Of course, Ryan was the one to realise they were shoeless as they passed him, all too focused on not stepping in puddles to notice him and Joel stood to the side, leaning against a wall beneath low hanging shrubs that spilled out from a garden, feeling the droplets of rain slip down and land on their heads and shoulders as they had chatted.
Immediately after hearing him call out, the four turned towards him, Fox as careless as ever, Oscar having fun playing 'don't step in the puddles' but failing, and Hazel and Leo surprised, too focused on their chatting to have noticed him properly.
"We're undergoing operation find the shoes," Hazel stepped forward, stopping in front of the once chatting pair as she beamed, washing the surprise away with the genuine enthusiasm she felt.
"Did you all lose your shoes?" Joel smiled, though, it seemed sadder than usual. Hazel, unwilling to zone out in the whirlwind of thoughts about why his smile seemed so sad, shook her head.
"Only Leo," she explained while the group of six stood in a huddle by the wall, "but we can't let a person walk shoe-lessy alone so we joined while we search."
"God," Ryan combed his fingers back through his hair, shaking his head. "You're such a weirdo."
Of course, she would have been more offended by his words if it wasn't for the fact that immediately after, he began to remove his own shoes, handing the pair to Hazel.
"Look after 'em, I don't have my bag."
"Alright, bossy," she nodded, dropping the pair into her own bag and turned towards Joel who began to remove his shoes too. "I'll take yours too, Joel. I don't think your bag can hold much more."
"Thanks, Tweetie," he beamed this time, genuinely happy.
Although the longer she looked at him, she couldn't help but notice his puffy red eyes and reddened nose. Crying. She would have liked to talk to him and make sure he really was okay, but she knew that this wasn't the time. Maybe, she thought, she should let him talk to her first. She was so used to having to force people into conversations for the sole purpose of getting information from them, she didn't know how to deal with not doing that.
"So, where are we going?" Ryan asked, adjusting to the cold on his toes with shuffling steps.
"School," Leo answered, figuring the best place to start would be the place where he had lost his shoes to begin with. "I lost them this morning. I had to take them off so I could go to the pool and speak to Mr Hanwell about why I wasn't in gym yesterday," he recalled, reminding himself of what had happened. "When I came out, they were gone."
"Then," Hazel said, pretending for her own sake that she didn't just hear the word 'pool'. "We'll look there first."
They began to walk, all of them getting soggy socks the longer they stayed outside where the puddles lingered. But, despite the gross feeling, they didn't mind. It wasn't like they alone had soggy feet, it made it a little more fun when they could all complain about the same thing together.
"If you don't mind," Joel said, catching their attention, "I think I'll go see Miss Roberts when we get to school. I'll meet you guys at the school's entrance though when I'm done."
"Want me to go with you, Joely?" Oscar asked, receiving a hesitant nod in return.
The two began to talk, leaving the others to follow after, glancing around every so often as they searched for puddles to avoid.
"Hey, Leo," Hazel turned to the boy she walked beside, deciding to take the opportunity to ask him some questions. "Do you know why somebody would steal your shoes? They weren't new, were they?"
"No," he sighed, confused by the situation himself. "They're kinda old and scrappy, I don't think anyone would want to steal them for themselves. I had another pair stolen from my locker the week before... Well, actually, just one shoe was stolen. But they were my gym shoes, so it was fine."
She took his words to memory. It seemed it was targeted. Though, it was a weird thing to target shoes. She wondered if there was another reason, maybe a prank of some sort. But even then, it wasn't the same. Last time, they broke into his locker for just one, this time, they were taken as just a passing moment as he left them unattended for the sake of following the pool rules.
"Weird... Did they have your name in them?" She continued, thinking of possible reasons why somebody would. She imagined, if they had his name or initials, people would avoid them. Nobody wanted to mess with these boys after all. It was rare that anybody wrote their name in their belongings anymore, not unless they were young and likely to lose them. But, teenagers own too much, they forget to mark things as their own.
"I did," he admitted, recognising himself that people don't do that so much anymore, "it's to stop my brothers from stealing my stuff."
"You have brothers?" She cocked her head, surprised and distracted by the new information. The investigation into the missing shoes could wait, she wanted to know more about his home life.
