"Craft" Club

“Craft” Club: Part One

*this is all completely made up

I sat there waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. 15 minutes late, as usual. They wanted to do this club, the least they could do was show up to the art room on time once in their lives. Matt comes running in carrying all is textbooks. “Sorry I was in a quick meeting with the Math-letes, our first competition is next week!”

“Whatever’ I sigh. We are still missing 3 other people. It’s annoying how they don’t take any of this as seriously as I do. It’s my passion, and I thought it was all of theirs too. That’s why we started this club in the first place. I was missing volleyball practice for this meeting. That shows you I’m dedicated.

In walked Trina and Karl about 10 minutes later. Trina’s excuse was the classic “Sorry, I was at a cheer squad meeting. Last one of the year, promise.” Karl’s was your typical freshman excuse.

“Sorry, I was calling my mom about my ride home from school.”

“Alright well now that you’re all here, finally, we should get started.” I began, “All cell-phones in the basket.” I held out the basket until 3 phones were placed inside. I then added mine to the mix. It was always a club rule that there was no use of cell phones in the meetings. We had agreed on that rule day one. It was the best way to keep what went on in this meeting as focused and as secretive as possible. “Okay last time we were discussing what the next challenge would be. We had a list of possibilities.” I hung up the chart from the previous meeting. I read them out loud, “1) Robbery 2) Murder 3) Kidnapping.” As I read the last option, whispers erupted from the 3 members.

“Let’s do that one!” Trina exclaimed. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

“It would be the most exciting to plan out.” Karl added. “What do you think Claire?” I thought about it. Yes, it would be fun to plan out, and although the subject matter is a little dark, its not like we’d be committing the actual crime.

“I think it sounds perfect,” I replied.

We all sat down and began planning out the perfect crime. We figured out whom we’d be hypothetically kidnapping and how it would be done. It may sound kind of strange – participating in a sort of Crime Club, where we’d plan out crimes that we vowed to never actually commit – but it was something we were all fascinated in. In fact, all 4 of us hoped to one day become detectives who investigate these types of crimes for a living. Why not get a head start on learning how criminals think? We saw no harm in it. But we realized how strange it sounded, so we kept it a secret. When people asked us why we meant in the art room after school on Thursdays, we told them it was for Craft Club. People questioned it at first. Why would 4 people from completely different social circles find common interest in crafting? But eventually the questions died down and our peers left us alone.

“Okay, so we’ll just jump out while she’s on her morning run and grab her?” Matt said. “Sounds easy enough.”

“But she’s a runner obviously, so she could easily get away.” Trina made a good point. We had chosen a target; a girl who goes to the other high school and runs on the cross-country team. There were some advantages and disadvantages to this choice. We thought it would be easier because she would always be out running by herself – easy access. It would be harder though because she is in high school, meaning she is smarter than the average kidnap candidate who would be under the age of 12. We decided to use a trash bag to blind the victim and then have the inside of the bag be laced with some sort of toxin that would sedate her.

We worked out all the kinks, and after an hour of thought-provoking discussion we went home. One day I’ll be solving crimes like these, I thought to myself. I couldn’t wait to solve real cases rather than developing fake ones. Sometimes I felt guilty for planning these crimes, but I knew I would never have the heart to carry them out, so that helped me to feel at ease. If anything we were just a group of kids making up stories – stories that could later help local police departments solve cases much like the ones we created.  I saw no problem with our “craft” club. At least I used not to.

All of that changed on the following Sunday morning. I got up like I always did, and walked downstairs. It was already noon. I walked into the kitchen. “Good morning sleepy-head,” my mom greeted me. I grabbed one of the remaining pieces of bacon from the plate on the counter. As I walked to the cupboard to grab a mug and pour myself some coffee, my mom asked if I had heard the news.

“No, what news,” I replied drowsily.

“About that cross-country runner? I think she is your age. She’s gone missing. It’s just terrible. I mean just imagine how the fam—“

“Wait, she’s missing!” I interrupted her. “Who is it? Does she go to the other high school?”

“Why yes I do believe so,” my mom seemed confused as to why I was so concerned. “My understanding is that the authorities believe she was taken on her run this morning.” I froze. No, it can’t be true. My mother is probably just confused. Or maybe this is all just a big coincidence.

“Wow” is all I could say back. My thoughts were racing.

“Yeah and the only piece of evidence they found was a small part of a household garbage bag.”

My mouth fell open and my mug shattered against the floor.

TO BE CONTINUED...