Birdy Anders
Birdy sat on the floor in a circle with Julian to her left and Badger to her right. She had no idea why they were sitting on the floor in Badger’s house when the couch was right behind them, but that didn’t matter. She had just walked into the house to find Badger and Julian on the floor and sat down next to them without questioning the situation.
That was another thing that was different now. She had noticed a shift in her partnership with the two boys to be more comfortable. Now, instead of knocking and waiting for Badger to open up the door for her, the door was simply left unlocked, and she let herself in every day.
She was with the three of them to go over more stuff for the Anders case. Technically, this was usually their afterschool time to work on the Mermaid Project, but they were already ahead on that and used class time efficiently, so they weren’t too worried about the fate of their grade. So the couple of hours that she spent at the Pasternack residence everyday afterschool had very quickly devolved into just working on this.
Birdy was just glad that the other two were actually taking this whole thing seriously. She hadn’t been sure what to expect when they first set up this partnership, but she hadn’t known that they would be nearly as dedicated as she is to finding Tempest. It was surprising. It's a good kind of surprising. Don’t get her wrong, but still surprising nonetheless.
Birdy looked over at Julian and saw a twisted look of concentration on his face. The kind where his eyebrows scrunched up and his mouth tightened into a thin line. She wasn’t very shocked to see him like that. That was how he always looked when they were working on this. In her whole memory of ever knowing him, these were probably the only times she could recall him not having a smile on his face. She wasn’t sure what his secret to happiness was.
She then looked over to Badger and saw that he had a mechanical pencil in his mouth being aggressively gnawed on while his fingers bouncily drummed on his knees. She wasn’t quite sure where he had picked up those mannerisms, but he always did it whenever he had his full attention on anything. It was a bit funny, but she was still a bit grossed out by the fact that he still used the pencil with his spit on it to write down his notes.
She fought not to laugh at their silly expressions. It was a difficult task, but she managed.
Birdy shook her head and zeroed in her focus on her computer again. She needed to stay on task. They were all researching Jacob Hensen’s family again. His father was dead, and since the time that the report had been made by Dorinna Singh, his mother had also died.
Leaving the only last living close relative of his to be his younger sister. He hadn’t had that many friends when he was alive, from what they could tell, at least. He seemed like a bit of a loner. He did have an ex-girlfriend who was still alive, but they weren’t sure if they should try and contact her or not. Let alone trust what she says about him, so they were looking more into his little sister. She seemed like the best source of information right then.
Her name was Sarah Kayley Hensen, and they couldn’t find too much about her. She had an Instagram account, but that still wasn’t much to go off of. Most of her pictures were either of her cat, her coffee, or her neatly made bed. It was definitely one of those accounts that was made mostly for aesthetics, but it was very pretty, and Birdy liked it a lot.
Her name there was ‘sarahs_love’ and didn’t showcase that many personal details. There were a grand total of two pictures, out of over one hundred, that showed her face. Even in those half, her face was covered by either a blanket or a cup of coffee that she was drinking.
Birdy checked FaceBook, which Sarah apparently didn’t have. She did have TikTok, but that was mostly the same thing as her Instagram. The only difference was that there were more funny videos of her cat being dumb. She also had Twitter, but that was mostly just her talking about music that she enjoyed and having arguments over whether or not Starbucks and City Brew should be considered ‘real coffee’. Those get heated sometimes.
As much as Birdy was loving the aesthetic and finding out that she had a similar taste in music to Sarah, she was still getting very frustrated by the lack of information to go off of.
Still, she was searching hastily for anything that could mean anything to her. She was slowly losing hope that this might work, but she tried to keep her mind and thoughts positive.
Birdy was looking through her TikTok account when she noticed a video that actually had Sarah’s full face in it. She mentally did a whole cheer routine from the extremely small victory. She quickly pressed on the video to see it was one of the Ghostface trends where she acted like the actress from the movie. Lip syncing to the audio and stuff.
She looked very pretty with a white sweater on and some skinny jeans that made her legs look good. Her acting was okay, but it was definitely not the best. Still, it was better than most of the acting videos that she had seen on social media platforms. So she enjoyed it.
The phone that she had in her hands to pretend that she was making the call appeared to be off and just had a blank black screen the whole time. Except, not the whole time.
