Cypress Alley

Chapter 10

The history test was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was a tedious but achievable source analysis and memory test, and it turns out I knew most of the content anyway. I knew I had done well enough to at least pass, so I wasn't concerned.

I grabbed my bag out of my locker and scanned the courtyard. I couldn't see Eliza anywhere. Usually, I'd wait for her at the front of the school, but today I was impatient to speak to her. I spotted her brown ponytail behind a tree and headed towards it.

As I moved closer, I noticed she was speaking to Sam. I rolled my eyes. She would never give this up. Sam seemed to be itching to leave her company, but Eliza stepped two steps forwards for each one he stepped back. She looked as intimidating and controlling as Jill at lunch, and I gritted my teeth. Soon enough, Sam shuffled away quickly and Eliza spun around triumphantly. She spotted me standing a few metres behind her and ran over, ignoring the glare on my face.

"Sam was so suspicious," she said excitedly. "He wouldn't give me the details of his party, and he was avoiding all my questions. I asked him what happened at the party and he said he doesn't remember. And he was stammering! Sam's not a nervous person, but he was stammering! It's obvious he was lying! And his alibi is weak too. Who knows what happened at that party?"

"Maybe he was nervous because you were being intrusive and creepy."

"No way - I wasn't that weird. Besides, a detective must do her duty."

I frowned. "Yeah, well you were being creepy. No wonder he was nervous. He avoided your questions because it was uncomfortable to speak to you, not because he had something to lie about."

"And how exactly do you know that?" she grumbled. "What's up with you, Mr Grumpy?"

"I'm not the one who's in the wrong, Eliza."

She stared at me incredulously. "Ok... what happened? You've been acting weird all day. When I asked you what happened with Veronica at lunch, you-"

"Don't talk to me about Veronica. Stop pretending you know nothing."

"Oh, so that's what this is about."

I relaxed slightly. Finally, she understood.

"What did Veronica do?" she asked.

This time I lost it. "She didn't do anything! Hell, Eliza, I was talking about Jill and Phoebe!" We were just outside the school office and people made judgemental glances towards me. I ignored them.

Eliza fell silent for a few seconds, then asked slowly, "What about them?"

"Jill was bullying Phoebe, and you were standing right next to them. She had Phoebe by the scruff of her neck and you just ignored her! What kind of a person are you?"

Her mouth dropped slightly open. "Excuse me, but I didn't see you do anything either!" she retorted.

"I wasn't the one standing two metres away. You were."

"But you still saw it happen and you didn't do anything either."

I stopped speaking. Horribly, she was right.

"Sometimes you can be such a hypocrite," she grumbled as I sped up my pace. I stayed a few metres in front of her for the rest of the walk. She didn't try to catch up.

That afternoon I did not speak to Eliza. She didn't seem to mind and went about her usual business without acknowledging me. She had taken back her notebook and kept it safely inside her jumper as if it were under threat. I kept to myself all afternoon and stayed in my room. Ms Hartley was not at home that evening. I guessed she had gone to a relative's house, thankfully.

After dinner, Eliza came into my room with a plate of food.

"You didn't have your dinner," she said matter-of-factly, placing the plate in front of me. I stared at it. "Why don't you just admit you were wrong, and we can get on with the case?"

I frowned. I didn't want to speak to her about it.

"I'm not judging you," she went on. "I just want this to be over so we can work on the case."

"If the case matters so much to you, you can get a new Watson."

"It's Dots-" she started, then thought better of it. "Come on, just stop giving me the silent treatment."

"I'm not giving you the silent treatment," I mumbled. "I just don't want to speak to you."

"Same thing! Come on, I've got lots of evidence against Sam, and you probably have stuff about Veronica."

"I didn't get anything out of her. She just told me she was there."

"Ok... Well, at least that confirms what we overheard. We also know Sam was acting suspiciously during his interrogation."

"I don't think he was suspicious, Eliza. I think he just didn't want to speak to you."

"What? Who wouldn't want to speak with me?"

"A lot of people," I replied. "One being Sam."

"Fine, whatever. But we really don't know what happened at that party. And Sam lives pretty close by – right near Cypress Alley. Someone at the party could have easily been there before or after it."

"Whoa, hold up a second," I said, sitting up. "How do you know where he lives?"

"He was on the bus when we used to catch it," she said. "I've seen him get off near the houses right around the corner."

"This is what I mean when I say you're creepy."

"Oh shush," she giggled as if it were a compliment. "But this makes his alibi even weaker."

"Agreed." I had started to feel hungry again and picked up the plate from my bedside table.

Eliza made a note of all this and placed her notebook back inside her jumper. "How are we going to continue the investigation?" she asked.

"Dunno," I replied.

"I think we should focus on Veronica, Sam and Wendy," she said. "And Georgia – we don't have much to back her up. Do you think we should try and speak to her?"

"Yeah," I said. "She'd definitely going to be less intimidating to speak to than Veronica."

"And easier to crack. We should be able to get a lot of information from her. It was suspicious that she changed her alibi when she was speaking to Ant and those people."

"I guess, but I think she only did that to fit in."

"Oh, maybe."

"Plus, she's not really the type of person who would go out murdering people."

"You never know. Sometimes the most seemingly innocent ones are the most dangerous."

"That only happens in books," I said. "But are we even looking at this the right way? I mean, do you really think a child would murder one of their classmates. Maybe we should expand our suspect list beyond our school."

"First of all, we're not children. We're old enough to do stuff by ourselves and there are people at our school perfectly capable of doing... bad stuff. Second of all, how would we even expand our list? We don't know anything about North."

"Which is exactly why this investigation is going to fail."

"Don't say that! It'll only fail if you have that attitude."

I put my plate back on my bedside table and shrugged. There was no hope in solving this case.

"And even if it does fail for us, the police are going to solve it. But we might find something useful along the way. It'll be like an adventure! And we're like actual detectives!"

With that, she leapt off my bed and made her way to the door excitedly. I didn't think she would be able to sleep that night. I pulled my covers over my head and dozed off. I definitely do not share her enthusiasm.