Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. Credits are from tumblr and Pinterest :D


"I'm a writer." Bree muttered as she saved pictures on how different bullets create different wounds, and how the enter and exit hole differ. There was a really useful infographic on how you can tell the trajectory of a bullet from the bloodstains.

"I'm a writer." Bree gritted her teeth tightly as she read information on decomposing corpses, and what do they look like varying on long they've been dead. "Hmm, after the three days the skin bursts open on many places all over the body. Neat."

"I'M A WRITER!" Bree yelled at her laptop screen as she read "Murdering People- What You Need to Know", a guide to murder and hiding bodies and concealing hints.

"If you murder someone, bury the victim 6-10 feet underneath a dead dog. Body-sniffing hounds will the dig up the dead dog and the police will think it's a false positive." Bree read under her breath, eyes glued to the screen. It was 3 AM and what was she doing reading about ways to murder?

Oh, right. She wanted to write a murder mystery novel.

Bree rubbed her eyes. Inspiration struck at the strangest of times, and for Bree it came at exactly 2:19 in the morning. She had sat up bolt upright in bed, before opening her laptop and searching rapidly.

She was getting tired now, as she moved the cursor around aimlessly, and her eyes began to droop.

"Let's call it a day," she muttered, hand stifling a yawn. "Or night. Or whatever."

Bree closed her laptop, set it on her desk sleepily, and fell back on her bed, blonde hair messily sprawling out. She fell asleep almost a few seconds after she hit her pillow.

Next day, when Bree came back from school, she found her mother staring strangely at her.

"I'm back," Bree called as she put away her keys. She dumped her backpack on the floor, while thinking of something which had happened that day (a certain boy named Conner Bailey tripped over when she saw him, resulting in his lunch splattering all over the floor).

"Bree," her mother said in an unusually stern voice. Bree looked up at her, while retying her ponytail. "Uh, Mom?"

Mrs. Campbell had a glint in her eyes. "What's that in your laptop search history?" she asked, voice firm and slightly accusing.

Ah, crap.

Bree couldn't do anything as she remained glued to the floor. The stare of her mother was intimidating, really.

"Bullet wounds," Mrs. Campbell listed with a terrifying glare. Bree gulped nervously. "Stab wounds. Blood stains. Where to hit in a fight. How to get away with murder. How to bury a body."

"Actually-" Bree started to say, but Mrs. Campbell cut her off.

"Crime scene science. Decomposition of bodies. Outsmarting police." Mrs. Campbell continued, and Bree felt the atmosphere darken with every word. "No offense Bree, but what are you doing?"

"I'm searching for references to aid me in writing," Bree said brightly, hoping her mother would stop asking questions.

Mrs. Campbell narrowed her eyes. "Writing what?"

"Murder mystery novels."

"Is that for school?" Mrs. Campbell asked suspiciously.

"Well uh…" Bree looked around, trying to see whether she can make a quick getaway. "It's like a hobby. Because I want to write about murder mysteries." she finished.

"Okay." Her mom nodded, but she still looked like she didn't thoroughly believe Bree.

Bree let out a sigh of relief and went back to her room, with a mental note to delete her search history and tabs later. Her mom probably thought she was secretly planning a murder or something…

A few months later…

"WHAT do you mean my daughter ran away?!" Mrs. Campbell yelled into her phone.

"I'm terribly sorry about it," Mrs. Peters said on the other side of the line. "And yes, Bree ran away with another student, Conner Bailey."

"My daughter ran away with a boy! But how? And can you find any trace of her?"

"Unfortunately no," Mrs. Peters replied. "She had disappeared before we went boarding, and now I have to switch off my phone. I'll give you more information when we land."

Meanwhile, behind Mrs. Peters, the Book Huggers were having an intense discussion about Conner and Bree running away.

"What if they eloped?" Mindy suggested.

"Oh. My. God." Lindy whispered, eyes dramatically widening.

"I ship it!" Cindy screeched in an high pitched voice. Wendy nodded, smiling.

When the phone call ended, Mrs. Campbell put her phone, expression grim. She remembered her daughter's search history the other day, and wondered if it had anything to do with her running away. What if she was actually on a killing spree, and her excuse for researching about it was writing?

Mrs. Campbell paced nervously, and hoped Bree would be found soon, and that all her theories were just really far-fetched and untrue.


"I'm a writer," Conner said to himself as he researched fantasy tropes. He had borrowed his mom's computer for a bit of research. "Hmm, nice," he said as he found a drawing of several fairy tales together in a coloured glass window. "Red's ego will burst through the roof when she finds she's drawn in this."

"I'm a writer." Conner clicked on a list of descriptive words, or "words to use instead of 'said'" to be more specific. "This is useful. And ooh, 'The Top 100 Most Beautiful Words'! Alex will love this!" He also found a picture labeling different parts of a pirate ship.

Suddenly, Conner peered closely at the picture, his nose nearly touching the screen.

"... Did they seriously name a part of a ship 'poop deck'? Who names them anyway?"

Conner looked at it incredulously before flipping open a notebook and began to jot things down.

"I'm a writer!" Conner, a bit frenzied now, read "How to Write A Romance Novel", an article from a writing blog. He furiously wrote down the tips.

"Complete opposites don't attract. They have to share something in common, like a similar backstory, motives or dreams." Conner muttered, puffing on his bangs to get them out of the way. "I guess I need to work more on Admiral Jacobson and Auburn Sally's relationship for Starboardia."

Conner felt a bit embarrassed that he would be searching for tips on writing romance novels. Because romantic mushy stuff used to make him puke. And probably still did now.

"I'M A WRITER!" Conner screamed as he typed "how do you know if you have a crush on someone" into the search bar. He hit "enter" and clicked on the first page. Conner's jaw dropped when he saw the sheer number of crush symptoms.

