Crest Mount Academy

"Wait wait, almost got it...there!" Nicki tugged at her very believable wig and looked at herself in the mirror. "Hm not bad, I make a pretty attractive guy." She giggled then forced herself to get serious. She had to stay focused and remember why they were dressing up like boys in the first place. Crest Mount Academy was hiding something, something big, something that would finally make people realize Nicki and her friends had what it takes to be real detectives. Well, she already considered herself a real sleuth, only she didn't get paid for anything she did. She knew they just had to crack the case before anyone else did, or before someone just covered the whole story up-which was very likely considering it was such a rich school. Kiki decided they would pretend to be transfer students and figure out the story from the inside. It was a wild, potentially dangerous, idea but it sure would be entertaining to see if they could pull it off.

"My name is Nick Jameson and I'm from uh...somewhere far away." She winked at herself in the mirror then started cracking up laughing. Her 'guy' voice sounded like a bad imitation of Elvis. She took a deep breath then tried again. "Just call me Nick." It was soft, but much better than before. If she didn't yell she might be able to fool everybody. "Okay you guys ready? Remember this isn't for fun, we're solving a mystery, don't get distracted!" She directed her statement more towards Angel-who was admittedly the most boy crazy of the group. Everything Nicki would need to keep up her ruse was packed away in a giant suitcase. Stylish guy clothes, makeup-which she wouldn't really be needing, her 'snooping gear', and some other essentials. Afterwards they were in a taxi and on their way to the school.

It wasn't hard to miss, situated in the middle of almost nowhere. Surrounded by rolling hills and an intimidating black wrought-iron fence, the school sat on top of a hill. Nicki could barely contain her excitement, this was the biggest case they had ever taken on. If they could actually pull the whole thing of they would be famous! Or at the very least have a real job. The car stopped by the admission office and Kiki blinked a few times before actually getting out of the car. She lugged her suitcase inside and stood before an elderly receptionist, twiddling her thumbs to keep her eyes from bugging out of her head. Were they really doing this? What were they thinking?! "Excuse me uh, I'm Nick Jameson and I'm enrolling here as a transfer student." The woman didn't seem to be suspicious of her so she just handed him some forms in return, which she hurriedly filled out. "Your room assignment, key, and class schedule are all in the folder."

Nicki sighed with relief inwardly and went back over to her friend. "Just go with the flow for now, meet me outside in the courtyard at four on the dot." She whispered in her real voice then turned away to find her dorm. On the way she tried to act like a guy, or at least how she thought they would be. A hand carelessly shoved in one pocket while the other pulled her luggage along. She made sure not to switch her hips and kept a slight grin on her face. After a short time she finally found her room and eagerly went inside. "Oh...," there were two beds which meant she had a roommate. "Crap I forgot." She clapped a hand to her forehead, she'd forgotten how these boarding school places worked. 'No big deal, I might be able to get some information out of them.' Nicki started unpacking her things, making sure to leave her trusty spy gear in the suitcase. This was going to be an interesting day.

It was a crazy idea, but Angel loved it. "Ouch!" She put the last contact in and it was painful. It took her almost five hours to turn from a girl into a boy. "Wow! I look hot!" She whistled at herself in the mirror. She thought she made a very attractive male. Angel did all of this to help her friends and herself to crack their ultimate case. Crest Mount Academy. Ange looked at her other two friends and they all made good looking males, if anyone would know it would be her. Throwing her stuff into three huge suit cases, Ange looked at Nicki. "I'm ready!" She tried to sound like a tough guy, but it fell short. She sounded more like a male taking estrogen. She had to laugh at herself, she couldn't even take herself convincing. "Guys hopefully I don't blow our cover with my voice." Expressing her concern, Ange walked out of Kiki's house and into the taxi.

