I looked back at the clock—it was 2:30. My next class was science with Dr. Silas Hollis, the biology teacher. I walked to my locker, which is next to my best friend, Natalee. She was already standing in front of my locker, waiting for me. Her long brunette hair flowed to the middle of her back, with her deep brown eyes staring at me.
“Hey, do you have your notes? I need to use them because you have better handwriting,” Natalee said.
“What? Seriously, fine. Do you want to walk biology together?”
“Yeah, sure. I think Dr. Hollis is absent. I was at the library with Chole, and we didn’t see him. He is always at the library. You know, I feel bad for him. He is always alone, reading that humongous book about reviving nature or creatures or whatever that thing is.”
“Interesting,” as I lifted my glasses and grabbed my binder, “let’s head to class.”
We walked down the hall filled with 8th-grade kids. As we turned right into the classroom, we saw a substitute teacher. Turns out she wasn’t lying.
“Alright, guys, Dr. Hollis is absent today, so I am going to guide you through the worksheet. I am Mr. Wilder. I teach 10th–grade science. I have a few rules while I am teaching. Please, no passing notes. And no talking or whispering while I talk, or you won’t be able to finish the classwork. Lastly, do not say words that are inappropriate in this setting.”
After a whole lecture about genetics. Mr. Wilder handed out the homework, and we got into pairs of two. Natalee and I walked over to the back to begin. We started our independent worksheet about DNA and Heredity. Not long after we finished the last question, Natalee started discussing how hungry she was. Soon after the bell rang and it was time to go home.
The whole week, Dr. Hollis wasn’t present on campus. Natalee and I were getting skeptical. As I step out of history, Natalee walks up to me.
“I haven’t seen Dr. Hollis all week. He is never absent.”
“Maybe he is just sick. You never know.”
“I doubt that. He has very good hygiene. I saw him wash his hands three times before eating.”
“Okay, um, let’s just go to lunch.”
“No, but I am worried. I don’t think I can handle Mr. Wilder anymore. His lectures have gotten so boring, and he keeps picking on the tiniest problems on my science worksheets.”
“If you are so bothered, then let’s stay after school and investigate.”
We ran to lunch to ensure that we were first in line. We grabbed the recyclable paper trays, we brought our macaroni and cheese over to the library, and took a seat on the cozy bean bags.
“Oh my gosh, this is horrible,” Natalee exclaimed, as her echo rang around the library.
“It’s not that bad. Do you want my goldfish?”
“No, it’s fine, I think I’ll pick out a book for English class.”
“Okay, I’ll go with you. I need to find a good science textbook for our test on Monday.”
Natalee walks over to the fantasy novel aisle. As she skims up and down looking for an impeccable book. I wander over to the realistic fiction shelves as I grab the first one I see. “Holes” by Louis Sachar. Natalee shoved her broad book in my face as we shuffled over to sign the book out. As I scanned the page, Mr. Hollis’s name showed up. Corresponding to his name, there were books written down, Reviving the Body: The Secrets of Regenerative Medicine, and Altered Carbon.
“Uh, do you see what I see?”
Natalee stared at me and told me that we had to stay after school to investigate. The bell rang and we went to class. After a whole hour and fifteen minutes, I walked out of the history room knowing that I didn’t comprehend anything Mrs. Becker had us do. After three worksheet packets and thirty minutes of reading, I definitely knew I was going to struggle doing the homework. I grab my backpack, and Natalee meets me at the parking lot.
“Okay, let’s go to the library to combine all the clues,” as Natalee said, she quickly shuffled to the entrance of the big concrete building.
We scanned through each floor trying to find an open table. As we climbed up to the third floor, we saw a big wooden table by a window. We flung our backpacks on the ground and got to work. Searching up what books Dr. Hollis was reading and asking the librarian questions, since he only goes to the library every day (according to Natalee).
“You know we could go to Dr. Hollis’s classroom since the door is always open.”
I quickly agreed my head as we jumped up and sprinted down the stairs like hungry hyenas. We arrived at the middle school building. I look down at my watch, already at 4:13. I signal that we have to move faster. Natalee and I quietly walk through the hallways, vigilant for any teachers. Middle schoolers aren’t allowed to be in the building after four. We get to his classroom, knowing that there is no teacher there. Nobody ever goes to Dr. Hollis’s classroom; it’s filled with textbooks, beakers, and science experiments. We take a sharp right, as we are ready to walk straight into the classroom.
“The door is locked,” Natalee looks over at me as she panics.
I look over at her in a panic. After forcefully jiggling the door handle, the door creaked open. We had decided to run the office in the back of the room. As we crept closer to the room, we heard white noise and the background noise of machinery. I put my ear to the door, and I looked over at Natalee.
“Are you hearing what I am hearing?” I asked.
“Do you mean the noise that sounds like my refrigerator?”
“Yes, exactly. I think there is someone in there.”
“What! I don’t think this is a good idea. I am going home.”
“Natalee, you are going in there. I am not because this was your idea.”
We bickered for a moment, and we had managed to unknowingly move our location further away from the door to the office. We stopped arguing when we heard a glass beaker fall. I stood still, afraid to let out a breath of air. I grabbed Natalee’s arm and backed away. She looked at me, confused.
“Why are you making that face? What happened?”
“Did you not hear that?”
“What? Is a teacher coming?”
“No, did hear that noise from inside the room. Something fell and broke.”
“Are you saying someone is in there?”
“Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. I am one hundred percent sure there is a living creature in there. I am also one hundred percent sure you should go in there and check it out.”
