There is a place that no one remembers in a town that no one comes to. That is, no one except for Alan Fandley. He moved to my town of Ardsley, Alabama in 2018. Redsky is the kind of town where nothing interesting ever happens. The news was discontinued because the was nothing to tell the people of our town; until Alan showed up. It was December 24, 2018, when Alan arrived. That night my best friend went missing. That night, my whole world shattered because she was by everything. Her name was Annie McCarther, and she was my best friend. She was the kind of girl that never got in trouble, and never missed school. So,  when she went missing then I knew that something was wrong. That’s when I decided that I would have to find her. My name is Abby Smith and I will find my best friend.

I started at the beginning; the crime scene. Actually, I don’t know where she could’ve gone missing. So currently the beginning is nonexistent. However, I do have some information. I know that she has to text her mom every 30 minutes since her mom is paranoid that she will get lost. Honestly, how could she get lost? It’s a very small town and nobody goes past the wall that surrounds it. As I walked to Annie’s house, I saw Alan. He looked nervous and suspicious. But, right now I needed to focus on where Annie went missing. So I pushed that thought of him to the back of my mind and knocked on the door to Annie’s house. Her mom immediately opened the door and said, “Annies not home Abby.” As she said this, I realized that she had just been crying. So I said, “I know Mrs. McCarther, I actually wanted to talk to you about where she is though.” As I mentioned that I knew that Annie wasn’t home, she said, “I haven’t heard from her since last night, but I do know where she was at 8:30 pm. That’s that last I’ve heard from her since.”

She showed me the text which said, “Just left piano practice, I will be back soon.” As I left Annie’s house, I thought about where she could have gone missing. I know that she passes the cemetery on her way to her house from piano practice. So, where did I go? To the scene of the crime. Or, at least what I thought was the crime scene. When I got there all I found was headstones that dated back to the Civil War. So, basically, I’m no closer to finding Annie than I was 20 minutes ago. I decided to go to her favorite place. Which was the old school house that was used in the early twentieth century. When I got there, I found the bracelet that I had given her for her 14th birthday. She never takes it off, so I knew that someone had taken her.

As I walked to school the next day I ran into Alan again. I waved for him to come over. As he came over his whole attitude changed. Instead of being nervous and suspicious, he was confident and happy. “Hi,” I said as he came over. “Hey, what’s up?” was his response. I decided to ask him about Annie. “Have you seen my friend Annie?” I asked. “Yeah, I saw her yesterday after school. She helped me with my math homework,” he said. I was about to ask what time he had seen her at when Carter came over. Carter is a boy in my grade that knows everything about anything. As he came up to me he said, “Are you looking for Annie? She told me that she was going to stay with her grandparents for a while.” As I thought about what he said I realized that it couldn’t be true. Her grandparents were dead, and she doesn’t have any money to pay for a bus ticket to go anywhere. So she had to by in Ardsley still.

As I walked home from school, I decided to walk past the old school house. As I looked at the building, I saw a path that had recently been walked through. I debated leaving that mystery for tomorrow, but I couldn’t get the question out of my head. “Why was that there?” I asked myself over and over again. I walked over to the path and saw that the path went down to the creek that runs around the wall. I also saw a little light in the distance. I ran towards it and immediately got hit over the head. The last thing I saw was Annie standing over me smiling. She looked Synyster and proud of what she had done. I guess I should’ve stayed out of her business.