Midsummer's Night Murder

12

"What took you so long?!" Alexander asked.

Somehow, I had managed to climb onto the roof from the balcony, this time after Daisy.

"Hazel got stuck hanging off a balcony." Replied Daisy without hesitating.

"She what?!" He looked me up and down. "Are you alright? Oh no, your knee!"

"It's alright!" I assured him. "It just stings a little bit."

"Okay, if your sure, Hazel. We weren't waiting for that long to be honest."

I rolled my eyes, but smiled. "Let's go. Nancy and Francis are in his room, wherever it is."

We explained to the boys what we'd heard from behind the kitchen door.

"Well that's rather suspicious!" Said George with a satisfied grin. "Let's go and listen in!"

"If we haven't missed it all because of me." I muttered miserably.

We for some reason climbed over the boys' bedroom roof, rather than around it, on the lower bits of roof, which would have been perfectly easily.

"It won't take much longer at all!" I pleaded in vain.

"We can do it!" Alex whispered in my ear, after the other two had refused. "Its really not much higher this way."

I wasn't so sure, but I forced a smile and nodded.

Climbing up a slate roof is harder than it looks. And to me, it looked rather difficult in the first place. I kept loosing my grip or footing. Suddenly, I let out a yelp as a piece of slate broke off under my feet, and I slipped down several yards, practically falling into George's arms.

"Goodness, Hazel!" He laughed. "Are you quite alright?"

I murmured something about being 'perfectly fine thank you', and made my way back up again, cautious as ever.

Unhelpfully, we had not the faintest idea which room belonged to Francis, so we just had to make our way along the roof until we heard their voices.

We started to do just that, Daisy first, followed by George, then Alexander, then me. The small length of roof between the windows and the gutter was about a foot wide, and we often had to duck, or jump back away from a window in case anyone looked out.

Daisy and George were a few windows ahead of Alexander and I when we heard the voices.

"What are you doing in here, silly? I said to meet in your bedroom, not mine!"

I covered Alexander's mouth with my hand, muffling a strangled yelp, and pulled him backwards.

We strained our ears.

"Oh. Of course - how clumsy of me." Francis replied, somewhat stiffly.

"Well, I've found you now."

"Yes. What was it you, uh, wanted to say?"

Why was he so uptight?

"Oh it's nothing important really. It's just... today while we went for a short walk in the fields, I realised that I hardly do know the area at all! And I do feel so ever so bad about it. I was wondering if, possibly, I could meet a few of your closest friends? You know, to get to know a little more about your life. It's very different from mine in London, I'm sure."

"Nancy's from London!" I whispered to Alexander.

"Well I don't see why not." Came the reply from Francis. "I'm sure they would very much love to meet you and hear a little bit about yourself too."

"Splendid! Thank you ever so much, Francis darling. I simply can't wait to meet them!"

We heard footsteps move across the room away from the window, and the door open and close. The male voice sighed again, and started making it's way over to the window. I gasped, and I knew Alex gasped too, because I felt it - I hadn't noticed my hand was still over his mouth. I removed my hand and we both scrambled backwards up the roof. I slipped a little bit and before Alexander helped me back up, I caught a glimpse of wavy red hair.

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Hi!

Sorry to the few people who read this that I haven't updated in a while!

Sorry this chapter isn't great- I sorta rushed the ending.

Sad news: this story is now #27 on #murdermostunladylike :(
It used to be #1!!!! :(((((
That's why I rushed the ending: if I update more often, maybe we can get this back up top? I don't know.

Anyway...
Thank you @bubblesfluffyjr for adding this to their library!

Thanks everyone!