In a small town in Alaska, Colony High School was slowly spiraling out of control after the recent disappearances of our stuff. Phones, pencils, binders, tablets, even some kid’s jacket.  You name it, it’s gone.  But I, Jay Archer, wasn’t willing to just sit around and wait while everyone’s things were being stolen.  No, I formed a group with my two best friends in order to find where the missing items have been hiding.
“By the end of the day, everyone is going to have their stuff back because we are gonna find it all.”  I said as we walked down the hallway dodging the oncoming traffic of mountain-like seniors and scared freshman tracing their path.
“I figured out where we all should go to make sure nobody suspects what we are doing,” whispered Aiden while shifting his stack of books.  “Although we have to be quick about it or else we are never gonna have enough time to finish.”
“What if none of the stuff is even in the school or even…” Jace started saying as he stared at the new girl entering into the room.
“It’s a start,” I interrupted.  After we examined our routes, we headed to first period.  I arrived early, and turned the whole room inside out.  I pulled books off the shelves, flipped desks upside down, and searched through stacks of paper which cause them to fall on the floor, but found nothing.  Then, second, and third, and fourth period went by, and still nothing.  We had to come up with another way to search the school.
“We are staying the night,” Aiden yelled as we exited our fourth period class, “How are we even gonna be able to sneak by without anybody noticing us!”
“We’ll hide in the stalls, where no custodian dares to enter, and then when everyone is gone we’ll go out, like hawks on mice searching for our missing items,”  whispered Jay.  Night fell, and we got by without a trace.  We went out in the hallway, in the pitch black, and started with room 101.  Each room we checked, we found nothing.  We were even starting to doubt ourselves, until...
“Guys, quiet.  There’s someone coming,” Jace said softly.  As we heard the quiet footsteps, we jammed into a custodian closet.  The footsteps got louder, and louder, and at one point we thought they were right outside of the door, but then it went silent.  The only noise we endured was our heavy breathing.  Once we thought it was safe, we slowly inched ourselves out into the hallway, and decided to follow the sound echoing throughout the school.
“I want to go home.  We are gonna get caught,” Jace complained as he blankly stared at the ground.
“I agree, why can’t we just wait til tomorrow,” Aiden added.
“Then leave, give up, go home, but I’m telling you, when you get home you’ll regret not being able to tell the school that we found the missing items,” I whispered as I walked around the corner.  I continued to follow the sound of the footsteps, and as I did I noticed two other pair of footsteps behind me.  It didn’t take me long to figure out what the sound was.  Our paced quickened, which eventually turned into a run after we noticed the decrease in volume of the footsteps.  We ran to the other side of the school, until the sound was screeching in our ears.
“Over here,” Jace said with anticipation, “the sound is coming from in Mr. Dalton’s room.”  We scrammed to the window to witness someone in all black clothes taking stuff out of the desks.  We were speechless.  We ran around the corner, and sat there while letting the fact that we found the thief sink in.
“Was that?” Aiden whispered.
“Uh-huh,” I answered.
“And we,” Jace said with a wide eyed look on his face.
“Yep,” I said.  While we sat there in awe I felt a cold wind from an unknown presence behind me.  I quickly turned around and witnessed a dark silhouette standing behind me.  In fact, it was the same figure we saw in Mr. Dalton’s room.  As the figure came closer the apparition turned into a person.  “Mrs. Appleton, is that you?”
In a clear, yet stern voice she said, “What are you three doing here?”  Completely ignoring my initial question.  We did not know what to say, for she was the reason why we were here.
“Are you the one that has been stealing everyone’s stuff?” questioned Aiden.
“Yes,” she said with a sense of guilt, “but, stealing wasn’t my purpose, I...”
“Then why did you?” Jace quickly said.  He had been standing in the corner not saying anything.
“It was, to teach you kids a lesson.  You see, we grow up our entire lives depending on such little things like phones, pencils, even paper clips, but what you guys don’t realize is that some kids never even get to experience simple things like that in their entire life.  Do you live your life every day thankful for the things you have or do you take them for granted not realizing how significant they really are?”  We stood there thinking, sharing quick glances toward each other.  Maybe she is right, maybe we are so involved in modern advances that we don’t even realize how significant they are.  We thought about this as we exited the school following Mrs. Appleton.