It was hard putting all of her suit cases in, but she managed. "Crest Mount Academy here we come!" She spoke in a manly sounding voice, but it still had a twinge of female in it. Angel reveled at the beautiful hills and the sunny sky. It was a warming feeling to her, so if she did die she would at least see one more nice day. When they pulled up her eyes widened. "I'm in the heaven I always dreamed of." She expressed to her friends as she stepped out of the car. She walked in and gawked at all of the guys on the way in. "I'm Angel.....I mean that's my sister of course. Silly me. I'm Alex Porter I'm an exchange student." The lady looked at her up and down. "If you need to talk to anyone I'm here for you." The lady handed her the key and shooed her off. "Well that's embarrassing." She spoke under her breath as she listened to Kiki. "Okay wish me luck!"

She went off in the opposite direction as her friends. On the way she walked pass the shower room, it was a good opportunity. "Hehe." Angel considered going in, but she would do that later, as apart of her 'interrogation'. She pulled her key out and entered the room. "Two beds!" She yelled in her girl voice, then quickly covered her mouth. Good thing no one heard her. She looked around the halls to make sure though then entered the room and locked the door. She looked at the other bed, this is not what she meant by staying close to the situation. Tossing her bags on the other side of the bed, she looked around the room. How was she suppose to change or put make-up on? Sighing Ange walked to the mirror and fixed her hair a little; messing it up more. Boys were usually sloppy so she would have to drop her feminine ways for the case. "Mmmm..." She looked at the other mirror and giggled. Angel started spraying herself with her roommates cologne. "Yum!" She thought as she twirled in the aftermath of the spray particles. "Now I smell like a sexy guy!"

Two pairs of precocious eyes met each other as Charlie Rivers stared at herself in the mirror with a stillness that could normally throw a person off. With the change of her aesthetic, Charlie was concerned that her identity might become compromised somewhere along the lines of this endeavor. She wasn't sure if a change of heart as well as a change of wardrobe would necessarily be a bad thing or not, but it didn't keep her from worrying about it. "Worry, worry, worry. That's all you do Charlie. Try to have some fun... for yourself! Not for me, or your friends, or your little brother. You!" she could hear the voice of her mother in her head, as she'd only heard that about a million times. She sighed, one of her feminine hands touching her newly cut hair. Honestly, there wasn't a lot of huge changes to be made to Charlie to make her appear male. She already had an androgynous haircut, an androgynous name, an androgynous face, and an androgynous voice. She didn't even have feminine curves, really! The only thing that really differentiated whether she was a boy or girl to others was her clothing, as she typically wore sundresses, sandals, bows, ect...ect... Now with her wearing a pair of glasses to conceal her excessively long, girly eyelashes, a pair of normal fitting pants and a hoodie... she really did look like a dashing young lad.

She took a look at the stuff she would have to lug around. The first bag was a wired lined bag/crate which contained her fluffy rabbit, Buttercup, who she'd had for years now. The second bag was enormous and filled with clothes, manly sports magazines she honestly wouldn't be caught dead reading, a couple cans of axe, posters of motorcycles... really, it was all just junk her brother told her to bring that she certainly would not be using. Just because she was going to be a boy doesn't mean she was going to lose all her class and dignity. She didn't read things about trashy girls wearing bikinis! She read Faulkner, Kafka, Homer, Shelley, Dickens, the literary works of great artists! Certainly this would not change because she supposedly gained a certain other chromosome. Speaking of these books, that's entirely what her other enormous bag was full of... just texts upon texts upon texts. It was actually extremely heavy and when she picked it up to try and slug it on her back she thought her tiny little non muscular arms might snap off. "Omf" she involuntarily cried as she wobbled out the door in pursuit of her two best friends.

