Agents On Campus

It's All In the Presentation

Recap: We left off with Meredith (undercover as Taylor) agreeing to date Alex (the arrogant and rich ex-boyfriend of Jessica, one of the victims). She's dating him because she believes he knows something about the murders, or possibly is the murderer due to his extremely flippant comments about them. The last chapter ended with them in the lunch room. Meredith and Aaron suspect the killer has a partner, while Sami believes he is working alone. Meredith has met Veronica (the queenbee), Daniel (Veronica's boyfriend), Ashley (Veronica's gossipy friend), Luke (Ashley's boyfriend), Jack (the guy who was dating a girl named Elise before he broke up with her to date Andrea), Andrea (another girl in the popular group), Ms. Cwakenbush (the Spanish teacher who get's off topic) and Ms. Avare (the mean Biology teacher), and Ms. Sarafin (the weird, nonsensical psychology teacher). That's all the characters from the last chapter...it's been a while and this chapter may be confusing if you forgot. Thanks so much for your patience!!

Chapter 8

***
It's All in the Presentation

I walked out of the cafeteria with Alex beside me, his arm draped around my shoulders, an arrogant smirk on his face. People stared at us as we walked past, whispering behind their hands and casting jealous looks in my direction. No doubt the entire school would know that the new girl Taylor Anderson was dating Alex Pikante by the end of the day. So much for letting Aaron know before the rumors reached him.

After I agreed to go on a date with Alex, I was treated much less like an outsider by the other populars than before. They all seemed to accept that I was part of their group and scrutinized me much less. Veronica, Ashely, and Andrea took the initiative to give me the 411 on what seemed to be every single person in the room. They surprised me with the amount of dirt they had on everyone at Elvira. Most of what they told me was just the typical high school rumors, but as Colette taught us 'Rumors derive from truth'. Unfortunately, none of these rumors are helping in pinning potential killers. I tried to monitor who went in and out of the lunchroom, but the problem was, it was common for students to leave to meet with teachers or participate in clubs, even with the no-off-campus-lunch rule. Of our group alone, Alex left for a few minutes to do something with the student council for homecoming, Jack left halfway through lunch to get mandatory tutoring and Andrea walked him there, and Ashley went to get Starbucks coffee that her mom dropped off at the school. Not only that, but I noticed students from other tables constantly leaving too.

"What do you think?" Alex asked me as we made our way through the myriad of students leaving the cafeteria and heading up to their next class.

I looked up at him. "Of what?"

"That," he pointed to a large group of senior girls all glaring at me as if I had personally offended them, then around at all the people staring at us before quickly glancing away. "Sweetheart, you're the most popular girl in school."

I simply shrugged, as if I was used to the limelight. Internally I was grimacing at the word 'sweetheart'. Something about the way he said it told me that most girls liked it when he called them that. But if I was going to get any information out of him, I couldn't be most girls. I needed to seem hard to impress in the hopes that maybe he'll offer up something more interesting than parties and pet names.

We climbed up to stairs to our next class, which was history. This was the class I anticipated the most. For some unknown reason, all three of the bodies were found in the history wing. Either that was the most convenient spot to place the bodies, or the killer was trying to send a message to the history teacher.