Ch.2
As Sophie locked up, she glanced up the street and heaved a sigh. As she was walking home, the teenage girl noticed a policeman interviewing someone at the gas station. Being naturally curious, she walked over and asked, "What's going on sir"? "Someone broke in to Mrs. Pym's shop next to this station." He indicated the thin, sobbing woman next to him. They took all the money and some merchandise". They also bludgeoned Mr. Pym to death. Mrs. Pym looked up. "We were saving that money to send my son to college," she sobbed. How am I going to support myself and my other children without my husband"? As Sophie walked home, she pondered over this puzzling information. There had never been any crime in the small town. Sure, there were some teenagers who tried to steal for dares, but their hearts weren't in it. No one was very severe on them. But a murder? That hadn't even entered the very edges of the wildest imaginations of the most creative teenagers. She had hoped for a crime or mystery to solve, but she didn't wish it to descend on her so quickly, and she definitely didn't wish it on the small town she grew up in. She had 'planned' to travel to Liverpool, or even London to find a crime to solve. She had never wanted for it to come to her! By this time she had reached her house, a small, red brick cottage with several flowerbeds, a large, prosperous garden, and ivy covering the front. It had an iron fence surrounding the yard and garden, more to keep rabbits out instead of human thieves. All, in all, Sophie mused, a charming little home.