Amanda was sitting in her third class, Observation and Research, waiting for the teacher to arrive, when a boy turned to her and said, “What kinds of criminals do you think we’ll meet? I’m hoping for a lot of murderers.”
Criminals! Of course. She knew all about criminals. Her father, her mother, Uncle Randy, and a myriad of her parents’ friends were intimately involved with criminals every day. And yet she’d forgotten all about them, even though Professor Thrillkill had mentioned them just the day before. Not that she knew any personally. Her parents would never let her anywhere near a criminal. But that was why she was there, wasn’t it? How could you be a detective without coming into contact with criminals?
Actually, she didn’t much care for the idea. It wasn’t just her antipathy to detectives. She was actually afraid of criminals. Maybe embezzlers weren’t so bad, or counterfeiters, but violent criminals? They scared her half to death. She felt a chill.
Act! “I don’t really have a favorite kind,” she said. “I was hoping to learn about them.” Learn about them? That was the last thing she wanted to do. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to make films about them. Too close to home.
“Me too,” said the boy. “I can’t wait! I don’t think we get to take Profiling for a while, though. Get inside their minds and all that. I think they want us to have some experience with evidence and observation first.”
Amanda had no idea what classes she’d take when. She was just taking the school as it came. They told her which class to go to and she did. End of story.
But now the boy had got her thinking. Would they really meet criminals? If so, how? Would they be dangerous? Could she be killed? Surely the school wouldn’t allow that. Her father would sue the pants off of them.
And then a sobering thought hit her. Could there be criminals out there targeting the detectives? Targeting the school? Targeting her? Wouldn’t Thrillkill have told them if that were the case?
This was not a discussion she was comfortable having, even while acting. She tuned out and let the boy talk, which he was quite happy to do. But when the teacher arrived, she was still thinking about those criminals, and she couldn’t get them out of her mind all day.