At school, as soon as the bell for break went off, Eleanor dragged Elvis outside to a secluded spot on the playground where no one would disturb them.

"Brother, hurry up and tell me what you have planned."

She was dying to talk about this matter since she woke up this morning, but could hardly find a convenient place or time where they could be alone.

So she could only hope that the time rolled by fast. Finally it was break time.

"I haven’t made any plans yet."

"You promised to come up with one, why didn’t you?" She frowned.

To think that she had hardly paid any attention to what the teacher was saying in class only to hear her brother tell her that he didn’t make any plans.

"That was because we slept off in mom’s room. If you were that impatient why didn’t you stay awake or even wake up early."

"So what do we do now?" Eleanor asked.

Elvis stared at her sister who he was sure was passing all the blame to him.

If they had nor slept off while trying to put their mummy to sleep, he was sure he would have come up with a plan before they set off for school in the morning.

"If you can stop whining, we can plan one now," he scolded.

"But I only want to hear of your plan, not to think of a plan myself. It is so troublesome," Eleanor bluntly exempted herself from the strenuous process of thinking, with a pout.

"Then you will have to think of how troublesome it would be for you not to have someone to call your father," Elvis retorted.

"Besides, I’m not the one in dire need of who to call a father," he added and got the desired effect as the next second a reluctant "OK" came out of Eleanor’s mouth.

"I guess I can think a bit," she added, contrary to her initial statement.

Elvis hid a grin as he heard his sister.

"First, we have to check on the internet to see if we can get any information about that man. But the problem is how do we do that when we don’t even have a name to search with."

They both put on their thinking caps as they kept silent for a few seconds.

"I think I have an idea," Eleanor said all of a sudden, her eyes lighting up.

"What is it?" Elvis had an expectant look as he stared at Eleanor.

"Let’s use mommy’s name. Remember they were both in the news."

"You are right. But there’s one more problem,"

"Why are you only thinking of the problems and you leave the strenuous task of thinking of the answers to me, the smaller one among us?"

Eleanor felt Elvis was pushing all the work to her while he did nothing.

"Who told you I don’t know the solution to those problems myself. I only allowed you to give the solution because I want your brain to develop faster."

"Tell that to a child," smirked Eleanor. "You only want to take advantage of my smartness."

"Let’s believe you are right," Elvis confessed.

Of course I’m right. What’s the problem this time around?"

"Our laptop is with the teacher and we can only get it when we get off school. By then Mrs Carr and the driver or even mommy will be waiting for us."

"It’s quite simple, we can tell Mom we want to check out something."

That’s too straightforward and she might suspect something," Elvis objected.

What if we tell mom that we have an important assignment to do when we get home, that way, she would not suspect anything.

"Isn’t that lying?" Eleanor said. Their mummy has warned them on so many occasions not to tell a lie.

"It won’t be considered lying if we ask the teacher to assign us a task to do this weekend that will require us to use the computer."

"That is better. I hope you don’t expect me to be the one to meet the teacher for that?"

"Leave that to me, I will handle that."

Elvis had barely finished speaking when Eleanor shot off like a spring.

There was something Sophia had promised to show to her yesterday but she left before the closing time and they had rescheduled to see today.

Seeing that she had spent most of her break planning with her brother, she was sure Sophia would have been looking for her, so she needed to hurry back to meet her.

Elvis was rendered speechless by Eleanor’s sudden departure.

He shook his head and didn’t dwell on it much as he had to think of an assignment that looked complicated enough to take most of his weekend but he can actually finish within a day.

Finally he thought of one and set off to see his teacher.

******* 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

By 3pm that afternoon, Kathleen stood anxiously among the bustling crowd at the airport arrivals gate, her eyes scanning the incoming passengers.

Her anticipation kept building as she waited for Lauren, her dear friend whom she hasn’t seen in years.

They spotted each other simultaneously, and a wave of joy washed over Kathleen as she dashed toward Lauren.

"Kathleen!" Lauren yelled excitedly before Kathleen could say anything as she made her way through the crowded terminal.

"Lauren, it’s really you!" Stopping a few feets from Lauren, Kathleen was choked, her eyes tearing as well.

They embrace tightly, laughing and sharing a moment of genuine happiness. As they clasped themselves in a warm embrace, the years seemed to melt away.

"Oh my, look at you, all grown up and sophisticated! You are even more beautiful now that I see you than on the phone. You are truly the perfect image of a heiress."

"Stop it, Lauren. I am still your darling old Kathleen," Kathleen dismissed, her face reflecting her joy. "But look at you, jet-setting across the world. It’s been way too long."

As they broke the embrace, Lauren playfully nudged Kathleen and said with a mischievous smile,

"Spill the beans. What’s new? What did I miss? Any scandalous love affairs I should know about?"