Detective story

1.

A wonderful  sleepover

We’re laying on one bed. Everyone sleeps, but I don’t. One bed with 4 people. Me, Jessie, Julia and Jessica. I just can’t sleep with these snoring girls next to me. They’re my best friends. We do everything together. We’re all 18 years old. It was a wonderful, but busy evening. I called my best friends Julia, Jessie and Jessica and asked if they could come to my house and have a sleepover. They all came, and we put our beds and stuff on the floor. Later in the evening, we lay in our own beds, and we didn’t feel well laying alone. So we decided to sleep in my double bed for 2 persons. Jessica, a pretty girl with a lot of makeup and blond hair lays next to me. Next to Jessica, lays Julia. She’s a shy, silent girl with brown hair, but when you know her, you’ll know that she’s very crazy and not shy. She doesn’t wear makeup. Next to me on the other side lays Jessie, a normal girl, no crazy things about her, a little makeup every day, and she has blond hair. Jessica, Julia and Jessie always say I’m a crazy, busy girl, with dark blond hair. I don’t wear makeup as well. I think it’s nonsense, because the people you really like are going to see you without makeup anyway. This evening was absolutely wonderful, also because Jessica had a big surprise. Her rich father told her that she and some friends could go on holiday to Spain by car. Of course, she asked us to come with her. We were so happy! We called our parents, and asked if it was allowed to go. They all said yes, with a little struggling. So next week Friday, we go with a small bus to Spain. Jessie and Julia have got their driving license, so they will change places in the bus after one hour. So first Jessie will drive one hour, and then Julia the next hour and so on. I’m really looking forward to go! We all live in Amsterdam, so we need to travel about 1800 kilometers, so a little more than 17 hours approximately. But with 4 friends in one small bus is always nice. But one problem, I’m going to miss my boyfriend Jack a lot. We have something now for about a week. I know, that’s short, but though I’m going to miss him. We’re leaving next week on Saturday morning, and we’re all going to a party Friday evening till 12 midnight. Before that, I’m going to the volleyball training. I’m the only one who’s doing a sport except for Julia. She also plays volleyball in the same team as me. Then we’ll have a sleepover again at Jessica’s house this time, and we’ll leave around 3’o clock, because first the car has to go to the garage for the last check. I’m also looking forward to the party, because I can see Jack at that party and maybe we can dance together. It’s going to be sad as well, because it’s the last time I see my boyfriend. We’re going away for 3 weeks! It’s in the middle of the winter, so it snows. We’re going to Spain where the temperature is approximately 15°. So a lot better. I hate the winter. I hate that it’s cold outside. You need to wear hats, gloves, scarves and a thick coat. Wow, I can’t wait till next week Friday. It’s going to be a wonderful time with my 3 best friends! I’m sure I’ll  need a big case to put everything in. I’ll need my sunglasses, my clothes, shoes, underwear, dresses and skirts for the parties, food, medicines, credit card, money, bags, books, magazines, cleaning equipment, pajamas, hairspray…

2.

Next week Friday

I take my bike in a hurry. I’m already a bit late. I cycle very fast to the building where my volleyball training takes place. The club is called Kiro. I put my bicycle in front of the building, and I run inside. Nobody was there! I looked on the clock on the wall. Oh, I forgot. The training begins half an hour later today. So I decided to go the canteen and have a drink. I got a coca and sat down with my mobile in my hand. Then I saw Ella, a very shy girl who was in the same team as me,  coming into the canteen as well. The more invisible she was, the better. That’s what she thought. She told me that one day. She sat down, and we had a talk. She tells me she has a boyfriend. She’s very proud of that, because no one would expect her to get in touch with boys. She’s so happy with him. She didn’t have a boyfriend before, so he meant a lot to her. I actually didn’t ask who was her boyfriend, because I just didn’t pay attention to it. Then the others come into the canteen, and we walk to the hall where our training will take place.

