EQAO

Chapter 3 - Someone Gets Caught

We turned, and saw a cop grab a girl by her shirt. The four of us hid behind some thorn bushes. The girl was struggling and squirming, but I caught a glimpse of her face.

"Hey, isn't that that girl in Ms. Wabber's class?" Anika whispered to me.

Ms. Wabber was another grade nine teacher. She was relatively nice... unless you did anything close to breaking the rules. One time, she gave me detention for having gum in my lunch bag.

"What's she doing here?" I whispered back.

"We've got to help her!" Michelle said anxiously.

I picked up the nearest rock, and chucked it way over in the direction opposite of us. It hit a window, and made a loud,

"thunk"

The cop put the girl down, told her to scram, and went off to investigate the noise.

"Let's get out of here!" Sameera said.

"What about the girl?" Michelle asked.

I walked forward towards the girl and said,

"Hey, what are you doing here?"

"I-I... I was..." she looked terrified, "I was just l-looking to see why they closed the school, that's all. I wasn't looking for any trouble." she was on the verge of tears.

"That's okay," I told her, "we were also doing that. We just didn't get caught."

I smiled at her. She managed a weak smile back.

"Anyways, um, we have to go so..." I turned back and started to walk.

"Wait!" she called after me, "Thanks for you know, helping me out with that cop. I'm Katherine, but you can call me Kat."

"Cool," I said, "Uh, I'm Jessica, this is Sameera, Michelle, and- "

"Anika!" Anika had interrupted me so she could say her own name.

Wow.

"And we were just heading back to my house if you wanted to come."

"Really?" Kat beamed, "Wow thanks!"

"Anyways..." I said awkwardly.

Then no one said anything for a moment.

"We'd better get back before that cop realizes that it was just a stone that made that noise." Sameera said, breaking the silence.

"Right!"

Thank you Sameera!

"Let's go."

—*—*—*—*—*—*—*—*—*—*—

Back in Anika's garage, Michelle said,

"We have to go back to find out why they closed the school."

"Back there?" Kat shuddered, "I almost got in SO much trouble last time. What if we get caught?"

"We'll just have to be more careful." I said confidently.

"Hey Jess," Anika started, a puzzled look on her face, "why did you take off in that direction all of a sudden?"

Everyone looked at me.

"I-I"

Why was I stuttering? They were my friends for crying out loud!

"I noticed some footprints by the door that led in that direction." I said.

"Footprints? When it was pouring rain?" Sameera asked skeptically.

"Yeah, I'm serious!"

"How come I didn't notice them?"

"I don't know, I guess you're just not as observant."

"Really? Well they could've been Kat's footprints! Ever think of that, Miss Super-Observant?"

So much for friends.

I blushed. I hadn't thought of that.

"But... they were larger and heavier than Kat's!" I protested.

"They could've been a cop's."

I blushed harder. But... for some reason, I didn't believe that they belonged to a cop.

"Fine. Whatever." I said, closing the conversation.

I couldn't believe it. My friends didn't believe me. They doubted me. I leaned back, and closed my eyes as thunder boomed above.