Long chapter, this is. Sorry if it sucks. I'm really out of inspiration. PLEASE review, tell me it sucks, but please NO FLAMES, just give me constructive criticism. So, favorite and review(:

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Saturday.

The beautiful day of no stress, right?

Wrong.

My mom had ruined any chance of me getting a good night sleep. I sat on my bed and wrote in my diary. This was probably the only girlish thing I did. It was the only way I could get everything out. After quitting gymnastics when I got seriously hurt, I had no way to express myself. Nothing to be really passionate about. I wrote down the facts that I knew.

My parents knew everything.

I compared my parents to how they used to be. They used to always argue, fight, and throw things. I had never found that uncommon. I mean, I had watched movies where parents fought, and a few friends parents always fought. Now, they were perfectly in love. They were always on good terms, and trying to spend time with me.

Right now, that was the biggest mystery of my life. I pulled out my story notebook and wrote more about what I had found out about Iggy. Putting Iggy on paper was the hardest thing I had ever done. He was sarcastic, but never open. He was funny, but never stupid. He was dangerous but never careless. Putting him into a character in a story was something I had to achieve.

This only frustrated me.

So, I did something stupid. I reached under my bed and looked at the paper that was about the experiment. The only thing clear about this was that the experiment had human-like features. Maybe it wasn't a human. Maybe it was a cute bunny or even a mutated mouse. Humanized mice, woohoo!

I read through it and there were several dates. The date it was first experimented on, the date it got sick, the date it progressed and random mumbo jumbo. I grabbed my laptop and went to Google. Google in this town was limited. I searched the date and there was information about the library reopening and a festival that had occurred in this town.

The last link on the page stated, "GIRL DROWNED IN WILLIAMSHAM LAKE." Williamsham lake was just outside of town, and several people went there for picnics on Sundays. I clicked the link.

PAGE BLOCKED. You do not have access to this page.

I became even more frustrated. I took a deep breath.

So, I decided to go to the only place that I could think of. The only place that probably had unlimited internet access.

I was standing in front of Iggy's house. I knocked on the door, and this time it was Nudge who opened it.

"I'll grab Max," she said.

"I'm here for Iggy," I hoped I didn't sound rude. She shrugged her shoulders and told me I could go up to his room.

I wandered upstairs and just outside of his door was a black feather, with a white one next to it. Where did these feathers come from? Didn't Iggy say he had a sick bird? I hadn't seen a bird anywhere. I leaned over and picked it up. They were soft, clean, and large. These weren't little parakeet feathers. These were eagle sized. I slipped them into my back pocket, promising myself to check them out later.

Iggy was lying on his bed, playing around on his laptop. Gazzy was on the floor, using the other laptop.

"Dude, you shot me!" Gazzy yelled, and then looked up at me. "I'll go play in the other room." He winked at Iggy and then walked out. Strange kid.

"Do you have unlimited internet access?" I asked.

Iggy didn't flinch even though I was sure he hadn't known it was me who had walked in.

"Yeah," Iggy said.

"How do you play video games when you are blind?" I asked.

"Practice."

It didn't make any sense to me, but I laid down next to him on the bed, "I think I found something on the experiment but the web page is blocked on my laptop."

Iggy hesitated, "I thought we forgot about this whole experiment thing."

"I can't, Iggy," I sighed, taking his laptop from his hands, "I'm sorry but it's driving me crazy. Something is going on here. Do you agree with me?"

Iggy hesitated, like he did agree but didn't want to admit it. "I can't say anything." He sighed, "Let's just not dig too deep."

Iggy sounded tired, as if he had been up all night. There were bags under his pale eyes. His eyes really were beautiful. I blushed for even thinking it, and went to Google and searched the same thing. I clicked on the link, and an article appeared.

The article had a huge picture. I pulled out the experiment paper and the description of the experiment was exactly the same as the girl.

"Iggy..." I muttered, suddenly worried. I didn't want it to be a human subject to this experiment. I read the article out loud, "On Friday, July 20th, 12-year-old Elizabeth Tally, a town native, drowned in the lake just outside of town. It was a tragic accident. Iggy, how could they keep this quiet? I'm pretty sure no one knew about this. I never even met an Elizabeth Tally. She couldn't have been from here but this says she was a native to here."

