Alice Woods rode the bus home feeling happy. In Miss Franklin's 2nd grade class they had been given the opportunity to choose a class pet. Each 7 or 8 year old was given a small piece of notebook paper to write what animal they would like to have. Alice noticed most of the girls writing down "rabbit" or "hamster" with their fancy pens that had sparkly ink.
Alice had taken a thick blue crayon and wrote in sloppy letters, "armadillo." Of course, with her education it was misspelled and her "d" was backwards but she didn't care. She gazed proudly at the word and drew a star the way their art teacher had taught them only yesterday. Up, down, up, right, and down again.
She had tugged on one of her long light blonde pigtails and given the slip to her teacher. She tugged on her pigtail again on the bus as she gazed out the window. She saw the newly harvested cornfields looking bare and brown. Her wide stony gray eyes couldn't focus as she tried to find each blade in the strip of grass that blurred as the bus zoomed by.
She felt a soft tug on her shoulder. She turned around to find her curly haired friend, Lexi, with as much anger a seven year old could have on her face.
"Alice, can you sit on the outside of the seat? Scott keeps bugging me!" Lexi asked, whining a little at the end. Alice set her knees on the seat and peeked over the edge to see Scott, a blonde haired boy in their grade snickering with one of his friends Alice didn't know the name of.
She sighed over-dramatically like she had seen people do on TV and nodded, "Okay, fine."
A few seconds after switching she noticed Scott giggle and tap her on the shoulder. Alice turned around, whipping some of her hair into her face.
"What, Scott?" She asked.
"Oh. Hi, Alice. Could you give this to Lexi?" He asked handing her a closed envelope that was crumpled and stained with a strange orange substance.
"Um, okay." She said.
Gingerly, she took the envelope and spun around to Lexi.
"Lexi, Scott wants you to have this." Alice informed her friend.
Lexi raised her eyebrows and frowned but took the envelope . She opened it and peeked inside. Suddenly a quick shriek escaped her lips and she threw the envelope to Alice. Alice heard Scott laugh as she opened it to see a little spider crawling on the inside of it. Alice shrieked much like Lexi and watched in shock as the spider started crawling up the side. She handed it to Lexi like a hot potato and watched as she shoved the envelope out of the inch sized crack the window had been opened to.
Alice watched the envelope flutter in the wind and catch onto the side mirror of a black BMW. She frowned at the car and tried to see the cars dark tinted mirrors but only saw two pale hands gripping the steering wheel.
The rest of the way home the BMW followed. She watched as Scott, his friend, and Lexi got off. Soon she was the only one on save for a few middle schoolers that seemed so tall compared to her. When it was her stop she got up from the back of the bus and ran down the aisle and down the steps.
Alice's house was placed where there were lots of cornfields and big, white, energy producing windmills were littered everywhere.
Every other field there would be another farmhouse like hers. And that's what it was. A farmhouse. Two stories plus a small basement. There was a rocky gravel driveway that led up to the gray house with black trim.
On the right of the driveway there was an area enclosed with mesh fencing. Inside of it were some trees, mostly pine save for a tall oak in the corner. Her three puppies ran to the side of the fence and yapped excitedly. She smiled and waved even though they couldn't wave back.
On the left of the driveway there was a small white tool shed with a vegetable garden behind it and some more pine trees.
She kept walking and after several meters reached the end if her driveway. Turning to the right there was a small porch with a grill and the front door hidden behind the first screen door. Turning to the left there was a lot of space and an old barn that had held horses before they moved in. Now it was just an old building that was uncared for. There were two floors. The first one had some empty horse stalls, and then there was a staircase that led upstairs were her mom and dad stored stuff.
In front of her there was a trampoline and a pool that was closed for the fall and winter. There was also a group of trees with a fire pit in the middle and some lawn chairs and hammocks around it.
"Hello, Miss Woods, I'm Gregory Mitchell." A male voice spoke.
She spun around and her eyes widened as she saw the tall, beefy man. He had brown, thinning hair and a mustache that looked like a caterpillar crawling across his face. He wore a suit and held a briefcase, he seemed a little threatening, but Alice could see warmth in his eyes.
Alice wondered what he was doing at her house. She looked past him and saw the familiar black BMW.
"Um, I'm not allowed to talk to strangers." She said quietly.
The man laughed heartily and she giggled nervously.
"It's okay, Miss Woods, I'm here to talk to your parents. Are they here?" He asked politely.
Alice tugged on one of her pigtails and nodded quickly. Suddenly the screen door open and she saw her mom walk through. She smiled at Alice but it immediately slipped into a curious frown as she saw Mr. Mitchell.
"Alice, who is this?" She asked cautiously.
Alice opened her mouth but Mr. Mitchell walked forward and held out his hand. Her mom shook it and he introduced himself.
"Hello, Mrs. Woods, I'm Gregory Mitchell. I'm here to talk to you about the loss of your brother." He smiled sympathetically.
Her mother's eyes went wide and her face went pale, "What do you mean, the loss of my brother? My brother is perfectly fine, I just visited him a few weeks ago. Poor thing was still grieving over the dissapearence of his wife and step-son."
