Mystery Of The Missing Book

When things start going missing in the most well-mannered boarding school of town, the staff and the students are puzzled. The mystery had to be solved and fast. The thief could be anyone.

Mystery Of The Missing Book

                           CHAPTER: 01

The wind was slapping against my face and the sea was restless. The high waves were enough to drown someone standing at the shore… it was getting strenuous by the time to walk rapidly and I was already late. I was trying to walk hurriedly when suddenly my phone rang,

 

I took it out of my pocket and saw the name blinking on the screen; Amy, (my best friend from school). I was sure everyone would be waiting for me back there, I received the call:
“Hello?”

“Hey Ellie where are you? Are you alright? Is there any problem?”

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down, I’m alright and everything’s fine. I’m coming in just five minutes.”

“Okay but hurry up”

I said bye and hung up. Besides Amy I have two more favorite friends, Sarah and Lily. Whatever we do, we do it together. Sarah comes from a middle-class family and she has a cute little baby sister but Lily is a bit bad off, she lives in a village where her father earns the livelihood by farming and manage to get necessary things for the family even though she has five brothers and sisters!

 

Anyways, it was apparent for her to worry as I was out for the last 3 and a half hour. I had gone to post a letter to my mother and I had told my teachers that I would come back in a minute! Well everybody in the school knew that the post office was very far from the school and it took at least one hour to reach there.

 

What really happened was this: It happened when I reached at the bus stop to go to the post office. The bus had some problem and it stopped after every five minutes. When I reached my destination I saw that there was a long queue. I had to wait one hour in line and when I headed towards the bus stop, to my dismay the bus had left. I walked the whole way to school and now my legs ached like crazy! There! The school was just in front of me.

I hurried to the gateway and entered the large building. Everyone rushed towards me,

“Where were you?” asked my principle worriedly. I replied all in one breath “I walked all the way from the post office to here and there was such along line at the post office that’s why I’m late!” The principle looked at me pityingly and took me to my room where I slept at once after laying on my bed.

   

 

 

 

 

 CHAPTER: 02

I woke up feeling fresh and glanced at the clock. Oh no! 9:00 am. I had overslept! “Amy! Sarah! Lily! Where are you guys?” I searched for my roommates and expected an outburst of laughter and voices that they had set my clock ahead, but no. There were no voices except the curtains swinging back and forth because of the wind. “Why didn’t they wake me up? Did they think it was funny that I walk into class late with no breakfast?” I questioned myself while getting up from the bed.

 

I hastily got ready and tore downstairs at full speed and suddenly “Crash!” I looked up and saw my headmistress…smiling! “I see you’ve waken up” my headmistress said while bending down to pick up her books. “Uh…yes, I’m sorry…your books” I stammered and handed her books. “Are you feeling better now?” she asked in a calm speech. “Umm yes, thank you Miss. Bridget.” I replied not aware why she was not angry at me for running and waking up late. “Well, hurry up and come to the mess hall, I have lunch saved for you.” She said smiling. I was so puzzled! I walked quietly to the mess hall and took a seat; it felt so weird sitting alone in the big hall room.

In a little while breakfast was served for me, chocolate oatmeal, a pack of milk and an apple. After finishing I headed towards my classroom and was afraid what the teacher might say. My luck that exactly at the same moment the bell for the second period rang and Miss. Darrell went out of class while I hid behind a column in case she saw me.

 

I went into my class and my friends greeted me with a warm welcome but I didn’t reply them, I looked at them angrily and inquiringly at the same time. They quickly understood and explained to me that Miss. Bridget thought that I would be tired because of yesterday so they let me sleep as much as I wanted. So that’s why Miss. Bridget didn’t rebuke me! We went on with the second period which was of science, which meant Miss. Lucie would come. She was a fun loving teacher that’s why we all liked her. A funny thing about her was that whenever she got angry her ears started to twitch!  Today she entered our classroom and I noticed that her ears were twitching. We all sat down on our seats cautiously as when she is angry she brings in a thunderstorm.

Another good teacher was Miss. Samantha, we call her Miss. Sam but she doesn’t even mind! She always gives us long lectures instead of scolding! She teaches us English.

 

And there was Miss. Georgina, like her name she is too difficult to cope up with, she is always in a bad mood and we never see her smiling, she teaches us mathematics.

Other teachers are not unique so there is no use of telling about them but I may tell you their names: Miss. Jasmine: geography and history, Miss. Jenny: chemistry and physics, Miss. Eniesta: French and Miss. Abele: Latin.

               CHAPTER: 03

“I’m bored, let’s do something.” Lily nudged me on the head with a book. “Ouch! You needn’t hit me on the head, now my memory is lost and I can’t think of anything to do. By the way who are you?” I made a joke just to cheer up the boring atmosphere and everyone except Lily burst into laughter. “Let’s play hide and seek outside, come on.” I gave them an idea and got up. Everybody agreed and we headed outside. “Okay, I’ll be the seeker and you all be the hiders.” Amy called out and went to count. We hurriedly ran here and there finding a hiding place. I hid behind a thick bush. Sarah came and sat beside me. “Hey! Find your own hiding place, this one’s mine.” I called out to her. “Okay, okay!” she replied raising her hands over her head. Sarah was the first one to be found, then me and at last Lily. After that we ran after each other for no reason and fell on the ground laughing so hard we could barely speak.

