It was a dark morning for the teachers and pupils of St Barnabus County Primary School. The sun had failed to rise and a thick fog had descended over the small town of Hellsop. The usual morning exuberance of the playground was notable by its absence, peripatetic chaos replaced by sombre huddles, sobered by the darkness. At the bell, the pupils lined up with a rare obedience, seemingly more than happy to get out of the murky fog and into their warm, homely classrooms. They walked silently, in single-file through eerily quiet corridors, not needing the constant shushing and shepherding of the teachers as they would on any other day. Something wasn’t quite right, this dark, sunless morning, and everybody sensed it, teachers and pupils both.
The teachers at St Barnabus were feeling particularly tense this morning as the head teacher was away on a conference, leaving the others jockeying for power in an unspoken show of brinkmanship. Deputy head Don Riley was officially in charge but the old stalwarts were stubbornly reluctant to concede to his authority on account of him being relatively new to the school and a good decade or so younger than the majority of them.
Don’s first act in charge was to cancel the morning assembly, claiming his new workload as acting head teacher had left him no time to prepare anything of worth. This did nothing for his popularity with the teachers, who grumbled about not having lesson plans for the morning, needing the assembly time for classroom preparation, mumbling conspiratorially about how they could have been warned, all of which went straight over Don’s head. Don chose instead to get himself a cup of tea and sit back luxuriously in the head teacher’s vast, soft leather swivel chair, hands behind his head, relaxed and satisfied, thinking about how he could get used to this.
Over in Class 2, Miss Bryce had solved the problem of having no lesson plan by issuing her pupils a simple drawing task. Draw a picture of something that makes you happy. Bryce had recognised the tense atmosphere in the classroom and sought after rectifying the problem with such a light-hearted task. As was usual with Miss Bryce, her instincts were proven correct, as the oddly taciturn pupils quickly transformed into the lively bunch they usually were. Unfortunately, Bryce’s instincts were also still prompting her to think that something was amiss that day. With the sun still absent, it felt like night, the air thick with fog meaning the only visible objects outside were blurred floating lights from the lampposts, still glowing hazily despite it being half past nine the morning. With the children contently drawing away, Bryce looked to easing her own mind and took out of her handbag a small book of Zen haikus, which soon swept her to a variety of calming locations and feelings.
“Miss Bryce, please can I go to the toilet?”
Miss Bryce was lounging back in her chair on the veranda of a big, wooden house painted white, looking out onto the prairie on a warm, balmy, summers evening, absent-mindedly watching a butterfly drinking from a small pool of water that had trickled down the side of the chilled glass of fresh cranberry juice she had by her side.
“Miss?”
Bryce jolted upright. “Uh? What was that sorry?”
It was Abigail Somers, a pretty girl, very popular with her classmates.
“Miss, can I go to the toilet please Miss?”
Bryce was transported curtly back to the dark, foggy morning.
“Erm, yes, be quick. And you don’t have to say Miss twice.”
“But Miss, you didn’t hear me the first time Miss.” Abigail replied innocently.
“No Abigail, I mean you don’t have to say the word ’Miss’ at the beginning and end of the sentence.”
“Miss, sorry…” Abigail trailed off, desperately trying to stop herself adding another ’Miss’ and skipped out gaily to the toilet.
Abigail left behind a simple yet heart-warming drawing on her desk of herself, with her family, enjoying a Christmas dinner, full of big, toothy smiles, a scruffy dog, also smiling, playing with a bone down by the side of them.
2. A heinous crime
Abigail Somers was a kind-hearted girl without a bad word to say about anybody. This by no means made her a pushover however, she was more than capable of handling any confrontation toward her and would steadfastly defend any victim or underdog she deemed unable to defend themselves, whether she be friends with them or not. It was this, as well as her obvious prettiness and natural sense of fun that made the other pupils gravitate toward her. The chat around Abigail’s table would always stem from and revolve around her, to the point where, in the event of her needing to leave the table, for whatever reason, the others would instantly find themselves with nothing much to say to each other, and chat would only resume once she returned. This often led to the awkward situation of her asking the others what they had been talking about, causing them to hesitate and mumble, looking around sheepishly, desperately hoping she wouldn’t actually care and strike up her own conversation again quick.
