Amanda Lester and the Gold Spectacles Surprise

by Paula Berinstein

  As she stared at him the light bulb went on. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

  “OMG,” she blurted out. “That’s why Blixus was at Taffeta’s.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Clive.

  No wonder he was confused. She hadn’t told him. “I saw Blixus at Taffeta’s castle,” said Amanda. “He must have gone to get the spectacles.”

  “You saw Blixus and you didn’t tell us?” said Clive. “Why not?”

  Amanda pointed to her shoulder. “I was shot, remember?”

  “But you’re okay now,” said Clive.

  “I forgot,” said Amanda. She was losing track. What had she told to whom? She hoped she hadn’t neglected to tell them anything important—except for the one thing she couldn’t bring herself to mention: Eustace.

  “You were in shock,” said Ivy. “And out of it for quite a while. I can see how you’d forget.”

  “Yeah, guess so,” said Clive. “Sorry.”

  “But this is huge,” said Amanda. “Blixus thinks Nick has the secrets in his head and he wanted to prevent people from using the glasses on him.”

  “Don’t you think he might just have wanted to get his magic spectacles back for safekeeping?” said Clive.

  “That’s possible too,” said Amanda.

  “Considering that he knew Nick was Wink Wiffle’s son, do you really think he’d have let him in on the secrets in the first place?”

  Amanda started. She still sometimes forgot that Nick wasn’t a Moriarty. “You’re right. He probably wouldn’t. Which means that Nick wasn’t lying when he said he didn’t know where Moriarty’s secrets are.”

  “I told you he wouldn’t lie to you,” said Ivy.

  “So what happened to Blixus?” said Clive.

  “You mean back at Taffeta’s?” said Amanda. “I don’t know. One minute he was chasing me and the next I was shot.”

  “So Taffeta might have killed him for all we know,” said Clive.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” said Amanda. “Say, do you think Professor Scribbish would be able to sense that? He is his twin.”

  “Now that’s a thought,” said Ivy. “If he were sane.”

  “Oh bother,” said Amanda. “Those glasses really did mess everything up.”

  “They brought the truth to light,” said Clive. “That’s what matters.”

  “But look at the price,” said Amanda. “We’ve lost Professor Scribbish.”

  “We don’t know what’s going on,” said Ivy. “There are still many unanswered questions.”

  Just then Professor Hoxby summoned the kids back to his lab. Since they were right outside the door they arrived in two seconds.

  “It’s safe,” he said. “I’ll administer it.”

  They made their way to Professor Scribbish’s hospital bed and Professor Hoxby gave him the injection. His arm swelled up like an orange and his face flushed.

  “Hello, Chris,” said Professor Hoxby.

  “Basil,” said Professor Scribbish. “Am I ill?”

  “You’re fine,” said Professor Hoxby. “We’d just like to ask you a few questions.”

  “I like questions,” said Professor Scribbish. “They’re the detective’s stock in trade.”

  Professor Hoxby gave the kids a look that said, “So far so good.”

  “What is your name?” said Amanda.

  “Me?” said Professor Scribbish. “I’m Amboy. Er, I think I’m Amboy. Or am I Chris?” He looked at Professor Hoxby. “What’s my name, Basil?”

  “You tell me,” said Professor Hoxby sounding like a psychiatrist.

  “Very well,” said Professor Scribbish. “I am Amboy Moriarty Christopher Scribbish. At your service.” He giggled.

  “Are you both people?” said Ivy.

  “That’s a good question,” said Professor Scribbish. “I don’t know. I thought I was Christopher Scribbish. Then I started having the strangest dreams. People were calling me Amboy and sending me away.”

  “Sending you away?” said Amanda.

  “My father,” said Professor Scribbish. “He was so disappointed when I changed.”

  Clive and Amanda looked at each other. Ivy squeezed their hands.

  “What do you mean you changed?” said Ivy.

  “After the transplant,” he said. “I was ill. They gave me new marrow. It saved my life. But my father didn’t like me after that.”

  “You changed after the transplant,” said Professor Hoxby. “Then what happened?”

