Amanda Lester and the Orange Crystal Crisis

by Paula Berinstein

  In the meantime, everyone was concocting theories about how and when the murder had occurred. The victim had to have been someone with access to the school. Otherwise the killer would have had to sneak him in, and that would have been difficult if not impossible. That meant the dead person was probably someone who resided there, or someone who had been there at least once. But no one had been reported missing, so who could it be?

  Unfortunately, Amanda and her friends didn’t have time to think about all that. Even though the teachers were deeply involved in the case, they were still talking about whatever the whatsit was, and the kids managed to make out some of what they were saying.

  One thing the teachers discussed endlessly was where they had already looked. Listening to them was a lesson in the geography of the school because they were constantly naming places the kids hadn’t heard of. This struck Amanda as strange because she hadn’t realized there were that many places she and the others didn’t know about. Perhaps they were familiar places with unfamiliar names.

  At one point Ivy was listening to Professors Feeney, Snool, and Pargeter, and she heard Professor Snool say something about code names. Whether this was what he’d actually said no one knew. She had not gone to the doctor yet because she was still convinced her hearing would get better on its own. The others weren’t happy about her refusal to be checked, but they decided to lay off for the time being. Amanda was actually worried sick, but Simon said at the first sign of real trouble he’d pick her up and carry her to the hospital.

  As Amanda strained her ears, she was able to deduce that the teachers had in fact assigned special names to secret places around the school. Knowing this, the team began a Rosetta Stone-like operation in which they tried to figure out which name was attached to which place. One intriguing location was the crypt. Another was the peekaboo. Still another was the cave. The names were as abbreviated and separated from any key to their meaning as the pieces of paper in the trove. If you didn’t know what they meant, they were as good as useless.

  It seemed, too, that the teachers had given up on the idea that the whatsit had been lost and were starting to conclude that it had been stolen. Of course, as with the murder, the main suspects were the Moriartys. The teachers already knew that nothing of interest appeared on the evidence list from the factory explosion, which affirmed Amanda’s conclusion that there was nothing significant to find. That meant that none of the files on the computers or phones was of interest. Also none of the chemicals, sugar samples, medical equipment, or lab equipment. At least all that stuff had been eliminated and they wouldn’t have to waste time on it.

  The kids also heard a lot of other discussion. For one thing, the papers on informants that had just been turned in to Professor McTavish were excellent, and one was brilliant, but the kids couldn’t make out who the author was. Then they heard that one of the teachers wanted to write a new article on predicting criminal behavior based on finger grease left on mobile devices, as well as something about a frantic search for Professor Also’s favorite umbrella, which she thought she’d left in the dining room but couldn’t find.

  But listen as they might, the friends weren’t making much progress. And then something happened that insured they wouldn’t, or at least Amanda wouldn’t. Thrillkill decided that she and Holmes should, in fact, make the training film after all and her storytelling seminar be put on hold again. This news sent Amanda into paroxysms of frustration so pronounced that her stomach hurt for an hour after hearing it. Even gingersnaps couldn’t soothe the pain.

  Since Professor Redleaf’s death. Holmes had been teaching the cyberforensics class and doing quite a job of it, from all the talk among the first-years. Even Amanda had to admit that he was good. He was teaching them how to track people’s digital activities, identify and trap hackers, and disable malware, which were, of course, huge topics, but he managed to get across the basic concepts in ways that everyone understood. He was building quite a reputation and Thrillkill was over the moon about his progress.

  Amanda, however, felt chaotic. She was now juggling her classes, the murder, the crystals, the whatsit, the training film, Darius Plover, her parents, and Amphora’s constant crises, and the stress was beginning to show. However, there was one positive effect: she was too busy to think about Nick.

  Unfortunately, she was going to have to focus on the film project now, which would take precious time away from more important things. However, as distracted as Thrillkill was, sooner or later he’d have a fit if she and Holmes didn’t produce something, so for once she contacted him and asked to meet. As usual, she received an instant reply. He was available right then. How about getting a cup of tea and meeting in the Cyberforensics classroom? After running through a number of colorful insults in her head, she figured she may as well get the whole thing over with as soon as possible and said yes.

  As she clomped down the stairs, she thought about how she’d like to approach the situation this time. When the two of them had last met they hadn’t agreed on anything, but he’d been gracious and had let her take the lead. Maybe she should sit on her aggravation and see if that helped defuse the tension between them. Of course Holmes didn’t seem to think there was any tension, but as far as she was concerned, the two of them were engaged in a huge power struggle and had been from the first. He had his agenda and she had hers. That was what it always came down to when they were together. She couldn’t see how everyone else could like him. He was so difficult.

  He reached the dining room the same time she did. He was wearing a bright multicolored sweater Amanda had to admit was really cool. She wondered if he had picked it out himself.

  “Hey,” he said when he saw her.

  “Hey.”

  “You look nice,” he said sweetly.

  Amanda looked down at what she was wearing. A blue sweater, jeans, and tennies. Whoop-de-doo. Was he trying to flatter her?

  “Uh, thanks,” she said. “You look nice too.”

