About a week ago, the school’s student council was in session, reviewing income from their latest fundraiser. “I just don’t get it,” said sophomore member Jasmine Linh. “We should’ve gotten way more than this. The tickets to view the pie-eating contest were two bucks each, but the whole auditorium was completely full. Maybe we would’ve gotten five or six hundred, but only four?”

“Doug and I counted it up ourselves, and that’s what there is,” retorted the senior head of treasury Mat Carter. As he said this though, he seemed suspiciously defensive. Doug Bryant, who was sitting to his right, stayed silent but he tensed at his friend’s reply. Or rather his partner in crime’s reply. There would have been more money, yes, if only it wasn’t embezzled by these two seemingly innocent boys.

I interviewed Kate Ferrars, head of the Briar Woods Integrity Section (BWIS), to get the scoop on how she and her team caught the wayward youths.

“First of all, the number of people who attended that day and the amount of money we got just didn’t match up. And then Mat and Doug just seemed off… definitely out of character. Both of them. My subordinate officers and I knew we had to take action. Now we couldn’t just confront them on it. Who would admit to stealing money? I had some of my team members keep an eye on them in classes they shared.” It was this clever idea of espionage that gave them reason to believe their suspicions were true. I later interviewed one of the BWIS field operatives that made an observation on what cracked the case wide open. The student chose not to disclose their name or grade but allowed me to quote them in this article. “It happened a few minutes before AP English started. Doug just entered the room and walked up to Mat’s desk. He leaned in to whisper to him, but I was just close enough to hear. He said, ‘Where’s my cut, man?’ To which Mat replied, ‘Under the bleachers, 4:15.’”

The student relayed this information to Kate, who then shared the situation with the rest of the council. Under the bleachers at 4:15 that day, Doug and Mat were met with both executive SCA presidents, a school officer, and Mrs. Alzate herself. All the money was returned to the council, and the boys received a week-long suspension as well as being banned from running for office again.

 In the aftermath of this, I interviewed one of the  SCA executive presidents Maya Goodman. When I asked her what she thought of the boys’ actions, she said, “Everyone knew that half the proceeds were going to be donated to the Kiddo’s with Coughs Foundation. I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that they would knowingly take money that would go to such an important cause.” With the money returned, over three hundred dollars were donated to charity, and the rest went towards efforts to keep improving the school.