JUST A FRIEND.

Charles took it upon himself to find out the culprit, who shot Mr. Myles. He went to Rodney's hideout: a garage in one of Scorpion X's house. Charles could perceive the awful smell of petrol, mixed with the smell of smokes emanating from the cigar Rodney was holding.

'Hello, Rodney.' Charles greets as he sits on a chair.

'Does your boss want the gun? You can have it.' He gives Charles the gun. To his surprise Charles points the gun at him.

'Tell me what you wanted from Mr. Myles?' Charles asks furiously.

'Charles you do know my father, Scorpion X. He'll roast you if he hears about this.' Rodney says proudly, smiling devilishly.

Charles knew Scorpion X very well, and he was not ready to die yet, so he puts down the gun.

'Rodney, if I find out you're the culprit, I will kill you myself.' Charles says.

Rodney laughs. He gusts smokes from his mouth, and says, 'really? I'm waiting for that day; that day you'll pull the trigger.' He pauses and frowns. 'Charles you fight a war that is bigger than you.'

Charles walks away from Rodney, who is not shaken by the threats.

In the morning, Oliver woke up early. He was yet to decide if to go to school or not. Well, if he didn't go to school he won't learn new information about his mom. So he made a good choice to go to school. He dressed up for school and off he went.

He came pretty late to school, so he couldn't meet Vanya before the class of the day. During break, he meets Vanya at the cafeteria. She was all alone, eating her lunch.

'Hello, Vanya.' Oliver greets sitting beside her.

'Hello, Oliver. How are you?' Vanya says with a smile.

'I'm fine. The other day, you said you would help me search for my mom.' Oliver says, sounding serious.

'Certainly, I said so.' Vanya replies.

'You can have the picture.' Oliver hands over a copy of his mom's picture to her. When she saw this picture the second time it reminded her of Asantel Dion, Stanley's mom. So this was what felt strange about Asantel. She looked just like this woman in the picture, Oliver's mom. But Oliver's mom is a bit darker.

'What's your mom's name?' Vanya asks curiously.

'I don't really know; but behind this picture, a name is written on it.' Oliver utters with a puzzled look.

'What name?'

'It's Chantelle.' Oliver says.

'Chantelle – Asantel. Do you agree with me that these two names sound alike?' Vanya asks Oliver, who is very confused now.

Vanya holds up a fashion magazine, which she got from the library. She points to a picture of Asantel Dion. Then, she compares Oliver's mom – The picture looked very alike.

'It may be true that Asantel Dion is your mom, Chantelle; but, you can't possibly be Stanley's brother.' Vanya says.

'I don't know. My Dad said that my mom got married to another man, but he never told me who.' Oliver confesses.

Now, they both were very confused. Vanya takes the picture and walks to the ICT unit, and Oliver follows suit. As they reached the unit, Vanya scans the picture and uploads it on the web browser. Then, she searches for all other pictures that looked like this one. Most of the pictures she saw were Asantel's.

'What's your surname again?' Vanya asks.

'It's Oliver, uh… I meant it is Sparrow.' Oliver answers carelessly.

Vanya types in Chantelle Sparrow into the search area.

There were no details of Chantelle Sparrow. It looked like her personal information was removed from the web by someone.

'We have to meet Asantel Dion; she's the key to this puzzle,' Vanya advices.

'How do we meet her?' Oliver asks.

'She's Stanley's mom. If we can get him to call his mom, it will be easy to meet Asantel.'

'What if she's… truly my mom?'

'At that moment, we'll know what to do.'

The two leave the ICT unit, and walk back to the cafeteria. Charlotte and Maryam noticed that Vanya and Oliver were walking together and talking – strange, they thought. They walk to the two.

'Hello, Vanya. Hello, new boy.' Charlotte greets.

'Hello, Vanya.' Maryam says and sits close to Oliver. 'Hello, cute boy,' she says to Oliver.

'Hello, Charlotte. Hello, Maryam.' Vanya greets back.

Charlotte moves closer to Vanya and whispers into her ears, 'How is it that you're talking to the alleged thief?'

'He's not a thief. He told me the reason for what happened earlier.' Vanya replies.

'Awwwwn, so cute; Why are you the only one he told – He likes you, right?' Charlotte concludes.

'No! It's nothing like that.'

They both look at Oliver, who was obviously listening to their conversation. Suddenly, Angel walks to Oliver, and sits with him.

'Oliver, why did you leave me all alone in that lonely class?' Angel asks sweetly, sitting closer.

Oliver was surprised with the question. But she was his first friend in this school, or maybe Angel is taking the friendship too far. She saw him in the middle of a conversation and this is how she behaved; not good. He just admired Vanya as she talked. Beautiful, smart and goodhearted, were the qualities of Vanya.

The conversation between Vanya and Oliver turned into a conversation among a peer group.

At the end of school, Oliver was walking in the hallway when he saw two boys talking trash about Vanya.

'Who's the boss, if it's not that blonde fool, Vanya?' The first boy mocks Vanya, and laughs.

'She's very rude, even to her mama.' The second boy speaks, and the two laugh.

'Hey! That's not a nice thing to say about someone's mother.' Oliver interrupts.

'Look who's here; Vanya's boyfriend.' The first boy smirks.

'Of course, I would love to be her boyfriend; she's actually the best girl I've ever met. You guys won't understand when you're busy gossiping and insulting,' Oliver utters, and leaves the two annoyed boys.

Vanya was eavesdropping, so she heard all what Oliver said. She was quite happy. No boy had ever defended her like this before; it was the first for her.