Don’t Judge a Magazine by its Cover

By Haseeb Seyyad, age 12

The only important material in life is money.

Those words were spoken by Alex’s father, Peter Wolfe.

Whether the statement is true or not, Alex believed it gave a rather good insight into the sort of person her father was and why someone would want him dead.

Peter Wolfe owned a soap business. A very successful one. His company was known for its strange combinations it used to scent its soap. Such as, pineapple and vanilla, or blueberries and pumpkin.

Peter Wolfe was a father. He was married to Judith Wolfe and had a single child. A girl named Alex. He struggled to see his family, since he worked many hours.

Peter Wolfe was a narcissist. Ever since he began his company. He believed he was the greatest of them all and would flail his arms around like a two year old child if you didn’t get his desired attention.

Peter Wolfe was dead. (If you didn’t guess already).

To put it simply, Peter Wolfe was found strangled in his office on September 15th 1959. Alex was only six years old.

The blame was put on 66 year old George Clinton. An old employee of Peter. His motive being jealousy and pure insanity. 

Alex Wolfe didn’t buy it.

==================================================================

August 28th 1966

The girl opened her eyes. There was no way Alex Wolfe had overslept again. Not that she really cared. Babysitting was just useless to her.

She casually threw off her pyjamas and pulled on her wide legged jeans with a turtleneck shirt. Alex Wolfe also didn’t do skirts. It often got her in trouble at school.

Grabbing a cookie from the cookie jar in her room, she exited the cottage she shared with her mother and took the red bicycle from the shed to get to the Lemming’s house.

The house was nothing special. Just your average house that was filled with golden baths and thirty two rooms.

Swallowing the last of her cookie, she threw her bike into the surrounding bushes and waltzed into the house humming her newest favourite song. The door was always left open for Alex.

Now getting to her favourite part, she spun round tapping her fingers to the rhythm across the flowery patterned mansion walls.

It was nice, this feeling. Dancing because nobody could see her.

‘’Ah! There you are, Alex!’’ A voice called behind her.

It was Mrs. Lemming. Mrs Lemming was strikingly beautiful. She wore dresses fit for galas even in the comfort of her own home. It was what made her feel like HER. Today she was wearing a slim fit sparkly teal gown which tailed behind her on the ground.

‘’How are you, darling?’’ She put her well groomed hand on Alex’s shoulder.

‘’Could be better.’’ Alex rolled her eyes.

Mrs. Lemming was extremely fond of Alex and often wished her own children would look up to Alex as a role model. This feeling was, unfortunately, unrequited. Alex found Mrs. Lemming nosy. She always had to know what was happening in Alex’s life and Alex being the person she was, wasn’t really an oversharer and found Mrs. Lemmings nosiness annoying.

After the usual ordeal of Alex’s vague answers and Mrs. Lemmings constant prying, Alex was eventually guided to the room of children Alex was to babysit.

‘’Here’s my little sunshines!’’ Mrs. Lemming exclaimed as she opened the room where the kids were sitting.

Alex didn’t see in the slightest how little children were ‘’sunshines’’. All they did was run around, scream and fight with each other.

‘’I DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE, MUMMY!’’ Scarlet, the youngest, wailed.

She did this every time her mother left the house. Which was every single day. (Alex didn’t babysit every single day, she only babysat on Sundays.)

Mrs. Lemming calmed Scarlet down and headed out the house. She was going to brunch with her friends. Alex knew this because Mrs. Lemming also had a habit of oversharing.

‘’So, you’re back again.’’ A voice, again, called from behind Alex.

This time it was someone Alex genuinely liked being around. It was Chester Lemming. Chester was the eldest of the Lemming kids and was the same age as Alex. His mum didn’t trust him to look after the children so she hired babysitters and Chester hated each and everyone of them. Chester was blessed with the looks of his mother. He had wavy, brown, curly hair and green eyes like a snake’s.  Although, he didn’t see this as a blessing as he got recognized everywhere he went.

Alex liked being around him because he was an interesting person Alex just couldn’t figure out. Alex was very good at ‘’reading the room’’. She could tell how to approach you by just looking at you for a few seconds. But Chester, he never showed any emotion, wore all black, and never let any personality show. He was a brick wall and Alex was adamant to figure him out.

