“Do you see how there are piles of dirt around here?” said Simon.
“Yes,” said Fern. “What do you suppose they’re for?”
“I think they’re natural.” Simon bent down and felt one of the piles, testing the dirt by rubbing it between his fingers. “I wish Clive were here. He’d know.”
“Can you get reception?” said Amanda.
“Actually, yes,” said Simon. “I’ll give him a try.”
Simon touched his phone a couple of times and he was talking to Clive.
“Sorry, man,” said Simon. “It was spur of the moment. Next time for sure. Let me turn on the streaming like we did at the factory and you can see.”
Simon was referring to the time he and Amanda had traveled to the ruins of the Moriartys’ sugar factory to look for more of the mysterious living crystals they’d discovered at Legatum. They’d taken Clive along virtually, streaming live video to him as they poked around.
“Here, look at my hand,” said Simon. “What do you make of this dirt? Really? Closer? Sure. Uh huh. Okay, got it. Thanks.”
“What did he say?” said Amanda when Simon had closed the connection.
“It’s loam,” said Simon. “We’re underneath a farm.”
“A farm?” said Amanda. “Wait a minute. What are the coordinates?” She thumbed her phone. “This sounds really familiar. I want to check something.”
She looked at the picture she and Eustace had taken of the locations Crocodile had written down. She was right: they were underneath one of the farms on the criminal’s list!
“We have to get up there,” she said. “This farm is one of the ones with bee thefts.”
“Bee thefts?” said Fern.
“Long story,” said Amanda. “I’ll tell you as we go.”
21
Angry Bees
The explorers found no signs of Jeffrey Lestrade or zombies during the next few minutes, but they did find an opening to the surface. Fortunately someone had constructed a sort of ramp that made it easy to climb up and out, and when they followed it they found themselves in a field surrounded by haystacks and a huge number of holes. About two hundred yards to the east lay a farmhouse.
“Ha,” said Simon. “Here’s irony for you. We’re looking for needles in haystacks and here they are right in front of us.”
“Do you think you could find a needle in a haystack with a magnet?” said Amanda.
“More likely an x-ray machine,” said Simon. “Even if the magnet were to detect the needle, which it could only do if it was really powerful, the straw is too dense for it to pull it out.”
“But what are all these holes?” said Fern, surveying the landscape.
“What holes?” said Ivy.
“The property looks like Swiss cheese,” said Amanda. It was crazy. The place looked as if it were inhabited by giant gophers. “Someone has been doing a lot of digging around here. Let’s check it out.”
“I think they’ve been digging a well,” said Simon, looking off to the northeast. “There’s a tower over there. It seems deserted, though.”
The kids clomped through what used to be a field. Nigel was so happy to have all that space around him that he rolled over on his back and wriggled in the dirt.
“Nigel, don’t do that,” said Ivy. “Now I’m going to have to give you a bath.”
The dog stood up, shook himself, and looked around with his tongue lolling out happily.
“I’ll help you,” said Simon. “I think I saw a metal tub at Legatum we can use.”
“You’ll be sorry,” said Ivy. “And wet. He’s a handful.”
“Not at all,” said Simon. He really loved that dog. He was always making little contraptions for him. He circled the metal tower that soared high above a large hole. It looked a bit like a crane. “Just as I thought. It’s a well.”
“Maybe they couldn’t find the water so they had to keep digging in other places,” said Fern when Simon had returned from his circuit. The kids explored the holes for a few minutes, and then she said, “Nope. I was wrong. These are excavations. Someone has set up grids here. And—”
Suddenly the field around them filled with rainbows, all of them broken like the ones they’d seen before, growing stronger and weaker, then stronger again, like a signal that couldn’t seem to establish itself. The shape of them flickered, filling in and winking out in random shapes like some kind of mutant electrical storm.
“Get down,” yelled Amanda. “Ouch!” She felt a spark of electricity run through her body.
