•2586 words•

"Ash, hurry up!" I shout her over. It's time! Last period has just ended and it's 3 o clock. And it's Tuesday. You know what that means!

Crime Club!

Honestly I can't wait. This is seriously my dream. Ashlyn says it's her dream too. Now this is the best of both worlds. All we would have been doing if we went home would be getting shouted at or doing something really boring. It's not easy being a foster kid, you know. I love Ashlyn though. I'm not scared to say my feelings anymore so I'm sorry if I keep repeating it Brooke, but we both know you love that girl whether she loves you back or not.

I really want to date her. I've known her about 2 weeks now and she's just omg- She's just amazing all-round. I've never met anyone like her to be honest.

School said we could bring our own clothes in to go to Crime Club and I've packed some clothes for me and some for Ashlyn just in case, you know, she forgets or something. I'm an over-thinker and an extremely prepared person. I'm also nice so packing extra clothes could fit into all of those categories, I guess. But all week I've not been able to stop thinking about what Ashlyn will wear (as long as she doesn't forget to pack clothes of course) because her style just seems so immaculate like even with her uniform. She pulls it off so well. Ashlyn wears her tie to the perfect length, unbuttons the top button, wears a black headband on her black hair, has black bracelets around her wrist, her skirt rolled up, black knee socks rolled down to her ankles and wears the most ambrosial perfume I have ever smelled. Ash is just the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. There's no other way about it.

"Hi Brooke!" She puffs a lot.
She's just ran from English. Crime club is in the hall and English is on the complete opposite side of the school.
Oh. My. God. Her clothes- she must've gotten changed at the end of dinner. I wondered where she had gone. Ash is wearing a black oversized hoodie, black and white converse, a black scrunchie to hold up her high ponytail, those bracelets she usually wears, black ripped jeans and navy blue socks. Yes, I took attention to every. single. little detail. She's absolutely gorgeous and her style is just everything. The mascara and the clear lip gloss along with the outfit just finishes everything off.

"So what we doing today then, do you know?"
"Aha not yet Ash." I pause for a minute in awe of her appearance. "We'll have to wait 'til we get in. You seem puffed out!"
"I am Brooke, trust me. I love you sista!"

She runs and jumps into my arms, giving me a huge hug. I can't help but blush and smile. This makes me extremely happ-

"Do you think we should go in now?"
"Sure, come on Ash. I love you more by the way!"
"No you don't, come on. Race you!"

Gently placing her down, I realise that maybe she loves me too. She said 'sista' though, basically meaning best friend. I still feel loved, however, something I've never really felt by anyone-ever.

Ashlyn and I enter the hall and there are Crofley's Crime Club workers, teachers and one police officer. Wow, this isn't even the real thing but yet they have a police officer! As soon as I entered the room I felt a sense of warmth. I felt that maybe this could lead to something bigger than it first seems. Possibly New Zealand. That's the other side of the world, Brooke. Thousands of miles away. Woah. I wonder why the information about New Zealand was on the back of the leaflet. Do they not want anyone to know? Well why not? New Zealand is a trip of a lifetime and when you can possibly move there because of some little club at school, I think that should be spoken about!

But if Ash and I keep it secretive, maybe we'll have more chance of winning...

Ash turns her head and looks at me. Her hazel eyes spark a fire in my heart and make me blush and smile- again. I told you I'm in love with this girl. I think I am anyway. She gives me a cheeky smile back and her dimples slowly move upwards. She softly moved her curly black hair to the side of her face and tightened her ponytail. This is when I knew stuff was about to go down. When a girl tightens her ponytail, you know that's it. Slowly, she steps forward and gives her name in at the front desk in the hall. Then I realised, 'shoot, it's my turn next.' I zoned out for a minute there.

"Er, er- Brooklyn Jervil. Year 10."
"NEXT!" The woman shouts.

I run and catch up to Ashlyn who has saved me a seat on a table. She pulls out a snack from her bag and starts eating. It's a packet of little panda-shaped chocolate biscuits and I just find it absolutely adorable. Ash is so sweet.

