Episode 1: The Ever Intuitive Detective Hudstone

Episode 1

The Ever Intuitive Detective Hudstone

The smell of coffee hung in the air like a thick mist, as Tessa and Jennifer walked in and took their regular seats at the corner booth, far from view, but still close enough to spy and eavesdrop.

The Grind, the place to be. The place where all of Offset High's students waste their money on cheap coffee and spend their time on supposed study dates. The proverbial underbelly of Mecha Falls, for all intents and purposes.

Tessa takes her seat, all while still babbling about everything and nothing in particular, but Jennifer is only half listening while shrugging off her school blazer and loosening her tie.

Something feels off, but Jennifer does not know why.

"...and, see, that's when he slammed the book down on the table and..." Tessa continues to rant about how unfairly her Biology teacher had drawn her attention back to the lesson earlier that day. "...the man gave me detention!" Tessa finishes, pouting for only a second before swiftly switching topics.

"Coffee?" She asks with a devious smile. Tessa and Jennifer take turns to order; ultimately, The Grind is one of those self-serve joints with one order station and another for pickup.

"Does a firefly sparkle?" Jennifer says with a roll of her eyes. Tessa is already up and walking toward the counter.

"But no chips today... I want a muffin; I hear they have a new supplier," Jennifer shouts after her, a few heads turn, but she hardly notices. She's used to heads turning in her direction, she's the main character after all, or rather that is what she's convinced of.

See, there's a secret that Jennifer tries to keep to herself – sometimes.

She believes that she's the main character in a book and everyone and everything she knows is just a work of fiction, written by a second-rate writer, and that's why her life's been so utterly mundane.

She sighs and flips through her geography notes, trying to look slightly productive as she waits for Tessa to return with food. In her procrastination, she scans the diner. She looks at the chatting misfits scattered about the place, among whom her little brother – Shaun – is seated. She frowns, shouldn't he be at band practice? She shrugs it off, she's not that familiar with his schedule and, besides, she's not the type to tell.

Suddenly Tessa appears with the food and Jennifer is so caught off guard that she almost yelps, but manages to keep herself composed, seeing as Tessa was not alone.

Her best friend came accompanied by none other than Angus Keller.

He smiles and nods his hello, "Jenny."

"Augustus," She returns and makes a point of looking away.

"Dear reader. Yeah, I'm talking directly to you – I've got the superpower of speaking in soliloquy. While all the other characters only see me staring off into the distance dramatically, I'm actually talking to you. Back to the story. Augustus David Keller. The boy next door, my childhood friend... why am I so dismissive of him then? Good question, so glad you asked! Over the past few months, he's been showing up more and more and, given our history, I think my Author is trying to introduce a love interest into my story. Now there's nothing wrong with this and if it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna simply fall into his arms. I have to at least make it interesting."

Before long Angus smiles, nods his goodbyes and leaves. Tessa drenches her chips in tomato sauce and Jennifer starts picking her blueberry muffin apart, all while chatting over open geography books – the typical study session that The Grind is so used to.

Jennifer reaches over and snatches up one of Tessa's chips, quickly popping it into her mouth only to immediately spit it out again.

On the plate, underneath the chip Jennifer had stolen, lay the bodies, all bloodied up with tomato sauce, of two dead flies. Tessa's eyes grow wide and Jennifer's jaw drops.

"Sabotage!" Jennifer gapes and gulps down the rest of her, now cold, coffee, and almost chokes in her attempt to get the taste of out of her mouth. Her face contorts in complete disgust. "Murder. Sabotage!" She says again only to have Tessa put a hand over her mouth.

"Will you stop that?!" Tessa says looking around. "It's fine, I'll just get a refund."

Jennifer removers her hands.

"This is not fine. What does this show to the people? This shows that there is a prankster at large, a poisoner for all we know!" Jennifer exclaims dramatically.

"Sometimes mistakes happen..." Tessa tries to say but is quickly cut off.

"One fly, maybe, two flies – that's foul play." Jennifer stands up and grabs her blazer and bag. "I shall get to the bottom of this, fair dame. I vow to avenge thy honor!" and she walks out.

***

The next morning at breakfast Jennifer glares suspiciously at her father and brother over a cup of steaming black coffee. As she brings it to her mouth, taking a sip, her glasses fog up, but clears up soon enough for her to see again. Jennifer doesn't need glasses, but her fake ones have helped her step into her much needed role as the law enforcing detective; detective Hudstone of Mecha Falls.

