2. Fun investigation

Stacy and max came after me, running.

"Hey!" Stacy called me and I turned around to face them.

"Did you find him?" Max asked.

"No. How do you know it's him?" I asked.

"He was wearing a pants and hoodie," Max said.

"So?" I stretched my hands to the sides. I was wearing black pants, not jeans. An actual pair of trousers pants and gray men's shirt.

Max slammed his hand on his forehead as in facepalm.

"At least you found his class," Stacy said.

"No," I said. "If he's running from us, he wouldn't enter his own class to reveal his location," I explain when Stacy knitted her brows at me.

I then looked at Max. "For the moment we will consider the culprit as him. It's easy to specify him."

"Let's bet who finds him first," Max said and I smiled at his challenge.

"Hold on - hold on." Stacy waved her hands In-between us. "Before you guys fed me up with your tactics, I am going for my mechanics class." She said.

Her major is mechanics. She's a lover of robotics. I do like her major. Sometimes, we do her project together, which she's completely against it. But then allows me later on, when she couldn't resist my continuous glare anymore.

"Our class started too. Legs go." Max said. I glanced at the clock in the class where the culprit boy hid himself and went to my class.

During the end of the class, my eyes were having glanced at my wristwatch. The junior class of his hideout will end at 10:30. And our class ends at 10:45. I watched at the ticking of the watch, the tick-tock sound of each passing second. When the clock strikes 10:20, I silently sneaked out from our class. I rushed downstairs to the floor of the juniors and hasten towards his class. There is just a fifty percent possibility, he could be there. If he has a brain then I don't think he will be there. If he doesn't, then that is actually his class. While I was thinking, I reached the class and stood beside its door. I waited for the bell to rang. And when it does, I watched each and every person that left the class including the lecturer too. Well, the culprit was not there. And now the game became much more interesting.

"How naive." I could hear the voice of max as he spoke from behind me.

"Just a 50-50 chance," I said.

"When you said it's not his class, how could YOU think he might wait for you to come and catch him," Max said, stressing on the words you to taunt me.

"I want everything to be in front of my eyes. I believe in the evidence that I see not the guess that I made. Unlike you, I don't make conclusions based on my  instinct." I said an equal and opposite reply to him.

"Woah Woah. Do I make decisions on instinct? Since when?" Max asked quirking his brows at me.

"Of course you do, It doesn't matter if you change the name and call it a sixth sense," I said.

"Don't you disrespect my sixth sense! It's precious to me in my decision making." He defended.

I scoffed a laugh at him. And he shrugged.

"Ok, let's move to our next class. Next is a break we can continue our investigation then." I said and we both went to our next class.

The next class was on forensics, we concentrated on our class for now. Until the class was over we both had completely forgotten about the culprit. When the class was done, we rushed out quicker than any other people in the class. Max went to the terrace to have a clear look at the ground, he took his binoculars along with him. There is a possibility that the culprit could have removed his orange jacket. If so, it would be one negative point towards us in the investigation. It's good that I already thought about it and noticed his shoes. The shoes were white sneakers with ankle-length socks in them. The problem is; there are dozens of people who wear that. I stood at the staircase of the girl's. The staircase of the junior floor. Because the culprit went to the junior class, there is a possibility he could be a junior. He could have gone to any random class on any floor, but being junior he might not feel comfortable going into any senior class.

I folded my hands and leaned back at the window of the staircase and looked at every person that walked past by. Till now, Four people had passed by wearing the same white sneakers. My stomach growled with hunger, I sighed. The next moment my phone vibrates with a call. 

'Wow! So much vibration within a fraction of a second.' I thought.

It was Stacy's called. I picked up the call. "Yes," I said.

"Oh just dance with your yes. I'm at the cafeteria, I'm having my lunch. If you are not hungry, let me tell you I am. Pass the message to Max too." She said and cuts off the phone.

I stood there silently with the phone held at my ear. I made a lethargic blink and then looked at my phone that displayed the end call process. I forwarded the recording of Stacy's voice to Max. The call recording on my phone is always on, it helps me during my night work. Well, that's the one reason that I don't let any of them touch my phone. Ok apart from that, my concentration broke from the people. I sighed and yawned.

"Ahh.." I then scratched my head. "What a pain," I said and went to the top floor of the cafeteria. When I entered a crowded place with lots of food peeking from the glass container, my stomach growled louder than before. I patted my stomach and spotted Stacy, sitting at the left side on a square table of four. Max was already there beside her. Well, the distance from the root to the top floor is lesser than what I crossed. I waved at them and went to the counter. I then sniffed the marvelous smell of the food that hit my nostrils as soon as I reached the counter. My eyes instantly fell on the bread roll stuffed with hot chocolate.

'Bread.' I thought. Then my mind went back to the incident that happened in the morning related to bread.

"I am not going to eat bread now," I murmured and turned my gaze to the other food. I ordered an egg roll and a pack of pineapple juice. After a couple of minutes, my order was placed on the tray on the other counter. I went there, picked up my tray, and went to the table where Stacy and Max were sitting. Placing the tray on the table I pulled back the chair and sat. Stacy glared at me as if she's going to kill me with her glare. Meanwhile, Max was quietly digging at his food.

"What?" I said to both of them. What was this silence about? Did Stacy scold him? Reading the silence, I kept quiet too. Bending my head down quietly I picked up the fork and broke a piece of my roll. Before I could bring it to my mouth, Stacy's voice broke and which made my egg roll to drop back on the plate.

"What do you guys think you are?" Stacy said in a loud voice. We both halt our process and glanced at each other. We then slowly faced her.

It's not just the first time. Every time during lunch we take our work to do, making Stacy eat alone. It not that we do that purposely. It just happens, which she hates the most.

"Ok-ok. We apologize." I said raising my hands in front of her.

"Next time, we will be on time." Max continued after me.

"And how many times did you guys told this?" Stacy slammed her hand on the table.

"Aaa... A couple of times. Maybe." I murmured which made her narrow her eyes at me.

"Look. We were doing this for you. There was someone who was trying to hurt you." Max said and I nodded along with thin in agreement.

"Let it go. It was an accident. That's it." Stacy said.

"No." Max and I both said in unison.

"We can't leave a case unsolved," Max said.

"And I would do it before Max," I said.

Stacy rolled her eyes at us. Her gaze then halted to the side. She slightly narrowed her eyes to her left. I turned my head around to look at what she was staring at. It was a junior nerdy boy who always comes in front of my eyes.

Stacy scoffed a laugh and bends forward towards me. "He always stares at you, you know." She said to me in a low voice. This time, I turned my head in a more attentive way. The boy suddenly bends his head down and started rolling his spoon on his plate.

"Idiot," Stacy said and hit my hand with her's.

Max did the same he stretched his head higher to look through me. "Where? Who?" He said.

"You too," Stacy said. She then face-palmed her head.

........

H. LOCKHART.