Superheroes

Chapter Three - Notes

                                                Chapter Three – Notes

When I vowed to prove the murder, I hadn’t really considered how to go about doing it. With nothing to go on, I had to improvise.  

I had read enough detective books to know that when trying to solve a crime, starting at the scene of the murder was generally a good plan. True, the police had already been through it, and Trent’s personal affects had all been removed, but there was still a chance. After all, they didn’t have the advantage of being a bit psychic.

Trent Buchman’s room was due to have a new boy move into it in a couple of weeks, after enough time had passed and the gossip died down. A few of the more superstitious students claimed that it was haunted, and that they’d seen Trent’s ghost drifting around, playing pranks on the younger kids. Despite being a bit unusual myself, I’d never believed in ghosts. Never seen one, never sensed one. Zilch.

Being sixteen years old and in the lower year of sixth form, my seniority in the school afforded me certain privileges. Members of the sixth form could generally go where they liked within the school grounds, were supposed to have ‘personal’ relationships with their teachers, and could boss around the younger kids as much as they pleased. This all meant that, providing I was careful about it, I could sneak into Trent’s room easily enough.

Up on the third floor, Trent’s room was a carbon copy of all the others. Blue walls, ornate furnishings, and a cork board were the standard fittings for all the bedrooms at Hawthorne. Most boards had various pieces of crap and doodles tacked to them, but by now Trent’s room had been gutted. Perhaps it was because of this, or just because it was the room of a dead kid, but stepping in felt remarkably unsettling. 

On the far side the windows were open, blowing the translucent white cotton curtains about lazily in the breeze. Approaching one, I crouched down and inspected the windowsill. I wasn’t really sure what I was looking for, handprints stained in blood sounded a little too obvious, but any sign or clue would have been nice. 

Judging by the faint aroma of citrus fruits, the windows had recently been cleaned, obliterating any possible evidence to be found there. Sighing, I checked the curtains for tears, looking for signs of a struggle. Nothing. No indication that he’d been pushed.

Digging deeper I started inspecting the closet and dresser, pulling out the drawers to check for anything hidden behind them. Every student at Hawthorne was well practiced in the art of concealment, since we all had weekly room inspections. It was amazing just how much junk you could hide down the back of a draw or in the lining of your bedding. 

Behind the drawers I found a lone packet of Mini Eggs – chocolate was a rare commodity at Hawthorne, and its protection was vital – and taped to the roof of the closet’s bottom drawer, I found an ounce or so of weed, but nothing else.

Ridiculously, I’d been hoping for some convenient note, preferably one that read ‘I was murdered by insert name here,’ but no such luck. Even after I’d rifled through every hiding place in the room, I had still turned up nothing.

Muttering in frustration, I paced around the room and tried to figure out what to do. Outside the door, some of the juniors were sprinting up and down the corridor, their feet thundering across the floorboards. Through the open windows, the grunts and shouts of a game of rugby floated up, punctuated every now and then by the blowing of a whistle.

Then the noise all just drifted away. The experience was similar to that of becoming submerged underwater; I could still hear everything, but it felt distant and distorted, not quite there. A low humming started ringing in my ears, and for a moment I was completely unaware of who or where I was. Everything just stopped.