Other Fan Fiction ❯ Alex Lanes and the Hotel Murderer ❯ Whole Entire Story ( Chapter 1 )

[ A - All Readers ]

Alex Lanes

And the hotel thief

-ONE-

Okay, Halloween's tomorrow. If you ask me, Halloween isn't that great. Last year was stinky bad. I'm trying to be funny so I told my friend, Lila Standers, that I'm going to be George Bush for Halloween. She cracked up and asked me if it was a joke. I told her, “Yeah it is a joke… but it would be really funny if I was going to be him!” so yeah, I did.
It's not like I even like George Bush or hate him. So don't have any ideas.
Anyway, last year, Lila gave me her dad's belt, tie, and huge black jeans for me to borrow and I had a shirt of my own. So I wore them, tied my hair up and put a huge hat on. I look bad. Stinky bad. But still, I thought I wouldn't get embarrassed when I did and so I had to run all the way home and skip the rest of trick-or-treating.

This year, I'm hoping I'd have fun and at least enjoy Halloween. I have no idea what I want to be for Halloween. I like to be scary stuff or at least funny stuff.

If I'm going to be scary, I at least have to be a girl like a witch or vampire; unlike two years ago I had thought being Frankenstein was a great monster to be.

And if I'm being a funny costume, at least make me wear something not to embarrass myself like a giant m&m.

“Alex, so what are you going to be for Halloween?” Rena Muffler asks.

So here it goes. “I um, I don't know what to be,” I say.
We were walking down the street to school.

“Why don't you be a witch?” Lila asks excitedly. I shrug and say, “I'll think about it.” And we're turning to the corner when out pops who? Marcus.
You see, Marcus is this annoying boy in eighth grade. Well, fine, he isn't exactly annoying but he makes Lila annoying because she's crazy about him, let me tell you. And besides, Marcus keeps popping up everywhere and it's just so confusing! And really, if you want to know, Marcus has been asking Lila out since the third time they met, I think. Fine, maybe not the third time they met but all I know is that Marcus likes Lila and she likes Marcus. Why would Marcus ask Lila out? He likes her.

“Hey Lila, what's up?” he asks and to tell you the truth, I think he asks, “What's up?” all the time when they meet.

He looks at me and Rena and says, “Hey,” and we say, “Hey,” back but not as much spirit as he did.

“It's almost Halloween!” Lila squeals as if we didn't know. And of course, we do know. Everyone does!

So while Marcus and Lila talks to each other, me and Rena talk to each other.
“What are you going to be?” I ask Rena. She smiles evilly and says in a high, croaky voice, “I am a vampire!” We both laugh and then Marcus asks us all, “Want to go trick-or-treating with us?” I shrug and say, “Sure, I guess,” and Rena and Lila jumps up and down and squeal, “Yes!”

So we're going to our homeroom when I spotted Stacy Tory Karol's office. She's my friend, but I caught her and she's in jail now, but still, she's my friend. She's really nice and stuff. But that's a different story. All I'm going to say is that she and her friends were murderer and thieves but I caught them.

I went to Stacy's office door, and touched the knob. It made me feel creepy somehow. I shiver and trotted all the way to homeroom where Mrs. Larson taught.
“You're late again, Alexandra,” Mrs. Larson says sweetly. She folded the palms over her hands together and then says, “Let's do the pledge.”

So we do the pledge and then Mrs. Larson announces, “Let's start reading out loud. Alexandra?” I look up at her and ask, “What?” and she laughs.

“Getting a little excited for Halloween, right?” Mrs. Larson asks.

I grinned because it's time to fix a teacher's mistake. “Actually, Mrs. Larson, I'm not really excited. I hate Halloween and stuff.” I smile even bigger.

Mrs. Larson looks surprised and then stutters, “Oh, well, I uh, well, I meant that. Anyway, Alexandra, would you like to read a little of a paragraph in the book you're reading?”

I stand up and say, “Sure!” and read a little sentence in my book (ha-ha!). When I'm finished, everyone clapped.

“Hey, aren't you going to buy your costume? It's almost Halloween!” Rena cries to me. I shrug and say, “I don't know. Halloween's a waste of money. You have to buy costumes which cost a ton and then, after Halloween, you have nothing to do with the costume.”
“You can save it for next Halloween,” Lila suggests. I shake my head and say, “It'd be too boring to wear the same thing twice and besides, I might not fit it anymore!”
“You got a point on that,” Rena says. I smile and say, “Actually… I know what I'll be…” Rena and Lila jump up and ask, “What?” and I evilly smiled at them. “You'll see.”
“Oh, I was afraid you'd say that,” Lila pouts and crosses her arms. Pretty soon, we're heading straight down the Hair Dory, a hair place or whatever. It always gives me the creeps because I got hurt badly over at that store but again, it's a different story.

As soon as I got home, I did my homework and ate dinner. More like a snack, though, and then I got to sleep. The next morning was so warm. It's raining, but it's still warm.
It's Friday, but we don't have school because we have a little day off to get ready for Halloween. All I'm happy about is that we have no school. Not Halloween. Not meeting Marcus, Rena, and Lila. Yes, it's because we don't have school.
The doorbell rang and I call, “Just a second!” and brush my teeth, brush my hair, changed into my T-shirt and long jeans and then opened the door.
There stood, Lila, Rena and who else? Marcus.
“Whoa, this place is nice in the inside, maybe not the outside,” Marcus says. He never came in my house before.

Well, I live alone because my mom and dad's in New Jersey and they think I'm dead, and my Aunt Jade died by a car accident and I'm not supposed to tell anyone I live alone in Aunt Jade's house.

I let them in and ask, “Anyone care for a snack?”
Lila shouts, “Cookies and milk!”

Rena shouts, “A glass of water would be fine,” and Marcus says, “Nah, I'd like to save my appetite on pizza later,” so we shrug and say, “Suit yourself, you'd feel sorry for yourself…” and ate and ate.
It's not too early to start on our costumes so that's what we did. I helped Lila put on her princess costume. And I'm not really good with using make-up, but I didn't tell Lila.
So I put eye shadow on her eyelids. Well, over the top, if you know what I mean. I put the eye shadow on her eyelids and finished it at the top of her eyebrows. I didn't tell her this and I was too relief that a mirror wasn't in front of us.
And I put hot-pink lipstick on her lips, but over the edges, too, a little. I also didn't tell her that I'm not good at coloring pictures and that's the same with lips and lipsticks.

And when I'm all finished with her, Rena came in and practically screams when she saw Lila. “Uh… you look… unique,” Rena says. I say, “Just tell her the truth, would you? She looks ugly!” I handed Lila a mirror and she screams, “Is that me? Oh my lord!” and nearly faints.
And so Lila needed a remake-over but instead of me helping Lila put on make-up, Rena did. She's tough like me, but she's better at using make-up than me.

I never use them. Ever.

Lila looks great, now that Rena helped her. I also helped Rena put blood all over her mouth. Now this is what I'm good at. I don't have to be careful over the edges. And I also helped Lila and Rena with their hair and when they're done, they look at me like, where's your costume?
So I went in the bathroom (for nothing, actually) and went out again. I wore the same clothes. Nothing looked different about me. But Lila and Rena still smiles. “Uh, so where's your costume?” Lila asks. I say, “This is my costume. I'm going to be a student from school. It's scary isn't it?”
They shake there heads.
“Well, of course it is! Everyone's scared of students… ha-ha-ha,” but still, they're not buying it so I say, “Look, everyone in Halloween looks scary or funny or pretty and seeing a kid dressed like an average student is scary, right?”
Finally they agreed and when Marcus takes one big whiff at us, he says, “That's great! And uh, where's your costume, Alex? You're wearing that?”
I nod. “Of course I am! I'm being a student!” He laughs. And by now, it's already four o'clock. I took out a huge basket and Rena asks me, “What are you doing?” I say, “Guess,” and then I got out a paper and write in huge bold letters: ONLY TAKE FOUR PIECES OF CANDY!!! OR I'LL CALL THE COPS! And then took tape, and taped it to the basket. Next step: I got out a huge bag of Hershey's and this yummy chocolate candy and dumped it in the basket.
“I don't trust anybody around here,” and Lila squints and asks, “But did you know that they can just take more than four pieces of candy without you noticing?” I laugh and grinned. “I solved that problem already,” and then I went outside, put the basket on the stairs and sat, pointed at this little robot machine thing.
“It costs eight bucks. Watch this,” and I grabbed about six pieces of candy and all of sudden we heard BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! “We will call the cops. I warned you and you did not listen! Ha-ha-ha, you can't run away because cops are on the way!” we heard me saying. I laugh and say, “I recorded this, isn't this great?” and then Marcus says, “Wow, this little dude is awesome,” and stands up and says, “Well, we better get going.”
Lila asks, “What time is it?”
“Four forty-five. Lets' go.”
We never really went out trick-or-treating that early before. And lots of people asked, “You're starting trick-or-treating now? Sorry, but we're not ready,” and slams the door shut. Some people only ask me, “What are you?” and I'd answer “A student!” and then slam! Or they'd say, “Hey, you barely got a costume! We only give treats to kids who worked hard on buying costumes,” and only give Marcus, the grim-reaper, Lila, the princess, and Rena, the vampire, candies.
I didn't really care much because I didn't like a lot of candies. I only like Hershey and m&m.
But then, while we're walking up to a house, we see a guy dressed as Santa Claus holding a huge brown bag of I-don't-know running down the street-fast.

-TWO-

I whisper, “Is that really Santa Clause? He looks fat! Man, I wonder if he's going on a diet!”
Lila and Rena giggles.

Santa Claus takes one looks at me and screams. I ask Lila and Rena, “Does he have a problem with thirteen year olds?” They laugh again and I have a feeling this isn't really right.

Then, all of a sudden, police cars were driving towards us and a policewoman asks me, “Have you seen a man in a Santa Claus costume?” I shrug and say, “What's wrong?”
She sighs and says, “Looks like you're on another case,” and I look at her and ask, “What?” She laughs and shows me a newspaper. “This is when you fought with Ms. Karol, remember?” I laugh and say, “You read it?” She nods and says, “I have quite a feeling you're going to solve this one, too.” I shrug and ask, “So what's wrong?”
So she explains it to us. That there's a murderer at Raymond's Rocking Roll Music.

“Then what's he carrying in that huge sack?” I ask. The policewoman asks, “You mean you saw him? And he stole something? I better tell,” and holds up a walky-talky and says police stuff.

Marcus laughs and says, “Yeah, hope your on another case, detective,” and I stick out a tongue at him.

The policewoman turns her head at me and then asks, “So what did he do?”
I say, “He was running down that street and when he saw me, he screamed.” The woman laughs and says, “He must've watched the news or read the Lariat Times,” and I ask her with wide eyes, “I'm on the news?” She squints at me and asks, “You're Alex Lanes, right?” I nod.
“Well, yeah, you're on the news. About probably four times, actually.”

“Does that mean that I'm famous? Like people all around the country will recognize me once they see the newspaper?” I ask. The woman laughs and says, “No, only people around Lariat can read it. You're not going to be known all around the country.”

And before I can ask her any other stupid questions, she's off.

School isn't cool. I bet you'd like to know that.
Mrs. Larson announces, “Class, from seventh grade to eighth is going on a fieldtrip to Maine tomorrow. We're staying at Hotels for about a week. We're studying about the artists, the ocean, the sky, and all that beautiful stuff in Maine. On the third day we stayed in Maine, we're going to have a late Halloween party! You can bring your costumes if you want.”
I groaned with about twenty other students. Monika RoseAllen raises her hand and asks, “Are we all staying in the same room?” Mrs. Larson laughs and says, “Well, I was just going to say that we aren't going to stay in the same room. The Hotels in the town we're going to is fairly small. About six kids are going to stay in the Ocean Hotel. That's Lila Standers, Rena Muffler, Otis Corer, Alexandra Lanes, Naira Jenzy and Marcus Kean. In Lakewood Hotel…” and blab, blab, blab.

I groan. Marcus? Why Marcus all the time? And who in the world is Otis Corer? I never heard of him. I'm sure that I don't know every seventh grade student, but I'm sure Otis Corer isn't in seventh grade.

I didn't have to even bother to tell my mom or dad. And I only packed two or three clothes. Lila and Rena are sleeping over tonight. We spent hours watching movies and talking.

I couldn't even go to sleep. Whenever I'm too excited or too nervous, I can't sleep and that's just the way it is. I'm nervous and excited. I kept trying to wake Lila and Rena up, but they'd mutter, “Stop it, and let me sleep!” and so I tried watching a movie. But I got bored. I didn't have any books to read. I don't like reading the same book over twice or more. I like to read different good books. But the next morning, I found myself sleeping on the couch instead of on the floor with Rena and Lila. Lila had to practically kick me to make me wake up.

“Didn't you sleep last night?” Lila asks when I finally woke up. I look at her like, what? But then I say, “I tried to.” Rena says to me, “But why didn't you wake us up?”
I laughed and say, “I tried!” She squints at me and asks, “Really? I didn't remember!” and Lila laughs, “I didn't remember either!”
We're on our way to school when Naira leaped in front of me. I screamed, but no sound came out.
Naira laughs, “Ha-ha! Got you!” I snicker and say, “You only surprised me.” To tell you the truth, Naira isn't my favorite person on earth. She's not the worst of it, either, but if I had to choose if I want a police station near my house or Naira's, I'd choose the police station. Really.

Mrs. Larson stands up and points to the door and says, “Let's go, class. Now line up neatly and when we get outside, get with your groups I told you to go in, alright?”
We all nodded and ran up to the door and lined up. When we all marched outside, there were hundreds of people. I found my group easily with Lila and Marcus shouting, “Alex! Rena! Over here!” And that's when I saw Otis. He was as tall as Marcus, and has dirty blond hair. Well, actually, he looks like Marcus, except his hair. And I wonder if they're twins…

“Are you two twins?” I ask. I pointed at Marcus with one finger and the other at Otis.

Marcus shakes his head and says, “No… but we do look alike.” Obviously.

Naira went over and says to Marcus, “Hey,” and says the same thing to Otis.
If you didn't notice, Naira has this thing with cute boys. She makes them hypnotized somehow. Now, a lot of boys fall for her hypnotism. Trust me.

I heard Mr. Mortis, our vice principal, shouts, “Get into your buses with your group, please!” and so, we got into a bus. It was huge, but stinky. It smells like rotten eggs and it's not a pretty place, either. I swear, I found gums on the seats. “Eww…” I whisper to I-don't-know-who.

