Summer hugged goodbye to Jamie and Chris a good 15 minutes from the school, and took the bus the rest of the way. She needed to look as innocuous as she could, and she definitely can't be seen with Chris.
Although the temptation was huge to dust her old detective cosplay for her first day, she sadly had to decide against it, as it would defeat the purpose of her going incognito. Instead, she chose a plain pair of jeans, a ridiculously colourful tank top of Mouse's, decorated with a beige button-down shirt over it that she kept open. The outfit was not her style at all (save for the button-down), but it fit well with the art major Summer persona that she was going to inhabit for the next couple of days.
When she arrived, her first trip was to the dean's office, to pick up some paperwork that she needed for the late admission. He reassured her once more that everything had been arranged, and that she should be able to attend her first class - titled "Methods for Enhanced Creativity" - without any problem later that day. He then sent her to another room, where someone would look over her papers and finalise her admission.
When she stepped inside, she found herself alone with a guy around her age, sitting behind a large desk. It made sense, of course; real university students had all registered weeks ago.
"Hi," she said shyly. The guy looked up. He had glasses, and strangely inquisitive eyes.
"Hi! Come, take a seat. It won't take a moment. I'll need your papers."
She handed them over. He flipped through the pages in a few seconds, which couldn't have given him enough time to read anything, then nodded.
"Yup. It's all there. Welcome to New Checkland! Honestly, I thought we'd meet here sooner. Although it looks like your detective skills have taken a hit or two."
Wait, what? Summer's mind raced. Has she been made so early? Of course she expected some people to know her, but not the first...
"Matt," she said when she finally realised.
"Summer. That was slow. Good thing you don't major in the art of deduction."
Matt was one of her elementary school classmates. Well, that was not entirely honest. He was the classmate of Summer's for a few months, as far as she was concerned. She had the biggest schoolgirl's crush on him ever, right around the time when she had her first jolt of Nancy Drew obsession. As far as she knew, he never returned her feelings, and then they sort of drifted away. Her last memory of him was at a party when they were sixteen, where he bet her she wouldn't kiss Chris on the mouth. Chris was very confused at first, but she quickly got over it when Summer invited him to participate in the tickling that they agreed on as forfeit.
"I don't suppose you here has anything to do with those girls being tickled, huh?" he asked now. Summer very briefly considered confiding in him, but then decided against it. For all she knew, he might be the perpetrator.
"Girls being tickled?" she asked cluelessly. "Isn't that your whole thing here?"
"You know what I'm talking about. There is no way you just decided to register for fun now. And that you got accepted. We don't do late admission here."
Fair point. Probably no use playing dumb anymore. Now she just had to convince him that he'd discovered all her secrets.
"Okay, fine. I'm here because of the serial ticklings. But it's a secret, okay? I'm undercover. You can't tell anyone."
"Sure, sure." Matt nodded. "I won't. Although, you know... people will ask about you. Because of the late admission thing. I will try very hard not to say anything, but you know how easily rumours are started. Like how someone would know about a bet where one person would tickle another person, and accidentally say something about it to her friend. You can't possibly blame me for that."
Okay, so it looked liked Matt remembered that party as well. Maybe better than Summer would've liked. Chris was a very ruthless tickler when she wanted to be, which evidently had left an impression on him.
But she wouldn't let herself be intimidated that easily.
"If that were to happen," she smiled back at him, "a detective would start to wonder why would a totally innocent guy interfere with her trying to solve a crime."
"Touché. I guess I'll have to hold my tongue."
Phew. That was close.
"Look, Matt, it was nice to see you again. Are we finished?"
"Technically, yes. You have all the necessary requirements."
"Are there any unnecessary ones?"
"There's a test. To see how ticklish you are, and where."
"Is that a not subtle at all way to get back to me?"
"No, this is legit. It's for classes where there's tickling. They say it's easier if they know some stuff beforehand. Here, you even get a card like this." He showed her a card that showed a silhouette of a person, with places around different body parts where a ticklishness score could be written. "It's not mandatory, but most students take it. Unless they come here for something other than studying, you know."
Summer had three choices. She could just call his bluff and refuse the test. That would save her from the tickling, but risk Matt leaking the reason she was there. Or, worse, Matt getting suspicious about why she didn't care more about her secret, and finding out about Jamie, or, worse Chris.
She could also just agree. She had no idea what the test was supposed to look like, but she had a hunch that Matt would be extra thorough with her, since he was obviously still not completely over their last interaction. Which led to option three: try to get on his good side without having to go through with the tickling.
How does Summer decide?
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
