Amanda Lester and the Red Spider Rumpus

by Paula Berinstein

  “This is terrible,” Amanda said to Ivy outside Thrillkill’s office. “Eustace is a good guy. He would never do something like that.”

  “I know,” said Ivy. “He wants to be a detective so much. I heard him with Sidebotham when he applied—”

  Amanda started. “What?”

  “I heard him talking to Professor Sidebotham one day when he was bringing his application—OMG!”

  “You don’t think—” said Amanda.

  “Never,” said Ivy.

  “Never what?” said Simon, coming out of Thrillkill’s office.

  “Professor Sidebotham,” said Ivy. “It couldn’t have been her, could it?”

  “With the monkeys?” said Simon. “Surely you jest.”

  “Isn’t she more likely than Eustace?” said Amanda.

  Simon scrunched up his face and ran back into Thrillkill’s office. In two seconds he emerged again, grabbed the girls, and dragged them in after him.

  “Tell Professor Thrillkill what you told me,” said Simon.

  “Um,” said Ivy. She looked extremely uncomfortable.

  “We think Professor Sidebotham stole the secrets,” Amanda blurted out.

  “What?” said Thrillkill. He looked so mad she was afraid he’d throw them out. Then a weird look came over his face and he said, “By golly, I hadn’t thought of her. Why would she—”

  “Was she a mole, Professor?” said Amanda.

  “I’ve known Trixie Sidebotham for decades,” said Thrillkill, who was looking absolutely baffled. “There is zero chance she would turn on us.”

  “So you still think it’s Eustace then?” said Simon.

  “A choice between Eustace and Professor Sidebotham,” said Ivy. “How awful.”

  “Why would she even do it though?” said Amanda.

  “Let’s think this through,” said Thrillkill. “Professor Sidebotham would not turn on the detectives. Professor Sidebotham removed the secrets from the trove. Therefore . . .” He drummed his fingers on his desk.

  “She was protecting them,” said Simon.

  “Without telling anyone?” said Ivy.

  “Maybe she didn’t get the chance,” said Amanda. The woman had died suddenly. Who knew what she might have left undone?

  “Has anyone checked her office?” said Ivy.

  “It’s been emptied,” said Thrillkill. He was a million miles away.

  “And you didn’t find anything,” said Amanda.

  “Nothing about the secrets or monkeys or anything related,” said Thrillkill.

  “Then it can’t be her,” said Ivy.

  “I wouldn’t necessarily say that,” said Thrillkill, his speech speeding up. He sounded especially French when he got excited, and between the accent and the velocity, sometimes Amanda couldn’t understand him

  “Wouldn’t she have kept a record?” said Ivy.

  “Not if she wanted complete security,” said Thrillkill. “Of all the—”

  “This is crazy,” said Simon. “Why would the acting headmaster of the best detective school in the world bring in a bunch of monkeys to steal our secrets and not leave word? Wait, I take that back. Forget the part about leaving word.”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Thrillkill. “She was quite a woman.”

  “So you don’t think it was Eustace anymore?” said Amanda, hoping against hope that her friend would be cleared.

  “We can’t be certain,” said Thrillkill. “But Professor Sidebotham is a possibility. Unfortunately there’s no way to interrogate her so we’ll have to come up with something else.”

  The kids left Thrillkill’s office in a daze. No one could believe that Eustace had made off with the secrets, but no one could believe that Professor Sidebotham had done it either.

  “Maybe we should try a different angle,” said Ivy.

  “Like what?” said Amanda.

  “We think we know the why, at least if it was Professor Sidebotham.”

  “To protect the secrets,” said Simon. “Maybe she didn’t trust the wretches to guard them.”

  “Right,” said Ivy. “What about the how though?”

  “Monkeys,” said Amanda. “What a weird idea.”

  “Yes,” said Ivy, “but if that’s true, what happened to the secrets? How would they have got them out of the tunnels? By walking down the hall?”

  “Wow,” said Amanda. “I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

  “And now?” said Simon.

  The kids thought for a while and then Simon said, “Boat.”