I sat down with Lila, and Rena sat with Naira, and Marcus sat with Otis. All the people in the bus are really loud. I can barely hear Lila speak to me.

“What?” I had to shout. “What?” Lila shouts back. Then the bus driver shouts, “Don't speak!” but does anyone listen to him? No, they totally ignored him. Well, I shouldn't say so because I was one of those people ignoring him.

“STOP!” he screams. Now this stops everyone flustered cold. “Each kid must sit with a different gender. That'll stop you from talking.”
Otis asks Rena, “Want to sit with me?” Rena stares at him at first and then says, “Sure… but you'll sit near the window, okay?” Otis nods and says, “Fine with me.” Okay, so Rena had someone to sit with.

Marcus asks, “Wanna sit with me?” Me and Lila point at each other and ask, “Her?” at the same time. Marcus says, “Well, any of you want to?”
I didn't want to sit with Marcus but believe me, all the other boys in this bus is disgusting. Really. Especially Freckle Brain, who has finally came back from Ohio, and he's the ugliest person on earth. And the most disgusting one, too.

“I do!” I shout, but trouble is, Lila shouted out at the same time as I did.
Then all of a sudden, Naira, who came out of nowhere, pops up and says to Marcus, “Since those two are fighting, how about me? I have no one to sit with.”
Marcus shakes his head and says, “Nah, I have a better idea,” and then does the “Eeny Meany Miney Moe” thing. And Lila wins. Marcus says to me, “Sorry,” and goes off sitting with Lila. I say, “That's okay, I just said, `I do!' because all the other boys are gross.” So I ended up sitting with Gerry, a boy who always insults you and makes it harder for you when you get embarrassed. I was sitting near the window and trying to sit far away from Gerry as possible. “Whatcha doin'?” he asks. I look at him and say, “Uh… nothing… nothing at all.”

Finally we got out of the bus! Whoopee! No more Stinky Gerry. I went in the Ocean Hotel. It looks plenty cool. The wallpaper's blue and it has cool dolphins surfing huge waves. The counter tables' blue but not regular. And the rug's ocean-color-blue and yeah, practically everything's blue!

“Whoa, this is cool!” I say.
Once we get to our rooms, it's not the blue that bothers me anymore. It's the size. It's really small. And how can all six of us sleep in this small room? There are only two small blue beds. “I guess some of us will sleep on the floor,” I mutter as loud as I can. Marcus laughs and says, “I'll volunteer to sleep on the floor! Otis, come on, why don't you sleep on the floor, too? It'll be cool.” And then we all got it figured out. Naira and Lila's sleeping on the beds and the rest of us will sleep on the floor.

Naira yawns and asks, “Are we sleeping now? I want to! I'm all worn out on the bus!”

I laugh evilly and say, “You should've slept on that bus.”

We dumped all of the `girls' clothes into one drawer and the other for the `boys'.
We get downstairs, to the main entrance and waited for another bus to arrive.
And when it did, the bus took us all the way to Maine Beach. It's really big, I tell you, and it has lots of people. The water's about probably six inches high, or more, and the air's really moistly. All six of us join with the rest of the seventh and eighth graders. Mr. Mortis shouts so everyone can hear, “Each group has a teacher to guide you!” And our teacher is Mr. Sanders. Yippee. Okay, Mr. Sanders is really mean, rude, and he's new. He's probably plotting to poison someone-maybe-remember that, maybe.

I groaned. “Wow, that's surprising.”

Mr. Sanders says to us, “Now, listen up! We're all going to separate!”

“But-”

“No buts! Even if Mr. Mortis didn't say so, I'm still announcing it.”

I rolled my eyes. “But what if we get lost! You know how big this place is!” I've made Mr. Sanders mad before, so it wasn't really that scary anymore.

Mr. Sanders glares at me and says, “Then we have partners. Lila, you go with Rena, Naira, you go with Marcus, and Alexandra,” he made his voice sharpen, “You go with Otis. Each partnership must have one notebook and write about the ocean, sky, sand, and everything at the beach!” Mr. Sanders handed out each partnership a notebook and a pen.

Otis grabs my hands and says to me, “Okay, let's go,” and to tell you the truth, he's really freaking me out. Not the way he runs too fast and I keep tripping; the fact is that he's holding my hand. I wanted to tell him, “Dude, what's your problem!”
Okay, he can't like me. If he did, he'd have asked me to sit with him on the bus but instead, he asked Rena. Or maybe he just likes girls and that makes me freaked out even more.

Then he finally lets go of my hand. He takes out the pen from under his pocket and says while he writes, “The sand's yellow. Do you think that one's awesome?” I laugh and say, “Yeah, that one's awesome.” And I never knew we were allowed to write easy stuff like that. But we did and it was easier than I thought. I point out, “The water's blue!” and, “Uh, the sky's sky-blue with white clouds,” and he'd say, “The rocks look like they're dead,” or “Is grass around here?” and he's a good partner. I never really thought he'd be good at first, but he's good.

He's funny, too, that's for sure.
And when we get back all together, Otis had his hand on my wrist. I wanted to scream at him, but I at least felt better than before.

Mr. Sanders smiles evilly at us and I snarl, “What?” He laughs and points at my wrist and says to either me or Otis, “Looks like you've found a mate, right there.”
Marcus was smiling and laughing happily, but you can tell easily that he's having a hard time trying to smile and laugh. But Lila and Rena didn't have any trouble laughing or smiling. Naira had to force on a smile.

Mr. Sanders demanded us all to share what we wrote and Otis and I were taking turns saying each sentence.
“The sand's yellow,” he says.

“The water's blue,” I say.

“The sky's sky-blue with white clouds,” he says.
And I had to laugh at what Otis wrote down. “The rocks look like they're dead,” and then everyone started laughing at that part, all except for Mr. Sanders, that is.

Mr. Sanders snaps at me, “This is too easy! I didn't tell you to write anything about that!”

Otis says calmly, “Hey, sir, it wasn't her fault. I started it first,” and before he can say any more, I say, “But, dude, you said that we have to write about the sky, the ocean, the sand and everything about the beach. What we wrote was about the beach, right? And it's not that easy. Even some people can't see stuff so it's actually really helpful.” He couldn't argue with me.

And just because I stuck up for Otis and getting half the blame doesn't mean I like him. I'd rather talk to Marcus! Please.

But no one knew that. Not even Otis, himself.

He laughs and whispers to me, “Good one,” and that's when Mr. Sanders totally erupted.

Mr. Sanders went to the principle with our notebook and showed it to him and pretty soon, we're stuck in the Ocean Hotel waiting for the rest of our group.

“Sorry about that,” I say. He laughs and says, “Hey I started it, didn't I? And you're pretty good at making that old buddy mad.” We laughed and started talking about how “mean” Mr. Sanders is.

I was sitting against the wall and Otis was next to me and that's when we heard a noise. It's like glass falling down and breaking next door. I jumped up and whisper, “What was that?”

-THREE-

Otis gets up and says, “Well, we'll never know unless we find out…” and so we opened the door, peeked around and coast was clear. We tiptoed to the next door and we put our ears up to the door and listen. I can already smell roses and it smells really bad.
BAM! AHH!!! Now for sure, that's a scream of a woman. I had to do something. I whisper to Otis, “I'll go down and tell the manager. You stay here, alright?” He says, “No, I'm not going to let you go alone. I'll go with you,” but really, I can tell he's not worried about me going down there alone. He's scared about staying near a door with a screaming girl.

So we run downstairs and up to the manager and I say, “We heard a glass knock down and break and then a lady screamed next door!”

The manager shakes his ugly head several times and says, “She's probably just surprised that a glass fell down,” but I shout, “No! We heard a glass falling down and then a huge bang and then she screams! There's got to be something wrong!”

So he asks what number and I whisper to Otis, “Which room do we sleep in?” And Otis whispers back, “23, I think, or 24 or 25.” I roll my eyes and then showed the manager the room.
But the lady's room was opened. It wasn't closed like the other time. I was so scared I practically had to hug Otis's arm. Don't ask me why, I just did.

The light was on, and all we saw was a glass lamp knocked to the floor with broken pieces and that's just about it. Everything's normal, other than that.
“See? She's just probably going to the bathroom,” the manager says. And before I can scream, he leaves. And I'm hugging on to Otis as tight as I can and looking around.
“I think something's wrong. And I bet there's a murderer and he can pop up and kill us any second now,” I say. Otis laughs nervously and asks, “Are you sure? A murderer? Nah,” and then there's a noise just right behind us.

I jump ten feet up and scream. I dragged Otis in the woman's room and closed the door and locked it. But still, something felt odd in this place. I checked under the bed and everywhere and when I opened the closet, I scream.

Because right there in the closet was a dead woman hanged up. Now, there's blood all over her, especially her stomach and mouth. Her skin's white, let me tell you, and her curly brown hair's frizzing everywhere. Her eyes are open and staring right at me. Those green eyes seem to be alive.

Otis goes over to me and asks, “What's the matter?” and that's when he saw the dead person. He screams too. And being in a room with a dead woman, a scary one, hanging in the closet is plenty scary but why does a murderer have to be around here? I don't care if the murderer's here-all I wanted to do is get out of this room!

I ran to the door and tried to unlock it, but it didn't budge. I cry, “Oh, come on! Why does it have to happen now?” I tried kicking on the door, but it didn't budge. And all I'm thinking is the dead woman's gonna kill me!

Otis helps me kick and then we tried backing up and running at the door and BAM! The door totally knocked down. Otis and I look at each other and grinned but then we remembered all about the dead lady and the murderer and ran down to the main entrance as fast as we can. And that's when we saw the rest of our group finally coming in, but do we pay attention to them? Heck, no!

Otis was right beside me while I was shouting at the manager, “When you left we heard a noise and came in the room and locked it and I had a strange feeling and then when I opened the closet, there's a dead lady hanging there! I tried to unlock the door but it wouldn't budge so we had to kick it down!”

Lila, Rena, and Marcus run up to me and ask, “You found a dead lady in the closet?” and believe me, they didn't sound scared or anything. They thought it was cool. I was about to tell them, “Go up there by yourself and take a look at that dead lady and try to lock yourself in there!”

But I didn't. And then a minute later, I did.
And the manager grabs his hair and cries, “You knocked the door down?” and I shout at him, “We were freaked out, sir! And think about the dead lady, not the door!”

So we all ran up and Otis and I pointed at the closet with the dead woman. He screamed, and everyone else did, too.
Naira fainted. That's right, she fainted. And she threw up before she fainted.

Lila leaped and screams, “Get me outta here! Lord, oh, lord!” and runs out of the room with everyone else following behind her. I really didn't want to stay in this place

But something's still bothering me.
While everyone's down in the main entrance room, I had a little talk. “Did anyone go in here?” I ask. The manager shrugs and says, “What time?” So I say, “You remember when Otis and I came in, right? That was around four o'clock so did anyone who doesn't have a room in this hotel check in around four?”
The manager was thinking for a while and then says, “Nope. No one came in and I'm sure the windows are ceiled too.”
I ask, “How do you know?” He laughs and says, “You haven't been able to look at them yet, have ya? The windows are really strong and they can't open. And we just opened the hotel-so we don't really have time to make the windows get opened. And the paint's still wet and they're sticky as hot-glue, the bed is still clean and all that stuff.”

I stare at him and I finally say, “The murderer lives in this hotel.” Otis jumps up and asks, “You're kidding!” I look at everyone else and sure enough, they were listening to our conversation.

I squinted at Otis and nod.

I look at the manager's tag. Calvin Odor. Ha, nice last name, Mr. Odor.

“Uh, so Mr. Odor,” and then I giggled a bit and continue, “So, how many rooms are here in this hotel?” He looks through some sheets and says, “About six.”
My eyes got all wide. “Six? It seems like twenty-six!” He laughs and says, “Most of the room's public. There's a restaurant, there's a-”
“I don't need to know that, Mr. Odor.” Calvin snaps, “Stop insultin' me!” Whenever I say Odor one of my eyebrows fly up. And it's not my fault, it just happens.

Everyone laughs. Then, all of a sudden Mr. Mortis comes in and asks, “I heard there's a problem in the hotel…?”
And so I explained it to him. All of it. He frowns and says, “I'm sorry, but you still have to stay here.” I open my mouth and stare at him. “What? There's a murderer in this hotel! You don't care for our safety? Please, and we have to sleep near a haunted room! Why can't you just let us stay in another hotel?” Mr. Mortis sighs and says, “Well, I'm sorry but the people who owns the hotels doesn't allow that many kids. Mostly because of how noisy they are.”
I frown and say, “But we can die here! Hey, I'm going to pack up and go home!”

“But our state's very far from here.”
“I'd rather go alone in a bus than die here!” I mean, what kind of vice-principle is he?

Finally he agrees. “Who are your parents? What's your phone number?” he asks everyone. I go over to Lila and whisper, “I forgot your parent's name.” Lila whispers back, “My dad's Phil and my mom's Regina.”

So I say, “My mom's Regina and my dad's Phil.” And then all of a sudden Lila stares at me and frowns. “My, uh, my mom's…” she glance at me. Then all of a sudden I say, “Oops! I got mistaken. My mom's uh, Bobby and my dad's uh, Sandra.” And then I can see Lila blowing her hair but then all of a sudden her face turns white and she froze. Everyone looked at me like I'm crazy. “Your mom is Bobby and your dad is Sandra?” I froze for a minute and then threw back my head and laughed out loud. “Oh, I'm sorry! My mom is Sandra and my dad's Bobby.”

“My mom is Regina and my dad is Phil,” Lila says. She smiles at me. I smile back at her.
Everyone's giving the principle their phone number, except Rena, and I had to think of one.
But I couldn't. Mr. Mortis will figure it out once he tries to call. So I walk up and say, “I don't have-oh, I forgot my phone number,” and laugh. Rena smiles and says the same thing as I did. Mr. Mortis holds Rena's shoulder and shakes it. “I'm sure you know your own phone number,” and then stares at me. So I sigh and go up to him and say, “Rena forgot. And so did I!” Mr. Mortis sighs and says, “Then you two have to stay here.” I practically scream. Then Lila comes up right beside me and says, “Then I won't go home if Rena and Alex won't,” and soon, everyone's saying that, all except Naira. She was too busy doing her fingernails and when she sees everyone saying, “I won't go too!” she says the same thing and she has no idea what she's saying.

-FOUR-

I had to spend the night with five other people sleeping in a really scary place. Everything looks like it's about to eat me.

I'm lying right next to Rena, Rena's lying right next to Marcus, and Marcus is lying right next to Otis. Marcus and Rena's so lucky they're sleeping in the middle.

