By: Violet Yan

The end of day bell rang, and I walked out of the door to math class. I was going to go to the school entrance and wait for my brother, James, who is in 8th grade, to come out and walk home with me. Before I could leave, my 5th grade math teacher called me back into the classroom. She talked to me about my grades for a few minutes and then let me go. I hurried to the entrance, only to find James not there. I assumed he was late, so I waited. After a long time of waiting, I decided that he had already left without me. I hurriedly ran back home and hoped that James was there. I went into the house and asked,

“Have any of you guys seen James?”

My mother, Luna, frantically looked at me and said, “Avery, I thought he was with you!”

“My math teacher talked to me for a few minutes, and then I waited outside a long time for him, but he never came out!” I replied, worriedly.

My father, Robert, suggested for me to go back and check the school to see if he was there.

I ran back to school and found many of his classmates walking out.

“Have any of you guys seen James?” I shouted.

James’s best friend, Lucas, looked away from me and said, “He didn’t come today.”

Honestly, Lucas always seemed suspicious to me. I knew he was nice and smart, but there was something about him that I really couldn’t get. I looked at him and realized that his statement didn’t connect with what I knew.

“We walked to school together, though!” I replied, doubtfully.

Lucas looked uncomfortable and told me a story.

“My bro, James, said he needed to use the restroom before class started. I told him to be fast and he said, ‘don’t worry, bro.’ Ten minutes later he still didn’t come back, but the teacher didn’t realize. After first class, me and my other friends went searching for him all over the place, but we never saw him! We assume he left early or something like that. But I guess he didn’t!”

I pleaded for him to help me, but he said that he was busy. I gathered my courage and walked into the empty school desperately.

I searched in every classroom, yelled into every restroom, but still no luck. I decided to go to the principal’s office and see if he knew anything. I quietly approached the door, only to find it locked. I thought that that was very strange because our principal never locked his office. I peeked through the window only to find darkness.

“Oh well. I guess he already left school!” I said to myself.

Suddenly, my science teacher peeked out of a classroom and yelled, “Avery! What are you doing here? You are supposed to be home by now!”

I explained to her that my brother was missing.

“I saw him this morning and he looked perfectly fine,” she said.

“I think we need to call the police,” I replied.

I ran home and told my parents all the information I got and they agreed to call the police.

Soon, a policeman came, and we told him all we knew. We led him into the school as he told us to always look for strange clues.

“Anything can be a clue. Even the most useless things.”

We rushed back to my science teacher’s classroom, only to find the classroom empty except for three words on the whiteboard.

“He is gone,” we murmured as we read the words over and over again.

My mother burst into tears as my father tried to comfort her. The policeman and I looked at the message, hoping for any clue. Finally, we gave up and I began to cry.

“We will solve this mystery. No matter how long it takes,” said the determined policeman.

Many weeks later, Lucas moved, my mother never came out of her room, and I struggled to stay at the top of the class. One nice summer afternoon, I was taking a walk when I saw many police cars drive by with their sirens blaring loudly. I ran and followed the police cars to a broken house. It was Lucas’s old house. The policeman recognized me and told me that there were some sort of clues about my brother inside the house and they were going to investigate. I looked around the house, looking for any clue. Suddenly I saw a bloody bracelet. I cautiously picked it up and looked at it. I scraped some of the really hard, dried blood off the bracelet and gasped. I dropped the bracelet and remembered why it was so familiar.

“But…I…gave that…to him,” I whispered to myself.

And I, Avery, have never been the same ever since then.