Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy

by Paula Berinstein

Back in the lab, Professor Kindseth was a whirlwind of activity. Then suddenly he stopped.

  “I can’t find the right size lens,” he said. “Is there any other place they keep them?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Simon. “Maybe in one of the other labs.”

  “It seems we have two choices then.” He held out his right hand, palm up, and pressed down his little finger as if counting. “One,” he said, “we can go looking in the other labs, where we may or may not find the right lens. Or two,” he released the little finger and pulled down his ring finger, which didn’t have a ring on it, “we can make do. Mr. Binkle, let me see your glasses, please.”

  Simon handed the teacher his thick-lensed glasses. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  “Au contraire,” said the teacher. “Look here.” He popped out one of the lenses, causing Amanda to wince. What if he couldn’t get it back in again? She hoped Simon had another pair. Then he took the lens and attached it to the device. “This seems to work.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” said Simon. “My lenses are so thick.”

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” said Professor Kindseth. “There’s an option in the 3D printing program for using spectacle lenses. I picked that. Forgot all about it in the excitement. See?” He showed them the device, which was now fully assembled. Amanda wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it, but Simon was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Have you got the sample, Mr. Binkle?” said Professor Kindseth, winking at Simon, who couldn’t see a thing now.

  “Yes, sir,” said Simon, tossing him the little bag with the sugar.

  The teacher raised a hand above his head and caught it, then prepared the sample and stuck it into the contraption. “Oh my,” he said. “Would you look at this?” He stepped aside and motioned to the kids to come look.

  “Wow,” said Amanda, looking at the image on the screen. “That’s beautiful.” She could see a series of rod-like structures arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way.

  “Lemme see,” said Simon.

  “I don’t think you’re going to be able to see this,” said Amanda.

  “Now who’s of little faith?” Simon said. “I’m very good at squinting. I’ll just take a look.” He resituated his now one-lensed glasses onto his nose, peered into the viewer, and squinted so much that the top half of his face seemed to shrink. “Awesome! But pretty weird.”

  “What do you mean ‘weird’?” she said.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was looking at a virus.”

  “What kind of virus? And how do you know? Are you sure you’re seeing it right?”

  “See this journal?” he said pointing at a volume that lay open on the lab bench. “It’s all about viruses. Look at these pictures.” He found a page and jabbed at it so hard that Amanda could hear his finger hit the paper. He was still squinting and looked like he was in pain.

  “Yes, I see,” she said, looking at the pictures. They were quite beautiful, beguiling abstract compositions so expertly composed that they should have been hanging on walls rather than collecting dust in some old textbook. One in particular looked just like the sample.

  “I do believe you’re correct,” said Professor Kindseth, examining the images. “Look there. It’s the glusoheptaminecytorazzmatazz virus. That’s quite a name, isn’t it? It infects sugar. It says here that there’s no way to kill it. Ooooh, bad news. Hang on, Simon. Let me give you your sight back.” He removed the glasses from Simon’s face, slipped the lens out of the device, and popped it back into the frame with a ta-da. Simon put the glasses on and his face returned to normal.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” said Amanda. “That means if the virus gets out, which it seems that it has, it’s unstoppable. But wouldn’t it kill all the sugar in the world? Who’d want to do that?”

  “Let’s back up,” said Simon. “We should start local. The sugar has a very bad virus in it. So maybe the cook was doing the school a favor by getting rid of contaminated food.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Amanda. That isn’t how you do it. First of all you report it. Next you get the health department to look at it. And third, you don’t die with your head in a bag of it.”

  “You said that bag had white sugar in it,” said the teacher. “I saw it. You’re correct.”

  “Yes, it did,” said Simon.

  “It isn’t the same,” said Amanda.

  “It doesn’t look the same,” said Simon.

  “If it doesn’t look the same, it can’t be the same,” Amanda said.

  “Probably not,” said Simon. “So the two sugars are different. I wonder what that means.”

  “One of them has a virus in it,” said Amanda. “Say, do you think the cook caught something from the virus and that’s what killed her?”

  “Not unless it makes you bleed an awful lot. If it were Ebola or something, a lot of people would have died way before this happened,” Simon said cheerily.

  “Good point,” said Amanda. “Okay, the pink sugar has a virus in it. We don’t know if it’s dangerous or how it got in there. The white sugar we don’t know. We should analyze that too.”

  “Good thing you mentioned that. I just happen to have some.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out an evidence bag containing a small sample of white sugar.

  “Where’d you get that, Simon?” said Amanda.

  “I found some outside the kitchen door,” he said. “It’s very convenient carrying evidence bags and little brushes around. I’m building a sophisticated kit that will have everything you could ever need. Wanna see my list?” He went for his phone.

  “Very much, but later if you don’t mind.” Actually she did want to see it, a lot. It might help her investigate her father’s disappearance. Maybe Simon had come up with a tool she’d forgotten, or never known about to begin with. He really was a smart guy once you got past the weirdness.