Brayden

Jack Grey: The Curve Ball  Hello, I’m Jack Grey, and sometimes my school just gets on my last nerve. The things the other kids attempt at are just stupid. Usually it’s something that they can easily get suspended or expelled for, and for some reason it somehow falls on me to find out who it was or why. You may ask me why the teachers don’t do it, but the truth is that in my school the students don’t talk to the teachers or anything, so I end up solving the cases. It all started in fourth grade when I solved who stole Billy’s video game, then it kind of started increasing. Anyways this case recently happened, and it was all over… well you’ll see.

It was a normal Friday spring morning; the other students were ready for the weekend, making plans, chatting like crazy, texting more than usual (if you can believe the teenagers could actually text any more), basically not paying attention at all. By lunch barely anyone could stand being in school any longer. I was just sitting on a bench talking to my best friend Richard. He’s one of those people that can get information about anyone since he knows the right people, like gossipers, or club leaders. Anyways, we were sitting there talking when we heard someone scream.

It came from outside the school. On instinct I went toward the noise which came from outside the school. When I opened the doors, there were two things I saw, one, a giant crowd surrounding a body, that’s where the scream must have came from, probably startled someone, and two, this place is extremely muddy, gross! Before I could ask anyone any questions, a teacher, Mr. Smith, and Mrs. Howard the nurse, shoved the kids out of the way to see the boy. After checking his pulse, and investigating him Mrs. Howard announced that the boy was alive (knocked out) but severely injured.

“Who is he?” I asked Richard.

“His name is Joey Rimmerdale ,” relied Richard, “He is in grade ten and from personal experience, and information from others, he is a real annoying pain.”

While the school called emergency, the now awake victim waited in the nurse’s office. I needed to confront Joey before he went to the hospital, so I had Richard distract Mrs. Howard so I could question him. When I had my chance I got right to the questions to make sure I didn’t run out of time.

“Hey, do you remember what happened? Was it a fight? ” I asked him. I tried to be as kind as possible, but this was one of the bigger things that happened in my school so I needed to find the culprit. That is, if it wasn’t just a stupid fight, so I was a little tense.

“Why should I tell you punk? go away.” Joey replied. I couldn’t stand this brat. After the things that just happened he’s acting like an annoying brat. Not that I’m surprised, Richard is very good at knowing stuff about people.

I glared at him. “Listen here, if you want revenge on who did this to you, you’ve got to answer me.” That’s not usually how I approach people, but I needed this guy’s attention fast.

“It wasn’t a fight, I was walking outside when I felt a horrible knock on my head, and I was out cold. I didn’t see who it was,” Joey finally told me.

Before I could ask any more, I heard Mrs. Howard’s voice so I had to leave.

Joey was not much help so I had to investigate the scene further. As I went back I saw a baseball bat lying in the mud near where Joey was hit. This made me wonder why the attacker was so careless, however it was a clue and I knew that only a member of the baseball team would have had access to this bat. For more information, I called Richard.

“Richard, I’ve narrowed it down to the baseball team,” I exclaimed to Richard through my phone.

“That’s good news, because the entire team is away at a tournament today except for David Lunar, and Fred Wilson, due to detention later on today. David is a third basemen and Fred is a benchwarmer,” replied Richard.

“Any connection between them and Joey?”

“Yeah, Joey and David are enemies. Ever since elementary school Joey has been bothering David, and David has been fighting back. No connections to Fred Lunar though.”

This made me think, did Joey go too far or did David get too mad, or both? Maybe David did it?

“It seems to point to David, but we need to make sure, gather them in the locker room in five minutes, tell them if they don’t come, it will be obvious that they did it,” I told Richard.

When I was in the locker room I was surprised to see that they were there so fast.

“O.K. boys, let’s make this easy for us all, I know one of you did it, so admit it.” As expected, no confessions. “Did you search their lockers Richard?” I asked.

“Yeah, nothing but gym clothes, shirt and shorts.”

I glanced at both of them. David had a scowl on his face as he tapped his white shoe, and put his hands on his hips. Fred just sat down calmly while he scraped mud off his shoes.

“I didn’t do it, sure I hate him, but I wouldn’t go that far, sometimes I wish I could, but I can’t,” said David.

“Of course it was you,” Fred shot back, “I don’t even know the guy, and besides, one of your favourite pastimes is complaining about Joey.”

“Why would I risk something like that?”

“Cause you hate him, you probably couldn’t take it anymore.”

“I didn’t do it!”

“Relax David,” I told him. “I know it wasn’t you, it was Fred.”

Fred gave me a look. “What in the world makes you think that?” he told me. I could also catch a nervous tone in his voice.

“Well, you probably wanted a real spot on the team, other than benchwarmer, so what’s better then framing a player by attacking the person he always complains about? You even just told us your reasoning of why we would think it was David, right when you were arguing with him. Why else would he be so careless with the bat, if not to lure us? The one that was the most obvious, is that in the crime scene where Joey was attacked, it was muddy, your shoes are muddy, where David’s are white and clean.”

Fred’s eyes bulged. Before he could react, Richard grabbed him by the arm. He was caught.

In conclusion, you can see that some people go to great heights for little things. Good thing there are people like me, to quote on quote “save the day.”