Dead at 15

“Shit, shit, shit!” I shrieked before realizing that I was still sitting in March’s bedroom, not my own. What if the rents came up? I grabbed the note and the box of photos with the letter, shoved the bag back under the comforter, turned the light off and shut the door. I bolted for my room and switched my laptop on, hoping like hell that Tommy was online. I need to talk to someone, and he just happened to be my go-to guy now. If I was scared when I figured out what July had left in those books, I was close to shitting my pants now. The killer was at least one step ahead of me, and they had enough confidence in themselves to point it out to me.

Tommy wasn’t online, much to my dismay, but I had his phone number and the night was still young. I took the cordless phone from Dad’s study and punched in the numbers. It rang twice.

“Hi December,” came Timmy’s voice. I tried desperately to calm myself but ended up furrowing my eyebrows at what he’d just said.
“How’d you know it was me?” I asked quickly, my words running together.
“Uh…caller ID. Tommy must’ve put your number in.”
“Oh, okay. Is he around?”
“Give me a minute.” I heard a scraping noise as Timmy covered the speaker of the phone with his hand. “HEY! ASSHOLE! YOU OUTTA THE SHOWER YET?!” Timmy shouted, which seemed severely unnecessary to me considering the size of their house.
“YES, YOU FUCKER! WHAT DO YOU WANT?” Was Tommy’s reply.
“YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S ON THE PHONE!”
“Eh? Oh, you mean December! Right.” The phone was passed and then, “hello, December!” Tommy exclaimed.
“The killer knew I was looking through March’s things,” I spewed out.
“What do you mean?” His tone suddenly turned serious.
“They left me a note in her things and I think they stole some of her photos and, and-”
“Calm down. Start from the beginning.”

So I quickly went over the evening’s events, excluding the exchange between my parents. That wasn’t necessary.
“Right, so the murderer dude knows you’re after them,” Tommy stated in a blasé manner.
“No, that’s not what I’m freaking out about, Tommy. They know how I’m doing it! They’re ahead of us!”
“Oh, well that does complicate things…did we have math homework tonight?”
“I don’t fucking care about homework right now. Everything we’ve found could’ve been planted!”
“Not everything, December. Not everything at all. I think you’re overreacting.”
“I am not you idiot!”
“Don’t get mad at me! You’re not supposed to be angry with me,” I could hear his almost childlike hurt through the phone and I sighed.
“Sorry. But shit, this is just so impossible.”
“S’okay, but you know that this isn’t impossible. You wouldn’t have gotten this far if you thought that. Just think about it logically. How many people could’ve put that note there in the first place? Go back to your suspects.” I pursed my lips. “Exactly. You pretty much know who’s done it. You’ve known this since the beginning so why does this suddenly change anything?” I sighed again.
“They rents are going to be so much weirder around me though. They’ll know I’ve found it. They’ll start tying off the ends.”
“Maybe they won’t.”
“Explain.”
“Well if you carry on as normal, like you haven’t seen it, they’ll think you’ve gone stupid, that you won’t figure it out anyway if you couldn’t even find that. They won’t care so much and maybe they’ll get clumsy. Problem solved.”
I could practically hear him grinning with those freakishly white teeth of his.
“…Alright. Um, thanks.”
“No problem! Math homework?”
“Probably. Bye.”
“Wait-” I pressed the end button on the phone before flopping down on my bed. This stuff was giving me a headache.

***

“December!” I jolted awake. Oh god, I was late for school again. I checked the window. Nope, still dark, false alarm.
“What?!” I yelled back.
“Get down here right now young lady!” I grudgingly stomped downstairs and into the living room. My mom stood with her arms folded across her chest, fuming, in a pair of flannel pajamas. Dad sat in his armchair, an eyebrow raised at me.
“We called you downstairs three times,” the woman growled.
“I was asleep. What do you want?”
“Don’t give me lip. You are in no position to. As if dinner wasn’t bad enough already.” I rolled my eyes.
“Is this going to take long?”
“Sit!”
“No thanks.”
“Sit!” She repeated.
“If you insist.” I lay down on the couch, spreading my arms out along the armrest. “Yes?”
“Your father just opened the mail.”
“Exciting,” I said and yawned.
“This is very serious December,” Dad said gravely and I raised my eyebrows. My mother unfolded her arms and gestured to the piece of folded paper in her hand.