"I used to think the only symptom was flirting," he mumbled to himself. Well, you can't blame him for knowing so little, since that was the only thing Trollbella did.

"Blushing, heart beating fast, being jealous, mentioning crush to friends a lot, always thinking about crush…" Conner read. He rested his head on his palm while looking at the computer idly. "I'll just somehow stuff half of these in my characters." He shut the computer.

When Charlotte turned on the computer later, she was surprised to find 16 tabs in her computer. A bit confused, she clicked on a few of them and her eyes slowly widened.

So that's what he'd been doing…

Charlotte went up to her son's room. "Conner," she said as she knocked on the door before going in.

"Heey Mom," Conner replied as he quickly shoved his drafts of Starboardia under a textbook and pretended to look like he was chilling out. Charlotte raised her eyebrows suspiciously, but decided to ignore it and go to the main topic.

"Conner, do you have a crush on someone?" Charlotte asked very bluntly.

Conner fell out of his chair and sprawled out all over the floor.

"Ouch," he groaned, rubbing his head. He looked up at his mother, his face a bit flushed. "Well, no. Why do you ask?"

"Because I saw your search history in my computer."

"Uhh…" Conner panicked and looked away. His heart rate started to go up. No way he was going to admit he was trying to write a romance, especially admitting it to his own mother. That would embarrassing and possibly the end of Conner's world.

"T-that's for school," he quickly came up with a lie.

"For school?" Charlotte asked disbelievingly.

"Uh, yeah!" Conner forced a smile on his face. "It's for, umm, a writing project. I like to write stories."

That wasn't completely a lie, so Conner felt a bit better lying to his mother.

"Okay..." Charlotte said, her eyebrows still raised. She started to walk out of the room. "But if you have a crush, you can always talk to me for Bob."

"Mom-"

"Crushes are perfectly normal for your age. It's a part of growing up."

"Mom-"

"I'm pretty sure the girl you like must be really lucky." Charlotte grinned, enjoying herself immensely. "Ooh, and I might even meet my future daughter-in-law-"

"MOM!" Conner yelled, exasperated. "I. DO. NOT. HAVE. A. CRUSH. ON. ANYONE. PERIOD." His face was so red he thought he might explode. "There will be no girlfriends, no marriages, and no future daughter-in-laws. Get it, Mom?"

Charlotte was a bit taken back by Conner's extreme behavior. She laughed. "Oh, you'll never know." And then she shut the door, leaving Conner behind it, face redder than a tomato and looking very disgruntled.

"I don't have a crush on anyone." Conner muttered to himself, as if that could brainwash him. "That was just for writing reference. I do not have a crush."

A few months later…

"Oh God, I have a crush. I have a crush on Bree."

Conner screamed internally whenever he thought about it. OhMyGodIHaveACrushNowWhatDoIDoWithItHelpHelpHelp.

He had already discovered he had a crush a few days earlier and he was still freaking out.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Peters was calling Charlotte.

"My son ran away?" Charlotte asked, more exasperated than anxious, which seemed weird to Mrs. Peters. So he decided to do some Land of Stories business without telling me. Again. Charlotte thought, sighing. She raised a glass of water to her lips.

"Yes, with another student, Bree Campbell."

Charlotte spit her water out dramatically.

"Mrs. Gordon, are you okay?" Mrs. Peters asked when she heard her choking.

"I'm fine," Charlotte replied. Her eyes narrowed. "Did you just say he ran away with a girl?"

Mrs. Peters said something on the other end of the phone.

"Let's hope we'll find them soon."

Charlotte nodded at something Mrs. Peters said.

"Okay. Bye." She put down her phone, mind running with information. It was one thing to know her son had ran away, but it was another thing to know he had dragged a bystander, a girl no less into it.

"I knew it." Charlotte chuckled darkly. "Conner Jonathan Bailey, I know you have a crush on that girl! And I know what was up with that search history now!" She laughed evilly. "My son is growing up!"

Then, collecting herself, she went to the mirror to try to contact Alex.


"... And that's how my mother thought I was a murderer." Bree said as they sat on the bench, waiting for midnight for them to talk to the lion statue.

Conner suddenly looked afraid. "You mean there's stuff like that on the Internet?"

"They don't call the Internet 'the sea of knowledge' without reason," Bree replied, fiddling with one of the bracelets on her wrist.

"You can't always trust the Internet," Conner replied. "Anything can be posted up there."

"Well that's true." Bree nodded. "And anyways, have you ever had a similar experience because you're misunderstood?"

Conner started to sweat slightly when he remembered his search history, mostly "how do you know if you have a crush on someone". It was totally mortifying now he knew he had a crush, and said crush was sitting right next to him. "Not really," he chose to reply. "Since I don't really write murder mystery stories. But it must feel bad to be misunderstood."

"Tis the life of we writers," Bree said. Conner liked how she used the word "we", and blushed.

Now I realize it, I totally had the crush symptoms the website said… I'm just too stupid to know.


The next day, Charlotte and Mrs. Campbell met up to discuss their children's disappearance. When they saw each other across the street, they started to run to each other.

"MY DAUGHTER MIGHT BE TRYING TO KILL YOUR SON!" Mrs. Campbell yelled as she ran towards Charlotte.

"MY SON MIGHT HAVE A CRUSH ON YOUR DAUGHTER!" Charlotte yelled at the same time. Both women stopped and looked at each other in surprise and confusion.

"What?"


A/N: Happy April Fools! This is just something silly I came up with (PS: this is no joke despite the date. There is something like that on tumblr and Pinterest).

Another random question here: do you think Bree is an introvert or an extrovert? I used to think she was an introvert but as I reread the books I'm not sure…

Anyways, please read and review!