Last night she had time to think, time to think about possible suspects and two out of the three people that could be responsible are seated at her breakfast table. She almost feels offended for considering her own flesh and blood, but justice must be served.

First, she looks at the master prankster himself, the one that caught her in a glad wrap trap just a few weeks prior, the one that took the last piece of bacon before she could: John Hudstone.

"You see, dear reader, my father has a rap sheet so long that it could be used to cover an entire families' Christmas presents as wrapping paper," He scoops another forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth and washes it down with a gulp of orange juice. Disgusting. "Unfortunately, he was not present at The Grind and... flies in food does lack his usual flair." Jennifer shifts her hawk-like gaze to her brother sitting next to her father.

"Which brings us to suspect number two. Shaun Hudstone. Level of unsavoriness: amateur, which means that he would've been sloppy and is the type of person that would find it funny to put flies in people's food. And besides that, he was at The Grind..."

Suddenly something touches Jennifer's shoulder, fear surges through her body and she yells all while spilling most of her coffee all over the table.

"Well?!" Jennifer's mother says, with a hand on her chest as she herself catches her breath after having started at her daughter's reaction. "Good morning to you too."

Jennifer heaves out a good morning as she catches her breath again and cleans up the spilled coffee.

"I see someone's in her head again," Mary Hudstone says to her husband. He nods, swallows the food in his mouth, points at his daughter with his knife and says. "She's been staring at us all morning; you'd say she's trying to turn us to stone."

Jennifer smiles sheepishly at the remark.

"Why are you wearing glasses, Darling?" Her mother asks and then immediately afterward, without even giving her time to answer. "Why aren't you eating your eggs?"

"Someone put flies in Tessa's chips yesterday," Jennifer says dramatically and shoves her plate forward. Jennifer did eat the toast and bacon, but there's no way to tell if there's a fly in the scrambled eggs so she didn't dare touch it.

"That's not a prank worth my time," Her father says formally, as though stating a fact.

"And you?" Jennifer glares at her brother.

"I bet it was Angus." Her brother says, after a shrug and Jennifer removes him from her suspect list. Her brother may be sneaky, but boy does the child boast!

"Suspect number three. Angus Keller." Jennifer takes off her glasses dramatically and looks off into the distance again, this time in the direction of the window.

"And there she goes again." Her mother says with a sigh. "Anyone for seconds?"

"Level of unsavoriness: Pro. Rap sheet: None-existent. Yes, dear reader, Angus Keller's so good that he's never been caught. He also has biology, where he could maybe have gotten his hands on the flies."

Jennifer sits back in her seat and folds her arms across her chest, smiles, and nods. Satisfied that she's found the culprit.

"Oh, dear. She's got that look again," Her mother says standing up and taking the dishes, her father smiles. "I smell detention again."

"So, what are we gonna do today, Brain?" Her father asks, rather amused, having become completely familiar with his daughter's looks over the course of her life and this look means that she's planning something.

Jennifer smiles, puts her glasses on, shoulders her bag and stops dramatically. "The same thing we do every day, Pinkie." She grabs her glasses and plucks them off her face. "Try to take over the world!" She finishes her sentence, turns on her heel and walks out while shouting a goodbye over her shoulder.

At the bus stop, Jennifer didn't even have to wait ten minutes before the creaking old safety hazard came to a halt. She scans the bus and takes her seat directly behind Angus Keller.

"Good morrow, Jenny." He says without turning around. "You happy it's Friday?" The bus jolts away. Jennifer absolutely hates taking the bus and usually walks, but she just wanted to talk to Angus... trap him and ask him a few questions.

Angus turns around and looks directly through her with his beautiful eyes. For a while Jennifer just stares at him, trying to wear him down, before starting her interrogation.

"What do you know about flies?" she asks, rather serious and he smiles, charmingly.

"I heard about that..."

"Where?" She cuts him off. "Where'd you hear about it?" She glares at him.

"Around,"

"Around where?"

"I can play this game all day, Jenny." He says, clearly entertained. "Just ask me directly and we'll spare a lot of time."

"Did you?" she asks.

"You know I can't recall..." He teases. "Oh, dear look at that, we're here."

Before Jennifer can stop him, he's up and out of the bus. Angus greats his friends, but before he walks off he glances over his shoulder and she catches him smiling at her before he quickly looks away.

"Oh, yeah. My writer's definitely introducing a love interest... that doesn't make him innocent though."

Jennifer lets out a sigh, one-straps her backpack and hops off the bus as well. For a second, she pauses before walking off to class and admires the large iron gates for the thousandth time.

