5: Disappearing Act
It seemed like just another ordinary day when Ariel Jones woke up, but since the last two, she knew much better. She was expecting strange things to happen today, and she had a tingling feeling that she and Will were going to have a lot of their lingering questions answered.
Will. As she got ready for school, that was all she thought about. William Chesterton, her best friend of the past six years, and her crush of the last eight, ever since he transferred to her primary school for grades four-six. Back then, she had been much too shy to talk to him and they had slowly become friends as she realized he wanted to talk to her, completely opening up into the bubbly person she was today in their final year of primary school. She went over all this in her mind with a mixture of joy and hopelessness. The former because he made her really happy and respected her as a person and trusted her as a close friend. The latter because she was convinced that he had no interest in her romantically; and as for the last few years of high school, when hormones began to run wild, he had shown little to no interest in the subject of girls, which either meant he had some veiled crush on some girl outside of school, or he didn't swing that way. She wasn't sure which one would be more disappointing.
There were two instances that merited some sort of non-platonic occurrence, the first being an awkward kiss in a grade four school production, which they had both been embarrassed about at the time and laughed about once they got to high school. The second was the previous day, in which she had pressed him against a wall to interrogate him further about the mysterious man, getting a little too close for comfort in the process, to the point where she briefly considered telling him her feelings, but, seeing the look of confusion on his face, backed out by instead whispering in his ear that he was "the best friend a girl could ask for", kissing him on the cheek, regretting the last part when he turned bright red with embarrassment, and hurried away with some excuse about needing to go to the office. Luckily, he didn't mention the incident in English or when they were discussing the strange events in his room, which either meant that it was okay, or he was embarrassed and didn't want to mention it in case they both felt awkward.
These thoughts took her out of the house and down the road towards school; where, exiting the front gate in a daze, wrapped up in her ponderings, she walked right into the subject of said ponderings, waiting outside her gate.
"Oof, hey Ariel" he said, giving that charming smile of his.
"Hey Will, sorry didn't see you there." she replied, embarrassed.
"It's all good, let's get to school."
They walked in the gate together just as the bell rang, and made their way to their lockers hurriedly. Ariel and Will had Maths together, and they did not want to be late; for the wrath of Mrs Buckingham was legendary. Ariel spent most of her class-time daydreaming about Will, the mysterious events they were investigating and back to Will. Come lunchtime, she was determined to meet this elusive man. Grabbing her lunch, she could see Will beginning to close his locker door and did her usual routine of timing it just right so that when Will closed the door, she was right behind it.
"Hey." he grinned his charming grin, and her insides fluttered.
"Hey." she replied, grabbing his arm and dragging him outside.
"Where are we going?"
"To the storage shed, where else?"
"It's not gonna be there."
"It's worth a look."
"I guess."
Ariel snuck up to the door of the storage shed, tugging Will along behind her. Her hand closed around the doorknob, and for one brief moment the air was crackling with anticipation as she slowly turned the knob, pushing the door open to reveal…
Nothing. Absolutely, irrevocably, nothing. Aside from the usual junk that was always there, the space where Will had seen the blue police box was completely empty.
"I told you it disappeared!" he said, exasperated.
"It didn't disappear." Ariel replied, her voice tinged with disappointment.
Will looked confused, "Of course it did, there is nothing there."
"No. I know that, but from what you described, it didn't disappear…" she paused briefly, as if to build suspense, "it dematerialized."
"Well, it would be really great if we could materialize some answers."
"We just have to be patient. He'll turn up again, I just know it."
After school they walked home together as usual, Ariel theorizing about who the man was, and how his box could "dematerialize", where he was from, etcetera. Will pitched in occasionally, but he mostly left it to Ariel, who had an overactive imagination.
"Ooh! Maybe he's an alien!"
"Oh come on Ariel, don't be ridiculous."
"Okay, okay, I'm just saying."
Unbeknownst to the pair, a man stood hidden behind the fence of a house they were passing; watching them, listening to Ariel's wild theories. A tall, oddly dressed man with floppy hair.