Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set

by Paula Berinstein

  “Now, Amanda, a detective must go wherever the case takes her.” He kept ushering her toward whatever it was.

  “All right. I’ll look for a second,” she said, hoping she wasn’t going to repeat past indignities.

  “Good girl.”

  He crept toward the thing, moving so stealthily that Amanda said, “Would you cut it out? You’re still teasing me.”

  “All right. I’m being mean. You’re just so much fun to play with, but I’ll try to be good.” He giggled.

  “Stop laughing,” she said. “What if the cook hears us?”

  “What if she does?” said Nick. “We’re allowed to be here.”

  “Right. Of course. I’m being paranoid.”

  “Say, would you look at that thing?” he said. “It’s gigantic.” They were nearly on top of it now and it was huge.

  “That’s a lotta vomit,” she said, trying to stifle her gag reflex.

  “Now who’s teasing?”

  “Sorry,” she said, swallowing a chuckle. Bad idea. It made her feel as sick as looking at the nauseating creature, plant, whatever it was.

  “I wonder what it is,” he said.

  “Some space alien, I’d say.”

  “From the planet Detecto.”

  Amanda started laughing again. “Stop. We’re supposed to be stealthy.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Stealthy we are. Hold on.” He peered down at the spot. “Yuck. It stinks.”

  It definitely was smelly. Smelly and ugly. What a combination. “Told you,” she said in a stage whisper.

  “There’s a pink substance next to the gluppy thing.” He squatted and stared at it.

  “No,” said Amanda. “You’re making that up.” She got as close as she dared. She wished she had some 7 Up or something to settle her stomach.

  “Nope,” said Nick. “Take a look.” Sure enough there were traces of pink between the door and the blob.

  “This has to mean something,” said Amanda. “It looks like the stuff that was in the pantry.”

  “Yes. Let’s go in that door the thing is heading for and see what we can see.”

  “Step over it?” She hesitated. What if she tripped and fell right into it?

  “Sure. You’re not going to tell me you’re afraid of a little gluppy thing, are you?”

  Amanda was laughing so hard her stomach hurt. “When you put it that way…”

  “I do. Come on.”

  She very carefully and tentatively got as close as she could to the blob, then took a large step, planting her left foot on the other side. For a moment she thought she would lose her balance and fall right into it, but luck was on her side. She leaned forward, moved the other foot over, and turned around with a ta-da gesture.

  “Now you,” she said.

  Nick stepped over the blob as if it weren’t there and joined her on the other side, annoying her no end. Fortunately, this door wasn’t locked. They pushed it open and saw a darkish corridor with a set of stone stairs leading downward on the right.

  “Hoo hoo,” said Amanda, looking into the dark. “This is creepy.”

  “It sure is,” said Nick. “This looks nothing like the rest of the school.” It didn’t. It looked more like an ancient Roman fortress, or maybe something out of one of Professor Stegelmeyer’s horror stories. It was even colder and danker than the part of the school they were familiar with and Amanda thought that was pretty bad.

  “Do you suppose it was added on?” she said.

  “I don’t think so. It looks older than the other parts. I’d say it’s original.”

  “Maybe the school was built over a ruin and this is what’s left of that.”

  “Could be. Got your phone?”

  “Always.” She pulled out her phone. “I wonder if I can use my light at the same time I’m recording.” She pressed the icon for the light. It worked.

  “You’ll have to. You won’t be able to record anything without a light in here, and it’s way too dark to go down those stairs without one.”

  “Do you have your phone with you?” Maybe with two lights it would be less scary and they could see more.

  “No. I forgot it.”

  “Some detective you are.”

  “Right. Thirty lashes with a wet noodle.”

  Amanda laughed. “I guess I’ll see if I can record with the light on.”

  She pressed the camera icon. Her screen displayed the message “Uploading camera firmware.” She pressed the back button so she could go to her main screen and turn the light off while she waited, but it wouldn’t work. She got a message that told her to wait.

  “My phone is stuck. It’s uploading some firmware and I can’t go back and turn the light off,” she said.

  “At least you know that you can run the light and the camera at the same time.”

  “Yes, and look, the upload has finished. We can record. Let’s go.”

  17

  The Secret Room

  Amanda and Nick stood at the top of the steps that led who knew where and looked down. Amanda panned her camera all around the tight space, which was lined with stone. The place really did look like something out of a horror movie. Once you entered you might never return. She felt a shiver ripple through her. What a great opening this would make if she were the type to make horror movies.

  “It’s a very live room, isn’t it?” she said. Her voice echoed round and round.

  Nick’s did too. It sounded spooky. “Yes. Not the best place to be recording audio, but we can improve that in the editing.”

  They crept down the stairs, illuminating more and more of the area as they went. The steps turned and became a coil, so there wasn’t much to see ahead of or behind them. The construction was obviously ancient. Amanda wasn’t sure what kind of stone it was. In L.A. nothing was made out of stone because there were too many earthquake faults in the area. Stone was a dangerous material when the ground wasn’t stable. Nick said it was probably flint.