I sit up and say, “I can't sleep,” and then I heard five other voices saying, “Me neither.” I smile at Marcus and Otis and then turned out begging them, “Oh please! Let me sleep in the middle! Girls sleep in the middle and boys sleep out, got that?” And so we agreed.
Now, Marcus is lying next to me, I'm lying next to Rena, and Rena's lying next to Otis.

The next morning, I woke up without anyone kicking me or yelling, “Alex! Wake up!” I scratched my back and shout, “Everyone! Wake up!” and since they didn't, I scream like a freak and shout, “Ah! A dead person!” and that got everyone's attention. They go flying up shouting, “Who died? Where?” and I laugh. “Come on, there's no dead person here but there might be.”
So we all go to the bathrooms with clothes in our knees and brushing our teeth, hair and then going in the stalls to change. When I'm out, I say, “Ready?” and they all shout, “Ready!” We all go down to the main entrance room and, you know, hang out.
Lila says to me, “Wow, aren't we lucky?” I ask her, “What?” Lila laughs and says, “We might be interviewed!” I squint at her and Rena and I ask her at the same time, “How?” Lila says, “Well, remember the dead woman? We were at the scene when it happened.” I laugh and say, “Otis and I were, well, we're not really at the scene when it happened, but part of, yeah.”
Then they get all jumpy. Lila grabs me by the wrist and Rena grabs the other wrist. “Is something going one with you two?” Rena asks, all excited. I grinned and laugh and then all of a sudden I turn low and say, “No.”

Rena asks, “Then why were you two sticking up for each other and the part when Otis held your wrist?” I say to Rena, “I do not like him. Why would I? And I bet he doesn't like me either. If he did, he would've asked me to sit with him on the bus, but did he?” Rena points to herself and asks, “Me? Of course he doesn't like me.”

I shrug and say, “He could,” and get up and did a quick stretch. Then all these adults came into the room. I ran to Calvin and ask, “Are these all the people who sleep here?” Calvin laughs and says, “Yes.”
Then he gave me a sheet of paper that listed and showed all the people. About six.

There's old Mr. Carpe, who had white hair and thick glasses and huge nostrils, let me tell you, it's bigger than my eyes! Then there's Lady Reni, a young woman with sand-color hair and great blue eyes. And then comes Mrs. Baby. Okay, maybe her name is not Mrs. Baby. Her name's Mrs. Levine, but she looks like a baby with those huge glittery eyes and small round lips that stick out and her nose is puny. Also, her white hair sticks up. Then there's Bob and Rosie, a young couple. And this blind guy, Moses, is really freaky looking. His eyes are huge and round, but it looks like there's glass over the eyes so you can't touch it.

That's all. And I started thinking about introducing myself to them. So I walk up with the sheet of paper folded in my pockets. I say, “Mr. Carpe?” and shake his hands. His hands are like stone. It's hard and rough and it has these muscles sticking out. He almost broke my hand!

“Well, do you know anyone here? Your friends are nice, right? Is that dead lady your friend?” I ask sounding as cool as possible. He laughs and says, “I know everyone here! Especially that Calvin. And yes, I am Ms. Carina's friend. Best friend, actually. It's really sad that she died,” and then tears started to fall down. I thought it was enough to interview with an old man with huge nostrils and is crying. So I say, “See you later,” and go over to Lady Reni. She smells bad. Really bad. Like perfume. And if you ask me, perfume really scares me. They all smell bad.
“Hello Lady Reni,” I say. Lady Reni smiles and shakes my hand. I say, “I'm Nellie Rolwin,” trying to change my name as possible. Lady Reni squints at me and asks, “Nellie? Oh, I love that name. Reni, to me, sounds really weird.” I laugh. She's got some pretty sense of humor!

“Well, do you have any friends around here? Is Ms. Carina your friend? The woman that died last night?” I ask. Lady Reni looks down at her shoes and says, “Oh, Ms. Carina is my friend. She's nice to everyone.” She sighs and says, “I can't believe she actually died.” I laugh and say, “Same here. I better get going, see you later!” and walk to Mrs. Baby or Levine. She looks really grumpy, so I thought skipping her wouldn't be such a bad idea.

So I go to Bob and Rosie, stick my hand out and say, “I'm Nellie, pleased to meet you. So, is Ms. Carina your friend?” Bob, a man who is really tall says, “Oh, she's a great friend! She comes over and talks to us everyday!” and Rosie nods and then takes out a tissue from her pocket and wipes her tears. “Oh, I don't want to talk about her right now,” she says.

So I nod and say, “Okay…” and go over to Moses. He didn't even know I'm there so I clear my throat and say, “Moses? I'm Nellie, and I'd like to know if Ms. Carina's your friend.” Moses looks up and turns his head everywhere so I tapped his shoulder and say, “Right here, sir,” and he grins and nods. “She's a friend anyone can count on!”
So, all I know is that everyone is Ms. Carina's friend, but I don't know about Mrs. Baby or Levine. With all those people saying she's nice, well, no doubt about it, Mrs. Baby is Ms. Carina's friend.

I go back to Lila and Rena and they ask me, “What did you say to them?” I say, “I'm just interviewing them. All I figured out is that everyone's Ms. Carina's friend.”
“Ms. Carina?” Rena asks.

“She's the dead lady.” And I'm just about to go off asking them more questions when Lady Reni comes up to me and ask, “Are these girls your friends? They look awfully familiar. What are their names, Nellie?”
Lila asks, “Nellie?” and before she can say something else, I nudged her and point at Lila. “This is Lila,” and then I point at Rena. “This is Rena.”
Lady Reni stares at Lila and says, “Oh, you're that girl in the newspaper! And Rena! There's one more girl-I forgot her name… wait a second, she's Alex!”

“Oh, Alex! She's my friend, too, only I wasn't in the newspaper because I wasn't helping her out,” I say. Rena opens her mouth to say something, but closes it. I can see her tongue's tied.
Mr. Mortis comes in and says, “Alexandra, Rena, Lila, come on! Everyone's waiting for you girls outside!”

Lady Reni smiles and says, “Looks like your principal wants you, bye!” And before I can ask her how she knows that Mr. Mortis is our principal, Lila and Rena drags me outside and onto the bus.
“Over here!” Otis waves his hands in the air. Rena and I point at ourselves and ask, “Me?” Otis laughs and says, “Alex,” so I walk over to him and ask, “What?”
Otis smiles and says, “Hey, wanna sit with me?” So I glance at Rena and gave her the oh-help-me! look. Rena comes over and says, “Hey Alex, want to sit with me? I've got something to talk to you about,” so I say to Rena, “Is it important?” and I gave her the oh-say-it-is-important look. So she says, “It's really important.”

“Sorry, Otis, but I have to sit with Rena,” I say and when I'm with Rena, I grinned and whisper, “Thanks for saving me!” Lila asks us, “Is there room for three people?” We made room for her and Lila sat with us, too, and hopefully, the driver didn't see. When we're at an art gallery, we saw lots of paintings of the ocean. I had no idea why I'm not really interested in paintings-really, I'm not!

Naira's obsessed in paintings and Rena and Lila's normal with them. They think they're cool, but they're not obsessed with them. Me? I barely even look at them! When someone asks me if they're awesome, I just shrug and say, “They're cool,” without even looking at them. Instead, I look at my shoes or at the ceilings, anywhere not related to the painting.

“Write about them,” Mr. Mortis says to us. I grabbed my pen and notebook. I opened up the notebook and saw disgusting stuff glued to it. Like rocks with gooey dead squishy stuff all over it and worms.

“Who put this gross stuff all over this notebook?” I practically scream.

No answer.

“You put it in the notebook yourself, you dirty brat,” Naira says. If you haven't noticed, Naira hates me partly because I'm dirty (which I'm not-maybe tough, but not dirty) and partly because I told everyone she likes Marcus. And that's probably about it. And also, I got her kicked out of her precious girls club. Ha-ha-ha!

“I didn't put them in here!” I say and then I mutter, “You put it in here.” If you ask me, I'm not afraid of Naira, even though she fought with me before. And she's good at kicking, she takes gymnastics lessons, but I'm better. I don't really have lessons, I just hit or kick people as hard as I can and it's really useful.

“I did not!” Naira shouts.

“Look at yourself! You're cheeks are totally red. You did do it. It's not like I'm going to kill you, so don't lie.” I say.

I took some notes about how `cool' the paint is. I wrote the ocean in the paintings look so cool and the ocean in the paintings look like the real ocean and all the other stuff I made up.

“Now find a partner or two to share what you have written,” Mr. Mortis finally says after, like, an hour.

I sigh and go over to Lila and Rena.
When I'm done sharing mine, it was Lila's turn and then Rena's. Both of their's are way better than mine. It had way more details and description.

-FIVE-

On the way to Ocean Hotel on the bus seems really long when it was only about five minutes. I look out the window and saw the ocean and stuff.

When we enter the hotel, I run up to Calvin and ask, “Uh, can you show me a picture of your hotel? I want to see the rooms,” and Calvin hands me a paper.

I studied the paper.

“Calvin, you said there are six rooms in the hotel. I only see three…”
Calvin laughs and then hands me another sheet.

It looks the same except there are no stairs and the numbers on the doors are different.

I never really can remember which room I sleep in so I called, “Lila! Rena, come here!” Rena and Lila came over and ask, “What?”

“Which room do we sleep in?”
Lila shrugs and Rena thinks. “I uh, I think in room four,” and turns to Calvin. “Am I right?”
Calvin nods.

So we sleep in room four and the dead lady's room is right next to room four which means she sleeps in room six. The room closest to Ms. Carina's is room five.
“Who sleeps in room five, three, two, and one?” I ask Calvin. Calvin says, “Moses sleeps in room five, Reni sleeps in room three, Mrs. Levine sleeps in room two, and Bob and Rosie sleeps in room one.”

I nod and say, “Thanks.”

That night, I couldn't sleep at all. I had a feeling something's wrong. Really wrong. And then all of a sudden I felt thirsty. Really, really thirsty.

“I'm going to get water,” I say. My voice was all raspy and low.

I went out of the room, closed the door gently and then trotted down stairs, and to the ladies' bathroom. I turn on the sink and cupped my hand and then put it up to my mouth and sipped. When I came outside, I felt a little better. I still felt thirsty and stuff. But that's when I heard a noise. I loud noise.

I jumped up and then shrank. The noise was coming from the bottom hall. Where I was. It was really dark, but I have good eyes like a cat's. But still, I couldn't make the picture. All I know was I was in a same room as a person.
My eyes grew wide and then I clutched my stomach and all I had on my mind was don't let it out, don't let it out but I couldn't take it. I opened my mouth and belched. A really loud one, too. I covered my mouth.

-SIX-

I can see the figure coming towards me and I had nothing to do but scream. But no sound comes out. I banged on the wall to make everyone come out.

Still, no one came out to save me and the figure only walk closer and closer. I was really scared; let me tell you, because this person was the murderer. Well, at least I think so.

Now the figure's just about a foot away from me and I can see the leg kicking up at my stomach.

I grabbed my stomach and squealed. I kick the person in where I think is the chest and then jumped on that figure. I punched the figure and then the figure jumped on me.
“Help!” I finally scream. Then I saw the eyes. It's huge, let me tell you, and blue. But almost everyone's eyes are blue. All except for Mrs. Baby and Rosie.

Then something worse happened. I saw something shiny in the person's pocket. That person took that shiny thing out and then stabbed me in the arm. That's a knife, for sure. And I only saw the knife. It's sharp, small, and I don't know, scary. I scream even louder. I kicked that person off me but it only made it worse. Well, not really, because if I hadn't kicked that person off, he or she would probably stab me in the chest! I'd die!

Instead, the person, or so called “murderer”, stabbed me in the knee. I squeal even more.

And before the person can hurt me anymore, a door opened and I heard Rosie scream, “What's that noise?” The lights weren't on, but the door was open.

That person ran away somewhere I had no idea. My eyes were closed and I was wishing I'd be fine. I heard Bob ask, “Is anyone here?”
I didn't say anything at first, but then I whisper, “Call the ambulance.” Rosie shrieked, and Bob turned on the light and then Rosie shrieked even louder, “Someone got hurt!” Now, this shriek is the loudest thing I've ever heard. Seriously.

The lights zipped on, everyone who lives around this hall opens the door and comes out, and everyone who lives around the upper hall comes down to watch.

Lila, Rena, Otis, and Marcus run to me and ask, “What's going on?” I whisper, “Call the ambulance.” Lady Reni walks to me and says, “I'll call the ambulance right now, don't worry-everything will be fine.”
Well, unfortunately, I didn't think anything's going to be fine. And then next thing I knew is I'm on the stretcher getting hauled over to the truck.

“Lord that scared me half to death! Alex, what did happen?” Lila asks me while we're on the ambulance. I say, “I was going to the bathroom to get a drink and the next thing I knew, I'm in the same room as someone. All of a sudden I gave out a mega-burp and the person came closer and, yeah, we had a fight for a while until the person stabbed me with a knife.”
“How do you get into these stuff? Why do you always get into fights with school kids or even murderers or thieves?” Rena asks. I laugh a little and whisper, “Ouch!” The knee's the part that keeps stinging. Blood is leaking over my clothes.

When I got back from the hospital, everyone came charging to me. “How do you feel?” or “Are you feeling better?” or “Was it scary being with a murderer?” and all these other crazy questions was spitting out everywhere.
I glanced over at Mr. Odor and I saw him looking worried. So I go over to him with Lila and ask, “What's wrong?” Calvin lets out a nervous laugh and says, “I'm fine. It's just that Mrs. Levine isn't out. She's always out in mornings. Do you think she's sick?”
Lila laughs and says to him, “Don't worry, she's just probably freaked out about what happened last night.” I shake my head and say to her, “But I didn't see her coming out.” That made Lila stops cold. She looks straight at my eyes and says, “Do you know what I'm thinking…?” I nod and then frown. I look at Calvin and say, “We think that she's… you know, been murdered.”

Otis pops up and asks, “You think so?” Okay, why does he always pop up? Now that's something I want to know. Marcus comes over with Rena and says, “I'll check it out.”
We all agreed that Marcus and I should go over. That's because we're both strong and brave. So is Rena, but she didn't want to go. After the look of Ms. Carina, I didn't think she'd ever do anything brave again that can kill herself.
So everyone walked up to room two. Marcus and I knocked politely, but no one answered. We look at each other. I held my breath and began to bang the door. Still, no answer. I decided to do the same thing I did with Otis two nights ago (I think it is two nights ago, at least). Marcus and I backed up a bit, and then ran up to the door and kicked it. It didn't budge. So I say to Otis, “Why don't you help?” So we three backed up and then ran to the door and presto, the door went down in a split second. It was easier than the other time, that's all I know.

