Miss Quick

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Blame

The missing girl made local news the next night. I would've been interviewed, but Smith must've figured that I didn't want to be a part of it so he didn't mention my name.

Smith and a few other teahers started a group to search for the girl. There were signup sheets all over the school that day. There were also boxes around the school so people could leave anonymous tips.

I think that Smith and the other teachers wanted to start it because of the stress of the other students going missing. Maybe they felt like since they had a lead, they could finally do something, even though this girl wasn't a student.

Evelyn and I signed up to join the search group for obvious reasons.

At the end of that week, we had no leads at all. Evi and I had just gone door to door through a nearby neighborhood, asking if anyone had seen anything. Nobody had.

"This really sucks," Evelyn said.

"I wish this whole thing would just end," I said. "What if the disappearances keep on happening?"

"Until what?"

"I don't know! I don't know what's going on or why it's happening! I just wish we knew who's doing it."

Evelyn shrugged. "But we don't."

"Don't any of the students have an ability that might help? Or even any of the teachers?"

"They would've helped the efforts, at least."

"But can't you tell the animals to keep a lookout, or something? Tell you if they see anything?"

"I've done that. It hasn't helped at all."

I groaned and sat down on the curb we were walking along. "I wish this wasn't happening."

"I know. It's putting a lot of stress on my dad and the teachers, too. They've been getting lots of calls from angry parents and some have even pulled their kids out of school until this thing ends."

"Wow, really?"

Evelyn nodded. "The redheaded boy from Smith's class was one of those."

"Oh, really?" So that's where he'd gone.

A new thought entered my mind. "I just feel bad that my mom has no idea all this is going on. I know she'd be worried about me, but she's oblivious, so it's like...all the worry was transferred to me."

"You wish you could tell her." It wasn't a question.

I nodded. "I just wanna go home."

***

On Monday I hadn't been in my math class for five minutes when the loudspeaker beeped on. "Ariah Velox, please report to the main office immediately."

I had no idea what this was for. As I got up (Mr. Medina had no choice but to let me go) I had flashbacks of elementary school when someone would get called down to the office and everyone else would "Ooohhh....", knowing they were in trouble. But I couldn't think of anything I'd done.

Mr. Pulcher sat behind his desk and was flanked by Mrs. Newman and another teacher I didn't know. He gestured for me to sit in the chair opposite his desk. Suddenly, anxiety attacked me. It may have been the way the two backup teachers were looking at me, or it was just intuition, but something was wrong.

"Ariah, we need to talk about the incident that occurred at the field trip."

"Uh, okay." Not what I was expecting.

"You saw the girl being kidnapped?"

"Yes, at least, I think so. I saw a man in a mask dragging her."

"Can you tell me what this man looked like?"

"Well, he was wearing a mask," I said pointedly, "so not really. He was...sort of tall."

The backup teachers looked at each other.

"So, you were the last one to see her before she disappeared?" asked Mr. Pulcher.

"Uh, yeah, I guess..." I answered, wondering why this was starting to sound like a questioning. "But I've been doing my best to find out information about her."

"Why haven't you told the police about what you saw?" asked Mr. Pulcher.

"Oh," I was startled by the question. "Well, I told Smith, and assumed he'd tell them since he dealt with the news people," I said.

"Smith was told that the police had already received the information when, in fact, they hadn't. So we will be passing on what you told us now to the police."

"Oh, okay," I said. So this was all it is. I waited to be told I could go.

"Ariah," sighed Mr. Pulcher. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but these disappearances are putting huge anounts of stress on our shoulders. We have next to no leads and the only valuable information seems to come from you. Additionally, you were the last person to see the missing girl. We must do what we can with the information we have. You understand?"

"Yes," I said.

"Good. Well, I'm sorry, but we are forced to expel you. Until it can be proven that you had no affiliation with the disappearances, you will not be allowed to attend classes at the Academy."