Mysterious Disappearances

Jasmine Leslie Penhallow or Jamie as everyone knew her had always been one of the most popular people in Brookland. She was tall, slender with bright green eyes and hair as black as night contrasting with her almost white skin. She was also very intelligent achieving nothing less than an A in all subjects. She worked hard wanting to achieve her dream she'd had since she was twelve. Jamie wanted to be a spy: Agent Penhallow, or Penhallow – Jamie Penhallow. She'd decided she wanted to be a spy after her older brothers; Zachary (Zac), Dylon, Phillip, Huw and Joshua (Joss) took her to see James Bond, Golden eye. This was when all five of them were still living at home: Jamie, Joss and Huw were at Brookland, whilst Dylon was doing engineering at the local college and Zac was doing Foreign Language at university. Now it was only Jamie left; Joss had left last year at the age of sixteen in order to go to an acting school in Scotland.

To help with her aspirations Jamie had chosen seven subjects even though she had been recommended to drop a few she had persisted and was doing well. She had taken French, Politics, Biology, Geography, History (particularly the war history just last month they'd learnt about Daisy Cutters and the war in Vietnam) and Chemistry along with English and Maths the year before. It was early march that something odd happened. Alex Rider was missing! Alex was not unpopular among the school but unlike Jamie he seemed to prefer the company of a small group of friends. But Jamie, unknown to the school, had a crush on the banker's nephew.

A few days later Alex Rider returned to school looking saddened and in shock. The news that Alex's uncle had died spread quickly around the school. Jamie was actually sickened by it; a teenager's guardian and only family had died and all the school cared about was the gossip! (AN: I felt the same when someone in my school's mother died) In maths he obviously hadn't been paying attention so when Mr. Donovan asked Alex to open the window.

'Yes, sir, X equals seven and Y is fifteen,' Alex gave the answer to the simultaneous equation on the blackboard.

Everybody laughed at Alex. But Jamie couldn't help but feel for the boy who'd just lost his last family and surprised at his numeracy skills. Later that day just as Jamie was about to start jogging home she overheard Alex and the school secretary, Miss Bedfordshire, talking. Alex was fingering a volume of the Yellow Pages sitting on one of the plush purple seat. Miss Bedfordshire was watching the blonde teenager worriedly while Jamie was pulling on her running shoes.

'What are you looking for?' Miss Bedfordshire asked always helpful.

'Breakers yards …' Alex replied; obviously only half concentrating on what he was saying. 'If a car got smashed up near Old Street, they'd take it somewhere near by, wouldn't they?'

'I suppose so,' Miss Bedfordshire agreed. Jamie couldn't help but think this was a strange and dark conversation to be having.

'Here …' Alex must have found what he was looking for.

'Is this for a school project?' Miss Bedfordshire asked as though she somehow didn't think so.

'Sort of …' Jamie knew he was lying as the only class they weren't together for was Jamie's Politics class so he might. But her friend, Tony, who did Physics with Alex didn't have any so Alex was lying.

'This one's quite near Old Street,' Miss Bedfordshire said as Jamie began to tie back her long, dark locks into a neat pleat.

'Wait!' Jamie looked up letting go of her hair at the excited sound in Jamie's voice.

'That's in Vauxhall,' Miss Bedfordshire said, 'not too far from here.'

'I know. I'll see you, Miss Bedfordshire.'

'Be careful how you go,' Jamie heard Miss Bedfordshire call out to Alex.

Before Jamie left with her school clothes in her bag and jogging clothes on. To Jamie's surprise when she passed Alex's house on the way to her own home Alex's bike wasn't on the grass already as it usually was. Later that day from her window a few houses down Jamie saw Alex cycling slowly back covered in blood and oil, his clothes torn to pieces, with only one shoe.

Spotting Alex the next day in school Jamie noticed how Alex appeared to be having trouble concentrating yet again. The teachers let this slide because they thought he was probably grieving for his uncle. But Jamie couldn't help but wonder what had happened last night. That day after school Alex road off on his bike in the direction of the tube station as Jamie watched. The next day Alex didn't come in. Nor the next…. Nor the next….

But even Alex's friends seemed unconcerned with Alex's mysterious disappearance. They had more exciting things to be talking about; Herod Sayle the multibillionaire computer businessman was giving a Stormbreaker to every school in the country. The whole school was mad about the release of the computers. A few days before the computers were to be activated a computer arrived. Even Jamie who knew next to nothing about computers thought that the computers looked beautiful; sleak and shiny with their unique roundness and lightening bolt finishing it off. Jamie heard the school nerds go on about its memory space and processing power and a bunch of nerd-speak that Jamie didn't understand.

On the first of April just before twelve O'clock the whole school gathered for the countdown to the launch of the Stormbreakers which would allow the secondary school teenagers to go on the computers. Mr. Brey stood at the top talking energetically to the IT teacher, Mr. Stanley. The clock struck twelve and the whole of Brookland leant forwards to where the Prime Minister was about to put the computers on line.

Then … the whole school gasped in unison as the plastic, orange roof smashed open. A young man with blonde hair dressed in black was hanging from a parachute. There was glass and blood everywhere. The Prime Minister was gaping as they saw when the camera was centred on him. Then the first shot was fired; Jamie jumped. Jamie was eager to find out who was shooting …. But the TV screen suddenly went off.

As soon as it did the pupils all around Jamie started whispering excitedly as the teachers exchanged worried looks. All the teachers from Mr. Brey downwards were white as each other. Jamie couldn't help but be excited too; it was so James Bond! One of the computer nerds that Jamie didn't know in Year Seven gingerly pressed the mouse. But nothing happened. The curly girl's face fell but one of the Jocks from Year Seven shouted.

'What do you expect Lizzie they're too busy dealing with the nutter to have activated the Stormbreakes!' the blonde shouted.

A few hours later the news came that Sayle had annoyed some terrorists somewhere down the line and had now gone into hiding. They found out that during Sayle's attack the Prime Minister had been shot once in the hand. But was recovering in an expensive, private hospital which location was undisclosed. But Jamie supposed it was somewhere in London as he lived, worked and was shot in London. Another thing was they were told not to touch the Stormbreakers that they were damaged by some kind of electrical fault and could electrocute them. Jamie thought this was odd considering that this coincided with the shooting too coincidentally. Jamie supposed the man was scared; not that she really blamed him. She had no idea how she would react in the same situation but hoped she'd be braver.