Read The Institute for Free Online Page B

said.
    “Look at the
dates Allira,” she says pointing to the files.
    Upon closer
inspection I realise the files are divided into groups, each have a
year on the top right corner. Some of these files date back to
twenty years ago. As I’m quickly going through them I realise,
clusters of people go missing every couple of years. It’s not a
continuous flow of disappearing people, they all disappear within a
year of each other and then nothing – it just stops – until a
couple of years later when it starts again.
    I come across
the group from the year my mother went missing. Will her file be in
here? She is technically still missing I guess, but do I want to
look at it? I’m staring at the files and I don’t know what to do.
I’m about to start looking for hers when Ebbodine’s mum reaches for
my hand.
    “It’s not in
there, it was one of the first files I looked at. I can give it to
you, if you really want, but I don’t think there will be anything
in there that will help how you’re feeling right now,” she
says.
    She’s probably
right but curiosity is getting the better of me. I have to see that
file. My face must say it all because without even asking for it,
she hands me my mother’s file.
    “Is it okay if
I take this home with me?” I want to read it, but in my own time
and when I can be by myself.
    “Sure sweetie.
But I need it back by tomorrow morning, that’s when the police are
coming back to collect them.”
    Mum was already
gone when we moved to this town so she never met Ebbodine or her
family but everyone knows of her disappearance, especially Ebb. I
would tell her stories of my mother all the time. She’s really the
only person I have spoken to about my mum. But now another thought
crosses my mind. While Ebbodine may not have known my mother, she
is friends with me. Is she linked to my mother enough to bring any
sort of investigation upon our family?
    I put my mum’s
file in my bag to take home and read later. It’s hard for me not to
read it right here and now but I really do want to be alone to do
it.
    Ebbodine’s mum
answers the phone as Drew and I continue to look over the files in
front of us but I don’t recognise anyone until we get near the
bottom of the pile, the most recent disappearances.
    I don’t know if
reading these is going to be helpful to me at all but it’s keeping
my hands and my mind busy so I just keep reading.
    As I reach for
the last file, I immediately recognise the person’s photo, his name
escapes me but I definitely know this person from somewhere. The
file says his name is Chad Williams. I know him, I know I do, but
from where?
    “Oh hey, that’s
that substitute teacher from last year. I think he’s actually Mr.
Williams’ son. That’s what I heard at school anyway,” Drew says as
he looks over my shoulder.
    “I knew he
looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. I never had him for a
class last year but I must have seen him around school,” I say.
    “Well he used
to go to our school too. It was before I got here but apparently he
graduated high school, went away for a year and came back as a
teacher. I remember that because Jax complained that it was weird
having a friend suddenly be your teacher,” Drew explains.
    No wonder he
looked familiar.
    “It says he
only went missing a week ago?” I read. I wonder if he and Ebbodine
have met the same fate. Did Ebbodine know Chad? If I recognised
him, surely she would have known who he was too. “Mrs. Marshall,
this boy, he went to school with us, he was apparently a teacher
last year too. Is that the kind of thing the police wanted to know?
Maybe they knew each other?” I call out to Ebb’s mum.
    She comes over
and looks at the file, leans down and gives me a hug. “It’s exactly
the kind of thing they are looking for. Thank you Allira,” she says
with an edge of hope in her voice.
    She places the
file on the bench, away from the others so as not to get them mixed
up.
    Drew and I read
all of the