First Impression I

Chapter Nine- Case Closed

Chapter Nine- Case Closed

“Hey, the Winter Ball’s coming! It’s coming. It’s COMING!” a gaggle of girls screamed from the other side of the cafeteria. Ouch. I winced and rubbed my ears.

The Winter Ball or otherwise known as Christmas Ball was indeed coming. The signs were everywhere. The wooden beams in the ceiling of the cafeteria were strung with tinsels and mistletoe. (Despite what the school management had to say, this form of decoration seemed to be an excuse for some very inappropriate behaviour.) And a tall synthetic Christmas tree stood in the middle of the room.

Still, the Ball was a good whole long month away. The undecorated tree was an evident indication of this. Furthermore, there were plenty of other important things in between. For example, the returning of report books and the student council elections. So how the girls could be so totally absorbed into the selection of ball gowns and dates for the Winter Ball was incomprehensible. To me at least.

I tuned out the noise and focused on the conversation at hand. The, uh, Quartess, ugh, (I detested the name but we were stuck with it) was holding another meeting.

“Emma told Charlotte to pass the bracelet to Faith, right?” Kat asked as Danielle riffled through the interview transcript.

“Yup!” Danielle nodded.

“Then why didn’t Faith receive it?” Kat continued.

“Maybe Charlotte didn’t meet Faith so she couldn’t give it to her?” Alice said.

“So supposing that Charlotte is a trustworthy person-” Kat said.

Alice cut in indignantly, glaring at Kat, “Of course, Charlotte is trustworthy!”

“Well, we haven’t eliminated the option that she is not yet,” Kat shot back.

“Okay, okay,” I put my hands up for silence, trying to pacify them. “Innocent until guilty. So until there is evidence to the contrary, we’ll take it that Charlotte is trustworthy, okay?” Alice huffed a little. Kat merely nodded. Guess even friends disagree.

“What would Charlotte do with the gift if she couldn’t give it to Faith?” Danielle said, carrying on as if nothing had happened.

“Brought it home,” Kat said. “But it is near impossible to contact her, so we can’t find out if this was true or not.”

“Or she could have left it in school,” Alice said. “And we can try to find out where.”

I nodded. “If she left in school, she would have at least left Faith or someone else a note. But why didn’t Faith receive the note?” Nobody had an answer for that.

“Well, nobody we interviewed remembered seeing Charlotte that day or received any note or box from her, right?” Kat said.

“Yes. But we only interviewed the students. And all of them were distracted.” Alice said, shooting a glance in the direction of the squealing girls.