“Amanda, a rainbow just came out of your phone,” yelled Fern.
“OMG, yours too,” said Amanda. “Are you hurt?”
She saw that Simon was standing up holding his phone out in front of him. Rainbows were shooting out of it in every direction and he was shaking.
“Drop it, Simon!” she screamed. “You too, Fern. Ivy, throw your phone away.” She ran to Simon, grabbed his phone out of his hand, and threw it as far as she could. He fell to the ground. “Simon!”
“What’s wrong, what’s wrong!” yelled Ivy. “Nigel!”
Nigel was literally chasing rainbows. As soon as he saw motion he’d lunge. Then when he saw something move elsewhere, he’d lunge in that direction. The poor dog was running himself ragged. Then, when he saw that Simon was down, he came over and started to lick Simon’s face.
“Mfglb,” said Simon.
“Simon, are you all right?” said Amanda, looking at him anxiously. “I was just about to give you CPR.”
Simon opened his eyes and grinned. “You want to kiss me again, don’t you?”
“Simon Binkle, you are impossible,” said Amanda.
“Hey, the rainbows are gone,” he said.
Sure enough, the sky was blue once again, with not a rainbow in sight.
“What in the world was that?” said Fern anxiously.
“I’m afraid it was the hacker,” said Amanda.
“This has gone too far,” said Fern. “No one and nothing is safe.”
“We know,” said Amanda. “That’s why Scapulus has been working so hard to stop him, but he hasn’t gotten anywhere.”
“Scapulus Holmes?” said Fern. “The genius?”
Amanda sighed. That was exactly what Holmes was—a genius. When she’d originally met him she thought he was a know-it-all. Now she admired him more than she could say.
“Yes. That Scapulus Holmes.”
“And this hacker is smarter than he is?” said Fern.
“Apparently,” said Simon.
“Do you suppose it’s safe to touch the phones?” she said.
“Let’s take a look,” said Amanda, trying to see where the phones had fallen. She found hers first. “It looks all right. What do you think, Simon? OMG, what’s this?” It was another leprechaun coin. “Crazy rainbows, leprechaun gold, what’s going on here? You don’t suppose the hacker is making the gold, do you?”
“Alchemy?” said Simon. “You can’t be serious.”
A sensation came over Amanda that was so strong her heart started to race. She wished Holmes were there so fiercely that the emotion almost knocked her down. Why was she feeling this way, and what about the idea of turning base metals into gold would prompt it? He’d sneer at the very notion. Not that Holmes was a sneerer. Only when he was trying to pretend to be a bad boy did he even come close, and that wasn’t really him.
Now Nick could sneer. Boy, could he. She wondered what he’d make of all this nuttiness, then remembered that he might actually have something to do with it. Ugh.
She turned her attention to more immediate matters. “The phones, Simon?”
“Oh, right,” said Simon. “Let me take a look.”
He walked over to where Amanda’s phone was lying and picked it up matter-of-factly.
“Look out!” she said. “You could be electrocuted.”
“Don’t think so,” he said. He tried switching the phone on. “It’s dead.”
“Are you sure?” said Amanda.<
br />
He tried turning the thing on and off. Nothing happened.
“Yup,” he said. “It shorted out or something.”
“How about the others?”
He repeated the process with the same results. “Kaput,” he said. “Sorry. Now you won’t be able to hear back from Despina.”
Amanda realized she’d sent her text more than half an hour before and had heard nothing, despite the fact that the connectivity in the tunnel was surprisingly good. Of course maybe at Despina’s location it wasn’t. Normally the woman was so quick to respond it was frightening so this was unusual, but there was probably a benign explanation.
“She wasn’t answering anyway,” said Amanda. “We’ll just have to limp along without the phones. I’m not sure how we’re going to get back through the tunnel again, though. We’ll be in almost complete darkness. Do you think Nigel could guide us, Ivy?”
“Probably,” said Ivy. “His vision in the dark is as good as ours during the day. Better.”
