Scooby-Doodle and the Mystery Ink Gang

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Written by Superfolder Guillermo

Another Day in the Halls of Middle School
By Blake Lillard

You know that feeling when you’re standing on the side of the bed, not knowing whether you’ll fall or you’re just gonna keep on working with your feet to make sure that doesn’t happen?

Well that’s just exactly the type of situation I was in this very same morning when I got up.

The first thought that went through my head was quite out of the blue.

How did I wake up?

Just then, the alarm clock went off, and I had to pull my hand over and down my face, as in a wake up order, then reach out and turn it off.

Then I remembered what I was asking myself.

No, the alarm clock went off after I woke up, that meant it had been the new neighbours again. Darn it!

It was always them ever since they had moved in just over two weeks ago.

I guess they come from Finland or somewhere afar, because they’re used to making noise, and they may as well prove they’re not used to having neighbours.

But why was I even complaining? I hardly liked waking up with the alarm clock.

I had only started using it when mom forgot to wake me up two years back and I was late for school for the first time.

“Good morning, Ma’am…” I said with a raspy voice.  That must’ve sounded funny from afar for some reason, because the class found it funny and some giggled, which placed Mrs. Harnen in an uncomfortable position and she ended up keeping me in class for five minutes minutes after first period.

I looked around at my classmates.  Something told me that, if I really cared, I could become popular really fast.  I have a way with words, and with humor.  Why, I’m practically the funniest guy I’ve ever met.  And that could easily help me climb through the tangled mess of cliques throughout this school.

But that was two years ago, and if I am still not interested in social status and tend to my own business, I think it will stay like that for a while.

 

“Nice hit, Aaron!” Josh yells from the far side of the pitch.

“Not too bad.” I wheeze in between all the cheer.

The thing was, I could have sent the ball even further back, but I didn’t want to show off in front of everybody. Especially when the PE teacher, Mr. Simmons, was looking.

Mr. Simmons was one of those teachers who was usually annoyed by those who excelled at certain things.  What he fails to get is that if someone is good at something, it’s because they’re using their full potential.  It doesn’t always mean they’re showing off.  But in the end, it’s all the same to him.

I pull off a home run, and manage to go around the field, sit down and rest while the other team was still looking for the ball.

 The applause could still be heard from some boys, but especially from a flock of girls who were also on the team.

Those flocks of girls were actually the ones who followed me everywhere I went, or at least that’s how it worked most of the time.

It was kind of fun at first, not gonna deny that.  Who wouldn’t love that, after all?  To have all these chicks around, feel important.  But lately it’s starting to get annoying, and sometimes it takes ever ounce of strength I have to hold off from letting go of the charade I put on for everybody.  Stand up and probably scare them off by telling them everything I knew about Pokémon, card rarities and evolutions and the like.  Or worse yet, about old TV shows, which is what I’m often into.

After PE ended, I got changed so I could get ready for the next class.

One of the things I find most surprising about my personal school life is that it doesn’t matter how much I sweat during PE class, it’s not in the same league as the level of sweat I leak while running to my next class.

“Ah! A-Aaron!” Mrs. Fredericks said as she sneezed. “Thanks for coming anyways.”

I was about to take a seat, but I paused and reanalysed her words for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” I said, slowly turning around. “But what do you mean?”

She grabbed her handkerchief while she talked.

“Oh. Haven’t you received the email?”

I was confused.

“Apparently not.  No worries, though.  Unfortunately, I’m not feeling very well, so I’m going to have to take a sick leave.” She started heading out the door. “I guess you’ve got a little extra time on your hands, she said, walking away.  “Use it wisely.”

“Sure will.”

As soon as she left, I started wandering around the classroom, and I couldn’t help but notice a green panel with some words written on it near her billboard.

“I should’ve known,” I whispered as I saw what it was. “So, the great Sophie Madison is trying out for class president?”

 

I finally finished putting my last panel on the wall.

“Vote Sophie Madison for school president.” 

