Christina Tucker's Story

Christina slept soundly. When she woke the next morning, her roommate was still sound asleep across the room. Quietly, Christina slid out of bed and into her tight Juicy jeans, a loose-fitting blouse over a black bra, and red pumps. She opened the door to the room after putting some pink lip gloss, blush, and blue eye shadow on and went down to the Cafeteria. Christina was surprised to be the only one there. Surely it wasn't that early?... She thought, glancing sideways at the large grandfather clock. 6:00 am. Woah.... Christina never got up that early. But it was the day before the day before her birthday, and even though it was 2 days away, she was still excited. 18. A grown up. Christina felt herself beam with pride and she sat down at her usual table. She nodded hello to the elderly lunch lady prepping the croissants.
" Mind if I?..." She asked, hoping the lunch lady would get the message. The woman nodded, and plopped a hot, buttery croissant down on a black tray. Christina drooled to herself, and lifted the croissant to her mouth.

At about 8:45 or 9 o'clock a.m, Alice's eyelids fluttered open, revealing her golden-honey-topaz eyes. She blinked a couple times to wake up, and sat up straight, rubbing her eyes and running a hand through her messy hair. First day of school today. She looked across the room to see if her roommate was still asleep, but the bed was vacant. Probably already headed down for breakfast. The dark haired girl reluctantly hauled herself from the warm confines of her bed and began to get changed. She rummaged through her small dresser she had for anything that worked. And after deciding on some old denim skinny jeans, some Adidas slides with black socks. Then she pulled out an old gray cut at the top wide shouldered shirt and pulled that on over a black sports bra. Then, she pulled her hair wavy hair up into a messy bun, that she always managed to make look good. Afterward, she applied minimal makeup to her eyes, like mascara and eyeliner. She never went overboard like most girls did. And she never put on anything but that. occasionally some lip gloss, but usually not.

Tiredly, she headed down to the Cafeteria. A few more students were there, but she scanned the crowd and saw Christina, silently, she made her way over to her roommate after grabbing a bowl of Lucky Charms and a couple strands of bacon. Some girls freak out over her diet? Ha! Alice is the complete opposite. she exercises a lot and can easily burn off the calories.

"Hey." she mysterious and quiet girl said. A few curious eyes followed her as she sat down across from Christina.

(Alice's hair style...
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=messy+bu ... 29,r:3,s:0

Alice's jeans...
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=denim+je ... 9,r:12,s:0

Alice's shoes...
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=adidas+s ... ,r:26,s:30

Alice's shirt...
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=gray+off ... ,r:45,s:36)

Christina nodded. " Definitely. In fact, she's been looking at me funny since yesterday, when I bumped into her on the stairs. Just weird, if you ask me. And probably illegal." She pushed open the door and flopped on her bed, pulling the two files out from under the covers and setting both on the bedside table separating the two beds. " Okay." Christina said, pulling her hair into a pony tail and running her tongue over her full lips, which she did when she was concentrating. " Which one should we look at first?"

Alice listened to Christina on the way to her room. Then, when she settled down, Alice flopped back on her own bed, laying on her stomach with her elbows on the bed, and head propped lazily on her hands. Her legs bent back above her. "I dunno... How bout you look at yours, and I'll look at mine? Then we can compare." she suggested. Alice's sneaky hand swiftly swiped over Christina's hand and snatched her own folder from her grip.