Suddenly there was a loud piercing noise which I figured out was the setting of the loud speaker but I wondered why the principal was setting the loud speaker in the middle of the day. I soon found out. “Attention everybody, I am here to tell you to take notice of a very shameful and embarrassing act that is most probably done by the students of our school, Bay View School.” A gasp escaped from my throat and from almost all the students who were standing there, listening the announcement. The reason was that our school was famous for its mannered and well-behaved students, nobody could even think of doing something shameful and embarrassing! “Previous week I got complains of three students that some of their things went missing and they weren’t able to find them, I ignored it as they could’ve lost their belongings and didn’t search for them properly. But today I got complains from four more students that some of their books were missing. I have decided to take strict action against this mischief and whoever may be responsible for this, when found out, will be punished severely so he or she better watch out and not even think of doing it again. Also the complaints came from students of only two dorms; East-Mary dorm and South-Mary dorm. That is why all the dorm rooms will be made vacated in the lunch break and no excuse of illness will be bought, if you are ill you must go to the school nurse and not stay in the classroom. Nobody is allowed to go outside in free time when only five or six students are in the dorm room from this minute. Dismiss.” Miss.Bridget dismissed us sternly and we began mourning and groaning. “Why! What did we do that we have to pay the price?” Sarah started complaining but I decided to stick to the rules and regulations so that my belongings would be safe because the East-Mary dorm was ours and the South-Mary dorm was our neighboring dorm so the thief must be somewhere near but what I didn’t know was that the thief was really near...

 

 

    CHAPTER: 04

 As there were only two students in the dorm room when we left, we went back. “Psst... all the students are in the dorm room. Let’s go out.” Amy gave me an idea and we were just heading outside when I found out that half of the dorm had heard her and before we could even say ‘peacock’ the whole dorm was outside except for the class nerd who was cramming over the French book for the test, and us. ”Damn! Now what do we do?” I inquired after giving Amy a long stare for saying it so loud. Sarah lit up and gave us an idea, “Hey, I know what to do. Let’s find out who is the thief of our school. It’ll be fun” “Yeah, we can act as detectives solving a mystery!” Amy chimed in and I found out that this was a good idea. Lily was the only one who didn’t agree with us, we concluded that she would sleep and we would solve the mystery. Though nobody liked this idea but because Lily said she was very much tired and she wanted to sleep so we left her to sleep. “So, the first thing we need to do is make a list of the possibilities because of which one would steal something, then we’ll make a list of all the suspects derived from the possibilities and then we’ll see what to do.” I cleared up everything, took a piece of paper and pen in my hands and began to write:

                     “POSSIBILITIES”

·      The thief must be poor or else he/she would have no need to steal.

·      Sometimes the thief must be alone which means when everybody goes somewhere he/she must have stayed behind.

·      OR the thief must have done this act of stealing when everybody is asleep-in the night.

·      It means that the thief has the ability to wake up till late night and not fall asleep or he/she must sleep in the afternoon to wake up till late night.

·      The thief must be from the ‘East-Mary Dorm’ or the ‘South-Mary Dorm’.

·      The Thief must be having a secret place so that he/she can hide the stolen things in the school or his home must be near to the school where he/she must have hidden the things.

I completed the list of all the likelihood happenings and started making the list for suspects.

 

“Wait, Ellie. First of all write all the names of the students in our dorm and the South-Mary dorm, and then we’ll cross out the names of the students even if only one possibility doesn’t match. The names we’ll be left with will be the suspects.” Amy suggested and Sarah and I agreed. So Sarah began to dictate the names and I began to write. We also wrote our names so when we show it to the principal she’ll come to know that we were not the ones to do anything if she suspects us.

                         “NAMES”

1)             Amy

2)            Ellie

3)            Sarah

4)            Lily

5)            Elizabeth

6)            Jessica

7)           Monica

8)             Ashley

9)             Katy

10)       Taylor

11)       Chloe

12)      Carly

13)      Amanda

14)      Lavender

15)      Dalyle

16)      Sam

17)     Jake

18)       Randy

19)       Josh

20)      Will

21)      Mike

22)     Sid

23)     Damon

24)     Jason

25)     Jackson

26)     Jeremy

27)    Dick

28)      Leo

29)      George

30)      Silas

I completed the list and went to take a glass of water while Amy and Sarah began crossing out the names. “Oh oh! We have a problem here!” Sarah exclaimed.

“Crap! How did this happen? Check this out, Ellie.” Amy said handing me the paper after crossing out all the appropriate names. I started reading the names of the suspects which made me nearly jump out of my skin! Lily was on the list of the suspects!

