Dark Days at TAC

Tucker arrived at school the next morning to see a group of students congregating around the main entrance. Melissa Mason was there, along with several others from his year. Pete stood in the middle of the crowd and seemed to be the centre of attention.

  ‘What stupid antics is that ubbhead pulling now?’ Tucker grumbled to himself as he wandered over to join the crowds.

  ‘So you’re trying to tell us that you were set up? That someone planted that stolen money in your locker?’ asked one of the crowd.

  ‘It’s true!’ Pete said. ‘And the cops think I’m lying!’

  ‘I don’t blame them.’

  ‘This is low, Pete,’ Melissa said. ‘I thought you were a good guy too. Boy was I wrong.’

  Tucker pondered over the new revelations. How did the money get in Pete’s locker? He knew he had planted it in Rex’s. One thing was for sure, Pete didn’t get soppy love notes addressed to Rex in his locker.

  It was Rex. It had to be him. He had transferred the money from his locker into Pete’s so that Pete would get in trouble instead of him. It was the only explanation, especially considering his dubious behaviour of late. He wanted to speak out and tell the crowd that, but that would just be admitting his own guilt.

  ‘OK, so somebody put the money in your locker and then you dropped it off at the office? What then?’

  ‘Well, someone reported seeing me with a whole heap of cash on me. Somebody else wrote an anonymous note saying they saw me stealing the money. Rex and I reckon they’re one in the same person. Well now, someone reckons they witnessed me leaving the money at the office. That’s why the cops came for me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘They wouldn’t tell me, but apparently this person approached the police in person to report it. Someone from school apparently. I was sure that nobody saw me drop off that money, but maybe someone did.’

  ‘Did you tell the police that you found the money in your locker?’

  ‘Yes. I had to tell them. I told them what I’ve just told you.’

  ‘And they believed you?’ scoffed a year-thirteen boy.

  ‘I don’t know, but they weren’t very happy that I hadn’t told them the full truth in the first place.’

  ‘That’s gotta make you look even more guilty.’

  We still don’t know whether you’re innocent or not though, do we?’ asked Melissa. ‘You could have stolen that money. You were at that detention that day. Why should we believe you that it was planted in your locker?’

  ‘Well I didn’t spend it, did I?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything. You might have chickened out.’

  Tucker decided to speak as he was itching to tell them about his hunch, but he had to be careful how he said it. Once they heard his theory, he was sure they’d be impressed. ‘I reckon Rex planted the money there.’

  ‘What?’ All eyes jerked towards Tucker.

  ‘It’s obvious!’ Tucker puffed his chest out, trying to sound like some TV detective. Magnum PI was a good choice. He could model himself on him. ‘I know what you’re thinking… Why would a guy with as much cash as him need to steal more? But think about it. He was briefly a suspect right? Someone even wrote an anonymous letter saying they saw Rex take the money. On top of that, Rex has been behaving really strangely lately, being a complete ubbhead to everyone including the goddess. What if he did take the money and then decided to put it in Pete’s locker, perhaps for safekeeping. Maybe he thought it would be better there, just in case a locker search was done. Maybe he just got scared at the last moment and decided to dump it there to get it off his hands.’

  ‘Absolute shite!’ someone growled. ‘Rex wouldn’t do that.’

  There were angry murmurs of agreement.

  ‘It’s just a hunch.’ Tucker felt a little disappointed at not being given a bit of credit for his brilliant powers of deduction. ‘It’s my little voice you see?’

  ‘What, your split personality?’

  ‘My little voice is usually right. Who knows, maybe Rex was hungry and wanted to buy a feed and didn’t have any cash on him? Hunger’s libel to make a guy do something he normally wouldn’t do, you know?’ He felt quite proud of himself for coming up with that reasoning.

  ‘You’re a cretin! Rex wouldn’t do that to a mate.’

  ‘Huh!’ Tucker growled. ‘We all know what an absolute ubbhead Pete here is. He drives everybody up the wall half the time. I bet he drives Rex up the wall too. Having a guy like him around can’t do much for your reputation. Maybe he wants to get rid of him? It’s not like he’s been hanging out with him lately, is it?’

  ‘You’re an absolute jackass.’

  ‘Inane as!’ someone else added.

  ‘You’re a total pillock!’ another said. ‘If Rex was here right now, he’d hammer your face into a bloody pulp!’

  ‘You’d better keep your mouth shut, Pyles. Much more of that garbage and you’ll be in some real strife.’

  ‘But it makes sense, doesn’t it?’ Tucker stared at his schoolmates.

  ‘About as much sense as scrubbing your teeth with shoe polish.’

  ‘What’s wrong with shoe polish?’

  A voice came from the back of the crowd. ‘Pete’s innocent.’ Everyone turned around, including Tucker. There was no mistaking that voice. It belonged to Rex. Standing with him were Holly and the goddess herself.

  Rex moved forward to the centre. ‘He didn’t steal the money and I know who planted it in his locker.’

  Tucker smirked. So, Rex was going to come clean and make a confession, was he?

  The crowd went quiet. He pulled out a piece of paper and read what was on it. Many confused looks appeared on the faces of those listening. As for Tucker, he thought Rex was going mad.

  ‘Mesmerised. Every day I see you, you enchant me even more. Looking at me is enough to bring me under your spell. I wish that I could be ensnared by you. Stolen away by you. Sealed within your control. All I want is you Rex. Make me your girl and yours alone.’

  ‘A poem?’ asked one of the crowd. ‘So what? Does it inspire you, does it?’

  Rex chuckled. ‘Not at all, but this is a vital clue as to who at least planted the money in Pete’s locker.’

