Amelia In The Halls I

Chapter Three: I Explore Furthermore

I never expected my day to go like that. I think I just have a personality that evokes teachers to get automatically mad at me. But Mr. Cooper was furious. It almost seemed like the forest was hiding something only the teachers knew about. I continued my classes with my other new teachers, Mr. Smith and Ms. Connely. Both are nice but Ms. Connely acts like a zombie. She probably forgot to drink her coffee this morning. And Mr. Smith was extremely nerdy when he cannot shut up about his favorite animals. He really likes animals as you can tell.
    Both of those classes went smoothly. After that, I headed to the showers and there I am lying on my bed and thinking about what happened earlier. I think I shall explore furthermore.
      I was just about to close my eyes, but then I heard a knock upon my door. I tip toed to the door with my lantern and slowly opened the door. There was Friedrich with his wet dark brown hair as if he had previously taken a shower. He seemed like he wanted to talk about something Important. I gulped, "Friedrich what are you doing here?" He looked around to make sure no one was in the hall. He then stepped in and sat on my bed. And I sat down next to him.
"I want to talk about what happened today." He whispered. "I am concerned about the way Mr. Cooper acted towards us. It seemed like he was hiding something."
I then replied, "I agree. There was something else going on," I paused, "But, why did you come to me out of Lily and Toby?"
    He froze and thought about it. "I really don't know. But I felt like you would know more than Lily and Toby. You're smart." I shyly smiled and denied the compliment.
    Then I voiced my thoughts. "I think that we should try going to the forest." Friedrich stared at me in confusion. "Without Lily and Toby?" whispered Friedrich. "Yes," I replied, "I feel like we should not get everyone because those two are loud and there will be more of a chance we would get caught if we brought them." Friedrich nodded and continued. "Okay. Tomorrow night at midnight we sneak down and figure out the big deal about the forest." I shook his head and said proudly, "Tomorrow night at midnight."
     And Friedrich got up and left my dorm room.
I thought about the plan and hated that I acted so proud about this plan even though now thinking about it, I was scared. What if the teachers find out? What If I get expelled again? What if Lily and Toby found out, I would probably lose two friends. Finally, I fell asleep.
    The sun rose and I pulled up my knee-high socks with my long skirt and light grey button down and tied my tie around my neck. I braided my hair and got frustrated at all the wisps sticking out. And I marched out trying to hold up all my fake confidence about the plan. I took the stairs and walked across the cobbled walkways to the lunchroom and got breakfast. Today they were serving eggs and bacon and the food still tasted weird. Lily and Toby glanced at me and had a confused look on their faces. Lily asks, "Did not get any sleep last night?" I shrugged and I saw Friedrich staring at me asking me through his eyes not to tell them. We finished our food (besides me) and headed toward the teacher that was on the back of my mind.
    Mr. Cooper. He looked extremely tired today. He stood up and inhaled the air around him. He voiced, "Okay everyone. At this school, we have rules. And if any of you students break these rules. You will face the worst punishment of your life. He proceeds to open a scroll of "the rules". The list of rules went on forever. The scroll of paper rolls down a whole aisle between desks and stops at the end of the classroom back wall. I glanced down at the list next to my feet and read a couple of rules. "No complaining about the air. No complaining about the food. And most of all, DO NOT ENTER THE FOREST."
     I froze at the last sentence and looked at Friedrich which seemed like he already read that sentence too. That class finished and approached Ms. Brock's class; she wasn't even there.
    We looked around in the hall. One of the other students called out, "Lets draw pictures on the black board!" and so most of the class followed him to the board like a swarm of bees, while me and my friends were just standing there. Toby looks around and brings up, "I think we should tell a teacher that Ms. Brock is not here." We all agreed and sneaked out of the classroom to look for a teacher. We walked down the halls and a couple times I saw some of the lights flicker behind us. There were no teachers to be seen.          Abruptly, a hand grabbed toward us but missed. I swung my head over and saw the same girl from yesterday. The one that took back the ring and almost cut off my circulation. She was panting like she was running for a while. She caught her breath and finally spoke up,
"Do not go looking for the teachers. At this time of day, they are doing something important that we are not allowed to witness."
    Lily, Toby, and Friedrich were just as confused as I was. "Why?" I then asked. She looked at her surroundings and continued. "I don't know much. But you must keep it a secret. And that means do not tell a soul," I gulped and waited for the secret.
"There is something very wrong with the teachers here at this school. They are all up to something beyond terrible."
Then Lily questioned, "What do you think it is?"
   The upperclassmen looked like she was about to cry. She took a deep breath and held out the ring from yesterday. "This ring that I took back from that girl with the braid is from my best friend. She went missing a week ago and she found it. The teachers just told me repeatedly that she died because they refused to give me any information about the body. But I know that they are all lying." I stared at her and thought hard about what to say. I couldn't say I am sorry because that would sound weird in this kind of situation. "What was her name?" I asked. The girl paused for a second and slowly answered, "Samatha Wilkins." The girl looked around again and quickly said, "I got to get back to class." And she dashed off into the distance.
   The four of us walked back to the classroom in the hope the teachers would stay away for longer so we could figure out this mystery. The rest of the class didn't seem to notice that we were gone, and they were still drawing pictures on the blackboard, and it was almost covered in drawings. I then got an idea. I ran to the nearest window and swung the window open. Friedrich than ran over and shouts, "Why would you do that?!" I completely ignored him and told him, "Just look out." He stared out off in the distance and saw what I saw. The forest.
Toby and Lily joined us and looked out the window. I asked them, "Have you all ever wondered why they told us to never open the windows? It must do something about what the teachers do at this time." Toby then rummaged through his bag and pulled out binoculars (do not ask me why he had those with him.) And he moved his eyes to the lenses and peered through them. We waited 1 second. 2 seconds. 3 seconds. Then Toby's face dropped in fear. "What's wrong?" Lily asked. "Look," Toby answered. Toby handed Lily the goggles and she looked through and saw the same thing and had the same facial expression as Toby. Lily quickly removed the goggles and handed them to me. I squinted and saw what they both saw. All the teachers in the school were in the forest in a circle. Lily was scrunching her nose and I figured out why. From the outside there was a terrible stench. It wasn't a skunk, it smelt different. Like blood. Toby stepped backward and pinched his nose. "Is that blood?"