  “Thanks. I’m really glad Professor Thrillkill changed his mind about the film,” he said. “It’s going to be fun.”

  “Right,” she said.

  “Look,” he said, “I know you don’t like my approach, so let’s back up and talk about what we should do instead. I’m flexible.”

  Why was he being so nice? He really shouldn’t do that. It made it hard to hate him. Unless, of course, he was pulling a Nick and trying to fool her. She wouldn’t put it past him.

  “Okay,” she said cautiously. “Let’s give it a try.”

  “Want to work here?”

  Amanda looked around the dining room. It was empty and quiet. No clatter of dishes, no cook running in and out, no students, nothing. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

  He gave her a big grin and found a place at her usual table. Hers, not his. He never sat with her group at meals. Was he trying to invade her territory?

  “Uh, how about over there?” she said, pointing to a table in the corner farthest from the hall door.

  “Your wish is my command,” he said, bowing.

  She fought the urge to tell him to stop playing with her and settled herself in the corner. He followed her so closely that she felt claustrophobic.

  “Okay,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously. “I think the film should tell a story. It should be a worked example that takes the audience through the solving of a problem.” She stopped and waited for his reaction.

  “Boffo,” he said. Boffo? What century was this?

  “We should come up with a question that demonstrates as many of the points we’re trying to make as possible. However, we shouldn’t try to make too many because people will get lost.”

  “Agreed.”

  This was too easy. She decided to press. “The problem should be dramatic with high stakes. People like a lot of drama.”

  “Yes. That makes sense.” He paused for a moment, then yelled, “Yeah!” so loud that Amanda almost fell off her seat. “Oops, sorry. I just had to think about it
for a second, but I realized this is an amazing idea. You’re a genius, Amanda.”

  Here was a conundrum. She loved being called a genius. It happened about once a century, so she wanted to savor the experience. At the same time, she was afraid he was trying to get on her good side so he could manipulate her and she was afraid to let her guard down. Oh well. Better to be careful. She ignored the comment.

  “I’m glad you like it,” she said cautiously. “What’s a good problem to use?”

  “There are so many. Let’s make a list.”

  “You make the list and I’ll watch.” She had no idea what a good problem would be. She really did need him to take the lead here.

  Holmes took out his tablet, stared at it for a moment, and began to type. Thirty seconds later he had a list of nine items. He turned it around and showed it to her. It read:

  How to:

   Get into a system when you don’t know the ID and password.

   Recover deleted files.

   Trace where a user is located.

   Trace where a server is located.

   Tell what a given user has done (audit trail).

   Stop people from hacking in.

   Set a trap for a hacker.

   Identify and disable malware.

   Find out who’s hacked you.

  It was quite a list. Amanda was impressed. “This looks good,” she said. “Let’s pick one. Then we can turn the concepts into characters.”

  “Sorry?” Well, of course he wouldn’t get it. What did he know about storytelling?

  “All right, let me give you an example,” she said. He seemed to relax. “What if we made an IP address a character the investigator needs to track? The detective tails him or her, goes on a stakeout, that sort of thing.”

  “Wellll,” he said.

  “You don’t like it?” She could feel herself stiffen.

  “An IP address is a thing. It’s inanimate. You can’t turn it into something with free will.”

  “Sure you can,” she said. “If Terry Pratchett can have a talking chest in his stories, why can’t you make a character out of anything you want?”

  “That’s Terry Pratchett. It’s fantasy. This is real.” So that was it. The kid didn’t have any imagination. This was going to be tough.

  “But it makes the story so much more interesting to give things personalities and watch them do things as if they’re alive.”

  “That doesn’t apply here. No one will understand the concepts. Anyway, you need explanations. I think we need a voiceover.”

  Amanda laughed. “Are you kidding? No way. Voiceovers are stupid. You’re telling rather than showing the audience what you want to get across. They’ll feel like you’re trying to lecture them.”

  “But how can you explain something without a voiceover? Unless we go back to my original idea of lectures and Q and A,” he said.

  “Easy,” she said. “You dramatize it.”

  “But that isn’t enough. This is complicated stuff. You have to explain.”

  “The dialog and the action will do the explaining. For example, every time an IP address changes, it’s like the person you’re tailing puts on a disguise and tries to give you the slip.”

  “No,” he said. “An IP address is a location, not a person. It’s like the address of your house.”

  “Sure,” she said, “but you can make it into a person or an animal or whatever.”

  He sat up straight, as if preparing for battle like some kind of knight. This was turning into a big fight just the way she’d predicted. “That isn’t programmer culture,” he said,

  Boy he was dense. “So what? A lot of us aren’t programmers.”

  “You should be,” he said. “Programming is a basic skill. Everyone needs to know how to do it.”

  If Amanda had worn glasses, she would have been peering over them at this point the way Thrillkill sometimes did when he was annoyed. “Not everyone has time to learn to program,” she said. “A lot of us have better things to do.”

  “I see,” he said snippily. “And would you not learn to add or subtract because you have better things to do?”

  “That’s different. You need that to manage money and measure stuff.”

  Holmes rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an idiot savant, Amanda. You need to know a lot more to get along in the world than how to make movies.”

