Amber knew her way around town like the back of her hand. She knew which was to take and which ways to avoid at all costs– "this way has kindergartener drug dealers" and "that road is in the line of fire of geeky boys throwing rocks and yelling out spells in gibberish."

They eventually stopped at a house.

Maxine assumed this was Boy Max's house, as Amber so easily knew where the spare key was hidden, and she had managed to open up the door without getting shot at... which, to be frank, was something that happened quite often around Checkerberry.

The first thing Maxine was greeted with was the intense, replica lavender smell of Fabuloso.

"Amber? Is that you?" a feminine voice asked from the kitchen. Right after the waft of Fabuloso came the bitter stench of smoke, all of which made the other three kids' eyes water a little... however, the little blond girl didn't seem to bat an eye.

"Yeah mom," she called out. She seemed unfazed by any of the other kids' reactions, and instead of apologizing for the contrasting smells (or at least, the smoke), she poked her head into the kitchen to say, "I have some friends with me. We're going to be in my room if you need anything!"

Normally, Mrs. Partridge would be skeptical about so many people coming over to visit her daughter, as most of the girl's time seemed to be spent locked up in her bedroom while she devoured her books (perhaps literally, as she never checked in), although the woman lost her mind so horribly that it didn't seem to affect her in the same way.  Mrs. Partridge was more concerned with inhaling that little cigarette and she didn't seem to care much anymore.

"Go right ahead," the lady called out. Her frizzily backcombed hair (streaked with such hideously bright highlights that it looked almost like a stringy zebra print) and maroon sweatpants made her look like every other mom in the neighborhood. Of course, her throat had been eaten away by the embodiment of cancer that she was inhaling, although she didn't know or care.

The three friends plus Amber rushed up the stairs, all of their sneakers making a thump with each step they took... with that in mind, they skipped a step in order to get up more quickly, which rendered all of them exhausted by the time they got up. Tommy tripped over his pants multiple times.

There was a long hallway, which was (unsurprisingly) made of the same pine wood that the staircase was. Six rooms lined the entire upstairs level. At one end was the master bedroom, where Mrs. Partridge would spend her nights drinking her problems away or cleaning up the cigarette ashes piling up at the side of her bed. At the other end was Boy Max's room, which he had called dibs on because he thought that it was the biggest (they had supposedly lived in Checkerberry for their entire lives, though hopped around from house to house far too often). To the left of Boy Max's room was a door coated in sheets of signs and caution tape, and to the right of Boy Max's room was Amber's.

"Don't mind the mess," Amber said. It was instinctive at that point, and while the hallways and rooms were far from being a mess, she said it just in case any of them were some sort of neat freaks and would freak out about seeing an occasional sock on the floor. She had to smile at herself about that one. She realized that she wouldn't be surprised if none of them wiped their butts after taking a dump.... so in a way, she was just bragging.

Her room was unbelievably neat— at least, for a nine-year-old. Aside from the corkboard to the right of the room, which had been sheeted with image upon image and newspaper on newspaper, it would have been impossible to name a single thing wrong with the room.

Again, the cork board was just about the only thing that sparked interest to the bunch.

That's what Amber wanted to show them.

Maxine glanced around with what could only be described as a tremendous curiosity. Despite the fact that the room was decorated with colorful airplane models, realistic paintings, and feathery dream catchers, her eyes were quick to shoot to the corkboard before anything else. The images and articles, whether they were in color or in black and white, all hung on wall and were strung together with some bright red yarn. It looked as if a black-and-white detective movie had turned right into color.

There was an image of Boy Max smiling with his family, all of which was all holding an abnormally large and glistening tuna fish, and it had been pinned directly in the center of the ocean of evidence. A large map had been laid out on the desk (which Amber was supposed to be using for homework, although because it was summer, it was hardly used for anything up until now) that was standing right below it, and the thick but well-used paper hung off of the sides. Pins wearing red hats littered the map, and in a few areas, pinprick holes had been heavily scattered. It was assumedly because some of the pins had been picked up and moved around.

"Holy..." Maxine started, though her voice seemed to leave right as she spoke. It's as almost as if it was saying something along the lines of 'screw this, you're dealing with this all on your own.' She abruptly whipped her head around to face Amber. "This is yours?"

"Yep," the girl replied coolly. She sauntered over to the bed, trying her hardest to bite back a smile as she hopped right on top of it all. She had just impressed Maxine, and didn't have to swear in order to do so. She turned to face Tommy with a combination of both a knowing smirk and a grin. As her feet dangled off of the side of her mattress, which had been blanketed in a nerdy, navy blue and graph-paper-like comforter, she watched as he stared at the image-covered wall with his ears turning a bright shade of pink.

"I told you I know this stuff."

Every kid seemed to be having his or her own reaction.

