| “Piper, what are you doing?” Max asked. Ms. Winchell stopped teaching. She looked at Piper strangely but didn’t say anything. “Sit down.” Erin exclaimed. “Look.” Piper said. She pointed out the window. Hannah, Max, and Erin stood up and walked next to her. The four of them looked out the window and saw Mulder and Scully standing by their car. “What are they doing here?” Piper wondered out loud. “Something tells me someone’s dead.” Erin answered. The entire class stood, trying to get a glance at what was going on. Ms. Winchell didn’t know what to do. It was too late to try to gain control of her class now. Piper opened the window and hopped up onto the ledge. She draped her legs over the sill and through the open window. “What are you doing?” Maxine asked. “Going to find out what’s going on.” Piper responded. Her feet reached the ground. She lifted her torso through the window. She fell onto the ground below but quickly picked herself up. She heard Ms. Winchell call her name as she started walking to where Mulder and Scully had parked. They had something laid out on the top of their car and they were looking over it intently. Piper tried to stay out of sight, ducking behind the edge of the school. “I’m not missing this.” Max said from inside the classroom. She climbed out of the open window. Erin looked to Hannah. As Max began walking away from the building and towards Piper, Hannah jumped out the window as well. She began to walk towards Max. “Hannah!” Erin called out. She knew what the girls were doing was wrong but a part of her told her to follow them. Hannah stopped and walked back towards the window. Erin was standing there, her hands gripping the window sill. Hannah grabbed her wrists and pulled her through. Trying to break her fall, Erin put her hands on the ground and flipped onto her feet. “They don’t call you a dancer for nothing.” Hannah observed. “Come on.” “Piper wait!” Maxine yelled as she ran to catch up with Piper. At the sound of her name, Piper stopped and turned towards Max. She waited for her as she saw Hannah and Erin turning a corner. Maxine began to call out to them when Piper cupped her hand over her mouth. “I don’t want them to see us.” Piper said as she ducked behind a wall of the school. Maxine followed. They waited as Hannah and Erin caught up. Piper peered around the wall. She spotted Mulder and Scully still standing at their car. “What are you going to say to them?” Erin asked Piper. “I don’t know.” Piper confessed. “Piper, you just crawled out of a first story window…in the middle of class.” Hannah stammered. “So did you.” Max retorted. Hannah became silent. Max was right, she had just hopped out of a window, leaving a gaping class behind. “All I know is I have to find out what’s going on.” Piper said as she got up and walked towards Mulder and Scully. Maxine quickly got up and followed. Hannah looked to Erin, as she realized what she had just done. This time it was Erin who began to follow first. She got up and ran to Maxine and Piper. Hannah, was unaware of what to do but then she realized she couldn’t exactly crawl back through the window and forget it happened so she followed slowly. Mulder tapped Scully on the shoulder as he saw Maxine, Hannah, and Erin coming towards them. “Here comes the three stooges.” Mulder said. “Try four.” Scully said as Hannah approached. Scully folded the paper that was laid out on the top of the car. “Piper, where did you come from?” Mulder asked. “I was about to ask you the same thing.” Piper retorted. “Well, I asked you first.” Mulder responded. “I came from geometry class.” Piper answered. “We came from geometry.” Maxine corrected. “Through the window.” Erin added in. “I’m not even going to ask.” Scully said. “Well good. Now tell us what you’re doing here.” Piper exclaimed. “We’re here investigating a murder.” Mulder explained. “Why does that not surprise me?” Hannah wondered out loud. “And just because someone was miraculously murdered somewhere in the state of Rhode Island or in the greater part of Massachusetts, you guys decided to come to me because you’re not big enough to solve a case alone, am I right?” Piper asked. “Wow, Piper you’re absolutely right. You’ve just got this entire thing figured out.” Mulder said sarcastically. “Actually…” Scully said, stepping in. “Someone was murdered three days ago right by that road.” She pointed as she spoke. “So you guys didn’t come just to talk to Piper?” Max questioned. Mulder shook his head. “So I guess you guys better crawl back through that window to class.” “Well, we could do that but since we’re already involved…” Piper dragged on. “You want to stay.” Scully finished. “Guys, we should get back to class. I mean, we crawled out the freezin’ window! Ms. Winchell may be our friend but she had to at least write us up, give us detention, or worse for climbing out the window alone, no matter skipping class! What if…” Erin rambled on. “Erin, clam down!” Piper exclaimed. “She’s not going to give us detention. We’ll help Mulder and Scully and then go back in and explain the entire thing to her. She’ll understand.” “Piper, you barely understand Geo as it is.” Hannah reminded her. “How are you going to pass if you’re out here investigating a murder when you should be in class?” “That doesn’t matter.” Piper protested. “I’d like to ask your parents about that.” Erin added in. As soon as she said it, she cupped her hand over her mouth. Piper’s parents had recently died in the middle of a murder investigation. Piper lived with her two older sisters and they still had a great life but she was still becoming accustomed to life without parents. “How am I supposed to sit in class and pay attention when I know there’s an investigation going on?” Piper asked out loud, ignoring Erin’s remark. It did make her sad and in some way depressed but she had tried hard to get over the loss of her parents and with her friends help, she had succeeded. “She does have a point.” Maxine said. “I don’t think any of us will be able to pay attention.” Everyone was silent. They all wanted to help but they knew it might not be the best in the long run. “Is this whole thing being kept a secret?” Erin interrogated. “What do you mean?” Hannah questioned. “It hasn’t been on the news or in the papers. How can you keep a murder like this a secret?” Erin demanded to know. “By keeping it away from teenagers.” Mulder said sarcastically. “I think it’s best to keep it a secret. What if news of this got into the student body? You know how fast news travels around a school. Think about the rumor about you guys hopping out of a window that will be traveling around the school by the end of the day.” Scully said. “True.” Max said. “We’ll probably be known as the girls who jumped out a third story window for a five dollar bet.” “Well, okay so you keep the murder a secret, big deal. But since we know, I think we should be involved.” Piper exclaimed. “I think you guys need to go back to Geometry. How long do you have until the end of the day?” Mulder asked. “About a half hour.” Hannah answered as she looked down at her watch. “Well, we’ll still be here when school’s done so come find us.” Scully said. Piper began to protest when Mulder gave her a stern look. She understood and nodded. She began to walk back towards the windows. “How about we go through the door this time.” Erin suggested. Piper shrugged her shoulders and walked with the others to the closest door. They pulled it open and walked inside. To their surprise, there was no teacher sitting outside the nearby bathroom stopping kids from smoking. The four of them walked towards their classroom. As they walked in, they noticed the other students had again taken their seats, listening to Ms. Winchell. “Guys, where did you go?” One student asked. “What were you thinking, climbing out a window?” Another wondered. “Are you insane?” A third questioned. “Fair question.” Piper responded. “Girls, just take your seats. We’ll talk later.” Ms. Winchell said. The girls did as told. They immediately picked up with the notes that they had left off as if nothing had happened, except for Piper. She couldn’t get the murder out of her head. She watched the clock like a hawk, trying to see when the minute hand would reach the nine so they would be dismissed from school. Finally, there was about thirty seconds left of school. Piper watched as Ms. Winchell saw the time. She quickly jotted something down on the board, probably a homework assignment, but Piper paid no attention. She watched as the second hand continued to move, but to her it moved as slowly as ever. Each second felt like a minute. She was itching to get up and run outside. She peeled her eyes off the clock to look out the window. She was searching for Mulder and Scully but all that she was their car. |