3.The training starts and when I really start to sweat, the training is already finished. The time flies when you have fun! We go to the changing room and I decide to take a shower at home. I cycle home with Julia, and we decide to do our makeup and hair together at my house. So we go to my house, and I tell her about Ella and her boyfriend. Julia is in a shock and she’s very surprised. Ella and a boyfriend? That’s impossible. That’s what we all thought. We both take a shower and do our makeup and hair. Then we take our suitcases and we put them in the car. We drive to Jessica’s house and there we drop our suitcases. I say goodbye to my father and mother who brought my here. I can’t help it, but I have to cry a little. Then we hear the sound of a horn. It comes from the car of Jessica’s father, he wants to leave. So we all step into the car and the father of Jessica drives us to the party. We show our tickets to the porter and we go inside. We hear the music, and we begin to dance immediately. Then we all saw Harry walking towards us. Harry is a boy who loves Jessica, and stalks her. Everywhere she dances, Harry is dancing too. Jessica hates him, and now he’s walking towards us. He already saw us, so we can’t do anything. We just dance on. Then he stands next to Jessica, grabs her face and tries to kiss her. Everybody is looking at them. Jessica pushes him away and hits him in the face. Everybody was laughing now. Then Harry kicks Jessica very hard, and says: ‘’I will get you, Jessica! You will not get away with this! I’ll come to you later sometime’’. He runs away. Jessica, Julia, Jessie and I walk towards the toilet, Jessica’s crying. She looks in the mirror and sees the imprint of his ring in her face. You see a small heart. We take a picture of it, because Jessica can’t see it very well in the mirror. Jessica says: ‘’C’mon, we’re just going to party on. We will not spoil our evening because of a stupid boy. But first I want to have a drink’’. So we go to the bar and get a glass of wine. Then someone taps on my shoulder, I turn around and look in the eyes of Jack, my boyfriend. He gives me a kiss on my cheek. Julia says: ‘’Time for us to go away’’, and she gives me a wink. I see them walking away, and Jack and I have a wonderful evening together. We dance together and we kiss a lot. Before I know it, the evening is finished. I start to cry and Jack gives me a hug. We say goodbye and then we hear the familiar noise of a horn. We step into the car and talk about the wonderful evening. We don’t talk about Harry, because when Jessica’s father hears that story, he will be worried and maybe we weren’t allowed to go then. Her father is lovely, but sometimes more worried than needed.

     Heading towards Spain…           We already drove for 4 hours now. We’re now in Belgium at the Ardennes. Everything’s going fine. But now we’re driving at a little side-road. Nobody’s driving over here, and it’s snowing hard. Creepy. That’s the good word for this place. But the other girls think it’s okay. Everyone in the whole city knows Julia always takes this route when she’s going to Spain with her parents. There was gossip about that. The gossip said; ‘’In this side-road, there’s a place where people maltreat animals and  Julia and her parents always go there’’. Of course, that wasn’t true. Julia loves animals! But now almost everyone in our neighborhood knows we’re going to take this route, and actually I think that’s just funny. I sing along with the song that’s on the radio now. It’s snowing harder now, much harder. You can’t look very far. Then the car starts to slip a bit, and the car makes a weird noise. We step out of the car and see a lot of big nails around us. We have a flat tire, and we’re in the middle of a snowstorm. We go back inside, and discuss what to do next. We can’t drive any further with this tire and the snowstorm which is becoming heavier every minute. So we decide to have a look at a little house 20 meters away from the road on the right-hand side. We grab our coats of the back seat and we push our car to the side of the road. Then we walk towards the little house. It looks a bit creepy, but everything is better than sleeping in a car with 4 people. So we knock on the door, but there is no response. We push the door a bit and then *click* it opens. We walk inside the house, searching for someone. We see the living room and we go inside. We see a note laying on the table. I immediately start to read it. It says: ‘’This little house is from nobody and everybody. Everybody is allowed to stay here. In this forest, everything is from everybody. Have fun and enjoy your holiday.’’ Julia says; ‘’We have a place to stay, that’s a relief!’’. We walk back and we take our suitcases out of the trunk. We take them with us inside, and we close the door. We walk through the house and we see that it’s old but comfortable! There are only 3 beds upstairs, but one of us can sleep on the bench. Jessica wants to sleep on the bench this evening and I decide to sleep alone in a separate room upstairs. We’re all tired of the trip and also about what just happened to us. Jessica takes her phone and tries to call a pizza restaurant but she doesn’t have any connection here. She tries to call her dad as well, but that doesn’t work either. She walks outside, the snow blowing in her face and sticking on her eyelashes. No connection. We all try to call someone, but it doesn’t work. So we decide to take some bags of candy and eat them. There isn’t a television here as well. We go to bed around 8 PM, because we’re so tired. Especially Julia and Jessie are very tired, because they each drove 2 hours. I go upstairs, open my suitcase and take a towel. I want to have a quick shower. I hear Jessica singing under the shower. I need to wait a second, and then I go to the bathroom and have a shower. I love a hot shower in winter days! I feel the water on my back, running down to my legs. It’s magical, wonderful and amazing. I don’t know why I love it so much, but it feels so good. Then I realize I have to get out now, because it was a long day for Jessie and Julia as well, even more than mine. So I get out of the shower, put my pajama on and go to bed. I already hear the snoring of Jessie and Julia loud through the corridor. I know I can’t sleep with this snoring. I’ll wait one hour and then I’ll go downstairs and have coffee. One hour later… I go downstairs. I walk towards the kitchen and I look around the corner to the living room, where Jessica’s sleeping. But when I look at the bench, she’s gone. I pinch myself to see if I’m really awake. Tell me this isn’t true. But Jessica is really gone…

4.

