Summary – A Musical at the local high school results in several mystery murders.

The Murder's of Sweeny High

Chapter 1

"'ANSON! 'ENHALL! 'OFFS!" the sound pervaded the air like an elephant that had just sneezed. Of course, Tom hadn't ever heard an elephant sneeze but he figured that it was close enough to it. He, Doug and Judy made their way through the chaos of the church office to Fuller's office. Inside, the man was blowing into a napkin.

"Whoa! What snuck up your nose and died?" Penhall asked.

"Don't 'tart, 'enhall!" Fuller replied with a glare, which was effectively dismissed when he sneezed again. Penhall and Hanson had to hide their smiles when Fuller looked back up.

"There is the 'eport," he said, he didn't feel like talking. Hanson picked it up and the three left the office, the elephant sneezed once more and they burst into laughter.

"Oh man! That was great!" Doug chuffed.

"Yeah," Tom agreed.

"Look at that," Judy said, throwing the report into their faces.

"Oh look, a musical…I can't sing!" Doug said.

"I hate to sing. I used to take singing lessons when I was in high school. It was a nightmare!" Judy said.

"What about you Tom, can you sing?"

"Er – well…no…not me!" Tom said as he walked away from the two. Doug and Judy smiled as they followed – this would be fun

---

.

He stood on the stage apposite a lovely black lady. She wore jeans and a sweat shirt that was ripped at the shoulder; it fell low enough to show a bit of her braw. Tom felt a bit out of his league. Just because he had started a rock band didn't mean he was into musicals. Even if it was a deranged musical about a barber who killed people and his love who baked them into pies. It really was a stupid idea.

"What do you want me to do?" he glared as the music teacher gave him some directions.

"Just sing the lines,"

"You want me to sing the lines!?" Tom asked, "Are you joking!!"

"No, now go on…" she insisted.

"Oh fine…."

"Mrs. Lovett what a charming notion, what lovely practical and appropriate as always, Mrs. Lovett. How I've lived without you all these years I'll know! How delectable, also undetectable…How choice how rare! For what's that sound of the world out there?"

His partner started up; "What Mr. Todd, what Mr. Todd? What is that sound?"

"Those crunching noises pervading the air!"

"Yes Mr. Todd, Yes Mr. Todd what are those sound all around?"

"Its men devouring men my dear…"

And together: "And who are we to deny it here!"

"Yes, yes!" the music teacher clapped her hands happily, glasses slipped off.

"You, Thomas are my Sweeney Todd!"

There was absolutely no applause in the room.

---

"Oooooh! I didn't know you could sing that well, Tommy-boy!" Doug heckled his friend. Tom gave him a look while throwing a stale fry Doug's way. Tom dressed like a nerd, well, not a real nerd. More like a sophisticated nerd. Button down shirt, jeans, black trainers, his hair hadn't been combed at all and he wore wire rimmed glasses. Doug was more of the punk/rock type with a few piercings, a white tank top, jeans a black leather jacket with the logo of a death metal band emblem sewed on and a red bandana. He wore stark white face paint and his eyes were rimmed in black.

"Shove off, dolt!" Tom replied to his "Agressor". The two had decided to play the bully game. Doug was bigger than Tom and he actually liked being a bully. The McQaude brothers were less rough with each other. This little scene was hopefully going to set them up in different parks of the student body.

"What? What did you call me?" Doug glared at the other kid.

"Dolt, it means that you are a MORON!" Tom replied. Doug didn't stop to think, he threw the tray out of the other student's hands and a fist clobbered Tom across the jaw.

"I'm not slow,"

"Yeah? Well don't look now because here comes the Principal," Tom smirked. Indeed, the Principal, Wallace, was making it their way. He glared at Doug as he took a look at Tom's face.

"It'll bruise, I'm sure," he then turned to Doug, "And you, to my office," and marched a rather protesting Doug off the scene. Tom and the other students watched, Tom hadn't been expecting that – he hoped that the little visit to the principal's office wouldn't hurt their case. He would have to talk to Doug about it, see if they can't set up another little fight, maybe someplace not so crowded.

