Schoolboy story Pt. 2

Josh's eyes widened and his mouth opened wide in the shape of a smile; these new kids were getting cooler by the second. He wanted to know nearly to the point of tears if they could help him find Mr Hyena because if he never came back, that would be the end for Josh; you can't just replace someone like him. They'd be doing him a massive favour and he'd even pay them in sweets if they wanted it because he didn't have any money.

"Goth Detectives!" Josh shouted out as he stood up, heart beating fast in his little ribcage.

"Josh, sit down!" Faris whispered through clenched teeth as he tried to hide his face with his hair slightly - embarrassing moments were prone to come up whenever they were around Josh and he got excited.

"Yes?" Russell replied, pointing his magnifying glass in the direction of Josh as Noel continued to glare at the teacher for ruining their secret identities.

"Do you only detect goths?"

"Maybe....but if we did, I've already found some," he smirked.

Josh tilted his head to the side in confusion.

"You guys, silly!" he said, leaning further in their direction in a comical stance making some of the class giggle.

"We're not goths, goths are sad all the time...maybe Faris is a goth though," Josh said, turning towards Faris with a toothy smile.

"Joshua!!" Faris yelled out defensively as he folded his arms and debated leaving the class.

"Do you though? Please? I need some help," Josh said, frowning slightly as he turned back to Russell.

"Joshua, you can make friends later, now it's time for class," the teacher said.

"But this is serious!" Josh said, slamming his hands on the desk, surprised at himself for getting so worked up about it. "It can't wait!"

"I'm sure what you want to do can wait til breaktime," she said, sighing and also realising that when Josh got excited, it was a bit embarrassing, even for her sometimes.

Josh whined and tried to make himself cry.

"Josh, tell them at break, yeah? You'll have more time," Rhys said, trying to reason with him with a smile.

"But..."

"I'll buy you chocolate on the way home."

Rhys' additional stipulation was enough to satisfy Josh for now and he sat back down, looking forward to telling the Goth Detectives about the case of the missing hyena; and for the mint Aero that he'd ask for from Rhys when they went home.

*

Breaktime came and Josh immediately looked in the direction of the Goth Detectives who had already stood up and were heading out the door.

Josh's heart skipped a beat, he didn't want to miss them. "Come on, Rhys!" Josh said, grabbing Rhys' hand and trying to get out of the door as fast as possible amidst all of the other people that were trying to head out.

"Why me??" Rhys squealed, running along trying to keep up with Josh's fast pace.

They went out into the playground and Josh could find no sign of the Detectives, he looked around breathlessly from running and could only see the heads of other people he didn't care about at the time or didn't know. He thought that if he was one of the Detectives, he'd be able to find where he was, but he was only Josh, no 'detective' name of any form followed that.

He whimpered and clung tighter onto Rhys' hand that he was still holding.

"Found them!" Rhys pointed out, spotting both of them sitting on the field opposite each other and eating lunch with their legs crossed.

"Yay!" Josh exclaimed, walking in their direction with Rhys. "You should be a detective too, Rhys."

"Well I tried to get into the detective agency but they turned me down for being too young."

"Really?" Josh asked, mouth open wide in awe.

"No," Rhys laughed.

"Oh..."

"But if you're simple enough to believe it, that means I can get away with a lot more things," Rhys said with a cheeky smile.

"Hey, it's the guy from our class," Noel acknowledged as he noticed Josh and Rhys walking up to them.

Josh waved. "Hi! I'm Josh and this is Rhys," he introduced, looking at Rhys and willing him to wave at them too.

"Yeah, but feel free to call me Spider Webb," Rhys said with a proud smile.

"It's what his name would be if he changed his name to Spider," Josh recalled, growing ever prouder of the fact that he had been the one who had realised this first off.

"I'm Bob Skellyton and this is Raven Spawn," Noel said with another bite of his sandwich that had the crusts cut off.

"What's a spawn?" Josh asked.

"...Like a baby," Noel tried to explain.

"He's a baby raven??"

Rhys slapped his forehead with his hand and looked towards the ground as the Goth Detectives just giggled.

"Anyway, what did you want back then?" Noel asked, raising his eyebrows in interest.

"My hyena's gone missing..." Josh started, then recalled what had happened the night before and all of the details that he thought would be of use including what it looked like and its name.

"Did you hear that?" Noel asked, looking at Russell.

"Yeah, but we only detect goths," Russell said,"obviously," he added.

Noel looked at the sadness in Josh's eyes and decided to do something about it. "He's only joking, we will help you," he smiled.

"Really?"

"Yeah, but on one condition..."

"I'll give you any sweet you want!"

"I was gonna say that you only call as by our detective names but, okay!" Noel said with excitement, also a fan of sweet things.

*

School was over and they all headed back to Josh's house. Rhys, Faris, Tom and Joe all came too, showing a keen interest in what was going to happen.

Josh skipped along happily, mint Aero grasped in his little hand as he hummed along to a nameless song and thought of being reunited with Mr Hyena. He'd had the hyena from since he was about two, it was a present from his aunt that he always visited on weekends. She always gave him fudge and told him stories that never failed to have him as the main character, he loved her.

"This is my room," Josh said when all of them had reached his room.

"Ahh, the scene of the crime..." Noel said, straightening his hat and looking around.

"There was no crime, it's just lost!" Josh corrected.

"They all say that," Russell said, "how'd you know someone didn't take it, hmm?"

"I never thought of that!" Josh cried, thinking about if someone really had taken it and beginning to cry.

"No one took it," Rhys said, hugging Josh with his arm.

"Could you make some room, please? We're trying to do a vestigation," Noel said.

"We'll help!" Joe said, getting excited about everything as it had actually become an investigation now.

"Only we can do it," Russell said. "If anyone else helps then it doesn't count. We'll be done soon, nothing has got past us yet in all our years as detectives."

"We only met last year," Noel said.

"Shut up!" Russell replied, looking harshly at Noel.

*

The rest of the group went downstairs to give the Detectives some room while they searched for Josh's missing item.

"There are you, you little horrors," Josh's mum said cheerfully as she brought them some cookies and juice.

"Thanks, mum!" Josh beamed.

"You probably put him in the most obvious place, Josh," Tom said, taking a sip of juice from the cup that had Bambi on it and thinking about the stuffed animal.

"Yeah, you always do," Joe said.

"I do not!" Josh defended.

"Where was your blanket last time? Oh yeah, on your bed under the other toys," Joe said, laughing as he remembered Josh getting really worked up about losing his blanket too.

Josh pouted and thought that if he was someone like Faris, he would have probably punched Joe or at least slapped him.

Suddenly they all heard a bang upstairs and lots of scrambling about, muffled voices followed and one scream came soon after.

"What are they doing?" Tom asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Let's go and have a look." Rhys said, standing up as the others followed.

When they got upstairs, Josh opened the door to find Noel on top of Russell, pinning his arms down and laughing as Russell got up from underneath him and slapped him about a bit, pulling at his cheeks and moving his hands, clearly amused beyond belief.

Faris sighed.

"What are you doing?" Rhys asked, slightly puzzled.

"We got distracted," Noel said with an apologetic smile.

"We can't find your hyena yet but give us a bit more time, we'll find him soon," Russell said with a thumbs up.

"I hope so."

"Hey, I found a clue!" Noel pointed out.

[to be continued]