The Mysterious Case of the Missing Graduate
Of all the classmates I've forgotten over the years, Chantel Sankey is not one. An intriguing brunette is how I remember her, a woman with as many neuroses as curves, and as addicted to time as she was tobacco, had I not known better I could have quite fancied her.

Instead I made her the subject of one of my bitchiest comments of all time. Having got into an argument with her boyfriend, I compared her to a car with twenty-something previous careful owners. In a popular public online forum. Not one of my proudest moments.

Even if she never forgave me, Chantel certainly seemed willing to forget, as she later became my number two in organising a national conference. So she was one of the few people I was looking forward to seeing at the university reunion.

Pregnancies, prior engagements and surely a little reluctance to revisit the past had taken their toll on our numbers, so we were only expecting roughly a quarter of the class to paint the Toon red:

Lynsey, still a close friend and the woman who could drive me to write a hundred posts.
David, just as born again as he ever was, who excelled himself by throwing my own glass of red wine over me and then putting some very unwelcome moves on Lyns.
Samantha, who organised the whole thing, and led the revelry with just as much vigour as she had a decade ago.
Stephen, possibly the first openly gay bloke I knew, but not until I'd spent a year thinking he had something going with a girl with whom I was infatuated.
Emma, who had never really been my type, but turned out to have a certain breathtaking and enigmatic allure, which left me wondering about all that which went unsaid.
Beth, who confounded us all by revealing herself to be getting married.
Claire, Joanne, Jayne, Kerry, all something of an unknown quantity compared to the rest.

And Chantel.

As she wasn't everyone's pint of snakebite and black, Samantha, Lynsey, David (and myself by association rather than choice) had spent the afternoon trying to avoid her, even though we knew she was staying in the room opposite the girls.

But as the appointed times and venues came and went it became apparent that Ms Sankey was an absentee.

Had she overheard the whispering and giggling of people trying to avoid her? Had she suddenly regretted making a 500-mile trip to see a bunch of library school students of whom she wasn't particularly fond? Or had she simply got lucky (unlikely, as rumour had it she wanted to steal the limelight with news of impending nuptials and giant shiny ring)?

Lynsey and I were both quite worried, and even Samantha showed a modicum of concern. But not enough for her to join us in knocking on the hotel room door as part of a daring 1am inquiry into why we'd been snubbed. After about four knocks, a man stumbled to the door. Whether or not he'd been warned about the likelihood of two inebriated information scientists waking him in the middle of the night, he denied any knowledge of Chantel Sankey's whereabouts.

So why did she fail to turn up? I'd hate to think we'd upset her in some way. Should we just hope she'll join us in 10 years' time? Or should I try to elicit some response?

Stay tuned for more developments as the investigation continues...