"Hey! Sweeney!" Tom looked around as the name was shouted. At first he was sure that the person meant Doug, but when he saw a bright haired girl wave him over to a table – he went. He probably was referring to her.

"My name is Tom," he said as he sat down.

"I'm Raychel, and that's, Greg, Janet, and Kyle," she said as she pointed to each student. Raychel and Janet looked exactly the same. Bright red hair, green eyes, pale skin. Rachel wore jeans and a poke-dotted shirt while Janet wore trainer's, a skirt and leg warmers with a white sweater. Greg was a prep, he wore black pants, a button downed red shirt and a black sports coat, Kyle was you quintessential goth. Black, wild hair, wild make up, and loads of earrings and tattoos.

"Hey, so…what'd you need?" Tom asked. Not sure exactly how to open up the conversation.

"You're new, ain't ya?" Janet asked.

"Yeah,"

"If there is anything you need to know about Sweeney High…" Greg started.

"It's that you need to know about Sweeney Todd himself," Kyle finished.

"Oh?" Tom asked.

"You see, Sweeney High was started by Bill Harding, he had this theory that he was an ancestor of a bastard child of Sweeney Todd's – that of his lover Margaret Lovett. Anyway, while on a trip to London, he stopped by the New Gate Prison to find the bones of his lost Ancestor, Sweeney. Anyway, we figured he got them, don't know how," Janet explained.

"Wait a second, you think that your Harding fellow filched the bones of Sweeney Todd?"

"And came back to New York City to set up shop. Actually, he didn't begin Sweeney High, his youngest daughter, Charlene did. She was a school teacher and didn't like the learning system, so she set up Sweeney High after her great grandfather in order to teach kids properly," Raychel said.

"We've seen the bones, they're in the crypt," Kyle said.

"Crypt? A real crypt is under the school?"

"Well, no not really, they are house on the grounds though," Greg shrugged.

"Odd,"

"Charlene is dead now, mysterious death we're told," Janet said.

"Yes, it all started with her boyfriend,"

"Boyfriend?" Tom asked.

"Charlene was a harlot," Kyle started, "She slept with any man she could get her hands on. She was steady with one dude though, Fancied himself the Cadaver of Theatre. He was in a short film about Jack the Ripper and was educated in England,"

"It's said that he and Charlene Harding met each other in London, At the New Gate Museum. They became friends and sooner or later, Charlene flew him to America to stay with her in her fancy up town apartment," Greg said.

"How do you know all of this?" Tom asked, interrupting the story.

"Don't interrupt it ain't polite. Anyways, we read a lot, we're the Literature Club," Janet explained. Tom made an "Oh, that explains it all!" look as his new acquaintances went on with the story.

"Either way you look at it, the boyfriend had to do it. He had been staying with Charlene for two months when he found out that she was cheating on him. Well, we've read in all the news papers that he went crazy and killed her. With an old shaving knife. The sort of prop you'll get in the Sweeney Todd Play," Greg said.

"He slit his girlfriends throat?" Tom asked.

"He slit the throat of the guy she was with when he walked in, then he tied her up and made her watch as he stripped the body of meet. Then he baked it up and made her eat it. Apparently, she was so traumatized by this that she went crazy, went to Westminster Hospital," Raychel said.

"Woa! That's deep," Tom whistled.

"Yeah, but not as bad as what happened after. Sure, Sweeney Todd really was a real barber who killed his clients and had Lovett make them into pies. But its worse than that, He was deported, he said that she just went mad on the guy and had killed her himself. The Doctors cant make head nor hair of what she say's and so they said she was crazy, her boyfriend left the country never to be heard from except…" Janet trailed off.

"What?"

"Well, we think he might be back," she replied.

"The boyfriend who supposedly killed a man, made his girl eat it, making her crazy, is back in town?"

"I walked in on the first murder…" Raychel started.

"Are you sure you should be telling him this?" Kyle asked.

