Tower Christian School Trumpeteer Never Ending Story
Episode 3 - February 2008
Continued By Selena Edin
…I looked back up at Mr. Won and smiled, "It would be my pleasure."
It had been a little over an hour since school was let out, and I decided to work on the case immediately. Most of my big ideas came when I was outside, so I decided to sit beneath our maple tree in the front yard. But it wasn’t long before I was interrupted.
Nicole McKeller lived on the other side of town, but no one really knew that because she was always roaming other neighborhoods. She had a nose for trouble and if there was a small theft anywhere, chances are she was the culprit. She had brown, sandy hair that was always in its signature messy ponytail. Her skin, I imagine, was once as pale as her mother’s, but it had darkened quite a bit from being outside too long. She also hated her name Nicole, so now everyone knows her as Nick.
“Aw, look! It’s the dork writing in his secret nerd book! I wonder what scientific formula you’ve decided to use now!” She grabbed my notebook and started reading the notes I had made about the mystery. Her spunkiness slowly wound down until her face reminded me of a melting snowman. Was it possible she had something to do with the school caper?
“Mr. Won put YOU in charge of the case? Why not me?” Obviously not.
“Well maybe I’m smarter then you,” I mumbled, grabbing the notebook back from her. It didn’t seem to register with Nick that I just insulted her, luckily for me. Instead, she jumped and caught one of the drooping branches on our tree, swinging back and forth. I couldn’t touch that branch even if I tried.
“So is that all you’ve done? Made notes?”
“You will find, Nick, that writing things down is a very—”
“Yah, whatever,” she cut me off. “Any leads?”
“Huh?”
Nick swung her legs around the branch like a monkey, looking annoyed as she did. “Do you have any idea who could have possibly done it?” She said this slowly as if I was stupid, when really I was shocked that she had used a detective term. Not very many people did.
“You, maybe.” I said this without thinking, which isn’t a smart thing to do in the presence of a 7th grader twice as strong as you are and sitting on a tree branch above your head. But Nick must have been in a good mood because she didn’t beat me up.
“I’m beginning to wonder if you are as smart as they all say you are.” Wow, I was talked about at the intermediate school too. “If I had done all those things, then I would have chosen a different color then pink and would have done a better job.”
“I thought the wall looked pretty well covered.”
“No you idiot!” she rolled her eyes and jumped nimbly down from her perch.
Standing next to her, I barely came up to her shoulder. And we were only one year apart. Scary. “I would have done a better job of covering myself. I mean, there were fingerprints all over the fire alarm and there were sightings of someone sneaking into the destroyed classroom half an hour before the alarm went off!”
“Really?” I asked, baffled. Why hadn’t I found out any of this? And an even better question: why did Nick know?
“Yes, really!” Nick started walking away. Calling over her bony shoulder, “surely a detective would investigate the scene of the crime before trying to solve the mystery. At least I would.”