Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy

by Paula Berinstein

As she boarded the train she calculated that she would arrive at King’s Cross Station at about seven-thirty. Her timing was going to be extremely close. The tube ride to the factory would take another half hour or so, and then she’d have to walk, in the dark, to the place on the map. Under no other circumstances would she have engaged in such risky behavior. She hadn’t progressed far enough in her self-defense class to be confident that she could ward off attackers, if (shudder) there were any, and she didn’t carry a weapon. Too bad she hadn’t at least bought a can of pepper spray, but she’d been too rushed even to think of it. At any rate, when she got there, if she got there, it would be eight o’clock or later and then what? Maybe the place would be deserted except for her father and a guard. That would probably be a good situation. Fewer criminals to deal with. But even if it was, she had no idea what she was going to do and even less confidence that she could do it.

  She checked Google Maps again. The London address was a big warehouse in the Silvertown district, ironically a place known for sugar, treacle, and jam refining once referred to as the sugar mile, which she learned about from Wikipedia. From King’s Cross she would have to take the Northern Line to the Bank DLR Station, then take the DLR to get to the West Silvertown Station, which was the nearest to her destination. She’d never taken a train or a subway before, but she figured as long as she’d familiarized herself with the route she shouldn’t have a repeat of the incident with the wayward truck, which had already set her back some five—five!—hours.

  But the delay was just about to lengthen. After more than four hours of uneventful travel, the train stopped, between the towns of Grantham and Peterborough, about a hundred miles from King’s Cross. The passengers all looked around to see what was happening and there was a great hubbub. “What’s going on?” “Are we being robbed?” “Has the train broken down?” “Did someone have a heart attack?” The longer the train sat, the more agitated the passengers became. Amanda felt her own panic rise. The problem was undoubtedly mechanical, probably something simple, but she wished they’d hurry up and fix it. It was seven-thirty. There were only a few hours left in which to find her father!

  After a couple of extremely long minutes, the loudspeaker came on and the engineer spoke.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “It seems that we’re having mechanical difficulties. We’re going to be here for a while. We apologize for any inconvenience this delay may cause.”

  This was terrible news! If they didn’t get going soon it would be too late. Amanda toyed with the idea of calling the police, but she knew that would be the wrong thing to do, or would it? Maybe the time had come to give in. She considered the idea for about five minutes. If she were stuck here for more than a little while her father would die. But if she called the police they’d just mess everything up. Saving her father was up to her and her alone. Still, what if the train were delayed even longer? She wished she knew something about engines. Maybe she could help them fix whatever was wrong. As if. She wondered if Nick or Simon knew anything about that stuff. She was pretty sure Amphora and Editta didn’t, and of course Ivy. Ha! Ivy probably did. She’d hear how to fix the stupid thing. Amanda smiled. What a wonder that girl was.

  And then something else happened. It would have been funny under normal circumstances, but now it was horrific. A monkey in a pet carrier escaped and started running around the train screeching. This disaster triggered a whole new round of hysteria among the passengers. “Get it away from me!” “It’s infected!” “It bit me!” “It’s got rabies!” Amanda could see the monkey fly by a few times while people threw up their hands and screamed, as if the poor thing were a tiger or a rampaging bull rather than someone’s pet. She felt sympathy for it. What animal wouldn’t be terrified under such circumstances? Still, it was nothing but a pain in the neck at the moment and she wished it would shut up and go back to its cage and the train would move again.

  The monkey’s person, who turned out to be a bearded young man in an indigo T-shirt, was finally able to make his way through the crowd and track down his charge, which had climbed up onto a luggage rack above the seats and was nattering at the people below. The guy motioned to the monkey to hop onto his shoulder and said, “Come on, Pesto, it’s all right” and “Let’s go back to our seat, shall we?” Unfortunately, these pleas didn’t impress the monkey one bit. It just made faces and grabbed things from the rack to throw down onto the passengers, all of whom fortunately managed to jump out of the way. Still, they weren’t amused. “You’d better control that monkey,” said a short, fat man to the kid. “If he hurts someone, you’ll be charged with assault.” Amanda thought this an ungenerous thing to say, especially since the monkey couldn’t throw that far and no one was in any real danger. Still, she was highly displeased with T-shirt boy, who should have taken greater care with his decidedly unfunny pet, and was becoming so irrational that she was starting to feel that the delay was his fault.