I took a few steps back, so that the light coming through the window neatly showed the colours of the panel I had spent the whole weekend working on. 

I would have never actually imagined myself doing this, you know, presenting myself for class president. Yet I feel like ever since I started showing how much I care for the school, my popularity level rose and I found myself in one of the top levels of middle-school society (if such a thing even exists). 

I was thinking about all this when I accidentally stepped on someone’s foot. 

“Yeoohmcyee!” Someone literally yelled in pain. I’d recognise that yell anywhere.

“Doris! Be careful! You don’t want me stepping all over your new shoes!  I’m so sorry, really I am.” 

She looked down.  “Yeah, about that,” she moaned. She laid her books to the side, defeated.  “Who cares? It’s not like anyone notices me anyways!” 

“We’ve talked about this, Doris.  People do notice you, and people will like you if you just take the time to be yourself.”

She rolled her eyes at this. 

“Jeez, and now you’re starting to sound like mom Neither of y-” 

I cut her off.  “Think positive and the rest automatically settles in.”

“Yeah, yeah,” She looked sideways at me while she shuffled away. “Pretty easy to say coming from Miss Perfect, right?” 

I looked down. I just didn’t want to see her like this, but something told me that she had to figure this out on her own.   I was only making things worse.

“I have to go.” I picked up my books from the locker, and headed to literature class, until I bumped into Aaron Harrison, who almost made me drop my books. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” He took some steps back “Wouldn’t want to mess with the class president.” 

I laughed. 

“Yeah, well, you better not.” I replied. Maybe too fast, because it was followed by what seemed to be an extremely long and awkward silence.

“Just checking to see how your campaign was going,” Aaron stated before looking back and leaning against the wall. “You’ve got a podcast today, don’t you?” 

“Yes, wow!” I  was surprised he even knew about this. It was brand new information, hot off the press.  Focus, Sophie.  “But so does Teagan Gary, the other girl running for president too. How did you know that?” 

“Ehm, let’s say i’ve got some contacts.” 

“Alright, keep your secrets, ” I said.  I bit my lip a little, holding in a grin.  “Well, nice talking, gonna be late for literature class!” 

I hadn’t even reached the classroom door yet before he called me again. 

“I wouldn’t go in, teacher’s missing. Free time,” He laughed.  “Wanna talk some more?” 

 

I excused myself to go to the bathroom shortly after the last class before we had a general assembly to listen to what a student had to say for herself in honor of the elections for this year’s class president. 

“Alright Blake, but make it quick.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

I rushed down the hallway until I reached the bathroom stalls. 

I wanted to make it quick, because for whatever reason, when you’re at school, if a person takes longer than two minutes in the bathroom, it’s because he had more ‘pressing matters’ than to take a leak, and I always found it annoying to see all of those faces stare at you while you walk back to your seat, probably wondering what you did in the bathroom. 

So, I decided to cut to the chase a bit and began to unzip my jeans as I made my way inside the bathroom. 

Unfortunately, a female teacher was checking the hallways and saw me. 

“Sorry, ma’am.” I ran inside and quickly shut the door before I was held in ISS for inappropriate use of the hallway or something. 

The thing was, during the 15 seconds i spent taking a leak, someone carefully entered the bathroom and, making sure no one was there, placed a piece of paper or something on the sink. 

What he didn’t know was that my stall had a mirror, and I had seen everything. Including the fact that this kid, whoever he was, had white hair. 

When I was sure he had left, I took a closer look at the piece of paper, which had in fact, a drawing. A drawing of what looked to be Scooby-Doo. 

‘You may think your plan to make the school a  better place by increasing the academic difficulty is a good one.  But the truth is, Teagan Gary will win those elections. By any means necessary.’

I stopped reading when the letter ended. 

I knew this message wasn’t for me, but I kept it in my pocket and quickly came to my senses. 

“Time!” I had completely forgotten about keeping track of the time I spent in the bathroom, so I quickly headed to class, almost knocking over Sapira Darren in the process, as she came out of the girl’s lavatory. 