“What’s that?” I asked.
“A letter,” Mom answered stiffly.
“My late acceptance to ‘Hogwarts’?” She glared at me.
“It came with your report card.”
“Oh.” Yeah, about that…
“It says you’re failing.”
“I’m not ‘failing’.”
“You’re right. Not failing just ‘refusing to study or do any homework’!”
“Yeah! That’s the one. And I do my homework."Badly
“‘A very capable student' but your grades are nearly all D’s! I’d call that failing, December.”
“So what’s your point exactly? I know I’m failing. I don’t need anyone to spell it out for me, okay?”
“Don’t push your luck.”
“Well what do you want me to do about it? Huh? It’s not like my grades are ever going to count for anything. I can’t believe you woke me up for this. Are we almost done here?”
“…You’re grounded.” I almost laughed. “No computer.”
“Bullshit!” I yelled. I really should’ve done more plays and stuff in school. I was getting really good with this acting stuff. My mom smirked at me, silly old bitch.

“Oh yes. We’ll be taking that. No more detours after school either, no cell phone, no pocket money and no going out at all,” she continued. She said this like I would be seriously affected by this. I’d be carrying on as usual, stupid lady. I was an angst driven teen, gosh!
“Do you still want to meet Tom-my boyfriend tomorrow?” I asked, cringing a little at the ‘b’ word. It was just weird. I mean it was Tommy, Mr. Bi-polar super-white-teeth.
Linda contemplated this for a moment. I could almost see her tired old brain whirring into life.
“Yes, actually. We may need to talk to him if he’s been causing a distraction,” she finally said.
“Fine,” I breathed. “Can I go to bed now?” I didn’t wait for an answer and just walked off.

***

I didn’t want to get up the next morning. I was so warm and cozy in my bed but unfortunately my alarm clock was placed on the other side of the room and I had to get up to turn it off. There was an odd sensation in my left foot when I put my weight on it, which was kind of weird because it didn’t feel sore, just odd, if that even made sense. I quickly shrugged it off and hit my alarm clock to stop the shrill beeping noise.

I noticed that my laptop was missing from my desk along with the power cord. I smirked as I imagined each of my parents trying to hack into it. I wasn’t fantastic with computers but if there was one thing I was good with, it was passwords and security. My cell phone was also gone but I didn’t have anything on there anyway and it also had a complex password on it. I wasn’t worried.

I caught the bus along with all the other morons from my school, Linkin Park blasting in my ears in an attempt to block out the idiotic banter around me. After the ten-minute ride, we arrived at school. Some douche bag had the nerve to push me as I was getting out of the bus. I face planted on the concrete and scraped my nose and hands. I quickly stood up and pulled my fist back to punch the stupid boy in the face but someone quickly wrapped an arm around my shoulders and dragged me off. Tommy.

“You really shouldn’t go around hitting people so early in the day, you know,” he said with a smile and I glared at him.
“That jackass pushed me,” I replied and pointed at the dickhead, giving him the finger.
“Punching him isn’t going to solve anything.”
“Shut up.” He laughed heartily at my juvenile comeback and brushed his fringe out of his eyes.
“So how are you December? I’m feeling pretty happy today!” Oh wow, I never would’ve guessed.
“Annoyed.”
“I’m coming to yours after school today right?”
“That’s the plan…”
“Why weren’t you online last night?” He asked. I shrugged.
“Fell asleep, then the rents grounded me and took my laptop and phone.”
“They’re not going to find anything though, right?”
“Nope. That’s all covered.”
“Yay! Now, to the lockers! I’ve got cookies!”

***

“Timmy knows you’re here doesn’t he?” I asked as we rummaged through February’s things. There were a few questionable items among her belongings. There was a half eaten nine year old McDonald's cheeseburger, a bottle of suspicious looking yellow liquid (and it wasn’t apple juice) and funnily enough, porn magazines…which Tommy discovered under her bed. Interesting fact right there ‘hey, your dead sister was gay!’ Seriously, he announced it like that.

