Chapter Two, The Murder

After her moonlight poem, she received more failing grades, which, if possible, made this week worse.

As the weekend finally arrived, Sophie was dying to go out and have some fresh air and have a break on homework; it's driving her crazy.

Emma said that there was a community park right next to (or shall we say, inside) the school. Although Sophie just wanted to have a nice walk around the school grounds (and finish her star chart report right next to the lake), she didn't want to let her friend down. Besides, she wanted to go to that park for ages too.

She carefully packed a quill, an ink bottle, her star chart, and her Astronomy book (Gazing into the Galaxy) into her bag. She didn't want to leave her work behind, especially since she got an official warning that if she gets another fail grade she will be kicked out (like what Brittney said). Well, at least it's Astronomy that she's dealing with, so maybe, she thought hopefully, just maybe, my teacher will give me a chance. After all, she is supposedly impressed by how good she was with the sky.

Just when she was deciding whether to bring a water bottle or not, there was a creaking sound, and three boys entered.

"Hey!" Emma said, jerking around so quickly Sophie worried that she sprained her neck, "You're not allowed here! This is the girl's dormitory!"

"Well," said the first boy, "we're tired of being a boy and girl split up, so mind if we go to the park together? We also want a break."

"Seriously?" Sophie asked, shaking her head, "Of all the times you could've popped in, you had to choose now."

"So, is that a yes?" said the second boy.

"Wow, the headmistress really favors the girls, they get to have a room for only two of them! We have to squeeze three into one." said the third one.

"Well, I think they think girls are more trustworthy, right?" Emma prompted, "And, fine!" she then snapped, "you could come with us, just stop doing that, alright? It creeps me out."

"Well, if you say so." grinned the first boy, 'By the way, this is Lee, that's George, and I'm Fred, you probably realized, George and I are twins."

Pretty obvious, thought Sophie. The twins looked so similar that it would be really hard to tell which one is which. They had the same brown hair, the same blue eyes, and the same slightly-freckled-face. In fact, they also looked like someone else… but since she didn't mention it, Sophie decided not to point that out.

So, as we were saying, our friends went off for a little walk in the park.

Sophie, who has never been anywhere near here before, was shocked to see the entrance; in her community park, the entrance was merely a few trees guarding the outer side, but this one, was magnificent. The stone walls surrounded the park, high enough so that people can't sneak in, low enough to have a peek at the beautiful inside. The main entrance resembled NHH's door to the main study hall, with two stone lions (rather cute, one of them had little lions on them) standing guard on each side. Through the door, the huge fountain (which was covered in the shade of the trees and looks like they made it like a forest entrance) was just visible; a deer, a princess, a prince, and a dog. It was amazing how the water still came out because it didn't seem to have any holes in it.

"I know this fountain, it's famous. I think Mr. Boring (the common nickname of the history teacher) said that it was built for the legend of Princess Sophia and Prince James. I wonder why they planted a forest around it now? It was supposed to be alone, or something, probably a hundred years ago. What's so famous about them anyway?" said Lee in great disgust.

"Don't ask me, I'm only half-listening in history class; it's so boring that it can bore you to death if you don't be careful," muttered Fred.

All of them laughed except Emma.

"Well, first of all, you should pay attention in class." said Emma impatiently.

"Oh, come on, Emma, have a sense of humor will you? It's still pretty funny." said Sophie, "Everyone knows that he's is an old fraud."

Emma looked highly offended but didn't answer.

"Anyways, shall we have a look inside? I heard that they are putting up a show, with little flags that say "magic=LIAR" on top of them," Lee said seriously.

"What?" said Sophie and Emma.

"Only joking." grinned Fred, "But I wish they did, then we could have a good reason to leave school early."

As they made their way in, Sophie asked curiously "Why do you guys want to leave school early?"

"Well, first of all, the classes are way too boring, we could learn loads more if we were living out as adventurers. Second, we think that it's time that we should bring the matters into our own hands," said George, now looking a lot more serious.

