Derek Anderson

**Derek Anderson** is a teacher at Split River High School.

## History

### Helping Maddie

Mr. Anderson noticed that one of his students, Maddie Nears, seemed to be struggling. He reached out to her and shared his experience being the child of an alcoholic. She denied that anything was wrong, but he gave her his number and told him to call anytime if she needed something. He made good on this promise when Maddie called him in the middle of the night. She claimed she'd been driving to get her mom some food and got distracted, resulting in a crash. Anderson noticed her mom passed out on the backseat and asked if Maddie was sure that was what happened. Maddie said yes and that them taking away her license was better than them taking away her mom. Anderson drove her mom home, then came back to talk to the insurance company with her.

### School Assembly

Mr. Anderson was in the hallway during the senior assembly when he spotted Nicole Herrera posting missing persons posters to lockers, asking if anyone had seen the recently-missing Maddie. He asked if she was going to go back to the assembly, but she told him the assembly was a joke.

### Police Investigation

With Maddie still gone, Mr. Anderson struggled to grade her final paper. He was still struggling when Simon came to him and gave him a piece of metal he believed was part of Maddie's phone, which Simon had found in the auto shop. During his next class, Mr. Anderson was showing Frankenstein when the police came in with dogs. He asked them to come back later, but a dog sniffed Maddie's paper first.

That night, Mr. Anderson went to the auto shop, where he surprised Simon, who was also there. He told Simon he should let the people in charge do their jobs and figure out what happened to Maddie. Anderson walked Simon out to his car, saying he was trying to avoid Simon getting in trouble. Simon asked Mr. Anderson what he was doing in the autoshop so late, but Anderson didn't answer. He got Simon into his car and told him to be safe.

Simon later found Mr. Anderson and asked him what the police said when he turned over the piece of Maddie's phone. Mr. Anderson admitted he hadn't given it to them yet because he didn't trust the people in charge. Until he knew what was going on, he was going to play it safe.

After his interaction, Mr. Anderson called Claire and told her they'd already done things her way and now they were going to do things his way. He regretted giving Maddie money.

### Arrest

The police came to the school to question Mr. Anderson when Simon reported that Anderson had a large amount of cash stored in the wall of his room. However, the police searched and found nothing. He told them that Simon Elroy had given him a piece of Maddie's broken phone.

Mr. Anderson was at a faculty meeting when Simon came in with proof that Mr. Anderson had pocketed the money meant to buy new band uniforms and instead sewed new patches on the old uniforms to pass them off as new. Mr. Anderson was taken away by the police for questioning.

Mr. Anderson was placed on administrative leave as the police investigated the theft of the money. Claire came to his house and asked him what he'd told the police. He told her he'd told them the truth, that he stole the money to pay off his father's debts and he was with his father when Maddie disappeared. When she asked if he'd mentioned her blackmailing him in exchange for him giving her straight As, he said he couldn't remember and asked her to leave.

## Career

He is an English teacher at Split River High School.

## Notes and Trivia

* He doesn't care if his students swear if it's in the name of literature.
* He overacts the witches in Macbeth.
* His house number is 5325.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Dead and Confused
2. ↑ My So-Called Death
3. ↑ The Fault of Our Scars
4. ↑ Ghoul Intentions
5. ↑ The Twilight End Zone
6. ↑ The Twilight End Zone