Nodding, Christina opened up her folder and looked inside. Several papers were folded neatly into a little pile inside, and as she opened the folder, a thin sheet of paper floated down to the ground. She bent over and picked it up, turning the sheet over to the front. Family Tree, it was labeled, in big block print. Christina shrugged and glanced at the other papers. There was the usual stuff, health records, grades throughout the years, some artwork from Glenbrook Elementary School, and her school picture from the year before. At first glance nothing looked strange, just Christina standing up, her long, thick hair pulled into a low side pony, and her eyes sparkling. She was wearing a white dress with a thin golden belt around the middle, and plain black flipflops. So, nothing unusual, for Christina, at least. But as she looked closer, detirimend to search for every detail, she found a small checkmark and the words, written in black pen in Miss Amelia's loopy script, Test September 9th, Family Tree proof Christina, confused by this, looked once more for the Family Tree sheet, and, successful in her search, flipped it once more to the front, where a green glued on piece of paper read the names of all of her family members dating back from the 1800s. On her dad's side, Marie Anne Hendrickson and Dave Tucker, above them the names of her great grandparents, Bob and Anne Hendrickson, and so on. Then on to her mother's side. Margret Bobette Junior and Shane Wilson, and then her great grandparents, Bert Bobette and Susan Winkle, and then at the top of the paper- She had been unable to find the rest of the family tree, it was cut off above her Great Great Grandparents, Dean Shorts and Mary Su. Okay. So it was her family. So what. She had never met her great grandparents, or her great great grandparents, of course, most of them being dead, but she had heard her mother talking to her father in the time before the divorce about Dean Shorts. " Such a shame," Her mother had said, her long brown hair bouncing as she shook her head. " He was such a nice young man until he joined the Hipscotch Gang, then all of his good grades and everything else just went out the window. Her father had shook his head as well, and rubbed his hand absentmindedly over his bald patch. " Ah, well. He's dead now, and we can rest in piece, after all the torment he did that Chandler family, god bless their heart. Poor young baby, loosing her mother at such a young age. Never would have expected it from your old Grand Pop, no. But he had many things hidden in his past, he was trying so damn hard to be a good grandfather to you, and a good grandfather in law to me, I suppose. But his secrets came out in the Death Record, he had a heart attack from all that stress, don't you know?" Christina's father had rambled on and on, and Christina had grown bored and wandered away from the door and into her bedroom.

Christina hadn't thought of that. " You're probably right. If you're done looking through the papers, and we have the information we need, we should probably, ya know, sneak them back. Well, part of them. I want to keep my Family Tree, then we can return the folders and make use of the information. Just stay in sick, I suppose." She put a manicured finger tip to her lips and smiled. " I want to solve this mystery as much as you. Believe me, this is the most exciting thing that has happened in the Academy since... Well, since forever. Except for my first year," Christina looked to both sides, as if to see if anyone else was listening. " That's when the first student went missing. One day, he was there, the next, gone. Never showed up. The teachers and others just thought he had transferred out without notice, and they had even conversed with the parents, who had just said that was the case and slammed the phone down. Christina had been in the main hall with her schedule at the time, and had drifted near the office and had just been standing there, listening.

* Miss Amelia * Amelia whirled around, thinking she had heard something. I'm probably just paranoid... She thought, turning back to her files and sighing. Then she heard the sound again, soft footsteps down the hall. Alice Wallin rounded the corner, her long hair hiding her face, but Amelia knew it was her. " What." Amelia started, walking quickly and confidently to the door. The girl looked like she had something in her shirt, but Amelia couldn't be sure, it could just be skin, or whatnot. " Are you doing here?" She finished, her voice coated with fake sweetness.

* Christina Tucker *

Christina watched as Alice hurried away, hoping, praying, that Miss Amelia wouldn't be waiting at her office door, trapping Alice like a deer in a net. Sighing, she picked up her Family Tree sheet and scanned it once more, trying to figure out the significance of Dean Shorts. Dean Shorts, Dean Shorts... Christina thought back to her early memory of her parents talking in the kitchen, and then tried to piece the pieces back together. Her father had said something of murder, of a young child left with no parents... Could that be Amelia? Could Amelia be taking out her anger, getting her revenge through the lives of her students, students that had nothing to do with the murder, if that was what it was, to do with the heartbreak she had gone through? Wow. That woman was even more twisted then Christina Tucker thought.

" Really? Are you okay? Did she like, bite you or something?" Christina asked, grinning. Glad that her friend was okay, she smiled a little wider and asked, " What do you think the Family Tree has to do with the Test? You know, what was written on our school photos?" Christina was curious, more then usual, determined to get to the bottom of what had become a mystery. And fast, before more innocent children disappeared.

Alice knelt next to Christina and peered at the screen, eyes glittering with curiosity. She wanted to know who this guy was. Whether she would be screwed that her was her distant relative, or lucky. She bit her lip impatiently and thrummed her fingers in a steady rhythm on the wooden desk in front of her. "Google always has the answers, while Wikipedia on the other hand..." she chuckled. Wikipedia's information could be altered by anybody though, so she usually didn't rely on it. While Christina scrolled down to Crimes, Alice figured that wasn't good. "Well, that doesn't sound to great." she pointed out matter-of-factually.