“Good,” said Amanda. Nigel had been a lifesaver more times than she could count. They were so lucky to have him. “But to get back to the hacker, it’s one thing to deform a solid but quite another to create something out of nothing. Don’t you think, Simon?”
“You’d need much more energy to create something, and anyway there’s always the law of conservation of energy.”
“Refresh my memory,” said Ivy.
Simon loved explaining things, although Amanda was sure he wouldn’t use the word “love.” He’d just say that he was doing whatever was necessary. “Energy can be neither created nor destroyed but can change form. So actually, if the hacker is making these coins—and I strongly doubt that—he’s converting something into them. I have no idea what.”
“What kind of training would you need to do something like this?” said Ivy.
“You’d have to be my dad, or at the very least a chemical engineer,” said Simon. “And no, it isn’t him. He’d never do anything like this, although he’d be very interested to see these effects. Very interested indeed.” No doubt Simon’s dad was a big explainer too. That was probably where he’d got the habit, although he might have picked it up from his mother. Or both of them. Amanda wondered what dinnertime at the Binkle house was like, with all of them trying to explain at once. They probably never got to eat anything, which might help explain why Simon was so skinny.
“Do you think he could help us?” said Ivy.
“He might,” said Simon. “I can ask him.”
“Good,” said Ivy. “So about these excavations, what do you think is going on?”
“Someone found something here,” said Fern.
“The coins?” said Ivy.
“Maybe,” said Amanda, “but let’s think about this a moment.” There was a lot to consider. She needed to go through the facts systematically. “The tunnel leads to the farm. We found a coin in the tunnel. Is the source of the coins the farm, the tunnel, or the church?”
“Dunno,” said Simon. “But the only place that’s been dug up is the farm.”
“Is it possible,” said Amanda, “that the rainbows and the coins are related? That wherever you find one you find the other?”
“Maybe,” said Simon. “If that were true, then wherever these broken rainbows appear, there might also be coins. Maybe even at Legatum.”
“So maybe this farmer, or whoever dug all these holes, saw some broken rainbows and dug underneath them,” said Ivy.
“Except he wouldn’t have set up the grids,” said Fern. “An expert would have had to do that. That’s for ancient artifacts, so you can track their locations and document everything.”
“Good point,” said Ivy. “Then what are the holes for? Can you guys look in them and see anything?”
Simon, Fern, and Amanda spent several minutes looking as far into the holes as they could, but they couldn’t see anything other than dirt.
“Okay,” said Ivy, when they’d huddled together again. “No zombies, no artifacts other than these leprechaun coins, no sign of Inspector Lestrade or Amanda’s cousins, and a bunch of crazy rainbows in the air and shooting out of our phones. What does all that add up to?”
“I don’t know,” said Amanda, “but it’s getting late. I think we should think about going back.” The others agreed, although Simon put up a bit of resistance first.
As they made their way back to the tunnel they passed the haystacks again. One of them was absolutely swarming with bees.
“Ick,” said Amanda. “I don’t like bees. But wait a minute. This is one of the farms on Crocodile’s list. Since there are bees here it must be a place that received them. I wish my camera were working.”
“I’m allergic to bees,” said Ivy. “I can’t get near them.”
“Better be careful,” said Fern. “If you get stung we’re in big trouble.”
“That’s right,” said Ivy. “I don’t have my epinephrine with me.”
This was the first Amanda had heard of Ivy being allergic to bees. That was worrisome, especially if she didn’t have her medicine. She tried to put herself between Ivy and the bees, even though that wasn’t much protection.
“Why do you suppose they’re not swarming around the other haystacks?” she said.
“Look,” said Simon. “There’s a nest.”
He pointed to a pile of straw and mud on the ground. It seemed that some of the straw had got loose and the bees had built a home there.
“And look,” said Amanda. “That’s where the straw came from. There’s a thing sticking out of the haystack.” A corner of something was indeed protruding from the structure. She drew closer to get a good look, keeping Ivy behind her. It looked like a bit of a metal box.