Natalee, annoyed with all my remarks about her investigating, had decided to kick the door open and catch what was in there. Animal or not, she was determined to get Dr. Hollis back. Too bad that didn’t happen. Although annoyed, Natalee gently pushed me through the door. As I jumped back, the door screamed like a clown at a carnival. The noise startled us, but we still moved forward. Lamps flickered, cold air surrounded them, and the smell of musty machinery permeated the air. The room is almost like a doctor’s examination room. With a big chair in the middle and a countertop against the wall covered with papers, beakers, chemicals, and textbooks. The overall feeling was creepy, chills running down our backs. We found ourselves instinctively, back to back, each looking for a threat. After we built up the courage to look around the room, Natalee found notes with documentation of the experiment, Reviving Life.
Natalee put the document in her bag, and we kept exploring, opening and closing cabinets, and pulling drawers out. As I walked over to the cooling fridge that kept chemicals so they wouldn’t rot, I heard a noise almost like dominoes falling over one by one. Something was running behind all the junk. As I swung the door open, a hiss came out behind the stacks of paper and shelves. Petrified, we slowly crept towards the door. Another screech came towards us, then a creature resembling a chinchilla flew at us. We ran out of the room, locking the animal in the room, and headed back to my house, where we sat in horror and decided what to do next.
“I can’t believe what I saw,” Natalee said as she sat by the window.
“I know, do you think that thing did something to Dr. Hollis?”
“Yeah, I would think so.”
“What should we do? Should I tell the school or my parents?”
“No! We can’t let them know that we snooped into Dr. Hollis’ office. Then how would we have known that there was that monster in there?”
“Good point. Then what should I do?” I asked puzzledly.
“Wait, I have an uncle who works down at the police station. Should I ask him to try to meet with us and tell him about it?”
“Yes! That’s amazing. Let’s go tomorrow.”
As my dad dropped me off at the police station, he asked me why I needed to go. However, instead of telling the truth, I told him that it was for school. As he was a trusting dad, I felt guilty about my lie. I ran into the building as I located Natalee, and we both walked towards Officer Hayes and were welcomed in. I grabbed a Pop-Tart from his desk and got myself settled.
“So, Natalee, what brings you and your little friend in here today?” he said as he got out his notebook.
“She’s Maya, and we would like to tell you about a little monster animal that is a devil, we found in our teacher’s room.”
“Yesterday, Natalee and I went into our science teacher’s room, Dr. Hollis, to see what was going on. We were in the room after school because we were concerned about where he was over the past week. Since he is never absent. And we were in the room when we heard a weird noise coming from the office in the back. As we went in, we saw a tiny animal, almost like a bunny and squirrel combined,” I informed Officer Hayes.
“Yeah, we think it might be a project Dr. Hollis is working on. Since we saw books and papers about bringing cells back to life,” Natalee added.
He looked at us with his hand resting on his chin, appearing inquisitive and alarmed. He didn’t seem to think we were telling the truth. He wanted evidence; he didn’t want to waste his time by sending an investigator to the school if there was no crime occurring. Natalee looked at me in panic. Luckily, I remembered the paper I shoved into my backpack. I grabbed my backpack and whipped out the document I got the previous day. I handed it across the desk, and Officer Hays took a lengthy look.
“Fine, let’s go. I will bring my investigator too.”
After an hour, we all arrived at the school. Officer Hayes took out his big ring of keys and shuffled through them until he found the one that would get us into the building. The four of us made our way to the classroom.
“We need to try to catch the animal and find any clues that will help this case,” I said.
“Okay, animal control is coming, but meanwhile, let Officer Theo and me investigate. You two stay out here and wait.”
After a session of note-taking, the animal control officer came. We gave the officer a detailed description of what we thought the animal looked like and what he should look for. After setting up the trap and closing the light, we waited, and waited. We heard a grunt. I quickly sat up in my seat and was ready to catch the animal. It took a while for the animal to move. After running across the counter, I stood up and walked right next to Natalee. Will this animal just go into the trap? It was like a buffet for animals in there, with cheese, peanut butter, carrots, and apples. Unaware while whispering to Natalee, the officers heard a small yell. They shot up from their seats and turned on the lights. They knocked over the books neatly stacked on the desks. The door to the cage slammed shut, and they took off the cloth that was covering it. I forcefully ripped the cloth off and saw a bunny. What!
“Um, what is that?” Natalee said in shock.
“I think you guys caught the wrong thing,” I said.
“Nope, I used my detector and it said there was only one presence in the room, which is the bunny’s,” the animal control worker said.
“This makes no sense,” I said.
“Yeah, I know, right?” Natalee said as she looked around, almost hesitant as if she had something to say, “But I think that is the bunny Mrs. Sharpe, the eighth-grade math teacher, lost three weeks ago. It even has the same gray oval around its eye.”
“That doesn’t solve the problem about Dr. Hollis,” Officer Theo said.
After a long period of silence, I remembered that Dr. Hollis was going to retire next year. But what does that have to do with anything? I started brainstorming ideas with Natalee and the rest of the team.
“Wait, I think I heard Venessa saying something about Dr. Hollis going away to Sweden for a research project,” said Natalee.
“Wait, what! He never said anything about that.”
“I think that was because we weren’t there for that class, remember. We were at the choral performance in Town’s Square.”
“But, wouldn’t he send an email or something, or wouldn’t the school remind us?”
“I am not sure, but it does make sense that he is in Sweden for science. He did say that he was obsessed with venturing out in Sweden for experiments. Also, Vanessa never lies either, and Dr. Hollis is her favorite teacher too.”
“Well, I guess my work is done here,” Officer Theo sarcastically exclaimed as I rolled my eyes.
Natalee and I walked home together, relieved that Dr. Hollis wasn’t kidnapped by some demon animal. I guess we shouldn’t have jumped straight to conclusions.