Lunch. Nalda didn't get to talk to her best friend until lunch. Of course she was whining.
"Irene…" She dragged out the syllables while stuffing her food in her mouth. "I missed you…"
Irene, who sat besides her, was just nodding along while eating. She probably wasn't listening and decided that Nalda's whining was just background noise but when Nalda said that she missed her, Irene almost spat out her food.
She coughed out loud and looked at Nalda as if she were a ghost.
'I will be a ghost if I don't catch that murder.'
Nalda's head flashed with a thought that will probably cause her to spiral so she decided to lock that thought up in the back of her mind.
"Ouch, is it really that surprising for you?"
"You're acting really strange today." Irene answered, her voice was quiet so Nalda had to strain her ears to hear it.
Nalda frowned because her joke had been ignored and instead she was being confronted. Eventually, she shrugged at Irene's words. "It's nothing."
'It's nothing I can tell you. Or maybe I could? Haven't really tried yet.'
Irene wasn't much of a talker. Nalda was pretty certain that like seventy percent of the conversation was Nalda interacting with Irene. In the past it used to irritate her because she thought that Irene wasn't listening, she only learned later that her friend was actually listening but didn't respond because she didn't think it was necessary.
That meant that Irene probably knew Nalda better than that Nalda knew Irene. It was a bit saddening but Nalda could change anything about that. She couldn't force someone to talk after all.
Irene continued to stare at Nalda, clearly not believing her. "I wanted to ask earlier but I wasn't sure how to bring it up." She eventually looked to the side while speaking.
Another thing about Irene was that she wasn't good at confrontations but she still tried to do it a lot.
"Your eyes were a little red and puffy this morning and I wasn't sure if I could just tell you and then I noticed that you were acting strange and…" She trailed off after rambling that much.
Nalda blinked in surprise because Mave hadn't mentioned it and neither did Mr. Comewell say anything about it. "What? My eyes were red?"
Irene seemed to panic a bit. "No! Not a lot, just a little. I noticed because… I don't know…" She shook her head. "I just did."
Now that was confusing. How could she 'just' notice something Mave didn't notice? But it didn't look like Irene was trying to hide something either, she looked genuine while talking so Nalda decided to drop it.
"You don't have to panic." She waved her friend off. "I'm fine so don't worry too much."
Irene quickly nodded and didn't say anything anymore. She continued to eat.
'She didn't exhaust all her talking energy for today on this conversation, did she?'
Nalda was a little worried about her best friend but it would be fine. Probably.
So that's how Nalda ended up rambling about all kinds of things. Here and there she'd ask Irene questions and would receive short answers but like usually, Nalda did seventy percent of the conversation.
At some point she also started talking with other people in her class and noticed how Irene shrunk away.
When the bell went off again, Nalda continued her conversation until she realised that the classroom she needed to be in was on the opposite side of the school. Then she dragged her classmates and rushed off to the classroom.
Luckily, her and the classmates she was with didn't get marked as late and when she went over to her desk she found that Irene was already there. Nalda mouthed the word traitor and Irene just smiled.
Nalda got a sense of deja vu from Irene's reaction. She felt like had seen it before but she didn't think too deeply about it because… well she already had enough on her mind.
She was already busy looking left and right for clues while trying to focus on the lessons. Not to mention that she still hasn't completely accepted superpowers yet or the whole 'I'm going to die in a month' situation.
In short her brain was already working overtime.
"Nalda what is the answer to question eight?" Her math teacher, Mrs. Sisemore.
Nalda looked at her page and answered. "I don't know, I didn't get to those questions, miss."
Mrs. Sisemore didn't get angry, she just moved on. "Who has the answer?"
That was a perk about Mrs. Sisemore. She just gave her lessons and whether you paid attention or not, as long as you could do well, she didn't really get angry. She was a pretty nice teacher compared to her evil history teacher who only knew how to give tasks without any explanation.
Still, Mrs. Sisemore did break Nalda's train of thought. It was annoying but there wasn't much she could do.
When Nalda looked beside her she saw Irene giving her a look. She couldn't tell what the look meant exactly but it seemed to be a look of concern.
Nalda shrugged at her because why was she worried for something as stupid as Nalda not being able to answer a question in class? It happened fairly often after all.
Irene's odd concern didn't stop there because from time to time she'd nudge Nalda back to reality when she was deep in thought. It kept happening until the end of the day.
While walking to the school exit, Irene walked beside her.
Nakda wasn't talking much because she was thinking and paying attention to her surroundings. The clues weren't going to find themselves, unfortunately.
When they reached the exit, Irene grabbed Nalda's arm to stop her. "Don't go alone. Come with me." She sounded firm and it seemed like she had seriously thought it over because there was no trace of the usual hesitation.
Nalda felt a bit bad but she had to reject her best friend. "I'm sorry but I can't. Mave said she'd pick me up."
Irene looked surprised, an expression that said 'really?' appeared on her face. Nalda laughed at her reaction and nodded but the laugh soon disappeared when Irene's odd concern from earlier showed up again.
It was a good thing that Nalda spotted Mave in the wave of students and the occasional parent right then. "Oh look! She's already here! You get home safe!" She said before sprinting off into her sister's direction.
Mave raised an eyebrow at Nalda's rushing but didn't comment on it. Instead she just dragged Nalda along and started heading home.