  The crowd having withdrawn, the monkey jumped down from the rack, circumvented its owner, and raced toward where Amanda was sitting. This was the wrong way. He, for she could now tell that it was indeed a male, should have been moving away from her, back toward his seat. Instead he stood right in front of her and gave her a huge simian grin with his lips pulled back and his teeth sticking out as far as they would go. She was in no mood for this. She gave him a deadly look and stuck out her tongue.

  The monkey eyed her for a moment, then, coming to some realization or decision, scratched his head, stuck out his own tongue, and let go with a huge, great pee all over Amanda’s leg. Then he skittered back to T-shirt boy, climbed onto his shoulder, and gloated.

  “That’s not funny,” yelled Amanda, looking down at her jeans and shoe and shaking her hands, as if that would magically fix everything.

  The car exploded with laughter. The people behind Amanda snapped pictures. The family on the other side of the aisle was just about rolling in it. Even the passengers at the opposite end clamored to get a good look. It was a Marx Brothers moment, but one Amanda did not appreciate. Instead she burst into tears.

  “Oh dear, miss,” said Pesto’s owner, making his way back toward Amanda with the offender clinging to his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Let me make this up to you. I’ll pay for the cleaning.” He leaned forward and tried vaguely to help her. Despite the fact that his monkey had undoubtedly done this before, he had no idea how to clean up pee.

  “Just get him away from me! GET AWAY!!! Now what am I going to do?” cried Amanda. She was beginning to feel hysterical. Her leg, shoe, and sock were soaking wet and starting to smell bad, and she didn’t feel that she could cope with one more thing.

  “Here, let me,” said the kid, producing some paper towels from nowhere and dabbing at Amanda’s leg.

  “No!” she screamed. “Get away! You have no idea!”

  “At least let me pay for the cleaning.” He handed her a twenty-pound note and said, “Let me buy you something to eat. Do you like scones?”

  “Leave me alone!” she yelled, flinging down the boy’s money. “Who takes a monkey on a train anyway? First it breaks down, then you let a monkey run loose, then it pees on me, and then you try to buy me off.” Completely out of control now, she grabbed someone’s umbrella and pointed it at the kid. “Don’t come near me.”

  The other passengers were starting to become alarmed. The fat man stepped forward and said, “It’s all right. Give me the umbrella,” whereupon Amanda pointed the thing at him, then back at monkey boy, then back at the fat man again.

  “See here,” said a dark-haired man with a thin mustache. “What’s this about?”

  “That monkey peed on me!” Amanda screamed.

  “Young man, get that animal out of here,” said the man. “What’s your name, young lady?”

  “My name is get out of here. Just leave me alone,” said Amanda, still brandishing the umbrella.

  “Let me help you, dear,” said a woman in a brown coat. “Are your parents here?” Amanda s
hook her head. “Well then, put down the umbrella and I’ll take you to the ladies’. Come on now.” She held her hand out and nodded at Amanda.

  Suddenly the wind went out of Amanda’s sails. She gave the umbrella to the woman and let herself be led to the restroom, where the two of them cleaned her up as best they could. This disaster recovery in restrooms thing was beginning to be a habit, and she didn’t like it at all. She thanked the woman and went back to her seat in soggy jeans, shoe, and sock, shivering. She could still smell the monkey’s urine on her, which made her gag. It was a good thing she had one gingersnap left and it was dry and sanitary.

  She was now so drained and upset that all she could do was sit there. The train had been stopped for forty-five minutes. Eight-fifteen. She’d never make it in time. She felt her body give up, and the tears came in a flood.

  And then there was a jolt and a grinding, and the train started moving again. She was now six hours behind schedule. Less than four hours remained in which to save her father.