A Tragedy

As the doors rushed open in front of the large crowd that surrounded me, screams filled the air. They were screams of complete and utter terror. Even my heart jumped when I saw what had occurred here.

There, lying on the ground, was a dead body.

Now usually, I can handle things like this. But the body lying in the soil before me belonged to a dear friend of mine. And, as I stared at that lifeless shell at my feet, tears stung the backs of my eyes.

That friend and I hadn't known each other for too long, but we got along pretty well. The only time we had ever quarreled was once, when he had eaten my favorite blue crayon. But we had buried the hatchet after a few days, and soon I was feeding him his favorite meal worms again. He always loved those things. You could see a twinkle in his eyes as he shoved the still-wriggling creatures into his mouth, ripping into their flesh, causing the slimy green insides to seep out into his throat. Actually, those meal worms did look pretty good. Once, when I thought no one was looking, I popped one in my mouth. But at that moment the teacher walked by, and she immediately ordered me to spit the worm out. So I obeyed.

Oh, I guess I should tell you, my friend is a hamster. Rico, Mrs. Lund's Kindergarten class's hamster to be exact. I might also mention that I am a Kindergartner in Mrs. Lund's class in the Windle Valley Elementary School.

Anyway, the sight of Rico's cold, lifeless body was very traumatizing. As I said, there were several screams, and much of my class was either already or close to tears. Though, one my more barbaric and heartless coworkers, Rodney van Gust, uttered the word "cool". I gave him an icy stare an raised my fist in front of him.

Then, in the corner of my eye, I caught a glance of Tommy Vinshaw. Tommy wasn't exactly my friend, but he wasn't really an enemy, either. He was just one of those kids that was there; he never really payed any attention to me, and I didn't pay any attention to him, either. But on this occasion, Tommy was staring at me intently, with a sort of blank expression on his face. I guessed he was just to devastated to say or do anything, but his staring at me was kind of freakin' me out. When he noticed that I knew he was looking at me, he averted his gaze.

For a second there, I thought I had seen a little guilt on his thin face. But I couldn't just go around being suspicious of people like that. After all, I felt a little guilty too, for not keeping an eye on Rico. I might have been able to save his life.

That's when I felt someone resting their head on my shoulder. I slowly turned my head and saw that it was Seanna Ackins. Her head was leaning against my shoulder, and I felt tears soaking into my T-shirt.

"Umm... Seanna?"

"Oh, Jimmy, look at poor Rico! The horror! Who could have done something like this? Rico was a good hamster, he never hurt anyone," Seanna said through her tears. Her high voice was choked with sadness.

"Well, actually, Rico did bite Matt Shock's finger that one time..."

"Jimmy, you know how to bring humor into even the most tragic of situations. You're so clever and funny, Jimmy," Seanna complemented, almost smiling. I was confused. How was that funny? Two Janitors had to report to the classroom that day to clean up all of Matt's blood.

I stared at her in confusion for a moment. She stared back at me, smiling gleefully. How could she be so happy at a time like this? There was a dead body less than two feet away from us, and a homocidal, maniacal, murderer in the class, perhaps plotting to strike again!

At that moment, Mrs. Lund spoke. "Umm, class, I think that we should have inside recess today. Just forget about anything bad you've seen..."

Forget about it? How could we forget about the death of a dear friend?

"Forget about what? What happened?" questioned someone from the back of the line. It was Lynn Tucker. She had been standing near the back of the group and hadn't seen Rico's body. Lynn had probably wondered why everyone was weeping or screaming.

"Rico's dead, you idiot!" Rodney shouted bluntly.

At that, more people started whining in sorrow as if the words "Rico's dead" had resummoned tears and pain. One of those people was Seanna, and tears wet the deep red strands of hair hanging in front of her eyes. These people were pitiful. They cried at everything. At least I could control my emotions.

I heard Mrs. Lund let out a long, stressful sigh. After we had all calmed down and a few other teachers had stomped out into the hall to see what was the matter, we were all herded back into our classroom.

When I saw Rico's empty cage, I remembered the danger we were in. Someone in here was a killer. And he wouldn't stop with Rico. Soon, Bob the goldfish would be dead as well. Before long, all the teachers and students would be gone, too. It was up to me to save the school.

To Be Continued...