Nalda didn't understand why she was being dragged like this but eventually she just accepted it. It had been a long day after all.
***
Through the next few days Nalda still didn't have much success with the clues. Or well, it would be more accurate to say that the letters weren't really telling her if she got a clue or not.
For now she only had two clues.
First of all, the murderer can turn invisible. She learned this from the memory viewing and was the clue she was most certain about.
Second of all, they didn't murder their next victim immediately and instead left the amount of time the next victim had until the attack. That could be because of a cooldown or the need to lay low for a while but that was just speculation. The reason could be completely random and twisted.
She couldn't do a lot with these two clues and she only realised the second one after a whole lot of thinking even if it should've been obvious from the beginning. Then again, Nalda wasn't a murderer so she was only going off of stereotypes at first.
Nalda sighed as she heard the final bell of the day ring. It was a Wednesday but Irene was absent today. She was busy with some rich kid activity from what Nalda managed to gather through text.
"Hey Nalda, you're going with us on the school trip in a few weeks, right?" A girl in her class asked.
Nalda nodded. "Yeah, Mr. Comewell was really hyping it up, I can't not go after all that."
The girl chuckled and nodded. "Yeah that's true but I meant to ask if you're just going with the rest of us on the bus or will you go with Irene?"
Nalda was confused for a second before she remembered something. Irene didn't take the school bus when going on trips with the school, she usually went there by car.
At the first glance it wasn't that strange because the people who prepared their own transportation also got to pay less so there were a few others who did this to save money but everyone knew that Irene didn't do it to save money. She came from a rich family so the reason was security.
Nalda's classmate was asking her if she was going on the bus or with Irene because from time to time Nalda would go with Irene. They were pretty close after all. It wasn't that strange to imagine Irene inviting Nalda to go with her.
Nalda nodded at her classmate's questions once she understood why she asked. "I'm just going with the bus if nothing unexpected happens. Why?"
Still, why was she suddenly asking that? Who knows, maybe it holds a clue.
The girl beamed at Nalda's answer and began happily explaining. "Me and the other girls were looking to sit in pairs but I ended up alone. I didn't want to sit with a guy so I was asking around, so will you sit with me?"
Nalda nodded again and smiled. "Sounds good to me. I wouldn't want to sit with the guys either."
The girl seemed to become happier at that reply. "Okie-dokie! No take backs later! I'll see you tomorrow!" With that she ran off to her friend group.
Nalda continued to collect her stuff before leaving the classroom and heading for the exit. At the exit she quickly found her sister who was angrily talking with someone on the phone.
It was probably her job calling her for not being at work. It was surprising that Mave still hadn't lost her job with how much she was cursing at the caller.
When she spotted Nalda, she hung up without even properly ending the conversation. Her anger also disappeared when she hung up like that.
Nalda hadn't heard much of the conversation but she knew her sister well enough to know what she was doing based on her expressions. After all, Nalda had experience with it.
Before she even greeted her sister, Nalda already began speaking about food. "I want to eat pizza today."
"Then we're absolutely not eating pizza today." Mave answered without a second thought while starting to walk home.
Nalda followed her and whined. "But Mave I want to eat pizza. We haven't eaten pizza in so long." She stretched out the syllables in the last two words.
Mave was a heartless monster because she didn't even look back and instead started smiling. "Oh? Are those even more reasons not to eat pizza? Thank you for the arguments."
"Hey!"
The argument went on until they reached Big Thornstreet. Nalda felt like she was shrinking back because she felt the eyes on her again. She walked closer to Mave who seemed unaffected.
Of course she would be unaffected, Mave had superpowers and even without she'd probably be fine. If anything came up she'd probably just punch her way through the situation.
'That reminds me, Mave mentioned a nickname. It's probably something like K.O.er or something. It sounds a lot like Mave in my opinion.'
Somehow, watching her sister walk without a worry made Nalda feel brave. Not that she would distance herself from her sister, even if she felt braver.
While walking she looked at the gray ground. There were all kinds of gum stuck to the ground.
While walking like that something caught her attention. It was a tiny astronaut keychain that was tainted because of… wait that was familiar.
"Uhm Mave go ahead without me, I have to tie my shoelaces again." As if to prove her pint Nalda pointed at her shoes and surely enough, her shoelaces were loose.
She definitely hadn't stepped on them by accident when she saw the astronaut keychain. It was definitely a part of her great plan to watch it up close.
Mave looked her up and down and hesitated but when Nalda genuinely just crouched to tie her shoelaces, she started to move forwards. Of course she was still casting a few glances back, after all she was there to protect Nalda when needed. She was probably keeping an eye on her.
At that moment the letters popped up again. They showed up on the ground in the form of the old gum stuck on the ground. It was quite odd watching the old gum move and form a bunch of letters.
'It is important evidence. Do not forget it and do not lose it to anyone.'
Nalda suddenly felt nervous about grabbing it but at the letters' insistence she glanced around her and looked towards her moving sister. She waited until her sister glanced back again before quickly grabbing the astronaut and hiding it in her pocket.
She had no clue what she was going to do with it but it'll probably come in handy in the future.
'If I don't lose it to anyone, of course. The letters seemed to emphasize the part about not losing it to anyone. Someone will come looking for it soon then.'
With that though Nalda ran to catch up to her sister, they were still in Big Thornstreet and she'd be very happy to have the feeling of being watched disappear.