The Week of Finals: the unsolved mystery

chapter 4: The gun

During the study hall, I was preparing for my geometry final that I would have the next day. I was never any good with math, so everything that I was studying was just going right over my head. I raised my hand, and asked to go to the bathroom. The teacher let me, and I walked into the bathroom. As soon as i stepped through the door, I saw it in the sink. I knew the moment I saw it that it was a 45 acp. It was all black, and still had the mag in it. I resisted the urge to run out of the room as fast as i could, and walked up to the gun. I pulled out the mag, and opened the chamber to make sure that there was nothing loaded. I was about to put the gun down, when I noticed a note that was taped to the magazine. I pulled it off, and read it. It said," To the person who finds this gun, I wish to apolagize. Your life is about to get much more difficult. Do not attempt to contact the authorities. This will result in your death. Do not tell the school about this either. I am going to murder someone on friday. There is nothing you can do to stop me; but you are welcome to try. Good luck finding out who this gun belongs to. Just so that you don't waste any time searching for the oner of this gun, I will tell you. It is unregistered."

I was in shock. I had never thought that someone would kill another at this school. "What am I going to do now?" I said to myself. I didn't want to die, so I was determined not to tell the police. I also didn't think that the school could do much about all this, so I wasn't going to give them the gun. The only other option was to keep the gun, and try to figure out this whole mystery. Where to start though? There seemed to be nothing to do. I went back to class and sat down. For lack of anything else to do, I looked up the registry for the gun. I pulled out my iPad, and typed in the name of the gun, and the serial number. An old registry for the gun popped up; but the owner of the gun had died 12 years ago. HIs name was John Smith. I then looked up his name, and tried to find out all I could about him. Maybe he had given this gun to one of his relatives. Well, it turns out that John Smith is one of the most common names in the world. There were WAY too many John Smith's to find the one I was looking for. Also; because that name is very common, many people use that name as a fake name, or a fake identity. For all I knew, John Smith may not even be the real name of the owner of the gun.

The teacher finally dismissed class, and I was very sad. I had no leads in my search. I was just as confused as when I began. I collected all my stuff, and went home in dismay. It seemed as if my whole life was coming apart before my very eyes. Someone was counting on me to save their life. For all I knew, it could even be my best friend. And I had no hope of saving him. Or her for that matter. In fact it could even be a teacher. I was very confused, and stressed. I decided to quit studying for my finals, and spent all my spare time searching for clues to this mystery.