“Yeah, he knows. Hey, I think I found something.” I walked over to Tommy who was a holding a piece of paper in his hands.

7th of February 1999.

Mrs Clarridy,
Please excuse February from handing in her history essay. We have been having some issues at home and she has been unable to complete her work. An extension would be wonderful.
Thank you.
Mark Lambert.

“That’s…interesting,” I muttered.
“Issues at home?” I looked at the date.
“The night before her birthday. Somehow I doubt that there were ‘issues at home’ well…apart from the whole about-to-be-murdered-thing.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Um…you take the note and go wait in my room. I’ve got to grab something.”
“Oh, okay then!” I followed him out of the room and then shut the door behind me.

Mom and Dad wouldn’t be home until at least five o’clock so I didn’t have to be so careful about taking Feb’s coroner’s report out of Dad’s study. Once I’d retrieved it, I went to my room. Tommy was lying on the floor, totally spaced out with a morbid expression on his face.
“Tommy?” I asked with no response. “Hey, idiot!” I yelled. He abruptly jumped to his feet.
“Oh! You’re b-back!” He stammered.
“Yeah…”
“What’s that?” He pointed to the report in my hand.
“Feb’s autopsy report thing.”
“You serious?”
“Uh-huh. Dad’s got copies in his study.”
“So what does it say?”
“Hang on.” I quickly scanned the papers. “Ingestion of some chemicals I can’t pronounce the names of, but in the summary it says that they match what was in the rat poison she was found with and…”
I grabbed the box of March’s photos from under my bed and took the lid off, letting Tommy look at the, nothing short of startling, images. “Basically the report draws the same conclusion as you can from those photos, that she accidentally drank rat poison instead of orange juice.”
“She was tricked.”
“Yes. She was a sleepwalker. It wouldn’t have been too difficult to convince her to drink the poison instead of the juice.”
“Sleepwalking also provides a cover story.”
“Yeah.”
“Is there anything else in the rest of the report?”
“Not a whole lot. Just a full chemical comparison between the rat poison and what was in her bloodstream, how long it took for her to die and stuff.”

“So where do we go from here?” Tommy asked.
“Well we could ask Dad later about the note thing.”
“I’m curious.”
“About what?”
“Do you honestly think your parents did it?”
“Well they definitely top the list. I mean there are a few others I guess but who else is there really?
“Your uncle was a bit shifty.”
“I suppose.”
“You’re convinced it’s your parents though?”
“Yes. But you’re right. There’s something with Uncle Tom. He wouldn’t be shifty for no reason but I do think it was my parents.”

***

“I’m sorry Mark’s late Tommy but I’m sure he won’t mind if we get started without him,” Linda said with a sickly smile plastered on her face as we sat at the table.
“Oh, that’s okay. I’m starving,” Tommy replied, undeterred by my mother’s obviously false exterior.
“December, did you not feed him after school?” Mom asked, turning to me with a slight glare. She began eating her broccoli, chewing animatedly. She didn’t pull that ‘grace’ stuff that night, much to my surprise.
“I did. Tommy just gets hungry easily,” I replied, cutting into my steak.

“So, Tommy, how long have you been seeing my daughter for?” He snorted but quickly covered it by coughing.
“Two weeks,” he answered.
“Such a short amount of time?”
“Well he didn’t move here that long ago Mom,” I pointed out.
“Oh,” she muttered and we ate in silence for the next few minutes before we heard the front door open and close and Dad walked in.

“Sorry I’m late. Traffic was a nightmare,” Dad stated and took his seat at the table. He grabbed a steak and placed it on his plate before piling on some fries and vegetables as well.
“Um, hi,” Tommy said cautiously. Dad looked up and quickly dropped his knife and fork.
“Oh my god,” Dad said. Mom and me gave Dad ‘what the fuck?’ looks.
“What?” I asked. Dad blinked heavily. “What?” I repeated, getting nervous.
“You’re one of the Jones boys, aren’t you?” Dad finally said to Tommy, who nodded.
“So?” I asked, confused. Mom was wearing a look of utter terror and tears ran down her cheeks. Dad was also flustered. “What’s going on?”
“His brother, Timothy, was January’s boyfriend.”
“What?!” I shrieked.