Amanda Lester and the Purple Rainbow Puzzle

by Paula Berinstein

  “We don’t know,” said Thrillkill. “We certainly hope not.”

  “Was she dating Wink and Blixus at the same time?” said Amphora.

  Now that was an interesting thought—one Amanda could relate to. If that had been the case, she wondered how Mavis had managed her emotions—assuming she actually had any. But of course she did. The letters demonstrated that. So how had she juggled two lovers at the same time? Under other circumstances it might have been illuminating to discuss the topic with her. Wait—what was she thinking? This was Mavis Moriarty, for heaven’s sake. Who cared what she thought about anything? Amanda turned her attention back to the conversation.

  “We don’t believe so,” said Thrillkill. “Not if you go by those letters, anyway.”

  “Did she know Blixus then?” said Simon.

  “We don’t know,” said Thrillkill.

  “Does Blixus know she was dating Wink?” said Fern.

  They’d touched on the question before, and it was a scary thought. Blixus was not the type of guy to understand his wife dating anyone else, let alone a detective, and especially one he knew, although he may not have known Wink at the time. Amanda wondered if Nick was the jealous type. He certainly didn’t seem so.

  “That we don’t know either,” said Thrillkill.

  “What does this news mean for the investigation?” said Simon.

  “Obviously we have to dig deeper,” said Thrillkill. “We do know that Mavis was desperate. First she lost the man she loved. And second, she had been blackmailed for many years.”

  “How did she make enough money to pay the cook?” said Simon. “Waitresses don’t make much.”

  “We don’t know that either,” said Thrillkill. “However, my guess is that once she became involved with Blixus, she had access to plenty of money. He probably didn’t know about the blackmail. He wouldn’t have stood for it.”

  “So she was stealing from her own husband?” said Fern.

  “It’s likely,” said Thrillkill.

  “Does this mean she’s in danger?” said Amanda. She’d never contemplated that possibility before. How weird it was to think of Mavis as an underdog.

  “Only if he finds out,” said Thrillkill. “It seems that he hasn’t, and now that Mrs. Dump is dead he probably won’t. Mavis won’t be stealing from him anymore.”

  “What do you think he’d do if he found out about her and Wiffle?” said Amphora.

  “We don’t know that he doesn’t already know,” said Thrillkill.

  “Do you think he was the one who killed Wink?” said Amphora. “Out of jealousy?”

  “We don’t think so,” said Thrillkill. “Our money is still on Mavis.” That made sense. It would have been difficult for Blixus to get past Legatum’s security. Since Mavis was already living at the school, she didn’t have to worry about that.

  “Do you think Blixus knows about the King Arthur coins, Professor?” said Simon.

  “We do think so, yes, Mr. Binkle. We can’t prove it at the moment, but we suspect he does know about them.”

  “He’s here,” said Simon. “He has to be. Zombie henchmen or no zombie henchmen, he’s close by. I’d say he’s in Penrith, and if we find him we’ll find Clive and the others.”

  “And the hacker, Mr. Binkle?” said Thrillkill. “What’s your theory about him or her?”

  “Blixus,” said Simon. “Or, I’m sorry to say this, Amanda, Nick.”

  Simon had finally given voice to something Amanda had been fearing for days. She hadn’t wanted to admit it but the hacker had to be Nick. Blixus was brilliant but he didn’t have the expertise. Mavis certainly didn’t. She was sure of that now. There was still the outside chance that Blixus had hired someone, but why do that when you have your own computer genius in the family?

  Nick had hid a lot from Amanda, and everyone else. Now it occurred to her that even his mistakes might have been staged, that he’d given incorrect answers in his classes and bolstered them with invalid arguments to make it seem that he wasn’t that smart. But if you considered his genes he had to be. And he certainly had the motivation.

