Arabella Academy: Perfectly Imperfect

6. Situational Irony

Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.

~Mason Cooley

***

RING RING RING RING!

With the cry of the emergency bell, Arabella's anxious students flew to the school's fire assembly point. Girls clung to each other's arms, whispering on how any of them might have been the victim and a vast majority of the boys discussed on the possibilities of the killer being in their midst, whilst a mixed number of them prayed for the school to shut down.

Marcus and Jeff stood at the centre of the arena, not really involved in any conversation. Marcus had his eyes glued to the polished floors, as he thought of the implications that would have surely surfaced if he had witnessed the murder. If he had seen the face of the murderer or heard Sheila's final screams. Did she even scream? How did he not hear it? Did the killing even take place when he was around? What if he was the victim and not her. His feet wobbled and he held onto Jeff.

"You okay?"

"Yeah yeah," he said as he sighed.

William on the other hand had no issues with expressing his thoughts. Lines of worrying sweat streamed down his head and ended in the collar of his suit. He hooked his fingers on his necktie and tugged at it before he spoke.

"Good morning students. I hope that you are all comfortable amongst this...umm...crisis. I will admit that today's incident came as a shock to us all. This has never happened in the history of Arabella and it scares me that such a thing would happen in our school. That being said, you should also know that we are working with Middlewood's Police Department to get to the bottom of this."

He cleared his throat.

"Sheila was one of our greatest students and our institution placed a lot of expectations on her,  her passing is truly a devastating event and it has given us a tremendous blow, but, in light of this our school program would not be affected—"

"Why!"

"What!"

"But!"

"This is bullshit!"

There was an outcry in the room as the students sent death glares to their principal.

"Do you want them to kill us too?!"

"Bloody murderers!"

"I'm going to call my mom!"

"You want to kill us!"

"Wait till my dad gets to hear this!"

William looked amongst his silent staff and then at his enraged students. He inhaled a deep breath and exhaled loudly.

"Shut! Up!"

The room went still.

"I have no reason to believe the school activities have anything to do with the murder. Therefore, the school will continue as normal. Although the auditorium would be closed to pave way for the investigation, I urge you to remain calm and wait for the police to catch the murderer. Detective Timothy would also like our cooperation, and if you have any substantial information on the case, kindly step forward.  The assembly is dismissed."

"Is the Expiravit of Middlewood back?"

William froze in his spot as his eyes roamed the expectant faces of his students.

"What...what does a myth have to do with this?" he said and stepped down the podium.

Jeff walked side by side with Marcus as everyone made their way back to the class.

"I'm sure it's these bitchy directors," Jeff said. "They want to keep us here and pretend everything is alright."

The two boys returned to their class, where Miss Juliana had already begun her teaching.

"Welcome back class." She turned to the board, "Differentiation...."