"Ah, yes. Both have been found but just two days ago his wife reported his absence." He informed, "Can we go inside and talk about this?"
Alice's mom nodded confused and numb. She stood staring at the ground for a little while but then snapped her head up and waved for Alice.
"C'mon, darling, we're going to go talk to this nice man." She smiled but Alice saw in her eyes that she was upset and confused. Alice ran and gripped onto her mother's hand. They walked into the house, past the kitchen and into the dining room. Her mom turned the lights on and her dad got up from his place in the homemade office.
Mr. Mitchell sat down at the head of the table, her mom sat left of him and her father sat to the right of him. Alice sat at the other end of the table that her dad and her had always joked was "the butt" of the table, for if there was a head of the table there was a behind. But she doubted bringing that up now would bring any smiles.
"Lucy, honey, what's wrong?" Her dad asked her mom, using her first name.
Alice's mom bit her lip, "Uh, I'm not sure. I'm sure he'll tell us." She said looking pointedly at Mr. Mitchell.
He jumped to politeness at his mention, "Hello, I'm Gregory Mitchell." He said this while holding out his hand as he had to his mother.
Her father smiled in greeting, "Hello, I'm Nathan Woods." He shook Mr. Mitchells hand and afterwards the latter man opened his briefcase.
"My appearance is based solely on the fact that Lucy Woods's older brother has disappeared. I am a detective from his home residency of Manhatten, New York. I've come here to Briar Crest, Illinois to ask you some questions and give you some information."
"Ask away." Her dad said.
"First of all, when was the last time you saw your brother?" He asked.
Her mom answered, "A few weeks ago. I remember it being the weekend of the first week of school for Alice. That would have been on September 14th."
Mr. Mitchell asked several more questions before he switched over to ask Alice's dad some questions. He recorded everything we said on a small device that he would glance at every once and a while.
After what seemed like a hundred years to Alice, she saw his warm eyes set on her big, gray ones.
"Alice, what do you think about your uncle?" Mr. Mitchell asked.
"But, I thought we were talking about Mommy's brother." She spoke but frowned, she was still trying to get out of using "mommy" and "daddy."
Mr. Mitchell smiled in amusement, "Alice, your parents siblings are your aunts and uncles."
Alice raised her eyebrows in disbelief, "Whatever you say."
"So, can you tell me about your uncle?" He asked again, "Truthfully, what do you think of him?" He slid the recorder closer to her.
She looked at her mother, using her tongue to wiggle her loose front tooth, "Truthfully?"
"Truthfully." Her mom, dad, and Mr. Mitchell confirmed at the same time.
She hesitated and frowned, "He's mean. He treats his family badly and he smells."
"Oh?" Mr. Mitchell asked, "What you said is different than what your mom and dad said. Are you sure?"
Alice nodded, "Yes, he also drinks from these weird looking glass bottles that smell funny and make me dizzy."
"How often?" Mr. Mitchell asked, furiously writing words across a notepad.
Before she could answer, her mother interrupted her, "Sweetie, your uncle never acts like that! I don't know what you're talking about! When has he ever done any of those things?"
Alice looked at her dad and saw concern in his eyes.
Alice sighed and anxiously leaned back in her chair, "Well, it happened three times I think when I was there at least. When we go to New York for vacation. You guys always visit that one museum with art all in it that we saw one time. Whenever you go in the evening, I stay with them and he starts yelling at Auntie and tells her to do things. He hit her once on the face and she started crying. He drinks from the dizzy bottles a lot." She paused, "But he's funny too."
Mr. Mitchell stopped writing and raised an eyebrow, "How so?"
"He does this magic trick where he puts a little white stick in his mouth and lights it on fire and he makes smoke clouds like on the 4th of July. But it's way overused. I see people all the time who do that magic trick. He should find some new ones." She said this matter-of-factly.
"Is that all?"
"Nope," She said, popping the 'p', "He also plays this fun card game that he taught to me. He plays it with his friends all the time but he gets really angry when he loses, says something about going into pottery."
"Pottery?" Mr. Mitchell asked confused.
"You mean poverty?" Her dad asked.
Alice smiled, "Yeah, that's it! He taught it to me and told me I was really good at it. For some reason though, Auntie didn't want me to learn it and neither did my cousin." She thought for a while.
Her dad narrowed his eyes, "What's it called?"
Alice shrugged and changed her position so that she was on her knees, "I don't know. Something about poking people. Which is crazy because you never actually poke anyone in the game."
Alice's dad suddenly got angry, "He taught you poker?"
"Yes! That's the name! Thanks, daddy." She smiled.
Mr. Mitchell cleared his throat, "Well, obviously, we don't know as much as we thought about your brother."
"Obviously." Alice's mom said weakly, looking pale.
Mr. Mitchell stood up and looked at his watch. The sun was going down and he needed to get to his hotel room.
"Okay, I'll be going now. Is it alright if I come back tomorrow to discuss some more things with you?" Mr. Mitchell proposed.
"That would be great." Alice's mom said.
