Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set

by Paula Berinstein

  “I don’t mean to be harsh,” said Ivy, “but everyone knows you loved the guy. The fact that he hurt you doesn’t change that.”

  “I didn’t,” said Amanda. “He was just a friend.”

  Ivy was silent for a moment. Amanda hoped she wasn’t going to argue. “Please just try to remember the hidden treasures,” she said at last. “It works—especially when you’re down.”

  “Not today, though,” said Amanda. “You seem upset. Is it Editta?”

  “Actually, it’s more than that. Usually nothing gets to me, but sometimes I just know too much because of my hearing and it can be a bit of a burden.”

  “Really?” said Amanda. “I had no idea. I’ve been envying you. You’re such a great detective and you can do such amazing things, like figuring out the code to get into the sugar factory.” Ivy had astonished Amanda with her solution to that problem. After traveling all the way to London to look for her father at the Moriartys’ factory, Amanda had been stopped cold by a security keypad and hadn’t been able to get past it—until she’d called Ivy, who’d figured out what to press by the sound of the keys.

  “Thanks. Sometimes, though, there are things you’d rather not know.”

  This was a revelation. Amanda had had no idea that being gifted could be such a burden. “Wow. So what do you do?”

  “What can I do? I live with them.” Ivy no longer seemed upset. Amanda found that odd. Here was a problem her friend had acknowledged, but within two seconds it had ceased to bother her. That hidden treasure stuff must be pretty powerful.

  “Ivy, do you think there’s something wrong with me?” she blurted out.

  “What? You mean because of Scapulus? Of course not. How could you think such a thing?”

  “I, uh, no reason.”

  “You’ve got to stop beating up on yourself, Amanda. It was an accident. Hidden treasures. Curiosity. Focus on those and you’ll be happier.”

  Amanda pictured a pirate’s treasure chest guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. No, that wasn’t right. Forget the dragon. It wouldn’t exist in Ivy’s world. From now, on just the treasure.

  6

  Amanda Lester, One-Man Band

  The next day, Tuesday, Amanda and Holmes met at lunch. They caused quite a stir, the two of them sitting together like that after what she’d said in class. Whispers swirled around the dining room and everyone kept staring at them as if they’d never seen two people eating lunch together. The whole thing annoyed Amanda, but Holmes seemed cheerful and oblivious. He also seemed to be enjoying his food, which consisted of a vegetable curry and fried rice. Amanda had to admit that after last term’s fare it wasn’t half bad. She hoped she wouldn’t put on weight again.

  Thrillkill had given Holmes the list of topics he wanted the film to cover. Holmes! Why not her, or at least both of them? When she learned what Thrillkill had done she could barely eat. Maybe she didn’t have to worry about her weight after all. Her stomach was so roiled these days that she practically had to force herself—a far cry from her habits in L.A., where she’d been a bit of a glutton.

  “This list is exciting,” Holmes said, pointing. “I’m glad we’re going to do steganography. That’s quite interesting.”

  “Stega-who?” said Amanda. “Why are we covering dinosaurs?”

  “It isn’t dinosaurs,” said Holmes, chewing. “It’s the process of hiding data inside an image. When you look at a picture, what you see may not be what you get.” He chuckled. Amanda wanted to deck him.

  “And look at this. Stochastic forensics. Now that’s something we can really sink our teeth into.”

  She pictured Holmes’s teeth growing and growing until he looked like a saber-toothed tiger. “Who-da-what?”

  “Stochastic forensics.” Whatever that was. It sounded like someone throwing up. “It’s a method of investigating activities that lack digital artifacts. You use it to look into data theft.”

  “Right. And how about plunkitography, bozology, and goositude?”

  “No, those have nothing to do with—oh, I see. That was a joke.” He grinned.

  Of course it wasn’t. Amanda was feeling especially hostile at the moment, so much so that she had completely forgotten Ivy’s hidden treasures and was dreaming up exotic ways to commit the perfect crime with Holmes as the victim.

