The Tale Of An Unfortunate Party Guest

Chapter One: friendship

Miss Padma Peacock was a very unusual young lady. She lived in a tiny apartment, but spent most of her time in the streets or in nightclubs, preforming. Miss Peacock was a -not so successful- rapper. Often writing protest songs about the country she lived in. She always thought it was called for; With her spicy and pessimistic nature, dark look on society and lack of talent at anything but rhyming, what other job could she have picked?

Another strange quality of her was her unluckiness. She always seemed to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, what caused her plenty of unfortunate events.

However, Miss Peacock was convinced the most unusual thing about her… was her best friend.

Lord Howard Fishbin was a upper-class man, with good manners and a bad sense of fashion, the exact kind of people she thought she could never get along with. Yet somehow, he proved her wrong. Although she hated to admit that, between his wealth and connections, her cheap clothes and powerful voice, they had chemistry from the day they met.

It was a fairly normal Thursday, until noon. She woke up at eleven a.m. By midday, around half past twelve she was walking at the market, looking for something to fill the kitchen with. By one o’clock she chose her food and searched her bag for money, when someone behind her said:

“do you need to borrow some cash?”

she look back at him in utter fury and disbelief, and indeed one look is all she needed to confirm her theory. The expensive but tasteless clothes, the neatly put-together hair, each hair exactly in it’s place, the two men accompanying him. to her, all of these were signs she got exactly what she thought would stand before her eyes. Another snobbish rich guy looking to mock her. She found this offer of help disrespectful, even insulting.

She tried her best not to yell out a swear, but ended up silently staring at him with an angry expression for awkward while.

“Are you alright?”

She did not reply. she took her money out of her bag, gave it to the salesman and stormed off.

“Excuse me! Did I say something wrong?”

He followed her down the street, she let out a few curses under her breath as she tried to avoid him. Finely, she lost her temper.

“Would you leave me alone?!”

“I  just want to know why you’re angry with me!”

She let out a sigh;

“You people really are clueless”

“What do you mean by ‘you people’?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?!”

Even though they couldn’t like each other less this moment, it didn’t take long for the loud, pointless argument to turn into some sort of debate, each one trying to prove their point on some topic or another. After hours of talking they found themselves calmly chatting, as if they were friends for years. When the men accompanying him were already furious, claiming he had important business to do, that’s when he left.

Since then, they met every Thursday at exactly one o’clock p.m.

Chapter Two: The Dinner Party

But although she and the Lord were close friends, and although he invited her to his fancy house for an afternoon more then twice (an offer her own pride could never let her take), Miss Peacock never thought she would get an invitation to a dinner party with all of the fishbin family’s high society friends, apparently to celebrate Howard’s birthday. She had mixed thoughts about whether she should come or not. She would never go to this party, ever, if it wasn’t for Howard. This kind of party sounds like hell for her. On the other hand, it was Howard’s birthday, and she knew she wouldn’t have got this invitation if it wasn’t important to him. After a long period of time spent thinking, she wore her best cloths, took her little recording device, which she took everywhere, just in case she had an idea for a song, and with her legs shaking, got out of her house and started walking down the street.

She took the last step in her way to Fishbin manor with caution, and quietly knocked on the door. to her surprise and relief, Howard was the one to answer.

“Hello! Its about time you came to visit, isn’t it?”

She answered with the quietest ‘hello’ she have ever said, and followed him in.

Inside, she spotted a very old couple, A handsome man with army uniform who gave her

a strange look, a girl who actually looked old like her, maybe even younger, that seemed to look very worried with the new guest who just stepped inside,

and an old man who looked rather sick, he was busy looking at his pocket watch to even notice she entered the manor.

“Let me introduce you Professor and Mrs. Plum, Colonel Mustard, Mister Green and my dear sister, Miss Scarlet”

Howard walked her through them all, but all she got and gave to each and every one of them is a tiny nod.

The dinner wasn’t as bad as she expected it to be. wasn’t what she would call a good time, but not hell. While most of the guests were talking about some bland topic like the weather, Miss peacock barely spoke. One of her most hated thing to do was sitting in silence. She always had something to say and it was hard to keep the words inside; so she concentrated on the food, which was the one of the few highlights of the evening for her.

The only person who talked less then her was Miss scarlet, who seemed awfully quiet the entire evening.

After dinner they proceeded to the ball room, where actually had a dance with Howard. After that she just sat there, inspecting the other gusts. Near her sat Miss Scarlet, who’s been acting strangely this whole time.

She tried to get her to speak.

“You’re Howard’s sister, aren’t you? The name Scarlet doesn’t suit you well”

But received only a nod.

After waiting some time, every guest toured around the manor, As Miss Peacock stayed in the ball room, waiting for the party to be over.

While she sat there, something terrible happened.

She heard, echoing from the ball room walls, a door slam shut, a scream from a far too familiar voice, a metal object slamming against something.

then silence.

Chapter Three: The Investigation

It all happened so quickly. the moment she heard these alarming noises she started running manically around the house, looking for the source of them, screaming Howard’s name. `He could have just fallen, or got scared by something’, she thought as she ran, bumping into some of the other guests who luckily were too concerned to notice the slightly-mad-looking lady. but that hope didn’t last long. She searched almost every corner of every room of the manor, but Howard was nowhere to be found. She ended her search in the conservatory, exited it and collapsed against the hallway wall.

`This couldn’t have happened`, she