Year 9 Sisters - A Mel, Tab, Mewla & Cathy story

Chapter Five


  Cathy and Tab came over for tea that evening and we all discussed what had happened that day. Purbelle had gone home in tears. We had all tried to get on with our Chemistry as best we could for the rest of the day, but Mrs Mewlham understood that we were all a bit shaken and didn't pressure us too much. She had been very disgusted that a thief had been in the lab during break - that was something that had not been known in the school for a very long time.
  Our Mum and Dad were also very shocked that so many of us had lost their jewellery.
  "Well surely they should be doing something?" Mum said, handing out slices of roast beef.
  "Well Mr Mewan said he was going to speak to the Head and that he's get back to us." Cathy said, ladling gravy over her roast potatoes.
  "Oh, what good will that do?" said Dad, shaking his head.
  "Well, hopefully something." Mewla said, her mouth full of roast potato.
  "To be honest I'm not sure what good it will do unless the Head is going to physically search everyone's bags, but still." I said.
  "Well if he was going to search everyone's bags, he should have done it today." Tab said, as she munched on her roast beef. "No-one is going to have the stolen stuff on them tomorrow, are they?"
  "Exactly." Dad said. "In cases like that you have to act right away."
  After tea we couldn't decide what to do, so we agreed on going for a walk in the snow. We wrapped up warm and took torches with us, as we had decided to wander up the lane to the pond, and the streetlights stopped halfway up the lane.
  "Be careful!" called Mum. "Have you got your phones?"
  "Yes!" I called, as we left the house. "See you later!"
  The snow was falling gently as we made our way up the avenue and over the fence to the lane. Cathy was still going on about the jewellery and how angry she was about it.
  "I mean - how can we ever get our things back now?" she said. "There's no chance or way of finding out who did it!"
  "We don't have cameras up round those labs do we." Mewla said, thinking. "If we did it would be OK."
  "And we can't narrow it down to whoever was having science classes that morning because anyone could have come into the science block from outside." Tab mused.
  "It really does seem hopeless." Cathy said. "Short of hoping we see our jewellery on someone."
  "Do you think it could have been someone in our class?" I said. "I mean - I know we're all friends but..."
  "I know - it would have been anyone." Cathy said. "That's what I thought at the time - all our class knew that we had our stuff in our bags - it would have been so easy to pinch it."
  "But everyone seemed to have - well, an alibi, if you like to call it that." Tab said.
  "Hmmm." Cathy said. "Alibis aren't always what they seem though."
  Mewla suddenly stopped.
  "Ssshhh!" she hissed. We all went quiet and stopped walking.
  "What?" Tab whispered.
  "I heard something." Mewla said. "A rustling - in the bushes."
  We all looked round. It suddenly felt a little eerie in the dark lane, with the snow falling and the bushes and trees on either side of the road. Then there came another rustle in the silence, and without thinking, we all held paws and ran away down the lane, back to our avenue. When we got back to the houses and streetlights, we stopped hurrying and started to laugh. We felt rather silly for legging it away down the lane.
  "You realise it was probably an owl or something." Cathy grinned.
  "Probably." Mewla laughed. "Come on - let's go down to the park or something - we can sit on the swings and chat."
  We wandered down the avenue to the main road and went along to the park. The park was completely snowed over and the large expanses of normally grassy areas were thick with white, smooth snow. We went and brushed the snow off the swings and sat down on them, swinging gently. We carried on talking about school for a while, and how sorry we felt for poor Purbelle, who really thought the world of Mewlarka. Suddenly Cathy stopped talking and pointed.
  "Look! Over there!"
  We looked to where she pointed, and saw a figure in the shadows, hurrying along the back of the park.
  "Wonder who that is?" Tab said.
  The person was short and fairly slim, and looked by his/her build to be about the same age as us. In the shadows of the back of the park, we saw the person climbing over the low fence there.
  "They're going onto the school path!" Cathy said.
  There is a rough track at the back of the park that leads all the way along to Tibcot Comp, and comes out of the bushes on the school fields. None of us use the path - it is usually far too overgrown in the summer and muddy in the winter.
