The Billionaire High School Bully

15 - Tomatoes

"We should ask the kitchen staff!" I put down the cup of tea and dug in the salad. The salad was always fine! As I was munching and munching, something there crunched. And another one. Crunch! I stopped chewing and just froze.

"What is it now, Ben? Cucumbers again?" Charles chuckled as he just took out the egg and stuffed himself with the sandwich. I breathed in but a piece got into the wrong place and I started coughing. I was choking and coughing hard as a heavy smoker!

"Are you fine?! You okay? Hey, Nathan! Help him! You know everything! We need first aid!" Charles was suddenly on his feet, getting everything in order. He pulled me up from the chair and Nathan took over. A few squeezes and I coughed it out.

"Water?" Michael was handing me a glass. I only nodded and drank a bit while still breathing out the near-death experience I just had a while ago.

"Seeds..." I mumbled, still not being able to speak properly. I was seriously choking hard before!

"What?" Charles came closer, trying to hear what I had just said.

"Seeds... there are seeds..." I said with a coarse voice and drank more water. I was still occasionally coughing.

"Seeds?" Charles asked but Nathan was already examining my salad.

"Looks like sunflower seeds. Someone got you bad, Ben." Nathan had concluded the case, pushing his round glasses up his nose and going away to do whatever he had been up to before. Probably killing each one of the raisins with thousands of fork stabs. He was sometimes ruthless if I didn't count him being the evil freak. He was seriously frightening when he got into contact with things he hated.

"Maybe we should ask, who managed to make this much of a mess of food. Or else we might get the same thing the next time." Charles was still next to me, trying to think. I sat down feeling completely drenched of my energy.

"Do as you see fit. You are the guy, who is the second vice-president of the council, Charles. You can take lead when I don't do anything." I tried squeezing words out of my mouth, but I still sounded like a fan, who just got out of a ten-hour rock concert, screaming each song hard.

"Why me? Michael is the first deputy, he should go first. It's too much of a bother..." Charles made himself fall down on the chair next to me. I pointed my finger at him, then at my neck, and squinted my eyes.

"I'm busy, you should go, Charles." Michael was again at going through the papers.

"Just what are you so busy with, Michael? Love letters?! Our food is more important than that! You can get the letters every single day... You don't reply to any of them anyway..." Charles waved his hand, letting Michael know that he should take it easy.

"Well, sadly, these are the preparation forms and reports for the Art Committee. Because a certain female student has decided to give me more work, bringing this up to the committee!" Michael mumbled in annoyance.

"Rex?" Charles turned to him, but his mind was somewhere completely else. Perhaps in the land without any tomatoes.

"Na-"

"Don't even think about it!" Nathan pointed to Charles with a fork filled with raisins stuck on the prongs. Right now it looked like a perfect weapon for committing m*********r. Leaving a raisin for each dead body.

"Alright, alright! I'm going!" Charles kept his hands short in front of his chest in defense. He had no other option but to get his ass up from the chair and go to the kitchens.

"I will want a full five-page report by tomorrow!" I rasped. I still couldn't talk well. All that coughing made me sound so awful! Just because someone had decided to put sunflower seeds in my food! If I get my hands on you, you'll be a dead meat! No, even now you are one!  Cough. Is this coughing going to end? Just who would even think of such a plan to give me cucumbers and hide the seeds in my salad? No matter how hard I'm going to think about this, it will be quite hard to think of a culprit.

..."Just for staring at such an ugly face? Don't be ridiculous... Your nose is so sharp I could thinly slice onions with it!"... Why am I thinking of her right now? Why did the things she said to me appeared in my mind? Seeing her annoyed tiny little red face!... Wait. Did she? She made our sandwiches?!

The door flew open with Charles breathing loud.

"I know... I know who did..." He was catching his breath, standing at the door.

"Was it her?" I looked up at him. His jaw dropped.

"How did you know!" He stumbled a few steps into the room, leaving the door still open.

"Well, it wasn't that hard to guess." I scoffed, thinking back to the scene I saw, her trying to cover her body, so I wouldn't see her shabby underwear! I chuckled, covering my eyes, to give them a bit of shade. So sneaky! Why would she even think I wanted to see her slummy body? My eyes were used to much better things than that!

"I heard you nearly choked yourself." I jumped up from the chair. It was a girl's voice.

"You brought her here?!" I raised my croaky voice at Charles. She was standing inside the Student Council drawing-room, where all of us had gathered.

"Well, I was told to come here, so I did." She looked at me, her face completely indifferent.

"You... You!" I pointed at her, trying to find the right words, what I should call her!

"Yes, I have a name. My name's Sophia. I believe you can read it on the nameplate on my properly worn uniform!" She exclaimed. I coughed a bit.

