave at the employee, but they only stared daggers back at him.
The rivalry between the palaeontology and astronomy departments was stronger than ever.
As he was giving his talk, he could barely see the faces of the secondary school students, who all seemed relatively bored.
He could barely focus, just giving the same pre-rehearsed speech about celestial bodies affecting each-other through gravity, and which A-levels to pick if they had wanted to become an astronomer.
He, himself had done maths, further maths, physics and food tech (the last was just to appease his father for the last two years he had lived at home, giving him slight false hope that Xeno would go into baking.)
His thoughts were a blur. He kept imagining Aruda's hurt voice, how she had looked at him after he had practically accused her of a crime.
As the schoolkids were milling out of the planetarium, he could only think of one thing.
He was going to interrogate everything out of Mr. Crossley for what he had done to his friend.
Besides, if today had shown him anything, it was that he was good at hurting people's feelings.
When everyone had cleared out, he was alone in the planetarium.
Usually, there were at least some people moving through it as a quick shortcut to get from botany to history.
Still, he appreciated the quiet. He checked his phone briefly, and saw that he had a text from Haiden that just read "Meet me in the astronomy gift shop in five. "