As for Chester’s view of Alex, he wasn’t quite sure. She wasn’t the worst babysitter he had met. She knew her boundaries and never really talked to him. But, he had caught her staring at him more than once but he was fine with that as long as she didn’t try and become friends with him. Over time, however, Chester had kind of grown on Alex and was kind of happy there was someone his age near him, even if they didn’t communicate.

‘’Unfortunately, yes. I am back.’’ Alex waved in Chester’s direction.

This was pretty much how every one of their conversations went.

‘’I’M BORED.’’ Scarlet wailed once again.

‘’I just got here! How can you be bored already?’’ Alex asked.

‘’Because it’s YOU. You’re such a boring babysitter, you make us sit in this room and PLAY.’’ 

‘’Well I’m sorry I want to keep you alive.’’ Alex rolled her eyes. Scarlet was ridiculous and had never liked Alex at all.

‘’Take them to the corner shop.’’ Chester said. Alex had completely forgotten he was still standing there.

‘’Oh, YES! Let’s go, Alex! It’ll be fun. We can buy chocolates!’’ Jesse, the youngest brother, exclaimed. 

Alex wasn’t sure. Yes, she needed to go anyway, because the new magazines were being released today but she couldn’t look properly if she was looking after four children.

‘’I’m not sure… I’’’

‘’Look, they’ve all got their own pocket money and if you want, I’ll come too so you can browse those stupid magazines you like to read.’’ Chester proposed already handing his siblings their coats and shoes he’d pulled out of thin air. 

‘’They’re not stupid, but fine. Where is their pocket money?’’ Alex asked.

She still had this underlying feeling that something was going to go wrong but if there were two of them, surely they could handle four children. How hard could it be?

=================================================================

Cold and wet Britain. How lovely.

Alex was kicking herself. She should’ve taken a coat with her.

‘’That was stupid of you.’’ Chester remarked as they walked down the street holding one child in each of their hands. 

‘’Yeah well, it’s the middle of summer.’’ Alex shivered.

‘’It’s also England.’’ Chester stated.

Chester stopped. He told Scarlet and Jesse to stand on the side and started to shrug off his coat.

‘’What’re you doing?’’ Alex asked.

‘’You see, I was smart enough this morning to wear many layers of clothing whereas you decided to wear a thin turtleneck. So, being the amazing person I am, I’ve decided that you can wear my coat until we get back.’’ He handed his coat over.

‘’Thanks?’’ Alex said sceptically as she took the coat. 

They stopped outside the local corner shop.

‘’YAY!’’ The kids screamed in unison as they all ran inside the store. Alex sighed and followed them in. 

Going straight to the back, Alex saw a glimpse of the new magazines. The Sunday Times has released a new one! Picking it up, Alex could already tell it was going to be good. ‘Every Girl for themselves.’ 

‘’PArIs, eVeRY GIrL fOr tHeMSeLvEs!’’ Chester mocked snatching the magazine from her hands.

‘’Do you always have to sneak up on me?’’ Alex said.

Flicking through the magazine, Chester stopped at a page.

‘’This guy’s going to try to sail around the world!’’ He showed Alex the article. 

Rolling her eyes she snatched the magazine and took it to the counter. It would take her entire pocket money this week to afford it.

==================================================================

‘’HEY!’’

‘’Aren’t you supposed to be babysitting?!’’ Chester held Alex’s new magazine above his head.

Shoving past him she took it back and sat down with Jesse.

‘’What’s in that magazine?!’’ Jesse shouted it and snatched it.

Sighing, Alex gave up fighting for the right to enjoy her magazine.

She stared at a photo frame. It was of all the Lemming family together, looking happy. Alex always felt jealous when she saw other kids with their dads. Her dad was barely even around and then he died. Alex always felt like she never got to know her father.

‘’What’s this?’’ Jesse snapped her out of her trance.

It was a piece of paper. What did it say? It had a whole paragraph and it was all these random letters.

‘’It’s a code.’’ Chester called from behind her, snatching it from her hands.

‘’Stop snatching things from me.’’ Alex tried to get it back.

‘’AH! It’s a substitution cipher!’’ Chester called, grabbing a piece of paper and decoding it.

‘’How do you know that?’’

‘’We learnt about it in school.’’ He said, concentrating.

He stopped. With a gentle expression on his face, he turned to Alex.

‘’Alex, I don’t think you want to see this.’’ 

‘’What do you mean?’’ She snatched it from Chester.