  “My father kept saying I was different. That I’d lost my edge. He didn’t like me being nice. That’s why my mother sent me away.”

  “Explain,” said Professor Hoxby.

  “My mother didn’t like the way my father was treating me,” said Professor Scribbish. “He started to hit me. She wanted to save me so she sent me to an orphanage. But first we faked my death, my mum and I.”

  Everyone gasped. “Your mother sent you to an orphanage?” said Ivy.

  “Yes,” he said. “It was terrible. But this nice family, the Scribbishes, adopted me.”

  Amanda gulped. Ivy grasped Nigel’s neck.

  “Amboy, do you have Professor Moriarty’s secrets in your head?” said Amanda.

  “Of course,” he said. “All Moriartys do. That’s how James stored them. He stole Lovelace Earful’s glasses. Every generation gets them. Blood relatives only of course.”

  “So you know them, Blixus knows them, Stencil knows them, and Hugh knows them?” said Amanda.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “But not Nick.”

  “No, not Nick.”

  “What about your mother?” said Ivy.

  “She didn’t,” said Professor Scribbish. “She was only a relative by marriage.”

  “Amboy,” said Amanda. “Do your brothers know you’re alive?”

  He giggled. “I didn’t know I was alive until just now so how could they?”

  Wait a minute. This didn’t make sense. If Blixus knew Nick didn’t have the secrets in his head and didn’t know Amboy was alive, why would he have gone to Taffeta’s? For the detectives’ secrets? Apparently so. Which meant he might not even have known she had the glasses. No, wait. Stencil knew she did. He would have told Blixus. Which might mean that Blixus knew Amanda still had them. It was all so confusing.

  “Amboy,” said Professor Hoxby. “Do the Scribbishes know who you really are?”

  “Nope,” said Professor Scribbish. “I told you: we faked my death.”

  “Then who did they think you were?”

  “Harry Potter,” he laughed. “No, I’m just joking.” Who knew you could joke when under the influence? “My new name was Christopher Dickens. Like the author.”

  “Cute,” said Professor Hoxby. “But to get back to my question, Blixus and Stencil don’t know you’re alive, is that right?”

  “I don’t see how they could,” he said. “My mum and I are pretty clever. No one could know. Not even you guys.” He laughed.

  “Yes,” said Professor Hoxby. “You had us all fooled.”

  “So are you a mole?” said Clive.

  “Me?” said Professor Scribbish. “Never. I told you. I didn’t know I was a Moriarty until yesterday.”

  “And now that you know, how do you feel?” said Amanda.

  “How would you feel?” he said. “Confused as all get-out.”

  She laughed. “I don’t blame you.”

  Ivy got very serious. “Amboy, can you sense Blixus?”

  Professor Scribbish sat back for a moment and thought. “No. I don’t feel him.”

  “Does that mean he doesn’t know you’re there?” she said.

  “I suppose so. Yes, you could be right.”

  “I think that’s enough for now,” said Professor Hoxby. “Thank you, Chris. I mean Amboy.”

  Banting Waltz grabbed Lila’s hand. “Come on, honey,” he said. “Get your things. We need to get cracking.”

  After they left Professor Scribbish Amanda said, “I unde
rstand what Blixus meant when he said Moriarty’s secrets were at Earful.”

  “What’s that?” said Clive.

  “Earful invented the spectacles. With each generation the Moriartys use them to implant James’s secrets in their heads. So they get there via Earful, or at least via his invention. It was a weird way to say it but it’s absolutely true.”

  “Well I’ll be,” said Clive. “So where do we go from here?”

  “I’ll tell you one thing,” said Ivy. “If Blixus makes a telepathic connection with Professor Scribbish we’re in real trouble.”

  “Because they’ll start talking to each other?” said Clive.

  “Yes, and Blixus will know everything he does. Maybe there are secrets Amboy knew that he didn’t. But he will if he can read his mind.”

  “Worse than that he’ll know our secrets,” said Amanda. “Professor Scribbish knows everything the teachers do.”

  “So what do we do?” said Ivy. “How do you prevent a telepathic connection?”

  Amanda and Clive looked at each other guiltily.

  “You’re kidding,” said Ivy. “You don’t mean Ramon?”