"Welcome to Weppler High, named after our town's founder Sir Casey Weppler himself. Why does everyone call it Offset High then? Glad you asked. Sir Casey Weppler and his family were buried on the West side of their very large, family property. What does that have to do with unicorn trails? Great question! It has everything to do with Offset High. In memory of our beloved founder, who had a formal education himself, the school was built on his property. The school building was built around his house, in fact, and because of the Wepplers' graves it's also a little off-center. Earning its unofficial name, Offset High."

As Jennifer walks past the hordes of children, she can't help but question everything she's come to believe – as every detective does at this stage in their story.

"Why'd my author make me this way?" She looks around at everyone else. "I don't know. Dear reader, maybe my writer wants me to tell you something directly. What an interesting thought to think about. Maybe my story isn't just about an overly dramatic teenager. Maybe it's about something more? Something deeper? Maybe I'm not just ink and paper... or maybe I'm just a trivial character written for nothing more than a smile, a character with no depth, a character for you to forget."

After having aged a lifetime under the scrutiny of her own magnifying glass, Jennifer walks into her homeroom and takes her seat next to Tessa.

Defeated.

As usual, Tessa starts bubbling over with all the secrets she can't keep and spills the entire school's gossip, all while Jennifer only half listens. All while Jennifer's thoughts spiral around and around, mauling over the question of her own existence for the umpteenth time.

"What's wrong?" Tessa suddenly asks and Jennifer's pulled out of her head.

"The case of the flies has darkened my faith in humanity," Jennifer dramatically answers. Tessa's eyes suddenly widen and she looks around nervously. "I haven't found any..." Jennifer continues, but is quickly interrupted.

"Just drop it. Leave it be, mistakes happen." Tessa says trying to sound casual, but her words have a sharp edge to them.

"You know who did it!" Jennifer practically leaps out of her seat. Why would Tessa not tell her? Is she being blackmailed? Is she protecting someone? All the new curiosities spark a newfound hope within Jennifer.

The bell rings for first period and Tessa gets up quickly and before Jennifer can ask any more questions Tessa says, "Just drop it, okay." And walks out.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Jennifer says to herself and slowly starts walking to first period.

The day passes by in a blur, one uninteresting class after the next, with Jennifer whole-heartedly playing the part as Detective Hudstone. Through passers-by she gathers gossip as her evidence, in the hallways between classes, and one distinct picture starts becoming clear. It's almost definite that Angus did it. Apparently, Angus started a friendly conversation with Tessa in the food line, but didn't order anything, and then just walked with her to their table and after that left The Grind entirely– something's up, something's definitely up. The only thing that Jennifer can't figure out is how he'd gotten the flies in the first place or why he'd want to poison Tessa with them.

The day dies down and no further evidence surfaces until the second to last period. Biology. Jennifer walks in and, just before taking her usual seat, she spots Angus Keller at the back of the class, feeding the large bullfrog – Frank – flies.

It was him!

"Liar!" Jennifer shouts and throws the first thing her hand can find (her pineapple pattern water bottle) only to have it fly right past his head and hit the boy behind him – Keagan Cavendish, the foreign exchange student with anger issues.

Before poor Angus could even identify what had whizzed past his head, Keagan's fist knocks him to the ground. As a few more students join in, Jennifer slowly sinks down between the tables and waits for the ruckus to stop.

***

"... and that's when Mr Goodhals walked in and broke it up," Jennifer tells Tessa in last period. Tessa practically hanging on every word.

"And?" She asks.

"And then there was shouting and then someone, I think Keagan, said something about a water bottle and, before long, I had detention too."

Tessa burst out laughing, earning herself a foul look from their English teacher.

"You know students volunteer to feed Frank, right?" Tessa says. "I do it to try and get on Mr Goodhals' good side! I don't think there is one though!"

Jennifer pauses for a second, processing what Tessa had just said. "You feed Frank?" Jennifer asks as the puzzle pieces fall into place. "Why'd you do it, Tessa?"

"I read an article..." She starts to say after an awkward silence. "About a woman putting bugs in her food to get free meals and... and thought it worth a try. I didn't bargain on you finding them! Forgive me?" She pouts.

"Only if you promise to include me next time!" Jennifer says and the bell rings. "Hey, save me our spot in the back, I'll meet you in detention. I've gotta do something real quick."

"Say Hi for me!" Tessa shouts after her.

"Shut your face!" Jennifer returns and stops to throw her a look before leaving to find Angus.