Chapter 13

Tria arrived at the schoolyard to find Lily chatting with Chloe. “I hate books where they have a character, don’t tell you anything about them, and kill them off.”

“I know right?” Chloe agreed.

“It’s like, Ken was walking in the forest. Ken was happy. Ken fell off a cliff and died,” Lily said.

“Wait, who’s Ken?” Tria asked.

“EXACTLY!” Chloe and Lily said in unison. Tria was still looking very stumped.

“Well,” Lily said. “What have you so out-of-breath-came-here to say?” “I kinda needa talk alone with Chloe…” Tria said, hinting at Chloe. Chloe took in a sharp breath in and looked at Lily with a pleading look.

Lily took a look at Tria, and then Chloe, and then back to Tria. “Okay,” she said finally. “But, I intend to hang with both yous at break.” “Thank you,” Tria said so truthfully that it showed.

“Great, what is it?” Chloe said after Tria pulled her over to the sidewalk. “No one can know! Remember.” “Yeah, but she’s our friend, she’ll understand,” Tria said. “What I came here to say was: I know who the robber is. I can explain. I can tell you it all and my theories.”

Just then, three tall, older teenaged boys walked up to Tria and Chloe. “What crime you talking about?” One of them said and smiled. “Oh, the one with the robber who robbed over what? Four robberies? The one where a hat is left at every crime scene?” Tria gasped.

Another one of them chuckled and said, “Yeah, you kids shouldn’t be messing with the officials.” “And we’ll get to them first!” The last one said. “Where does that bring you?” All three pointed to the ground, and then they pushed Tria and Chloe onto the grass. “See you in Jail!” They said and walked away in a ‘cool’ fashion. Tria’s brain started whirring around. But, she was frozen in terror. These boys could get them in jail!

“You know what, this was a bad idea,” Tria said and shook her head. “We can get into jail for this, and we will.” Something was making Tria just so full of anger and regret. Why did I ever think this was good? Solving Crime? “I should never have agreed to…”

“No, Tria!” Chloe said kind of pleadingly. “We’re helping people all over!”

Tria started to walk away, and then she turned around to Chloe. “Well, if we get caught, I don’t know what I’ll do. YOU got me into this mess!” Then Tria left. There was no point in saying anything else to Chloe.

“But, Tria…” Chloe called after her and stomped her foot so hard on the ground it hurt.

Why? WHY? Why did I agree to this? This is her fault! “Argh!” Tria whispered.

Lily gave Tria a happy, hopeful glance when she saw her coming. “Sorry, Lily,” Tria said. “We can’t ‘hang’ today. I’m not very happy with Chloe right now.”

“Come on!” Lily said in a quiet yell. “Can I ever…” But, she would not finish her sentence. Tria had no reason to bother asking her the rest of it. This is all just useless!

To add onto her already quite bad mood, Tria’s class just happened to have a triple lesson on science, and extra history work. Yay! Tria thought. Who knew you could be sarcastic in your thoughts?

That night, Tria received a call from Lily. She had considered not answering, but a good friend should never do that. Despite feeling very cross and annoyed, Tria picked up the phone. “Yeah, hey Tria?” Lily’s voice rang out as quick as Tria picked up the phone.

“What?” Tria said in a very irritated tone.

“Do you want to talk about what happened -you know- this morning?” Lily asked.

“No,” Tria said stubbornly.

Tria could almost see Lily roll her eyes on the other side of the phone. “Well, did you ever even tell her about the overly important thing you were going to tell her?” Did I? Oh, no, darn I didn’t! Tria Thought.

“No, but I need to. Thanks so much!” Tria said quickly. She rushed to hang up and quickly dialed Chloe’s number.(Which she had memorized)

“Hello?” Chloe’s mother’s voice said.

“Hi, I really need to talk to Chloe!” Tria said so quickly it sounded desperate.

“Um, she’s in her room you know… *pause*... uh, not feeling well. Is it an emergency?”

“YES! IT IS!” Tria said, actually a bit desperately. She waited for a bit.

“What is it?” Chloe said, sounding very sad and mopey.

“Look, I’m really sorry that I was mean to you. I realize that Maybe doing this can help the community by a long way. But that is not what I need to tell you.”

“Thank you,” Chloe said, sounding a bit more solid.

“It’s about the robbery. I know why he left the hats for the last few times with bread and HOME on them. It’s because he is Bill from Bill’s Bakery!”

“You’re saying-”

“YES! I am! And we need to tell the police that before those boys do. We have a chance… if… if you want to take the risk.”

Chloe was silent for a few seconds, probably deciding what to do. “I say we do it. *sigh* It’s not our fault if we want to help others. But I completely understand if you know, don’t want to…”

Tria felt concerned. “Okay… meet me at the police station.”

Sorry about the unusually long chapter, but my head was just so full of words and I couldn't lose a single one!