I start to drive off.
"You've told your friends about all of this?" Clover said.
"Yeah, I have. They don't fully believe me, though, especially after Layla showed up at school," I said. "But it's fine. They'll still be helpful."
My eyes stayed on the road.
Clover sighs. "Okay, so what's your plan?" she said.
"I don't really have one."
I pull into my driveway.
"What? You don't even have a plan?" she said. I could tell by the tone of her voice she was annoyed.
"Don't worry. We'll figure out something," I say.
I grab my phone and get out of the car.
"Come on."
I wave her over. She gets out and follows.
I text my friends, telling them to come over. They complain about the time, but eventually I convince them to come over.
Clover and I walk into my house. My dad wasn't at the table anymore, but his papers were still out. I walk over to them and grab one. Clover watches me as I read.
"Blood samples still under testing. Results expected tomorrow."
"Hey, look at this," I said.
Clover walks over to read the paper.
"Blood testing?" she said.
"Yeah. I told you this is from the cabin Layla went into."
She looks at me.
"Seriously?!" she said.
"Hey!"
I hear behind us. It was my dad.
"You know you're not supposed to go through my things," he says as he takes the paper out of my hand. "And who's this?"
"Oh, uh, this is Clover. She's Layla's best friend," I said.
She waves.
My dad looks at her and then back at me.
"Why did you bring your ex's best friend here?" he said.
"Oh, uhhh, it's for a, uh, school project," I say.
He doesn't fully buy it, but he waves us off anyway.
"Just don't be too loud," he said.
I nod.
We head upstairs and into my room.
After about fifteen minutes, my friends got here. Conner, Adrian, and Ken all walked into my room. We all sit down, and we explain to the group how Clover also saw the puppets.
"So you're telling me that Clover saw them too?" Adrian said.
She nods.
"I still don't believe any of this. We saw her at school today, and she was completely fine."
"That's true. She was there, but she was acting really weird, so we're going to have Clover see if we can find out the reasoning behind her behavior," I said.
Ken looks at me.
"And if we find out something is wrong, what then?" he said.
"Well, I'm not really sure what then, but we can figure it out."
The room was silent for a moment.
"I don't know if this is all a very good idea," Conner said. "Like, you say there are puppets killing people, and now you want to mess with the person you claim you saw get killed. And if any of this is true, then, like Clover said, Layla could be a copy of some kind."
He wasn't wrong. It probably isn't smart to mess with them, but still.
"I say we do it," Ken said. "I'm curious if everything Joel says is true."
Adrian stood up.
"Honestly, I agree. I'm curious too," he said. "We should probably all go home now, though. It's getting late. We can talk about it all after school."
Everyone nods. They all go home for the night.
9 PM.
It really was getting late, wasn't it?
After walking everyone out, I head back to my room. I grab my laptop and lay in bed. I search for more information about the missing magician.
I started to run out of new leads. I was frustrated. Was this all just some random disappearance that had nothing to do with it?
Then I found it.
A paper.
"New Campsite Under Construction."
This was our camp.
I click the paper to find out more.
"After years of vacancy, the city has officially claimed the land of the famous magician after his disappearance 10 years ago and will be building a new campsite on the 150 acres," it said.
"No way. Was this that Allen guy?"
I spent the rest of my time that night looking into the campsite being built there. There was nothing unusual about it, and it didn't mention anything about the old building we found.
After I finished, I closed my laptop and went to bed.
The next morning, I got ready for school, then noticed my dad had texted me.
"Did you go to the bathroom at around 3:30 last night?" it said.
"No. Why?" I replied.
I went downstairs, once again walking through the hallway and down the stairs.
When I got to the door, my dad had texted back.
"The camera detected motion last night, but I checked and there was nothing. Thought maybe you had gone to the bathroom," he said.
"Maybe it was Jacob?" I text back, then walk out the door.
I drove to school. Today I didn't feel like walking.
I get there and head inside, seeing all my friends. Well, all except Conner. He wasn't with us, just like yesterday.
Clover was here this time.
"Where's Conner?" I ask.
Ken shrugs.
"No clue. Maybe he went to class early?"
Adrian rolls his eyes.
"Of course he'd do that. He's probably the only person in the school who would go to class early," he said.
"Maybe," I say.
We start walking, then Conner comes around the corner holding his shoulder.
"Woah, dude. You good?" I said.
"I'm fine," he replied.
He wouldn't talk any more than that, so we all just went to our classes.
Class was boring as always and felt painfully slow, but the bell rang and we all went to lunch.
We met up at a table. I was eager to tell them what I had found.
Everyone was sitting with their food.
"The campsite was built on the property that the missing magician owned," I said.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Conner said.
"The owner of the property where I saw the puppets went missing. Is that not weird?" I said.
He looked at me like I was making assumptions.
"That is kind of weird," Ken said.
I noticed Clover looking over at Layla hanging out with some other girls. She looked almost sad.
I didn't really say much else after I noticed that. It probably wasn't a good time, and my friends probably noticed too because they didn't say much else either.
We all finished eating.
"Meet in the parking lot after school," I said.
Everyone nods.
We went to the rest of our classes.
Afterwards, we met in the school parking lot like we had planned.
"So what's the plan?" Clover asked.
"I was thinking you could ask Layla to hang out tonight?" I said.
"Yeah, I can do that," she said.
Conner was looking at his phone constantly, checking the time.
"Something wrong?" Ken asked him.
"No. I'm fine," he said.
"Okay, so what do we do while Clover is with Layla?" Adrian asks.
"Well, I guess we just wait for her to find out anything," I said.
Conner checks his phone again.
"I gotta go. I'll meet up with you guys later."
He walks into the school without saying anything else.
"I guess that means we meet at your house later?" Adrian asks me.
"Yeah, I guess so," I say.
We all part ways and go home.