" Woah...." Christina breathed out, shaking her head. Under the Crimes heading was a short paragraph describing how Dean Shorts was caught and taken to jail, and underneath that a list of his many crimes, each more horricic then the one before it. Robbery, Identity Theft, Abuse of wife. The list went on. At the very bottom, though, was something that caught Christina's eye more then the other things. 1st Degree Murder, the words seemed to scream, leap out of the page at her. But who did he murder? Christina thought. " We now know what he did, who he is, but his last crime," She pointed at the bold words on the screen, " Murder, who did he murder? Or was it many people? He was," She scrolled up to the History section, which she had briefly scanned, " after all, a mob boss." Freaky stuff. Christina Tucker so did not want to have anything to do with the guy. Much less be actually related to him.

" Hmm..." Christina sighed. She was confused as hell, she had no idea what was going on. But she knew where they could do more research. At a later time. Like, at midnight. " The Library." Christina breathed, excited. " They have all the records in the Special Collections, the records of crime and stuff. The police station- we went on a field trip there one my first year here- doesn't have enough funding to keep the records there, because they do not have enough insurance to cover the files if there was a break in- so they keep them here, in the library. But. If we are going to be sick, we best not show our faces until a later time. Like, 10 o clock or something, after lights out."

(( So sorry for not posting in so long! STUPID HOMEWORK!)) Time passed quickly. A few teachers stopped by, asking through the door if the girls were alright, and Cristina just coughed and said, " I'll be better after some rest, thanks for asking." She was growing very hungry, though, and she went to her bag several times throughout the day to dig into the snack bars and candy she had hidden in a pouch in her suitcase.

As she was chomping down on a Ceder Lakes Chocolate Granola Bar, she glanced to the left from where she was lying on her bed, and saw the clock. It read close to 10 PM. Strange that the headmistress would not question their illness, but Christina let it slide. She said, " We should head down. Lights out is in a few minutes or so. I think..." Christina cocked her head to the side, wondering about the flashlights that were supposed to be somewhere in the room, there if the power went out in a storm. " I think there are flashlights.... In the cupboard!" She jumped up and ran over to the cubby on the wall, reaching in and pulling out a single blue flashlight. Clicking it on, she grinned once again, excited to find out more information. Whether she was breaking the rules or not.

Alice opened her eyes at Christina's voice. She must have dozed off. She sat up and ran a hand through her hair and hopped off the bed. then, the intercom spoke right on cue.

Lights Out!

Alice scurried over to where Christina got her flashlight, and she reached in and grabbed an orange one. "Let's roll." she said and slowly and silently opened the door, acting like a spy and put her back to the frame, and slowly craned her neck around to look outside and then darted to the far wall with a slight giggle. This would be quite interesting.

Christina grinned, running a hand through her dark hair and following Alice out of their dorm room. There were still a few teachers milling about, making sure all of the students were in their dorm rooms, or just talking quietly with the other staff members. Christina slipped into the shadows to avoid getting see, and made it to the staircase before Alice.


The library was on the first floor, unconvinently located across from Miss Amelia's office, probably so she could make sure that nobody was making out on a table or drawing in the books located in the ancient history section of the library.


She turned to wait for Alice.

Christina giggled, clapping a hand over her mouth. " Shh!" She whispered through fits of laughter. " They'll think your crazy, talking to the wall!" She clutched her sides, tears of laughter streaming down her cheeks.

" Okay." She turned serious again. " The library, sadly, is located across from Miss Amelia's office, so we have to be extra quiet." She whispered, putting one finger to her lips.

" Come on." She turned and walked quickly down the stairs, looking back at the landing for Alice to join her. The hallway was a dark mass, with a faint outline of several doors on either side of the hall. The one at the end, of course, was Miss Amelia's.

( gah sorry for not posting in so long been busy XD ) " Uh huh." Christina said, grinning and slowly opening the door to the library. It was dark inside, and Christina was surprised that the door was not locked. " Come on." She whispered over her shoulder. " In here."