By Tuesday, I officially considered myself to be an expert on all things “missing persons”.

  It turned out the case of Hannah Addington was pretty weird. Usually, if a minor goes missing the police think to check divorced parents first. But the thing is none of the four kids had divorced parents. There was also no real reason to suspect foul play. Why was that? Because there was no evidence at all.

  Hannah and company had ventured into the woods to find an old golf building. Then they disappeared without a trace.

  The police hadn’t found any of the kids’ personal items at the range or any clues that might’ve shown them leaving the range. There were no witnesses as to where they were.

  They’d told my parents the trail was cold but that they were doing all they could.

  It seemed pretty phony to me. It shouldn’t be that hard to find four kids in this small town. But whatever, if the police weren’t going to do it, I was.

  I was going full-on detective mode. But of course, every detective needs a partner. Batman has Robin, Sherlock has that one guy... Whatever, the point is I had enlisted my best friend Calli Morrell.

  Me and Calli go way back. We’ve known each other since kindergarten. Those types of bonds don’t break easily.

  So, on Tuesday, in fourth period in Ms. Blem’s class, I laid out The Plan to Calli. We sat in the back, so it was easy not to be overheard.

  I explained I wanted to visit the last known location of Hannah. The Cross Creek Golf Range. The cops had to have missed something.

  “Ok,” Calli said slowly. “But how, and when?”

  “I’m thinking Saturday we tell our parents were going to my team’s volleyball match,” I whispered. “But then we ditch the rec and go to the range. We’ll have almost three hours of freedom, which should be plenty of time to do a solid search.”

  “So, your parents are already dealing with Hannah being missing and your idea is to sneak off to the exact place she disappeared. What if it’s not safe? What is your mom going to say if she finds out?”

  “Uhh,” I began spinning my pencil between my fingers.

  “Your parents are gonna absolutely freak.”

  “So what? You want me to tell them our plan? They’d never let me, you know it.”

  Calli frowned and glanced at the worksheet we were supposed to be doing deep in thought. “Well, you never know unless you ask.”

  “Here’s how that’ll go: ‘Hey mom, can I go to the range? You know the one, where your oldest daughter was last thought to be alive.’ Then she’ll say ‘Heck no, Cara. I wish you were smarter. Your siblings never would’ve asked me that.’”

  “Ok you might be right. Not about the you being dumb part but about your mom,” Calli said then paused as she thought of a better plan. “How about this? You’ve gotta act really sad and ask your mom if you can go and if she says no then we can start plotting sneaking there.”

  “Yesss!” I lost concentration on my pencil, and it flew out of my hand. I watched in horror as it somersaulted through the air before landing with a thunk in the trashcan at the other side of the room. In any other class, I would’ve celebrated that type of unintentional trick shot but not with Ms. Blem.

  She summoned me to her desk with a flick of her bony wrist. I did the walk of shame past all my classmates, sensing their silent laughter.

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  I would describe what Ms. Blem looks like but I don’t want to ruin your day. Just imagine grrrrr and POW POW and that’s what her face looked like on a daily basis.

  “Yes ma’am?” I said when I reached her desk, acting like I had no idea why she’d called me up there.

  “Caraline, are you aware of how dangerous it is to throw a pencil in a class full of student?” She glared at me.

  Ugh. “I didn’t mean to throw it, I promise. It slipped.”

  “Slipped? I don’t think so. You’ve got lunch detention.”

  My jaw hit the floor. “Lunch detention? But Ms. Blem, I swear I wasn’t trying to throw it, like at all.”

  “Right, it just conveniently landed in my trashcan.”

  “Yes, actually it did-”

  She raised a hand, and I shut up. “You have lunch detention Ms. Addington. End of discussion.”

  I turned on my heel, furious, and stalked back to my desk. Leave it to a woman like Ms. Blem to ruin my day. What a horrible monster freak of a teacher. Who even thought it would be okay to let her interact with kids? She didn’t even act human half the time.

  The bell rang and everybody left for lunch but me. Calli went to speak to Ms. Blem on my behalf, but Ms. Blem simply sighed and said: “I respect you looking out for a friend, Ms. Morrell, but really there’s no getting her out of this.”

  Calli mouthed a ‘Sorry’ at me and then she left too. Leaving me alone in the monster’s den.

  I pulled out my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and ate it in silence. But I was getting weird vibes from Ms. Blem. It was like she wanted to say something but was hesitating and I had a sneaking suspicion of what she wanted to talk about.

  She cleared her throat, and I braced myself for the conversation I knew was coming.

  “So, I heard your sister, Hannah, went missing this past weekend.”

  Called it. “Yeah,” I muttered.

  “I can hardly imagine how hard it must be for you and your family.”

  “It’s pretty hard, yeah,” I said. I wanted to end the conversation ASAP. Ms. Blem was the absolute last person I’d want to talk to about Hannah.

  She leaned forward on her desk. “I heard her last known whereabouts were around the abandoned golf range. Cross Creek?”

  Where was this going? Most people got the idea I didn’t want to talk and backed off early on. And no one ever mentioned the range or the search for Hannah. They just said how sorry they were and blahblahblah. Was Ms. Blem just so brain dead she couldn’t pick up on basic social clues?

  “Yeah, the golf range,” I answered.

  “Very interesting... Hmm... they used to visit there all the time,” Ms. Blem whispered in a far-off voice. She was staring into the distance with unfocused eyes with her mouth dangling open. See what I mean? Brain dead.

  “Uh...”

  She snapped back to reality. “Oh, sorry.”

  “It’s alright?”

  She dismissed me then, which was pretty weird because lunch detention is supposed to last all of lunch, not ten minutes. But I wasn’t complaining!

  When I reached the door, Ms. Blem called my name. I turned back to look at her warily. Was she going to come back to her senses and make me serve my whole detention?

  “I heard you mention wanting to go investigate the range,” she said.

  “Umm? Nope.”

  “Don’t do it! That range is a very dangerous place!”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Am I okay to leave now?”

  She nodded silently. I felt her eyes on me as I walked out. Jesus, that “woman” was weird as all heck.

  But seriously, what had just happened? Ms. Blem suddenly letting me leave lunch detention was suspicious enough on its own. But her weird little comments about the range? That was beyond suspicious.

  I found Calli and the rest of my friend group at our usual spot under the big tree outside the cafeteria. I pulled her aside.

  “I think Ms. Blem knows something about Hannah! Or at least something about the range.”

  I explained the weird conversation I’d had with a few exaggerations from emphasis.

  “Huh,” Calli said. And that was all.

  “So, what do you think?”

  She shifted from foot to foot. “I just can’t see how Ms. Blem could be involved in your sister’s disappearance. She’s just our English teacher.”

  “She said someone she knew used to go the range all the time! Maybe she like knows hiding places there that Hannah could be stuck in as we speak?” Not for the first time and image of Hannah lying in a ditch somewhere flashed through my head.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Calli said. “But let’s hold off on framing our teacher until we have like a singular shred of concrete evidence.”

  “Then let’s go find some concrete evidence.”