The administration offices had nearly a hundred staff members to ensure the happiness of the school's students. Or more specifically, to ensure that the students parents kept making significant donations to the school.
It was typically a lively but focused environment, as the excess staff often had plenty of time to chat with each other while still working.
However, the staff were currently buzzing around the office like a bunch of school children. Every staff member had a different opinion on what happened and they all wanted to be the one who everyone believed.
Just moments ago, the dean had walked through the office with a student following him. While this wasn't common, the more experienced staff members had initially remained calm because they had heard a VIP was arriving.
The thing that set off the waves of gossip was when the dean went out of his way to fawn over the student. He gave her a tour of the entire office, offered her food and drinks from the administrative staff's personal cafeteria and checked at the end if things were eating into her time.
Normally, even this much would only draw questioning gazes from newer members while the more experienced ones nodded in understanding, but what excited the situation was the student's city-toppling looks.
There were several young women in the office who had worked for years to get jobs at Maple-leaf Academy for the chance to interact with rich men.
These couple women were annoyed at seeing a young rich woman who had the chance to have what they had to work for. One of them was specifically interested in the dean himself and was enraged at seeing his fawning attitude, but didn't want to be the one to start a rumor.
After the staff had time to process what they saw, one of the more outspoken women hoping to find a golden spoon to eat off of couldn't contain herself.
"So what he's treating her so well? That girl probably slept with him to get in. I bet she couldn't even pass the test!"
The calculating woman, Taylor Jordan, glared at the woman who spoke and stood up.
"Anne! Just because that young girl is beautiful and the dean is fawning over her, you spread rumors? If I hear you say anything like that again I'll tell the dean myself."
Taylor smirked internally as she saw the more reasonable members of staff all nodding in agreement.
As she thought, the best way to make herself look better is like this.
Meanwhile, there were several men who all glared at each other, having seen the others equally stupefied faces when the girl walked in.
At the side of the room, the 5 highest ranking staff and the most experienced all shook their heads and laughed with each other. They all knew from experience that the dean would look like that whenever a student could impact has job or the school.
All 5 of them had been there since the school was founded so this sort of sight was nothing new for them. In fact, the five of them always bet with each other over how long they would go before they saw him fawning again.
Barbara Linn, one of the 5 senior members stood up and shouted at Taylor. "Stop being self-righteous and sit down! Everyone sees through your act!"
When everyone heard what she said, some of the people who were previously nodding had sly grins, some started laughing, and the rest stared at Taylor blankly before looking at the ground, ashamed they had bought her self-serving act.
Barbara sat back down and turned to the 4 others at the table before slowly stretching out her hand with a smirk on her face.
"I won 2 bets today. It was so obvious that Taylor would be the one to be self-serving, and none of you even thought about transfer students coming, did you?"
The rest of the people at the table who had bet at least over a year all coughed in sync before handing her the money.
"Be quiet! You just got lucky!"
"Exactly. This is the first transfer in years."
"What's wrong with luck? I get 8 months of paychecks for being lucky."
She made a 'give it' motion with her hand and looked towards Jeff. When Jeff saw her gaze, he looked away before slowly sliding out the second paycheck he lost.
"See, luck is great."
Hearing what she said, they all nearly coughed blood. Jeff, Dorothy, Mark, and Lucas all looked at each other and shook their heads. Her luck had seen her win every single bet since they started 10 years ago. Either they had the worst luck in the entire world, or she knew had the best luck ever heard of.
"How do you do it, you old witch?"
Barbara just laughed and walked away from the table, clearly pleased with her winnings.