Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy
Page 55
Chapter 21
Counting Calories
Investigating her father’s disappearance was a great idea, but Amanda wasn’t sure where to start. She couldn’t ask her mother. She’d known that as soon as she heard her voice. So she’d have to do it on her own, but so far, trying to figure out the why hadn’t led her anywhere. She already knew. Someone her father had put in prison was out now, or had a confederate, and they had taken him. That was the most likely explanation anyway.
It also explained why there had been no ransom demand. Whoever it was wasn’t interested in money. They just wanted revenge. Which meant they were going to kill him! Maybe they already had.
But no matter how panicky she felt, there was only one thing she could do: push forward with her investigation. There was no other option. If she just sat and wallowed, she wouldn’t help her father and she’d probably lose her mind.
So, back to the drawing board. She had to reason this thing out. What sorts of criminals might have taken him? She did know that they had used a banana peel to capture him. That almost implied a sense of humor. Did she know if any of the criminals her dad had locked up had a sense of humor?
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he had been in the UK long enough to anger someone. How would she find out what cases he had worked on since he’d been here? The only thing she could think of was to ask her mother, but that was a terrible idea. She didn’t want to talk to her, and she might not know anyway. She couldn’t go to London and look at his files. She couldn’t even ask anyone else to do that. Was there any other way?
Oh, great. Now she had an idea but no way to pursue it. Maybe she should try something else, but what? She suddenly wished she’d kept in closer touch with her father. Then she might have something she could use.
She decided to go to her room and lie down. Her head was hurting and she was suddenly exhausted. Classes were in session, but Thrillkill had implied that she was allowed to take some time for herself as long as it wasn’t too much. Now seemed like as good a time as any.
When she got to her room, she threw herself down on her bed and started to sob. Her thoughts bombarded her, and with each new one she cried louder and harder until she was all cried out. She lifted her head and turned over onto her side. Suddenly she noticed the book she’d thrown across the room that first day, one of her mother’s novels, lying under Ivy’s dresser. She got up, snaked her arm underneath, and retrieved the book, which was splayed and lying open to page 243. She took it back to her bed and read:
Jessie counted the empty parking spots, which would tell her how many people were missing. Numbers were significant. They held clues that most people missed. But in her experience they were key for cracking a case.
There was that counting idea again. Editta had showed them that counting could be useful, even if she was sometimes superstitious about it. Amanda hadn’t realized that before, but maybe Editta and her mother were onto something. It wouldn’t hurt to try. But what should she count?
Then she remembered that the previous night at dinner Editta had said something important: "When we arrived, there were approximately 1800 calories in our meals in any given twenty-four-hour period. I’ve been watching carefully, and I’d estimate that now there are only 1450. That’s a daily difference of 350 calories, which would come out to a lost pound every ten days, 3600 calories making up a pound." Amanda had lost her patience and had told her to cut it out, but Amphora saw something the others didn’t.
"No, wait a minute. She's got something,” she’d said. “We’re all so busy that we hardly notice what we eat anymore. But think about it. The food has changed. We’re now eating a tiny piece of fruit for dessert, and the breakfast cereal has no sugar in it. And has anyone noticed that our afternoon tea has gotten really skimpy?"
At the time Amanda hadn’t given the girls’ observations any credence. She’d been too busy thinking about the pink sugar, the gluppy things, and Nick, but now she wondered. Why the change? She hadn’t heard anything about new nutritional guidelines, and she was sure Thrillkill would have made a big deal if there were any. Perhaps the school was trying to save money. He probably wouldn’t tell the students about that.
Amanda wondered how many bags of sugar the cook had taken. They hadn’t counted them but she knew the woman had stolen a lot of them. She wasn’t sure if she could document the number, but if she could get to the cook’s account records she might be able to. Then again, she had taken pictures of the cook acting suspicious. She might be able to extrapolate from those. By quantifying the sugar, she should be able to ascertain the scale of whatever it was that was going on. Of course it had nothing to do with her father, but at least she could be productive about something.
Maybe she could get a rough idea of the quantity by using Editta’s methods. If the number of calories per student per day had declined by 350 and there were 200 students, then the kids were consuming 70,000 fewer calories per day. She could throw in the staff as well. There were twenty teachers and twenty staff, which, added to the number of students made 240 mouths to feed, although some of the teachers and staff came and went, but she wouldn’t worry about that for now. That was a total of 84,000 fewer calories per day for everyone. Now, how many calories in a bag of sugar?
A five-pound bag of sugar held 11.35 cups. Each cup of sugar contained 773 calories, which meant that there were a whopping 8773.55 calories in a bag. Divide 84,000 calories per day by 8773.55 calories and you came up with ten bags a day, or seventy bags per week. That was three hundred fifty pounds of sugar per week, more than a ton every six weeks! That was a lot for one middle-aged woman to shift, even using trolleys.
What could such huge quantities of sugar be used for? The idea of fencing them had been something of a joke. She’d thought of that only because she’d heard of fences. She didn’t really think the cook was meeting some gold-chain-wearing sleazebag who was selling sugar on the black market. It was silly, and especially so because all the sugar she had seen was pink. It was too easy to spot and trace.
But there must be a reason. Editta and Amphora had been correct that the school was using less sugar. Amanda’s clothes were so loose on her now that there could be no doubt of that. Come to think of it, Amphora was looking sleeker these days too. So it was undeniable that the cook was diverting sugar and trying to cover up her theft by skimping on sweet foods. Didn’t she think anyone would notice?
What if she were selling it to someone? Who would need so much sugar? A company that manufactured baked goods or soft drinks or something like that? Why couldn’t they buy their sugar the regular way? Perhaps there was some use for sugar she wasn’t aware of and someone was buying up mass quantities for that, but again, why not buy it the usual way? Of course they had tossed around the idea of shortages driving prices up and she wondered if that could be the reason. When gas was in short supply, prices increased and oil companies made huge profits. When there had been a bad coffee season the price of coffee had risen. Her mother had complained about that. Why not the same with sugar?
Was there a sugar supplier who was trying to manipulate the market? Where did sugar come from? Sugar beets? Sugar cane? Didn’t those come from the Caribbean? What could that have to do with Lake Windermere? Why would anyone transport sugar all that way just to get rid of it?
The whole thing was ridiculous. But just the same, Amanda thought that revisiting the pantry and the secret room might yield some clues. As long as she couldn’t figure out what to do about her father, why not?
She threw the book on her nightstand and walked down to the kitchen. There was no one around, so she carefully pushed open the door. The place was empty, but there was a big pot bubbling on the stove. Did the cook always leave open flames unattended? Amanda wasn’t sure what to do so she went to the stove and turned off the burner, just to be on the safe side. She’d be in trouble if anyone saw her, but since no one was there she wasn’t worried.
She sneaked over to the pantry and opened the door. As with t
he door to the secret room, something was in the way and she could only open it a little. She reached inside, flipped on the light switch, looked in, and gasped. There was the cook, lying in a pool of blood with her head in a bag of sugar.