And again, it has that weird smell. Odd smell.
Otis backed up and say, “You two can take it from there,” so Marcus and I look in the very first place we saw. The closet. I was closing my eyes while I was opening to closet, and waited for Marcus to scream-but, he didn't. Instead, he tapped my shoulder and whispers, “She's not there.” I opened my eyes. She wasn't there. So we decided to search separately. I look under the bed. And what do I see? Pitch-black of nothing. I decided to do a smarter thing. I called, “Marcus! Can you hand me a flashlight?” He gets a flashlight and hands it to me. He crouches down right next to me and asks, “You think she's there?”
I say, “Maybe.”

I turn on the light and all I can see is slippers. The bottom slipper was facing me. And I whisper, “She's definitely here. Oh, I'm so glad we don't have to see her body.”

Marcus laughs and shouts, “Everyone! Mrs. Levine's under the bed! Call the cops!”
Lila and Rena run over and ask, “Does she look scary?” All I say was, “We didn't see her.”

-SEVEN-

Once the cop's over, we get down to business. They asked a lot of questions and I mean a lot. I had to explain everything three times because more cops come in and make me tell everything over. “Don't ask me to explain it to you again,” I say when another cop comes in. “I won't make you,” the cop says. He has a mustache and squinty eyes, let me tell you, he doesn't look too friendly. “So, you found two dead women, already?” Squinty Eyes says. I shudder and shiver. “I have a feeling it's not the last of it, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is those two aren't the last people to die in this hotel. I have a feeling there's going to be more.”

Then we heard Mrs. Larson call, “Boys and girls! Get outside and on the buses! We're going to have the Halloween party on the beach!”

I look at the cops and say, “I'm sorry-we have to go.” And off we ran, getting our costumes or bathing-suites. And then I remembered I didn't bring my bathing-suit and I'm already wearing my costume. So I ran downstairs, to the lobby, out the entrance door, and ran in the bus. I got a seat faraway from the bus driver and grinned. I waited for Rena and Lila. Finally our whole group got on the bus. I sat with Lila and Rena was sitting with Marcus. We had a little sing-along on the bus. We all sang a “Happy Birthday” song because we felt like it-and anyways, it was no one's birthday we knew of. And then we sang the national anthem song. Only, I didn't sing because the song's too high. Rena and Lila didn't sing either. Just the boys and other girls.
When we got to the beach, I had butterflies in my stomach. There were a lot of people. A lot of people my age. It makes me sick to my stomach once I think about it. I don't know why I get so nervous-I just do. But I'm glad I didn't wear a bathing-suit or a scary costume because I would've been more embarrassed. Lila, though, didn't think it's scary. She thought it's awesome! She was wearing her “Little Miss Beautiful” princess costume and her two-parts under it. Rena wore shorts and a white shirt. I wore long jeans and a long dark-blue T-shirt that says “DON'T MESS WITH ME!” and I'm actually proud I wore this shirt. No one bugged me.

I stood up and walked over to the picnic area. I got a plate of orange and black frosted cake and ate it. Oh, it was so good! Naira went by; looking disgusted, and says, “Eww… that is so gross!” I didn't actually look up at her; I just rolled my eyeballs up and saw her. I giggled a bit and then went over near the ocean and watched Lila swim. Of course, she didn't wear her princess costume. Then all of a sudden I yelped. I was in the water, all wet. And I found out the water wasn't so cold as it looked. It was warm even though the breeze was so cold.

I look back and saw Marcus laughing. He pointed at me and shouts, “Gotcha!” I rolled my eyes and splashed water on him. “Hey, I didn't wear my bathing-suit!” Then all of a sudden, Marcus and Otis kept pushing everyone into the water. I laughed at the part Gerry tried to run away from Otis but tripped into the water by a small little innocent rock. Soon, it became a water fight. Or a “Pushing-people-into-the-water” fight.
Everyone was in the water except for Naira, that is. Otis sneaked up to her and grabbed her feet. And Marcus grabbed her head. Now, Naira wasn't screaming. Let me tell you, she was laughing her head off and looking like a queen with two cute alike boys around her. She had no idea what they're going to do.

All of a sudden, Otis and Marcus ran over into the water with Naira in there hands and then swayed her back and forth and counted, “One, two, three! Throw!” and threw her in the water. I laughed so much I had to cough.

Naira coughed and shouts, “Oh, I'm dirty!” Lila and Rena giggles and points at Naira.

I swam out of the water and walked into the picnic area. I grabbed cake, ran over to Naira and threw the cake in her face. “The water's what you call dirty? Please...” Her eyes are closed because the cake was on it. I made sure the cake was gooey. She touches it with her hand and shouts, “Eww! Droppings!” That made me laugh even louder. Everyone laughed. Rena shouts, “That's cake!”

I splashed water on her face and pretty soon, she's tackling me. “Hey, that tickles,” I say to make her stop. She doesn't. When I finally got away from Naira, I sighed of relief.

Lila and Rena chased after me. Then all of a sudden, Otis comes towards us. When he got to me he says, “Wow, you really hurt Naira bad! You're awesome!”

My face turn red and I can feel it's warm.
After he left, Lila says, “He likes you!” I say to her, “Shut up!” Rena laughs and says, “Admit it, he likes you!”
I shrug and finally say, “So fine, maybe he does like me but I don't like him!”

“But why did you cheeks turn red?”
“Shut up.”

Rena and Lila can be so annoying sometimes. But I shouldn't say so-after what they had done to me.

-EIGHT-

“I'm worried about you, you know.” Lila says.
We were lying on the ground and talking.
“Why?” I ask her. She shrugs.

“It's just that I have a weird feeling something bad is going to happen to you.”
“What do you think might happen?”
She looks straight into my eyes. “You're gonna die.” Okay, now she's saying it in a creepy way. Well, not in a low shaky voice trying to make it scary-but in a voice like a robot's. I mean, yeah it's her voice, only she sounds like a robot. It wasn't getting lower or higher.

I laugh and say, “You're kidding!” Then Rena gets into the action. First, I thought they were just fooling me and acting. But, then I realized Lila and Rena weren't that good at acting.

“We're serious, Alex, you might die. You saw that person. Now that person's plotting to kill you.” I squint at her and say, “But I didn't see that person.”
Lila shakes her head several times and then says, “Look, that person doesn't know that. That person thinks you did see. We've got to do something.”
“What?”

“I don't know… tell?”
So we did what she suggested. We came down in the lobby, told Mr. Odor what we think and he thinks it's ridiculous.

So we had a better idea. We called Mrs. and Mr. Standers, Lila's parents, and tell them we need to go home. Trouble is, they're not home.
“At your grandparent's?” I ask Lila in a low, frustrated way.

Lila smiles a bit and says, “Yeah, probably,” and then I had no other idea. Either to die or die. Okay, that means I've got only one choice left. Die. Or at least do something. Like get a hundred people and when that person comes in, we'll kill him or her? Or maybe I can tackle that person?
(Okay, I'm getting really tired of saying “that person” so I'll just say it's a `he'. The person might be a he or she. I have no idea.)

And now I got it all planned out.
I tell everyone, “Find a weapon!” and so we looked like ants scrambling everywhere to find food. I looked under the bed. I still had the creeps thinking about Mrs. Baby dead under her bed. But it's not like someone's going to jump out and kill me, right? And what did a find-nothing. That's right, nothing.
So then I thought about it some more. And then aha! I ask Marcus, “You brought your costume, right?”

Marcus nods and says, “Why?” I closed my eyes and then opened it. I say, “Well, can you just tell me where you put it?” He shrugs and puts his hands out and says, “Fine, don't kill me though…” and then digs through the closet and then pulled out the grim reaper clothes and a thick wooden-like stick with a fake knife pointed sideways at the top. I grinned and snatched the stick.

“This'll be perfect!”
Later, everyone had a meeting. Lila was holding a chair-leg which she must've broke off. It was, believe me, scary. The stick was carved. Really carved. I saw two glaring eyes, a huge pig-like nose, and a mouth. An open mouth with sharp teeth sticking out. I held my breath while I say, “Good,” to Lila and moved on to look at Rena. She was holding her baseball bat. I had no idea why she got it so I ask, “Why did you get it? It's not like I'm happy because I'm happy.”
Rena shrugs and says, “I thought this field trip would be way more fun. I thought we would have a game of baseball but my dream's hopeless.”

I nod and say, “Sorry, but that's a real good weapon,” and moved on to Marcus next. He was holding a fist. I squinted at him and ask, “You're going to fight? With no weapons?”
Marcus laughs and pointed at the stick. “You're using my weapon. I don't have anymore weapons so I'll use my fist.” He punches the air with a big Pow! Pow! Everyone laughs and I nod at him and say, “Good,” and then look at Otis. He was holding a pen with a pointy top and I mean pointy. The pointiest pen I've ever seen. “You're going to poke that guy? Good one,” and I look at Naira and glared at her because why? Because she's crossing her arms looking straight at my face.
I try to act cool as if nothing happen. “Um, Naira? Why aren't you holding your weapon?”
“Because I'm not going to be involved with your stupid plan. You expect us to hide somewhere and spy on that guy? You're nuts! We can get major-ly dirty!” She hisses with her nose pointing at the ceiling. Jeez, she can really hurt my nerves.

I close my eyes and say, “You're not part of that `Oh, the Clean Girls' club anymore, so quit it! This is a matter of life! Getting dirty won't hurt you-my problem can!”

I open my eyes and I saw Lila and Rena giggling. Naira pouts and crosses her arms, marching off to a different direction with her head turning away.

When she came back, she held another chair-leg and kept patting the stick against her hand like a baseball player. Like she even can play! She'd get dirty in less than a second!

I smile evilly and say, “Let it hit!” and then made everyone huddle into one big circle. I was telling them my plan-not really like a plan. More like a steak-out. An indoor-steak-out.
It was getting darker by the second. And when I'm sure it's midnight, I whisper at least loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, “Let's start!” And we decided we should separate in two different groups with at least one tough-plus strong-hitter. Group one who hides under the bed: I, Alex Lanes and Marcus Kean. Group two who hides behind the couch: Rena Muffler, Naira Jenzy, Lila Standers, and Otis Corer.

First, we set up the bed on floor. We put huge stuffy pillows under the blanket and we did the same thing on the bed. Later, I took a letter and wrote: Mr. Odor, we decided to leave this hotel. We didn't tell you right away because we're afraid you wouldn't let us. But too late now - we're probably already at Lariat. Tell that to Mr. Mortis. Sincerely, Marcus, Lila, Naira, Otis, and Alex.

I put the letter on the desk and then I turn off the light and whisper, “Hide!”
So we all scattered to our hiding place. And waited. And waited. It took a pretty long time before we heard a creek at the door. I was nearly asleep until Marcus nudged me. I look at him and mouth, what? He cocks his head at the door. I peeked through the long blanket hanged on the mattress. But I couldn't see so I pulled the blanket up a bit. Marcus was stunned at first, but then he peeks through the hole with me. But all we saw was black shoes. More like sneakers, really. We saw the `shoe-sneakers' walk towards us. I bit my lips and held my breath. I nudged Marcus to do the same thing as me. And he did. But the minute I peeked back out in the room, the shoe-sneakers were gone. Disappeared. Never to be found.

But then I felt my stomach getting squeezed. I looked at Marcus and he felt the same thing too. He was squeezing my hand like crazy.

The man was on the bed.

-NINE-

I finally pulled my hand away from his and then pointed up. He nods and was about to say something until I gave him a glared. That shut him up-cold.

We started to peek out again, and then we saw a fat pillow flying in the air and then dropping down against the couch. The man was really a knuckle-brain. He's crazy! Then we both heard him say in a whisper, “These crazy kids! Whereis she?” to himself. And I knew-he was talking about me.

All of a sudden, he jumps out of the bed and walks towards the desk and then holds up the paper I wrote. I did a silent giggle and then continued watching.
The man crumpled up the paper and whispers, “Ah, so the little girl ran away from home?” again, to himself. All of a sudden he shakes his head and I knew what he was thinking: why would the girl and her friends run away and stuff pillows under her bed and then leave a note? It was true-why? Now, that time I was unthinkable. Real unthinkable.

I mean, why would I stuff pillows to pretend they're us when we just left a note to run away? This was just confusing.

“This is a trap,” the man whispers. Man, this man knows how to speak to himself! I do too, but I never do it because I wouldn't want to be caught talking to myself. They'd think I'm crazy!

The man checks everywhere except behind the couch and under the bed. He headed straight towards the bed and held up the curtain and smiles because who does he see? Us. And who do we see? Him.

I wave at him, smile and say, “Hi, when are you going to sleep?” and then hit him with the stick. Marcus laughs and then crawls out of the bed and smacks him in the cheek.
If you're wondering… we didn't see the guy. He was wearing a what-do-I-call-it? A hat around his head with holes for the eyes, mouth, and nose. Well, a very little hole for the mouth and the eyes.

Then, all of a sudden, Rena charges out from nowhere and then holds the bat like she's about to hit the baseball that's flying towards her and smack! She hit the man. Like she'd hit a baseball and I've seen her play-she's good. Real good.

I laugh and then Otis and Lila charges up and then hits the man. “Lord I'm going to kill you!” Lila shouts at him.

Naira did nothing useful. All she did was stand back and cheer like a cheerleader. Please, she's making everything worse. How can I focus hitting someone when a girl's cheering? So I yell, “Naira! Stop it! Hey, if you mess us up, you'd die, too, not just us.” So Naira stops and instead of cheering, she throws all the stuff she can find at the man. The man twitches and then pushes everyone back, and ran for the door. I eyed Naira and nod. She nodded back and then throws an unlit glass lamp at the man. I never knew she can aim. But, she can, let me tell you that!

The man falls down and then I jump on him like a trampoline. “Wow, this is fun!” I shouted out at everyone. All of a sudden the man grabs my foot and then swings me around and lets go. So the man got away with it. And I'm flying at the pole; let me tell you that it's made of rock. My head's aiming at it, that's right-the head. And I'm also screaming my head off. And then BAM! It's not exactly the head that got smashed. It's my hip. I made a U-shape out of my body around that pole. The bottom of the U is my hip and the right-top of that U is my head and the other side's my feet.

