Meeting!

“Thank you all for joining the squad. I’d like to have a club meeting this afternoon so we can discuss the clues we have so far.” announced Mona to the other girls before classes started.

“Where will this meeting find place?” Nia asked. “I don’t have much time”

“In your dorm room our usual hangout spot Mona?” asks Ti.

Mona wanted to instinctively say yes, but then she was reminded of Mr cat. She can’t have Ti find out so they decided on going to have a little picnic outside of the school.

“I’ll see you at 3:00 PM then!”

 “Three 3:00 PM what?” asked Rose who just walked in on the conversation.

“Ehhmmmm” a shocked Mona didn’t really know how to get them out of this

“We are doing some studying” said Nia, knowing that Rose wouldn’t be interested in that.

The park

At 3:00 PM the girls met again in the park close to their school. Once they found a sunny spot in the middle of the park they lay down their picnic cloth and all sit down in a circle.

 “Alright, glad that everyone is here! Who brought something to eat? I am starving!”

 “Mona, weren’t you gonna bring some cookies?” asked Ti.

 “I were… but I ate them all on the way here… ehh”

 “Disappointing” Ti responded.

 “Actually, I have some cookies.” said Nia.

 “Not that I baked them for this or something, they are leftover from cooking class” she quickly added in an angry voice.

“I don’t remember baking cookies today…” mumbled Mona, since they are in the same cooking class.

After eating a whole lot of cookies, the girls finally started discussing the topic on hand.

“I’d like to show you what I’ve been working on” said Mona and grabbed up a big notebook that she brought from her dorm room. When Mona opened the book and showed it to the other girls, they didn’t know what to make from it at first. The combination of Mona’s messy handwriting, poorly drawn stick figures, and way too many lines made it hard to follow for the other girls at first. But it was clear it was some kind of diagram connecting different incidents, people, and locations.

 When Mona saw the other girls confused faces, she started to explain her diagram by walking the girls through it.

“You did a great job of explaining Mona, but I got one question.” Ti said after listening to Mona’s explanation. 

“What is the big question mark in the middle of it all?”

 “Not a what, a who. I’ll call this person Mrs. X, the missing link we need to find to solve all of this.”

“How sure are you person X is a woman? It could also be a man right?” asked Ti while her voice sounded a little shaky.

 “Well, this Mrs is likely a former student that used to be in the robotics club. And since this school is only for girls, I figure it will be a woman”

“Right…” said Ti.

“Okay Mona, this is all really nice, but how are we ever going to find this mysterious person? It’s not like they will just randomly walk up to us or something”

“Well Nia, that is where I need your help, we need to think of ways to discover her identity.”

“Maybe just ask the school?”

“I already tried asking the science teacher, but I don’t think we are gonna get much more out of him.”

 “What about the headmaster?” asks Nia.

“Well, I think I already visited him enough for this year… I don’t plan to get in any more trouble”

 “Mona, you have to put in some effort to get your whole little mystery solved. I am only here since you blackmailed me”

 “Blackmail? that is a serious crime Mona!” said Ti. Mona took a deep sigh.

“Firstly, that isn’t true, Nia you’re lying, and secondly how is this gonna help us with the investigation?” Serena who had been here the whole time laid her hand on Mona’s in an attempt to cool down the starting argument.

“So Nia, do you know of any other friends Rose has that could be this Mrs. X?”

“I don’t think so. If it weren’t for me being her roommate she would be a total loner” Not helpful at all…

After a while, the group suddenly got interrupted by a strange woman they didn’t recognize.

 Excuse me girls, can I ask you a question?

 “Sure you can ask, but I don’t know if I feel like answering”

“Mona! Excuse me for my friend ma’am she can be a little rude sometimes.” said Ti, really annoyed with her friend's lack of manner, ironic for someone training to be a servant.

“Haha… it’s okay.. you remind me of my younger self.” responded the woman, a little shocked by Mona’s answer.

 “The question I wanted to ask is where to find the train station?”

“At the other side of the park miss” Ti pointed to the big building.

“Well thank you girls, have a nice afternoon.” The women walked away

After she was out of sight Mona joked: “Maybe she needs new glasses, it’s hard to miss those neon signs on top.”

“Well Mona, maybe she is new to the city and doesn’t know the logos yet.”

Suddenly the girls noticed Serena was shaking and nervously twisting her hair.

 “What is going on Serena, could you explain?” asked a worried Mona.

But Serena only started to become more nervous since she now was the middle point of the attention. She quietly shook her head. The girls decided to end their picnic and head back to the school’s dorm building.

The dorms

Later that day, Mona and Serena were back alone in their dorm room. Since Serena still looked a bit stressed, Mona picked up the cat and put it on Serena’s lap.

“Petting him works wonders doesn’t it?” Serena nodded her head in agreement.

 “You like cats a lot don’t you?”

 “We should buy you a pair of Neko ears, you’ll be a cat maid”

Serena quietly whispered: “Please don’t”

“I am just joking, sorry for stressing you out again Serena” said Mona with a wink. 

A little later that day, Serena came to Mona who was playing a video game.

“Wait for a second, I almost finished the level.”

Mona laid down the controller and looked in Serena’s direction.

“So what did you want to tell me?”

Serena started looking really anxious again and stuttered some words.

“The p.p.parkk … Mrs. X… direct.t.tions.”

“Ah, so you're explaining to me why you started shaking in the park all of a sudden?”

 “Maybe you can write down what you wanted to tell me. Here you can use my notebook.”

Mona took a look at what Serena had written down and suddenly had a big grin on her face.

“So you’re saying the woman we met in the park is in fact Mrs. X? Did you recognize her from a photo in the robotics club yearbook? You're a genius, Serena. She has a really distinctive look to her doesn’t she?”

 “I…I am sorry for not speaking”

 “It’s fine Serena, we will track her down so we can interrogate her!”

 “I need to tell Ti and Nia!”

“She might be on to us” said Ti when Mona told her.

“Her asking for the train station was kind of odd since it was so obvious”

“So you think I was right Ti-chan?” said Mona with a smirk.

 “You still don’t need to be so rude about it!”

 “We have to track her down.”

 “Let’s have a meeting tomorrow, it’s late already…” proposed Mona.

After coming back to her own dorm room, Serena still looked a bit bumped out.

“Don’t blame yourself Serena.”

Mona looked over at her GameSphere and suddenly had an idea how to calm Serena down.

“Serena, I don’t think we ever played a game together. This one is really easy, even Ti can do it.”

Serena didn’t want to at first but after Mona showed herself playing the game for a bit Serena decided to join her.

“You beat me!” exclaimed Mona. They had a really fun time and stayed up gaming way too late.