  “Boat?” said Ivy.

  “Of course,” said Simon. “The monkeys exited via the lake gate and loaded the secrets onto a boat. But they couldn’t have driven the boat. Hm. There might be a flaw there. There are always people here. Someone would have seen.”

  “Not in the middle of the night,” said Amanda.

  “You’re right,” said Simon. “That might just have been possible. Although I’ve seen Professor Scribbish prowling around—”

  “Hang on,” said Amanda. “What were you doing messing around in the middle of the night, Simon?”

  He gave her a sly look. “Nothing you need concern yourself with.”

  Amanda frowned. “Maybe it was you then.”

  Simon ignored her. “Somehow these monkeys got into the school. Sidebotham let them in, drove the boat, and tampered with the video.”

  “I feel like I’m in the middle of the Twilight Zone,” said Ivy. “Whoever heard of such a thing? She’s too old to do all that. Was too old.”

  “Why do you say that?” said Simon. “Driving a boat isn’t hard. And she certainly could have manipulated the video.”

  “Where did she get these monkeys?” said Ivy. “They’d have to be trained. You can’t just tell a monkey, ‘Go into these tunnels, take pieces of paper out of the drawers, and put them on a boat.’”

  “Not an ordinary monkey,” said Amanda. “But you can do that with a trained monkey.” And she was beginning to realize exactly what kind of trained monkey. It was so simple.

  “Where would she get a bunch of trained monkeys?” said Simon.

  “Movies,” said Amanda. “An animal company. Find the company, solve the mystery.”

  When Clive and Holmes heard about Amanda, Simon, and Ivy’s theories they were incredulous.

  “I know you know a lot about movies, Amanda,” said Holmes, “but don’t you think this is a bit farfetched?”

  “Nuh uh,” she said. “Movie trainers can work wonders.”

  “Yes,” said Clive, “but do you really think old Sidebotham would have even thought of such a thing?”

  “The woman who was so astute she fooled us every time we took a quiz?” said Simon. “Yes.”

  “But it’s too imaginative,” said Clive.

  “I’m sure she could do it,” said Holmes, giving Amanda a pointed look. “She was a very talented woman.” For a second Amanda wondered whether he was actually talking about Professor Sidebotham. His attention made her uncomfortable.

  “All right, Scapulus,” said Ivy. “Let’s say you’re right. If that’s the case, maybe we can find the trainer who provided the monkeys.”

  “Now you’re talking,” said Holmes, glancing at Amanda again. She wished he’d stop doing that.

  He grabbed his phone and started to search.

  “Hm, hm, hm,” he muttered. “There seems to be only one in this area. It’s in Manchester.” He looked up. “Pretty close to here. Sounds promising.”

  “Let’s phone them,” said Amanda. “You do it, Simon.”

  “Why me?” said Simon.

  “You sound grown up.” So did Holmes but she didn’t want to go there.

  “You know more about this kind of thing,” said Simon.

  “I sound like I’m thirteen,” said Amanda.

  “So what?” said Ivy. “You’re allowed to ask questions.”

  Amanda glanced at Holmes. He was grinning at her. “Go ahead,” he said. “You’ll be smashing.” Th
en he winked.

  “Okay,” said Amanda uncomfortably. “What’s the number?”

  She took out her phone and called the animal company. When the fellow on the other end answered, she said, “Uh, hello. I am interested in renting some monkeys for a film. Can you tell me what types you provide?”

  “We have three trained capuchin monkeys,” said the man in a heavy Manchester accent.

  “What can they do?” she asked.

  “What do you need?”

  “Well, they should have a lot of manual dexterity. I need them to . . . do a heist. It’s for a film called ‘Vault.’”

  She glanced at the others. Holmes gave her a thumbs up. Ivy was smiling. Simon was making notes of some sort and Clive was looking over his shoulder. She wondered what that was about.

  “What sort of heist?”

  “A bank heist. Safe deposit boxes, that sort of thing.”

  “You’re American.”

  “Yes.”

  “Over here for a film?”