The time in which Abigail was out of the classroom appeared to pass by uneventful. Little did the pupils know however, that one amongst them had committed a heinous crime, soon to send shockwaves of suspicion, paranoia and accusation rattling through the corridors of the whole school.
Abigail returned to the classroom less breezily than she had left. The dark, quiet corridors had made her feel uneasy and alone, despite the lively rooms full of children behind every wall. She walked quietly back to her seat and sat down. Her countenance sombre as her eyes moved down toward the lovingly drawn Christmas party, but instead were witness to the bloody aftermath of a hellish massacre. Abigail let out a meek squeal of horror. The faces of her family members viciously slashed by a deathly black, wax crayon. Her father's neck sliced, an oil spill pouring from the open wound, splattering over the turkey dinner. The mother’s joyous smile, callously mutated into a maniacal grimace, her bright, wide eyes now demonic, glaring psychotically into Abigail’s tears. The mindless slaughter had left no witnesses. Abigail moved her horrified eyes reluctantly over to her dog, only to see the diced remains of an unrecognisable beast.
An agonised wail of terror, deafeningly pierced the noise of the classroom and echoed disturbingly through the empty corridors of St Barnabus. Acting head teacher Don Riley, still wallowing satisfactorily, spat out a mouthful of tepid tea and lunged forward to stop himself falling off the back of his temporary throne, startled by the mournful cry.
Bryce, recognising the genuine terror on Abigail’s face, rushed over to discover the cause, initially shocked, she had to avert her eyes in disgust at the jet black, waxy massacre but soon righted herself and turned round to take in the full scale of the crime.
“Who on earth has done this?” she demanded of the children who sat in stunned silence staring back at her, wide eyed with worry and innocence. Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t the merest peep of a confession. Bryce scoured the nervous faces for outward signs of guilt, maybe a sweating brow or awkward twitching. Alas, the pupils were spared further interrogation when the school bell rang for break time. A crying Abigail was being comforted by assistant teacher Miss Harding who asked Abigail if she was ok to go outside with her friends. Interestingly, she opted to be escorted out by Ali Wotmoor, a girl she hadn’t really been close to, but had known the longest, down to their parents being good friends. Something about the family link, drew Abigail to Ali in this moment. Miss Harding, sensing the hurt feelings of Abigail’s usual best friend Carrie Curl, sent the sobbing girl out with the two of them.
3. Suspects & Copycat killers
Bryce and Harding both admitted they hadn’t been paying attention when the crime was committed that morning. Bryce, lounging on her summers evening, Harding, doodling sketches for a sculpture she planned to make. However, they both agreed to keep a keen eye out for clues that may unveil potential suspects.
On any normal day, after break time, Abigail would come skipping back to class arm in arm with best friend Carrie Curl, full of tales for Miss Bryce about the adventures they had been up to on the playground. Today however, for the second time, Abigail was instead under the consoling arm of her old family friend, Ali Wotmoor, with Carrie following behind needily. Ali escorted the victim back to her seat before going to her own. Carrie sat in her seat by Abigail and placed a tender hand on her friend’s back, drinking the dregs of a consolatory job already efficiently executed by a reliable Ali.
Diagonally across the table from Ali Wotmoor, sat Dean Jenkins. Dean was well known for his naughty antics and was not well liked. Not that it stopped him being an overly talkative type, his unpopularity with fellow classmates going blissfully over his head due to a notable lack of intelligence. He’d only recently been moved back from the solitude of the naughty table, a punishment for punching a boy, who had the nerve to score past him at football practise. He served enough time on good behaviour to be deemed capable of mingling with the rest, although Miss Harding was sure to keep a keen eye on him. And sure enough, to Harding’s shock and horror, within seconds of checking on him, he reached into his tatty pencil case and pulled out the wax weapon, still dripping with the crow black blood of the Somers family Christmas massacre. He lurched over to his neighbour’s notebook, whilst her back was turned and shook the crayon ferociously back and forth over her work, a maniacal grin across his face.
Harding wasted no time in marching over, grabbing the guilty hand and snatching the notebook before thrusting it to arm’s length with a clenched fist to show the crime in all its shameful glory to a confused looking Bryce.
