Riddles, ilike- jellybabies [best book club books for discussion TXT] 📗

her graduation, back when she had braces on her teeth. Cassie suspected that the news would spread round the neighbourhood like wildfire as Roxxie wasn’t exactly unpopular. She was very daring; she cut her own dyed black hair with blue and blonde streaks with a blunt knife and wore tight leather clothing. At high school, she was definitely the one who got into the most trouble.

Cassie supposed she did look a bit like her; like her sister, she had inherited their mother’s green eyes, though Cassie was the only one to get the naturally black hair, not like that stopped Roxxie. Not even a freight train could do that.

* * * *
Another couple of boring days passed by as only bills filed through the letterbox. Cassie read each one carefully, but there were no riddles anywhere. What was she supposed to do? It seemed like a game; one which was very intricate and involved moving all the pieces to exactly the right place. It was, she supposed, exactly like piecing together a blank one thousand pieced jigsaw puzzle.

She read the riddle constantly, trying to think of anything subliminal hidden in the text, when finally, the following Tuesday (nearly a week after the disappearance), a clue popped into her head. Roxxie always was a fan of metal music and went to plenty of gigs here and there, so when it said ‘I’m missing at this stage,’ could that have been linked to their local club, where new bands performed every week?

The idea was firmly planted in her head and she couldn’t get rid of it, so she got ready and dressed, yelled “I’m going out, Dad!” and went downtown to satisfy her curiosity, to do a bit of discovering.

When she got there, a familiar tune was being ripped apart (and not in a good way) by some angry teenage boys. It sounded like ‘Firework’ by Katy Perry, but with the way it sounded, she couldn’t be too sure. Cassie casually sat in a free barstool and ordered an Appletiser. She had been to this club a couple of times, though probably nowhere near as many times as Roxxie. She knew the bartender, too; his name was Alex. He had dark brown hair and was one of Roxxie’s many exes, so possibly he could help lead Cassie to the whereabouts of her older sister. She really hoped this was the right place.

When her beverage was handed to her (or, rather, placed on a coaster), there was a small neon yellow corner sticking out from under the glass, taking the appearance of a post-it note. Her heart beat sped up. It was possible that this could lead her towards her sister’s hiding place. On the other hand, it might not have, but it was most likely and she was very hopeful.

She pretended to wipe the bottom of the glass, as if she’d spilt some of her drink, and peeled the note off as discreetly as she could manage. She even sipped her drink for added effect, whilst placing the note into the pocket of her black trench coat. She waved at Alex, handed him a tip, and left, the drink barely touched.

Chapter Three

When she got home, she ran eagerly up to her room and took the post-it out of her pocket. She switched her blue desk lamp on, although it was light outside, and read the new note. It went:

You’ve got to do better than that.

What? Cassie thought. She was so close to finding her, yet so far away. So, obviously, Roxxie was somewhere else, but Cassie wasn’t too far off; at least she received a note. That, at least, gave her some sort of clue. The next riddle, or Roxxie herself (though this seemed unlikely), could possibly be at another club or stadium. The question, though, was where.

Cassie scanned the list she had recreated, using places from which she remembered from the old one she threw away, whilst she sat on her polished wooden chair and leaned on the table, held up by her elbows. She was very tired now; yesterday had deemed unsuccessful, though not completely- at least she had a rough idea of what kind of place she could find her sister.

She was very lucky it was a half term holiday, although it would only last a few more days. She decided it was best not to tell anyone in her year about her sister’s disappearance and focus on studying, although a minority might have heard about it on the news. Cassie then remembered that there was one of her GCSEs next week: a biology one. She tried to forget about Roxanne and revise, but it was very difficult. Roxxie usually ended up helping her revise for tests and such, but this was no longer an option, unless she asked her nocturnal dad to help, but he had made it clear that she wasn’t to disturb him; he had applied for a job online and needed to finish his first assignment today.

It seemed like there would be a very long week ahead.