  "They must be going to Tibcot - there's no way off that path to anywhere else." Tab said. "Weird."
  "Hey - shall we follow them?" Cathy grinned wickedly. "Come on - it's only half eight - it'll give us something to do!"
  We got off the swings and hurried across the snowy grass to to the fence, where we climbed quickly over and found ourselves ankle deep in thick snow on the path. One set of small footprints led along the path into the darkness. Getting caught on bare twigs and branches as we went, we followed the set of footprints along the path. We couldn't see the person we were following.
  We got to the school fields after about fifteen minutes, and forced our way through the thick bushes and trees to the edge of the field, which was perfectly white with thick snow.
  "Look!" Cathy pointed at the figure going across the field. "They're going to the school!"
  "It must be a pupil that knows their way to an entrance!" Tab said, as we hurried across the field after the dark figure. "Look - they're going round towards the Art block!"
  The dark figure cut round the side of the PE block and disappeared from sight. We crossed the field quickly and hurried up towards the PE block. What had started off as a bit of fun following someone had turned into a mystery - who was this person going into the school at night?
  "Will any of the doors be unlocked?" Mewla said, as we hurried round the PE block.
  "I don't know." Cathy said. "I'm trying to think - not sure if the Humanities door will be open. Or maybe even the main building. I doubt it very much though."
  There was no sign of the person when we rounded the PE block and hurried on to the main path that ran between the buildings.
  "They could have gone anywhere." I said, looking round. The tall lights either side of the paths were lit brightly.
  "Well none of the huts will be open." Cathy said. "Best to try the main building I guess."
  We went along the main path to the main building, but the big doors were locked.
  "Damn." Cathy shook them. "Now where?"
  "Let's go round to the science block entrance." I suggested. The science block was part of the main building, but there were other doors round the other side, near the gym and the tech huts. We hurried back along the path and off to the side, round the gym, past the tech huts and along the small path that led round to the science labs. Those doors were locked too.
  "For God's sake." muttered Cathy.
  "Look!" Mewla clutched at us. "The gym door! We can get in there!"
  The old door that led to the girls' changing rooms was closed, but not closed properly. It had always been a bit of a funny door, with a latch that did not catch properly, but just banged shut. If you didn't know it you wouldn't realise that it wasn't properly closed.
  "Let's go!" Cathy said.
  We hurried across the snowy path and Cathy flung open the gym door.
  "I wonder if the person came in here?" Tab said, looking round. The girls' changing rooms were dark, cold and slightly creepy. Cathy flashed her torch around and then carried on across to the door which led through to the gym. There was a passage along from the gym that led to the main hall too, as the gym was part of the main building.
  Tab looked into the gym and shone her torch round.
  "Nothing here." she said.
  "Let's go down to the hall." Cathy said.
  We hurried along the passage to the door at the side of the hall, and crossed the large, empty hall.
  "Look!" Mewla pointed to the wooden floor. "Spots of water!"
  "Melted snow, probably." Tab said. "So the person DID come this way!"
  "Come on!" Cathy pulled us over to the hall's main doors and we stepped out into the large main walkway, which led along to the science labs and some of the computer tech rooms, on the top floor.
  "Does anyone else get the feeling that this person went to the labs?" Tab asked uneasily, as we made our way quietly along the corridor, flashing our torches every so often.
  "Possibly." Cathy said. "We'll look."
  We checked all the labs on the ground floor but they were all locked. The ones on the first and second floors were all locked too. We didn't see or hear anyone at all, and there was no sign of anything forced or broken.
  "It's a mystery." Cathy said, leaning against the locked door of our Chemistry lab. We had checked every door. "What do we do now?"
  "Well there's no point checking all the other blocks and rooms outside, because they'll all be locked." Mewla said. "It's only by chance that we got in anyway."
  "True." Tab said.
  "Well I think we can assume that the person definitely came into the main building." I said. "But why - and where did they go?"
  "Should we ring the police?" Mewla said, looking at us.