"August 9th? That's the day before the new mayor came around," Iggy said, mostly to himself. I hadn't thought about that. He was right. That was the day before the mayor had come into power. No one knew what had happened to the old mayor. He had just disappeared.

"I think we should visit the cemetery," I decided, giving his laptop back, "Iggy, can you please help me out here. Something is going on here."

"Maybe the Tally's were a low key family," Iggy said, trying to convince me to not go crazy and do something stupid.

"I've been here my whole life. I know everybody," I replied, "Tally's have never lived here. Let's visit the cemetery, and if her grave isn't there, then the mayor is really hiding something from us."

"What brought this on?"

"My parents know I watched CSI last night. Iggy, how did they know?" I sighed. I wasn't freaking out, like you might think I was. I kept a chill tone, and kept my voice steady.

Iggy sighed, "I don't know." He said it in a tone that made me think he did know. "I can't help you with this. I'm helping my sister with a huge project."

"What project?" I asked, "Maybe I could help."

He shook his head.

"Please, just for today?" I suggested, ready to negotiate. He sighed and said only for today. We got out of bed.

Man, that sounds bad.

We slipped out of the house and went to the cemetery. The cemetery was small, gated and not very fancy. No one ever took care of the overgrown grass and rotting gravestones.

"Good thing this place is small," I looked at the name on a gravestone and the date. We would be looking for a new gravestone.

"I'm not going to be much help," Iggy stated.

"You are here for moral support, and besides, I'm scared to be here alone," I said, being completely honest. I had tried my hardest to avoid the cemetery at all costs.

"It's the middle of the day," Iggy snorted. I shoved him and he fell onto a gravestone. Fortunately, he didn't get hurt. I walked and looked at each name. After an hour, I had looked at every single name. Iggy had spent the hour being loud and sarcastic, and making dead people jokes.

He fell quiet when he realized how serious I was. "Her grave isn't here."

"Maybe they buried her somewhere else?"

"This is the only place any native would be buried," I stated, "We need to go to the town hall. They have their list of citizens there."

"They have them open to the public?"

I nodded, "We do a lot of town projects and school projects where we need to have the list of who lives here." It was only a five minute walk to the town hall, where we asked to see a list of citizens for the month of July and August. "It's for a school project," I lied, showing her my school ID, and felt bad to lie to the old woman who worked at the front desk.

She handed the lists and we went to a table and read it over.

"Oh my gosh, they did live here," I gasped, looking over at the names of Paul and Jessica Tally. There was not no mention of Elizabeth Tally. I looked at the address. That address seemed really familiar, but I didn't remember why. "Why isn't Elizabeth Tally listed as a citizen? This was posted July 2nd. She didn't die until the end of July."

Iggy had to admit this was strange. "Maybe they forgot to put in a name."

"A name of a soon-to-be dead girl?" I asked sarcastically, "Are you saying that is a coincidence?"

Iggy shook your head, "Maybe we should let this go. This is probably not even a big deal."

I shook my head and then looked at this month's list of citizens. The Tally's were not listed anymore. "They moved. Why don't I remember them? I've hosted middle school events, carnivals, and been to town meetings. Tally's have never showed up."

Iggy sighed, "Okay, you got me interested. I want to help you solve this."

This made me smile. I liked working with Iggy. And most of all, this felt like a realistic mystery movie or book.

"So, where is Elizabeth Tally's body and why isn't she listed in the citizenship list?" I wondered aloud.

I walk ed with Iggy back to his house, discussing the options.

"Perhaps she is really a man disguised as a young girl, and he had to fake his death and..." Iggy said, and I laughed. His theories were crazy, but I loved hearing about them.

I stayed on his front door and he stepped inside and closed the door. I didn't move for a second. Maybe we could hang out of the rest of the evening. I was about to knock on the door when I heard Iggy say, "We can't keep it from her forever. She's getting closer."

He had been talking to Max, both of them must have been standing right on the other side of the door. I stood there, wondering what they were talking about.

So, they do have a secret, I thought, and walked down the driveway, and down the road. I pulled out the feathers, and thought about what we had learned today.

This town has a secret.

Iggy and his family has a secret.

I was going to find out.