Vanishing act: The mystery of Isabella’s disappearance

For this edition our creative writing brief was: Write a story or a poem in a genre of your choice to go with the title “The Missing Person”. This is one of our entries from partner school Robert Smyth.

The alarm sounds and Lucy opens her eyes. She lifts her head and looks around the room, yesterday’s clothes are in a pile where she took them off the previous evening. She pulls back the duvet and feels the brisk coldness of the room, quickly she pulls the cover back and shivers. She doesn’t feel like going to work and then she remembers she’s meeting Isabella after work and with that thought in her mind she jumps out of bed and heads into the bathroom.

Lucy jumps onto the bus heading into town, the office that Lucy works in is not far from the bus station. Lucy gets into the office at 8:55am just in time to get a cup of coffee before starting work. Lucy’s phone buzzes and she picks it up and looks at it, it was a text from Isabella. “Hey, we still good for 17:45?” The next minute a thumbs up emoji appears on Lucy’s text. The day goes quickly and when Lucy looks up at the clock hanging on the wall, she realises that it is already 17:30. She gulps her cup of coffee down and gets up from her chair to leave.

She waves for a taxi as she doesn’t want to be late meeting up with Isabella. She tells the driver that she is going to the cinema and then she starts to ponder over how she met Isabella at school and all the good times she had with her at school and how they became inseparable as friends. Before long the taxi pulls up in front of the cinema. She checks her phone, it’s 17:40 so she has a couple of minutes to spare. She pays the taxi driver and gets out.

She sees Isabella and waves – Isabella waves back and smiles. Isabella is wearing a dress with a jacket and some flats, and her hair is in a slick back ponytail.

“Where are we going to go?” asks Lucy. Isabella tells Lucy that there is a band playing at The Greyhound pub. “I can’t stay out too late I have work in the morning.” Says Lucy.

They head off to The Greyhound chatting as they go.

Lucy pushes open the door. The bar is fuller than the last time they went. Lucy turns to Isabella, “I’ll get the drinks, you get the table.” Lucy makes her way to the bar, catching the bartender’s eye, who then comes over to her. “How can I help?” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “Two large white wines”, Lucy responds. She scans the bar to see where Isabella is sitting. She has found a table with two seats quite close to the stage with a great view of the band. As the band starts to play Lucy and Isabella get up and start to dance. Time flies by and Lucy looks at her watch and sees that is it already 21:30. She must go or else she will not make her last bus home. They make their way outside and say goodbye and Lucy goes to the bus station while Isabella goes off to catch the train home. Lucy boards her bus and gets home about 21:55 and goes straight to bed.

Next day…

The alarm goes off and Lucy opens her eyes, she is feeling a bit worse for wear. She slowly makes her way to the bathroom and while she’s cleaning her teeth she hears her phone going off multiple times. She looks at her phone, not recognising the number, but she decides to still answer it. She picks up, not saying anything, waiting for the other person to say something. The person on the other end says, “Hello is that, Lucy?” in a questioning voice. Lucy answers “Yes, how can I help you?” The voices says: “I’m Isabella’s mum, did Isabella stay with you last night? I know you two were planning to meet up yesterday evening.” Lucy replies “No, we left The Greyhound together, and she was getting the train back home on her own. Have you phoned the hospital or the police?”

Isabella’s mum says, “No I didn’t know if she decided to stay with you.”

Lucy replies “I think the first thing we need to do is report her missing to the police.”

“I will go to the police station and report her missing or see if she is there.” Isabella’s mum responds.

Lucy adds, “I will call the hospitals to see if she is there.” They frantically phone for information about Isabella and they have no luck at all, even the police say they can’t file a missing report until she has been missing for twenty-four hours. Isabella’s mum says, “There isn’t anything we can do until the twenty-four hours are up.”

Lucy finishes getting ready and heads off to work still with Isabella on her mind and where she could be. Time goes by at work and then she has a phone call recognising the number as Isabella’s. She rushes to pick up the phone and it is Isabella.

Lucy screams in a worried voice, “Where have you been?”

Isabella replies, “I just fell asleep on the train and the train went straight to London. There weren’t any more trains left for the night and my phone was dead, so I stayed in a hotel for the night until the trains were back on.”

Lucy replies, “Have you spoken to your mother to let her know you are safe, she tried to report you missing to the police.”

Isabella responds “Yes, I spoke to her when I got home as my phone ran out of charge and I couldn’t call her.”

Please note: All articles written by young people are fictional in nature and nothing is to be taken as fact.