  "I'm not sure." Cathy said. "I mean - yes I suppose we should, but I think there's something funny going on - I mean, we saw that person - just one person on their own, with no bags, or anything to force any doors or windows - it seems odd to me that one person would come to burgle the school, with no equipment or anything with them."
  "Cathy's right." Tab said. "But what else could they have been doing?"
  "No idea." I shrugged. "Maybe someone left something behind after class and came back to get it."
  Cathy laughed.
  "I doubt that, Mel." she said. "You know what - I want to investigate this more. Let's not ring the police - let's see what happens tomorrow first. If there are any signs of someone breaking in or pinching anything, the teachers will soon find out."
  So it was decided that we would not report our little adventure, but try to look into it ourselves. We left the school soon after that. We saw or heard no sign of anyone on our eay out either. We decided to leave via the front of the school instead of traipsing along the snowy path behind the fields again. So, tucking our torches into our pockets, we set off along the main road, glad to be under the brightness of the streetlights once more. It was quite late by the time we got back to our homes. We hugged outside our houses, then Tab crossed the avenue to hers, and Cathy hurried off up a few doors to hers, yelling to us that she would call for us at ten past eight next morning.
  Mum wasn't too bothered that we were a bit later than we had said we'd be.
  "Purbelle rang for you." she said, as we pulled off our snowy jackets and hung them up. "About an hour ago. I told her you'd call her when you got home."
  "Oh, OK." I said. "Thanks Mum."
  We went upstairs and into my bedroom, where I picked up the cordless phone and dialled Purbelle's number.
  "It must be about Mewlarka." Mewla said, slumping herself in my comfy chair by the desk.
  Purbelle answered the phone.
  "Hello? Oh, Mel - hi!"
  "Mum said you called." I said. "We were just out having a walk."
  "That's cool, I just called to tell you about Mewlarka." Purbelle said. "She came round to see me after we went home from school. Said she'd gone home after the business at school, and spent the whole afternoon thinking about how stupid she'd been by having a go at all of us in class."
  "Did she?" I said.
  "Yes - she was really apologetic and said she didn't know what had come over her." Purbelle said. "Apparently she's having some trouble at home - her older brother is causing problems for their Mum and Dad, and it's been making Mewlarka stressed. Plus, she said that she's very worried about the Science week because she feels that she's not very good at any of the Sciences."
  "But why keep taking it out on us?" I said. "Don't put up with it, Purbelle."
  "But she's my best friend." Purbelle said. "If she's having problems I can't just ignore her."
  "Just be careful." I said. "I don't like seeing you upset, and every time Mewlarka starts on you, you get upset. I think she's being very heartless, to be honest."
  "Hmm, well..."
  "Just because she has problems at home doesn't mean that she has the right to make your life a misery." I said. "You're always there for her to pick up the pieces, and she knows that."
  "But she is genuinely sorry." Purbelle insisted. "She even brought me flowers this afternoon."
  Someone shouted in the background.
  "Sorry Mel - I've got to go, Mewfal wants to use the phone." Purbelle said. "I'll see you tomorrow, OK?"
  "Yes." I said. "So can we assume that you and Mewlarka are friends again?"
  "Yep." Purbelle said. "Hehe - for the moment, anyway."
  She rang off cheerily and left me to explain to Mewla what had happened.
  "If you ask me, Mewlarka has got her right where she wants her." Mewla said. "Purbelle is happy as long as Mewlarka is friends with her, and it looks as if she will forgive anything just to keep the peace."
  "Yes." I said. "It's a very sweet nature to have, but she'll end up getting hurt, I think."
  "Possibly." Mewla said.
  "It seems cruel to be talking about a classmate like this." I said. "I mean - we've known Mewlarka for almost three years now, but at the moment she just seems so... not herself."
  Mewla yawned.
  "I'm going to bed." she said. "I want to have a look over my Chemistry notes before I go to sleep."
  "OK, see you tomorrow." I said. "Up bright and early for a day of Physics!"
  "Yeah, whatever." Mewla grumbled, grinning.


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