  “Uh, yes.” She didn’t want to say it but it was the first thing that came into her mind. “Holmes Productions.”

  Holmes grinned like a hyena. She wanted to die.

  “I see. Well, we can give you everything you need. What dates?”

  “Um, well, uh,” she looked up at the ceiling, “April 22nd through the 24th. Um, do the monkeys get seasick?”

  “Oh no,” the man assured her. “They do real well on the water. They recently spent time on a lake and did er, swimmingly. Is this bank near the ocean?”

  “Not near the ocean, no,” she said. “We’re in the Lake District. So you deliver and pick up?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Would you come to Lake Enchanto?”

  “Absolutely. We were there recently in fact. The dock on the west side has a little shop where they serve ice cream. If you’re in the area you probably know it. I think it’s called The Enchanted Banana or something like that. The monkeys love it.”

  That clinched it. That was exactly what had happened. And she had seen the building. Terrible name for an ice cream place.

  Amanda thanked the man, ended the call, and said, “Bingo! That’s where Sidebotham got the monkeys.”

  “This is wild,” said Holmes. “I didn’t know the old bat had it in her.”

  “Scapulus!” said Amanda. “I’ve never heard you talk like that before.”

  Holmes winked at her again. She was getting a bad feeling about him. Now that he had “defeated” Nick he seemed to be flaunting his newfound power, if that was what it was. Sometimes it seemed more like mania.

  “So,” said Ivy. “Now we know the who and the how—and the why, we think—but not the where. There was a boat. Where did it go?”

  “No place for it to go, really,” said Holmes. “Enchanto just isn’t that big.”

  “So let me get this straight,” said Amanda. “Sidebotham brings the monkeys in, probably by boat from another part of the lake. Maybe the company put them on at the dock with the ice cream place and they came to our side that way.”

  “So far so good,” said Ivy.

  “Then she lets them in and they get the secrets. They exit through the west gate, take them back to the boat, and go back to the ice cream dock.”

  “Sounds logical,” said Holmes. “If any of this could sound logical.”

  “And this all happens at night when no one would notice,” said Amanda. “Because I was here over Christmas and I didn’t see a thing.”

  “Yes,” said Ivy. “That’s probably what happened.”

  “How much volume would these secrets take up?” said Clive. “Could Sidebotham move them on wheels?”

  “The papers are small—smaller than money,” said Simon. “Four hundred-ninety notes to a pound, so ten thousand notes would weight a little over twenty pounds. Say, this kind of thing is Editta’s job. She should come back, except who’d want her?”

  “Yes, she should,” said Ivy, “and that was mean.”

  “Sidebotham could easily handle that kind of a load,” said Simon, “and I’m not the one who believes in voodoo.” Amanda thanked heaven he didn’t add, “Or goes running after Nick.” “Even twice as much with a wheelie bag. That’s maybe three hundred per hour per monkey, about five per minute. That’s doable, as long as the compartments were open. That takes time too. But I can envision ways of doing that pretty quickly if you had the keys.”

  “Oh really?” said Ivy. “How?”

  “Do it ahead of time,” said Simon. “With few people around over the holiday, Sidebotham could have opened everything in advance. Piece of cake.”

  “Sounds risky,” said Ivy.

  “Nah,” said Simon. “She had access to all the surveillance stuff. She would have known what to do.”

  “She was wasted teaching here,” said Clive. “She should have been out capturing criminals.”

  “I think she liked being here,” said Amanda. “Even if we didn’t always like her.”

  “What makes you say that?” said Ivy.

  “She said something once,” said Amanda. “Also she was once married to Lovelace Earful.”

  The kids burst into laughter. “Yeah,” said Clive. “She was about two hundred years old. Say, Scapulus, did she ever work with Sherlock?”

  Holmes was just about dying. He found the notion of Sidebotham’s age so funny that tears were running down his face. Amanda felt guiltier than ever seeing him so happy. She was sorry she’d ever made the joke and thought she’d better change the subject.

  “So she picks up the monkeys, brings them to the tunnels, they put the notes on the boat in a wheelie bag, she returns the monkeys, and it’s done,” she said.