Gone

I try to calm myself down. I walk upstairs to the bathroom, look in my room and in the one of Jessie and Julia. They’re still sleeping. Then I go downstairs again, and search there. She’s really gone... I start to scream and I hear the sound of the stairs. Julia and Jessie heard me, and wanted to know what’s wrong. I feel the tears come out of my eyes, and I say; ‘’Jessica is gone. I looked everywhere inside’’. I see the eyes of Julia and Jessie filling with tears. We give each other a hug. Luckily, we’re still with 3 people, we can protect each other against the danger. Maybe she wanted to go home and just left. We decide to look in the suitcase of Jessica, but she didn’t take anything important. Her mobile was here, her passport. So that wasn’t the case. Maybe she went outside for a walk, but we already know for 95%  that she isn’t outside for a walk. She’s so scared in the darkness. The snowing has stopped. We all take our boots with little heels, and 3 flashlights. Then we can recognize our own footprints in the snow. So we walk around the house, into the forest. Then Julia starts to run. We run after her, of course. It takes some time to realize what we see now. Julia screams: ‘’Jessica,  are you awake? Please react, sweetie. Say something!’’ Jessica is laying on the cold ground under a few branches. Jessie places her hand on the chest of Jessica. She doesn’t feel the beating of Jessica’s heart. We all cry as loud as we can, we kiss Jessica on her forehead and we hold her hand. I still can’t believe it. Jessica, the pretty girl with blond hair and a lot of makeup is dead. We keep staring at her for about 15 minutes. Then I ask; “Who wanted to kill Jessica? Who hated her so much?’’. Then suddenly I think about Harry. I said; ‘’Harry… He was so angry on her. He said things like; I will get you, Jessica! You will not get away with this! I’ll come to you later sometime! Later sometime… To kill her of course! We need to search him, I don’t want him get away with this so easy!’’ Jessie said; ‘’Yes, of course. Harry… what a… ’’. Then Julia says; ‘’I know something, he can’t be far away I think. He can actually, but let’s not think about that. Search for his footprints and maybe he lost something. Then you’ll know for sure he did it. I can’t think of someone else who did it. Do you, Jessie? Jessie says that she also can’t think of someone else. And I can’t either. I say; ‘’I know something, I’m going to run to the house and take 2 blankets with me’’. Julia says; ‘’Can I please stay here by Jessica?’’ I say; ‘’Yes, you can. My father works for the police, you know? I have a gun in my suitcase. I’ll take that as well, then Julia can stay here and have the gun as a protection when he comes back. Alright?’’ They both say yes, and I start to run towards the house. I open the door, take the gun and the blankets, close the door again and start to run. I hand the gun over to Julia, and I give the blankets to Jessie. Jessie puts the blankets on the ground and gives one blanket to Julia itself, as a protection against the cold. Jessie and I begin searching for footprints. And we see them! Very big feet, and we also see an imprint in the snow of a bicycle. We walk alongside the footsteps and we follow them. They stop at the road. Then we see the big nails again. He did that as well! This was a perfect place for him to kill Jessica! And he knew we were driving on this side-road, because almost everyone knows. But we need to search evidence, otherwise the police will not believe us. We walk past the big nails, and see something sticking a little bit out of the snow. Jessie walks towards the thing very careful. She grabs it of the ground , and it’s a ring! We recognize a heart. I take my mobile, look at the picture I made at the party, and I compare the small hearts. They’re exactly the same. This is evidence! Jessie puts the ring in her pocket and we start to follow the footsteps again. Harry… We hate you! And you’ll not get away with this very easy!

5.

Harry, the murder?