  Tucker snorted, not seeing how that could be possible. Even those who stood around listening had blank looks on their faces.

  ‘How can a poem prove who did that?’ Melissa asked.

  ‘By asking a few questions.’ He glanced towards Tucker and smirked. ‘Took a bit of fancy talk. Some people you sort of just have to keep talking to…humour them a bit at times and make them think that you actually believe what they’re saying. When they think you believe them, they start getting cocky and exaggerate their stories even more. Eventually they end up contradicting themselves or giving something away. On the other hand, another good tactic is flat accusations. They get into a panic and the same thing happens. Use a mixture of both approaches and you can pretty much guarantee that you’re going to come up with something close to the truth. But anyway… I’m rambling. What I’m saying is that the money was originally planted in my locker to get me into trouble, not Pete. Someone took the money from my locker and placed it in his.’

  ‘But why put it in yours?’ asked another member of the crowd.

  ‘Because they wanted me out of this school.’

  ‘But why would someone move it from your locker to Pete’s?’

  ‘For much the same reason. They wanted Pete gone, or in serious trouble or something. I know it all sounds pretty far out, but when I started putting the pieces together, it all started to make a lot more sense. What I found out was that on that day someone had been snooping in my locker. I have no proof that this person was the actually camp-fee thief but his testimony certainly left me with some intriguing questions. You see, this person admitted to reading one of the notes I had been left. The top one he said. I figured they were telling the truth. Someone poking around in someone’s locker isn’t going to waste a lot of time re
ading every single thing in there and I also overheard him once quoting a line from the note later. Oh yeah, he’d read it all right.’

  ‘So that was the note?’ someone asked.

  ‘No. They read a different one, but this was the top one I found when I arrived at my locker that morning, shortly after the emergency assembly. So whoever wrote it put it there after the money had been stolen, so must have seen the money in there.’

  ‘And moved it from your locker to mine!’ Pete gasped.

  ‘Exactly. It seemed that person on one hand wanted to protect me, but on the other hand wanted to cause all sorts of problems for you.’

  ‘But you say you know who planted the money in my locker? How do you know?’

  ‘This poem,’ Rex said. ‘There’s actually a pattern in it that reveals the name of who wrote the note.’

  All eyes widened.

  Rex stepped over to Melissa and held the note up to her face. ‘You.’

  ‘What?’ She shrunk back. ‘I didn’t write that!’

  ‘Oh yes, you did. Each sentence starts with a letter of your name. Read them out and it spells Melissa M.’

  Her face paled. ‘It’s a coincidence. That’s all!’

  ‘It’s handwritten. How about we compare the handwriting to your own. Think that will prove it?’

  ‘Ok, ok, I wrote the note. It was only supposed to be a love note, that’s all. But I didn’t see any money in your locker!’

  ‘Really? Then why did you lie about seeing Pete drop the money off at the office.’

  ‘What? No! That wasn’t me!’

  ‘Yes it was. I found out through a friend at the police that it was you who reported it, but yet I also did some investigations of my own and found out you were somewhere completely different when the money was handed back in. You’re a liar, Melissa. You moved that money into Pete’s locker so quit with the BS!’

  Melissa’s eyes widened and her knees started to shake. Tucker couldn’t believe what he was hearing. So it was she who had screwed up his finely tuned plan. She had stopped Rex from being arrested and thrown in jail.

  ‘Why Melissa?’ Pete asked, his eyes pained.

  Mellissa glanced around at all the faces eying her coldly. Then she spoke, her voice full of acid. ‘Because I hate your guts!’

  There was stoned silence.

  ‘I only pretended to like you. When I saw that money in Rex’s locker, I had to do something, I knew they’d do a locker search.’ She turned and faced Rex and her eyes softened. ‘I did it for you, Rex. I was trying to protect you, don’t you see? I knew that if that money was found in your locker, you’d have got into big trouble, so I put it in the locker of the guy I hated most in this school. It was never part of my plan, it just happened that way.’

  ‘So you thought that I stole that money?’ Rex asked.

  ‘Y...yes. I did.’

  ‘You framed me!’ Pete grabbed a handful of his own hair and held it tight. ‘I could have been expelled!’

  ‘You should have been.’ Melissa scowled.

  Rex peered at Melissa. ‘So you planted the money in Pete’s locker and then you reported him too, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she said her eyes cold.

  ‘That’s low,’ commented someone. ‘Really low.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ Melissa turned to leave. ‘You can all go to Hell!’ She hurried away, leaving the stunned crowds behind her.

  For a moment silence reined, but then one of the crowd spoke. ‘What a prized cow!’

  ‘I guess that’s that then,’ said someone else.

  ‘But Rex,’ Holly said. ‘Who did steal the camp fees? Could it have been her?’

  Tucker tensed up. He could see trouble looming. If Rex had worked out all that based partly on his own dodgy testimony, then he’d certainly worked out that Tucker was the guilty party and if Rex knew that, he would no doubt want to make Tucker’s life a misery for trying to get him into trouble with the police.

  Rex glanced over at Tucker then back at Holly. ‘I don’t believe it was her. Let’s just say I have my suspicions, but I can’t say for sure.’

  ‘Are you going to keep investigating?’

  ‘Nah,’ Rex said. ‘The money’s back where it belongs. The police now know that Pete was set up. The camp is going ahead and Melissa will be dealt with through the appropriate channels.’ He turned his eyes to Tucker. ‘And justice will prevail in the long run. I’m pretty confident of that.’ He smiled.

  Tucker did not like the looks of that smile.