  “Amazing,” said Holmes, who was still chuckling. “Genius, really.”

  “So where did she take the secrets?” said Clive.

  “Safe deposit boxes?” said Ivy.

  “Then where are the keys?” said Simon. “And the numbers.”

  “Oh dear,” said Ivy. “Another needle in a haystack.”

  “Would Professor Snaffle have known about this?” said Amanda. “She was the keeper of the keys.”

  “Possibly,” said Holmes, settling down. “Let’s get Thrillkill to search her office and quarters again.”

  “What if the keys are in a safe deposit box?” said Clive. “So the key to that box would be all you need to find the rest. And of course, the bank information.”

  Amanda could feel an idea nibble at the corner of her brain. Clive had something there. What was it? Aha! “I know what happened,” she said.

  “What?” said Simon.

  “The safe deposit box is in Blackpool.” Everyone leaned in. “She left a car by the dock, waited for the monkeys to be picked up, and drove to a bank in Blackpool. Remember the field trip? She has connections there. Why not a bank?”

  “But which one, and how do we get into the boxes?” said Ivy. “We need authorization and a key.”

  “If the box is in the name of the school, Thrillkill can get in,” said Amanda. “If it’s in her name, we need the executor of her will.”

  “Who is that?” said Clive.

  “Thrillkill, I think,” said Simon.

  When the kids told Thrillkill about their theory he was dead impressed. It wasn’t something that ever would have occurred to him.

  “Thank you, all,” he said. “I’ll take this from here. Great work!”

  13

  SIMON’S BRIGHT IDEA

  The peacock monitoring project had so far got the kids nowhere. They’d set up software that was supposed to detect and compare patterns in the video signals the cameras were sending back, but the images weren’t good enough to tell if the birds had found any pages and the boys had to scroll through hours and hours of data. They tried following the peacocks’ patterns of movement from the GPS trackers, but there was a lot of frenzied activity that had nothing to do with the discovery of pages and they had to chase down every instance.

  But then
they discovered the sounds. Or to be more accurate, Ivy did.

  She was sitting with the boys and Amanda in the common room one day as they were spinning through the footage, and suddenly she said, “What was that?”

  “What was what?” said Simon.

  “That noise.”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said Clive.

  “No, it’s definitely different. Stop the stream.” She moved closer to Simon’s computer and said, “Can you please go back a little?”

  Simon moved the cursor back a minute and pressed Play.

  “Stop it!” Ivy exclaimed. “Right there!”

  The boys looked at the screen and there it was. The peacock with the camera had something that looked an awful lot like a page from The Detective’s Bible.

  “You found it!” Simon yelled. He got up and kissed her wildly on the mouth. Amanda watched to see what Ivy thought of that. She didn’t pull away, so maybe she was okay with it.

  “Well spotted, Ivy,” said Clive. “How did you do that?”

  “The noise the peacock is making sounds different,” she said.

  “Only you would have noticed that,” said Simon, who was hugging her close. Suddenly Amanda hoped Ivy really would love Simon. He was obviously head over heels. As annoying as he could be, he deserved to have someone who loved him back.

  “Um, it’s okay, Simon,” Ivy said. “You can let go now.”

  “Mmmm, I don’t think so,” said Simon, squeezing tighter.

  “I think you should,” she said, laughing.

  He let go and took a step back. “Oh all right. For now.”

  He winked at Clive and sat down in front of the computer again.

  “Now what?” said Clive, who seemed decidedly unamused.

  “I’ll just switch to the live feed on that peacock,” said Simon. “Whoops. That time code was from this morning. But the birds never let the pages go. It still has to be near wherever this peacock is.”

  He fiddled with the machine and zeroed in on the bird’s location. “I can track him with my phone,” he said. “Come on.”

  Simon, Clive, and Amanda headed down to town on their skateboards and found the peacocks on the grass a few feet from the lake. A young male was sitting on what looked like the page in question. Every time one of the other birds approached he’d raise his wings and lift his tail, making a fierce face in the process. This display seemed to be holding off the others, at least for the time being.