  “What else is there?” said Amanda.

  “No way,” said Ramon when they explained the problem. “It doesn’t work that way.”

  “You can’t block someone?” said Amanda.

  “They’re not spirits,” said Ramon. “And anyway, no. I just talk to people. Er, their spirits.” He sounded different from usual. Nicer somehow. It was weird.

  “But do you think there might be a way to adapt your equipment so you could talk to living people?” said Ivy.

  “I don’t see how,” he said. “Apples and oranges.”

  “But you’re still dealing with psychic energy,” said Amanda. Wait a minute. What was she talking about? She didn’t believe in that stuff.

  “It’s not the same,” said Ramon patiently. “You can’t block the energy.”

  “Why not?” said Clive. “If you can perceive it you can block it.”

  “Well, uh, I don’t know,” said Ramon. Amanda could see the wheels turning. “I never wanted to block it. I’ve always tried to boost it.”

  “It works both ways,” said Clive. “Laws of physics.”

  “Oh, now it’s the laws of physics, is it?” said Ramon, reverting to his old self. “I thought you didn’t believe this stuff was possible.”

  “I don’t,” said Clive. “But obviously there are things I don’t know.”

  “Aha,” said Ramon. “So you admit that there can be things we can’t see and don’t understand.”

  “I’ve always admitted that,” said Clive.

  “But you said—”

  “Could you try?” said Amanda, who was willing to do anything to keep Blixus Moriarty out of Professor Scribbish’s head.

  “Who are you talking to, me?” said Ramon.

  “Both of you.”

  The boys looked at each other suspiciously. Then Ramon said, “Okay, but no Binkle.”

  Did he just say yes? Amanda couldn’t believe her ears.

  Clive sighed. “Fine. No Binkle.”

  “Then you’ve got yourself a deal,” said Ramon.

  27

  Ivy’s Secret

  “At least we have some of the metadata,” Ivy said after Ramon and Clive had run off to the lab.

  “Oh, you found it,” said Amanda. “Good. I thought maybe I’d dropped it.” She bussed the half-empty teacups and poured each of them some hot tea with milk.

  “Nope,” said Ivy. “It’s all safe and sound in Professor Buck’s office. The half you had anyway. None for me, thanks.”

  Amanda poured the tea out of Ivy’s cup and carried her own to the table. “Thank goodness. But will we be able to do anything with it? The secrets are all gone.”

  “What do you suppose happened to the ones in the trove?”

  She blew on the tea. Little curlicues of steam dispersed into the air. “I don’t know. Thrillkill was shocked that the slips in the safe deposit box turned out to be fake. But what’s really interesting is that girl Harry was with—Summer, was it? I saw her at the bank and didn’t like the look of her then.”

  “When Waltz took you, you mean?” said Ivy.

  “Yes. She was waiting on someone else but she gave me a look almost as if she knew me. It was really creepy.”

  “Maybe she did. Harry might have told her something.”

  “What happened to her anyway?” said Amanda, taking a tiny sip. The tea was still too hot.

  “They arrested her,” said Ivy. “But she couldn’t tell them where Harry was because she didn’t know. Apparently she would have told them in a heartbeat. She was furious with him for leaving her on the ground like that.”

  “Thrillkill told you all this?” Amanda waved a hand over the tea.

  “Yes, when I went to visit him,” said Ivy. “You were in the hospital. Thirty more seconds, by the way.”

  “Sorry?”

  “In thirty seconds your tea will be the right temperature.”

  Amanda grinned. Of course Ivy would be right. And yet there was something satisfying about the blowing and the waving, even if they made little difference.

  “So Professor Sidebotham went through this whole routine to bring those monkeys in to steal the secrets and then stashed a decoy at the bank?”

  “Apparently,” said Ivy. “Which raises the question, where are the real secrets?”

  “Gosh she was strange,” said Amanda.

  “I’ll say,” said Ivy.

  Amanda pondered Professor Sidebotham’s eccentricities for a moment. She couldn’t put off delivering the bad news any longer. She took a sip of tea to fortify her. Perfect, just as Ivy had said it would be.

