Let Me Be Your Missing Puzzle Piece

Chapter 1

The rain beat down on the picturesque structure that was Dalton Academy, it's droplets falling evenly on the windows of the old building, forming a gentle rhythmic tempo that resonated throughout the many halls and corridors.

Over on the far side of the grounds, in the west building, Jeff Sterling sat listening to this tuneful patter of raindrops, half-listening to Mr. Porter's lecture on American history, allowing his mind to wander elsewhere, away from the dreariness of the classroom. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy History, no, quite the opposite in fact, Jeff had been top of the class in the subject since he started Dalton, it was just today, being a mixture of the miserable weather and a lack of enthusiasm towards hearing his teacher drone on about the never-ending list of events that happened throughout American history, Jeff just couldn't focus his mind to the lesson before him.

Out of the corner of his eye Jeff saw a ball of paper land swiftly on the desk, he quickly turned around to catch Trent grinning widely and motioning for him to read it. Jeff reverted his attention to the ball of paper and quickly unravelled it, smothering out the creases and reading the barely legible message that had been scribbled down by the fellow warbler.

You better get a move on with these questions or Porter's gonna skin you alive Jeffrey. You may not make it out of the cupboard this time :P

Jeff turned back and half-smiled at his friend, he had been so out of it he hadn't realised the questions that had been set on the board. He tried to revert his attention back to the blank sheet of paper awaiting extended answers, but he just couldn't get his mind to focus on the task being set. He knew he'd have to write something soon, otherwise Mr. Porter was going to notice and Jeff would find himself sitting in this classroom for longer than the duration of the lesson.

His history teacher was particularly harsh with detentions, any other teacher at Dalton, and believe me there wasn't that many, would simply make the students write lines or an essay on why they shouldn't forget their homework or on whatever reason their punishment was for.

But no, Porter's detentions involved demeaning labour, mostly the daunting task of polishing the many figurines of important historical figures that lined the shelves of the history department.

The boys often joked about the cupboard that was a part of Mr. Porter's room, it was used as a storage space for many historical artefacts that were used in class, but word spread that Porter stored many undue items in there and there were even rumours of certain teachers getting it in there behind closed doors. All of this was probably started by some remarkably bored freshmans, but gossip spread throughout Dalton like the plague and eventually it just became like common knowledge in the place. Sometimes Jeff wondered if this was really an all boys school, or a school for gossiping girls in disguise.

Either way Jeff didn't really fancy spending his evening in Porter's cupboard polishing objects and planning his attack in case his teacher tried to make a move on him, it was quite a disturbing thought to be honest.

Jeff quickly remembered he was supposed to be starting the work, he had to get his act together and focus, otherwise that was exactly what was going to happen. He attempted the first question, flicking through his textbook frantically for the answer, boy did he have a lot of reading to do after this class, he was sure they hadn't done half of these topics the textbook had shown. He was really falling behind now, he took a quick glance at Trent who had his head down into his paper scribbling away.

"Psst, Trent"

Trent quickly looked up, hands fidgeting, clearly wanting to finish the remainder of his well scripted answer that was circling his brain.

"What?"

"What page is the answer to the first one on?"

"You're only on the..." the round faced boy sighed, looking back to his own work "page 36"