"Like how?" asked Emma.

"Well, you see, me and George here are planning to start a joke shop, but we don't know where we're going to get the money. So we're planning to leave school early to get some money and start our shop," said Fred.

"Seriously, a joke shop?" Sophie forced down a laugh, "That's like one of the stupidest ideas I've heard, everyone knows that joke shops are very lame."

"Hold your problems later, our shop is going to be amazing, and maybe then we'll start thinking about inviting you two because you definitely are not now," Lee said.

"Hang on, when did we invite you, Lee?" Fred looked mildly surprised.

"Yeah, how come you didn't tell us you wanted to join?" pampered George.

"Wait, I think I remember him saying once…"

"Or twice…"

"Probably for the whole year…"

"OK, OK, will you two shut up?" Lee rolled his eyes.

"If you say so." grinned Fred again.

Sophie hid a smile.

"Anyway, how are you guys going to make people come?" asked Emma.

"You'll wait, it'll be a shock. Probably even knock poor old Boring off his chair." this time it is Lee's turn to smile.

And this time, nobody bothered to correct Lee because they were all too busy laughing (even Emma).

Just when they started to try (and it did not work) to pursue the twins and Lee to tell them how they plan to make the joke production funnier again(they keep refusing), they heard a scream.

"Good, are they really putting up a show?" said George hopefully.

But it wasn't a scream of surprise, nor was it of laughter. It was a terrifying scream, a scream of pure horror.

"Someone's in trouble!" yelled Sophie, as she took off a run.

Her confused friends followed her, panting, trying to keep up.

"Why can't you just slow down a bit? There will be others that will get whoever is in trouble, with that sound, the whole park must have heard it!" George huffed.

But there was another reason why Sophie was running. The shriek was very familiar, in fact, it was as if the sound of home. The sound of her stepmother.

They ran and ran. Sophie felt her sides aching, her muscles screaming for a break, but she didn't care. Her stepmother was the person who was the closest to her, apart from maybe her parents.

It was as if the path continued forever. Sophie wished she had been more active in PE, then, even if she's only one second quicker, she might be able to help whoever, hopefully, not her stepmother is in trouble.

But they were still one step too late.

She was right

There it is, her stepmother's body. Laying still and motionless, if it wasn't for the fact that there was a mixed look of horror and surprise on her face. It was lying in the middle of a nice clearing, which makes Sophie think that whoever did this, is really clever. This is in the middle of the forest view, far away from everyone else.

She felt an arm wrap around her.

"Oh my," whispered Emma, struck with horror.

She closed her eyes.

And then, she fainted.

The next time Sophie woke up, she realized she was in the school's hospital wing.

She buried her face in her hands.

It feels like everything she loved, her parents, her stepmother, they all floated away. It felt like she lost everything. She couldn't remember her parents, but when she tried to think of them, she had this picture of two bodies lying on a room floor. Just like how her stepmother did.

The nurse, Madam Poppy, came over. She is a tall, skinny woman who looks like she's a mistreated vulture. With the eyes of a hawk, it was hard for her not to realize her patient awoke. Strangely enough, her temper was rather nice, as long as she didn't get too offended.

"Finally, you're awake." she hurried over and touched her forehead. A zip of pain struck Sophie at the very same moment.

"Oww!" she gasped. The pain left, as quick as it came.

"What's wrong? Where does it hurt?" Madam Poppy asked.

"Nothing… How long have I been here?"

"I'm afraid that it is well over 1 day. It was some shock of yours to see that terrible body."

The memory floated back to Sophie. The picture of her dead stepmother…

Yet Sophie was sure that there was something wrong with the body. It seemed unusual, but she couldn't tell how. Thinking of it started to make Sophie's head hurt, so she decided to drop it for now and accept the porridge Madam Poppy handed her.

While eating, Sophie seemed to feel a bit better. She started to think that maybe there isn't anything wrong with her stepmother's body. But still, she thought, maybe it's not my imagination, there was something wrong with the body, it's just that I didn't notice.