  “So anyway,” he said, “I was thinking we could do a short lecture on each topic and then have questions and answers.”

  “No,” said Amanda.

  “No? You don’t like it?” He looked hurt. He probably wasn’t used to people saying no to him.

  “No, you don’t make films that way.” That was sharp. She hadn’t meant to be quite so nasty.

  “And you know this because . . .”

  “I’m a filmmaker.” Gosh she sounded haughty. Where was this coming from?

  “Ah. The accent. You’re from California, aren’t you?”

  The L.A. stereotypes again. Wasn’t there anyone in the world who didn’t buy into that? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You don’t have to get so upset. You have a California accent and they make movies in California.” He brightened. “I think it’s smashing.”

  She sighed. “That’s not the point. The point is that I’ve been making films since I was three. I know what I’m doing.” Should she mention Darius Plover? No, that would be name-dropping. She hated people who did that. It probably wouldn’t impress him anyway.

  “Splendid! That will be a great help to us.” He raised his water glass and toasted her.

  Splendid, that will be a great help to us, she mocked in her mind. Well wasn’t that just ducky?

  “So I’ll write the script and you’ll direct,” he said. “Don’t you want to toast?”

  “No, and no.”

  “No? There’s water in your glass. Come on.” He motioned to her glass. She moved it away.

  “Have you written scripts before?” she said leaning toward him. It was an aggressive move rather than an intimate one.

  “Well, uh, no.” He maintained his straight-backed position.

  “Then you can’t write the script.” She tried to cross her legs and hit the table. “Ouch.”

  “Ouch?” He looked confused.

  “Never mind. You will help me with the content, but I will write the script.” She glared at him.

  “Well, naturally I’ll do the content. I mean, uh, that wasn’t nice of me. Sorry. How much do you know about cyberforensics?”

  She wanted to say, “Whatever Simon teaches me,” but instead she said, “Not much. That’s why Thrillkill wanted you on the project.”

  “Oh,” Holmes said. “So I’m just a consulting producer.”

  “Something like that, yes.” She laughed. Where had he picked up the jargon?

  “I don’t like that,” he said. “Why are you laughing?”

  “What’s wrong with that? Consulting producer is a good position. You get your name in the credits.”

  “It’s peripheral,” said Holmes.

  “What, you want to be a star?” said Amanda.

  Holmes giggled. “No, of course I don’t want to be a star. I’ll leave that up to you Americans.”

  “What?!” She could feel her face turning red.

  “Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he said. “That was a compliment.”

  Amanda narrowed her eyes and looked him straight in the face. “Look. You may think you’re hot stuff just because you’re descended from the great Sherlock. You bet I’m American, and we don’t think that way. Everyone stands and falls on his or her own merit. So cut it out.”

  Holmes looked taken aback. “I didn’t mean anything. I can tell you’re really talented.” Amanda wasn’t going to let herself fall for that. She glared even harder. “I have to tell you, however, that I don’t agree with your approach. Just because I haven’t written scripts before doesn’t mean I can’t contribute. I’m a good writer. I think you’ll find me valuable.”

  Amanda snorted. “We
don’t have time for you to be valuable. We have a deadline. We need an experienced scriptwriter. That’s me. You’re the subject expert. Got it?”

  “Fine,” he said more calmly than most people would have. “If that’s what you want, we’ll do it your way. However, I’m not the only one around here who has a lot to learn.”

  This insult so angered Amanda that she got up and stomped out of the room, leaving the plates on the tables rattling. Everyone turned and stared at her. As she clomped through the doorway, she could hear Holmes calling after her, “See you at our next meeting.”

  Amanda was so distressed by her encounter with Holmes that she didn’t see Thrillkill walking toward the dining room and ran smack into him.

  “Whoa, there,” he said. “Are we late for something?”

  “No, sir. Sorry, sir,” she said, rubbing her nose where she’d collided with him.

  “We have the results from the analysis of Nick Muffet’s room,” he said. “Mostly inconclusive, I’m afraid. Just two things of interest.”

