Zach

I waited for Jade to call me. She’d insisted on going home and speaking to her dad right after school, so Monty and I had gone back without her. He was in his room, playing video games with the leftover cake from yesterday’s practice.

We were going to bake the final cake today, we had to. Even though the competition was in the afternoon, there might not be enough time to bake the cake and transport it to the venue in time, even if I got up before dawn and Jade arrived early.

In the end, I got tired of waiting and gave her a call. If she’d been there, we could have caught some sleep after finishing with the cake, but at this rate, we wouldn’t have enough time for that. I waited until Monty came to call me out for dinner. In his house, they had dinner at seven, and I thought it was late enough.

So, I called Jane. The line died before she could pick up, and I just called again. She picked up on the third call.

“Hello?”

Her voice didn’t sound right, a little thick, and sleepy. I felt my