‘’August 28th. That’s the date you must kill Mr. Lemming at midnight. Murderous wife ,huh? The most powerful man in town’s wife hired people to kill the husband for money.  Reminds you of Mrs. Wolfe, huh. Killing off her husband for money. The kill must be quick and clean. No blood. Blame it on a heart attack. We don’t want to blame an innocent person again like George.

Axel  Harrison’’

‘’I KNEW IT.’’ Alex screamed. ‘’I just didn’t think it was mum’s fault.’’

Chester stood still. 

‘’Mum’s killing Dad.’’

‘’She won’t. We’ll stop her.’’ Alex didn’t want a redo of 1959. She knew the kids would never get over their dad’s death.

==================================================================

Hiding in a closet, Alex began to cry. She barely ever cried but she couldn’t believe her sweet little lady she thought was her mum was murderous. For money. She put her greediness ahead of her family’s completeness.

It was almost midnight. The house was still and Alex’s almost silent sobs were the only noise.

‘Buck up’ she thought. Wiping her tears away, she got out the closet and crept towards Chester and shook him awake.

‘’AUHTGDGDSUGHHHH’’  Chester groaned.

‘’Get up!’’ Alex carried on shaking him.

Limply, he dragged himself out and headed into the bathroom to splash water on his face.

‘’So, what’s the plan?’’ He asked.

‘’There’s no plan.’’ 

‘’What?’’

‘’We’ll just wing it.’’

She took Chester's arm and dragged him into his parent’s room, being as quiet as she could.

‘’I’ll hide in the closet, you hide under the bed so you can have easy access to the phone to phone the police.’’ Alex wasn’t really sure what she was doing but she couldn’t just let their dad die.

The window next to the bed slid open. A hooded figure in black slipped in and took a metal object out their pocket. A gun. Being as silent as they could, they crept over to Mrs. Lemming and shook her awake. Chester froze still, staring at this person’s feet as they told her to scream as loud as she could.

Mrs. Lemming’s ear-splitting scream split through the dead silence and almost immediately Mr.Lemming sat up in his bed. It was sad seeing Mr. Lemming care for Mrs. Lemming when she didn’t want anything to do with him. 

Chester couldn’t wait any longer. He lunged out underneath the bed and hit the murderer’s legs at a force he didn’t know he was capable of.

It was like a scene out of an action movie and Alex saw it all.

However, Alex couldn’t just wait here and do nothing. Taking a deep breath in, she lunged out of the cupboard and dialled 999 as quickly as she could before anyone could stop her.

A hand cupped her mouth. Mrs. Lemming.

‘’You meddling kids!’’ she shrieked.

The police picked up.

Chester glimpsed over at the phone and over at the person trying to kill his dad, who was still lying on the floor in pain. Running over to the phone, he rehearsed what he was going to say.

==================================================================

It was a normal night at the police station. A young intern, Susan Swift, was enjoying a cup of tea with a ginger snap biscuit when the phone rang.

‘’Hello, Metropolitan Police.’’ She picked up the phone.

No-one answered.

‘’Hello?’’ She asked again.

She sighed. A prank call.

‘’Hello!’’ A voice called from the phone. It sounded scared and weak.

‘’What’s your emergency?’’ Susan said following protocol.

‘’I need the police at 29 Brook Avenue. A hitman and my mother are trying to kill my dad. My friend and I found a note explaining what’s happening. These people also killed Mr. Wolfe. We need help! Please!’’ 

Susan knew this was something serious.

==================================================================

Everything happened in slow motion. The police taking the criminals away. Alex and Chester being questioned by police. Mr. Lemming being explained about the whole situation.

After this happened, Alex and Chester thought it was best not to see each other. They’d see each other on the streets but would only wave and wish the traumatic experience would be forgotten so they could get through their lives.

Alex still couldn’t believe it was her mum behind the murders. It made her sick. But it all became very real when she first put into the adoption system. She also got to meet George Clinton. He was probably the nicest person she’d ever met and she apologised for his time in jail.

Chester had never liked his mother but his heart still ached knowing that she’d do such a thing for money. The hitman himself was a retired teacher and was sentenced to jail for life for the murder of Mr. Wolfe and Axel Harrison’s entire hitman service were all arrested. Chester’s siblings had been told about the situation and were all dealing in their different ways whilst their dad struggled to work and be a single dad at the same time. He could barely look at Chester. He looked too close to the woman who tried to kill him.

It was crazy this all happened because Alex Wolfe picked up a magazine with a note inside at the newsagents.