  This impertinence made Amanda so mad that she got up and stomped all the way to the door. Then she turned around and said very loudly, “When you want to join the human race, Scapulus Holmes, let me know,” and left the room.

  A few hours later Amanda got a text: “Please come back.” So Holmes was going to listen to reason after all. Good. She’d won the argument as she should have. His position was ultra-dumb and he’d been insulting to boot. She was glad he’d seen the light.

  “Pick a problem. I’ll block out scenes,” she texted back.

  “Audit trail,” the text came back.

  Good choice. The topic was definitely something she could work with. “Can u send points?”

  “U got it.”

  Hurray for our side. They really were making progress now. Maybe they should do the whole project by text. They seemed to get along better that way.

  “I’ll text Thrillkill w/ progress,” she sent.

  “Excellent,” he texted, adding a smiley face. Apparently all was forgiven. Should she answer? She still didn’t like the guy, but maybe a little concession would smooth the process.

  She texted him a smiley and sat back to write a quick report for Thrillkill.

  “How’s the film coming along?” said Ivy when she returned to their room from wherever she’d been.

  “Actually okay,” said Amanda. “At the beginning I didn’t think it would go very well, but he’s being pretty nice now.”

  “Oh?” said Ivy. “Wasn’t he nice before?” She sat on her bed. Nigel placed his paw on it. “Okay, Nigel. You can come up.” The dog jumped up and leaned on her, causing her to tilt to one side. He was a big animal.

  “He’s so cute,” said Amanda, gazing dreamily at the golden retriever.

  “Yes,” said Ivy. “He’s perfect, isn’t he?”

  “Well, he thinks he is, but he’s actually not,” said Amanda.

  “What?”

  “Oh, sorry. You meant Nigel. I was thinking of Holmes. I mean first I was talking about Nigel. Sorry.”

  “Scapulus?” said Ivy. “No, of course not. He’s a nice guy, and extremely smart, but he isn’t perfect. Nigel’s the only one who’s perfect.” She laughed. Amanda was glad to see that her mood had improved.

  “I’m glad you said that because everyone else seems to think he is. Holmes, I mean.” She couldn’t bring herself to use his first name.

  “He is popular,” said Ivy. “Amphora has a huge crush on him.”

  “Amphora has a huge crush on everyone,” said Amanda, smiling for the first time all day—except for the smiley she’d sent Holmes.

  “Yeah. She’s going through quite a colorful puberty, isn’t she?” said Ivy, giggling.

  Now it was Amanda’s turn to say, “What?”

  “She is,” said Ivy happily. “We all are in one way or another. There’s no point in denying it, is there?” She seemed her old self again. Maybe her hearing had returned.

  “I guess not. Say, speaking of puberty, what do you think is up with Gordon?” said Amanda.

  “You mean dumping David?” said Ivy.

  “I don’t know about dumping,” said Amanda. “But he certainly seems to be getting more confident, don’t you think?” She reached over and stroked Nigel absently.

  “Yeah,” said Ivy. “I couldn’t believe how much he got into those glitter explosions, and wanting to go into the basements when David kept nagging him about how much trouble he’d get into. I was shocked.” She tee heed. Yep. Her hearing must have come back.

  “Me too,” said Amanda. “What do you think David will do without him?”<
br />
  “I don’t know if Gordon will dump David completely. You think he would?”

  “Who can say?” said Amanda. “Weird things seem to be happening around here. Sometimes I think anything could happen. Speaking of which, what’s going on with Editta?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ivy. “I did notice that she’s actually talking though.”

  “That’s good,” said Amanda. “Whatever it is that’s bothering her must be getting better.”

  “Hope so,” said Ivy. “I hate for her to be so unhappy. She still won’t say anything about what the problem is.”

  “You don’t think it has anything to do with the whatsit, do you?”

  “I don’t know. We haven’t made any progress on that front at all. Which reminds me, what’s this about these crystals?”

  Amanda brought Ivy up to date on all the latest crystal news, adding that she thought Professor Hoxby was looking more purple than usual, then apologizing because Ivy wouldn’t be able to see the difference.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Ivy. “But this crystal thing is really exciting, isn’t it?” She looked just like them with that gleaming orange hair.

  It didn’t take Amanda long to block out the scenes. Holmes had sent her a list of three points, which was the perfect number. Public speaking coaches tell you to mention no more than three ideas per talk or risk losing your audience. Either the boy was an expert in that too or he had an excellent feel for communication, which confused her, because if he did, why had he argued so much when she’d come up with her fantastic ideas?

  When they convened again—it seemed that the far table in the dining room was now “their” table—Amanda explained that they would use motion capture. One of them would be wired with sensors while the other held the camera. They’d put the motion capture together with some digital characters and voila! An animated film.

  “I don’t think we can manage that alone,” said Holmes, scrunching up his face.

  “Well, if we can’t we’ll get help,” she said. “Nick can—” She gasped. She was stunned by what had just come out of her mouth. She put her hand to her lips. Then she caught herself and said, “We’ll get Prudence or someone to help us. It will be fine.”