“Miss Bryce. We have our scribbler.” she exclaimed with assured firmness. The rest of the class stared, puzzled, a few of them trying to stifle liberty seeking giggles. Bryce looked on with a furrowed brow.
“Miss Harding?” she asked quizzically.
Harding turned round the notebook to look at it, wondering what was causing the confusion, only to see a few lines of tentatively written, neat, simple sentences. Harding couldn’t understand it, she witnessed the crime for certain. She frantically flicked through the pages, finding nothing but innocent words and pictures. She still had hold of Dean Jenkins’ hand, still clenching the murder weapon.
“Dean Jenkins,” she demanded. “I saw you with my own eyes, scribble on this notebook with the crayon you still have in your hand.”
Dean had panic in his eyes but replied with some sincerity.
“Miss, I was only joking. I was just pretending to do it as a joke.”
Minutes later the class were working and chatting away again. Harding sat, feeling rather frustrated with herself for acting with such rashness. The lack of a scribble had proved Dean’s honesty in this instance, but had done himself no favours with his reckless imitation of the crime. Whispers around the classroom and conspiratorial glances suggested he had made himself prime suspect.
4. A confession
On dinnertime duty the next day, Bryce and Harding patrolled the playground, discussing yesterday’s events. Harding felt sure of Dean Jenkins’ guilt after seeing the mania in his eyes and the offending weapon in his hand. To Bryce however, it all seemed just a bit too obvious. The crayon tray at the side of the classroom had plenty of black crayons in it, half the class probably had the exact same article in their own pencil cases. Besides, she questioned, what were his motives?
“Well I was wondering the same thing Miss.” started Harding. “I was checking Dean’s file this morning, it turns out that his mum and dad got arrested on Christmas eve after getting into a fight in town.” Bryce rolled her eyes, unsurprised. Harding continued, “They spent the whole of Christmas day in custody, Dean and his sister had to spend it with the next door neighbours. Now if you ask me Miss, Dean went over to the crayon box and on his way past saw Abigail’s picture of her Christmas dinner and was reminded of his own.” Harding spoke quickly with excitement. “He was filled with rage at his mum and dad and destroyed Abigail’s picture in a fit of jealousy. It’s not like he doesn’t have a history of behavioural problems.”
The pair walked side by side, Bryce looking into the distance, pondering the convincing evidence offered by an enthusiastic Harding.
They soon came across a sorry figure, sat alone on the wall, shuffling his feet, kicking a pebble between them. It was none other than Dean Jenkins.
“Dean? What are you doing on your own? You’re usually running round the football pitch.” Bryce asked.
“They won’t let me play.” the outcast replied sorrowfully.
“Well there are plenty of other people to play with. Why don’t you go and ask one of the girls?” Bryce tried to sound positive and upbeat, feeling sorry for the boy and trying to lift his spirits.
“No one will play with me, they all hate me.”
“Come on Dean, I’m sure that’s not true. Why would they hate you?”
“They say I’m the scribbler.” Dean looked down at his shuffling feet with great sadness.
“Are you the scribbler Dean?” Harding asked, sensing a confession. Dean stood up without a word and ran back toward the school, wiping his eyes and sniffling back tears. Harding turned to Bryce with raised eyebrows. Bryce’s expression remained calm and thoughtful.
Back in the school, Bryce and Harding stood talking in the doorway of the staffroom as the red-cheeked, windswept children filed in from outside, hanging their winter coats on the hooks with their name on. The pair’s chat was interrupted by a nervous looking Carrie Curl, Abigail Somers’ best friend and tablemate. She held in her hand a half-screwed up piece of paper.
“Miss, I’ve just found this on the floor by the coats Miss.”
Bryce set aside her annoyance at Carrie picking up her best friend’s bad habit of saying ‘Miss’, at both ends of a question, instead taking the paper and unscrewing it to unveil a damning confession.
…Dear Miss Bryce, it was me who scribBled on Abigails work. From Dean Jenkins…
“Thank you Carrie, go back to class.”
Harding puffed out her cheeks and breathed out a heavy sigh.
“Well there you have it, case closed.”
Bryce looked up from the note with a relaxed smile, gazing into the distance before setting her eyes on Harding.
“Don’t you see Harding? Darling Carrie Curl has just served herself up on a plate.”
The smile on Harding’s face turned to confusion.
