#gone guy

( @blizzardmuses )

The next day saw Tim being absent in school, so did the day after and the day after that, till the science exam came around and despite all the hard work Barbara put into him, Timothy Hunter did not show.

Odd that the teachers did not seem to notice his absence, odder still that he had no form or manner of contact. The boy had no cell-phone, no friends, his disappearance was pretty much treated as if he did not even exist.

Avery, the girl who sat next to him in English class looked apathetic.

"Who? Oh, you mean that really creepy lanky guy? Dunno, probably sick or something, who knows. He's so weird, he uses a cookie tin for a pencil case! Eeew? Gross."

Sean, the guy who sat behind him during History shook his head.

"Huh? There's someone sitting in front of me? You gotta be kidding, the seat’s been empty all term!”

Devi and Ravi, the twins looked at each other and shrugged.

“We see him sometimes, but yeah not recently. Maybe he’s been sick? Not surprising, he’s always kind of dirty…”

Tim’s locker was unlocked, he never bothered to lock it. The contents within were neat and tidy. Donated dog-eared books, a small stack of art room sketchpads, a rusty biscuit tin filled with colour pencils and markers. The sketchpads contained Tim’s scribbles of local birds and ferns, some buildings, and some people. He drew the pakistani twins. He drew Avery’s side profile. He drew Barbara, perhaps a bit more than others. Most of her sketches looked annoyed or exasperated.

Amongst the things was a small locket with a photo of a woman inside. There was a newspaper cut-out of Zatanna’s performance show-times and another of Rose Occult’s Dior endorsement pasted on the locker door. Below that was a list of nutritious foods for barn owls, and another list of no-gos that a particular barn owl liked to eat.

There was also a small origami box made from folded newspaper. Inside were all sorts of stationery odds and ends. Paper clips, Blue Tac, scissors and screws. One particular item in the assortment for some reason stood out: a very worn screwdriver.

“Maybe he moved back to the UK or wherever else he came from,” Said Alysia, one of Barbara’s friends.

“Yeah maybe he just forgot to tell you.”