Lila practically screams, “Ahh! Oh my lord!” and Rena closes her eyes and jumps on Otis. Marcus stared and then runs to me crying, “Are you okay, Alex?”

And I'm still hanging like a U around the top of the pole. I don't know why I'm sticking up there like glue-I just am. And then I remembered the paint. It's still new and I know that it takes a while for the paint to dry.

I nearly spit out blood-I'm serious! With a capital S. No, with a double capital S. No, with a triple!

And a second later, I did. It hurt so badly. My hip!

The door flew open and there stood Mr. Odor. He stands there, looking amazed. Blood is splattered on the floor around me. And I'm glued to that pole! Mr. Odor then done the stupidest thing I can ever imagine him do. He leaves the room and a minute later, he comes back holding a camera and then takes a picture of me on the pole and the blood. I choke out, “Are you crazy! Yes you are! Help me get down from here! I can't move,” and then spit out my saliva with chunks of gooey reddish-brown blood that goes with it.

“Want to buy my saliva? I guarantee it, you can get some reddish-brown blood that goes with it for free,” I say, making my thoughts a sentence. Everyone cracks up, and so does Mr. Odor. He thinks it's a funny joke when I really mean it. I rolled my eyes and shout, “Get me down!” and that gets him moving. He jumps up ten feet and says, “Oh, I'll call the fire department and the cops!” I was about to tell him, “Don't call the cops. And don't you have a ladder of your own around here?” but I didn't. I didn't want to because my stomach hurts to death! And besides, he's gone. And then an hour later, we all heard sirens. And I'm still stuck up to that pole like a fly stuck in some sticky web.

The cops come in and I saw Squinty Eyes. Squinty Eyes' mouth dropped down five feet and his eyes looks like they're about to pop out any second now. He beckoned some more cops to come over and that's when I saw a ladder. I smiled weakly because I'm about to get saved! From this evil sticky pole! And that's what happened. I got saved. Lila looks at me and then puts her hands to her mouth and whisper, “You look skinnier,” to me. I point at myself and then looked at my hip and stomach and sure enough, I was skinnier.

Squinty Eyes comes up to me and says to everyone, “Unfortunately, she did get skinnier. We can already tell she got thrown at that pole very hard and she had to throw up blood. Everyone has to unless they're lucky.”

And that's when I realized it was five o'clock in the morning. “I didn't know it was that long,” I mutter to myself. Lila and Rena laugh and say, “Same here!” and then we heard Mrs. Larson call, “Kids! Meeting outside!”
I look at my shirt that has blood splattered on it. And I call back, “Now? Can you wait?”
“No!” Mrs. Larson calls back. I moan and then ran downstairs and outside with everyone following me.

Whenever Squinty Eyes is around me, Mrs. Larson makes us leave. How great.
And that's when I notice every eighth and seventh grader is outside.
When they saw me, they practically faint. Some people gasped. Mrs. Larson runs up to me and asks, “What's wrong?” I say, “Nothing, it's just pretend blood. Naira squirted a bottle at me.” Naira pouts and says, “I did not!” and then goes blabbering everything I told her to do and what happened to me. I tried to pull Naira back, but she wouldn't listen or even budge.
And that's when I realized everyone heard the story Naira told Mrs. Larson. I put my hands against my face and then stood up and straightened my clothes. Mrs. Larson gets a tissue out from her pocket and wipes the blood off my face. “Sorry, but you can't do anything about it. You can't change because Mr. Mortis is arriving any second now.”

“Even if I wear this?” I whine. I pointed at my T-shirt. “You're kidding!”

Mrs. Larson shakes her head sadly and says, “I'm sorry, Alexandra, but really, I didn't make up the rule. Mr. Mortis says that if one student gets late… well, you know the drill,” but I don't know the drill. But I didn't even bother to ask her. That'd lead me nowhere.

And the minute Mr. Mortis's car drove up, I groaned. With about, like, a hundred other people. Mr. Mortis steps out of his car and the first look at me, he groaned. “Another bad behavior, yes?” He says to me. I look at him like, what? And all he says was, “I suppose you caught yourself in hard wood, again, missy?” I squeeze my lips together and very slowly I nod.

“And anyway, I know how bored you are on this trip. I thought it would be more fun myself. So I decided that each of you must choose one partner to explore the town. I'll give each of you a map that shows the whole town but I expect you to be back here by five o'clock in the afternoon and I expect you to choose a partner you'd go with really well and someone you don't go hang around much often.”

I rolled my eyes. I would've grabbed Lila or Rena's hand immediately without any trouble at all.
And when Mr. Mortis quit talking, I look around to pick someone. Naira? No way, she'd ruin my great time around the town. She's really bossy, pushy, and really picky around stores, let me tell you that.

And all of a sudden I heard Otis shout, “Alex! Hey Alex!” and then I turned around and saw Otis running up to me like a chicken running up to her poor long-lost chick. And then I looked the other way. There's Marcus running up to me calling, “Alex! Alex! Wanna be my partner? Alex!”

-TEN-

And I felt really dizzy. Really, really dizzy. Why would Otis want to be my partner? He should've chose Lila or Rena as a partner and Marcus? Why doesn't he choose his girlfriend, Lila? Fine, maybe he's not supposed to choose anyone he knows real well, be why me? I quickly ran up to Gerry-and did something I never would do-and I grabbed his hand and say to Marcus and Otis, “He's my partner if that's okay with you…?” Gerry looks at me like I'm crazy and opened his mouth until I eyed him and kicked his knee. Marcus and Otis look at each other and then back at me and smiles. “We, uh, we don't mind. Besides, there's way more girls to choose. Like Lila and Rena, they're cool,” Marcus says.

I smile at them sweetly and when they're both gone, Gerry looks at me straight in the eye and say through his teeth, “Are you crazy? Do you like me or something?” I look at him like he has snots sticking out of his nose. “Gross! Why would I? I just did it because Otis and Marcus want to be my partner!”
“Well I want to be Lila's partner.”
I giggled a bit and say, “Lila and Gerry, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! Admit it! You like her!”
Gerry has no way to escape. He looked down at his shoes and then shrugs and says, “What if I do? You gonna kill me?” I laugh and say, “How can you like Lila? Remember the time she yelled at you?” Gerry shakes his head three times and smiles. “She was so cool back then.” Okay, now Gerry has a peanut for a brain! Gerry noticed how confused I look and say, “Well you're my partner now, so where do you want to go first?” I ignored him and say, “But you can't like her. She already has a boyfriend! Well, almost. But it's not like I like you or anything. I'm just warning you that Marcus will chop your head off if he ever finds out…” Gerry shrugs and says, “So? I don't care about him.” And then he looks at my shirt. “I say we better go to a clothes store first.” And I agreed with him. Mr. Mortis smiles at me and Gerry and then hands each of us a map. I look at mine closely and then point at where the clothes place is. It's called Admiration Clothes. What kind of stupid disgusting name is that? But that's the only `clothes place' there is in town.

“Here! I found one! I know, it has a stupid name but let's just go there,” I say to Gerry. Gerry leans over and peeks at my map and folded his, saying, “Okay, let's go,” so we headed down the road and then turned to the right and straight up the street until we found two words painted gold and boldly: ADMIRATION CLOTHES.
Gerry grabbed my wrist and exclaim, “There it is!” and I say back, “I'm not blind, Gerry,” and take his hand off my wrist. I go in there while Gerry hanged around out. Then I remembered: money. I don't have any money so I ran outside and ask Gerry, “I don't have money!” Gerry shrugs and puts his hands in his pocket and pulls out a twenty dollar. “Don't waste too much money. Just buy a new shirt and get outta there. I'm only doing this so I won't get embarrassed by your bloody shirt,” he says and mutters some other stuff.

I grab the money and say, “Thanks!” while I ran in. The bell jingled and then I searched for some T-shirts. Some people were staring hard at me. I lip-talk at those people like, Staring is not nice! And I found great, sorta plain colored, cheap T-shirts. I found one that has green and blue squiggly stuff circling around the T-shirt everywhere. I like the colors and I chose it. And when I'm done buying it, I charged into the changing area and then hid myself into a stall and changed. I held my bloody shirt under my arm while I walked up to a lady around the counter and ask, “Do you have any bags?” The lady looks at me and then pulls out a bag. “Here,” she says and hands it to me. She has a low thick voice. She sounds like a man. If I didn't even look at her, I'd think she's a man. But right now, I'm looking at her. Mostly her lips because whenever she speaks, there's these stuff shooting out and landing right on my face but I knew better than to wipe the stuff and shout, “Gross!” Especially right in front of her.
So I put my bloody T-shirt in that bag and ran outside holding the bag with me. I handed Gerry seventeen dollars. He looked amazed. “Wow, nice T-shirt. I can't believe it costs three dollars!”

Then we decided to go over to an art supply place. And when we did, we got to go separately because that store's small. And I mean really small. I looked at some markers and found one that says: you can write these on papers, floors, walls, clothes, anything and it will wash off! Washable markers rule! And then I grinned. At my new T-shirt and the markers. I ran towards Gerry holding the pack of colored washable markers exclaiming, “Can I buy these? Please?” He looks at the tag. One dollar. And again, he looked amazed. “One dollar? Jeez, everything's cheap around this town!” and hands me a dollar. I smile at him sweetly and say, “Do you like me?”

He looks at me like I'm crazy. “No way! Please, why do you think? Do you like me? Hey, I can see your smile-I'm not blind!” Now I look at him like he's crazy. “No! I just thought so because you keep giving me money!”

“I only gave some money to you because you were wearing that bloody shirt before! I wouldn't want myself to get all embarrassed walking around with a girl that has blood on her shirt,” he says back to me. “Besides, I'm only giving you a dollar because those markers are cheap.”

I snicker. And that's when I realized we've been, like, shouting. Everyone stares at us like we're a couple of teenagers shouting at each other, “You like me!” and stuff like that. It's embarrassing. And to tell you the truth, I don't like him! I already told you, he's mean. Maybe not right now, but he is. Trust me.

I march off to a man standing in front of a cashier. I gave him a dollar and say, “I'm buying these washable markers.” He nods and then gave me a bag, but I refused to get it. Then I ran up to Gerry and say, “Look, I'm sorry. But I got totally embarrassed too. Want to use some of these markers?” and handed him some colors. I got a thick black washable marker. And then I run inside a stall, took that shirt off, wore my bloody one, and wrote on the new T-shirt: RESPECT THE GREAT AND ONLY, ALEX LANES! And then I took off my bloody one, and wore my new one and then put the bloody shirt back into the bag. I ran out cheerfully. When Gerry saw my shirt, he totally busted up. Then he says, “Good one,” and then kneeled down, and in a thick red, he wrote: BEWARE OF THE GERRY! on his yellowish-green baggy pants. I thought that was kind of copying-writing on your clothes- but I didn't tell that to him. So then we decided to go somewhere else. Somewhere fun. I put the set of markers in my bag which had the bloody T-shirt and then peeked over my shoulder looking at Gerry's map. Gerry says, “Mmm…” a lot while he was rummaging through his map. Then I suggest, “How `bout Total Teenage? Sounds like a place we'd go.” Gerry nods and says, “Yeah, let's go there!”

We got out of the art supplies store and then headed straight into the mall where “Total Teenage” was. But I found myself running straight into Lila. She looked really panicky and then turned around and saws me. She puts her hands up to her forehead and says, “Wow, Alex, you scared me half to death!” I saw Otis with her. I smile at them and then headed towards Total Teenage with Gerry and then I found Marcus holding Rena's hand. I gulped a bit and then Gerry says, “Looks like they're-”

“Shush!” I say and hit his stomach. But really, I wanted to say what Gerry had said so I say, “Looks like they're-”

“Shush!” Gerry laughs and then hits my back. I moved my back a bit and then stood straight and tall. “Wanna spy?” I ask Gerry. Gerry laughs and says, “Sure.”

So we hid behind a cell-phone rack peeking over at Rena and Marcus. I just totally couldn't believe what I saw. And then I look around and that's when I saw Lila and Otis heading towards Total Teenage. Towards us!

-ELEVEN-

I had to do something. And then all of a sudden I heard Marcus say, “Hey Rena, do you think she'll like it?” I look at Marcus and Rena. Rena says, “Sure! Lila will just die if you buy it for her!”

“You think so?” Marcus says back to her. “I'm her best friend! Of course I'm sure!”

And I thought it's okay if they see us spying on them because I don't have to worry about it anymore. So I stood up and sighed of relief. And then I found out that Lila's just a few yards away from us and that Rena and Marcus is still holding each other's hands so I got all jumpy. Then I found a small rock and then aimed it at Marcus's wrist. Gerry covers his eyes and laughs. Marcus let's go of Rena's hand, and then rubbed his injured hand against his baggy jeans. He looks at me. I cocked my head at Lila. He smiles and then lip-talks to me, thanks!

And really, I expected something else. Way. I expected him to say, “I'm just Rena's best friend,” or “Its okay if I hold her hand-we don't have a further relationship than best friends!” or something like that. But instead, he says, “Thanks,” like if it wasn't for me, he'd already get yelled at by Lila. He was doing something I couldn't believe he'd do. Same with Rena. She knows that Lila likes Marcus a lot. And now she's holding Marcus's hand!
Gerry, in the other hand, knows what I'm all ticked off about because he pats my shoulder and says, “I know-he's a jerk! Don't ever go hanging around him anymore. Someone who cheats on girls. Same with Otis,” and eyed Otis. I sighed and say, “Don't worry about me, let's go.” So we went around the store and this time, I'm near him. There are lots of cool stuff we want to buy but didn't. First of all, Gerry thinks that if they're cheap, they're useless. Unless they're super cheap, he'd buy them. Like the markers. Then I found something I wouldn't have imagined. Something that's in the shop. Something unbelievable and that if the cops find out, they'll totally arrest whoever owns this store. A gun. That's right, a gun. But it costs like, two hundred bucks. I tugged on Gerry's shirt and pointed at the gun. His mouth dropped and he whispers, “They're totally dead!” And I know he's talking about the employees.

And that's when I found a knife on sale. A deadly knife. And I'm talking scary, sharp, and small. Really small. And this knife is a knife I have seen before. And I know it because I just can't get the picture out of my mind.
I tugged Gerry's shirt again and whisper, “That knife! That's the same exact knife I saw when I got stabbed!” Gerry looks at me like I'm crazy. “No! It can't be! There can be other knives, too, you know.” I look at the knife closer and smile. Because there's proof. He-he-he! Proof is all I need!
That's because whoever owns that knife hasn't washed it carefully because I saw a spot of blood on it. Something that looked like my blood. Wow, this is getting better by the second! I'm glad that man tried to kill me! I'm glad I spit out blood! I'm glad I'm holding a bag of a T-shirt filled with blood right now!

