Chapter 6

At first break, Chloe and Tria were sitting on a bench in the corner of the school field that some middle schools use for track and field sometimes. They didn’t think to let Lily in on this little thing they were doing. Nor did they Cam or Garry. But that was ok, it was not too much of their business to know.

Chloe was making numerous points about the notes she wrote last night. They had already had an uncomfortable conversation about Tria not writing hers, but Chloe understood. Like any good friend would.

“Maybe the police just forgot about it,” Tria suggested. “Oh well,” Chloe said. “They really had forgotten about it at the time it was first mentioned. But when they were down hard with the case when Lady Emmeline lost her  twenty karat gold necklace and someone reminded the authorities, they dismissed the case as ‘just a small, easy-to-fix problem.’ But, many stores were robbed including The Gold Jewels Shop!”

“What if the police they asked was working with the robber?” Tria asked, trying to get some input in this. “Heh!” huffed Chloe. “It’s not that easy to get a police job, and I did some research on that too. The robber works alone.”

“What if the cops want the robber to rob,” Tria asked loudly. Chloe tried hard not to show her seriously-that-is-a-horrible-question face, but even Spongebob’s grandson would be able to notice.

Aww, Tria. A voice in Tria’s head said though it was her very own thoughts.  You’re asking all the wrong questions. Of course, cops don’t want robberies to happen!

Chloe opened her mouth to say something more, but the bell rang and it looked a lot like she had just failed to sneeze. It looked even weirder when Tria laughed because no one saw it except Tria, and Chloe had no idea what she looked like. It was silent from then to class.

They learned some stuff about atoms and molecules, not like they were going to be scientists, and in the next class, they learned about advanced division. Tria guessed that might help in life, but still.

“That’s what you will think!” Chloe said after school, right before the bell rang. “But when you get older, all these skills will be useful and you will have a good job.” Of course, this was coming out of Chloe’s mouth. “Every hurricane has a rainbow!”

“What if it’s not a sunny day?” Tria joked. "You can have a rainbow without light!" But, Chloe gave her a stern look, and Tria went silent. “It’s important for people to be good and focus on their work. Now I need to go, see you later.”

Chloe left off the front steps, probably going home to finish the homework that she invented. They had an odd friendship, but in good times, they were inseparable.

When Tria got to the All3way, she sat down deliberately next to Pal. He told another story where he was in Africa, exploring the unique animals and plants. This time, Tria made sure not to get too distracted and took notes about the crimes. She even did some research on her phone and started to feel like she thought it was as important as Chloe did. When Tria thought she was doing reasonably well, she ended her note in the most dramatic way and listened to Pal’s story.

This one was relatively short (relative to the other story) so Tria had time to order a milkshake and read a wish of glass. “Guess what?” Pal said loudly to Tria, a few minutes after he had finished his story. “I’m finally getting glasses!”

It just so happened that right after Pal said that, Tria took a drink of her milkshake. She immediately spat it out, and it looked like she could not believe that Pal was getting glasses.

“What?” Pal asked. “You don’t think it is a good idea?” “No, no,” Tria said, eyeing the milkshake which turned out to be a green-brownish-colour. “This milkshake just tastes horrible!” Then Pal laughed and some people around their table did too.

Tepo came rushing. “Did you throw up?” he asked quickly, a concerned look on his face. “No,” Tria said, wiping some green bubbling liquid off the table.

“She just hates the taste of your health shake like everyone else does,” A man said.

“Yeah,” said Dan. “You should take it off the menu.” “No!” Tepo said. “It’s my custom product, and it’s all that Gorgan and Dina drink here!” “Mm-hm,” Dan grunted sarcastically. “First of all, they only came once. Second, I’m the boss. Third, all the young people here-” “*Ahem* You and Tria *ahem*” Tepo interrupted. “- don’t like your horrid shake.”

Tepo looked gruff. “Fine. I’ll replace it with that Merry Carrot Meringue that I used to make.”

Suddenly the whole bar erupted with voices. “NO! DON’T!”

Chapter 5

Tria walked home from school slowly, absorbing what Chloe had told her. This was a big thing, but she or anyone she knew has never heard about this. It was a big robbery. Well, not just one, many robberies. To add onto that, the police dismissed it as something that wouldn’t happen again. That was just because from two other robbery times the robber stopped after 4 robberies. Is it legal to do that? And doesn’t a pattern become definite in 3 repeats, not two?

Tria then stopped thinking for a bit. She had already walked far passed the All3yway. Whoops.

This time when she got in, she sat at the end of Pal’s table. This way, he could tell her his stories, but he couldn’t bother her too much. When he saw her, he scooted across the bench to sit beside her. So much for that thought.