"Want one?" She asks, her mouth filled with food. She says it in such a cute way though. Her arm stretches across the table as she offers me one of the cutest items of food I've ever seen. Of course I can't resist.
"Sure Ash! Thanks babezz!"
"Haha no problem!"

I reach out and grab one. It was delicious. Ashlyn takes out two little panda biscuits and places them on the table. She starts moving them along like they are walking together or something. We both burst out laughing and spit crumbs of panda biscuits everywhere. Now that I think about it, it's not even that funny. The two of us both stop giggling when we hear an announcement through a speaker.

"CALLING ALL CRIME CLUB ATTENDERS. THE CLUB WILL START VERY SHORTLY. PLEASE PAIR UP AND GO BACK OVER TO THE FRONT DESK TO TELL THEM YOUR TEAMS. YOU NEED A TEAM NAME TOO. ENJOY."

'Ooh, a team name...' I think to myself.
"Hey Ash, what should we be called?" For some reason I automatically assume that Ash is going to want to go with me. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. I know we came here together and we both came here with the dream of pursuing a job in criminology and possibly flying to New Zealand, but to assume she's gonna want to pair up with you, an idiot, that's slightly bold, Brooke.

"Hmm, good question! Wait, Brooke?"
"Yeah, Ash?" After realising I said 'we' before.
"I can be with you, right? I think we'd make a great team. We're best friends, I think, and we both have the same dream to go to New Zea-"
I stop her.
"Of course Ash! And we are best friends, okay? That's sorted."
I give her a high-5 and smile at her. She smiles back and says, "Right then, team name!"
"Um, how about...LynLyn?" LouiseVT0 ***
"Omg that's sounds great Brooke! AshLYN and BrookLYN- like I said when we first met! Haha.!"
"That's sorted then Ash. Why don't you go over and tell reception? There's no point us both going."
"See you then!"

The real reason I want her to go was because I need a minute to myself. I love that girl so much but I'm almost positive she just sees me as a friend. I need to open up to her about my feelings but I just don't know the right time. I don't even think Ashlyn knows that I'm bisexual! Never-mind the fact that I'm complete and utterly in love with her! Oh no, she's coming back. Quickly, I lift my head up from off of the table.
"Hey Brooke, you okay?"
"Yeah I'm fine thanks. Were they okay with the name?"
"Yeah the woman at the desk even said she loved it! I think we might have some favouritism already Brooke, and this competition hasn't even started. Yes, I said competition. This isn't just a club. This could be a start of a career."

Wow, she's catching on! Ash is right. This isn't just a club. If she's willing to take this seriously then we're going to do good in this because I'm willing to take it seriously too.

"AND NOW....THE TEAMS!"

The announcer starts to read out each team name one by one. Me and Ashlyn don't have any dangerous competitors that we know of  because, well, these are all people from the other half of our school and we can't know anyone's detective skills without asking about them. You don't go up to someone and ask,
"Oh hey, are you good at solving crimes?"
You just don't. It's a hidden talent in a way.

There are three tasks to solve to qualify for the next round. The next round involves an audition for the real crime club. The tasks become harder and harder as they go along. Let's do this together, Ashlyn. Me and you will make a great team.

Task 1
It's our turn to start the first task. The announcer reads out, "THE LYNLYN TEAM!"
We have to study a crime scene on a piece of paper and identify any evidence that could help solve the crime. It's a murder and the evidence that Ash and I find are: fingerprints, a video tape, a gun and a smashed window. All of those were correct pieces of evidence that we needed to find and it was extremely easy.

Task 2
Figure out what happened at the scene. After about 5 minutes, Ash and I concluded that listening to the videotape (which whispered 'goodbye. I'm sick of this') and studying the fingerprints, led to a middle aged man who was a known serial killer. The owner of the house was an old woman and the voice on the video tape was a middle aged man's voice. The smashed window was caused by gunshots and the gun was thrown into the room to make it looks even more like a suicide. The video tape and the gun in the room was made for it to look like a suicide, but it was mainly the fingerprints that helped find the suspect. He was arrested and charged with 12 counts of murder after police found out about previous crimes he had committed.

Wow, I sound like a real detective. Well done Brooke. That case wasn't real by the way, they made it up. But Ash and I managed to solve it down to every last detail, so we passed that, and then had to do task 3 to proceed with the competition. 2 down, 1 to go. We can do this, Brooke.

