“Dear Alia, Your boyfriend is being held ransom at the House on Grape Street, you must skip class and come here if you want him to live.” Alia looked up, frowning. “Who wrote this?”

I shrugged, placing my books inside of my locker. “Not sure. Probably just the freshmen playing a prank on you.”

“Or the juniors,” Alia said wryly.

It was always the freshmen or the juniors. The freshmen were the youngest and liked playing pranks, and the batch of juniors this year didn’t like the seniors and also liked playing pranks. Least of all they liked the Head Girl, Alia Roberts. Alia was nice, but she was a stickler for the rules. Even I couldn’t deny that. Alia said that she liked order, and anyway, she was genuinely helpful and responsible. She was honest and genuine, too, and never pretended so she could get into teachers’ good books. But others didn’t think so. This was typically the juniors, who thought they were better than the sophomores and freshmen, who were younger than them, and the seniors, who they thought acted elitist. Which was dumb because the juniors were the ones thinking they were the best. Hence the pranking.

“Anyway, Harrison can’t be at Grape Street,” Alia was saying. “He’s right there.” She pointed to the figure of her boyfriend, Harrison Cooper.

“Definitely a freshman,” I said. “An inexperienced pranker.”

“Yup,” Alia nodded, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get to class.” She gave Harrison a kiss on the cheek before walking to Mr. Tanner’s classroom.

I didn’t think things were weird at all, until sixth period. Harrison was supposed to be in our history class, but he wasn’t, for some strange reason. I hadn’t noticed until Alia poked my shoulder ten minutes into class and whispered, “Hey, where’s Harrison?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s late.”

He wasn’t late. In fact, he wasn’t even there at all. I could tell Alia was growing more and more worried, thinking that he was at the House on Grape Street.

The second class got out, she whipped out her phone and started texting. Even in the noisy hallway full of students coming and going and trying to get to various places, I could hear the small clicks of the on screen keyboard. “Everything okay?” I asked Alia.

“Mm hm,” she nodded absentmindedly, focused on her phone. I stood in the hallway, glancing around me in case Harrison mysteriously showed.

He didn’t. “Alia? Is he replying?” I asked.

“No,” Alia said, shoving her phone into the pocket of her skirt. “I’m going to go to Grape Street. See what’s going on.”

Grape Street was a street a few blocks from our house. It was a town legend that there was a house on it that was haunted. The property was owned by the woman who lived next door, Mrs. Dawson, who was actually a pretty nice, normal old lady from what I’ve heard, but people still think her house is rather shady.

“You can’t seriously think that note was telling the truth?” I asked.

“No. Of course not. But it’s something,” Alia said. “Maybe the pranker planned this out and didn’t give me the note at the right time.”

The Alia Roberts I know wouldn’t believe this. But something is off. I just wish I knew what.