Homeroom 23

Chapter Fifteen: The Special Stuff

Mellany Cook had been sixteen years old—almost seventeen—when she "fell" off of the highest balcony in the Common Area. At least, that was the story Mr. Murray was going to tell. They would rule it as either an accident, suicide, or at the very least coincidence. They wouldn't humor the very obvious truth that someone had it out for the people in this homeroom, and wouldn't stop until everyone was gone. I knew this. It was the very first thought that came to me after I had processed the shock I initially felt. I knew I needed to talk to Daniel, and explain this all to him, but the room all the sudden felt too crowded and everything was suddenly spinning, and I was struck with the weird realization that I was going to be next. I needed to cry, yet at the same time I needed to throw up and was lost. I stumbled backwards blindly until I landed into Daniel.

"What's wrong, Mel?" Daniel asked me, concerned while turning me around to look at my face. "You seem pale. Are you sure you're alright? I can get you some—" I didn't end up hearing the rest of his sentence before I fell into his arms and the world went black.

"You're gonna be alright Mel, just a little bit of shock is all."

That was the first thing I heard when I woke up. Daniel's soft voice. I could tell he was telling me something comforting, but I couldn't yet make out the words. Everything was foggy and hazy, and it was as if I was in some sort of trance.

"What happened?" I mumbled, barely managing to raise my head up to look at my surroundings. Daniel was sitting next to me on the bed I was laying in, and the room I was in was covered head to toe in weird, intricate looking modern shelves. I realized with a start that I was in Daniel's room, of all places.

"You're alright, love. You fainted when you saw Mellanys body." For a minute I was in too much of a haze to register what he had called me.

"Wait, what did you say?" His face turned bright red.

"Nothing, I didn't say anything," he stammered.

"No, you definitely said something. What did you say?" He turned away from me as if trying to avoid my gaze. "Cmon, Dan. What did you call me?"

"Nothing! I didn't mean to, anyways." I just kind of smiled at him. He was cute when he got all defensive like that. Well, he was cute most of the time, but especially then. Then all of a sudden I remembered Mellany and realized that now was probably not the best time to be getting flustered by Daniel.

"How did she die?" I asked him, not skipping a beat. "I was too stunned to pay close attention to what had happened."

"She fell. Off of the tallest balcony in the Common Area."

"Only she didn't 'fall'. Not really. Someone pushed her, I know it. No sensible person just happens to wander up to that height and stumbles off of it. That's not something Mellany would do."

"Well," Daniel began, using his 'detective voice'. "Who do you think did it?" I smiled, I had been waiting for him to ask.

"Well, there are a myriad of possibilities," I started. "I think there's a good amount of circumstantial evidence against Samantha. For one; she was the only person not in the cafeteria during breakfast, and she could've killed her then."

"Yeah sure," Daniel shrugged. "But you saw the look on her face when she came into the cafeteria. She looked horrified! And there's a good chance it happened last night, I mean, it's not as if too many people are using the Common Area."

"Well, that leads into my other theory. Brandon and Max. Even though they had both been at breakfast, there's a chance that one—if not both—of them could have killed her last night. Think about it, they have a motive. What if they had found out that Mellany was the one to tell you about them making Avas drink? Maybe she knew more about them and they wanted to keep her quiet." I silently thought about the not-so-subtle letter I had received, and wondered if either of them could be strategic enough to plant something like that. To be completely honest, I couldn't see either of them possessing the necessary levels of intelligence and cunningness to be able to pull off being a serial killer, but then again, maybe they were just really good actors.