She would travel to this prestigious academy and go on a huge adventure of her own. Enough of reading about great tales of conquering! It was time for her to experience mystery, excitement, suspense, maybe even love for herself. She thought of this the entire car ride there, a certain hunger glowing in her chocolate eyes. She watched as Kiki hopped out of the car and went over to the receptionist and went to do the same but struggled with her huge, huge bags. These must have weighed a million pounds! They had to be twice her size, too. She tried yanking them out of the car and dragging them comedically along the sidewalk, digging her heels into the ground and pulling with all her might up to the front desk. By the time she got over there, Kiki was already leaving, telling them to meet at four oclock in the courtyard. Charlie nodded her head assuredly and then approached the woman at the desk herself. "Hello, miss. I am Rivers Charlo... wait, no. I'm Charlie. Rivers. My name is Charlie Rivers, pleasure to meet you." poor, socially awkward Charlie had said, stumbling over her words and ending that botched introduction with a deep bow and extended hand for handshake. The woman squinted her eyes and gingerly took the odd boy's hand, wondering if he was pranking her or something.

"Right. Uh, fill this out and go straight to your dorm." the woman said suspiciously to which Charlie only smiled embarrassedly, a huge blush creeping onto her freckled cheeks. "Thank you" she mumbled while filling them out and handing them back. Charlie then made the impossible feat of dragging her uncooperative luggage all the way to her new room, which took her at least a half an hour and a couple of breaks to make sure her arms weren't turning into spaghetti noodles. Finally she had reached all the way to her alleged room and she fumbled around with envelope that contained the key for a good while before her shaking fingers finally grasped onto the metal key. "Aha!" she called, looking at it in her hands. She only did this for so long until the key skipped from her fingers and onto the floor. "Oh, darn it." she added going to crouch onto the ground to grab it when her foot accidentally hit it. She watched in horror as the taunting flick of metal slipped underneath the crack of the locked door in slow motion. This could not be happening. This was an omen! It was all telling her that she wasn't cut out to be a detective!!! And that was how Charlie Rivers ended up laying on the cold tiled floor, peeking through the bottom of the door and trying to fit her fingers underneath the crack to get the stupid key. If Kiki and Angel could see her now, they'd probably die of laughter.

"Ah, the fresh fragrance of the forest..." A voice spoke softly, taking in the scent of a scented candle and its gently burning flame. A pair of white eyes slowly traced the small flame, observing the carefully flickering speck of fire. A smile came across his face, and for about the billionth time that hour, Michael’s eyes turned to a mirror. He carefully looked himself over, finding a few imperfections, and quickly fixing them, making sure he was in perfect symmetry. “Excellent.” He knew that today he would be getting a roommate in his room, so he wanted everything to be in peak condition.

He looked back over his bed, and the perfectly level painting hanging above it, which was also perfectly symmetrical. He walked to the second bed which would be for his roommate, and adjusted the sheets again, making sure they were aligned with great care. He glanced around the room again, being sure everything was in perfect symmetry. He looked to the mirror again and adjusted his headwear, making sure he looked his best for the trillionth time, and he did, of course, but that didn’t stop him from checking every couple of minutes.

He eagerly awaited the arrival of his roommate, since as you could clearly tell, he enjoyed the company of others. He knew it would at least be another half-hour before his roommate arrived, so he had time to kill, but he still excitedly waited for his roommate to arrive. As time drew on, he grew more and more excited, just waiting for the moment that marked someone joining him.

As the clock struck the hour, his face fell in disappointment. Nobody had arrived, so he thought he would not have a roommate. He walked into his bathroom and lit two scented candles at the same time, then sitting on the edge of the tub, taking in the aroma of the candles to calm himself. It was about then that he heard the door open, so he quickly stood and blew out the candles, then exited the bathroom to see that someone had indeed arrived. “Welcome!” He said to the new person. “I assume you’re my roommate, correct?”

Nicki just finished putting the last of her attire away, just shoving it into drawers more than actually taking the time to fold everything and tuck it away. She was already planning on places she could check out during the day, and night too, if she could figure out whether the school had a surveillance system or not. She had everything she needed: a tiny camera that looked like a regular button on a shirt, a silver stud earring that also doubled as a microphone, and of course her handy notepad for jotting down facts. She planned on 'politely' interrogating as many students as she could to see if they would actually say, or knew anything about the headmaster's disappearance. She couldn't directly ask any of the professors, just in case they were in on the supposed kidnapping. No, she would just break into their classrooms and search through there stuff. She of course couldn't do all of that in one day, but she didn't plan on staying at the academy too long.