Maxine was awestruck, Tommy was embarrassed, and John was interested.

He was already at the board, examining what strings lead to where and skimming through the newspaper clippings (which were precise for a nine-year-old, but poorly cut for literally anyone else). His jaw clenched as his eyebrows furrowed with thought, and as he moved to touch one of the strings, he found himself getting slapped in the hand before he jumped away.

Thanks, Amber.

"Hey! Don't touch that!" she spoke. Of course, she pushed herself from off of the bed and took around four or five steps to yank him away (even though he wasn't even touching the strings anymore). "It took me months to get there!"

Tommy snorted with laughter.

"He's been missing for a couple of days, genius!" he said, re-adjusting his uncomfortably large sleeves so that he could look a little less ridiculous. "There's no way that it could have taken 'months.'"

"Shut up."

Of course, Amber rushed to place everything back into its original position (even though the strings and pins had hardly been touched– maybe it just had to do with cooties).

"Anyway... this is everything that I have on him so far," Amber mused. At the moment, she was facing the dotted map and stringed images, and even though she seemed unbelievably nonchalant with each of her actions, she was internally giddy as a newly in love schoolgirl. This was her proudest work– by far. The fact that everyone reacted in such an excited and overwhelmed fashion made her want to place an "L" on her forehead and stick her tongue out, or just yell out that she told them so.

"What are these articles about?" Johnny asked. "I think I've seen them before."

That was because he had a habit of reading every single newspaper that landed in front of his house. He had the style, maturity, and mentality to be considered the adult/dad of the group by that point– hell, he was even more of an adult than his own mother.

"They're about my brother," Amber said with a shrug. She pointed to an article, whose headline read "LOCAL MARYLAND BOY GOES MISSING" and, even further to the top, read "New York Times" in some sort of fancy calligraphy. While none of the kids really cared about the newspapers (with Johnny being the only exception), they knew that the New York Times was a pretty big deal.

"What about that other article?" Johnny asked. "The one published... June 24th, I think?"

Amber paused. Her eyebrows furrowed as she took a glance at the corkboard, and within just a few moments, she had gone from feeling like the next Albert Einstein into feeling like a complete dunce. What was that article even on?

"That one was before Max went missing," she mentioned. That was all that she could think about.

"No, I know– but it has records of every single missing person's case up until that very date... it might help if we're looking for patterns."

Amber blinked once or twice. She was intelligent, yes, but not that intelligent. It wasn't like she did this stuff in her spare time... well, up until her brother went missing. She was still new at all of this.

"What?" she blinked. "Why would we need patterns?"

"To see if this was just one-time deal or if there's a serial kidnapper on the loose... and we'd have to find him before anything else horrible happens. If we look for patterns among who's been found and how long it took, then we can have an approximate time stamp to see how long we have to find him."

Tommy had to scoff again. Without even asking if it was alright to eat in her room, he pulled out the loud bag of leftover jelly beans, stuffing yet another handful into his mouth... Thankfully, the size of his bag was supposedly the largest in stock (being at least three times as large as the smaller bags), so he still had... well, enough to (barely) sustain him for the rest of the day.

That was probably a stretch. He ate so much that it was surprising to see that there wasn't a muffin top in sight, or that his thighs and belly hadn't grown so much that he would burst the seams of clothing that was currently 5 or so sizes too large for him. Eating seemed to have the opposite effect: the more he ate, the thinner and more scrawny he got. The only direction he grew was up...

And hey. There was still the slim possibility that he could finish the candy he hoarded before his brother could give him a wedgie and ask where his $60 worth of food and drinks went.

The entire reason for that explanation was simply because he was trying to seem like he was indifferent on the situation.

"You guys are so retarded," he said, popping an artificially flavored cherry jellybean into his mouth. "We're only eleven and twelve years old! How are we supposed to convince people who know what they're doing that we can find him—alive, might I add—and then bring him back home and sing kumbaya like nothing ever happened?"

"What do you mean? He could still be alive!"

"Really? How many kidnapper... thingies do you know about, where any kids make it out alive?" While Tommy continued to state that Boy Max was dead, that was actually untrue... for the moment.

Boy Max was still alive, though the time continued to tick as to whether or not he would be found that way.

"There's hundreds, you idiot!" Johnny clapped back. "I do my research!"

Tommy let out a scoff and rolled his eyes, eating a supposedly 'buttered popcorn' flavored jelly bean as he hiked up his pants, shimmying a little in an attempt to keep them up there... while he'd never admit it, he was sort of trying to give himself a wedgie with his (brother's) pants. Maybe if he did it just hard enough they'd end up staying there—he'd rather have a wedgie than run around in his Batman tighty-whities.

"Research my ass!" he said, narrowing his eyes. "Knowing how to multiply or what happened in the year sixteen-something-or-other isn't going to change the fact that he's dead!"

