Missing Assignment

Chapter 4

We got to October's place by the time school would have ended and got changed into some dry clothes she loaned us while ours went into the dryer.
"God damn, girl pants suck! I need pockets, dude!" Chris complained.
"They're pajama pants. Her regular pants wouldn't fit you, big boy." Mars jokes back.
"Whatever, man." He replies, sitting on the floor next to me and handing me his phone.
"Guard this with your life for me." He says. I pretend to throw it, and he gives me the middle finger. Faith puts a movie in to watch before taking a seat next to October. We aren't actually paying much attention to the movie as we talk, pointing out clichés and laughing at the flaws. About halfway through the movie, our conversation comes back to my project again.
"You should probably pick a topic now so you have time to do the research. There isn't much time left to get a project submitted before the last day." October tells me.
"What do you think I should talk about? The town founder or some shit?" I ask back with a bit of sass.
"I would suggest you stop being a lazy asshole and get on a computer to look up the town." She retorts.
"Or you could use your phone. You have wifi, Zack." Faith adds. I grab the phone in my lap and open the internet browser only to realize it's not my phone when the first tab opens and starts moaning.
"Ew, Chris, seriously? Close your porn tabs, dude! I did NOT need to see that!" I say, throwing his phone back at him. Faith tells him "gross" while October giggles, and Mars and Cody start laughing hysterically.
"I DIDN'T KNOW YOU'D USE MY PHONE!" Chris shouts in shock.
"I thought it was my phone! You need a password on your shit man!" I tell him. I grab MY phone and open the browser to look up the history of our town.

I click on a few internet pages and read about the population, our founder, how the town was named, and which native Americans lived here before white settlers took the land. I try a few other links and read about some of the landmarks and battles held here. At the bottom of the search page is a link that catches my attention. It's an old missing person report from the 80s someone made an online post about. Apparently, their mother used to live in our town, and this kid was her first kid who went missing shortly before her second was born. Their family moved away soon after. The poster found the missing person report out of morbid curiosity. Now, this is interesting. I type the name into my search bar: Marvin Paresky, and the articles I find are even more intriguing.
"I think I found something, listen to this: suspect arrested in connection with missing persons case, 17 still missing." I read the headline of the article to my friends.
"Whoa, no way!" Mars exclaims in disbelief.
"Why are you searching missing person articles?" October asks.
"Cause this one happened here! Robert Jarvison was arrested for kidnapping kids in this town! According to this, he still hasn't told anyone where he hid them. Nobody even knows if they're alive or dead." I explain to the group.
"How come we never heard about this?" Cody asks back.
"I don't know, it happened in the 80s, which is before any of us were born, maybe that's why." I suggest. October has a different explanation.
"It's cause it would make the place look bad. People don't like to talk about death and tragedy, so they bury it when it's all over and done with." She tells him.
"That seems like a pretty dark topic. Do you think Mr. Marlow will let you pick that?" Faith asks.
"It's that, or he's gonna be stuck with me." I reply nonchalantly, I did say I'd make him regret it.
"I can't wait to see the look on his face when I tell him tomorrow!" I add.
"He's gonna wish he let you cheat." Chris replies.
"We could be like Scooby-Doo crew detectives! Following clues to find the missing people once and for all and pull a mask off the bad guy and reveal all his magic tricks!" Mars says excitedly.
"Zack said the guy was caught already, Mars." Faith reminds them.
"It's not very likely we'll solve anything either. After all, we're just some teens, and this case is a few decades old by now, I doubt we'd find any new evidence." October adds.
"Maybe Cops missed something. They aren't perfect at their job, after all." Cody says, defending Mars's idea.
"Yeah, with all the shit you set ablaze, you'd think they'd arrest you by now." I reply only half joking. He just shrugs back.
We go back to making fun of movies, taking turns picking the next one each time. Horror movies where girls trip over nothing, romance movies where everyone is a jerk, but they get back together in the end anyway, and comedies with bad jokes. The jokes we make about the movies are funnier than anything happening on screen. We throw snacks back and forth at each other and have a good time the whole night.