  The air was surprisingly dry for an underground tunnel in a damp country. She expected to see moss on the walls and water dripping from the ceiling. It wasn’t anything like that. She thought maybe there was a source of dry air somewhere but couldn’t tell for sure.

  Suddenly she stopped, almost tripping Nick, who was close behind her. “Eeeeek!”

  “What do you mean—oh. Look at that.” Ahead of them on the stairs was another gluppy thing, this one much smaller than the first.

  “I don’t like this,” said Amanda. It may have been smaller but it was just as ugly.

  “You’re afraid it’s the planet of the gluppians?” teased Nick.

  She turned around and shone the light and the camera right in his face. “Very funny.”

  “Sorry, but this is extraordinary, isn’t it? Do you suppose they live down here?” He stooped down to examine the blob closely.

  “It’s starting to look like it,” she said. “Wait a minute. There’s more pink stuff here.” A little rosy patch lay next to the small gluppian.

  “So there is. Do you suppose there’s a connection?”

  “Yes, I do. Okay, now I’m really curious.” She stooped down to get a good look too, shining her light right on the thing. It didn’t like the glare and contracted its muscles.

  “Like you weren’t before. Oh, look at that. It doesn’t like your light.”

  “I’m more curious, and that gluppy thing tensing might be significant. Into the evidence locker it goes.”

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll have the Greek chorus recite an entire verse about the gluppy thing’s light sensitivity. Let’s keep going.”

  But there wasn’t much more staircase to go. Within a few steps they were at the bottom, staring at a heavy wooden door that looked like something out of a gothic romance, or Professor Stegelmeyer’s twisted imagination.

  “Doo doo doo doo,” she said. “What do you suppose is on the other side?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a gluppy thing colony.”

  “Or a w
itch’s hideout.” She was really getting into this now. “Let’s see if the door is unlocked.”

  Oddly enough, it was. They pushed it open, but it would only move about a foot.

  “Something’s in the way,” said Amanda, exerting as much force on it as she could. It wouldn’t give.

  “Let me have a look,” said Nick. He took the light from her, held it up, and wedged his head into the opening. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said breathlessly.

  “What, what? Let me see,” she said, trying to stick her head in too.

  “Prepare yourself.” He backed out to make way for her.

  “Is it icky? Are there dead bodies in there?” she said, stopping short. Maybe she shouldn’t look after all.

  “No. No dead bodies.”

  “Here, give it to me,” she said taking the light from him and putting her face to the opening. There before her was indeed a scene out of a horror movie, but not the kind she expected. Behind the door was a large stone room containing bag after bag of the pink substance. And everywhere as far as she could see were icky gluppy things draped over them.

  “They’re eating the pink stuff,” she said. “What’s going on?”

  “For one thing, I think they’re blocking the door,” said Nick, testing it again.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s why we can’t open it.”

  “If I had to guess I’d say those are some kind of slugs. Whoever left that stuff there wasn’t very careful. They must have gotten in under the door.” Sure enough, there was about an inch and a half of space under the door, more than enough room for a small gluppy thing to get through. “Those things are coming from the garden. I suspect their normal food source has dried up.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Perhaps they live near the garage and the explosion disrupted them. So now the question is, what are they?”

  “Yes. Gluppy things probably isn’t the right term to google them with. We should get a sample.”

  “Ha ha! Not me. And you’re not going to touch those things, are you?”

  “Of course I am.” He reached into his coat pocket.

  “No, they might be poisonous.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, rummaging around. “England doesn’t have a lot of poisonous animals. No snakes, for example, and no spiders.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she said. No spiders? She couldn’t imagine that. Back home they had tons of them. She was always trying to save them, which her parents didn’t appreciate. If they saw any they’d just step on them. She wondered what Nick would do.

  “Nope. We’re pretty clean here.”

  “All right, but please be careful.”

  “I’ve got my evidence bags,” he said, pulling one out of his pocket. “I’ll just scoop up a little one.” He opened the bag.

  “I don’t think there are any little ones.” There were, actually. They looked like oysters or something, but even uglier.

  Nick produced a handkerchief and reached inside the door. “I’ll just get this . . . there!”

  “Oh yuck.”

  He held it up. “Not at all. It’s really quite beautiful. Into the bag with you.” He popped the thing into the clear plastic bag. “Uh, do you have a pen?”

  “No camera, no pen. And you tease me about my detective skills.”

  “Sorry. I should be more prepared.”

  She found a bright green felt-tip pen and handed it to him. After he had labeled the bag and she had taken a number of stills, they headed back up the stairs, through the door, and back into the garden. The light hurt her eyes and it felt weird for their voices not to echo.

  “You do realize something,” she said, jiggling her ear.

  “What’s that?”

  “This is where those noises we heard came from. It’s on the other side of the wall and down a level from the ladies’ in the chapel. And I suspect this has something to do with that spot on the wall I saw.”

  “Ah,” said Nick. “A piece of the puzzle filled in.”

  “It couldn’t have been the gluppy things making that noise, though. It must have been the cook putting the bags in there. Which reminds me, we still don’t know what the pink stuff is.”