"Yeah," he smiled chuckling at her sudden intrigue, "three brothers and two sisters."
She raised both eyebrows, counting in her mind. One, two, three, four, five, six... A family of six siblings. That must be chaotic.
"...Yeah," he laughed at the look of her widened eyes, "it's a lot. It's complicated too."
"Huh..." She absorbed everything she had been told and she thought back.
Leo mentioned a while back that his house could be chaotic in the mornings, maybe this was the reason why. To have at least five other people rushing around the house would make it hard to find serenity in his home.
"My little sister goes to this school," Leo explained, going into further detail for her as she grew more and more curious. "Milly. She's in year seven. Two of my brothers go to school in the West while my older sister is taking a gap year and my older brother is at uni."
"I can hardly imagine having one sibling," Hazel gasped, noticing the growing school entrance they arrived at, "let alone five. Isn't it chaotic?"
"It can be," he said with a smile, oddly enjoying telling her about his background. Though, there were facts he left out, not wanting to overload her with too much information about himself. "But, you get used to it. Stuff gets stolen a lot, I get it back, obviously. But, it helps to have my name written in things."
And the conversation went full circle. It started with the name labels and it ended with the name labels. It made sense though, to put your name in a thing so you can prove that it belongs to you. Unless they wrote their name on it too, in which case, the name label was useless. But, people tended to respect labels... mostly.
"Okay," Ryan stopped in his path, forcing them to acknowledge that they were now outside of the school. "So, we're going to the pool, to look for what?"
"Shoes, hopefully," Hazel said, "somebody might have just accidentally kicked them out of sight. So, we may as well check to make sure they're not hidden somewhere."
"And if they're not there?"
"Then we look somewhere else."
"Alright," he shrugged, seeing that the plan was still a work in progress. It seemed they would face the hurdles when they came to them and work like she usually did when she handled serious investigations.
Swiftly, Ryan turned to Joel, nodding his head firmly.
"We'll meet you here afterwards, okay?"
"Okay." He smiled, stepping back with Oscar who had decided to go with him to make sure things were okay. And soon enough, they were gone, walking into the school with hushed voices talking about something that Hazel was yet to be told.
The group of now four made their way through the school, passing students who spent their lunch wandering around the corridors. Oddly, this was the first time Hazel had been in the school in the middle of lunch. Usually, she was at the cafe. But, during lunch, the school had a whole new feeling.
A mixture of tiredness from dreary weather and unfinished days, mixed with a relaxed tone from being able to get a much-needed break amidst all the schoolwork that got piled onto them. It was noisy and there was more energy than she usually saw in school, but, energy led to weariness and weariness led to exhaustion. She knew that soon enough, once the bell rang, the energy would topple to nothing more than a few crumbs left after lunch.
The group soon found themselves in the familiar empty corridor of the gym department, standing outside of the chlorine smelling room where the pool lived. A few blue lockers lined the corridor, but, other than that and notice boards, there was nothing else.
Hazel took care not to glance into the double doors that led to the pool.
"Hm," She glanced around, going into detective mode. "Did you see anyone while you were here, Leo?"
"Not that I remember..."
She nodded, leaving them to look for the shoes in the gaps between the groups of lockers. Meanwhile, she looked for places a person could have hidden. Obviously, she had to look at this from every angle, it was a very serious investigation.
Or maybe it was procrastination from what was actually very serious.
She furrowed her eyebrows, glancing around but only finding her attention falling onto the two double doors that lived on either side of the corridor. They would have had to come in from one of the two sets, but, if somebody really set out to steal Leo's shoes specifically for whatever reason that might have been, they would have had to follow behind him.
"Leo?" She called, her warm voice quickly grabbing his attention from the opposite side of the corridor.
"Yeah?"
"Which way did you come in?"
He paused to glance between the two sets of doors before glancing at the set she stood beside.
"Those." He nodded firmly, sure of his answer.
"How long were you talking to the teacher?"
"Less than a minute. I literally only had to drop off a note. I didn't see anyone around either."