The brunette had made sure to take off all of her girly jewelry ahead of time, but she did wear the small stud-microphone. Just as she was getting ready to begin her first round of snooping, since she didn't really plan on attending class the first day, she heard someone behind her and quickly turned around without looking suspicious. What the heck was a guy doing in her room?! 'Duh idiot, remember where you are?' If she could've slapped herself without coming off as a masochistic psycho she definitely would have. "Uh yeah I just got here, Nick Jameson." She smiled, impressed with her own male-voice, and held her hand out for her roommate to shake. Idly she wondered if her hands were too soft. Did guys have soft hands? Finally she just decided she would be a metrosexual male who actually cared about the upkeep of his body.

"Nice to meet you, Nick." Michael said, shaking 'his' hand. He gave 'him' a curious look, his piercing white eyes looking 'Nick' up and down, as though he was suspicious of something, and he was. 'His' voice seemed... off to him. He didn't let his suspicion quite take a hold, he just thought something was off. This suspicion also included how soft 'Nick's' hand was, but he passed that off as Nick being religious about moisturizing. He let these suspicions pass but held onto the thought, just in case. He stepped back for a moment and put a hand on his chin, thinking. "So, what do you like to do?" He asked.

He put a hand out in the direction of one of the posts of his bed, but missed, his eyes widening as he fell down, but he didn't yell or even open his mouth, just landed on the floor with a thud. One of the paintings on his side of the room was angled slightly by the force of the impact, and Michael immediately noticed. He quickly got up and adjusted the painting, making it perfectly level with the floor, then turned back towards 'Nick.' "Sorry about that. I like to keep everything in perfect order. Now, what's something you like to do?"

He gently leaned on the wall behind him, then looked into his mirror on the wall, noticing that he wasn't perfectly symmetrical anymore, and his headwear had fallen off. He quickly adjusted his clothing and other accordingly until it was perfectly symmetrical, then grabbed his headwear and put it back on, centering it on his head. He turned back to 'Nick' and felt as though he had come across as a freak. He decided right then and there that he would try to seem as normal as possible, which would probably be difficult for him.

Matt was growling at the receiving end of his mobile phone as he walked through the hallway ignoring the greetings of his classmates as he was headed for his dorm room for more privacy. His hands grasping around the mobile phone tightly almost willing for it to snap in two. His best friend had just informed him that he had caught his girl with another dude. "Are you sure its her?!" he yelled into the receiver as his hand reached inside his pants pocket for the key as he stood outside the door to his room. His eyes burning with rage.
"Yeah i'm sure man. I swear it!"
Matt pushed the key in and kicked the door so it flung open then starting to mess up his hair. "Argh!" he said frustrated as his hand gripped on red locks of hair tighter and the other hand taking the key out forcefully before he slammed the door shut. He chucked the key on his bedside table and then sat on his dark coloured and plain covered bed only then realising there was someone else in the room. His head turned to the new roomate for an instance before he turned away. His legs parted and his back arched forward as he placed one hand on his knee growing to a fist.
"And it was like you didn't exist.."
Matt froze. His heartbeat getting slower as a fear was released in his mind.
"She kissed him..."
Matt hang up the phone. His head hung low so his eyes wouldn't be viewable by anyone unless a person crouched lower to look up. He let go of the phone held up to his ear so it landed on the floor. He didn't care if it would break. He couldn't take it anymore.
The hand that previously held onto the phone gripped the necklace his girlfriend gave her, pulling it out from under his white polo shirt. "You liar" he said to himself as the pendant being a silver half of a heart glistened near the bedside lamplight. His red eyes filled with mixed emotions. Hate and disappointment.

Angel looked at a few mire things, before she jumped because if the door. It scared her and she froze. Slowly she walked over to her bed and sat facing him. "Im Alex Porter." It sounded weird talking like a male. Hopefully her room mate wouldn't notice. She notice she was sitting like a girl and quickly fixed it so she was sitting like man. It was so uncomfortable. She picked up his phone and sat it on the table. He has a temper, so it could be him. Admitting to herself he could be involved in the missing head master, she would stay on her toes around him. "Umm....tough break up?yeah I just went through one myself."

