C.R.E.W

Chapter 26 ~ The Book

        Noelle and I stared at the floor as we made our way back to where Mrs. Brock agreed to meet us. We saw her light brown dress flowing underneath her puffy winter jacket, she was staring down at the papers that were copied numerously to spread the word about her missing child.

"You know how I said we needed another person in this investigation?" Noelle looked at me, her hair burning red like fire. 

"Yes..." I responded, confused.

"Well, here she is." She yanked my sleeve and pulled me towards Mrs. Brock with full force.

Mrs. Brock looked up and she seemed more awake than she had before, more lively.

"Mrs. Brock, you like mysteries...right?" Noelle flatly and immediately just warped her into the loophole.

She looked a bit confused but interested, "yes?" The teacher responded.

"Good, do you like listening and almost feeling like you're living in the mystery?" She continued.

"It depends, I would think so?" Mrs. Brock responded, pauses between each word.

"How-" Noelle kept going on with her interrogation but I stopped it when I could.

"Noelle and I...have a mystery to solve and we were wondering if you would like to join us? We'll help you look for your son in the process, this is not all about us, of course." I offered her the option. Noelle, being her bookworm self, wanted to make it into one of her book interrogations.

She gave us a warm smile, "I would love to join your mysterious investigation." She responded as she wiggled her fingers to the word 'mysterious.'

I smiled, very excited to have another person I'm close with help me through this crazy and hectic journey.

                            ~~~

Noelle and I met up in the library the next day to get started working on finding the answers to all these mysteries as soon as possible. With Noelle being a library helper, we had all the access we needed to get into the library during after school hours.

"I'm supposed to be on my shift anyway," she said, locking the door and setting her stuff down on the wooden table near the front desk.

"Your shift?" I questioned, "I thought you were only supposed to be working here during in-school hours, and maybe after school...but nonetheless with an adult?"

"Well, yes, but they trusted me enough to let me stay after school by myself. After all, the librarian did just break her foot and fractured her knee." She calmly stated, putting her phone in her colorful bag with many vibrant shapes and squares plastered all around the entire purse.

"Doing what!?" I spat, loudly exclaiming my thoughts.

I hadn't even noticed that the librarian was gone, then again, I don't ever come in here unless I am talking to Noelle.

"I'm not fully sure, she left before she could completely tell me. She was talking about it and then screeched at the pain that was coming from her knee. She left later that day and never revisited the story, haven't seen her since." She shrugged, completely unfazed by the situation, at least I thought.

I put it past me as Noelle started speaking.

"Let's start grabbing some of these books," she suggested as she perked up from staring at her purse for the entire time we were talking.

I nodded and headed over to a shelf that looked useful, the history section. I looked amongst the books and already felt sick, I wanted to continue this mystery but looking at them made me feel uneasy. Books were Noelle's strong suit, I tend to just stay on the sidelines and listen to her rant about every line that she has just read. I looked and skimmed through the big bulky textbooks, some skinny ones, too. I kept walking along until I found one. It had a purple spine with scuffed up gold lining and embroideries. The book seemed hard and rough, it felt like it held so much, yet, so little at the same time. My attention was grasped towards it, I felt it, I was staring, and I knew I was. My attention couldn't let go...