I took my T-shirt with the blood out. Gerry practically yells at me. “Hide it in the bag! I'm getting embarrassed again!” Some teenagers looked at us but I didn't care. And I didn't put that shirt inside the bag.

I hold the shirt up beside the knife. “Look! Just look at that. Do you see any difference because I sure don't!” Gerry looks closer at the shirt and the knife examining it. Then he shakes his head and says, “A lot of blood looks like that.” I laugh and say, “Get me a cup of water and you'll see.” He looks confused like, how are you supposed to find out with a cup of water? But he went away anyway and came back with a cup of water. He handed the cup to me. I slowly took the bloody shirt and then squeezed the edges. A drop of blood fell into the pool of water in the cup. Gerry held his breath. I knew it.

Then I put my finger up to the knife and touched the blood. Then I put my finger in the water and happen?
The two reddish-brown blood meet together. They touched. They're the exact same color. Gerry looked amazed with his jaw dropping down. I look at him with one eyebrow up. “So? Do you believe me now?”

But does Gerry give up? Not a chance. He says, “What if that blood is not your blood? You know, that person's related to you?” I laugh and say, “You mean my mom or dad? They're in New Jersey and I don't have any more relative. I'm sure.” Then I walk up to an employee, holding the cup of water behind my back, “Do you know who stalks these stuff around the store?” The employee stands there staring at me and then says, “Yes I know. But I'm not telling you. It's against the rules.”
I had to do something. Just had to. “Oh, okay. I was just making sure that the other employee is telling the truth. He told me-”

“How can he tell you that it's Flora?” that lady says. I giggle a bit and say, “Yep, that's her!” and then I turned around. But the lady doesn't stop me. Uh-uh. Never. She put her hand on my shoulder and the turned me around. I say, “What?” The lady cocks her head at an employee and asks, “That's him, right? The guy who told you?” I couldn't really tell her that he is. First of all, she's blaming a guy who didn't do anything wrong. It's just that I lied. So I say, “Not him. Oops, sorry. Now I just remembered that no one told me who the person was.”
“Which person?”
“The person who stocks stuff around this place…?”
The lady glared at me. Super time. “You tricked me!”

I shrug and say, “Not that I tricked you. It's just that you fell for it and I really forgot no one told me who it was.” Gerry laughs and pats my shoulder. “Good one.” And I'm getting a very bad headache. He says that all the time! And it's getting pretty annoying. But I don't do anything about it. I just stood there staring at the lady until I couldn't take it anymore. I took a step back, another, and another, and pretty soon I found myself real far away from that evil witch lady.

But if you want to know the truth, I tricked her for nothing. I mean, we know that a person from the hotel killed Ms. Carina or whatever and Mrs. Baby. And I know that Flora doesn't live in the hotel. Mr. Odor didn't even mention a girl named Flora! But maybe a person gave that knife to Flora so she can sell it…

“Do you know where Flora is? You don't need to hide her from me. I know her name's Flora and I know she's in here somewhere,” I say to another friendly looking employee. And I don't even know for sure if Flora's here. I'm just saying so.

The lady looks at me and squinted. “Excuse me? Oh, I guess that's okay, then. If it's not, nothing will hurt me. I just might get fired-which, I don't care.” She led me somewhere in a small room. With Gerry following me. And in the middle of the floor sat a woman drinking I-don't-know-what. The jug is black with lots of scratches all over it.

The woman looks at me and then at the employee. “And who is this young fellow…?” Flora says to the employee. The employee looks at me.

“My name's Nellie Rolwin and this is a student from my class, Rainy Reek.” I pointed at Gerry. Gerry looks at me like I just said something I'm not supposed to say. Then I whisper to him as low as I can, “Pretend!” Gerry whispers back, “But why Rainy? Do you know how lame that name is? It's a girl's name!” I giggle a bit and whisper, “That's the point!”
I look back at Flora and I can hear her asking herself, “Why on earth are these two silly teenagers here at my office?”
I say, “Well, where did you get the scary knife?” Flora squints at me and pulls an eyebrow up. “From a friend. Why?”

“Because I just wanted to know where you got it. It looks cool and I was planning to buy it for my mom.”
“I don't know where my friend got it.”
“Who is your friend anyway?” I ask trying to get as much information as I can. Flora closes her eyes for a second and opens it again with a quick flash. “I got it from my friend and I'm no-”

“Let me guess-you're gonna say: I got it from my friend and I'm not telling.” I say sounding very disappointed. Flora smiles at me and nods. “That's right.”
I hesitated and then say, “But please, Flora, I need to find out! My mom has seen the knife before and she wants it! And she says if she doesn't get it, she'll die! I don't want her to die!”

Flora puts down the jug of I-don't-know-what and then folded her hands. She says, “I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do. I don't even know your mom. My friend knows me. My friend says almost the exact same thing. My friend will die if I tell anyone the name!” I smile and ask, “Her name or his name?”

“Why on earth do you think I'll tell you?” Flora says, cool as a fish. And I know-I can never outrun her. She keeps secrets way too hard.

So I had to tell her the truth. The real truth. I held my breath and then let it go and told her everything. Well,almost everything. Flora nods and says, “Well, I still can't do anything to help you.”
“But don't you even care? Your friend is a murderer! Your friend will kill everyone in the hotel including me if I don't do something!” I yell. Gerry looks satisfied and Flora still looks cool. Her voice is the same-it doesn't go any higher or lower and she doesn't yell. “So what if my friend's a murderer? Doesn't surprise me! Look at what my friend showed me-a gun. And I accepted it to be in this store. I've done way scarier stuff than that.” I look really surprised. Really, Flora looks like she would do all this stuff but now that I know her personality a little bit more, it made me surprised. She seems nice.

“Surprised, huh?” Flora laughs. I cocked my head sideways and nodded slowly.

When I got back to the Ocean Hotel, I realized I was late. Really late. About an-hour-and-a-half late. I got in trouble just a teensy bit by Mr. Mortis and then I let everything flow as normal. I still kept thinking a lot about the `person' who nearly killed me. All I knew was that the person wasn't Mrs. Baby. She died. Apparently, Mr. Odor wasn't the killer. How could he? It didn't make sense. Why would he want to murder everyone in the hotel when, in fact, everyone will leave the building? And then there will be a rumor that there's a murderer in the hotel and whoever stays there, will die. Why would he want to scare away his visitors or whoever-you-call-it? Not Rosie; her eyes aren't blue. Not her husband. Totally not her husband. If it wasn't for him, he wouldn't be able to help me. He was in with his wife sleeping until he heard a noise and that's when he asked, “Is anyone here?” or something like that. And I can even ask Rosie if he's with her or not. And I'm sure-he's in there with her.
Maybe Moses, but he's blind. And I know it. He couldn't have just pretended he's blind, right? Because his eyes look blind. I already told you they're poppy and stuff and I'm sure they're not pretend eye-poppy stuff or whatever.

Maybe Lady Reni? Nah, she volunteered to call the ambulance for me. But that didn't really mean anything, right?

Not Mr. Carpe. He's way too old to hold me up and swing me around! Too old to even fight me. Or even kill anyone else. But if I eliminate him, then that'd lead me nowhere. I eliminated everyone! And now, I decided to eliminate the people I know for sure that won't be a murderer.

I eliminate Mrs. Levine (because she's dead, obviously), Rosie, Bob, Mr. Odor and Moses. That leaves two players: Lady Reni and Mr. Carpe. I mean, Lady Reni could've just run into her room, changed, and then charged out shouting, “I'll call the ambulance!” And old Mr. Carpe might be a different kind of old man. He might be strong. He might be able to kill someone.

-TWELVE-

But now, I haven't been able to give anymore thought to it because I fell asleep right away.

The next morning was boring. No one had anything to do so we decided to play something. Something called “Good Morning Your Majesty”. In case you don't know how to play, I'll tell you how. You have to play with a lot of kids. And then one kid goes in the middle and closes their eyes and pretends to be queen or king. And then a person has to come up to that kid and say, “Good morning your majesty,” in a different voice. That kid has to figure out who said it.
And everyone voted that I should be the queen. So I go in the middle of the room, close my eyes and say, “Ready.”
Later, I heard, “Good morning your majesty.” Now this voice is hard to guess. It's tough; let me tell you, it's a whisper. And if you ask me, I can't really tell if the whisper came from a girl or a boy because a whisper sounds like any other whisper to me!

“Uh, Otis?” I guess. Everyone cracks up. I open my eyes and saw Lila standing right in front of me. She points to herself and says, “It's me! I can't believe you thought I was a boy.” I shrug and say, “Hey, I can't tell the difference from a boy's whisper or a girl's,” and then it was Lila's turn. Rena was so funny when she says, “Good morning your majesty,” because it's squawky. And high, screechy, and stuff. We all covered our ears before Rena even finished her sentence. Lila shouts, “Rena, that's you!” and she opens her eyes.

Later that day…

Okay, I'm so bored. We're so bored. “Someone help me from boredom!” I mutter. Maine is a piece of rotten egg. Really rotten eggs. Hey, I already predicted it'll be bad but not that bad.

“Really, Alex, you're so pushy.” Naira says with her hand on her chin. We were sitting around the table in our room.

“Who are you talking about, Nancy?” I say back to her. If you don't know Nancy, well, she's this big fat girl in seventh grade. She's as fat as a cow. About probably forty inches around her stomach and I'm telling the truth. She also has really curly hair. Super curly. And she has lots of hair about a million, probably, and her hair is so thick. Her eyes are huge, her nose is huge that has nostrils that sticks out (with snots too), and her mouth is small.

“I am not Nancy! My name is Naira!” Naira shouts at me. I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Like I don't know…?”
Naira doesn't know what I'm talking about so she just kept quiet. Rena starts to sing a Christmas carol song. But sort of different. Like a different verse of “Jingle Bells”.

“Naira's weird, Naira's weird, Naira is Nancy… oh what fun it is to insult her name and she's ugly, totally! Naira's weird, Naira's weird, Naira is Nancy… oh what fun it is to insult her name and she's ugly, totally!”

Everyone laughed all except for Naira, that is. She pouts and then leaves the room and a second later, she screams. We all covered our ears and then Lila, Rena and I ran to her-she's in the bathroom-and we stopped cold, too. Because what did we see? Naira. But who was next to her? A dead man on the ground.

“Is that Moses?” I ask frighten. And no doubt about it, he's Moses.

-THIRTEEN-

On the floor, lying next to Naira in the ladies' bathroom. Naira wasn't really disgusted out by the dead man. She was disgusted because there's a man in the ladies' bathroom. She keeps shouting at him like he's ever going to listen. He's dead! And she doesn't know that. Even if there is blood covering his whole face. “Naira! That's Moses. He's dead.” Lila shouts. She runs out of the bathroom and an hour later, she came back with a huge bag of chips and a carton of chocolate milk. “I called the cops. They said they'll be on their way over here. Want some chips?” She handed me the bag. I didn't like to eat chips (except for Cape Cod chips) so I handed it to Rena. Rena gave it back to Lila. Lila made a face and then showed us the bag. “You ate it all?” She asks Rena. Rena shrugs and we all busted up.

When we saw Squinty Eyes and some other cops come in, we were more than glad. We hopped off the sofa and then walked towards them. But they didn't stay still. They walked and walked. When we finally caught up to them, we still couldn't talk. We had to run to catch up with them and so we're all out of breath. So when they finally waited for us to speak, we spoke.

“I can't believe Moses died!” Rena screams. I frown and say, “Me too,” and then turned to the cops. “Hey, any day now, we'll die!”

Squinty Eyes shakes his head like, oh these kids know nothing! And then he says to us, “Then leave! Stay in another hotel. There are more hotels around this town, you know.” I don't want to explain him anything. Anything about what Mr. Mortis says because I don't want to talk about it. And I bet Rena and Lila doesn't either. So I put my hands in the air and say, “I don't want to talk about it anymore,” and then rested my hands back down. “So, did you guys find any stuff you're curious about? Something about Ms. Carina or Mrs. Ba-Levine?”

Then this cop that has a pointy nose came up. He said something, but I didn't listen. I was more like thinking about his long pointy nose. Did he lie a lot and then his nose grew long like Pinocchio? Did he always squish the side of his nose?
“Alexandra?” Pointy Nose says.

“What? What did you just say?” I ask him. And now I'm trying to pay more attention to him but it's hard!

“Well,” Pointy Nose says. “We found out that Mrs. Levine's wallet is empty. And when you kids left for a party, we asked Mr. Odor questions about Mrs. Levine. He says that she would always give him few dollars. He says that whenever he sees her wallet opened wide, it's always full of money. Oh yeah, who is Mrs. Ba-Levine?”
I rolled my eyes and nodded slowly. Squinty Eyes frowns and says, “And don't get into this business! I read the news paper back in Lariat and it says that a girl name Alexandra Lanes caught a thief!”
I used my left foot and patted my right ankle. I folded my hands and say, “Whose Alexandra Lanes? I never heard of her. Nuh uh.” Squinty Eyes pointed a finger at my nose and then says through his teeth, “Don't lie, missy!”
I looked at my shoes and say, “But this is my business! If I don't do something, then everyone in the hotel will die! Including me.” He sighs and then says, “Look, I guess it is your business but let the cops do the job, okay?” And I didn't even have time to say, “Okay,” or, “No!” because he just left. Walked away and into the lobby. We followed him there. When he finally noticed that he was being followed, well, it just looked obvious that he was mad and uncomfortable. So decided not to let him see me bother him. I just sat on the floor, pretending to read a magazine but what I really was doing is listening to their conversation-Calvin Odor and Squinty Eyes.

Rena and Lila did the same thing as I did. And when Squinty Eyes left the lobby, I ran straight up to Calvin and ask, “Do you have a sheet of paper that tells anything about Mr. Carpe and Lady Reni? And Mrs. Levine?” Calvin looks at me like, what? But then, in a few minutes, he finally looked around a bunch of messy sheet of papers and then pulled three sheets out. He handed it to me.
Mrs. Levine's sheet has a picture of her in a young age and then some stuff about her like when she was born, when she got married, her phone number, and all that stuff. And then, at the bottom, there's a few information about her. It read:

Mrs. Levine: She's a very quiet, kind, and caring woman. Mr. Levine went off to fight in a war while she just wept and hoped for her husband to come back home. Her daughter, Liza, was just about to get married. Mrs. Levine is one of the few women who have been very important for the past years. She is a great spy, disguiser, and a great detective. She figured out about more than twenty mysteries.

