Weeks pass, and he doesn't catch a single card.
When cards become active, he goes looking. They just disappear before he gets there.
He's getting worried, and he's not sure he's satisfied with Kero's explanations.
He tries to focus on school.
No contest.
Alistair avoids brainfreeze, and overtakes her in this completely unimportant competition.
He seems quite proud of himself.
"Expecting before the date started at all, or expecting conditional on the little interruptions?"
"If you say so. You seem pretty smart, so I think I have to trust your judgment."
They do! And the humdrum of daily life happens to be the weekend, and although Alistair doesn't have any way to contact the cardcaptor and his friend he does go to the same school as them.
So, after a weekend of magic testing and learning, and most of a school day, Sadde ditches his last class to wait in front of Alistair's school.
The cardcaptor's friend is apparently ditching class, given the way he's sneaking back into the school when he spots Sadde.
"Shouldn't you be in class, young man?"
Sadde realizes the boy probably won't recognize him... and decides to milk this. "I should say the same to you."
"One of us is actually supposed to be here, and it's not you. Is there a story there?"
"I'm actually an agent of a family of sorcerers scouting this school for its magical secrets."
"Good for you. Trouble is, we already have five of those. Magical secret agents really like pretending to be high schoolers."
"Drat. I should report to my shadowy masters so they can come up with a better plan."
"Here's one: find a less boring school to scout. I hear they've got three whole magical secrets the next town over."
He starts trying to climb into one of the windows.
This doesn't go well for him.
"I'm good, I didn't lose any limbs."
He scrambles to his feet.
"Nobody saw that, right?"
"No, that was awful, I don't even know what that means. Ignore me."
He continues trying to break into the building he's required to be in.