  “No, but I think it’s time we found out. This thing in the bag has got some on it. We should go to the lab.”

  18

  Slime Mold

  Amanda was excited at the thought of trying to analyze the pink stuff. But before she and Nick could get to the lab, the Wiffle boy and another kid, a pleasant-faced, freckled boy named Gordon Bramble, who seemed smart and should have known better than to hang around with that troublemaker, accosted them.

  “You’re ruining the project for everyone,” said the Wiffle boy looking straight at Amanda.

  “What do you mean? I haven’t done anything,” she said.

  “You did. You contaminated the garage and now the evidence is tainted.” He stood back, folded his arms, and gave her a smug look.

  “Yeah,” said Gordon. “We saw you.”

  “Look here,” said Nick. “We followed procedure. We carefully removed the debris where we stepped. You can check it yourself. It’s in cartons in the outbuilding next to the garage. Everything is labeled. We did that to make sure the evidence was clean and organized and everyone could use it.”

  “I’m talking about the first time,” said the boy. “The first time you went in there you contaminated the evidence.”

  “No, we didn’t,” said Amanda, although she wasn’t at all sure that they hadn’t. “Look, Thrillkill isn’t worried about it, so why are you?”

  “You and your hotsy-totsy friends think you can just waltz in and take over. There are other people at this school, you know—three other teams trying to solve this mystery. If you’ve ruined the project for us there’s going to be a lot of trouble. We take our training seriously. We’re going to be important detectives one day. You’re a bunch of amateurs.”

  Amanda wanted to pop him. She had never known anyone so self-righteous. He really needed taking down a peg.

  “You know, you’ve got quite a reputation, Lester. You vomit all over people, you get everyone all lathered up pretending to be zombies or monsters or something, you make your own rules, and you think you can get away with anything you want to. Well, you can’t. You’re nothing but a laughingstock and you’ll never be a real detective. I don’t care, except when you mess things up for the rest of us. You’d better wise up and stay out of our way. And you too, Muffet, her little dog.” What a pretentious, nasty little prig he was.

  Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Watch it, Wiffle, or you’ll get more than you bargained for.” He raised his fist as if to threaten the kid. Amanda was afraid they’d get into a fight and Nick would be expelled. “Now get out of here, and take your candy-ass friend with you.”

  “This isn’t over,” said Wiffle snidely. “Not by a long chalk.” He nodded at his friend and the two boys walked away, avoiding disaster for the moment.

  “That was unpleasant,” said Amanda.

  “We can handle them,” said Nick. “Bunch of chicken hawks.”

  “Let’s hope so.” At least the kid hadn’t said anything about Lestrade this time.

  In the lab Amanda realized she hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with the sample.

  “What do we do now? Do you have any idea?” she said. They were sitting at the usual gray metal bench, but they hadn’t gotten further than the basics there—fingerprints, hair, footprints, that sort of thing.

  “No, but how hard can it be?” said Nick. “We’ll research how to do it. We’ve got manuals.” He walked over to a bookshelf and started scanning titles.

  “The pink stuff might be dangerous,” she said.

  “I doubt it,” he said with his back to her. “This one looks good.” He pulled out a book and carried it over to the bench.

  “Why’s that?” she said. “I mean why don’t you think it’s dangerous, not why does that book look good.”

  “Because t
he gluppy things are eating it,” he said, skimming through the pages.

  “But it might be dangerous to humans.” She got up and peered over his shoulder. He had wonderful hair but it was almost going up her nose. She pulled back before it made her sneeze.

  “I don’t think so. Look, you said you saw some in the pantry,” he said, looking up.

  “Yes.”

  “And now we’ve discovered some kind of organism eating it.” He flipped a few pages. There were lots of pictures and diagrams.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you really think something found in a pantry that some biological entity is eating would be poisonous?”

  “Probably not, but—”

  “You’re too used to watching movies. This is real life. Trust me. It’s fine.” He went back to the book. “This isn’t the right one. I’ll find something else.” He walked back to the shelf, stuck the book where it came from, and resumed his search.

  “At least let’s find out what those things are first,” she said.

  “All right. That seems sensible,” he said, pulling out another volume.

  “It’s slime mold,” Nick announced after he’d picked up his phone and met Amanda in the common room.

  “Slime mold?” she said.

  “Yes. It’s kind of like a fungus, but it isn’t one. We’re seeing the myxogastria, which is a macroscopic slime mold.” He held out his phone to show her the picture. There the gluppy thing was, in living color. Gosh it was ugly.

  “Say that fast three times,” she said.

  “I’m trying to tell you something important. Normally this slime mold exists as a one-celled organism, like an amoeba, but when its food is in short supply, the cells start coming together and moving as a single animal. They become sensitive to airborne chemicals and can tell when there’s food around. See?” He flicked to some more pictures.

  “You’re joking.” She looked at the images. They were ugly, but not nearly as bad as looking at the things in person, or in thing.

  “I’m not. See for yourself.” He handed her the phone. She examined a couple more shots and looked up.