She just completely lied to his face. Ususally the guys don't break up with her, she breaks up with them. So she had no clue what he was going through. "You will get over it in do time." What was she doing? She sounded like a female talking yo him. Ange quickly stopped talking before she would embarrass herself. The last thing she needed was to be made fun of and investigate. That would make the job ten times harder. Angel laid back as she waited for a resonse and looked at her class schedual. She had to take Pre-Caculus again. Great more math to make her job harder.

"It wasn't a tough breakup. Not yet" Matt said defensively as he focused his red eyes on the new roommate. "She cheated on me" he clarified, looking away and burying his face in his hands. The necklace dangling in clear sight over his chest. He stopped covering his face and looked away for a mere moment as if drifting off into space before he turned to Alex. "Well i'm Matthew Daemon but Matt is fine" he introduced himself, extending his hand out for a handshake to say he didn't have negative feelings towards him, just caught in a bad time.
He raised an eyebrow thinking more about that voice. It was kinda odd but he just shrugged it off only to say. "You're pretty weird you know that?" he said in a joking manner before lifting his left arm, his hand still extended. Just to check the time. "Hm well I have calculus next. If you do we can go together so you don't get lost" he said teasingly as if the roommate was bound to be.

Angel looked at his hand as if it had blood on it. She moisterized her hands everyday, so she hesitated to shake it. "I'm a germiphobe." Really that was her best excuse. Putting that aside she looked around the room awkwardly. "Umm...sure." She responded to, well she wasn't sure. She stood up and grabbed get bookbag. "We should head out now." She tried her best to look like and sound like a man, it was almost weird how she started to sound more like a guy. Walking out of the room, Ange looked around the halls for any cameras. On her hall there weren't any, but the next one there were two. She came up with the idea right there to break into the camera room and check the cameras. "So do you know if there ate any secrets about thus school?" Why did she just ask that. It was such a weird question to ask someone. Being undercover was going to be harder than she thought.

Wooden bookshelves filled with rows upon rows of adroitly and strategically placed books rest aligned against three of the four ashen walls of the library. The fourth wall, unoccupied by one of the obscenely large book shelves, was completely constructed of a thick and sturdy glass that allowed one to gaze through and peer into the east. In front of the glass window lay two love-seats and a single, three-seated couch which, for the majority of the time, are left vacant. However, today one of the love-seats was occupied by a slender, blonde figure sprawled out across the chair so that his legs were hanging over the armrest closest to the window and his head was propped up by the other. His spidery fingers nonchalantly flipped through the thick novel resting on his abdominal and a light yawn escaped his jaws.

Elliott Thomas slowly lifted his head and his gaze shifted from the novel he had been reading to the large library window before him. A faint smirk graced the fair haired boy's pallid lips as his brilliant sapphire orbs came to rest on a grey and clouded sky. Dark clouds typically foreshadowed a storm, one of the few things that Elliott enjoyed. He wasn't sure what it was about storms, but every time he heard one approaching, one of his rare smiles would find there way to his face. Perhaps it was the unpredictability of the storm that brought the grin to his lips; how at one moment the soft pitter-patter of rain sounded from your roof and the next thundering cracks of lightning followed by a trees catching ablaze could be heard.

Thoughts of clouded days and thundering storms drifting through his mind, Elliott calmly shut the book and rose. He made his way to the library door and continued down the corridors with lengthy strides. Suddenly a behemothic boulder flung itself into the calm pool of thoughts swirling in Elliott's head. He was getting a roommate today. Why did he have to get a roommate? Out of the hundreds of students attending Crest Mount Academy why him? Elliott had never been a people person and the thought of having to share a room with a near stranger definitely did not come up as ideal.