“Look at the note Harding. Dear Miss Bryce, it was me who scribbled on Abigail’s work? From Dean Jenkins? Dean Jenkins, bless his heart, has trouble spelling the simplest of words, let alone writing out a formal confession.”
“Maybe someone wrote it for him.” reasoned Harding.
“No Miss Harding, this is no confession.”
Carrie Curl had unwittingly put herself under the spotlight.
“Carrie Curl would have been wiser to keep quiet.” Bryce explained. “I would never have suspected her otherwise. Now it seems so obvious. You’ve seen the way her and Abigail are these days.”
“They’re best of friends.” Harding wondered aloud, not following.
“No Harding, don’t you see? They were best of friends. Abigail’s becoming more popular every week, they all love her and the more popular she becomes, the less attention she gives to Carrie. Carrie can’t stand it. Didn’t you see the pictures they drew? Carrie had drawn herself and Abigail side by side, hand in hand. I say she looked at Abigail’s drawing, expecting her to have drawn the same thing, saw that she was nowhere to be seen in Abigail’s vision of true happiness, her frustration boiled over into a violent rage causing her to massacre the entire scene.”
As Bryce looked wild-eyed in anticipation at Harding, awaiting her agreement, a piercing shriek sounded through the school. Harding ran to the classroom and saw the pupils huddled around little Katie Hunt. She pushed her way through the crowd and came upon the ghastly sight of another scribble, black as coal, spread across two pages of carefully completed sums. Harding looked up at Dean Jenkins who sat directly across from Kate, he looked back at her pleadingly, to no avail.
“Dean Jenkins, come with me.”
Harding ordered Dean into the empty staffroom and pulled Bryce to one side.
“Well this throws your theory out of the water, another scribble, this one over Kate Hunt’s set of sums, not an absent friend from a vision of happiness. Dean was sat right across from her, we’ve got the confession note, what more do you want?”
Bryce looked slightly stunned, Harding was right, this did go against her theory of the jealous rage.
“What about Kate though? Maybe Carrie is jealous of her. Has she been hanging round with Abigail recently?” Bryce was clutching at straws and she knew it.
“No Miss. Abigail has barely left Ali Wotmoor’s side since it happened. Kate Hunt has had nothing to do with it.”
“She does sit next to Ali.” Bryce said limply, still clutching, but knowing she’d strayed way off the track.
“I’m sorry to say it Miss, but it all points to Dean. The ruined Christmas, the imitation of the crime, the confession?”
Bryce exhaled and sent Harding to calm down the hysteria she could hear coming from the classroom while she went in to question Dean.
5. To catch a scribbler
Harding sat at her desk at the side of the classroom whilst the children worked away, suitably calmed down after a second victim had been claimed by the scribbler. It wasn’t long before Bryce walked in behind a timid looking Dean Jenkins who ran straight to his seat. The children fell silent and eyed the boy all the way back to his place, thinking they were now in the presence of the scribbler. Bryce looked over at Harding and shook her head, informing her silently of the outcome of the interrogation. Now Harding was stumped, she felt certain of the child’s guilt, despite feeling sorry him. She faced her palms skyward and shrugged questioningly at Bryce. Now what? Bryce smiled at her knowingly before addressing the class.
“Boys and girls, set your notebooks to a clean page. We are going to have a spelling test.” The children groaned in unison. Harding smirked, impressed by Bryce.
The words came out without causing a stir of suspicion.
“Spell…giraffe………..torch……..lamp….Bryce, like my name…....work…..scribbled…” The children gasped in horror, the word sent an icy chill through their bones. They all looked fearfully around at each other, searching for eyes of reassurance, only to see their own uneasiness mirrored back at them. Many darted hateful glances over at Dean Jenkins, who was fortunately too baffled by the spelling to notice the daggers being aimed at him.
It was the end of the day and the notebooks were efficiently collected in and counted by Harding, to make certain no one slipped through the net. The second the last child left the door, Bryce reached into her draw and pulled out the confession note and laid it out on the table. They both took a pile of notebooks, Harding’s pile somewhat higher than Bryce’s, and set to work.
Hours passed by as the pair inspected each word and letter, diligently comparing each to those of the confession. Bryce could take no more and shoved her pile, toppling to the floor. Harding carried on, faithful and determined.
