I Tried to Kill My Dumb Friend and Now I'm on Probation

Chapter 10: The Mushroom Lamp

A/N: I thought about rewriting the whole thing but that'll take forever, so what you've been reading and (will continue to read if you keep reading this) are old chapters with major edits. I (mostly) fixed the typos and grammar issues, too.

Oh yeah, and it's a real damn shame that I'm so impulsive that I upload things without double checking them or correcting stuff before uploading them. Sorry. I swear I don't even notice these kinds of mistakes until later.

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I leave the main desk with all my cleaning equipment in order, but my mind definitely elsewhere. Billy walks next to me through the halls, reading off the jobs from the list.

"'C... clean...'," he fumbles, "'clean the... the... p... princey-pal's oafice'."

"Principal's office, huh?" I bit the inside of my lip. "That's on the top floor... better get that done, first..."

I head up the stairs, my mind swimming in questions. Who was it? Who was it who took that photo? I mean, it could have been anybody... I'm almost to the top when I notice Billy's footsteps behind me. I sigh, then turn around.

"What do you want?"

"Aren't we gonna clean the office?"

"No," I respond. "I'm going to clean the office. You get to stay on the second floor and clean the boys' bathrooms."

"But I want's ta help you!"

"I said no!"

He frowns at me. "Fine..." He trudges back down the stairs.

I get to the top floor and arrive at the office. It looks pretty clean to me, already, and I'm not really sure where to start. I make my way around the desk, straightening flowerpots and staplers as if I was actually doing something useful. I look up from my pseudo-work at the sound of distant footsteps. I turn around just as Billy's face appears in the doorway.

"Hiya, Mandy! Whatcha doin'?"

"Billy! I told you to leave me alone!"

He looks at me, perplexed. "Alone? I thought we were gonna clean the office."

"No! I just told you..." I exhale slowly. "...Fine, whatever. Just don't touch anything!"

"Mr. Roger!" he says, putting two fingers to his forehead in mock salute. He dutifully proceeds to grab a snow globe off a high shelf and shake it as hard as he can. I roll my eyes and continue pseudo-working.

Eventually, I wander into a smaller room with a desk and a little window. Now, whoever works in here has no sense of clean and messy. There are papers everywhere, a cup of what looks like coffee gone three-days cold, and a dated newspaper or two sitting on a black swivel chair. The file cabinets are all open, the computer has been left on, and the trash can contains the remains of a pizza on which something wet and green and alive seems to have taken up residence. It's a mess in here.

I sigh for the thousandth time today and begin closing the file cabinets, which are so stuffed that the mere moving of them poses a pretty big challenge. I'm already winded by the time I force them all shut, so I sit down on the leathery chair. I land on cheap paper, and pull the old school newspapers out from under my legs. The one on top happens to be the one from yesterday of Billy and me on the copier.

"Ughh..!" I groan in disgust, flinging the newspaper onto the piles of desk junk. If only I could find out who took the stupid thing... then I could actually do something about it. But with all the hundreds of people in this school, how am I supposed to narrow it down to the...

I blink.

The computer is on...

This computer is probably used by one of the assistant principals. If I snoop around the students' files, I can find out who has what class, and which classes are closest to the copying room! Then I'll know who was most likely to have taken the picture, and...