Stories often start with a meeting, and this story is no different.
It all started in a school playground. At the back corner of the vividly green square of grass, a little girl stumbled around while waving her arms about as if swarmed by bees. The other children saw this and kept a wide berth away, fearful for they saw nothing around her.
The girl was famous in the school for having a vivid sense of imagination. A vivid, WORRYING sense. Bluntly, everyone thought she was cuckoo crazy because she always acted like there were things around her when there was really nothing there. She often times talked to empty air, and sometimes even screamed at things invisible. Many of the adults believed a that she should see "professional help". But her great-aunt was dismissive of everyone's concerns.
"Ah, she'll outgrow it," the old woman said to the school counselor one meeting. "She's just a kid."
"But Ms. Tsing!"
The old woman cut him off. "You want Demon Ear Twist?"
The counselor immediately shut his mouth. He knew just as well as everyone else in town that the Demon Ear Twist of the infamous "Granny Tsing" was no joke. An idiot tried to rob her once a few years ago, and to this day, the pain from his ear made him scream in agony.
From his office, a white mug of steaming black coffee in his hand, the counselor watched the girl for a few seconds. He shook his head, closed the blinds and turned away.
Whatever was bothering her, no amount of shooing would rid the girl of her invisible tormentors. And no one was going to help her, no matter how much she might plead or cry. Of that, she was convinced from past experience. But then -
"Yah! Yah! Hi-yah!"
Suddenly a boy appeared in front of her and performed punches and kicks while yelling out. His moves were clumsy mimicry of Kung Fu, making him look more silly than fierce. But he kept at it, dancing his way around the girl, who was so startled, she forgot what troubled her only seconds ago.
After a while, he stopped and flashed the girl a smile.
"You okay?" he asked.
Like the girl, the boy was of Asian descent. He was round-faced and had a little belly bulge beneath his Captain America t-shirt. The girl recognized him as one of her classmates, a boy who just moved to town and transferred to this school a few days ago. In his class intro, he said his name was . . . Jackie. That's right. He said his name was Jackie Li.
After a bit of thinking, a question popped into her head and then, no sooner, left her lips. "Can you see them too?"
The boy blinked. "See what?" he asked.
Disappointed by the answer, the girl muttered, "Nothing. Never mind."
And then she turned to run, only to stop because of a question burning in her mind.
"Why did you do that just now?" she asked Jackie.
Jackie looked at her, confused. "Do what?"
"You know," said the girl, re-enacting Jackie's earlier pretend Kung Fu. "That."
"Oh! That! Well," answered Jackie, "it looked like something was really bothering you. I couldn't see what, but I wanted to help. Did it work?"
He looked at the girl, looking eager for affirmation.
The girl hesitated. She was used to being shunned by peers her age, so she wasn't sure what to say to someone who was actually being nice to her. She wasn't even sure if that was what Jackie was actually doing.
But none the wiser to this hesitation, Jackie just continued to smile that big, silly smile at her.
I should say something, thought the girl. And she opened her mouth to speak again, but then Jackie's face fell. The girl felt a rise in her throat, fearful she had waited too long to answer. But then she realized that she was not the cause of Jackie's frown.
The real cause stood behind her: a tall man with flaming red hair and a bit lopsided jaw. One thing that stood out about the man outside of his hastily assembled gray suit and loose black neck tie was the piece of gold clipped to his belt. The man was a police officer.
"Sorry," Jackie said, rather listless. All his earlier energy was gone. "I gotta go home. My da- I mean, my STEP-dad's here to pick me up."
He slowly started to trudge away. The girl watched, once more tongue-tied. But then Jackie stopped and turned around.
"Oh, I almost forgot. What's your name?"
The girl thought for a moment and then figured it wouldn't hurt. "It's Alice. Alice Tsing."
From that day on, Jackie approached Alice every day and they hung out together on the playground and after school. Alice was sure that their friendship wouldn't last long. Sooner or later, she would scare him off, just like she did the others because of the things she had to deal with, the things no one else could see.
But as the days turned to weeks, the weeks turned to months, and the months turned to years, Jackie and Alice's friendship endured. One need only look at the top of Jackie's drawer cabinets for proof: framed photos of the duo as, from right to left, they transformed from little children to grown teenagers. The most recent was taken a few months ago, at the start of their second year as high schoolers.
Now a tall, lanky young man, Jackie sat at the edge of his bed. In contrast to the carefree moments captured on film, however, he stared at the floor with a cloud of gloom hanging over his head. Looming over him like envoys of Death were two men in suits with police badges clipped to their belts. A third man, Jackie's step-father, stood at the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and watched while frowning.
The oldest of the men, a round-faced, gray-bearded gentleman, cleared his throat.
“Look, son,” he said in a soft, emphatic voice, “I know this might be hard, but can you tell us what you can about last week Friday? Whatever you can. Even the smallest detail could be the key to us solving the case. Please? For your friend?”
Jackie glanced at the photos, and then at his step-father who gave a short nod.
After taking a deep breath, Jackie looked straight at the older police officer and said, “Alright. I’ll tell you what happened. I’ll tell you everything I can remember about the day . . . The day that Alice disappeared.”
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