Task 3
Task 3 is to do task 1 and task 2 but on a roleplay crime scene. LynLyn, mine and Ash's team name, is up last. We're completing the very last task of the day. If we pass then in 2 weeks we would be doing auditions for the real club! I'm so excited. We walk over to the scene which has 2 dummies used as dead bodies, a knife, a rope and a gun (all fake of course). They were all the pieces of evidence that we found, so that was part 1 completed. This is the final step. Figure out what happened. This scene could have endless possibilities, but Ashlyn and I were to determined to narrow it down to one option. We were going to get to the bottom of this. We were going to go to New Zealand. Well, hopefully.

The pair of us gather all of the evidence we've found and put it together. We start piecing everything bit-by-bit but then we have two final decisions. We have to make one of them or else, no New Zealand. No moving out. We've narrowed it down to either:

One person had hung themselves and someone else came in, tried to cut the rope with a knife to save them and then shot themselves because they were so upset by the death of their relative/friend.

Or

One had murdered the other one with a gun and then hung themselves because they didn't want to get caught, but then what would the knife have to do with it? And if the murderer stabbed themselves, then what would the rope have to do with it?

Upon further inspection, we realise that one has a rope burn mark around their neck and the other one has a gunshot wound to their head. There's no evidence of murder so we go with the first option.

"Please be right, please be right!" I whisper to Ashlyn. She doesn't answer, she just stands there with her head down and her fingers crossed. She really wants us to be right too.

"AND YOU ARE...
GOING TO FIND OUT SHORTLY!"
The woman shouts. Damn. We have to wait. I wanted to find out then but now we're going to have to find out in front of everyone. That's kind of embarrassing because we have to get all 3 tasks right to progress to next week. This is all Ash and I want. She only joined this school a few weeks ago and I only joined a few months ago but we have the chance to move out. To live in New Zealand maybe! No, Brooke, you're just going too far again, but we'll see what happens.

"AND THE WINNING TEAM WITH THREE CORRECT COMPLETED TASKS IS..."

The announcer starts talking again. Ashlyn and I hold each other's hands as we sit at the same table as before. My arms reach out and my hands grab hers. I'm in love. I'm jumping up and down with glee and excitement, but her head is held low and she's so worried if we're going to progress or not. Ashlyn told me that she heard one other team had 2 correct tasks, but no one knew who had completed the 3rd task correctly.

"THE LYNLYN TEAM! LYNLYN WILL BE COMING BACK HERE NEXT TUESDAY FOR PRACTICE, AND THEN THE TUESDAY AFTER THAT, THEY WILL BE GOING TO THE REAL AUDITIONS AT CROFELY'S CRIME CLUB, COMPETING WITH OTHER TEEN DETECTIVES FROM ALL AROUND THE COUNTRY! CONGRATULATIONS ASHLYN EVANSTON AND BROOKLYN JERVIL. YOU WILL BE GIVEN MORE INFORMATION ON YOUR WAY OUT. HAVE A GOOD EVENING AND ENJOY THE REST OF YOUR WEEK EVERYBODY. COMMISERATIONS TO THOSE WHO DID NOT PASS TO THE NEXT ROUND. AND ONCE AGAIN PLEASE CAN WE ALL HAVE A HUGE ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR BROOKLYN AND ASHLYN, ALSO KNOWN AS THE LYNLYN TEAM!" 

Oh. My. God.
I'm frozen.
We jus-

"Oh my God, Brooke! We did not- Brooke, I'm actually in shock. We're closer to going to New Zealand! Brooke? Are you okay?"

I can't speak.
Wow. I can't wait for next Tuesday and the Tuesday after. This is just incredible. Then it kicks in.
"OMG ASH WE COULD BE GOING TO NEW ZEALAND!!! I AM SOOO EXCITED!"

We walk out, grab a leaflet with more information from the woman at the front desk and we can't stop talking about it. I told you this could be the start of something. Well done, Brooke. Well done. We'll see what happens.

Brooke x

*** Thanks Sophia for the LynLyn name idea :)
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