Chapter One

The murdered girl before she gets murdered.

When Tiffany came down for breakfast the Friday morning before she was murdered, there was a note on the kitchen table from her father. “Princess,” it said. “I am driving to convention in Omaha. Be back Monday night. Remember groceries. Love, Daddy.” Tiffany tossed the note in the trash and stuck in her earbuds while she ate corn flakes with a banana and skim milk and surfed her phone. When she was done, she rinsed the dishes and stuck them in the dishwasher, grabbed her backpack, locked up the house, and walked to school.

After morning classes, she was in the school cafeteria with her earbuds in, listening to her new favorite band, Upside Down and Purple. Cindy Slit’s voice scorched and the beat pulsed in a hurricane of angry lyrics. “You’re in danger, girl. They’re coming to get you, girl. Run and hide. Run and hide.” Tiffany shook her fist to the driving beat, silently screaming along with the words… until the earbuds were suddenly yanked out and the music stopped.

“Good song, Emo Girl?” asked a huge boy wearing a Minnesota Wild jersey. His fat, pimpled face was adorned with a smirk. Tiffany tugged her earbud wires away from him and stared back at him with a look half defiant and half fearful. He mouthed a smooch at her, then turned and waddled away to hunt for other amusement. She looked around the loud, raucous sea of students, searching for friendly faces. There was Teddy just sitting down with his food tray over by the windows. Tiffany picked up her tray and navigated through the crowd to join the safety of Teddy’s group.

“Hey,” said Tiffany to Teddy, looking for a signal that it was okay to sit down.

“Oh look, it’s a Goth Girl,” said a boy Tiffany didn’t know, sitting across from Teddy.

Teddy kept his head down and didn’t look up.

“Did you skin that skunk yourself?” the boy asked Tiffany and then, looking at Teddy, let out a loud “Ha ha!” Teddy gave a little laugh and still didn’t look at Tiffany.

Tiffany’s face turned red. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. She looked at Teddy, but he kept staring down at his food. As a tear started down her cheek, she turned, started walking away and simultaneously wiping her cheek dry with her arm. Dumping her barely eaten food at the tray station, she hurried into the girl’s bathroom and locked herself into a stall. She put her earbuds in, restarted Upside Down and Purple, and turned the volume loud. The tears started again and she couldn’t stop. When the song ended, the tears had become sobbing. She hardly noticed when the teacher started banging on the stall door and she didn’t stop crying until the teacher took her by the arm and guided her down to the school nurse’s office.

The nurse tried to talk with her, but Tiffany couldn’t pull herself together enough to say much of anything. The nurse would ask a question and Tiffany would tear up and sniffle, shake her head and shrug her shoulders. The nurse pursed her lips and wondered what to do about this young lady. She was a young lady, even if she didn’t look like one. The pale skin of her face was red and mottled from the crying. She had silver jewelry piercings on her lips, eyebrows and nose, a big plastic gauge circle inserted in each of her stretched earlobes, and hair dyed black with a white stripe down the side. Her clothes, black jeans, black tee shirt, and black work boots weren’t exactly ladylike either. But, behind the disguise, behind the scared look, underneath the puffy eyes and despite the downturned corners of her mouth, the nurse could still see a lost young woman needing help.

The nurse began doing what was in her power to do. She looked up Tiffany’s emergency contact information and phoned Tiffany’s father. He was driving his car in Iowa, on a road trip to a convention in Omaha. He sounded concerned but said even if he turned around right away he wouldn’t get back to the Minneapolis suburbs until nearly midnight. No, there wasn’t anybody else he knew who could come and take care of Tiffany, wasn’t there something the school could do? If there was a safe place they could put her, he’d pay for it. The nurse told him she’d call him back after she made some more phone calls.

She phoned the school psychologist next. The psychologist said unfortunately she was fully booked for the afternoon and that she couldn’t do a diagnostic evaluation over the phone, but the symptoms the nurse described certainly sounded serious. Her advice was to get Tiffany professional help. When the nurse explained where the father was, the psychologist advised her to take her to a hospital. The psychologist consulted the state database and, after fifteen minutes of frustration, finally concluded that the best option would be to take her to Central Minnesota Hospital, about seventy miles west of the school in the town of Dappled. The database showed an open bed that accepted adolescent girls, so bringing her to the emergency room there would probably get her admitted.

Next, the nurse called Tiffany’s father back. He asked what it was going to cost. The nurse said she didn’t know, but if Tiffany had health insurance maybe that would pay for it. Do you need my credit card number so you can get a taxi to take her out there? No, no, the nurse said, I’ll drive her myself. Thank you, I appreciate it. I feel so badly about this, but I really have to be at this convention. Thank you so much.

When the nurse explained what was going to happen, Tiffany just nodded and accepted her fate. On the drive out to Dappled, the nurse gave Tiffany permission to listen to her music. When the nurse glanced at Tiffany with her earbuds, eyes down and nodding her head to the music, this was image she remembered at her funeral the next Friday.

Reviews

[SweetNutmeg]

Well, that's quite a start. I liked Tiffany and got all invested in her despite myself, even though you told us she was going to be murdered immediately. So you definitely hooked my attention. Good job!