When I had finally reached the class, and was about to knock on the door, an irritating yet quite commonly known sound filled the halls of the entire school. The lunch bell. 

At first I was going to go in anyway, but I decided to head straight to the cafeteria instead. 

If no one remembered I had gone to the bathroom, then i wouldn’t have to go through the strange situation of walking across the whole class with every eye locked on me.

I grabbed my tray and ordered my food, and sat down as I usually did. Only this time I didn’t sit alone.

“Mind if i sit here?” a girl’s voice asked.  I raised my head. 

I had seen this girl before, Doris, although I had never talked to her before. 

“Yeah, okay.” I looked down again, my mind dancing around. A girl was sitting in front of me. What in the world was I supposed to do? 

“It’s just,” she continued.  “It’s just really crowded in here. And the others tables are full so-” 

“Hey, Doris!” Doris was interrupted by another voice. One of the most popular girls in the whole school came from behind, followed by Aaron Harrison, who was telling her something.  He seemed a little annoyed, but he sat down along with her.

“Wow, so great to find a place to sit!” she said, laying her tray down. “I really don’t know where all these people came from!” 

Aaron sat down and started looking at me curiously, until his eyes were fixed on my left pocket. 

“What’s this?” he said, inserting his hand into my pocket. I tried to stop him, but he drew his hand back just a second too soon. 

His eyes widened and his face was the result of a mixture of fear and joke. 

“Hey, Sophie. Does this piece of paper mean anything to you?” He held it up to her, and she took it. 

Her face said the same thing, except the joke part. 

“Blake, right?” I nodded “Where did you find this?” 

 

I couldn’t have imagined this strange way the four of us ended up sitting at the same table was gonna take us so far, but somehow it did. 

Next thing we knew, we were running to the place Blake supposedly got the piece of paper from. 

“And who did you see?” Sophie kept insisting while we walked, which seemed to be upsetting Blake. 

“Hey why don’t you give him some air and let him speak?” I intervened, cutting Sophie off, who raised an eyebrow.  “I just- think it might be a good way of finding out more information right now.” 

Blake looked sideways, a little uncertain, but he continued on. 

“There was this bloke with white hair, that’s all i could see-“

“And this Scooby-Doo drawing? It doesn’t make any sense!” 

Suddenly, Aaron Harrison looked like he knew something.

I thought he was going to give an answer, but instead he just formulated another question. 

“Sophie,” he said, turning to her.  “Is there anyone who works with, or is friends with your opponent, Teagan, who has this white hair Drake’s talking about?”

“Blake,” Drake corrected shyly.  “My name is Blake.”

Aaron eyed him, annoyed a little, but chose to correct himself. “Blake, got it.  Do you know of anyone with white hair like what Blake’s talking about?”

Sophie did a weird sound and a sign which made it clear to everyone that she had no clue whatsoever about who it might have been. 

“I think our best move, even if we believe all this, because it could just be all talk,” she started, “would be telling the principal, or some other teacher.  They would know how to handle this much better than any of us.” 

“Yeah, like they would believe us,” Blake added.  “No one will believe us. Who would write something next to a doodle of Scooby-Doo?” 

Sophie took some steps around the hall. 

“No offense or anything to you, Blake, but Doris is my sister, and Aaron is my, eh, my…well, he’s here. But I don’t understand what you have to do with this. 

Blake put his hands in his pockets. 

“I’m the one who found the paper, actually.” 

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she replied, palming her forehead. “I genuinely forgot!” I rolled my eyes.  She sounded rude, but she was just that forgetful sometimes. It could get infuriating, and I never really got over how irritating it made her sound.

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m used to it,” Blake quickly replied. 

“Have we taken John Dyson into account? He’s friends with Teagan, isn’t he? And he’s got white hair!” Aaron commented.

“John? Really? He wo-” I stopped talking, because a very strange-looking paper airplane came from behind us. 

Blake crept shyly towards it and unfolded it. 

“I’m done with these Scooby-Doodles already.” he said with a groan. 

The Doodle had this to say:

I have to admit that was a very good guess. 

