VEILED MYSTERIES ↝ S. HARRINGTON [1]

[3]

The first bell rang as Riley rounded the corner to her locker, sighing in relief that she'd managed to find her way from the school's entrance without getting lost, or having to track down Kelly for help. She shoved her belongings into her locker, quickly grabbing what she needed for Ms. O'Donnell's and shutting her locker before attempting to navigate her way to the classroom.

Two figures caught her attention at the end of the hall, where they stood in front of a bulletin board. A dark haired boy in a denim jacket was pinning something to the board while a brunette stood talking to him, her eyes trained firmly on the piece of paper now up on display. As Riley stepped closer to them, the images on the paper came into focus, showing a missing poster for Will Byers, the boy her uncle had pronounced missing the day before.

"Hi," she said nervously, catching the attention of the two as her eyes flitted back to the poster, where the words Have You Seen Me? were scrawled across the top. "You must be Will's brother, right?"

"Yeah, that's me," the boy said simply, studying her cautiously.

"I'm Riley," she said quickly. "Chief Hopper's my uncle. I'm really sorry to hear about your brother."

"Thank you," he spoke quietly, his eyes not quite meeting her gaze. "I'm Jonathan."

"And I'm Hadlee," the girl next to him spoke up. "I sit right behind you in algebra."

"Hi," she said, recognition finally clicking into place at where she'd seen the girl the day before. "So, have they found anything else?" she asked, turning back to Jonathan. "My uncle mentioned there was a search party last night, but he didn't say much this morning."

"Oh, uh, no," he said, shaking his head. "Nothing new."

"Hey," a voice spoke up from behind Riley, and she turned to see another dark haired girl standing behind her, looking over at Jonathan and Hadlee.

"Hey," Jonathan said back.

"You must be Riley," the girl said, turning in her direction. "I'm Nancy Wheeler, Holly's older sister." As she spoke, she glanced back behind them, where a group stood waiting for her. "Over there are my friends, Barb, Steve, Carol, and Tommy."

Riley followed her gaze towards the group, noticing that, aside from the redheaded girl smiling politely at Riley, the other three seemed to wish they'd been anywhere else at that moment, impatiently waiting for Nancy's return and hardly looking in their direction.

"My mom mentioned she met you the other day at the coffee shop, and that you were coming over to watch Holly this weekend." Nancy continued.

"Hi," Riley said, nodding. "Yeah, that's me."

"Anyways," Nancy said, turning back to Jonathan. "I just, you know, I wanted to say that I'm sorry, about everything." Jonathan watched her silently as she spoke, as if he were unsure how to respond. "Everyone's thinking about you. It sucks."

"Yeah," Jonathan agreed finally.

"I'm sure he's fine." Nancy assured him. "He's a smart kid." At her words, the bell rang, cutting her off as she glanced back at her friends. "I have to go," she said. "Chemistry test. Hads, you coming?"

"Yeah," Hadlee agreed, nodding. "Jonathan, I'll call you after school. It was really nice to meet you, Riley."

"Yeah, you too." Riley said, shooting the girls a smile as they hurried back towards where the others were waiting, and she finally turned back to Jonathan. "So are you back at school today, or..?"

"Oh, no," he explained. "I've been home with my mom, but she sent me out to make some copies of the poster to hang around town, so I've been doing that since the place opened an hour ago. Between us," he said, lowering his voice for any passersby, "I'm actually on my way to Indianapolis to talk to my dad. I figure if he's got anything to do with this, he's more likely to talk to me than Hopper, so it's worth a shot."