Birdy watched the video multiple times to try and find something to help her figure this woman out, but to no avail. That is until her fourth run-through of the video when she noticed something. In one of the frames, the phone did light up for just a second. She wasn’t sure why it had done that, but she assumed Sarah had knocked the power button or something. Birdy was so excited to finally find something, anything helpful.
She downloaded the video quickly so that she could slow it down in hopes of catching what was on the screen. Even if she couldn’t tell what was on there, it would still be a win.
She looked through every single second until she got to the one she was looking for and zoomed in all the way on the screen. It was in light mode, which Birdy didn’t get. She never understood why anyone would ever enjoy or choose to have lightmode on, but to each their own, she guessed. Birdy shook her head. That didn’t matter at that moment, it didn’t.
She zoomed in so much that it was grainy and hard to see, but there was something there. Something that made Birdy want to run outside and actually do that whole cheer routine instead of just doing it in her head. She felt so elated to have something.
A series of numbers was lit up on the phone screen, but it wasn’t just any numbers. It was very obviously a personal number. Birdy smiled and kicked her feet out in front of her as a happy “Yes!” left her mouth loudly. She didn’t even care about her volume. She was too happy.
Julian and Badger looked at her like she was absolutely insane, and she might have been, but she didn’t care. She looked back at them with a huge grin dancing on her face and bright eyes to match. She excitedly shoved the video in their face whilst exclaiming, “I found it!”
Both of them looked surprised at first but then quickly adapted similar grins to their faces. They looked at each other and then back to Birdy with extremely happy shining eyes.
“Call it! Call it!” Julian exclaimed to her.
She immediately got into her messaging app and tapped in the number carefully. She double-checked it multiple times just to make sure she got it right. She wasn’t sure if this was Sarah’s number or just one of her friends or what. But hopefully, it would be someone that could eventually lead her to Sarah. She was really, really hoping this would be good.
She put it on speaker while the line rang a couple of times. She pressed her finger to her mouth to silently tell the boys that she would be the one doing the talking. They were good partners for research, but she didn’t trust their people skills. Badger would be too forward, and Julian would probably accidentally say something offensive without realizing it.
“If this is another phone scam, I will personally find you and punch you.” That was the very first thing Birdy heard when whoever this person was picked up the phone to talk to her. Birdy was taken by surprise and stayed silent for a couple of minutes before she began talking.
“Um, hi. Is this by chance, Sarah Hensen?” She tried her best to stay polite, even through her shock.
“Why, who is this?”
“My name is Birdy. Do you have a brother by the name of Jasob Hensen?” She asked.
“Alright, I’ll tell you what I told everyone else. I’m not going on any murder mystery podcasts or tv shows or anything about my brother. Stop bringing it up.” She heard.
“No, no, we’re not trying to film anything about your brother. We’re actually working on the Anders Case, which we have reason to believe is connected to your brother.”
“Oh really? Right, and what police department do you work with?” Birdy wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“Um, we’re not with a police department, but we’re still serious about solving this. Cyrus Anders is my brother, and I just want to know what happened.” Birdy was taken aback by herself, not knowing that she would give away such private information so quickly.
Birdy heard a sigh on the other end of the line and a pause before Sarah, or at least who she assumed was Sarah, started talking again. “How old are you?” She asked, and Birdy answered.
“I’m sixteen.”
“Right, look, kid, I know that grieving is hard. It’s not always easy, and I understand that you have some strong feelings right now, but this is not how to handle it. Chasing over a decades old case isn’t going to fix anything. It’s best that you stop before you get yourself hurt because I may not have known your brother, but I can practically guarantee you that he wouldn’t want you putting yourself in danger for him. Okay?” She stopped talking.
Birdy wasn’t sure how to respond to that, she kinda felt like crying. But she held those tears back and decided that she needed to push forward for the information she wanted.
“Please, I know I’m young, but I’m still capable. Just help me out a little bit, and I swear I’ll stay safe.” Her voice was a bit shaky as she spoke, and she hated the emotion that leaked into her words.
There was another sigh before, “Who else is there with you? Don’t even deny it, I already made sure you’re on speaker phone. Who else is around?” Birdy wasn’t sure how she got that information.
“Just two other kids that I know.”
“Hi…” Badger quietly said along with Julian’s, “Hola…”
“I can’t talk about this right now, but call me back later tonight when you’re alone, and I’ll talk to you, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll call you back.” Birdy enthusiastically said into the phone before the call abruptly ended.
(What will Sarah tell her?
Hope you enjoyed! Bye!)