  Oh, how she wished it weren’t so. If only Nick had kept that picture she’d found in his room last term—the one of her—because he cared about her. But she knew in her heart why he’d done it, and kept the video of their time discovering the secret room too. They were trophies, trophies of his conquests and successes in fooling the gullible little American girl.

  She wanted to pull Holmes aside and tell him that she’d made a terrible mistake, that she’d finally come to terms with the whole Nick thing and it was over forever. She would—she’d do that, throw herself on his mercy and tell him that she’d never leave him again.

  As the group dispersed, she rose and made her way to where Holmes was sitting. She was about to call out to him when Amphora sat down beside him, linked her arm through his, and started to speak in a voice too soft for Amanda to hear. Amanda stopped, lowered her gaze, and headed for the door. The last thing she saw before she left the room was Simon looking at her with pity in his eyes.

  31

  Chasing Rainbows

  For all the disasters occurring around Amanda, at least something was going right. Holmes actually liked her idea for the film, so she met with Ivy and described the kind of music she wanted.

  “The film will be short, so three songs should be enough,” she said. “One to set things up, one to develop the idea, and one to bring everyone together.”

  Ivy spoke some notes into her tablet. “What style do you want?”

  “Broadway,” said Amanda without hesitation.

  “I can do that,” said Ivy just as quickly. “So in the first song we show that everything is a mess.” She doo-doo-dooed a quick melody. It was perfect. “In the second song, we bring in some history so they can see they’ve faced this kind of thing before, just in a slightly different way.” She tried a few notes. Amanda thought they were spot on. The girl was a genius. “Then in the last song, we urge them to stick together because that’s what always works. We want lots of energy. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Amanda. Ivy was so smart. Anything you told her she grasped immediately.

  “That’s a tall order.”

  “I know, but we can do it. We’ll work on the words together.”

  “Got it. Anything new on Clive?”

  “Nothing,” said Amanda. She couldn’t believe someone had got him. After everything that had happened over the last few months, they should have been more careful. He should have been more careful. Not that she was blaming him.

  “I hope he’s holding up okay,” said Ivy.

  “He’s a resourceful guy,” said Amanda. “He’s got lots of tricks up his sleeve.”

  “Look,” said Ivy. “About Scapulus—”

  Amanda knew what she was going to say and didn’t want to hear it. “Don’t say it. If she wants him she can have him.”

  “I’m afraid she does want him,” Ivy said sadly. “I’m not sure if he wants her, though.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”

  “You never know. Don’t give up. He picked you for a reason.”

  Yes, like Nick picked me for a reason.

  “I know a hopeless situation when I see one, Ivy. Anyway, I have to go see him now. We’re going to work on this 3D modeling thing.”

  Holmes had set up in the cyberforensics classroom, so Amanda joined him there. Using the video of the rainbows she had made, they worked till the wee hours to create an algorithm that would simulate the rainbow riot. The next day they’d create a cybervirus to disrupt it and test it out.

  “I’ve been doing some research,” Holmes said. “Apparently scientists have recently discovered something called Airy pulses. They follow a curved trajectory. And get this: they can also ionize the surrounding air molecules and create curved plasma filaments. After this group of scientists discovered Airy pulses, some others found a way to bend light and wait for it—they’re
working on optical tweezers, which can move objects!”

  “Science fiction comes true,” said Amanda, wondering if all this messing with light was such a good thing. It hadn’t been so great for the crystals they’d discovered. “Do you think that’s what the hacker is doing?”

  “It’s possible. He might be even more advanced than the people I’ve been reading about.”

  “But why would they care about Professor Redleaf?”

  “Why indeed?”

  The cyberforensics teacher had been so mysterious. Now though, it was becoming critical that they know what was really going on behind her strange persona. The time for secrecy was over.

  “Scapulus, can you tell me more about her? Professor Redleaf, I mean? Maybe there’s something about her we can use.”

  Holmes sighed. “She was such a private person. I hate to go digging into her life.”

  “We wouldn’t if it weren’t important,” said Amanda.