"Everyone knows, so what difference does it make?"

"You might be made into a pie next," Greg said.

"Go on, what did you see?" Tom asked, trying to look as interested in the morbid tail as he possibly could.

"I…I was going to Mrs. Waters class room to see if I couldn't talk over my grades with her. Well, the door was unlocked, I even knocked to see if she would answer it for me. When I walked in…She was completely decapitated. Her head was on the other side of the room on a pike! Blood pooled on the ground, slowly growing cold. Even the room was cold. I couldn't do anything for half a second before I dropped my books and ran to the Principal," Raychel said.

"That is heavy, real heavy," Tom muttered, filling the story back in a file in his head so that he could write it up later.

"Since then I never come to school alone. Either Greg or Kyle will walk with me and Janet," Raychel said.

"How come your even talking about it?"

"It's an interesting story, don't you think?" Raychel asked.

"I guess that's why you went all narrator on me?"

"Yeah, only way I can actually talk about it,"

"Say, why don't you come over to the house after school?" Kyle asked.

"House?"

"Yeah, Kyle's grandmother gave him a house, he lives there on his own but sometimes we meet up after school. Maybe we can get into the play some more. You know, we are in charge of the character costumes. Maybe we can do something different for Sweeney instead of what the movies always do," Greg said.

"Nice," Janet, Raychel and Kyle agreed at once.

They looked to Tom who felt right out of place at the moment; "Sure, sounds good to me, can you give me some directions?" Tom asked.

---

"All right, stick with it," Fuller said. He wasn't as stopped up as he had been the morning before, feeling much better today, he got more of his work done. A knock on his door and he waved in Hoffs and Penhall.

"What have you found out?" he asked.

"Hanson has a nice singing voice," Penhall joked.

"Seriously, is there anything?" Fuller asked.

"Yeah, so far as the students tell it, there have been six Sweeney Murder's. The first was Mrs. Joan Waters, the second was Horace Jenson, third was Jasmine Van Sickle, and the fourth was Walter Trype. The last two are mysteries, but I think there has to be some connection, these two murders was that of John Millington and Jack Davenport(1)." Hoffs explained.

"Oh? How so?" Fuller asked.

"Well, the last two victims were never found, but the investigators said that they found pies in the school kitchen – they took the pies in as evidence, but nothing came of it. The students say that the last two victims were the pie filling,"

"Than how do they know the victims names?" Doug asked.

"Like you don't know? The only two missing person's who went to the school. They were juvenile delinquents, set on torturing the school. Maybe, if Sweeney still exists, maybe he decided to actually have them rest in pieces," Hoffs said.

"See where else this gets you," Fuller said, Hoffs and Penhall nodded their heads as they started out of the office; "Oh and Penhall, I heard about the bruise you gave Hanson, can't you be a bit more gentle?"

"What? And let him walk all over me? No way man!" Penhall replied before shutting the door.

---

Tom was surprised to see the house that Kyle's grandmother had given to him in her will. It was huge, bricked and looked to be the sort of house a well to do family would live in, not some out of the gutter kid who didn't pass in school. Kyle, however, was glad to be away from family. This was only agreed too if he actually went to school, pulled up his grades and stopped with the drugs. That was just the will of the parents though. Kyle's Grandmother loved him, she didn't put anything on the ownership of the house. Only that he be happy.

Either way, Tom was just glad that he didn't have to arrest Kyle for being a crack head. Kyle had been clean for two years now, he was just realizing how hard that lifestyle had been for him. That was where Janet, Raychel and Greg came into the picture. Janet and Raychel really were twins, they liked different things, like music and clothing and their favorite programs on television. However, they loved books. Greg was a bit different though, he was from a well to do family, was going to college to become a financial advisor – but he really wanted to write. More than anything in the world did he want to become a published writer. In fact, he was the only writer in the group. He had a book on the side he was working on in secret. He said he would have a different name for the book but that he would still get the money from it. A private bank account in one that his father did not own would see to his privacy.