We follow the footprints and we see a little barn now. We follow the footprints that go to the door. We open the door and then… we stand there for five minutes with an open mouth. When we followed the footprints, we were just searching for evidence, because it would be weird if Harry was still there, I mean, he just killed someone. But there he sat in a corner of the barn, crying. I screamed; ‘’What are you doing here, stupid boy? We all hate you! Why did you kill my best friend? I actually want to kill you now, but I don’t want to look like you. That’s the last thing I want!’’ Then Harry says; ‘’Girls, I d-d-didn’t do i-i-it!’’. Jessie says; ‘’Shut up! You just killed our best friend, and now you act like you’re innocent. We don’t believe that, fool!’’ I’m so angry on him! I walk towards him, I hit him in the face and walk back and give a high-five to Jessie. Harry says; ‘’Girls, let me say something. I really didn’t do it! Please, give me 2 minutes to explain!’’ Jessie says; ‘’Why should we listen?’’. Then I say; ‘’Jessie, let him talk. We’ll decide if he’s telling the truth. Go on, Harry!’’ Then Harry begins his story; ‘’ You’re here because of me. That’s true. I knew you were going to take this route, because everyone know. So I drove for about 4 hours, and then I came here. I put the big nails on the ground and drove my car into the bushes so no one would see the car.  I wanted you all to be here, because nobody ever comes here, so also no other boys for Jessica. I really loved her, and I wanted to be her boyfriend someday. I didn’t want her to get in touch with other boys. I’ve got the key of this house, because it’s a little house of my father. Sometimes he has some appointments near here. I wrote a small note, and put it in the living room. A bit of a vague note, but then you could stay here. I’m here because it was a surprise for Jessica and I wanted to say sorry.  I wanted to show I would do for her, travelling to another country, say sorry, show my good side. And I also wanted to protect her. But yes, that worked very well, you see?’’. Harry starts to cry again, a bit louder now.  ‘’I saw that girl killing Jessica. It was terrible to see, and I was too afraid to go and get her, because maybe she would kill me as well then’’. Me and Jessie stood there, looking at each other. Jessie asks; ‘’Should we believe that?’’ My response was; ‘’I think we should. Look at how much he loved her. It’s a believable story. But I still have two questions’’. Harry says; ‘’Ask them, then you’ll know that I have nothing to hide’’. I ask; ‘’Are you here by bike?’’ Harry; ‘’No, I’m not! I’m here by car. The girl was on the bike. I think that she was here earlier, and followed you the last bit’’. I said; ‘’Okay, could be. Last question. How did the girl look like?’’. Harry says; ‘’I don’t know a lot actually. I know it was a girl. Oh wait, I know something again. She had red exploded hair and glasses’’. I scream; ‘’I know who it is! We have to go back to Jessica and Julia. You got a car, right? We’ll take our flashing lights, the blankets, our mobiles and the gun with us. We’ll carefully put Jessica in the trunk. Let’s go. I’ll tell you later who it is, now we first need to go!’’. Harry says; ‘Okay, she drove that way’’, and he points at the road. We run very fast to Jessica and Julia. I say; ‘’Harry is not the murder! Someone else is it. We have to go to the car now, I’ll tell you later who it is. We have to be fast. She’s on a bike, we can be faster’’. Harry, Julia and Jessie carefully lift Jessica and I take the flashing lights, the gun and the blankets. Harry says where we have to go and we follow him. I open the trunk, put one blanket down, and we carefully place Jessica on it. I put one blanket over her, and one I take with me. We close the trunk and we step in quickly. Harry drives this time, and I sit next to him. Julia and Jessie are on the backseat. I say; ‘’When you see a girl with red exploded hair, say it!’’ Two hours later… We’re still searching the murder of Jessica, my best friend. I already have my mobile in my hand to tape what she says. Maybe we can use that as an evidence by the police. Then Jessie screams; ‘’I see a girl with red exploded hair!’’ We all have a look, and drive as fast as we can towards her. You can see on Julia’s face that she’s astonished. Jessie opens the door, grabs her at her shoulder and pushes her back towards the forest. We open the door as well, and walk towards her and Jessie. I start to scream; ‘’You killed my best friend! You did that! You’re such a fool. Why did you kill her?’’. She says; ‘’Shut up, shut up, shut up’’. I say; ‘’I don’t understand, why’d you kill Jessica?’’. She says; ‘’I don’t understand, I don’t understand. Friday evening you knew exactly what you were doing when you and Jack kissed. Jack was mine! I say; ‘’Yours? Jack and you? What the hell!’’ She says; ‘’You didn’t expect that, right? But I’m very angry on you because you kissed my boyfriend by then! He broke up with my, because he loves you more. You can have a lot of  boys, why do you take mine? Now I don’t have anything to live for, no boyfriend, no dad and my mother drinks all the time and blows all the time. She doesn’t care about me. But first I wanted you to have pain forever, and when I would kill you, you would have pain for a few seconds and then you’ll be dead. So I thought when I kill someone you love, you’ll have pain forever. That’s what I wanted. Bye guys, see you in hell!’’. She ran away and before I could even react, we heard the shot. I screamed; No, Ella… Think about volleyball… And we all started to cry mostly because of Jessica but now also a little bit because of Ella. We called our parents and the police to tell her story and we sat down in the car. I say; ‘’What a lovely holiday…’’