╔══════════════╗

Curious Case of the Boarders

╚══════════════╝

"Oh, Florence dear, come on in." Marilla Cuthbert sent the younger girl a soft smile as she stepped aside to let her inside. "How was your vacation?"

"Far from a vacation, really," Florence responded truthfully as she leaned against the now shut doorway. "It wasn't all that terrible, though. Got to visit my parents again."

Marilla noticed the slight sadness behind the younger girl's eyes, but it disappeared almost instantly, making her believe that she was just seeing things. Reaching out and patting her back, she started, "Anne's just up in her room. Go on ahead, I'll send you both something to eat."

"Thank you."

When Marilla had stepped away to tend back to her duties in the kitchen, Florence sighed contently as she glanced around the Cuthbert residence. The place certainly looked the same, but there was a kind of fullness in the air that she couldn't pinpoint. Perhaps it was because of the fact that the Cuthberts now had a few guests staying in their home. Scientists, to be exact. Just when the girl began to make her way up the stairs, she heard a loud familiar squeal fast approaching her.

"Florence, you're here!" Anne bombarded the brunette in a tight embrace, and Florence took a second to calm herself at the suddenness. She returned the hug and murmured a soft greeting.

"I haven't seen you in days," Anne said, letting go of the hug but still intertwining hands. "How was Alberta? Was it as cold as everyone says it is?"

For a few days, Florence and her grandparents had taken a short trip back to their home province, Alberta, to settle some last bit of financial matters. The trip required her to pass up a few days of school, and although she knew that she'd miss her friends, she was very glad to have been missing everything else.

"Spring is just starting there, so it's not that cold right now," Florence explained, "But I don't understand why it snows in the middle of April. I lived there at one point, but the weather there will never ever make sense to me."

"Well, you're here now." Anne wrapped a friendly arm around the girl's shoulder as she led her upstairs to her room. "And at what great timing, too. I've got something I want to show you."

***

"A book," Florence said rather boredly, looking down at the cover of the scientific novel. "You wanted to show me a book."

"Not just any book. Nate gave it to me, something about how it'll help me to understand gold a little more."

"Nate . . . he's one of your boarders, right?" Florence wondered, earning a nod. "I'll be honest with you. I have an odd feeling about that guy."

"How strange . . ." Anne fisted her hand under her chin with curiosity. "Jerry said the same thing to me earlier today."

Well, that should mean something, right? Florence wondered absentmindedly to herself. Two people having an odd feeling about the same person? Plus, knowing Jerry for as long as she did, Florence knew that regardless if she was just being paranoid, Jerry had certainly seen a lot more than her in his life so far; met different people, different lifestyles . . . so he probably knew what he was saying. Shaking her head, she eased herself away from her thoughts.

Florence picked up a gingersnap cookie from the plate across from her and threw it into her mouth, grinning with delight. As she leaned her back against the headboard of the bed, she said, "It's for reasons like that that Jerry is one of my favourite people."

Anne scrunched up her nose with irritation. "What about me?"

"I suppose you come in . . . third place."

"Third?" Anne repeated dubiously. "Then who's second?"

"Jerry."

"First?"

"Me, of course." Florence sent the redhead a cheeky smile as she chewed on the admittedly delicious cookie. She recognized Marilla's baking, and this didn't taste like hers. One of the borders maybe? She knew that one of them had a rather passion for baking, so if it was theirs . . . Maybe the borders weren't as bad as she once thought them to be. Not all of them, at least.

"Oh, my . . . I need that kind of confidence."

"Well, you've come to the right person."

Anne smiled but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Florence recognized the look immediately; hesitation and doubt, and was that perhaps a little annoyance? She straightened up her posture and gave the younger girl a look of concern.

"There's something else, isn't there?" She asked quietly and Anne bit her lip. "Come on, tell me. Did someone say something at school?"

"Oh, no, no, it's nothing like that," Anne quickly said, "The girls have been decently okay around me this year. Except for the occasional remarks, but nothing like last year."

