Edited

Chapter Four

Mel's POV

I yawn as I walk downstairs, still wearing my pyjamas. Once I get to the kitchen, I grab a seat at the breakfast bar.

"Morning," I say to Mum sleepily as she puts a plate of toast in front of me.

"Good morning," she replies.

I look down at my toast… and see something strange - jam. Okay, maybe it's not that strange, but Mum should know by now that I absolutely despise jam. I blink, double checking that my tired eyes haven't played a sick, cruel, twisted joke on me, but lo and behold, the jam is still there.

I raise an eyebrow. "Jam? Seriously? You've known me for over sixteen years! You know by now that I have butter on my toast!"

"Oh, sorry Mel," Mum apologises. I face her and see the purple rings around her eyes from not getting enough sleep. I wonder why? The locket…?

"Here, you can have my cereal, and I'll eat the toast." Mum switches my plate around with her untouched cereal and I start to eat it. Cereal's not as good as buttered toast, but it's better than… jam. Once I've nearly finished my food, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket and pull it out. The text I just received is from Lolly:

Come to my house in a half hour. Becca's coming too.

I scrape my chair back and stand up, about to head upstairs again and get changed, not realising that Mum's standing right behind me, holding a glass of water that spills all over me!

"Um, I'm meeting Lolly and Becca in a half hour so I have to go and get changed," I blurt out frantically, before racing upstairs without waiting for a reply.

"Hey guys," I greet my best friends as Lolly opens her front door, Becca loitering behind her. After I step inside and close the door behind me, the three of us walk into the living room. I spring onto the squashy blue sofa positioned opposite the TV, as does Becca, whilst Lolly grabs a seat on the tall and posh but faded purple footstool.

"So have you found anything suspicious yet?" Lolly asks.

"Nope," I reply, and Becca shakes her head. "Although my mum was acting kind of weird this morning."

"So was mine," Becca recalls.

"My mum wasn't," Lolly says, shrugging.

"Well I did only hear my mum tell Cleo about the locket, so maybe she hasn't told your mum yet," Becca says. Lolly simply shrugs again.

"So… what now?" I ask.

"Well, when Becca's mum tells mine about the locket, I'll see if she acts weird. And in the meantime, we could all look for random suspicious stuff," Lolly suggests.

"Okay. That sounds good," I accede.

Becca nods her approval, then says, "I'll see what I can do."

Glancing at the clock to check how much time I have before my parents get home from wherever the hell they are - approximately seven minutes - I walk into my mum and dad's room and… accidentally stub my toe on their bed.

I yelp in pain and clutch my toe until the throbbing dies down. Unfortunately, this leaves me with only six minutes to do the deed of looking for evidence that Mum, Emma and Rikki share a secret. Perhaps even one related to the one their own daughters share…?

I rifle through the contents of the top drawer in Mum's ivory bedside cabinet until I find exactly what I'm looking for - some old photos. I hurriedly check the time again. Three more minutes. But then I hear the click of the front door opening. They must be here early! Or, as early as you can call three minutes before the time they're due back anyway… I forcefully push the drawer closed, then run on tiptoes into my bedroom across the landing. Then I flop down onto my bed with a relieved sigh.

After a few minutes of leafing through the dog eared sheets of glossy photo paper, I find a picture that I like the look of; Mum, Rikki and Emma wearing three identical lockets. But not just any lockets… the lockets.

"Hey Lolly," I say to my friend as she picks up her phone on the fifth ring.

"Hey," she replies. "What's happening?"

"I just found this photo, of my mum, your mum, and Emma wearing three lockets that look exceedingly similar to the one you found."

"Awesome. So what are you gonna do with it?"

"Me? You mean we."

"Oh no. This means there's work involved…"

"Yep. I'll meet you and Becca at the café in an hour, okay?"

"Okay… But you're paying," Lolly suddenly adds to her reluctant response, and with that, she cuts off the call.

I awake the next morning having forgotten entirely about my amazing plan, but then it all comes rushing back to me. By the time Becca and Lolly arrived at the café, I had already bought us a smoothie each. So we grabbed a table and began to brainstorm while sipping the drinks. Eventually, we decided that I would leave the photo out on the kitchen table or something last night, when my parents were asleep, and when I got downstairs in the morning and my parents were awake and saw it, I would ask them about it. Then Lolly and Becca decided to look through their parents' things for other things that could be related to that. They said they would text me when they found anything, so I pull my phone off of the shelf beside me to find a text from Becca, received at 3:43am. Okay then… It reads:

I found a photo with our mums wearing the lockets. I'll leave it out too and ask Mum about it.

I tap out a quick, Okay, in reply - better late than never - and once I've sent it, I get changed and head downstairs.

"Morning," I say to Mum who's making herself a cup of tea. Mum isn't acting weird, and when I glance at the table I see that the photograph is still untouched, so that means she hasn't seen it yet. However, I'm pretty sure she's about to because she's going to walk past the table on her way to the living room. Perfect.

"Good mor…" Mum begins, but trails off as she turns around and sees the picture.

I look at her, faking confusion, and follow her line of sight, although I already know what she's looking at.

"What's up?" I ask.

"Um… nothing." She walks towards the table and picks up the photo, muttering under her breath, "I thought this was upstairs."

"Can I see it?" I ask.

"Um… yes, okay." Mum nods and passes me the photo.

"Hey, these lockets are like Becca's new necklace," I point out after a brief pause during which I was pretending to study the picture.

"Oh, yes, so they are," Mum replies, her voice sounding automatic. Hmm… Definitely suspicious.

"Where did you get the necklaces?" I ask curiously.

"Uh… Emma and I were given ours, and Rikki saw her one in a shop and bought it because it was like the other two."

"Really? Who were you given them by?" I persist.

"Um… I got mine from Emma, who… uh… got them both from a woman called Miss Chatham."

I mentally note the name Miss Chatham, in case it could be used for further research.

"Where did Becca get hers?" Mum asks.

"She bought it," I reply swiftly, without thinking. I wasn't quite prepared for the question, but we decided yesterday in the café that that would be our cover story if our parents asked something along those lines.

"Oh, okay. I think I'm going back to bed; I have a bit of a headache.

I pass Mum the photo back, and with that, she slowly makes her way upstairs, tightly gripping the picture in her left hand.

"Becca?" I ask as the phone stops ringing.

"Who you know and love," she answers. "What's happening?"

"My mum saw the photo and she got so weird about it."

"So did mine."

"So they're obviously hiding something then. What about Lolly's mum though?"

"I don't know. Maybe we should ring her too? Ask her if she's found anything?"

"Okay… God, this is so weird…"

"I know… Oh, by the way, my mum said something about a woman called Miss Chatham."

Miss Chatham… Sounds familiar… "Oh, so did mine."

"Huh. I wonder who she is."

"Well, there's only one way to find out."

"Which is…?"

"The internet, duh."

"Right. Well I'm gonna go talk to Lolly now…"

I laugh. "Okay, I'll text you later."

"Bye."