  Uh oh. She really didn’t want to hear this.

  “First of all, that picture on the mattress,” he said. “We found fibers on it. We were able to match them to several of Mr. Muffet’s outer garments. No surprise there. It was probably in his pocket at some point. As to the memory card, it contains something I think you’ll find familiar.”

  Oh no! What could that be? She felt like covering her ears.

  “You made a video of the secret room and the stone stairs leading to and from it. With slime mold all around.”

  This was a surprise. Why would Nick be hiding a copy of her documentation? “Yes, sir. We made that when we were following the cook last term.”

  “That was it. Nothing else.”

  What was going on? Why would Nick have hidden those things? There was nothing particularly secret about them. Unless . . .

  “Sir, do you think Nick used steganography on those images?”

  “Now that’s an interesting idea, Miss Lester. Good thinking. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to do that on a printed picture. We need the digital version, which we don’t have. We did look for coded messages in the video, but we didn’t find anything.”

  “Are you sure? Because there can’t be any other reason for him to hide those things. They weren’t secret.”

  “I must say I’m rather stumped,” said Thrillkill. “Unless, of course . . .”

  “Unless what?” she said, hoping he wouldn’t say it.

  “Unless he was keeping them because of you.”

  “Me? What about me?”

  Thrillkill took off his glasses and looked squarely at her. “I think Mr. Muffet may have had a soft spot for you, Miss Lester.”

  This was definitely something Amanda did not want to hear. Of course it wasn’t true. Thrillkill hadn’t been there when Nick had taunted her, bragged about how he’d used her and made a fool of her, tried to get her to kill her own father. Her supposed best friend had laughed in her face, telling her that she’d been gullible and naïve. That wasn’t a soft spot. The boy was cruel. The only person he had a soft spot for was Nick Muffet.

  She tried to put Thrillkill’s words out of her mind. The best way to do that, she figured, would be to turn her attention to the missing item. She wondered how Simon was coming along with the listening devices, but Sketching, the last class of the day, was about to start and there wasn’t time.

  The sketching teacher, Professor Browning, was a beautiful, vibrant American woman who painted striking pictures of caves. Whether they were sea grottoes, mammoth caverns filled with glittering stalactites and stalagmites, or twisty underground tunnels, she seemed as much an expert in speleology as she was in art. Amanda was looking forward to the class. She was good at drawing and wanted to spend more time at it.

  When she saw Simon she whispered, “How are you coming along with the listening devices?” He raised his hand and gave her a thumb-finger circle. She breathed a sigh of relief. At least something was going well. She couldn’t wait to hear more.

  When everyone had taken their seats, the teacher stood in front of the class and seemed to be counting. She frowned. Of course Editta was missing, so the number of students wasn’t right. Amanda wondered where her friend was. Her failure to show up was becoming worrisome.

  Professor Browning was wearing a black suit with a pencil skirt and very high heels. Her hair was styled in an old-fashioned French roll. She looked very 1960s.

  “Good afternoon, class,” she said in a way that exclaimed, “I don’t fool around, so don’t try anything.”

  “Good afternoon,” said the class in ragged but enthusiastic fashion. Somehow she had already won them over. Amanda could feel herself getting excited.

  “Let’s begin our adventure in sketching. I want you to find one person you don’t know well and sit next to them. Go on now—scoot.”

  Everyone looked around trying to identify the one student they knew the least. Then, in a way that was scarily smooth, they all got up and made a beeline for their choice. No one was left out—except Gordon Bramble. It was as if each person had one and only one “I-don’t-know-you” partner they recognized immediately.

  Amanda’s partner was Clive Ng, a kid known for his interest in rocks. He could always be seen around the school looking at the ground and picking up samples, even when there was snow on the ground. He was rumored to possess an astonishing geode collection and was well liked for his pleasant manner and upbeat attitude. Ivy found herself paired with Amanda’s lab partner, Dreidel Pomfritter. Amanda thought that would be interesting. Ivy would be drawing by feel rather than sight. She couldn’t wait to see how her sketches turned out.