"Okay, then what? Are you missing Gilbert⸺"

"NO! At least, not as much as a certain someone, huh?" Anne mustered up a smirk, and just as Florence was about to interject, she continued with a sigh, "It's Nate, actually. This morning, he showed me a sample of what he said was apparently gold. But it's weird . . . it didn't seem like gold. I've read through the book he gave me, and I now have a pretty good idea of what real gold is supposed to look like, and when I tried mentioning that to him ⸺ he got all defensive and upset with me. I don't know . . . call me crazy but something just isn't adding up."

The brunette took all of that in silently as she raised her brows with suspicion. It was clear now that it wasn't just Jerry and herself that found the boarders (Nate, particularly) to be not what they appeared as. Taking hold of the scientific book which had been momentarily discarded to the floor, Florence slowly flipped through the pages until she landed on one in particular which showed a thorough sketch and some detail on the characteristics of gold.

Glancing up from the book to Anne, Florence nodded. "I believe you, Anne. It's not much, but I think that this book has given us a good sum of detail. The little notes along the margins suggest that Nate must have read the book at one point or another, assuming that he was the one to have written them in the first place . . . But he clearly didn't pay much attention to particular areas, such as the chapters about gold. And he perhaps didn't remember that these parts existed, that too in such refined detail and that you could possibly be so invested. And so, when you tried correcting him about the sample, he became upset only because he already knew that what he showed you was not gold."

Anne cleared her throat, her throat suddenly feeling dry at the very logical thinking. "You're right. I think you're right, Flo. But, what do you think this means?"

"I'm not sure," Florence said hesitantly, "But I do know that we shouldn't just wait around to find out."

***

Later that day, Florence paced around the Cuthbert residence searching high and low for any sort of paper. She was all out in her own home and she also knew that Anne didn't have any with her. Since Marilla and Matthew had been busy the entire day, she didn't have the guts to ask them if they had any. Just about giving up hope, she realized that she hadn't yet asked the boarders whether they had any. If there was one person she didn't care even a little about bothering, it had to be the boarders.

Stopping outside of Nate's bedroom, she raised her hand to knock but stopped mid-air as the door was opened, and standing there was the guy himself. He leaned against the doorway, not yet letting her in. "Hey, you. Need something?"

"Um . . . I'm out of paper, but I really need some." To plot against you.

Nate stood quietly for a moment as he stared down at the younger girl strangely, and just as it was about to become awkward, he grinned and opened the door wider for her to come through. "Sure. I have some that you can have. Why don't you come inside?"

Why should I? Florence would've normally asked with annoyance had she not been asking for a favour. Instead, she shook her head calmly and remained in her stance outside of the room.

Nate disappeared further inside his room, opened up his wardrobe, and scrummaged around for a second before returning to her with a couple of blank sheets of paper. Florence's eyes lit up as she reached for the paper, but narrowed her eyes when Nate pulled them away from her grasp.

"First, you have to tell me your name," he proposed. Oh, God. Could she please just have at least one normal day? Just one day; that was all she was asking for.

Ugh . . . "It's Florence."

Grinning lopsidedly, Nate finally reached out with the sheets of paper again and Florence quickly grabbed it from him this time to prevent him from stealing it away like before. Although she wanted nothing more than to get away from this suspicious man with the even more suspicious work, she was still taught manners by her parents. So, she said loud enough for him to hear, "Thank you."

"No worries, beautiful." He winked at her before shutting the door.

Florence couldn't help the obvious sneer from appearing on her face. It seemed that there were creepy men everywhere she went nowadays. Last year, it was her teacher, and this year it was a house guest? The nerve of those men . . . absolutely disgusted her.

Well, at least she didn't have to deal with this forever. The boarders were only here temporarily, until the end of the Spring harvest to be exact, so she didn't have to worry about seeing Nate's ugly aura again. Plus, if she was able to find enough evidence against the boarders, she knew that that would make all the difference, and perhaps they'll be gone far before that.

Only time could tell.

---

Author's Note:

First update in a while, huh? I kind of just thought of an idea and decided to go along with it. I can't promise when the next update will be (not weekly like usual), but I can guarantee that it will definitely be worth the wait, however long it takes for me to write and publish it.

Let me know what you think?