Questions Asked, No Answers
"Do you think that story's really true?" Allison asked later that night as they sat down to dinner in the great hall. "There couldn't have actually been a-murder here."
"I don't know," Tawny sighed, "and seriously, I'm really worrying about Louis and Twitty! Something isn't right, and we're not doing anything about it!"
"If you're that worried, let's just go ask someone about it," Allison suggested. "I'm sure they're just exploring somewhere and trying to drive us nuts as well."
"Well, we should ask."
The two girls stood up and decided to try the kitchen, where the cook, Sophie was busy preparing more food for the hungry teenagers. Sophie apparently was the only adult around at the moment.
"Excuse us, Sophie?" Tawny asked hesitantly.
"What'd you want?" She demanded, in a rather southern accent, something the girls wouldn't have expected.
"We-we were just w-wondering i-if you knew where our friends were," Allison added hurriedly.
"No." The answer was gruff.
Tawny and Allison rolled their eyes.
"Are you sure, Sophie?" Tawny asked. "Because they've been missing, and we meant to ask Miss Pateer—"
"NO!" Sophie bellowed. "And it's Miss Dunlap to you!"
"Sorry, Mi-Miss Dunlap," Tawny replied meekly. She took a step away from Sophie. "Sorry we bothered you."
When they came back into the great hall, all of the faces of the once chewing kids, were staring wide-eyed at Tawny and Allison, having heard Sophie's yelling.
"What was that about?" A boy name Ryan asked Tawny as she took her seat.
"Oh, oh nothing," she replied as casually as possible. "Soph—Miss Dunlap, is just having a bad day. That's all."
"Whatever." Ryan went back to his dinner plate.
>>>>
"Seriously, how the heck are we supposed to get out of here?" Twitty brushed back some of his hair and quickly eyed the room he and Louis were trapped in.
The room was a pale, paint peeling pink, with an old looking crib, which was made of chipped white wood. There were dust-covered objects sprawled out on a musty wooden floor. The objects were hard to make out though.
"Hey, check this out." Louis kneeled.
There was a spot on the room where it was clear and in fact, shiny.
Louis examined it, and realized that on the spot, there was a small, small body tracing made out of masking tape. It was so tiny.
"Hmm, must be part of the murder mystery," he said, smiling. He stood up. "So, how are we supposed to get out of here?"
Twitty shrugged. "I dunno, Lou."
"Oh, I've got an idea," Louis replied casually heading toward the locked door.
After tugging at the knob one more time, he began pounding on the door, yelling and screaming.
"HELP, HELP, HELP!" He yelled, and Twitty joined in.
>>>>
"Do you hear something?" Tawny asked Allison.
The room the two girls were sharing was near the room where Louis and Twitty were being held hostage.
Allison shrugged. "It sounds like—screaming?"
"I knew I didn't like violence." Tom appeared at their doorway. He shivered. "What do you think? Shall we, investigate?" He emphasized this sentence with a little karate action.
Tawny grinned. "I wouldn't say that, Tom, but I do think we should ask Miss Pateer. If we can even find her."
Taking in a deep breath, she, Allison, and Tom ventured out of the room and into the long hallway, which again, seemed to have changed one way or the other since the last time they'd gotten a good look at it.
Quietly tip-toeing down the flights of stairs, they ran into some friends here and there, but had no time to chat. No one had seen Miss Pateer lately, and this made them feel a sliver ofsuspicion.
"Miss Pateer?" Allison asked as the trio stepped down the last flight of stairs into the parlor.
"Yes, darling?" A high voice answered from one of the large sofas.
"Hi," Tawny began, reaching the bottom of the steps. "Um, we were just wondering, have you seen our friends? They disappeared and we're really worried about what happened to them."
A worried expression appeared on Miss Pateer's face. "When's the last time you saw them?"
"Well, a few minutes into the tour. I think they may have gotten lost in one of those long hallways."
"Well don't you worry, love," Miss Pateer replied, standing up. "I'll alert the staff and we'll be on the lookout. I'm very close to my associates. Now, you three had better get off to bed. The mystery starts tomorrow."
"Okay, thank you," Allison uneasily.
They turned on their heels and headed up the stairs, and Tawny noticed that Miss Pateer didn't seem to budge. She merrily smiled and sat back down.
Puzzled she shook her head and caught up with Allison and Tom.
"What was that?" Tawny asked.
Allison shrugged.
"I hope I can get to sleep tonight," Tom sighed, "We were supposed to reveal whetheror not we werethe murderer."
"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten all about that," Tawny said. "It'll just have to wait."
"Are you sure the boys might just be in their room?"
"I already checked," Tom replied, yawning. "Well, I'd better try toget some sleep. Goodnight, all."
Tawny and Allison back mumbled their goodnights, and headed further into the house to their bedroom.
>>>>
"Well, this'll be fun," Twitty said, brushing at a piece of dust that had landed on his nose. "Spending a whole week, locked in some room!"
Louis rubbed his knuckles, which had gotten soar from pounding on the door so much. "I wish Ren were here."
"What did you just say?"
"Well, she's supposed to make sure we all have fun, and she's not doing a great job of it at the moment," Louis huffed.
Twitty shrugged. "Too bad."
"Yep."
"I wonder what the other guys are doing right now," Twitty wondered aloud.
"Probably snoozing, or trying to. They're all excited for the murder mystery to start."
"Oh that's right!" Twitty exclaimed. "We were supposed to tell each other our characters."
"Oh, what the heck?" Louis replied, leaning in. "Are you the murderer, Alan Twitty?"
"Not that I know of," Twitty smiled slyly, "and you?"
Louis began to answer, but was interrupted by a high wailing noise.
"Ahh!"
"What was that?"
"I don't know," Louis said, breathing deeply.
A pair of footsteps were heard on the staircase to the room.