With a heavy sigh, Elliott trudged on through the halls towards his room, dorm number 326. The fair haired boy's pace slowed as a crouched figure peering under the crack of the door leading into his room came into view. Several questions popped into his head and he nearly called out to the figure to ask what he was doing. Refraining from this urge, Elliott continued towards his room and only stopped when he was directly behind the boy crouched in front of room 326.

Elliott spoke in his usual monotone and nonchalant voice, a single brow questioningly arched, "What... Exactly are you trying to do?". A faint hint of annoyance was present in his tone and though his facial expressions wouldn't exactly been described as 'baleful' they definitely could never be described as 'kind'.

Charlie had only been waiting by the door for, at most, five minutes. She hoped she'd be able to obtain the key again and slip inside the dorm without anyone seeing her (especially because the last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to herself) but it appeared fate had not wished this so. She had just taken out a book mark and was using it to gingerly scootch the small metal piece closer towards her when a sharp voice pierced into the quiet veil that had consumed the corridor up until then. ""What... Exactly are you trying to do?" the question, along with the irritated tone and clearly masculine pitch, elicited a jumpy reaction from Charlie. After a painfully feminine yelp and flinch, she turned around to face the abrasive entity with anxiousness gleaming in her chocolate eyes. Would he notice how girly of a shriek that was...? A huge knot was growing in the back of her throat and as she tried to speak, she found that no words could come out. So, she just sat there on the floor staring at the lanky, blond boy for at least a couple of seconds, all too similar to a deer caught in the headlights.

Once her brain could process that it was silly to act this way, since the man would probably not harm her in anyway, she was finally able to get out a "Um, I... uh." which was at least a start. To shake off most of the rest of her nerves, she shook her head and put on a smile. "I had dropped my key to the room and it had slid under the door. I'm a new transfer student and this... um, this is supposed to be my room." She had said in a forcibly friendly manner. She could already tell that this boy would be her roommate, and if there was anything Charlie wouldn't be able to handle, it would be having a roommate who hated her guts. It would surely crack her already fragile self. Realizing it was rather queer to be sitting on the floor, she hopped to her feet with a considerable amount of spring and dusted off her pants before extending her hand for a shake.

"I am Charlie Rivers. Pleasure to meet you." She said, voice still quivering slightly towards the end in another fit of social inadeptness. With her hand already in the air, she realized what a mistake that was. If anything about Charlie was in the least-bit lady like, it was 1) her eyelashes and 2) her hands. Her hands were small, petite, smooth- not a single scrap or callus or bit of roughness to them. She stopped herself from yanking it back down to her side and did her best to put on a poker face to make it seem as if there was nothing strange at all about the handshake.

Nicki was about to run off a list of manly things she liked to do, but then her roommate fell over and she didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or help him up. He recovered without her help and she noticed that he was very, well peculiar. "I like a lot of...sports, you know football, baseball, soccer, a bit of tennis. I was quite the athlete back at my old school." She hated how typical her answers were and tossed in a few extras to cover her tracks. "Of course I like artsy things too, I can play the piano and I paint in my free time." That part wasn't too big of a lie, she did play the piano, or well used to. As far as painting, she had become accustomed to drawing and painting sketches of suspects on past cases. She grinned, instead of using her normal girly smile, and sat on the edge of her bed. It was then that an idea struck her. She could ask Michael to show her around, and in the process she could start questioning him about the headmaster. "Are you free for a second? I could really use a personal tour of the campus. This place is huge."

Michael thought over the list of things that Nick liked to do, until Nick asked for a tour of the building. He thought for a moment, before until eventually saying, "Wait here a moment. I will return momentarily." He bolted out the door, making sure to close it behind him. A few minutes later, he returned, and said to Nick, "Excellent timing. I can give you a tour, and we can make a rather special stop along the way. I hope you like music as much as I do!" He walked out the door and, then walked immediately back in. He adjusted a picture on the wall then checked himself in the mirror, making sure he was symmetrical. Again. He then beckoned for Nick to follow and walked out of the room, ready to begin the tour.