 

“Come on guys! This could be a coincidence. We have five suspects out of thirty. Lily, Amanda, Will, Mike and George Of course they all are not the thieves. Just like four of them are coincidently similar, why can’t Lily be?” I tried to remove the thought from my mind that Lily had done this. But we had proof against it and we were not to think of her as our friend while doing this work but only a student. “Whereas I have noticed that Lily is a little disturbed from the past two weeks” Amy told us. Sarah continued”Hey! I have noticed that too. And two weeks is the time from when the whole commotion started!” “This is not getting good.” I said a little uneasily as I couldn’t think of my friend as a thief. ”What if there’s not only one thief but a whole gang. Like if all the suspects are involved?” Sarah asked. “Leave it for now.. Just give your minds a little rest. Lets go to sleep and see it all over tomorrow. But we must hide it from Lily and just tell her that we didn’t do anything yesterday…err…I mean today.” We followed Amy and went to our beds to sleep but I just couldn’t.

 

After I while I drifted into slumber. After ten minutes or so I heard a loud thump beside me and some paper rustling. It must be a lizard or I must have imagined it. I soothed myself down and went back to sleep.

 

 

 

      CHAPTER: 05

“Oh No! Where has my mathematics’ book gone? I can’t find it anywhere!” I yelled in panic when only five minutes were left for class to begin. Amy, Sarah and Lily came rushing at me. “What happened? Can you really not find your mathematics book?” Amy questioned me worriedly. “You must tell Miss.Bridget!” Sarah told me and I sat up to go to the principal’s office. “I think you should go after mathematics’ class. Miss.Georgina will get really mad.” Lily was reluctant for letting me go and I smelled something fishy. After mathematics class the whole day Lily kept me busy in all sorts of different tasks. First she asked me to help her in her Latin homework and after that she took me outside and made me play tennis with her so that she could practice for the upcoming competition. I decided to go with her anyway but till now I was sure that Lily was the one who took my mathematics book.

     

    Innocent until proven guilty, I told everything to Amy and Sarah and they were also sure that Lily was the one but we couldn't figure out why she would do this and we couldn't blame her without any significant proof. We decided to get up early the next morning; go to Miss. Bridget and tell her everything. But I what I did not know was that before dawn everything will reveal itself.

 

Alas, I went to sleep at 9 o’clock after keeping all my books and belongings in safe places. After some time I heard something move, sound of footsteps scurrying across my bed and then a loud crash followed by a scream! I quickly opened my eyes and so did the rest of the dorm inmates and what we saw was extremely unpleasant to everybody there and obvious to me, Amy and Sarah.

 

Lily was sprawled on the floor and my book shelf had collapsed on her and Lily was crying. “Somebody call Miss.Bridget, Hurry!” I called out and I heard someone running towards the door and out. Lily was helped by a few kids who themselves couldn’t grasp the entire havoc. Lily looked up to me and I saw her holding my mathematics book, just as I expected. In some time Miss. Bridget arrived at the scene. Sarah Amy and I explained her everything and showed her the list we made of ‘possibilities’ and ‘names’.

 

“Okay everyone, go to bed, everything will be told to you in tomorrow’s morning assembly.” Miss.Bridget addressed everyone and everyone went to bed except Lily because she knew what was coming up for her. Amy, Sarah and I were headed towards our beds when Miss.Bridget called out, “Amy, Sarah, Ellie, please meet me in my office along with Lily right now.” She left the room muttering to herself ‘I think I found the thief’.

 

“I am really sorry guys. I didn’t mean to…” Lily begged at us with meaningful eyes and sobs. ”You didn’t mean to what? Don’t say you didn’t mean to steal! We trusted you wrong” I was really boiled inside so I yelled at her. Sarah calmed me and we took Lily to the principal’s office.

 

 

 

   CHAPTER: 06

“So, I didn’t expect you would be the thief. I know you must be reasonable for the shameful act you have been doing, so, continue”. Miss. Bridget handled the matter very carefully. Lily started and everyone listened on to her curiously, “Well, the thing is that as everyone knows I’m a bit poor, so recently my father got a call from a weird guy that he wanted 10,000$ in a month’s time or else my dad would be killed and my dad couldn’t afford it. He told me, my brothers and my sister that we would have to leave school for six months so that he could afford the money and I really didn’t want to part my friends for whole six months! So I decided to…” and her voice trailed off.

 

Now I had come to realize about it all I felt really sorry for her. I imagined if my dad would get a call like that and we didn’t have money so what would I have done?

 

Lily’s story was told in front of the whole school and the school donated money to help her! Lily’s dad delivered the money and was saved from any unfortunate event. Lily’s family even came to our school to thank us for our kindness! I was surprised at how some ill-fated events can make a person do such perilous deeds.

 

 

 

  THE END

Author's Note

Maybe the plot needs a little consideration which is basically the whole thing but give your reviews as this was my first attempt. :)

Reviews

[Nene]

When i finished reading it I was like 'Wow'. You really wrote a wonderful story. It felt like i didn't just read a short story but a full book!!!