However, I would like you to know that if you don’t think faster and more open-minded, the elections are going to go terribly wrong. 

 

“Open minded? What’s that supposed to mean?” Doris exclaimed. 

“Well,” I came from behind her. “It could mean we are thinking very narrowly.” 

“Or it could just mean he’s messing with us!” Aaron snatched the piece of paper from me and was about to crush it. 

“What if that’s the problem?” Sophie said.  “What if it’s a ‘she’ rather than a ‘he?'”

Aaron made a funny expression with his face. 

“I mean,” Sophie continued. “We could be talking about many people here, but we’ve only considered the suspect to be a boy…but what if it’s a girl?”

“Blake,” Doris looked at me, and I took a step back.  “Are you sure you don’t remember seeing anyone when you left?” 

My mind spoke faster than me. 

“No-I mean, yes,” I remembered seeing Sapira Darren coming out of the girl’s bathroom. “Sapira Darren came out of the Girl’s bathroom at the same time I did.  I almost bowled her over trying to run back to class.” 

“Why were you running back to class?” Doris asked, confused.

I shook my head.  “Long story.”

“Wait a second, who are we kidding? No offense, Blake, but I can tell the difference between seeing a boy or a girl leave the first drawing.  Besides, she had to have walked into the Boy’s bathroom, walked out, went into the Girl’s bathroom, and back out again in time for you to see her.” Aaron complained.  “It just doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe, Aaron, you need to take into account that Sapira Darren also has short white hair.” Doris said, defending me.  “She dyed it just the other week.”

“That’s too much evidence, this has got to be her!” Sophie started getting anxious. 

“If this is true, what are we supposed to do?” I asked remotely. 

“Well,” I started, “We could tell the principal, but that would only slow things down. We don’t have that much evidence and-” 

“-they will be keeping an eye on us.” Sophie finished. “What’s our timeline?” 

Aaron looked down at his watch.  “We have two hours until our last class of the day, and I don’t want to leave this for another day.  We should try our best to have this figured out soon before she goes through with this plan of hers, whatever it is.” 

Sophie was very surprised by this. “You know, for a guy who is so popular on his own merit, you care very much for some reason, don’t you?” 

“Well, maybe,” he said, folding his arms.  “Who am I to judge?” 

“Are you guys ready to go after Sapira?” I asked everybody.  I gave Blake a knowing look.  He wasn’t coming out with it, but even a blind man could tell he was seriously into Sophie.

“Let’s go then,”  he said.

And that’s when the bell rang. It was time for class once again. 

“How about we meet here in an hour?” Sophie asked.  “Could all of you do that, since it seems like we’re all together in this?” 

“Will do.” we agreed, and set off to class. 

 

Honestly, I was very surprised when I saw them all waiting outside my class after school that afternoon.  I would’ve never imagined they were going to be so interested in solving this…should I call it a case? Mystery, I suppose?

The thing was, each one of them was there for a reason. Doris was my sister, and even though we’ve also had this competition going on, I guess the idea of myself and my campaign for class president being sabotaged was too much to bear for her. 

Aaron was just… Aaron. I don’t know if there were any personal matters involved or not, but he always seems to want to be on top of everything. Make sure everything went smoothly.

Blake was the one who found the piece of paper, so I guess he had the right to see how this all ended. 

“Any sights on Sapir-?” 

“We saw her leaving her lab class, if we move quick, we might be able to catch her.” Doris acknowledged. 

“Let’s go, then,” I nodded. 

I went through the bathroom stalls, but there was no one there.  I decided to check the cafeteria, but still no luck.

“Oh boy, I really do hope we haven’t lost her,” I said.

“Are you sure she’s not outside?” 

“No way.” I reassured the team. “She always stays inside…asking the teachers questions.” 

My thoughts cleared. She’d have to be in the lab. 

“In the lab, go!”

We barely missed her coming out of the lab.  She was alone, thankfully. 

“Oh, hi…Sophie, Aaron…Doris (I think)? And…uh,who are you?” she asked, staring at Blake. 

