Cypress Alley

Chapter 5

Eliza and I sat in our usual seats in the science lab, with one difference: Mrs Hunter had moved our desks apart.

I was staring out of the window instead of doing the work I was assigned, which was to fill out a form stating why we were talking so loudly during her lesson about Harry Potter and Shakespeare. Though I had to be glad she didn't hear us talking about North and Wendy as well. Eliza was staring out the same window. There really wasn't much to see given that school ended over an hour ago. Unless straggling teachers heading home counted. I was about to turn away and engage myself in something more interesting when I spotted a shadow moving out of the corner of my eye. A short figure - too short for a teacher. Who could it have been?

I turned to Eliza and made subtle hand movements, pointing at the window. She nodded – she had seen it too. I lift my hands slightly in the above my neck in a subtle attempt to communicate using sign language.

'WHO DO YOU THINK IT WAS?' I signed. I glanced at Mrs Hunter, who was engaged in a science magazine and did not notice.

She replied, 'I DON'T KNOW.'

I reply, 'LET'S JUST KEEP WATCHING BECAUSE THEY MIGHT COME BACK.'

So that's what we did. We watched for at least ten minutes, but no one came back.

"Ahem," coughed Mrs Hunter. We turned to face her. She coughed again (this time it was a real cough). "You may leave."

Before she could even finish her sentence, Eliza and I were scrambling out of the room into the courtyard. We scanned the area frantically, but we couldn't see the person. I peered around the corner the girl had disappeared behind,  only to find it empty. I shrugged at Eliza.

"Do you think it was the murderer?" Eliza asked excitedly.

"I don't think so... what are the chances?" But either way, I was curious. Who was it? And why were they here? They were certainly not a teacher, so what would they have been doing at school at that hour? 

"Well, it was definitely a girl," said Eliza. "I saw a skirt."

"Same."

"I think she went that way." Eliza pointed towards the gymnasium.

"If she went that way, she went home," I pointed out. The gymnasium was the most common exit to the school. "We might as well just go now."

Eliza looked disappointed but I couldn't help but be relieved. The chances of her being the killer were slim, but the prospect of encountering even a potential murderer was terrifying. 

We headed into the locker building to retrieve our schoolbags when someone jumped out from behind it. A short, black-haired figure. A school skirt. 

They screamed.

I screamed.

Eliza screamed.

"What the fuck?" they muttered under their breath.

It was Wendy.

---

Eliza and I stared at her, too shocked to speak. Not because we were shocked to find Wendy, but because of what she was wearing. Wendy was probably the best person to go to if you wanted to find a loophole in any of the school's rules because she knew them all. Her so-called "uniform" was right on the border of serious trouble with the teachers, and I was surprised she'd lasted the entire day in it.

Her heavy make-up never failed to surprise us, and every day she would try a new style – more shocking and brooding than the last. Her face was covered in so much black eyeliner and whatever that other stuff was that it looked as if she had been burnt three times over and then covered in charcoal. The rest, of course, was a ghostly white. Her hair fell thickly over half her face, which was a relief since I didn't know if I could stand to look at the full face of goth makeup.

Eliza stated at her, eyes wide. She swallowed a thick lump of saliva, cleared her throat, then spoke: "Um.. well, excuse us. We were just passing by."

"Yeah," I said in a small voice, playing along. "Sorry to scare you."

"Shouldn't it be the other way around?" Eliza whispered in my ear. I kicked her swiftly in the ankles to make her shut up. We stood awkwardly beside each other, facing Wendy stiffly.

Wendy frowned and opened her mouth to say something, then paused for a moment, apparently rethinking her words. She finally said: "It's alright."

"Bye... then," Eliza said awkwardly.

"See ya," I said, inching away.

Wendy walked away, but not before we caught a glimpse of something small she was carrying in her hands. It was almost concealed by her long fingernails, but it's slipped slightly from her death grip after she'd seen us. A notebook open to a page somewhere around the start. As she headed away from us, her hands tilted at an angle, enough that we could make out the bold letters scrawled across it in thick, black ink. My jaw dropped in horror. Eliza released an audible gasp.  

You'll never believe what it said.

"North."