Skittles Solves Everything. Almost. | Teen Ink

Skittles Solves Everything. Almost.

February 23, 2015
By The_Edge SILVER, Teaneck, New Jersey
The_Edge SILVER, Teaneck, New Jersey
9 articles 0 photos 18 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Wisest is he who knows he does not know."
-Socrates


Jed and Jason are on the search for a the murderer of five innocents. However, this is proven to be very hard as the sole witness is a stubborn five-year-old.

Chapter 1: One Hour Later

“Please tell us,” I beg.
Nope!” she refuses for the twentieth time. It’s been an hour, and we still are getting nowhere. The murderer is still out there; the fate of who-knows-how-many people depend on a stubborn little five-year-old, the only witness. She doesn’t even care about the five innocents who have already died; all she cares about is herself.
“It is kinda your fault, Jed,” says Jason next to me. He’s seemed to be very tolerant of the girl.
“I just mixed up her name!” I say, hardly able to contain myself. “I thought her name was Joy, rather than Joyce. So what? That doesn’t mean that she should just sit there, and pout as if the entire world revolves around her being treated like the queen of England!”
I realize I’ve just made a big mistake. With a loud, “Hmph!” she scrunches up her face, crosses her arms, and glares at the floor. She then uncrosses her arms, furiously undoes the braid in her blonde hair, causing it to fall messily around her face, and crosses her arms again. The house above creaks in the wind, and so does the cellar we’re in, all seeming to laugh at my useless attempts.
To think we came all the way here from the police station, in the storm, just to have this little girl clam up, right when we thought she was gonna say something. I see her mouthing insults at me. A loud boom of thunder sounds above, and fear flashes across her face, but, as quick as it came, gets replaced by the scowl once more. I can tell she loathes me with every part of her soul. No wonder the orphanage said she’s a pain. They said she’s always disappearing, and sometimes it can take days to find her. I know they didn’t make that up. We spent half an hour, earlier, trying to track her down after she bolted.
Jason gives it one more go. “Joyce,” he says slowly to her, “Jed, misunderstands you. He’s just jealous that you're special, and he’s not. Isn’t that right?”
Her face lights up, and she shoots a nasty grin at me, exclaiming, “Oh yes! Finally someone understands me! That big bad Jed, is just stupid. Don’t believe anything he says! He is just jealous, because I’m so much better than him!”
I want just grab the... thing, and scream in her face, but I see what Jason is doing, so I just stay quiet. “You’re right,” says Jason, “You’re a smart little girl aren’t yo-”
“Who are you calling little? HMPH!” Joyce screams, bringing us back to the beginning. Jason sighs as quietly as he can. This is starting to get very annoying.
“Joyce,” I say in a forced calm. “If you don’t tell us where to find the murderer, then even more people could die.”
After a long pause, “...So?”
“So, that means that five more people could possibly die, and it would be all because you were too grumpy to tell where to find who killed them.”
“So?”
I just stared. “How is that fair? How is fair that you could do that to innocent people who didn’t do anything to you?”
“Hmph, I don’t care.”
Before I do something stupid, I walk to the other side of the room, seething. “Stupid idiots...” Joyce mutters under her breath, not quite quiet enough for Jason or I too miss. I see Jason move, and think he’s finally broke, but instead, he looks like he’s just been hit with a stroke of genius. He bends down to Joyce’s height and says slowly, “Joyce? I’ll tell you what. If you show us where the bad guy is, I’ll give you a big bag of candy.” Joyce jumped up so fast, Jason jumped back like rocket.
“I love candy! Give it! Give it to me! Give it to meeeee!” she yells, at the top of her lungs. I smile at Jason. Bingo. Jason reaches into his back-pack, and pulls out a big pack of Skittles. Joyce makes a leap at it, but Jason lifts it up, out of reach, in the nick of time. I almost laugh as she stomps around in frustration.
“Now,” says Jason sternly. “Tell show us where the bad guy is, then I’ll give you all this candy.”
“No! Give it to me now!” protests the girl.
“Joyce. Show. Us. First! At least tell us. Who’s, the, killer?”
“Give. Me. First!” The conversation goes in circles, until eventually, Joyce screeches, grabs an empty mayonnaise jar from one of the abandoned shelves, and throws it at him as hard as she can. Yeash, she strong. If she wasn’t five years old, I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the murderer. Jason nimbly jumps out of the way, and the glass shatters all over the floor. He stares at the shattered glass for a few moments, and then turns and slowly starts walking towards the girl. I step in front of him.
“Just give her the candy,” I whisper. “We’re not her parents. For that matter, nobody is; we can’t do anything. Besides, once we get this over with, we’ll never have to see her face again.” Jason takes a second to think, then he nods, and walks over to the child.
“Alright. I’ll give you the candy now, if you promise to show us where the killer is. Deal?” he says, extending his hand.
“Deal.” she says quickly, shaking his hand. The girl takes a full three minutes to slowly eat each individual Skittle. After, she walks to the wall, a pushes against it.
After a second, it falls down, revealing a five by five foot square passage-way, through which is pure-black nothingness. Jason and I are snapped out of our daze, as Joyce sprints through it at top speed.
“Get her!” I yell. “She may be trying to bolt again!” Jason and I take off. However, we quickly run into a dusty wall. The place seems to kind of be like a one-way maze, that is only difficult because you can’t see. Jason and I stumble through the darkness of the hallway, arms-out, dust-bunnies clinging to our feet. Joyce certainly seemed to know where she was going. After two minutes, we reach the end. I reach out, and grasp a door handle. I open it, and we both jog into a room barely lit by a single light. Then I smell it. Sleep gas. I try to stay awake, but consciousness is torn away from me a second after it is from Jason...
----------------------
I wake up and realize that I am looking at the same dimly lit light. I also realize I am tied on the floor. I look to my left, and see Jason. “Hey! Jase!” I whisper. “You awake?” But he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. And I slowly realize: he doesn’t breath.
I hear movement behind me, and all-of-a-sudden, Joyce’s head is looming above me, upside-down, smiling. “What’s going on J-?” I begin, but I’m cut off a she gently and slowly slides a long knife along my neck.
“Can’t you see?” she she says quietly, as if reciting poetry. She giggles a long, girlish giggle. “The killer is me.”


The author's comments:

I was assigned the mix genre of Realistic-Fiction-Action-Mystery, and required:

A caring Character, a stubborn character, a beginning setting of a cellar, a witness that had disappeared, the story musth have a hunt, and a character that takes control of the situation.

Here's what I wrote.


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