Superheroes

Chapter Thirteen - Trent Buchman

                                  Chapter Thirteen – Trent Buchman

In the darkness, I clicked the torch on. It was one of those shitty eco-friendly torches that you had to shake vigorously to charge, and so the light it provided was pretty feeble, little more than a soft, yellow glow. Still, it served its purpose.

I directed the beam in front of me, examining what I was met with. Three separate grey cabinets lined the back wall. To my disappointment, none of them were conveniently labelled ‘Student Files’, but then I had already used up my luck for the day.

By some miracle I had successfully snuck out of the dorm, smuggled my way into the teaching block, and picked the lock on the head teacher’s office door, all without being caught. It was well past eleven, by which time all of the teachers on patrol were in bed, but I was still surprised to have managed it. If I hadn’t been so flustered, I would have been proud.

Back when I was fourteen, I taught myself how to use a lock pick. Being a self-confessed goody-two-shoes most of the time, I’d never intended to use the skill for any actual breaking and entering; I had just thought it sounded cool. Now, however, I found my over-exposure to spy films had come in handy, and all I had left to do was actually find Trent’s files.

Turning around, I rifled through the contents of the headmaster’s desk, careful to return everything to its previous position afterwards. In the back of one draw I found a key ring strung with four keys, three of which were perfectly sized to match the locks on the cabinets. Returning the torchlight to those, I slotted a key into one of the top draws and smiled triumphantly when it slipped in and rotated with a satisfying click.

It took me several tries to actually find the right draw, but eventually I opened the cabinet with the student files stored within. Each student had their various forms and paper printouts all tucked within their own card folder, a tab sporting their name sticking up above to allow them to be identified. They were arranged alphabetically by surname, and sure enough towards the back of the ‘B’ section I found Trent Buchman’s waiting for me.

Prying it from where it lay wedged within the draw, I sat down in the headmaster’s desk chair and splayed the folder upon my lap. The first page was just the standard stuff, all Trent’s personal details from his sex to his race, religion, and emergency contact details. I turned it aside, looking through the rest, briefly scanning each page for something that might prove useful.

Admittedly, I didn’t quite know what I was looking for. The school kept a record of any criminal offences, so I tried looking for something there. If Trent had been in a fight recently – his one with Andrew aside – or had been involved in something shady, it might at least serve as a new lead.

To my dismay that particular document proved unhelpful, as Trent had only ever received a caution about the possession of weed. No extensive involvement in illicit criminal activity, no arch nemesis. How unhelpful.

I leafed through the rest of his files, dismissing his sporting achievements and academic merits as useless. I was becoming painfully aware of how few pages remained for me to look through. Slowing to read every word very carefully, if only to delay the end, I used the heels of my feet to spin the swivel chair I sat in, meticulously studying each sentence without really taking it in.

What use was knowing Trent’s allergies, or what medication he was taking? Being no doctor myself, I hadn’t a clue what half the long, complex substances listed even were, let alone what they treated. All I could really concentrate on was the fact that there was only one page left.

Kicking the base of the chair in frustration, I spun a little too enthusiastically, knocking several items off the desk. They crashed to the ground all too loudly, and I winced and froze as they bumped into other objects, bringing those down along with them. Had it been daytime, the fiasco would have been relatively quiet, but in the dead of night it sounded like a thunderstorm.