  “I know.” He’d guarded the woman’s secrets so carefully. Now Amanda could see that he was accepting that he couldn’t protect her anymore. She understood how he felt. Another reason to hate the Moriartys—if indeed the hacker was associated with them. “Of course there are all these rumors about where she was born. They’re not true.”

  “You mean the ones about her being from the Congo or the Amazon rainforest or something?”

  “Yes. I think those came about because she was so mysterious. People felt compelled to invent some glamorous past for her. She was actually born in East London.”

  “Aha.” The truth comes to light at last. Amanda wondered how the other students would feel if they knew. They’d invested a huge amount of energy in the myth of Professor Redleaf.

  “She came from a disadvantaged background. Her parents were Jamaican immigrants. Her mother died when she was a baby. Her father raised her until she was about our age. Then he died too.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “After that she bounced around in foster care. In one of the homes she met a kid who was a computing genius. Girl name of Pupsy Miracle. She was fascinated by what the girl could do and asked her to teach her. She had a natural talent for computing and the two of them cooked up all sorts of projects together.”

  It was hard to picture Professor Redleaf having a BFF. She was so self-contained. “What happened to the girl?” said Amanda.

  “She works for MI-6,” said Holmes. “That’s all I know. Anyway, somehow Professor Redleaf managed to get a scholarship to Oxford. Don’t ask me how. She went there, got a first in computer science, and ended up here. I don’t know how that happened either.”

  “You said she was a family friend.”

  “Yes,” said Holmes. “She met my mum at university. My mum is a botanist, but somehow their paths crossed and they became good friends. Come to think of it, maybe that’s how the rumor started that she was from the Amazon. My mum takes these trips all over the world to study plants. She spends a lot of time there. I think Okimma—I mean Professor Redleaf—went with her a few times.”

  Amanda hadn’t realized what an interesting mother Holmes had. She’d known that his dad, Olimus Holmes, was a private detective. He hadn’t talked much about Pastiche Holmes though. Of course there hadn’t been much time in which to do it.

  “It must have been weird being in her class when you knew her so well.”

  “Kind of, yes,” he said. “I’ll tell you something, Amanda. That hacker targeted her. I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I do.”

  If the hacker was Nick, that gave Holmes a third reason to find him and put him away, besides the damage he was causing. The first, of course, was that he was a Moriarty, and the Holmes-Moriarty vendetta went back a century. Next there was the fact that Nick was his rival in love, or so he believed. And now Professor Redleaf. Amanda did not want to be there when the two boys met again. It would be terrible.

  “What about her would cause the hacker to target her?” said Amanda.

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out,” said Holmes. “Perhaps it’s simply the challenge of getting to someone of her stature.”

  “Could there be a personal reason?” said Amanda.

  “I don’t know. Her private life wasn’t all that interesting. At least not that I know of.”

  “Perhaps it was more interesting than you think.”

  “That’s always a possibility. However, I think our task for now is to finish this modeling and find a way to disrupt the hacker’s creations.”

  They spent the next few hours developing a model of the rainbows. Holmes had been able to turn Amanda’s video into a set of equations. She had helped him spot errors and inconsistencies in the animation. By the time they’d parted it was late, but they were pretty sure they’d nailed it.

  When Amanda saw Holmes the next morning it was obvious he’d been up all night. His eyes were red and his clothes rumpled—a rarity for him—but he was typing away as fast as ever.

  “How’s it going?” she said.

  “Almost there. I just have to finish this virus and I’ll be ready to try it out.” He was working and talking at the same time. She hoped he wouldn’t make a mistake.

  “What can I do?”

  “Will you check the animation again? Then we’ll try out the virus on the computer, and if it works we’ll be ready for the real thing. We’ll have to find the rainbows though. Have you heard any news, or seen anything?”

  “I don’t know yet but—”

  Suddenly there was a huge crash. Amanda and Holmes looked out the window and saw purple rainbows filling the sky.