If they were four years older, entering through the gates of the official and awkward teenage years in their lives, both of them would have been on top of each other and throwing punches until their knuckles bled... however, neither one of them had the balls (or testosterone) to do so. They were all bark and no bite.

"Shut up! He's not dead!" Johnny replied. "He's missing, you idiot!"

Maxine was visibly distraught. Her fists clenched even tighter than her jaw did, and even though the boys were too immature to throw any punches, she absolutely was... but she took a glance over at Amber and stopped herself.

Poor Amber was gonna cry. Her bottom lip was trembling. Her eyebrows were furrowed– and this time, the tears were real. It didn't matter if she was intelligent and mature for her age, but she was still only a nine-year-old. Bringing up her brother absolutely turned on the waterworks.

None of that lasted long, however—everything came to an abrupt stop when there was a knock on the door.

"Hey, Amber," a clearly pubescent voice called out from the opposite side. The voice crack and attempt at a lower voice was enough to say it all. "I'm pretty sure that kid in the denim you were hanging out with earlier is about to be murdered."

"Don't say stuff like that," Amber muttered, her fists balling up at her sides.

"Whatever," the voice murmured. The doorknob turned to reveal the particularly goth boy who had been standing behind Zachary in line– the fingerless gloves, the hoodie, and the pitch black hair (with some horrible red highlights) was enough to confirm it all. It was almost as if he was just born to say 'you don't understand– this is a lifestyle.'

"Like that one," he said. He pointed his finger (that was painted with jagged black nail polish that bled over his cuticles) at Tommy, who sort of stared blankly in return.

"The hell?" Tommy blinked. "Who the fuck wants to murder me?"

The goth kid just shrugged, his hands moving back behind his head to flick up his hoodie... and as if that wasn't enough, he scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Some douchebag in my class... but for your information, Josh doesn't stick around with losers," he spat. "I'm going to go listen to some AC/DC now... don't come into my room."

Sure enough, the kid (whose name was, in fact, 'Josh') pivoted on his heel before walking down the hall, the sound of his thick-heeled, laced-up combat boots clicking down the hallway.

"Oh my God," Amber murmured, burying her beet-red face into her hands. "I'm so sorry... that was my other brother."

"Woah, woah, woah—did he just say some kid wants to kill me?" Tommy blinked. This was a lot to take in... After all, he heard the news that someone wanted to kill him come out of the mouth of a kid who was a little too eyeliner-obsessed. He was legitimately beginning to freak out.  "Who wants me dead—that Josh kid?"

"No, that was... he was speaking in the third person," Amber murmured, her hands carefully dropping from her sides as she drew in a deep breath. The only thing that would match the color of her face was that flannel that she had rotting away in her closet.

"What? Why?"

"Why does someone want to kill you or—"

"No, why was he speaking in the third person?" Amber was just about to answer before Tommy cut in with yet another question. That seemed to be the only response she would be getting after her brother walked into the room... the funny thing was, her brother was almost never home—it was at rare moments like these that he popped in. His way of saying 'hello' was throwing an insult then scoffing, and then becoming a recluse in his own room up until there was an opportunity to eat (which was sort of surprising, considering how scrawny he was).

"...And why does he wear so much eyeliner? It makes him look like his boyfriend just broke up with him 24/7."

"Dude, my brother's not gay, he's just going through a phase–"

Almost immediately after Amber said that, a loud voice came from a room nearby.

"IT'S NOT A PHASE, AMBER! WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHUT THE HELL UP?" As if his protest wasn't enough, the volume of the music tripled from across the hall. All three kids recognized the melody and beat as that of "Highway to Hell."

Amber let out a frustrated sigh as she massaged the petite bridge of her nose.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, letting her hands drop as she sent a glare in the direction of Josh's room... of course, while he couldn't see it, she was just about burning holes into his wall and his precious collection of 'KISS' posters.

"I saw that there's a carnival that opens tomorrow, if you all want to meet there," Maxine recommended it of the blue. All heads swiveled into her direction as she placed her hands in her pocket. "Just so we don't have any brothers interrupting us and we can all pitch in to spend a day there... with our own money."

That was in regard to Tommy's little stunt.

"Sounds fine by me," Johnny said. He was quick to catch onto what Maxine was referring to, so of course, he had to take the opportunity to send his friend a quick glare. As if we're not already far up on Zach's kill list, he thought. Spending someone else's money—especially Zach's—is definitely going to get our heads served on a silver platter.

"So everyone's okay with meeting there?" Amber asked as looked around, and once she got a nod from everyone (even Tommy, who seemed like he was agreeing for his own safety), she smiled just a little.

They were all set to meet again... and this time, hopefully without a 'trash brother' to ruin it all for them.