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Sam dragged Tucker to the library. She was exhausted. She had hardly been sleeping. It seemed that every night was another nightmare, but she couldn’t remember what they were about when she woke up. She couldn’t count how many times she had thrown the planchet out the window, burned it to ash, buried it, tossed it in the pond at the park, or otherwise tried to destroy it. But each morning, it was back on her desk.
She still hadn’t been able to make herself open the file they’d stolen from the school.
She dragged Tucker to the library’s basement where they kept all the old records no one really cared about, but the library still kept for some reason. At least, it was helpful to them now.
“Sam, what are we doing here?” Tucker asked. “On a Saturday. We’re supposed to be relaxing, playing video games and eating junk food.”
“You mean doing homework, which you’re going to procrastinate anyway. So stop complaining and start looking through the newspapers and other files for any mention of the Fentons.
Tucker grumbled, but started going through boxes filled with what looked like random papers.
An hour went by and still they had found nothing.
“Saaaammm!” Tucker said, collapsing dramatically on the floor where he had been sitting going through a file box. “This is boooring.”
Sam said nothing. Her movements were just as quick and focused as they had been when they had first started searching. She needed to figure things out, she needed to know what was going on, otherwise she’d go mad with the lack of sleep.
“Keep looking. I’ll buy you Nasty Burger for lunch.” she said, already grimacing at having to spend money on meat.
Tucker perked up and kept searching.
Another hour went by, and Tucker had started to fidget. He was going through files much slower than Sam. He was about to complain or ask for a break or anything really to break up the monotony when Sam stood up suddenly.
“I found something.” she said, walking over a desk in the basement corner and shoving some dusty files to the floor. Tucker winced but leaned over to see the article that Sam was pointing to.
It was just a small article talking about an accident that had happened in the park. It stated that the Fentons claimed they had been testing one of their inventions which had apparently decided to explode. The article treated this like a common occurrence going on to note that no one had been hurt this time.
They returned to their search with more vigor, finding three more articles. One had to do with the Fentons wanting to construct some strange addition to their house, but that the housing committee had stopped them. Another was an article about how their daughter, Jazz, had won an academic award.
The third paper looked like someone had spilled ink on it. They could only make out part of the article which said something about the youngest Fenton making a discovery about a gorilla that was being temporarily kept at the zoo a few towns over. The picture and his name were blotted out with ink.
They searched for a bit longer but found nothing more.
As they sat eating at Nasty Burger Sam’s expression stayed puzzled.
“What’s wrong?” Tucker asked.
“I couldn’t find any mention about the Fenton parents deaths, or anything else about them. I checked all the obituaries. But I couldn't find any mention of them. And there was also a whole year’s worth of newspapers missing.”
“You’re looking too much into it Sam. The library probably just lost the box, and the newspaper might have forgotten to publish the obituaries.”
“Maybe.” Sam muttered. But she didn’t look convinced. Something was strange, and she would just have to keep looking.