Chapter Eleven: Absent (Gabby)

“Wow, that was so unexpected!” remarked Jade as Suzy drove off into the distance.
“I know, normally Suzy is so kind and friendly, I would never have thought that she would shoplift,” replied Annie sadly.
Charlotte looked at her watch. “Well, if we don’t hurry, we’ll be late for class girls. Monday morning and we have Geography first period,” she announced.
“I wonder why we haven’t seen Calipso this morning,” Chelsea whispered to her sister as they walked towards the classroom block.
“Maybe she’s just running late,” said Roxanne.
“Or maybe she’s still in shock after the drowning incident this weekend,” thought Chelsea aloud.
“I don’t know, she seemed fine when we arrived back at school.”
“No, she was still so pale and then she was really upset about Suzy and the shoplifting.”
“Yeah, well, I heard that Suzy and Calipso are always partners in Science,” said Chelsea.
“Yes, I think they’ve become good friends and maybe this whole nightmare has made her have some kind of a breakdown,” interrupted Jade.
“Like yours?” they all replied, laughing.
***

There was still no sign of Calipso after Geography and double Maths.
“I didn’t pay any attention in Maths today,” Annie sighed, “I could only think about Calipso and where she could possibly be.”
“Me too...wait, did you just say you didn’t pay any attention in Maths class?” asked Roxanne looking surprised.
“Yes Roxy, she did!” answered Jade, angry and frustrated that she was running low on gossip.
“I wonder, maybe she is trying to find out if Suzy really did shoplift,” she said.
“But it must have been Suzy, we saw her running away from the shop with the red dress tucked under her jacket,” Chelsea reminded Jade.
“But we did accuse her without any actual proof. We don’t know if the beeper was set off by the tag in the 'stolen' dress or if it just went off randomly. That has actually happened to me before,” Roxanne pointed out.
“Oh my gosh Roxy, I forgot about that,” said Chelsea.
“Oh no...” gasped Charlotte. “What if Suzy got scared or panicked, just like we did, and then ran away making it look like she was guilty and trying to escape?”
“So Calipso might be trying to prove that Suzy didn’t steal the dress!” Annie squeaked.
They walked the rest of the way to class in silence hoping that something or someone would cheer them up.
Right on cue, Mary came bounding around the corner.
“Hi Mary!” Roxy smiled. “So glad to see that you’re back to your old self after the muffin disaster. I bet you’ve been avoiding the Monday morning muffins ever since then!”
“Yeah, but it’s too bad, that muffin actually tasted really good,” said Mary with a big grin on her face. She didn’t get much of a response from the five Grade Tens. “You guys really need to cheer up, I mean, it’s almost lunch and I heard they have added brownies to the menu for today!”
“Are there nuts in the brownies?” asked Chelsea in a cheeky voice.
“No, apparently not, but that’s just what I heard. I don’t know how true it is,” Mary answered.
The bell rang for the next lesson and suddenly the groups of girls that had formed in the courtyard dispersed and scurried into the classrooms.
“You guys better get to class,” Mary warned them, “or The Nut will have a fit. That’s definitely something I would try to avoid!”
They all laughed at her as they rushed towards their classroom for a double lesson of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

***

During lunch the Fab Five were still very concerned about the whereabouts of Calipso.
“Maybe she’s been in the dorm all along,” said Jade.
“No, she’s not. I went back there earlier to fetch my Science book and she wasn’t there,” Roxy assured her friends as she bit into her sandwich. Sandwiches were all that were on the menu, sadly the brownie rumour hadn’t been true.
“What are you girls whispering about?” asked Josephine, peering suspiciously at the Grade Tens.
“Um, nothing,” they stammered nervously. The girls were petrified of Josephine at the best of times and now she had become very nosy since the shoplifting incident. She was treating everyone as a possible suspect. It was going to be difficult to hide anything from her from now on.