  “Ivy, there’s something else I haven’t told you,” she said tentatively.

  “Oh no,” said Ivy. “Is Nick okay?”

  “Nick?” said Amanda. “Yes. No. I mean I have no idea. I haven’t heard from him.” That wasn’t strictly true but she wasn’t about to tell Ivy about her perhaps hallucination.

  “Should I hold Nigel?” said Ivy.

  “I think so,” said Amanda.

  “That bad, is it?” said Ivy.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Ivy reached down and clutched Nigel’s neck. Amanda put her arms around her.

  “When I was at Schola I saw Eustace,” she said into Ivy’s hair.

  “I don’t understand,” said Ivy. “What was he doing there? Wait, he isn’t dead, is he?”

  “Teaching a class,” said Amanda. “And no, he isn’t dead. Not as far as I know.”

  Amanda could feel Ivy’s muscles tense. “You what?”

  “I know. He’s gone over to the dark side.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Ivy, straightening up. “Eustace would never do that.”

  “I’m afraid it’s true,” said Amanda, stroking her hair. “He wouldn’t even look at me. I know he saw me too.”

  “But you were in disguise.”

  “He knew it was me. Trust me.”

  “He’s that mad at Thrillkill?” said Ivy.

  “Apparently,” said Amanda. “It’s terrible.”

  Ivy burst into tears and buried her head in Nigel’s fur. Amanda gripped her tighter. Soon she found herself sobbing as well.

  “I hate them,” Ivy sniffled.

  “Me too,” said Amanda into Ivy’s hair.

  “Why do they always have to be so mean?” said Ivy.

  “I don’t know,” Amanda wailed.

  “I don’t want them to know. They’ll do something terrible to him.”

  “They’re going to have to know,” Amanda blubbered. “He’s a security risk.”

  “I know,” Ivy sobbed, taking off her glasses. Her eyes and nose were all red.

  Amanda pulled back and looked her full in the face. “Feeney will go after him the moment she finds out.”

  Ivy took off her glasses and wiped an eye. “Didn’t you say she was the one who wanted
to sponsor him?”

  Amanda looked around to see if there were any tissues. They should have been de rigueur in a school common room but there weren’t any. She rubbed her palms over her eyes until they were passably dry, then wiped them on Nigel’s coat. The dog didn’t flinch. “Yeah. Which is why she’ll make it her own personal project to bring him down. She won’t be able to stand looking foolish.”

  “And Buck. He’ll probably kill him.”

  “If Feeney doesn’t do it first.”

  “Do you think we should warn him?”

  “Oh, Ivy, I don’t know. I mean we should, shouldn’t we? But if Buck finds out he’ll kill us. On the other hand, if we don’t do anything he’ll kill Eustace.”

  “I know,” said Ivy. “I had no idea Eustace could be so vindictive. He seems so easy going.”

  “Yeah,” said Amanda. “He really changed.”

  “I guess you never know about people.”

  “You sure don’t,” said Amanda thinking of Professor Scribbish.

  A few minutes later Ivy got a text from Simon. “They can’t find either of them,” she said.

  “Scapulus and Nick, you mean?” said Amanda.

  “Right,” said Ivy. “He and David have been all over. The trail is completely cold. Simon said they’re coming back to regroup.”

  “How far did they go?” said Amanda.

  “I’m not sure,” said Ivy. “He mentioned London and Edinburgh.”

  “Really?” said Amanda. “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

  “I guess they had some hunches. He was kind of vague.”

  “He’s embarrassed that he hasn’t found anything,” said Amanda. “If he tells you everything you might criticize his methods.”

  “When have I ever done that?” said Ivy.

  “You haven’t,” said Amanda. “I think he’s just sensitive at the moment. He wants you so much.”

  Ivy sighed. “I know.”

  “You don’t love him?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. I think if I did I would know, don’t you?”

  Was that true? Amanda had loved Nick for a year without realizing it. But that might have been because she was in denial. She didn’t think Ivy was.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Love is weird. You can feel it but that doesn’t mean you can understand it. And sometimes you can feel it without even knowing it. So I think you might. But then again you might not.”