He walked to the front door with Alice's mom and dad following him. He paused and turned around.
"I think it would be best if you kept Alice home tomorrow. We need more information from her point of view and I'll send my partner to your sister-in-law and nephew to ask some more questions."
Alice's mom and dad agreed and sent him on his way. Alice's parents came and took her to the family room, sitting her down on the big sofa. They sat on either side of her.
Her mother kept Alice close to her while her father studied a newspaper that Mr. Mitchell had given him. The page he read had a lot of little words she couldn't read but she saw the picture.
It was a picture of her uncle. He was almost completely bald, except for a few black hairs atop his head that he combed back. He had beady eyes, a stubble, and wore cheap thrift-store clothes. With him was Auntie, a beautiful woman with long wavy hair that was a graying black and kind brown eyes. Next to her was her cousin, he was 12 now and had long black hair, green eyes, and tan skin.
"Hey, daddy, isn't that Uncle Gabe?" She asked.
Her dad looked up and nodded, "Yes, can you read the title?"
She squinted but the words got messed up in her head. She shook her head with a frown.
"It says, 'Gabe Ugliano Reported Missing.'" Her dad informed her.
Lucy sighed, "Oh, I wonder how Sally's holding up. And Percy must be so lost. He already lost his first father, how will he deal with this? How will they deal with this?"
Nathan shook his head, "I don't know, maybe after this detective thing blows over we could go visit them."
Lucy nodded, "Yes, that'll be good. I'll go call her now."
Alice frowned and pointed to the boy with the green eyes, "You mean Uncle Gabe isn't Percy's real dad?"
Her dad shook his head, "No, Sally says he was lost in a sea voyage."
"Should I have not said anything to Mr. Mitchell?" She asked her dad.
Her dad set down the newspaper and picked her up and set her in his lap, "Alice, you did perfectly fine. I wish you had told us about this before though. Why didn't you?"
Alice shrugged, "It never came up, I guess."
Her dad accepted it while Alice thought back to about a year ago when they had visited Uncle Gabe.
Sally and Gabe were having an arguement. If that's what you could call it. More like Gabe yelled at Sally while Sally tried desperately to obey him. Alice and Percy were in his room, trying to block out the noise from outside.
Percy was working on some math homework that Alice couldn't even begin to understand, but from the looks of it, neither could he. He sighed and gave up.
Alice enjoyed Percy's company. He was always nice and seemed to have something to say about everything. Once he called their house just to talk to Alice. They were both younger then. Alice in kindergarten and him in 4th grade. He told her about how he had gone to an aquarium when the overhead tank broke and they got soaking.
They both laughed about his teacher getting a small fish stuck down her shirt. He then told her how he had been expelled and got upset about it, not because he couldn't go to the school, but because he was disappointing his mother. She found it very sweet.
But now Percy was just upset about Gabe.
"I'm sorry about this." He had said.
"About what? You're not that bad at math." She reassured.
He smiled goofily, "No, I mean about them fighting. I don't mean to be rude or anything but you're uncle's a jerk."
Alice furrowed her eyebrows, "Is that what he is? A jerk?"
Percy nodded solemnly, "If you weren't here, Smelly Gabe might actually be throwing things."
They both her glass breaking against the door.
"Nevermind." Percy said with a sigh.
Alice smiled slightly at Percy's nickname, Smelly Gabe, but scooted closer to the corner from the crash.
"Why does he do this?" She asked him.
He sighed, "I don't know. Some people are just bad."
"Are my mommy and daddy bad?" She asked.
He shook his, "No, the jerkness doesn't seem to run in the family. You've got it good." He frowned.
They sat in silence until Percy spoke up, "Promise you won't tell anybody about Smelly Gabe and us. Promise you won't tell anyone about how bad he is?"
"Why?" She asked.
"Promise?" He asked, not answering her question.
She sighed, "Pinky promise."
They linked pinkies and they never spoke of it again.
She wondered what Percy was doing now. He might be celebrating the fact that Smelly Gabe was gone or he might be going normally through life. But she was suspicious about what the Jackson family was doing now.
And, truthfully, she wanted to know.
Hello :3 . . . It's KreatyveKookie, a select few of you may know me by AnonymousMidget99 - the author who made Memories (on hiatus) Well, anyway I'm hoping this idea is pretty original. I tried to reveal who Alice's uncle, aunt, and cousin were at the end so that you guys would be sort of confused.
Anyway if you didn't get it Smelly Gabe is Alice's uncle on her mother's side. (I did this so her last name wouldn't be Ugliano - that would suck.)
I hope I didn't "steal" anybody's idea by making this . . . I didn't see anything like this, but then again, there are too many stories on her to count. :)
You may be wondering where I got this idea . . . like WTH? When did Smelly Gabe get tied back into this? Well, honestly, I go onto here and I look through the characters and try to think of original stories for most of them. This is just one of the ideas I had when I looked at Gabe Ugliano's name . . . so, yeah.
Hoped you liked it!
~KreatyveKookie
P.S. Please review down there vvv. Just click that little button or write in that box or whatever they're doing these days . . . :P
Thanks! :3