“I made up a story!” said Pal in his usual old excited voice. “It’s about me, trying to get King Tut out of being the king. Obviously, I failed, because King Tut is here now, and if I didn’t loose in my idea, Tut would not be as much of a history piece.”

“Well,” said Tria. “You’d better go on telling me before you give too much away!” Just like last time, Pal’s story was very interesting. Once the people sitting around her and Pal heard it, they fell silent to listen. By the time he was half way through, (at the part where he finds the secret tomb where “The Pal treasures” were hidden) everyone was listening and except for the occasional whisper, it was only Pal’s voice. It wasn’t even a formal story- the grammar was bad, and all stuff like that- but the story was so good, you would come from miles just to hear it.

At the end of Pal’s story, everyone clapped. “That’s the most attention you’ve got in years!” Tepo said, still clapping with his big, oil covered hands when everyone else had stopped. “And it was good!”

After that amazing story, not even Chloe would have time to brainstorm or jot down notes about the robberies before going home. That’s what Tria had come here to do, but it was already supper time and she just can’t keep being late like this.

As suspected by Tria, her mother asked her about what she was doing, staying late after school. At first, she would have said “The All3way,” quite easily. But if she told her parents, they would want to go on family trips there. They would find out that this place was really not something that they would have wanted to go to. A very old and dirty cafe filled with laughing seniors.

“Um, just volleyball after-school practice. It’s something that the school’s doing. Lily’s there too. Sorry, they didn’t send a permission form.” Tria lied nervously. The last part was right, but the truth is, Volleyball school practice starts next week, and it’s not after school. It’s at break time. “Um, next week they’re changing it to during school,” Tria added quickly, trying to cover up as much as she could.

“Great!” Tria’s mother said, handing her some leftovers of the fusilli bucati. Tria was always good at volleyball, but fusilli bucati and any other noodles never taste as good when they’re not fresh.

Chapter 4

Tria laughed when she saw Chloe the next day. She had already finished reading her mystery book and had started a new one. “What?” Chloe asked. “There’s nothing wrong with reading mystery books! This one I picked out myself. I don’t need to only be recommended.”

“Can I recommend?” Tria asked, peeking into Chloe’s backpack. It had some more mystery books in it.

“Is it mystery or science?” Chloe asked.

“No, but-” Tria started.

“I don’t know if I’d like that!”

“Well, you-”

“I gotta get going, bye,” Chloe said before abruptly leaving. Maybe she was just being stubborn. Thought Tria. Or she was having a bad day… Tria has had many encounters like this when someone would not try something new. It was like that when Ellie refused to try naan bread instead of eating pita. Her mother called it being stubborn which Tria knew more than enough about.

There was another possibility: Tria interrupting Chloe from her reading, even though Chloe isn’t usually very interested in her books. Well, her new love for mystery books may be more interesting than science and math questions that no one would even solve anyway.

During class, Chloe took out her book at any chance she got. Even at lunch, she chose a quiet table with no one else sitting on it so she could eat and read in peace. When Tria came over to sit at Chloe’s empty table, she didn’t even notice. But, when Chloe got in trouble for reading, Tria knew something was up. Chloe was always trying hr best to do as good as she could, and always follow instructions.

It was just like the time where there was a “war” they called it in school. There were two sides: against zoos, and with zoos. Chloe was with it at the start, but when it started getting personal and people were doing a type of blackmail notes, Chloe immediately realized and dropped out. For that, she was given an award at the end of the year. So, why would Chloe be so interested in this book? Tria thought Maybe she wasn’t really interested… she had something else to do with reading mystery. Chloe lying? What a hard thing to think.

Tria decided (after much debating) to ask Chloe. If she didn’t answer in exactly the way Tria wanted her to, she may have to go further with the investigation. Chloe’s life: a mystery itself.

“What’s the real reason you’re reading these books?” Tria immediately felt bad for starting this with such a  harsh question.

“What books?” Chloe stammered. “Just the mysteries you mean… not the other books-I mean uh…” This was weird. Tria peeked around Chloe and saw that she was standing in front of a pile of other books and newspapers. They were all about crime, mystery, and histories of their town, Brickwood.

“Something is up, want to tell me?” Tria asked Chloe.

Chloe then hesitated to say, “There’s a mystery and a crook going around in Brick wood.” She crumpled down further. “I want to solve this before more things get stolen.” Tria is about the same height as Chloe, but at this moment, she felt way taller.

“Now that you know about it,” Chloe said, standing up. “I could really use some help. You thought I like mystery books? Wow, I must be a great actor.”