  “Guess that’s taken care of, then,” she said. “How does the virus work, anyway?”

  “First it breaks the pattern of the rainbows,” said Holmes. “Then it sends a signal from the rainbows back to the hacker’s computer. We stop the effects, then we jam him. If it works, of course. Oh, hullo, Amphora.”

  Amphora, who had just opened the door, took one look at Holmes and Amanda together, marched over to them, and sat right on the desk next to Holmes. “Hi,” she said in a simpering tone. “You didn’t text me back, Scapulus.”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I was up all night working on this algorithm.”

  “I see,” said Amphora. “Well, we can do that thing later.”

  “Yes, later,” he said. “Apologies.”

  “What are you doing, Amanda?” she said. “I thought you and Ivy were writing songs for your film.”

  “We are,” said Amanda. “Scapulus and I are just finishing up this 3D thing. We’re going to test it in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll watch,” said Amphora, moving closer to Holmes. She laid her hand over his. It looked ridiculous with him still trying to type.

  Amanda was horrified. Her friend had become brazen. In front of her, Holmes’s former girlfriend! Amphora gave her a smug smile. Well, if that didn’t beat all. Then Amphora whispered in Holmes’s ear and he turned and smiled at her in a way that was so warm he seemed to radiate heat. He wasn’t just smiling, he was beaming. He not only didn’t mind her attention, he welcomed it.

  That was it. They were together and she was not wanted there. Amanda picked herself up, said goodbye, and left the room. As she walked out the door she could hear Holmes saying, “I’ll text you when I’m ready.”

  32

  Holmes vs. Hacker, Round One

  Amanda couldn’t stop thinking about Holmes and Amphora. There were a million boys in the world Amphora could have chosen, but she’d gone for him. What had Amanda ever done to her to deserve that? She’d helped her friend when she’d found the living crystal, defended her when her crush on Rupert Thwack had backfired, fought the Moriartys alongside her, and been there every time she’d wanted to talk, even at 3:00 in the morning.

  It was true that Amphora had had her problems. Her inferiority complex was as big as Soho. She was falling further and further behind the other students, many of whom had already developed their detective’s mystiques and begun to excel i
n their specialties. And she had paid Ivy way more in fines than Simon had. Was she also so envious of her best friend’s successes that she felt the need to take her boyfriend?

  Actually, Amanda wasn’t surprised. Amphora had always been irritable. From the first day they’d met that had been obvious. She was also a social climber and a flirt. But there was so much to do at Legatum—such important work—that Amanda thought she’d have changed by now, just from the exposure, if not from the responsibility. Apparently she was wrong. Just because Legatum had changed Amanda’s attitude didn’t mean it had had the same effect on everyone else.

  What saddened her the most, though, was Holmes. How could he go from her to Amphora, from someone who loved him to a girl who did nothing but collect trophies? Was he that blind? For a guy who seemed to know everything, he certainly hadn’t observed very carefully or he’d have realized how completely wrong Amphora was for him. Could he really be happy with a girl who was so frivolous and mean-spirited?

  Oh well. It wasn’t Amanda’s concern any longer. She had more important things to worry about: friends to save, teachers to unite, a school that needed her. What difference did it make if Holmes ruined his life? He’d just have to figure that one out himself.

  When they met on the east deck a little while later, Amanda was glad that Amphora hadn’t come. Her silly distractions would have posed significant danger to them. Who knew how the hacker would react when they executed the algorithm? He might alter his tactics on the fly. They’d need every ounce of speed and concentration to counter him or her.

  Sure enough, the rainbows were still coming and going outside the school. Holmes punched a few keys—the last one with a flourish—and watched to see what would happen. Within a few seconds the rainbows began to flash and writhe as if in pain. No longer were they graceful arches of Tyrian and Han purple, Palatinate, heliotrope, and purpura. Now they blinked on and off in what could only be described as a Mӧbius strip of lavender so weak that it looked almost white.