“I’m-I’m-” Blake started stuttering. 

“He’s Blake.” Doris finished, and Sapira nodded. 

“We need to talk about the elections,” I told her.  Her face fell as she registered the words. 

“Oh.” She tried and failed to get her normal look back. “Why do you want to talk about that?” 

“You very well know why,” Blake replied “You tried to mess up Sophie’s campaign.”

Sapira smirked.

“You know, for an unpopular guy like you, you are much more intelligent than I thought-“

“I’m surprising like that,” he said, his timidness morphing into determination.

“-and actually,” she continued, “I thought you were just gonna leave the paper there when I failed to deliver the note correctly. But you didn’t.  Instead, you kind of formed a group around your little plight. “

We all looked at each other. 

“When I saw you at lunch, I knew the message I tried to send you to try and scare you away had failed. And Teagan, the one I wanted for class president, who had promised me popularity, started getting annoyed at the lack of progress.  So I figured I’d try a different tactic.” 

“That’s it?” Aaron was surprised. “You’re not gonna put up a fight?” 

“Honestly, Aaron, it’s not like we’re in a Marvel movie, you know what I mean?” she puffed. “And besides, I’ve got a date in like half an hour, so I’m already late as is.” 

She started walking to the doors, but she stopped. “And don’t bother asking Teagan about this, he’ll probably have no idea what you’re talking about.  Which reminds me…”

Looking back I should have asked her what she meant, but instead I said, “Why the Scooby-Doodles, then?”

She didn’t look up.   “Yep, just give me ooonnee second,” she said, rustling through her bag. Eventually she found and handed me 4 pieces of paper.  “This would be why.” 

I picked them up, and looked at them. They looked exactly like the Scooby Doo characters. Shaggy, Velma, Fred, and Daphne. 

“Those are for you,” she continued.  “You can figure out who’s who amongst yourselves, I can’t be bothered to figure that out myself.”

We stared down at the origami sleuths.  They were well-made, but it seemed a little…odd.  Why just randomly give us puppets of these guys?

Aaron immediately grabbed for Fred while Doris slowly picked the Velma puppet up.  Blake followed suit and picked up Shaggy. Fitting, I suppose.  Which left me with Daphne.  A little damsel-y, but I wasn’t complaining.

“Well thanks, that’s very uh, kind of you.  But I’m not sure I understand wha-” I looked up.  She had already disappeared.

 

The next day, I was just finishing the homework I had when the phone rang. 

I hadn’t actually talked to anyone from the group in more than 24 hours, just because I hadn’t seen them around. I was just starting to think that maybe that short little adventure of ours was gonna just be a one-time thing, and we would go our separate ways.  Aaron would go back to being lived by everybody, Sophie would continue her campaign, and Doris…

Doris would probably go back to doing the same thing I was – being a wallflower.  Of course, I was one of my own will, and was never much for popularity.  Doris was really kind though, and didn’t deserve that same life.  Maybe I should go try and see her someti-

Suddenly the phone rang, very hard, almost knocking my chemistry notebook off the desk. 

“What is it? Blake speaking?” I started. “No, no Blake speaking, it’s a fact, not a question. Anyways, hello?” 

“Haha,” Someone giggled from the other side of the phone “It’s me, Doris. We solved a ‘case’ together.” 

“Oh, ehm, hi Doris! Yeah, I suppose we did.  What’s up?” 

“Hey, so I was…wondering if you would like to come to Wendy’s one day.” 

I paused.  “Like, uh, j-just the two of us?” 

“Ehm,” Doris stopped. “Well, I was planning on meeting with the rest of the team-” 

“Oh, well-” 

“But now that you mention it,” she said, pausing a moment.  “That could also be really nice.” 

I smiled.  “I would like that.  So, when are we meeting with the rest of the team?” 

“How about tonight?” 

“Oh okay, perfect!” 

“Good!”

… … …

“So…uh, I’m gonna hang up now, okay?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

TO BE CONTINUED… 

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