Gu Gu busied herself from morning until evening before finally delivering all the gifts.
She seemed thinner, yet she also seemed not to have lost any weight.
Vincent gently poked her still-round little belly with a fingertip. "There's no way it should still look like this..."
Neville, already changed into his clothes, came over carrying Leif, who was nearly round as a ball.
"When you went to bathe just now, I saw—"
Gu Gu's little head rotated ninety degrees upward, and she glanced at him sideways, as though issuing a warning.
"No, I didn't see anything." Neville hunched his neck and retreated.
Vincent turned Gu Gu's little head back around. "No wonder I received fewer snack gifts. So you were stealing food!"
She widened her big eyes pitifully.
"Don't act cute. Tonight, you're only allowed vegetables."
Gu Gu flopped onto the bed and rolled around indignantly, sending feathers drifting all over the dormitory.
"Keep going. Without feathers, you'll look even fatter." Vincent went to the wardrobe and changed into his school robes.
By the time he had finished changing, Gu Gu had indeed gone quiet on the bed.
"Don't even think about sneaking off to Cho's. I'll be watching you the whole time."
The three people following him out of the dormitory all knew that tonight's Christmas feast would not be peaceful.
Before they even reached the Great Hall, Gu Gu began calling for her underlings.
Looking at the owls carrying food in their beaks, Vincent ultimately softened.
"One last time!"
Gu Gu raised one little wing, as if making some kind of oath.
Vincent shook his head and pushed open the Great Hall doors with his left hand, the one not holding her.
Though the feast had only just begun, most of the students had already arrived.
He first