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Officer Borsch was still trying to restrain Mr. Sheffield. So, I held Casey's hand and slowly descended down the creaky staircase.
The staircase was surprisingly long, and it made several turns. It was dark on the staircase. I squeezed Casey's hand. My palms were sweating with anticipation.
The staircase ended at a surprisingly big room that had a taller ceiling than I had imagined. Bright lights flashed on plants in the middle. The sides of the room were pitch-dark. Despite those lights, the room was creepy as ever.
I smelled the plants. They smelled horrible. Marijuana, I knew at once. There was a small, disgusting worktable on the side.
"Let's split up and look around," I whispered to Casey. He nodded and we began our reconnaissance. I went over to the worktable first. It had those syringes with needle-thin points. The syringes were filled with orange liquid. I picked up a notebook on the desk. I was about to open and read, but something moved in the shadows of the sides of the room.
Someone.
"Just who do you think you are?" Gwen Sheffield stepped out, her eyes red. Her hair was messed up and she had a marijuana joint in her fingers. Her makeup was messed up, making her look like some nightmare-ish bride of Frankenstein. Yep, this was the gossip-blogger.
"Hey, Gwen… it's Sammy." I put the book down on the table, carefully, keeping my eyes on her freakish red ones.
"Leave, Sammy," she hissed. Man, this girl was really stoned.
"Ok, I'll leave." I put my hands up. Bad move, because Gwen leaned over and punched me real hard in the stomach-area.
I let out a cry of pain, loud enough for Casey to hear on the other side of the room. He screamed my name and began to run over to me.
I was surprised at how much Gwen's punch hurt. This girl could hardly even get on the pull-up bar in P.E., much less deliver an extremely painful punch to my stomach. I tried to get over the pain as I did the same arm-bending thing that I did on Heather. Gwen struggled, and this delivered even more pain to my stomach.
"Help!" I groaned. Casey replaced my hand with his, still holding Gwen's hands behind her back. My stomach really hurt. I tumbled to the ground, gasping from the weight of the wind she knocked out of me. Something sharp pricked my back. I picked it up.
It was a small earring that had a unique orange gem. One that I've only seen on one person in my whole life.
Heather.
"Sammy! Are you alright? Do we need to go back to the hospital?"
"NO! I mean, noooo," I tried smoothly. I couldn't leave. I needed to get more information. It wasn't all because I wanted Heather to get in jail (but that was a pretty big part of it), but I just wanted to solve the mystery! It's just a natural thing for me. It's like I can't stop until every puzzle piece is in the right place. Psycho, I know, but that's just who I am.
But my stomach did hurt a lot. I felt wet coming from my ribs. Blood. I had to scope this place out fast, and then get back to the hospital to rest my achin' bones.
I quickly zippered up my jacket so Casey wouldn't see the blood. I stumbled over to where Casey was still holding Gwen's arms behind her back. I held out the orange gem earring for Casey to see.
"Definitely Heather's. She's been here," he informed me.
Gwen tried to protest, but it came out as a jumble of words and nonsense. Then she threw up, right on the walls. It smelled rank. I walked towards the marijuana plants. Between those two stinks, I couldn't quite tell which one was worse.
Gwen started to remember that she had legs and she began to kick Casey in the shins.
"Dam- I mean dang it!" He cursed. I couldn't help but think Aww! He's still trying not to swear in front of me even though he's in pain!
But Gwen was still kicking him so I stumbled over and grabbed her squirming feet. I undid her shoelaces and tied then together, nice and tight. Perfect.
I looked around some more, and came up upon a table of packages of gum. I picked one up off the table. It was ordinary Wrigley's gum, but it had been glued shut. There were dozens more on the table. I stuffed one in my pocket along with Heather's earring.
Somehow Casey and I managed to bring the squirming Gwen up the stairs. When we got up there, I told Officer Borsch all about the marijuana plants. He put Mr. Sheffield in handcuffs and brought him down the staircase with him and examined the "basement".
Gwen kept on trying to say stuff, but she was too stoned to get out any real sentences. I looked at the glue on the gum package before we left the house. I tried prying it open, but dang! that glue was strong. I don't know why I was trying, I already knew what was in there. But my psycho mystery-solving instincts were taking over again. So I looked at the glue. It had an orange tinge, and it was thick.
When we stepped outside, I noticed the fountain on the very side of the street, still on the Sheffield's property. It had a blue tinge. At this point, I was thinking to myself, why would anyone purposely dye a fountain blue? They would only do it if-
It had a purpose.
And then I remembered that blue was the counter-color to orange. I was getting real excited now. I dunked the whole package of gum in the fountain, not caring that my shirt and sweater was getting wet with the suspicious liquid.
Besides, the package was open now, and just as I had suspected, marijuana joints neatly lined the inside. My ribs were really starting to hurt now, so I hopped in the car and read the label on the way.
It read:
These cigs guarantee increased strength, without the side-effects of normal marijuana.
Simple. But I knew it didn't reveal that it also guaranteed increased aggression and red-eyes. At least I was sure increased aggression was part of it. How could tiny, petite Gwen Sheffield, the girl who complained about the exertion of energy by just walking across campus, deliver a bleeding blow to my stomach? And how could Heather knock me out cold when last year all she managed to do was gouge me with her nails?
All I knew was those joints were scary stuff. Images of Gwen barfing all over herself and her stumbling over words was enough to give me nightmares.
I showed Officer Borsch all of the evidence, and he was thoroughly impressed by what I managed to uncover. Heather was waiting on the side, glaring at me the whole time. Just as I was about to walk over to Officer Borsch to shake his hand, Heather casually put her foot out.
I felt so stupid. How could I not see her big, fat foot in the way? I guess the pain in my ribs was really starting to get to me, because I stumbled to the floor. My ribs were crushed, and searing pain raced through my body. I yelped, and unzippered my jacket.
What a sight. My shirt was blood stained in light patches of red. I touched my ribs as lightly as possible, but the pain still sliced my body. Casey ran over, and Officer Borsch screamed for the nurse. I was vaguely aware of stupid Heather laughing her head off to the side. She thought it was so freaking hilarious.
"Sammy, who did this to you?" Casey asked urgently.
The sting of my pain was crushing my voice. "Gw…Gwen." Gwen did not hear, she was zonked out in one of the hospital beds.
Casey swooped me up bride-style. Except this was no wedding. It was a serious emergency, with serious wounds. The nurses rushed over, insisting to put me on a rolling hospital bed. My eyelids suddenly became too heavy for my eyes to keep open. The fluttered closed. I heard Marissa shrieking, Billy trying to calm her down, and Grams crying my name out. Probably holding her chest. Cricket was somewhere in the mess.
Casey insisted on carrying me to the room. Despite all of the chaos, my heart couldn't help but fly. Stupid heart! It was supposed to be fixing my burning ribs, not swooning at an incredibly cute and brave boy!
I finally got to the room, and lay down. A nurse came in and checked everything. She left, and that left Marissa, Billy and Casey.
"Sleep now. You were so brave today," Casey muttered. I was vaguely aware of this. He placed one sweet, but short kiss on my lips. My eyes closed softly and I escaped into dreamland. I tried to stay awake, but the pain of my ribs was like a barrier keeping me from reality.
So I drifted off to sleep.
But I couldn't get Heather's laughing out of my mind. Laughing! At someone's pain.
Now, granted, I was her mortal enemy. But only truly wicked people can laugh at blood and shrieks of agony.
Justice would be served when I woke up.