* * * *
Cassie was right. The lessons seemed to string on to such an extent that they seemed endless, especially maths for some strange reason. The GCSE, which accounted for 56% of her grade, was not as hard as she’d expected, though it paid off for doing all that cramming the previous weekend.

School seemed like a bit of an escape fro, reality, now Cassie thought about it. Her friends and the lessons provided a good distraction from the daunting fact, the gaping hole where her sister should have been. She would hear the occasional whisper at school, but no-one had approached her to ask.

The house felt emptier than ever. The five weekdays where Cassie could do nothing about her sister made her feel more useless than before.

When the weekend finally arrived, though, she had planned out everything; where she was going, what she was going to do when she got there and what excuses she’d use if she got caught. It was risky, but her sister meant everything to her now, which was strange; before, she obviously hadn’t realised how much she relied on her. She was definitely aware now, and willing to take any risks to find Roxanne.

* * * *
Her first stop was a small club across the street from a Subway; where Cassie had first seen Lacuna Coil perform live a couple of years ago. This place had some sentimental value. It was very tiny and could only fit around two hundred and fifty people at a push, but the whole world seemed bigger when you saw famous people in the flesh.

She told her dad she was going to meet up with her friend at the Starbucks just down the road from there and she promised to get him a venti latté on her way out.

Of course, her friend, who went by the name Maria, was at swimming practice and she went every Saturday. It was good that her dad was unaware of this.

Cassie stopped off at Subway to get her lunch before she went to the club. It opened at three, which gave her fifteen minutes to eat before she could walk in. There wasn’t any ID needed; as long as you paid, you could drink as much alcohol as you wanted. Surely they should put some enforcements in, or at least a limit; the last time she came here to see a gig, there was a drunk twelve year old boy who’d been there with his (supposedly) care-free older brother and was trying to impress some girl by balancing ice cubes on his forehead. She laughed along, but acted like she was embarrassed, which she probably was. There was a new band playing there, a local band called Vampires With Cavities, and he seemingly had no idea what he was doing or what was going on; he got to the bar right in front of the stage, where the band was performing, and barfed in front of the vocalist’s feet, and passed out, falling over the bar head first. Some strange memories.

Now, though, the smoke machines and disco lights weren’t on and a couple of people were sorting out the equipment on the stage, getting ready for the group Mallory Knox to perform later that evening. The bulbs were yellowy-orange and didn’t really emit very much light. There were little neon lights flashing around the bar’s stash of chilled alcoholic beverages. Only a couple of people were walking around, which wasn’t really what Cassie was used to seeing in this club.

She walked into the toilets, whose walls were loaded with graffiti like ‘I lost my virginity here 23/07/04’

. She remembered the thing Roxxie had written on the wall and tried to locate its whereabouts in the loo cubicles. The pale blue walls were coated in scribbles and drawings, and the ceiling had tar marks and dried toilet paper balls stuck to it- obviously not the most cared for toilet in town. When she finally remembered where Roxxie’s writing was, she walked into the end cubicle. Luckily, she was the only one in the Ladies’ at the moment, so she didn’t look too strange. There it was, to the left of her, above the toilet paper dispenser. It said ‘Party on! Rock it! Peace out! Roxxie was ‘ere 17.03.09’

but Cassie noticed there was a folded bit of pink paper of some sort hiding under the writing, tucked behind the bulk of the dispenser. She nearly squeaked with anticipation. This could be it, she thought. This time, she wasn’t going to wait until she got home to read it; she did that last time and it probed to be unsuccessful. She needed to verify that this was definitely it. She locked the cubicle door and sat on the closed toilet lid, then unfolded the paper eagerly in her hands. This one read:

Well done, Cassie,
You got the right place, you see,
And though you can’t see me yet,
Behind the clouds it’s lovely.
Where am I now?

Cassie decided to save the decoding process for when she got home and left the club, got a venti latté for her dad at Starbucks and walked back home with her newly found evidence in her coat pocket.

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Publication Date: 06-12-2011

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