Homeroom 23

Chapter Five: Detective Daniel

By the time Campus Security had arrived at the scene, the bell indicating it was time to get to the main wing of the school had rung, but no one seemed to be too preoccupied with making sure they got to class on time. They had arrived in less than a minute after Ms. Liams called them, and instantly began clearing out the hallway. After two men had escorted all of us to the Library, they left us to our own devices to go deal with the body.

I was sitting on the floor in between two other kids I didn't know, but I wouldn't have sought out Anthony or Noah even if I wanted to. The room was silent, with everyone sitting in their own respective places and too consumed by their own thoughts to even bother saying anything. Despite being given full range to do whatever we wanted, no one was able to forget what we had seen. I'm not entirely sure how long we all sat in complete silence on the Library floor, but by the time the Campus Security monitors had come back to check on us we all had dark circles under our eyes.

When they walked into the room, we all snapped our heads up at the sudden noise. The man who had entered was dressed differently from the other security guards, and looked much calmer. A few of the bad kids let out gasps of recognition when they saw him, but the rest of us seemed to be confused as to who he was. He walked past all of the kids who were sitting on the floor, and went straight for the wooden stage in the front of the room with a corkboard detailing the school's activities behind it.. It was a couple inches off of the ground, giving him an extra height advantage against all of us (not that he needed it, he was about 6' 4") Once he had properly stationed himself above all of us at the front of the room, he began to speak.

"Hello to all of you, as some of you may know, I am your principal Mr. Murrey." So that's who he was. Mr. Murrey was the school principal. Mr. Murrey was an older guy with gray hair and mean eyes. I had never met him, but from the rumors and whispers about him he was the meanest person most students had ever met, and didn't hesitate to expel students on a dime. I had never seen him around school, probably because he seemed to take a very hands-off approach to leading, which is probably why most of the kids didn't recognize him. When he said his name though, a wave of shock rolled through the students, making all of us on edge. We had all heard the rumors about him.

"I think you all know why we are here today. George Manford, your peer has been killed. I understand this is going to be very hard for all of you to process, but we still need for each and every one of you to understand the severity of the situation." Judging by the somber mood of everyone in the room, I wouldn't've said anyone didn't understand the severity of the situation, but nobody objected. "Someone; most likely in this very room; killed your fellow classmate. We have allowed the other homerooms to go home, so as to not put them in any more danger than they have to be, but we need to find the culprit for this case. It has to be another student in homeroom 23, so we have decided to keep you all here until the suspect either reveals themself, or we figure out who it is on our own."

He let us all ponder his declaration for a minute, and we all looked back and forth at one another in confusion. Does he really think one of us did it? Obviously that was the only logical explanation; no one can just randomly get stabbed, but the thought had never even occurred to me. One of us had to be responsible for the murder. The thought was so jarring I instantly regretted eating breakfast that morning. If I had a weaker stomach, I would've thrown it all up right there on the carpet.

Everyone in the room began looking around at each other suspiciously with accusatory glances. It was as if we were all saying to one another, I know that it could be you. It could be you, and I'm going to get to the bottom of this! Ms. Liams was looking between us all desperately with a hopeless look in here eyes, and suddenly she moved from her statued position flanking the wooden stage and stepped up besides Mr. Murrey. She then looked at him for a second, before pushing her way in front of him.