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!”