Tom being the odd one in the bunch had just said that his dad had been gunned down as a child and he and his mother had spent their time moving from once place to another, trying to scrape enough together to live. That is, till she married again and the finances were steady enough for him to actually go to school. He was dropped to freshman level, but that really didn't bother him. He drove up in his blue mustang to find the group on the porch. He grabbed his bag before exiting the car.

"We've been thinking a lot about your character, and we think it'd be great if you died part of hair," Janet said.

"What?"

"We just want one white streak, just one!" Raychel said.

"It would be cool," Kyle agreed.

"I suggest that you say yes, it would get those three to shut up for a while,"

"Oh fine, I suppose…"

"Great! Come on!" Raychel grabbed his hand and led him through the house to the kitchen where a make shift barber shop had been set up.

"Your not going to make me into pie are you?" Tom asked.

"Why would we do that? It's just hair dying anyway," Janet shrugged.

"Oh, well that makes me feel oh so much better!"

"Good, on you get," Raychel made Tom sit down.

"So, just one, is it?" Tom asked.

"Yeah, we'll make your hair look weird, but it'll be a great asset to your character," Kyle said.

"Let's hope it comes out all right," Tom muttered.

"Well, while they are doing that, let's talk about a book," Greg said.

"What do you read, Tom?" Janet asked.

"Well, I didn't have much time for reading, but my favorite was "Treasure Island"," Tom said.

"You Into pirates? We were thinking of writing that one up as a play but it just didn't work. And besides, this would be the first time that the school did something of its name sake," Greg said.

"That's interesting," Tom said.

Jane combed his hair a bit before Raychel put the died to it. It took them no more than fifteen minutes to apply the glop – it took twenty for it to set before Tom could wash his hair out. After this, they set about gathering old chests from the attic to look through.

"Wow, your Grandmom has a lot of stuff," Greg said as he and Tom lugged down a huge chest.

"If we can find my granddad's old set of cheers and shaving knives we could probably use them as a prop or something," Kyle said.

"Would the Principle go for that? Since they're real and all?"

"They're old, wouldn't cut anything," Kyle shrugged.

---

"What did you do?" Doug asked as he met up with Tom later that afternoon at the Church on 21 Jump Street. Tom gave him a look that could have killed.

"It's part of the character," he sighed.

"You look…like your about to kill someone with you bad singing!" Doug laughed. Tom went to hit him, but the older man ducked and ran up the stairs with Tom right behind him. They made a wild circle around the room before Doug ran into Captain Fuller. Tom ran into Doug and they both tumbled to the floor.

"What are you two doing?" Fuller asked.

"Committing homicide," Tom replied.

"Does that mean I'm dead?" Doug asked.

"From my death glare!"

"What death glare? That wouldn't even kill a hardened murderer!" Doug barked.

"Get into my office," Fuller said with a roll of his eyes. The two complied.

"All right, what do we have so far?" Fuller asked.

"We have at least six to seven murders, and the last two made into pies," Doug said.

"I've gotten into the Literary Club, they were very happy to inform me of the tragedy behind Sweeny High,"

"Oh?" Fuller asked.

"Yeah, love triangle you know. A girl gets with a guy, then he goes away fro a while, she gets with another dude, first guy kills the dude, that sort of thing,"

"At least we have something, get back to it boys," Fuller said.

---

A/N – Okay, There is nothing like this in this section and this idea just hit me. My favorite character is Tom Hanson, he has a predominate roll in the second season and that's all I've seen so far. And yes, I am having Tom's costume for the play be what I've seen in screen caps of Sweeny Todd. I know I got that one line in the song wrong, so don't get on me about it, my bf borrowed the special edition copy of the cd that I have and I had to go by the music.

Anyway – Yes, I am linking the newest JD film to Jump Street, so sue me!

1 – I couldn't figure out a name to put to this. So I decided on Jack Davenport. He did the worst death scene I've ever had the privilege to see. I did better in my class when we did Augustus Caesar! lol

Please review and tell me what you think!

ta,

Dizzy