Miss Quick

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen
Trickery

My mouth fell open. I forced my jaw shut and replayed Mr. Pulcher's words in my mind to make sure I'd heard him right. I was expelled? This was awful!

"But I didn't do anything!" I cried.

"I'm sorry, Ariah, but to take action and do at least something about the disappearances will ease the minds of many."

"But why are you taking action against ME? I didn't do anything," I repeated.

"Again, I'm sorry, Ariah. I'll escort you out."

I was numb to my surroundings as I walked to my locker. I wasn't going to be able to see any of my friends. Or Josh. I would have to repeat tenth grade. Either that or take summer school. Could I even do that? What would I tell my mom? Dread filled me as I scooped everything from my locker into my backpack.

Mr. Pulcher led me into the elevator room. I was surprised to see that Smith and a brunette woman who looked about thirty were there. They turned toward us as we entered.

"I'm sorry, Ariah, we had to make them believe you were really expelled," Smith said to me.

"Wait, what? Are you saying I'm not really expelled?" I asked, hope blossoming in me.

"Well, let's explain properly," said Smith.

"I never wanted to expel you, Ariah," said Mr. Pulcher. "I know you had no part in the disappearance. However, we had a teachers' meeting and the majority of them voted to expel you. They were all under stress, you see, because if the school closed they would all lose their jobs and possibly be blamed for the disappearances. I couldn't override their decision because it would look biased. You are best friends with my daughter, after all."

Anger twisted in my stomach. The teachers had decided to expel me? There had to be some kind of rule against that.

"Now, you will still be expelled," Smith told me, "but you'll be able to keep attending classes as a different person."

Needless to say, I was confused, "A different person? What?"

Smith smiled and gestured to the brunette woman. "Ariah, meet Jocelyn Channing. She works for the NGAC and her ability is disguises. She can make herself and people around her look different."

"With their permission, of course," said Jocelyn Channing.

"You both are going to enroll at AIGEA as new students. Sisters. And hopefully, both of you will help us investigate the disappearances better than you could before."

"What do you think we'll find at AIGEA?" I asked incredulously.

Smith and Mr. Pulcher looked at each other. Mr. P nodded.

"We believe someone inside the school is feeding information to whoever's responsible for the disappearances," Smith said.

I gasped. "Why do you think that?"

"We believe some of the missing students were taken from their dorm rooms. You need a passcode to get into each room without tripping the alarm and the passcodes are all kept in some files at the office. You could only get them if you knew where those files were."

Mr. Pulcher nodded. "Also, each time any door opens or closes the time and door number is logged. The doors of some of the missing students had been opened late at night. So someone must have gotten into the school and kidnapped them."

"What if they were just getting up themselves because they couldn't sleep, or...something?" I asked.

"They'd have to open the door again to get back into their room," explained Smith. "But the doors had only opened once. And the fact that they disappeared the next day was kind of suspicous."