She nodded, turning away while he continued to watch her curiously. He acknowledged how she seemed to know exactly what to look for, but more interestingly, she avoided the pool. He noticed as she neared it, she slowed her pace but when she was passing it, she sped up, eager to keep it out of her sight.
Looking at the distance between the doors, it seemed that there was a bigger distance between the way Leo had come in and the pool's doors. So, wanting to waste no time, they would have waited for him to take his shoes off and go into the room before running into the corridor, taking his shoes, and looking for the quickest escape, they would have gone through the opposite doors. They wouldn't have wanted to risk going the long way back.
There were only three doors in this hallway, the doors to the pool, the doors he had come in from and the doors on the opposite end of the hallway.
"Where does that lead?" She pointed to the opposite doors.
"Outside," Fox answered, giving up on the search for shoes in the corridor. They weren't anywhere that they could see, so, they assumed they were taken. God knows why. "It goes to the back exit. That's usually how I leave through the middle of the day." Fox explained as Hazel nodded, pursing her lips as she thought.
There was no harm in searching that way for signs of shoes. She imagined whoever took them didn't actually want to keep them... Unless they were a creepy stalker of Leo's. But, there had been no signs of stalker behaviour around the boy, so she ignored that doubt and continued on, moving through the corridor and leaving wet footprints from her socks behind while the boys followed after.
They all searched, looking through the corridor for shoes they didn't see. And before they knew it, they were outside again, looking out at a car park that was connected to the city streets and the school's pitch for when there were big games. It was a wonder why more students didn't escape that way.
"Nothing..." Leo sighed, shaking his head. "Maybe they just kept them for some reason."
"...Uh," Fox turned, furrowing his eyebrows as he lifted his head. "I don't think so."
"Huh?"
They all turned their gazes, following Fox's eye-line as he looked up at a wire that ran across the street.
And there, hanging in the damp air of the dull day, were Leo's shoes, tied together and thrown out of his reach onto the wire above their heads.
"...Oh..." He faltered, realising that whoever took them did it out of spite. There was no explanation for this. They had his name in them, whoever threw them did it specifically for the thrill of saying, 'I threw Leo Stavin's shoes onto an electric wire. He'll never get them back.' And they would be right in saying that. He really wouldn't ever get them back, not now.
They all let the silence linger between them for a beat.
"Hey," Fox breathed out, getting Leo's attention. "Want to borrow my gym shoes for now?"
"Would you mind?"
"'Course not," Fox smiled, hoping to ease his friend while beside him, Ryan scowled harshly into the ground. "D'you two want to go to the entrance while we get some shoes?"
"Sure," Hazel answered for Ryan and herself, stepping back while they moved back towards the school.
They disappeared through the door, going to Fox's locker while both Hazel and Ryan stood silently, lifting their gazes to the shoes again before Hazel began to walk, making Ryan follow behind in an attempt to keep up.
"I don't get it," he sighed in a huff, "why the hell would anyone do that? What's the point? Leo's nice, he doesn't deserve this shit, he deals with enough. It's a piss-take."
"Who would do that?" Hazel asked, adding to his list of questions with a hushed voice.
"I don't know," he said in a long breath, "I don't know anyone that would actually target Leo for something like this. Me? sure. But definitely not Leo. If I find out who did it though, I swear..."
"...Do you think...?"
Hazel stopped in a brief moment of thought, thinking back to a pretty recent conversation. As recent as just yesterday, actually.
As far as Hazel knew, there wasn't anyone in Leo's personal life that would do something like this. Ryan would have mentioned it in his frustration. But, there was somebody who came to her mind.
"Do you think that maybe Amelia would do something like this? I mean, I don't know her, I don't want to throw blame, but..."
"Amelia?" He asked, stopping at the school's entrance to wait by the wall for the others. "Maybe? Why? D'you know something I don't?"
"No? Yes? Kinda?" she shook her head quickly, keeping her gaze low to the ground, "just, yesterday, you and Leo went to sort things out with her. But, I know she came into the library after and she was on the phone with someone. She was going on about how I was the one who made you end whatever it was, but Leo's name came up for a second too."
"For real?"
"Mhmm," she nodded, "she was saying that she'll 'get me back', I assume, if she's planning on doing something to me, she might have thought she would do something to Leo too. Maybe she saw his shoes and took the opportunity? I could be wrong though."
