"Hey Brett, are you ready to leave now? If memory serves me correctly, you owe me a bubble tea!!"
It was Friday and that meant Eddy, a young maths teacher, would enjoy the company of his favourite colleague Brett, an English teacher, on a more casual and relaxed basis, as they would usually either go to a café or to a bubble tea shop on their way home. They could go for a beer at a local pub as well except neither of them were big on drinking, particularly when they usually drove to work.
This day, as usual, they left the staff room and walked together to the school car park, chatting about InTeReStInG things that happened during their day and deciding on who would drive. Since they usually visited somewhere nearby the school, it was easier to just take one car.
Brett and Eddy had actually stayed behind a bit today to complete some marking so the carpark should've been deserted by now. However, on this particular Friday, the carpark seemed rather busy with a group of people gathered around a car. Eddy noticed that Brett had stopped dead in his tracks with his mouth wide open midsentence.
"...Brett?"
"Oh sh*t... "
"Brett? Are you alright?"
"Shhhh Eddy, please don't call out my name."
"Huh?"
"Listen, would you mind driving today? Meet you near the back gate.. y'know where you can go into that narrow street where a post box is? I'll meet you there, okay??"
And with that, with surprising agility Eddy had never seen in Brett before, Brett fled. Eddy saw him go into the bush which Eddy knew lead to a path that students often used to sneak out of the school grounds.
Puzzled, Eddy continued to walk to his car. As he walked past the group of people, he noticed they were gathered around Brett's car. They all had cameras. One of them noticed Eddy approaching and called out.
"Excuse me, sir?"
"...Yes...?"
"Do you know if a Brett Yang works here?"
"I.. don't know.. It's a big school and I'm still new here."
"What's your name?"
"Um... who are you?"
"Nevermind that."
Eddy looked at the man with disbelief. He decided to ignore him and continued walking to his car.
He made sure none of them followed him as he left the car park and drove up the street where the post box was where Brett was waiting. Eddy slowed down his car and stopped briefly to let Brett in. Brett usually sat in the passenger's seat whenever he was in Eddy's car but today he went into the backseat. He tossed his bag on the seat and hid from the outside view by lying on the floor of the car.
"OMG Brett, what's going on!?"
"Eddy.. please, just go...!! I'll explain later...!!"
Eddy shrugged and drove off.
"Eddy.. do you remember a local kidnapping incident that happened 4 years ago?"
They chose to go to a quiet café that had booths where they knew it would be easier to chat, rather than a noisy bubble tea place. Eddy paused from sipping his coffee as he replied.
"4 years ago? I would've still been a uni student... Where abouts did this happen?"
"At one of the private schools in this area. A year 11 girl was allegedly kidnapped. The family got a ransom note."
"OMG."
"It was resolved and the girl returned safely."
"Oh thank goodness for that. So.. how was it resolved?"
"A prac student at a nearby public school worked it out."
"How ?"
"Well... the kidnapping plot was awfully similar to that of a novel."
"Uhuh."
"Yeah, so the prac student told the police how the kidnapper might approach the pick up of the ransom according to how it was written out in the novel and it was spot on as the ransom note the family received.. what was written in the ransom note wasn't released to the media at the time so the prac student was taken into custody and questioned."
"OMG poor guy."
"But luckily after some explanation and showing the actual bloody book, his name was cleared and he ended up helping the investigation and they found the girl safe and sound."
"Wow... to remember the plot and put two and two together to help solve the case is pretty impressive... the parents must have been so relieved when their daughter was found."
"Actually they were pretty pissed. You see, the girl and her boyfriend had plotted all this to milk some money out of the girl's rich parents."
"...What ?!? It was a hoax?!?"
"Yeah, and the plot they had followed was from the novel that was selected as the English text for the girl's boyfriend's school."
"OMG.. but aren't there so many books available for high school English text they can pick from?"
"Yeah.. the prac teacher was quite geeky, he had read practically every book that was available on the recommend to-read list for high school students."
"Oh wow. But OMG that's terrible!!! How pissed were the girl's parents!?"
"I recall they were pretty pissed."
"So you know them ?"
"Well, I got to know them quite well during the incident..."
"How come?"
"I was the geeky English prac teacher."
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To be continued to Twoset Teachers XI....