"Anyway, was there anything wrong with your refreshments, gentlemen?" She raised her eyebrows, looking at each and every one of us.

"Yes! Mine had tomatoes!" Rex spoke up, coming closer to her. I sharply exhaled.

"Are tomatoes a problem? They are low in calories, have high antioxidant properties, and many vitamins! In fact, they are very healthy and should be included in many meals. Any other complaint?"

"Yes! I HATE them!" Now Rex was getting mad. His red head was starting to match his face as well. The moment she stepped inside this room I was seriously annoyed. However, the scene playing out in front of me right now was getting interesting and amusing. I hadn't seen Rex getting this mad for a very long time. Watching him argue with a girl was even funnier, as he usually just argued with teachers. He had the nickname of a Gentleman at this school among girls!

"That doesn't mean that it's the tomatoes' fault. You should be grateful for the food you are served. All the ingredients had to put a lot of effort to grow. As well as the people, who were growing them, they took care of them with their kind feelings and hard efforts. So instead of complaining, you should feel grateful. Was there anything else wrong with the food?" She didn't sound like she would be going down with a fight.

"You! You-"

"I already said I had a name! If you can't read, then go back to elementary school! If you don't have any other complaints, I am leaving! You're delaying me from my work! Good-BYE!" She opened the door and slammed it hard. Good thing we didn't have any glasses nearby on the cupboard, or else they would probably fall down and shatter.

"Well, that seems to be dealt with..." Charles said sarcastically behind me, where he had decided to hide from her anger.

"Can we write a complaint?" Nathan asked, taking the raisins off the fork, putting them gently back on the plate. It seemed that even he was getting scared of her, seeing how kind he was to every single round raisin, not squashing them in between his fingers, but giving them their original shape when putting them down on the plate.

"I believe that we cannot. The school rules generally say we cannot be picky about the food we get. We already made the menu broad as it is, we can't just make a complaint about not wanting to eat some things. We could be happy that the kitchen staff accepted our requests... It's not like they HAVE to go along with them. Sadly, even though we are a part of the Student Council body, when it comes to food and other things, we have to be treated exactly the same as other students here. So the complaint is out of the question," Michael was thinking out loud, holding his chin with his thumb and index finger.

"Well, what can we do, then?" I sighed. Did this mean we would be getting the food we hated in the future as well? I looked at Rex. He was standing at the same spot ever since she had left. He was speechless, his brain was probably processing his anger.

"I am afraid we can only talk to her and be nice..." Nathan was now like a little kid. He WAS afraid of her!

"Are you scared-"

"WHO SAID I WAS SCARED!" Nathan's reaction to Charle's teasing was certainly saying he was. He was the only one, who was always treated with respect and kindness out of all of us. He was the only child in his family, who was being spoiled. Rex had older siblings, Charles had many sisters and Michael seemed quite a down-to-earth kind of guy, who wouldn't get intimidated by something like that.

"Okay, what other options we have?" I was trying to make them think and come up with options we could consider to get out of this precarious situation.

"Have someone else make our sandwiches?" Rex finally snapped out of it and said something that added some value to the discussion.

"How long is she supposed to work in the kitchen?" I asked them.

"Well, about two weeks, I guess?" Michael answered after chewing the last bite of his salad.

"But your food had nothing you hate!" Rex suddenly yelled at Michael. He jumped up on his chair.

"Maybe because I am not a picky eater like the rest of you?"

"No, it has to be something else! She... LIKES YOU!" Rex was at it again. Trying to take out his frustrations on others. Now they took the form of assuming that the scholarship creature managed to fall in love with our vice-president in a mere day. Just how much more irrational is this going to get?

"Okay, that's enough! If we want her to stay there just for two weeks, we need to make sure she doesn't cause any more troubles!" Nathan came up with a solution. Michael and Rex were on the verge of having a serious fist-fight here.

"That sounds logical..." I nodded, trying to think hard. I death-glared at the two of them. Michael took his hands off of Rex's collar, putting them up in an I-give-up gesture. Rex turned his head in my direction to check, why Michael was acting that way. He quickly let go of Michael's uniform and stood up straight. I exhaled loudly. Not only is SHE giving me a headache, but she is also making the student council go crazy as well!

"Does that mean you accepted her staying at this school past the end of this week?" Charles suddenly asked. I turned around on my chair to look at him, feeling all surprised.

"What?"

"What?" Nathan replied after me, letting the fork fall down on the plate with a sound. The whole room became quiet. We were all staring at Charles.

"Well, you know, you said that she will be working in the kitchen for two weeks, so..."

"So you think I gave up? No, I didn't give up! I will make sure her stay in the kitchen becomes hell! Rex, make sure you have all female kitchen staff on your side! We'll burn her confidence alive by the kitchen gas burners!"