Her money has not been very important to her. She wants people to remember her as a great hero so she wrote in every single dollar she gets an “L” in the bottom right corner. The “L” stands for Levine. She never gives anyone her money except Mr. Odor and of course, to employees in stores.

She has many caring friends. Most of her friends are hard workers in town.

So all I knew that was important was that she writes an “L” in all her dollars. And that she's a great spy, disguiser and detective, which means a lot to me. So now she doesn't really seem like such a big snob anymore. She seems like me. Well, I don't have a husband and I don't write an “L” in the bottom right corner. But, yeah, I'm a great spy, disguiser and I don't know about a detective. I only caught some people and they were thrown in jail but that's only the first time.

I read Mr. Carpe's thing. It listed all the good things about him but the very important section to me was this:

Mr. Carpe is almost broke. He's almost out of money. People say he's getting a job in Maine, but that's only a rumor and mostly, rumors are always not true. He likes to buy green tea in the morning to drink.

And I had a plan. A very great plan. I huddled up with Lila and Rena and told them my plan. Rena thinks it's a great idea. She usually likes my ideas because my ideas are cool and fun and just… good. Lila, though, hates my ideas. She thinks they're bad, out of control, and most of all, she thinks that the plan will never succeed-I think. But she always does it, anyway. And so, I'm sure she'll do it. And she promised me she will.

I told my plan to Marcus, Otis, and Naira. I told them to keep their mouths zipped about it and by the time it's morning, we got to work. We went outside carrying a small table, some green tea, and a sign that read: SELLING GREEN TEA. We waited for Mr. Carpe to come out, but he doesn't. So I came in, asked Calvin if he can tell Mr. Carpe to come outside, and then joined my friends again. We waited and waited some more.

“I'm beginning to think this plan is dumb,” Otis says with a droopy face. “My gosh, I need to go in! The sun is giving me a bad headache. I can have skin cancer, too. We all can.”
I was feeling pretty awful by the way Otis thinks my plan is dumb. But I didn't tell him so and I'm trying really hard to keep a straight face. I say to Otis, Marcus, Naira, and Rena, “You can come in. I'm staying out,” and then I turned to Lila. “You too. You don't have to keep your promise anymore.”
But Lila and Rena wanted to stay. But the rest wanted to go inside and rest. So it's just us three now. And then we saw Mr. Carpe. We were so glad. Because he's looking right at us.

-FOURTEEN-

Mr. Carpe smiles and then walks over at us. “Hey, I didn't know you sell green tea! Lemme buy some! Wait, how much does it cost?”
I laugh and say, “A dollar per tea.” He hands me a dollar. When he finally left, Rena jumped up and down. Lila did too, but she had to stop jumping and break the sign off.

When we got all the stuff put back in our room, everyone crowded around me. Every kid at least. I looked at the bottom right corner of the dollar Mr. Carpe gave me. I didn't see an “L”. Nope, I didn't. I flipped the dollar over and looked at the bottom right corner. No “L”. “So there's no `L'? I knew it! I just knew it!” Naira exclaims happily. I looked at her with a sad face on. “You knew what?”

Naira gave me this look so I say, “Great. Just great. We wasted all the money on tea for nothing.” I got up from the bed, and then put the money in the trash.

Lila looks at me surprised. “You're throwing away that dollar? Alex, money is really special!”

“Then who'll keep it? We can't decide. We'll just have to throw it away,” and so, no one got to get the dollar.

At night, while everyone was asleep, I got up from the floor and walked towards the desk. That's where we all stash paper. I look through the papers and found one about Lady Reni. I tried to read it in the dark to challenge myself, but I finally gave up. First of all, I couldn't read it no matter how long I try. Second, I'll have wear glasses if I keep trying to read in the dark. And glasses costs a lot, if you ask me. I didn't want to wake anyone up so I got a flashlight from a drawer and then turned the flashlight on and shined it at the paper. The important stuff about it was this:

Lady Reni is almost broke, like Mr. Carpe. She likes to give poor beggars money because she knows how it feels to be poor and begging for money. She usually goes around the country and gives poor people money.

I thought about it and thought about it some more. She likes to give poor people money? And then another plan shifted into my mind. A great idea. But I had to wait the next morning to do it. But it didn't really matter because the next thing I knew was that I was being waked by Naira. If you ask me, I didn't remember falling asleep. I really didn't.

“Alex? Snap out of it! Get out of bed. Mr. Mortis is here. He wants us to all go outside. Every seventh and eighth grader is out.” I sigh and then got up, changed into long jeans and the new T-shirt, brushed my hair and teeth, and then ran all the way outside. And Naira's right-everyone's out including Mr. Mortis and Mrs. Larson. “Kids,” Mr. Mortis announces, “You'll have a walk-in at a lighthouse! You will be going in and having a tour guide!” and blab, blab, blab. I raised my hands and before he can call my name I shout out, “Do we have to go? I have something important to do! Something super important! It's an emergency!” Mr. Mortis shakes his big fat head and says, “Sorry. No can do!” I pout.

I had to do something. I just had to! And before I knew it, I found myself on a bus. I sat on a row behind the bus driver. When everyone got loud and we're a little far from the Ocean Hotel, I slowly walked to the bus driver and ask, “May I please get out? It's urgent.”
“Like…?” the bus driver says. I bit my lips and say, “I'm getting a huge stomachache. I'm going to throw up!”

“Look, if you need to throw up, and then throw up on this,” the bus driver says and holds up a big bucket. I made a face and say, “But it's not something simple! I have a fever! A very bad fever! And I'll keep throwing up and in fifteen minutes, I bet the bucket will be full!”
The bus driver stops the bus and stares at me and then says, “Do you know the way to the Ocean Hotel?” I nod. “Then go. I'll tell your principle about your fever once we're at the lighthouse,” the bus driver whispers to me. I nod and then waited for him to open the door. And when he did, I ran outside. If you want to know the truth, I don't know the way to the Ocean Hotel. And once the bus starts moving and I'm all alone surrounded by nature, I started to bite my nails and get worried. Will I get lost? Will I get kidnapped? Will something happen to me? Something bad?

-FIFTEEN-

But then I thought that if I didn't do anything, nothing good will happen. Worrying doesn't make things better, if you know what I mean. And then I remembered about the map. The map! I'm sure I've been here before. I looked around. But I didn't see anything. I started to go up the road and then a miracle happened. I saw a store. An art supplies store! I know this place! And I'm sure I know the road to go back to the hotel. I grinned wide and then started running up the street and turning left and right and straight and all these directions. And then the next thing I knew was that I was standing right in front of the Ocean Hotel. I ran inside, up to our room, and inside. I changed into my bloody T-shirt, which isn't bloody anymore. It just smells like blood. I torn the shirt a bit and then wore it. I checked for old jeans I didn't like and I found one that I didn't need to rip because it's already ripped. I wore the jeans and then searched for an old looking hat. And I didn't have one so I checked in Naira's pile of clothes and then I just found the ugliest hat I've ever seen. Ugly and torn. And big enough to cover my face. And I'm thinking that Naira won't mind if I borrow it so I did.

I ran down to the lobby, asked Calvin if he can send Lady Reni outside, and then ran outside. I sat down, with my back against the tree. The tree was right in front of the hotel. I stretched my legs out and held out my hand, shaping a cup. And I started to think my plan wouldn't work until I saw Lady Reni walking outside. She didn't even seem to notice me until I sneezed. She stared at me and then walked towards me. I pulled my hat a little forward so my face can't ever be seen.

And then the next I knew, Lady Reni had put a five dollar in my hand and walked away. I grinned and checked the five dollar. No “L” in the bottom right corner. I turned it the other way and presto, I saw an “L”.

Lady Reni is the murderer.

-SIXTEEN-

I didn't really get to do anything about it. I just ran inside, changed my clothes and then thought about Lady Reni and all the dead people. But I'm still not sure… what if Lady Reni was just an employee? Employees usually have an outfit and a tag somewhere in there room. And so I had another idea.
I ran in the main entrance area and up to Calvin. I ask him, “Did Lady Reni go inside?”
“Nope,” Calvin says quietly.

“Okay, uh, can I have a key to go in her room?”
“What? Are you crazy? Of course not!”
“Please… it's urgent! Hey, I'm your friend. I'll give you five dollars…”
Calvin thought about it for a while and then took a good look at me and says, “Just be quick and hand me the money.” So I handed him five dollars and he handed me her key. I ran up to her room and then pushed the key into the keyhole and turned. It clicked and then I went in. I searched in the closet. I looked through the clothes. No employee outfit with a tag that says “RENI”. But what I did find was a Santa Claus costume. But something bothered me. The costume is fat. I looked inside the costume and saw two fat pillows. I looked under the bed and everywhere. No outfit with a tag. So she must be the murderer.

I was just about to step out of the room when I decided to take a look at the room. And it made me freaked out. Just surprised. Because it's a mess! The closet's open with clothes sticking out and the blanket on the bed's all messed up and stuff. I must've made a mess while I was checking out the room. So I cleaned it up and it took, like, two hours to do it. When I was down to the main entrance area, Calvin runs up to me and say, “Hey! That was long!” I shrug and say, “I didn't know that was long,” when I did. That's when I saw Otis, Marcus, Naira, Lila, and Rena come in. They looked confused when they saw me all happy.
“I thought you were sick!” Naira shouts at me. No one said anything for long until Rena says, “You weren't… sneaking around, were you?”
I shrug and say, “Fine, maybe I did. But I found an interesting fact. Lady Reni doesn't care if she kills people.”

-SEVENTEEN-

Lila nearly died. “You mean she's the killer? Lord!” she screams. I put a finger up to my mouth and shushed her.

“So…” I whisper, “What do you say? Should we do it the easy way? Call the cops and stuff. Or the fun and hard way? Like trick her and then she'll get caught red-handed.”

Reni, Marcus, and Otis shout, “Trick her!” while Naira mutters, “Call the cops.” I lean in close to Naira and whisper, “Your hat is disgustingly ugly.”

Lila didn't know what to choose so she just kept quiet. But finally, for the second time ever, she says, “The hard way.” I was about to faint because I'm not used to her doing things the hard way.
I didn't really know what to do. I didn't know what to do to trick her. It's hard to think of a trick.

At night, I thought about what to do. And that's when I formed a plan. Not exactly what you call a “great plan”. Just a plan that might actually work.

I woke everyone up and told them my plan. “Any suggestions about the going-to-the-bathroom part?” I ask everyone. Marcus choke out, “How about Ginger Ale!”
Rena asks, “What's that?” Marcus laughs and says, “It's a soda. Whenever I drink it, I need to go to the bathroom.” I squint at him and ask, “Does it happen to everyone? No, I don't think so…” Marcus shrugs and says, “Let's give it a try, then.” He checks his backpack and then pulls out seven cans of Ginger Ale. I didn't want to drink it at all. I hate sodas that taste like Sprite. I made a face. I can see the same look on Rena's and Lila's face. But Rena and Lila took a can and drank it and so did Naira and Otis. I didn't drink a can. I just waited for people. In less than an hour, they're all finished with their cans.
A couple of hours later, Marcus jumps up and down saying, “I need to go to the bathroom!” and finally he did. Rena, Lila, Naira, and Otis went to the bathroom, too. And then I finally thought that Ginger Ale would be a perfect drink for Lady Reni.

-EIGHTEEN-

The next morning, Mr. Mortis made everyone go around town again. This time, I went with Lila. Even though she's one of my best friends and I know her really well, I still went with her. Mr. Mortis was about to stop me, but instead he just says, “Don't be silly, girls,” and we reply, “Okay…”

Lila suggested going to Total Teenage. At first, I was a little freaked out. I didn't ever want to go back in there but I just say, “Okay, let's go,” and we both head off to the mall and into Total Teenage.
The store didn't look any different at all. Everyone was crowded around an isle. Lila grabbed my wrist and exclaims, “Let's see what the crowd's talking about!” and then drags me towards the crowd. She had to say, “Excuse us!” millions of times, trying to push through the crowd. When we finally could see what's happening, I gasp. That's because I saw Flora holding the scary knife. She's yelling, “This is not a pretend knife! I know it looks scary but it's real,” and when she saw me, she just about fainted. By happiness. She runs to me, grabs my hand, and pulls me out of the crowd and into her office room. She whispers, “They think this knife is not real!”
“So…?” I say.

“I'm trying to sell this thing because the teenagers think the knife is just unbelievably scary. Less people come in here everyday because of this!”

“So… what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to do this,” and then whispers it in my ear very, very quietly. When she's done, I scream, “No way!” Flora smiles sadly and begs me. “Please? After this, I'll do anything for you! Anything at all!”

I sigh and say, “Okay, whatever.” When we opened the door, all the teenagers (including Lila) were around us. Flora smiles and says, “I'll prove it,” and then goes somewhere else and when she came back, she's holding that scary knife. She puts the knife in her pocket and then puts her hands in the air. “But don't call the police, though. It's not my fault that I'm doing this.” She holds the knife again and then she stabbed me right in the stomach. Only, it looked like she stabbed me, but the knife is really between my arm and stomach. Like under my armpit. I do a choking noise.

“Ahh! Oh, I'll get you for this!” I say in a raspy voice. I close one eye and stick my tongue out. “It hurts! Ouch! Ah!” I cry. I take a bottle of ketchup out of my pocket quietly and then I put my hand behind my back and started squirting the ketchup out of the bottle. Then ketchup started gushing out. Then I fall down in a big thud! I folded my hands and put my hands on my stomach. And finally, I whisper, “I shall rest in peace now,” and I closed my eyes. I heard Flora say, “I told you the knife's real!” People were saying “Wow” or “Sweet!” or “Nice” or something that's related to “wow”. And I'm thinking this is embarrassing and stuff when I heard Lila shriek, “Alex! Are you okay? Do you want me to call the ambulance?” She looks at Flora. “Lord why did you do that?”
After Flora shooed everyone out except Lila and I, she walked to me and say, “Show's over. Nice job. I have to admit you're a really good actress.” Lila squints at us and then smiles. “You mean this is only an act? Wow! You were good, Alex. You too, uh-”

“Flora?” I help her out. Lila laughs and says, “Yeah. Flora.” We all laugh and had a cup of water when Flora asks me, “So Alex, what do you want me to do for you? As a favor?” I shrug and say, “Gee, I don't know. Well, let me think about it. When I need help, I'll ask you, okay? What's your phone number?” and then I got her phone number. I didn't give her mine, though, because I just didn't want to.

