The Savoy Hotel

by Kristina Cossa

My long dark hair was a mess, and the brush kept getting stuck. This was what I got for staying up all night reading books in my best friend's library.

"Clara!" a voice called out. I turned slowly to see my younger friend Alex. Her long brown hair was sleek and shiny, unlike mine, which was full of knots. Her family had taken me in two years ago when my parents died in a fire. I was a college senior at the time, and since I didn't have anywhere to go, they took me in. The two of us had known each other forever.

She took me back to her house without a second thought, where her grandfather and her creepy butler lived. I always made jokes that she was rich, but she always dismissed that and told me the house was just in her family. "What's the hold-up?" she asked.

"I was reading Sherlock Holmes again," I answered.

"Girl, you really shouldn't spend all your time in the library. It's not healthy," she told me, "Are you okay?"

"You know, I wonder what's for breakfast. I hope it's pancakes," I changed the topic immediately. She looked at me with concern and decided to help me with my hair.

"Here, let me help," she said taking the brush and running it through my hair. It was painful when the brush got stuck in the knots, and for a second I was a little child again complaining about it. Alex didn't lecture me though. She just kept going on about we should spend time together. I adored my best friend, but I could tell she was just trying to get me out of the house so I wouldn't end up becoming a recluse.

"Girl, I'm really okay. It's just an escape for me," I explained.

"Yeah, and I'm not John Watson," she answered, finally finishing with my hair. "Finish up your look quick, Holmes, or you are going to be late for class." I laughed at her fake accent and promised to meet her downstairs.

After dressing in gray jeans, a black top, a chain necklace, and my black shoes, I went downstairs to meet up with Alex and her family. What followed was a day of classes and professors I either tuned out or enjoyed. It ended with a surprise celebration for me at my favorite restaurant. My birthday was coming up and Alex had arranged everything. She insisted on getting me a present. But while we were eating dinner, she took a sip of her water and suddenly froze.

"Alex, what's wrong?" another friend of ours, Marina, asked. Alex didn't answer, and she began coughing, I called out to her, and she fell out of her seat, hardly breathing.

"She needs help! Call 911!" I exclaimed, trying my best to help her. She had been poisoned. I recognized the signs from all my reading. I looked at the cup she had been drinking, but it looked like normal water. How could this have happened? None one had touched her food and no one else had gotten poisoned. It was all I could think sitting beside her crying for her to be okay. But eventually her throat went numb, her muscles froze, and she was dead. I wept hysterically at her death and promised that I was going to find whoever poisoned her. First my family, and now my best friend. Someone was after me, and now they'd officially declared war.

The police were unable to find anything physically wrong with Alex when they did a medical scan on her. I crossed my arms and thought about how stupid the police officers were for thinking she had killed herself.

"The food showed no signs of being tampered with and the water was clean," the inspector said. Inspector Christopher had graying black hair, always dressed like a high schooler from the sixties, and had deep blue eyes. The old man was in his late sixties, and there was no person I hated more than him--other than the murderer. I needed to track them down.

"She didn't kill herself," I said, suddenly feeling quite brave. In almost two years I had hardly spoken to anyone besides Alex, but now all I wanted was to find whoever did this.

"You have something to say, Clara?" he asked. His partner Edward, a close friend of mine, shook his head, trying to stop me from saying anything. But despite my fondness for that dirty blonde hair and those green eyes, I spoke up anyway.

"I know what I saw!" I exclaimed, catching both men off guard. "She was murdered, just like my family was killed."

by Candela Pérez Castellanos

Tranquility

by Lily Allen