  Simon’s opposite number was Owla Snizzle and Amphora’s was a tall, skinny girl named Binnie Belasco, who was new this term. Because there was an odd number of kids, Gordon Bramble ended up with Professor Browning.

  “Now, class,” said the teacher, “I want you to take your charcoal,” she held up a piece of charcoal, “and draw your partner’s face. You have five minutes. Go.”

  Amanda stared at Clive and Clive stared at Amanda. He said, “I don’t know how to draw.” She said, “It’s easy. Don’t worry,” and drew an oval on her pad, a rough outline of the boy’s head. Then she blocked out where his features would go. Watching what she was doing, the boy mimicked her until he had a similar oval and lines for where her eyes, nose, and mouth should be.

  “I don’t know how to do hair,” he said, eyeing her long, bushy mane. “It looks hard.”

  “Don’t worry about the hair right now,” she said. “Just get the shapes right.”

  “Okay.”

  As Amanda filled in Clive’s features, he copied her. He seemed to have a talent for drawing after all, because when she looked at his picture she could recognize herself.

  “Hey, that’s really good,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he beamed. “Yours looks like me too.”

  “Time!” said Professor Browning after what seemed like thirty seconds. “Put your charcoal down.”

  All kinds of protests, sighs, and moans permeated the room. Obviously most of the kids hadn’t finished. In fact a couple of them hadn’t even started.

  “Now, before we examine the results of this little exercise,” said the teacher, “I want to tell you why we did this. When you are a witness to a crime, or you’re investigating one, you will see faces you won’t be able to capture with your camera. When that happens you will need to draw them from memory. That’s why you need sketching skills. I asked you to select the person you know least well so as to simulate this kind of situation.

  “When you know someone, you see them differently from the way you see a stranger. With a stranger you’re more objective, and the likeness you make tends to be truer. So, I expect your picture of Mr. Ng, Miss Lester, to be a better one than if you were to draw, say, Miss Kapoor.”

  Amanda and Amphora looked at each other as if they’d never met.

  “We ar
e starting with faces because that is what you will be drawing most often. You will also draw places and things, of course, but those will be easier. Faces are the most difficult and require the most practice.

  “Now, let’s see how you did. Miss Lester, Mr. Ng, since I’ve already mentioned you, will you please come to the front with your drawings.”

  For once Amanda wasn’t embarrassed to be called on. Clive seemed a mellow sort and didn’t look bothered either. The two of them grabbed their pads and took their places at the front of the room. When Amanda looked out, she could see David Wiffle making faces at her. She felt like making faces back but she wasn’t exactly in a position to do so.

  “Please hold up your drawings,” said Professor Browning.

  The pair did as instructed. Oohs and aahs filled the room as the class murmured approval.

  “Very nice,” said the teacher. “I see you both started by blocking out the shapes and locations of the features, then filled in the detail. Excellent. You may return to your seats.”

  As she made her way back to her chair, Amanda caught sight of the Wiffle kid making a deprecating gesture. She turned her head away and ignored him.

  “Mr. Wiffle,” said the teacher. “Will you and Miss Starshine please bring your drawings to the front?”

  David Wiffle got up and clomped loudly to the front of the room, followed by a much daintier Prudence Starshine.

  “Now let’s see what you’ve got.”

  Prudence had done pretty well. She wasn’t a natural artist, but she’d blocked out the shapes, which gave her drawing a solid foundation. David Wiffle, on the other hand, had drawn only Prudence’s eyes and eyebrows in a tight hand that made her look like she was in pain.

  “Good start,” said Professor Browning. “However, Mr. Wiffle, I think you’ll have better luck if you start with the big picture. Block out the shapes and relationships among them before attacking the detail. Nice work, Miss Starshine. I can see the resemblance.”

  Amanda couldn’t, but that was okay. Prudence would do fine. David, on the other hand, would probably continue to think he knew best and produce mediocre work. But what business was it of hers? As long as he stayed out of her way she didn’t care what he did.