“It’s no use.” Bryce complained. “all their writing is practically the same. They’ve only been doing it a short while, they haven’t developed their own styles yet.” She turned to face the window and took out the little book of Zen haikus from her bag. Harding continued to plough, doggedly through the tests.
Bryce was soon back on her warm veranda, looking out onto the prairie, sipping from her ice cold glass of fresh cranberry juice. She allowed her eyes to settle on the beautiful flowers, wrapped lazily around the banister of the few steps leading down to the green grass. She smiled as two bees buzzed playfully in and out of the silky, petal cups, gently amused by the smaller bee bumping the bigger out of the way, cheekily getting to the honey before its bloated playmate. She took another refreshing sip of the chilled juice when reality sliced through.
“The bees!!”
Bryce bolted out of her chair, back in the classroom. Harding jumped out of her skin, startled by the sudden outburst.
“The bees Miss?” she asked, picking up the notebook she’d thrown to the floor in shock.
“The bees Harding, one bigger than the other, look at the note!”
Harding snatched the confession note off the table and sure enough,
“..it was me who scribBled…”
“The two ‘B’s” Harding spoke softly in astonishment. “One bigger than the other. Well I‘ll be darned”
The pair grabbed at the notebooks and started to search, swiftly through the pages. On the second notebook Bryce checked, there they were, the two ‘B’s of ‘scribbled’, side by side, one lower case, one capital. The sleuths turned to each other in great pleasure, they had cracked it. Bryce closed the notebook slowly to reveal the name of the scribbler, written neatly on the front cover.
The next morning, the children worked in silence, sensing Miss Bryce’s deep resentment for one of them. This was of course misplaced. Although Bryce was deeply disappointed that the scribbler had failed to come forward voluntarily, she by no means resented any of her pupils, no matter what lunacy took hold of them. She stood up and walked over to the scribbler and placed a firm hand on their shoulder.
“Come with me.”
By now, all the children could think about was the scribbler. They were constantly on edge, never wanting to turn away from their books for an instant, for fear of them being scribbled on. With this obsession constantly in mind, as far they were concerned, if someone was asked to leave the classroom, it could only mean one thing.
Bryce sat in the staffroom with only the scribbler for company. She sat in pity for the sobbing young girl in front of her, the first victim’s oldest friend, Ali Wotmoor.
“She just always ignores me.” the scribbler cried, through sniffles and sobs. “We’re friends outside of school, we go on holiday together and everything. As soon as we get here she just ignores me, like she’s embarrassed of me.”
Bryce asked her about the note.
“Dean’s always doing naughty things, I thought you’d believe it was him. I left it near Carrie’s coat, I knew she’d pick it up and I thought if you didn’t believe Dean did it, then you’d think it must have been Carrie. She thinks she‘s so good being best friends with Abigail. I‘m sick of being stuck next to Katie Hunt, it should be me with Abigail.”
Bryce placed a comforting hand on the scribbler’s back.
“Ali, you’ve been a very silly girl. You scribbled on Abigail’s picture because you were so angry that she didn’t pay you attention at school. And because you thought you’d got away with it, you did the same to Katie Hunt simply because you didn‘t like her. As soon as something so terrible happened to Abigail Ali, who did she turn to for comfort? Who did she feel like she most needed by her side to make her feel better? You Ali. She turned to you, her oldest, truest friend. What is she going to think now, when she finds out that it was you who scribbled on her picture all along. She’s ignored poor Carrie ever since it happened, the girl you tried to set up. How do you think Carrie’s been feeling? It was all so pointless Ali. Abigail showed that you were her one true friend, and look what you’ve done to her.”
Back in class, Bryce walked in behind a red-eyed Ali Wotmoor who wiped her blushing cheeks and sniffled as she sat down. Abigail Somers looked pleadingly at her before bursting into to tears and falling into the comforting arms of a reliable Carrie Curl.
“Ok class, get back to work.” called out Bryce, trying to instil a sense of normality back to proceedings. She looked over at Harding with a smile and a nod for a job well done.
The class chatted away. Dean Jenkins couldn’t help himself.
“Hey Ali.” he whispered across the table. “Scribbled on anyone’s work recently?”
“Shut up.” the scribbler scowled, and carried on with her sums.
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