The Five

1

38 years later

Joshua Peterson scrunched up his nose as he ran a finger against the dusty books lined up against one of the many shelves in the back of the library. Although he favored the librarian over many of his teachers at Robinson High, the woman hardly kept the library sanitary. He guessed it wasn't exactly her job, but it didn't take much to do a simple dusting to the shelves.

Currently, during his lunch period, he and his best friend Brooke hid in the deepest corner of the library. Not only was it hidden from the rest of the library, where nobody even knew it was there, but it was Josh's favorite part of the library. After the school had gone through some renovations about twenty years ago, the school's library had expanded to about triple of its original size, which left most of where the old parts of the library concealed. This meant all the old stories, the ones Josh preferred over modern novels, were placed all over the shelves. He had only found this place in the middle of last year, so he still had plenty of novels to flip through.

Brooke and him met there every lunch. She had a knack for finding all of the old yearbooks from over the many decades the school was built. She liked flipping through them, something about 'experiencing old people' or something along the lines. He, on the other hand, wanted to get away from what he called 'the populars'. With the exception of some, all of the populars were complete jerks. They consisted mostly of the cheerleaders and the athletes from all of the many sports teams the school had. They were all cocky idiots to say the least, and kids like him and Brooke were common targets for most of their dumb pranks and teasing. Brooke, being a weird gothic being who acted as if she didn't have a soul, could care less about the populars and their brainless insults, while Josh couldn't. They weren't hurtful to him, and the insults were always the same, something about him being a nerd or being too skinny. But he would rather be out of their sight than take one step in the lunchroom.

He found one book that looked slightly interesting. Pulling it out of the bookshelf he returned to the small table where Brooke was flipping through the pages of a yearbook.

She made a gagging noise. "It's like people in the 90's dressed in the dark."

Josh opened the cover of the book. "Hmm, sounds like you."

"Shut up."

His eyes grazed over the front page. "Have you ever heard of Lisa Jennings?" He asked.

"Some big author in the seventies. My mom really liked her books. Has them all over the house." She leaned over the table to get a view of his book.

He turned the book in her direction so she could see it. "It's signed. Library books are never signed. They are destined for destruction."

Brooke held out a hand and Josh handed her the book. She held it close up to her face, her darkly painted eyes scanning over the print on the front. "The Crow's Murder," She read off the cover. "This was her last book I think. If what my mom says is true, a signed copy of this would have been impossible to find. She would probably sell me for this book."

Brooke and her mom didn't have a good relationship in the slightest. Josh knew the most about it considering he had sat through more than one of her long rants about how her mother was closed minded and cold hearted. Their relationship started going downwards when Brooke started a gothic faze in sixth grade, and then continued down that path when she and her mother started realizing that the faze wasn't exactly a faze. Although he had witnessed many times when Mrs Torres was in the wrong, but he had to admit that the majority of the time Brooke had started the fights. He knew it was just a grab for attention after her parents had split up and her mom got a new boyfriend, and he didn't blame her for it. So he just sat and listened to whatever words she needed to spit out.

"You know she wouldn't."

"Oh shut it, Peterson." She handed him back the book.

When he was about three chapters in, he started realizing why the books must have been so popular. The author had a fine way of describing things, and managed to keep the book interesting. He decided he would have to search through the shelves in tomorrow's lunch period to find the first book of the series, whatever that was. He'd google it.

Brooke started laughing.

He glanced up from his page. "Do I want to know?"

She leaned back in her chair, covering her eyes with her hands, still laughing loudly. "Chain wallets," she whispered in the midst of her giggling.

He shook his head and returned his focus to his book.