He fell silent, his eyebrows knitting together in irritation the longer he thought about it. It made sense. And noticing his growing frustration that would soon turn to rage, Hazel stepped back a little, unsure of what he would do if he did reach a point of uncontrollable anger. What would she do if he reached that point?
"...That bitch," he spat out, "she's so fuckin' selfish it's unreal, she doesn't give a shit about anyone but herself."
It looked as though Ryan had a particular disliking towards the girl. Though, from what she was told, she imagined a disliking would form if somebody used their parent to get a person to buy them things, even if it meant upsetting the other person's family. Which was exactly what she did to Ryan. Though, Hazel couldn't help but wonder if there was more to it than that.
"On the bright side," Hazel chirped, hoping to get his anger to ease a little, "we know that if we want to buy Leo a present, he will probably appreciate shoes."
"Tweetie, I swear to God," he immediately brought a hand to his face, letting out a long sigh as he acknowledged her words. "I feel like buying him shoes would be a little mocking. Like, 'here, I bought you shoes to remind you of that one pair you had stolen from you'."
"No no," Hazel met his gaze, smiling sheepishly, "you're thinking about it the wrong way. it's like 'here, some shoes to remind you that the things that are stolen are things that aren't forever'. You have to be fake deep about it."
"Oh, of course, how could I forget to be fake deep?" He laughed, shaking his head at the turn the conversation took.
It seemed his anger had passed. Or, he was at least distracted from it for the time being. And in the moment of their silence, he leaned back, his face twisting in the acknowledgement of how even when he was starting to bubble with anger, she didn't leave. She already seemed to have made her place in the group and it was unlikely that she would budge.
"Look," he spoke, deciding that, even though he hadn't thought his words out as well as he had hoped to, he was unlikely to get another chance as good as this one to talk to her properly. "So, I've been an ass and I'm- y'know... sorry. I treated you like a slave for a while and I just want you to know how shitty I feel for it."
"Seriously, don't worry about it," she smiled, "most times, I was the one who offered to do your homework and stuff. I knew you weren't being bitter about it. And look, it got us here... to a pair of missing shoes. We've really come a long way, huh?"
He looked at her, at first, deadpanned as he tried to figure out how she was so forgiving. Then, realising that in a way, she was right, he let a smile grow. Sure, having coffee spilt on him pissed him off, but it did technically get them to this point. If it hadn't happened, would she have become his friend?
"You're an idiot," he shook his head with a laugh, "I'm glad we can at least both be idiots together."
And as they fell silent to exchange smiles, their eyes meeting with an unexpected softness, it gave them the chance to hear soggy socks slap against the pavement, growing closer as they turned to find a group of four taking them by surprise. It looked like Joel and Oscar found Fox and Leo before they reached the entrance.
"We think we know who did it," Ryan announced, much more relaxed about the situation now. She imagined that if he started talking about it properly again, he might get a little frustrated, he might let his anger grow and he might not be able to hold himself back from confronting the girl. But, at least Hazel knew that she could swiftly change the conversation and distract him, whether with her own idiocy or by starting a petty argument with him in order to put his rage on her instead so she could try to brush it away, again, by being an idiot.
"You do?" Leo seemed to perk up, holding a pair of trainers in his hands.
"And you aren't running off to fight them?" Fox tilted his head, confused as to why he wasn't angry.
"No," Ryan frowned, "We think it might've been Amelia."
"Amelia?" Leo repeated, walking past and leading them all in the direction of the cafe. "What makes you think it's Amelia?"
Ryan turned, his eyes falling to Hazel who walked beside him with her head still lowered to the ground, watching the path for cracks.
"Tweetie heard her talking in the library last night," he explained, "she said something about getting her back and accused you and her of making me confront her."
"Seriously?" Leo widened his eyes. "I doubt we'll know it's her for sure... But it makes sense. I can't think of anyone else who'd do that."
"But, would she really be able to throw shoes onto a wire?" Joel asked, bringing up a valid point.
Though, as everyone nodded, it seemed that Hazel was missing information on the girl that would explain why she would be able to do that. If Hazel tried, she'd probably end up throwing the shoes too far and breaking a window.