“Don’t touch it,” said Fern.
“I’m not allergic,” said Amanda. “Let me just—yuck. It’s all sticky.”
The box was slick with honey, and now Amanda had the stuff all over her fingers. She looked at her hand, then stuck her index finger in her mouth.
“OMG, this is amazing,” she said. “You have to try this.”
“Are you sure it’s safe?” said Fern.
“It’s honey,” said Amanda. “Here, take a dollop.”
Amanda scooped a glob of honey up with her other hand and slid some onto Fern’s fingers. Then she did the same for the others, but not Nigel.
“Sorry, Nigel,” she said. “I’m not sure if it’s okay for dogs to eat honey. But I want to see what this thing is. Let me just pull it out.”
She placed her sticky hands on either side of the box and yanked. The thing was in there tight but she was able to pull it out by wiggling. It was indeed a metal box, with a lock that looked just like it might fit Wink Wiffle’s key.
Amanda stared at the box. It was impossible. There was no way Wink Wiffle would have come to this farm in the middle of nowhere, stashed the thing in a haystack of all places, and swallowed the key. The whole idea was absurd.
“It’s a lockbox,” said Simon, examining it carefully.
“No kidding,” said Amanda. “You’re right. You do know everything.”
“Don’t make me fine you, Amanda,” said Ivy.
“Sorry,” said Amanda. “You don’t suppose—”
“I think it’s a coincidence,” said Ivy.
“Who puts a lockbox in a haystack?” said Fern. She had a point. The hay was so dense that it must have taken a lot of strength to get it in there. Wink must have been exceptionally strong.
“Let’s think about it,” said Simon. “Wink was watching Crocodile Pleth. Crocodile Pleth was involved in bee thefts. This farm was on his list. Mr. Wiffle could have followed him here. Maybe he had to leave in a hurry so he stuck the box in the haystack.”
“But what’s in the lockbox?” said Amanda looking at it hard, as if that would reveal the nature of the contents. “Do you think it’s evidence having to do with the bee thefts?”
“Could be,” said Simon. “Unfortunately we can’t open it without the ke
y.”
“A key,” said Amanda. “We don’t know that our key is the one.”
“I’ll bet it is,” said Ivy. “You have a picture of it—oh, sorry. Forgot. The phone is dead. That’s too bad. We could make an impression with some mud and compare the shape of the lock with the picture of the key.”
“We’ll have to take the box back with us,” said Simon.
“Too bad it’s too big to fit in an evidence bag,” said Amanda. “It’s a mess.” She shook it. “Not heavy, though. It feels like there are papers in it. I can hear them rustling. You could be right about the evidence, Simon. Probably some kind of documents. OMG, look out!”
Something with the bees was changing. Instead of going about their business as they’d been doing, they began to buzz louder and louder and fly around wildly. Before the kids knew it, the bees were chasing them.
“Run!” yelled Amanda, dropping the box.
She and Fern took off as fast as their legs would go. They made a beeline for the house, where there might be someone who’d let them in and close the door behind them. When they got there, bees still chasing them, they pounded on the door but no one came. With the bees in hot pursuit, there was nothing to do but try the door. To Amanda’s surprise it was open, and they entered the house just as the bees arrived. Fortunately they were able to shut the door before any of the bees could follow.
As they stood there shaking, the two girls looked at each other in horror.
“Ivy!” yelled Fern. “They’ll sting her!”
“OMG!” yelled Amanda.
“We have to call 999,” said Fern.
The two of them called out but no one answered. They ran around like angry bees trying to find a landline and finally came across a phone in the kitchen. Unfortunately it was dead.
And then they discovered the body.
22
Gordon Bramble to the Rescue
The body was lying in a pool of dried blood in the bathroom. It had obviously been there for some time.
“OMG, it smells terrible in here,” said Fern.
Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set Page 90