At night, well, close to night, Lila blabbed the entire “acting scene” to everyone. And when I nod at them and say, “Lets go,” we did my trick. We went outside and downstairs and knocked on Lady Reni's door. She opened it and says, “Hi! Why are you here?” I tell her, “Do you want to drink Ginger Ale? Down at the lobby?” Lady Reni stares at the ceiling and looks back at us. “Sure.”
I nod at Marcus. He patted his backpack which meant, its right here. We all go down to the lobby and then sit at one of the tables and drank our sodas. “So,” Naira says, “Is anything good happening so far?” Lady Reni shrugs and says, “Everything's normal as can be.” We talked to her a little bit more. And when Lady Reni is done with her soda, I stand up and pretend to look at the clock and say, “It's getting late. I'm a little tired. We better get going to our room. Bye!” I wave at Lady Reni. She waves at us. We all ran out of the lobby and into our room. “Did I act well enough? Did I sound scared or was I laughing?” Naira asks. Otis says, “You act like an elephant. Just kiddin'.”

Thirty minutes later…

I say, “I think we should do it right now.” So we head off and downstairs near Lady Reni's room.

I say, “You guys can't just leave me alone here!” Otis laughs evilly and snickers. “Please! You were mean to us! And you keep telling us that Lady Reni's the murderer! She's too nice. That's the only reason why we didn't let you call the cops.”
Naira puts one hand on her hip and the other at my stomach and keeps poking me. “Hey, we're leaving you here alone! Get a good sleep!”
I drop my mouth and say, “But-but you ca-”

“Yes we can! We're packing and we'll be heading off home!” Rena screams at me. Tears ran down my cheeks. I kept closing my eyes and opening it. Then I whisper, “Do I look like I'm really sad?” Lila nods. “Of course you do! Now get back to work.”

So then Lila shouts, “You are insane, Alex! Why can't you just plot someone else as a murderer? We're leaving!” but she doesn't really leave and no one else was leaving, too. We kept on with that pose and yelling the same stuff over until Lady Reni's room door pushed open a bit. I eyed them and lip-talk, “Her door's open!”

They nod and then I started shouting again, “You guys can't just leave me alone here!” and then goes the same blab-blab-blab stuff. We acted like we didn't even see Lady Reni when she stepped out. And she thinks she looks invisible, too! What a loser! When we're done with the talking, I say, “Fine, leave me here alone!” I glance at Lady Reni, but pretended to look at the floor, and I saw her sneaking down to the bathroom. When I'm sure she couldn't hear us, I whisper, “Otis, Naira, listen to me! Follow her down to the ladies' bathroom and make sure you don't get seen! When she sees you, just act like you have to go potty.”
Otis's eyes nearly popped out. He pointed at himself and whispers back to me, “Me? I'm a boy!”
I rolled my eyes and whisper, “Yeah, well, I don't care! Hey, I'm sure you wouldn't get a heart-attack from going in the ladies' bathroom, don't you think so?” And with that, Otis sticks out a tongue at me (like a girl! Ha-ha) and then sneaks down the hallway with Naira. And then I whisper, “Sssssssss!!!!!!” Naira looks back and puts her hands in the air and mouthed, “What?” I whisper, “Naira! Don't get seen! You're really easy to spot, you know.” Naira makes a freaky face at me and then catches up with Otis. I nod at Lila, Rena, and Marcus and say, “I can't believe I'm actually going to let Naira do this job.” We all run upstairs, and into our room. I take Rena's baseball bat and then I jumped on the bed. I lie down the bed and pulled the blanket up to my neck. I hid the baseball bat between my arms. I peeked out at Lila, Rena, and Marcus. I saw Lila hiding under the desk, Rena behind the huge pole, and Marcus right inside the closet. I can't believe he has the nerves to go in the closet after he saw a dead lady in a closet.

A long time later, I heard a creek at the door. I was shivering like crazy. What if I really die? What if? But I stopped myself before I jump up like crazy and act like a chimpanzee, pounding my stomach and saying, “I am strong! I am strong! Woo-ha-woo…!”

I opened my eyes a bit. I'm really good at opening my eyes when my eyes don't look like they're opened.
I can see Lady Reni in a black hat and clothes. She was coming towards me holding a knife out just like holding a little crayon a babies' way. It's like holding a stick but it's a crayon.
But I'm really too busy getting freaked out by the knife that I didn't notice she was now only two yards away from the bed. That made it even scarier. I held the bat tighter and was just getting ready to pound Lady Reni when I heard her whisper, “Your time's over, Alex.” I closed my eyes and thought how does she know my name's Alex? But when I peeked out, I saw Lady Reni just right beside me holding the knife in the air with two hands, just about to stab me in the stomach. I quickly yell, “A big fat rhino's attacking!” and jump up, and smacked her right in the neck. Marcus, Lila, and Rena started to get out from their hiding places and then they helped me pound Lady Reni and soon, Otis and Naira joined us. While we're smacking Lady Reni like a piñata, Otis shouts, “We called the cops and they'll be on their way over!” to us. We didn't say anything at first-but we still heard him-so Otis repeated and then for a third time and a fourth and Rena starts to yell, “We can hear you! We're not deaf!” Everyone laughs. We were too busy laughing about it that we didn't notice Lady Reni get away from us. When I finally noticed Lady Reni right near the door, I shout, “She's getting away!” I chased Lady Reni and before she could get out, I jumped on her and we both landed in a huge bam!
Lady Reni started to use the knife and try to stab me again but I kicked the knife away. Lady Reni's on her way to retreat the knife, but I kicked her eye and ran to the knife and got it first. I hold the knife out at her and shout, “Don't move or I'll….tell everyone you like Mr. Oder. And I'll kill you!” It's pretty obvious that I was lying-that I wasn't going to kill her. And even Lady Reni knew she didn't like Mr. Oder and she knew I wouldn't kill her so she got up and ran out of the door and into the hall. We all ran out too. I could see Lady Reni close to the stairs. I couldn't even aim the knife at her because she's so far and maybe she might catch the knife. So I just let her be until I heard Marcus shout, “Drop!” Lila held out a remote and pressed a huge red button. What are they doing? I thought they were just playing an alien do-do at first but when I looked back at Lady Reni, I saw a net go flying right at her from the ceiling.

“Ha-ha! Let's see who the frog is now, huh!” I shout at Lady Reni with a finger pointing at her. “I know pointing is rude but look at you! You look like a duck, lying on the floor like that! Man, I gotta take a picture of this.”
I started dancing around Lady Reni like an Indian, clapping and “ha-ha”ing. Everyone started to join me. I kept pointing at Lady Reni because she was lying on the floor, trying to get out of the net but she couldn't. A minute later, we saw a flash. Cops started running towards us but I couldn't believe who I saw. I thought he was in Lariat. Why was he here? With that genius stickup hair he has, man, he looks like Elvis!

-NINTEEN-

“Elvis Hair,” I gasp. You see, his hair looks really like Elvis's hair and that's why I call him Elvis Hair. I know him from, like, the first day of school. Fine, maybe the second or third or even fourth day of school but all I can tell you is that he recognizes me, too, because he says, “Am I at the wrong place, or what?” and then turns to the rest of the cops and points at me. “I know this girl. She's parentless and she's-”

“I'm not parentless! What are you talking about?” I shout at him, giving him the don't-tell look. And so, he winks at me and then pretends to zip his mouth.

I slap my head, thinking he does not know how to lie.
Elvis Hair and Squinty Eyes looks at Lady Reni. Squinty Eyes squints at us and points at Lady Reni. “That's Reni, right?”

“Yeah, she is,” I say and then look at Elvis Hair. I got right in the face and poked his stomach. “Why on earth are you here?” I say through my teeth. It's not like I hate him or anything, it's just that I didn't want him to be here, right in front of me.

Elvis Hair puts his hands in the air and backs me down. “I'm here because my naughty sister's here.” He says and eyed Lady Reni. Everyone looks at him and shouts, “You?” even though, I swear, some of them doesn't even know him. Elvis Hair says, “Yes, I'm her twin. Anyway, how do you know she's the murderer? How could she be the murderer?” I pull my eyebrows up and say, “Ask me that question. Not them. I'm the one that pulled them into this trap. Anyway, I know it's her because Iknow it's her.” I tell the cops-including Elvis Hair-about the money with the “L” and the trick about acting poor and selling green tea. And the awful smell in Mrs. Levine's room and Ms. Carina's room that connects to Lady Reni's perfume smell.

Later that day, I never wanted to talk to cops again. I don't know why so don't ask me. And also, after all that trick and nerves to get near Lady Reni, I just wanted to lay in my real own bed and rest. Or sleep. Even snore.

But just right after I talked to Lila and Rena, I ran to the phone, dialed nine-one-one, and say, “Hi, I'm Alex Lanes and you know about the murdering at Raymond's Rock and Roll Music place?”
“Yes,” a woman answers. Her voice was thick and low. And it sounds familiar.
“Well, anyway, I know who murdered the person there. Her name's Reni. I don't know her last name, though. Wait, can you please connect this phone-call at Lariat? Please?” I beg her. I can already see myself right next to the woman, kneeling on the floor and shaking her shoes, begging.
“Well,” the woman says. “I guess that wouldn't be a problem,” and she does it. I talked to Elvis Hair and tell him that Lady Reni's the murderer at Raymond's Rock and Roll Music place.

“Are you sure? That Reni killed someone there? In a Santa Claus costume?” He asks me.

“Of course I'm sure! I snuck in Lady Reni's room and I found a Santa Claus costume in her closet. And also, a policewoman says that newspaper that belongs to Lariat only travels around Lariat. When Lady Reni saw my friends, she knew them immediately because she read the news.”
“Well, yeah, she lives in Lariat, but there are a lot of Santa Claus costumes around Lariat and a lot of people like to dress up as Santa…”

“I know but I just have a feeling that you sister is her… and don't just pop up right in front of me when I least expected you to. How many sisters and brothers do you have?” I ask him curiously.

“I have a twin sister, Reni, and another sister. But my mom says she's gone now. I have no idea where she is or who she is.”
I started to think about the girl. Was she me? No, it can't be!

“How old is she? What does she look like? What's her name?” I ask fast.

“Hmmm… her name? I dunno, I asked my mom a million of times but she never told me because she hates to talk about her. And her age? Gee, I don't know. The last time I met her was when I was twelve. Hmm… oh, she's thirteen right now, moving on to fourteen. And I have no idea what she looks like.” My heart stopped cold. She's thirteen? Can't be. She can't be me. I don't remember having any sisters or brothers. But what if he's my brother? That means I put my own sister into jail! My gosh, I never thought about that!

“Hello?” Elvis Hair asks. I hesitated. “Uh, I'm here. I need to go. Bye, Elvis Hair!”

And before I got a chance to turn off the phone, he says, “My name isDan!”
“Whatever,” I say and turn off the phone before he got to do anything else. Lila and Rena jumps up behind me and ask, “Who'd you talk to?”
I rolled my eyes and mutter, “Dan.” Lila grabs my arm and ask, “Whose Dan? Does he go to our school? What's his phone-number?” I sigh and say, “He's a cop, okay? And he doesn't go to our school. C'mon,” and then we go down the lobby and out the door where all the eighth and seventh graders were.
Mr. Mortis stood on a huge, wide, big, fat rock and announces, “I hope you had a great time in Maine! We're just about to get onto our buses and go back to Lariat. But let's have our stars go up here,” and then shouts out, “Alexandra Lanes! Otis Corer! Rena Muffler! Marcus Kean! Lila Standers and Naira Jenzy! Let's have them go up on this stage!” I was really surprised. Really surprised. But I went up on the `rock stage' with about five other kids. I can hear Lila gasp, “Lord he's talking about us!”

Mr. Mortis announces, “These kids, especially Alexandra, caught a murderer or thief. Once again, Alexandra is into a case. So tell me,” he turns to us. “Who was the one thinking about the murderer most and who thought of all the plans and who got the problems all together?”
Everyone pointed at me. “Alex did.” Then another flash! I hate cameras around these times. I made a huge face. Mr. Mortis laughs and then says to me, “I guess you'll be in the newspaper once again. And this time, the newspaper will spread around Lariat and Maine.”

As soon as we got on the bus, I was glad that I'll be away from Maine. I will never ever go to Maine again. Lariat's the home town I like. It's quiet, sometimes, peaceful, and just relaxing.

“Hey Alex, Rena, are you going to town meeting?” Lila asks us. We were all sitting in one seat and hopefully, no one noticed that.

I shake my head and ask, “What's town meeting? I never heard of it.” Rena nods and says, “I never heard of it, either.” Lila laughs and says, “Oh, yeah, you two don't have parents. If you did, you'd probably know it. Mr. Mortis called in a town meeting. It's a kind of thing where the whole town gets together and then Mr. Mortis tells them what to do. It's something like that.”
“Don't you think that's awkward? That Mr. Mortis can do that? He doesn't own Lariat!” I say. Lila nods and says, “He doesn't own the town but anyone can call town meeting if they need help or anything like that.”
Rena fixes her hair and says, “But I never see a town meeting.”
“That's because you're never really outside when it happens. But it does. And it's today. Today! We're going to town meeting just right after we get off the bus.”

And when we got out of the bus, we followed Mr. Mortis into this enormous building. The biggest building I've ever seen. It's huge. I almost fainted when I looked up. The ceiling looks like it's as far as the moon. All of us, seventh and eighth graders, fixed up the chairs in rows and then sat on them when we're all done. In a couple of minutes, everyone in town was here. Everyone. There was so many people, I couldn't even count how many. When everyone's about settled into their chairs, Mr. Mortis goes up on the stage, a huge stage, and announces, “Halloween was okay, right?” And we heard about like, a thousand people say, “Right.” Then Mr. Mortis says into the mike, “But we invested that there has been a robbery or a murderer while Halloween and my very own kids says that Halloween wasn't all that great. So,” he continues, “I decided that we should have another Trick-or-Treating Halloween. Tonight,” and that was settled. I wasn't happy because Halloween stinks with a capital S.

At night, I wore my usual clothes and no one asked me what I am because I had to write on my shirt, “I AM A STUDENT!” I wonder if people are going to slam the door in my face again or just refuse to give me candy. Or they'll just treat me like a regular kid in a costume. I don't know. But all I know is that next Halloween, please; I'm not going to go Trick-or-Treating. Not even the next year, or the year after that or even the year after that. No. I'm not going until a thousand years later.

And I'm not ever going to Maine. Not even in a thousand years.

Never.