"She used to be on the girls' basketball team," Fox explained, "she had the best aim out of everyone."
That made sense. That made a lot of sense, actually. She could imagine Amelia being on a sports team. She was pretty and talented. A dream girl, if not for her bad attitude. But hey, we can't all have it all.
"But..." Oscar chirped this time, thinking on another point that was mentioned yet clearly missed.
Everyone turned to him, curious about what he would say. But, he only lowered his head and furrowed his eyebrows, wondering if it was worth asking. Yet, as he lifted his gaze and it fell to Hazel, he decided he should, just in case.
"Is Amelia going to try and get Tweetie back too then?"
They fell silent, realising that they had missed that part of the conversation.
But, before anyone could show an ounce of concern, Hazel shrugged and spoke up.
"I'll be fine, she can't do much worse than I've seen already. I mean, I was attacked and had my house broken into on the same day. I doubt she can beat that... unless she knows assassins. In which case, it was good knowing you guys, enjoy my funeral and please, for the love of God, make sure my shoes are secure on my cold dead feet."
"Still," Leo sighed, acknowledging how she often tried to wash worry for her away, "even if you've faced worse, it doesn't stop things from being bad. Little things add up to become big things, y'know?"
She paused, acknowledging the fact that he showed even a little care for her, moving past her dumbness. She didn't expect people to push further when she told them she would be fine. Most people knew that she often was fine, most couldn't stop her from not caring, but nobody really tried to see past her lack of care and stop her anyway.
The concern was enough for her to really consider the possible threat Amelia was to her. If she was willing to steal and throw Leo's shoes onto a wire, somebody she clearly didn't hate, what would she do to Hazel? She didn't hide her hatred for her, she wouldn't hold anything back.
Then, she wondered, if this was an act of revenge, could it have been Amelia who left the note in her locker this morning? 'Stop now or you will end up the same'? The same as Leo? But stop what? Being friends with the boys? Or was this undoubtedly from whoever was trailing her about the Jason Barber case?
She couldn't tell anymore.
She needed more, she was tearing her hair out for more. How long had this been going on? How far did she need to go for answers?
She couldn't go any further with her panicking thoughts, the feeling of vibrating caught her attention and she was instead forced to give her phone her full attention as she pulled it from her pocket, stepping back to see Archie's number flash on the screen.
Her stomach felt like it was doing flips, something felt off like the tension that lingered in a room after an argument.
"Hello...?" She answered hesitantly, worried over what it could be that had made him call.
"Hazy, we have a problem," Archie said, the sound of yelling voices behind him, hollow through the sound of walls and doors but loud enough to get her attention. "Do not come to the police station. I'm serious."
"Why?" Her face fell as she stopped, "why? What's happened? Is Roddie okay?"
"He's fine. But we're blocked in by news stations and journalists- it's somehow come out that you're eighteen and they want to hear it from the police themselves."
She said nothing. She just turned away from the group who were worriedly watching her face fall little by little, lips parting, eyes widening and skin paling. Then her head was shaking and she was spiralling in thought again.
"How?"
"We're looking into it. Roderick's trying to find a way to convince them otherwise, but we don't even know how they found out in the first place."
Again, she said nothing. Then, she hung up.
She didn't know what to say, what she could say. But she needed this case over before it went further. The threat was real. Somebody knew where she lived, they stole from her, they followed her and they knew who she was. Yet they weren't outright saying anything when they could point her out and easily say 'her, that's Hazel White.'
What was their game? What were they waiting for and why did they hold back? If their goal was to scare her, it was working.
She was getting close, she had something and it was scaring them enough to threaten her, to show her that they could expose her. But, she couldn't see what it was, whatever she had, she couldn't piece it together with the truth yet. If she just had a little more evidence...
There was still somewhere she hadn't checked.
"I've gotta go," she said, glancing down at her bag in the realisation that she had both Ryan's and Joel's shoes. Without a word, she shoved her bag into Ryan's arms in her panicked state, "don't look through my stuff. Bye!"
And she was gone, running down the road, forgetting entirely that she was still without any shoes on her feet.