Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set

by Paula Berinstein

  He flipped the switch and the machine started humming and jerking. It was fast. Amanda could see the layers of the 3D object build up in no time. Simon kept oohing and aaahing as he looked at various parts of the machine. “Can you imagine what you could do with this?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “Look at what it’s doing now.” Jerk. Wiggle. Grind.

  “Bullet-proof windows,” said Simon. “Devices that would make everything in the lab obsolete. A new garage!” Thump. Squeak.

  “You’re very creative, Simon,” she said.

  “Thanks.”

  “You know,” said Professor Kindseth, “you kids don’t have to wait here while this prints. I’ll look after it if you want to do something else for a few minutes.” Thud. Rattle.

  “Okay, thanks,” said Simon, who seemed to have lost interest awfully quickly.

  “Simon,” Amanda said, nudging him. “He’s doing us a favor.” Grate.

  “Oh, right. Er, what I meant to say was ‘Thanks for doing this, but we’ll wait.’”

  “Suit yourself,” said the professor cheerily as the machine chugged away.

  “So, Professor,” said Simon. “How did you get into photography?”

  “Oh, that,” said Professor Kindseth. “The thing is . . .” Wiggle.

  “Yes?” said Amanda. “Go on.”

  “I don’t usually talk about this. No one takes me seriously when I do. But what the hey. I’m in a good mood.” Rumble.

  “Please tell us, Professor,” said Amanda. “Unless you think we’re prying.”

  “No, not at all,” he said drawing close and leaning in. “I wanted to be a cinematographer.” Bump.

  “You’re kidding,” said Amanda.

  “Not at all. I love movies. I love watching how the camera frames shots, how it pans, dollies, creates the story for the audience. That was what I really wanted to do. My parents hated the idea. They wanted me to follow in their footsteps. I couldn’t bear to make them unhappy so I came here. I actually like it here now, a lot. But my heart is still in film. I can’t help it.” He looked a bit sad. “You won’t tell anyone.” Grind.

  “No, but Professor,” said Amanda, “I want to make films too! You don’t know how much. I—”

  She broke off. It wouldn’t do to tell one of the teachers at the detectives’ school, where they took their mission incredibly seriously, that she didn’t want to be there, even a teacher who didn’t want to be there either, or at least at one time didn’t want to be there. Rattle.

  “I knew it!” said Professor Kindseth, pulling back and dancing a little jig. Well, probably not a jig. Maybe he was tripping over his own feet but Amanda felt like being generous. “You have talent, Miss Lester. You should be in pictures. Oops, listen to me. I sound like a cliché. That will never do.” He was grinning. This was a person who didn’t take himself too seriously. Amanda was starting to like him very much. Squeak.

  “That’s awesome,” said Simon. “You two should collaborate. Put something together. I mean after all this kidnapping stuff is over.”

  “I’d love to!” said Professor Kindseth. “Is it a date, Miss Lester?” Chug.

  “Uh, sure, Professor.” She didn’t want to appear too eager. “Why not?” She smiled.

  “Why, would you look at this. The printing is done. Let’s take a look, shall we?”

  Professor Kindseth practically skipped over to the printer and carefully removed the device. He looked at the plans, then back at the object. “Seems okay, but we need a couple of parts: a laser diode, a filter, and a lens. Back to the lab!” He raised his arm as if gathering his troops and made for the door. “Come on. Don’t dilly-dally. We have work to do,” he said, and was off.

  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 s
ugar 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.

  Professor Kindseth helped them repeat the process they’d used to examine the pink sugar. As expected there was no virus in the white sugar.

  “Well, then,” said Amanda, carefully rebagging the samples, “maybe the white sugar is the before sugar and the pink is the after sugar.”

  “Or vice versa,” said Simon. “Sugar senior and sugar junior. Sugar the elder and sugar the younger. Do you think there’s a sugar the third?”

  “I don’t know, and this isn’t making any sense,” she cried, stomping her foot and burying her face in her hands.

  “Hang on. Maybe it is.”

  “What do you mean?” she said, removing her hands from her face and pushing her hair out of her eyes.

  “Maybe it’s making sense,” said Simon. “We were just talking about cartels and organized crime, right?”

  Professor Kindseth seemed to take quite an interest in this idea. Amanda could tell he was listening even more carefully, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “Don’t tell me you’re going to name these two sugar capo and sugar made man or something.”

  “Ha! That’s a good one. Wish I’d thought of it. No. But what if,” he started pacing like a detective with a hunch, “this hypothetical sugar cartel is contaminating the sugar on purpose?”

  “You mean to kill people?” said Amanda, horrified.

  “Not necessarily,” he said waving a finger. “Mass murder wouldn’t get the cartel anywhere. They’d target specific people if they wanted to kill someone.”

  “Okay, then—oh! I see what you mean. They’re contaminating the sugar in order to control the supply. They taint a lot of sugar and buy up the rest. Then they sell it at high prices.”

  “Exactly. Ipso facto.” He was really getting into that logic class.

  “Boy, that seems like a lot of work,” she said.

  “Yes, but look at how much money they could make. Say they can double the price of sugar, maybe even triple it. Hang on. Let me look up how much the sugar industry is worth. Oh, look here. This site says that 160 million metric tonnes of sugar are produced every year. That’s for the whole world. So if the price of sugar is $.18 per pound, as it has been at some times, and it doubles, then the price will be $.36 per pound. A metric tonne is 2204 pounds, mmm mmm, then the price of a tonne goes from $396.72 to $793.44, times 160 million means . . .”

  “More than a hundred and twenty billion dollars!” said Amanda. “That’s a profit of sixty billion smackeroos. Give or take a little.”

  “Wow! That’s a lotta moolah,” said Simon. “Of course, we’re assuming the cartel will control the whole world’s sugar supply, which is impossible.” He took off his glasses and wiped them with his fingers, then replaced them. They were still dirty, maybe more so.

  “Even so, that’s a lot of incentive,” she said.

  “I’ll say.”

  “So let’s say they introduce this virus into the white sugar and manage to double the price. And let’s say they then control just one percent of the world’s supply. That’s still 1.2 billion dollars,” she said.

  “Yes. Plenty of incentive. Want to go with this theory?” said Simon.

  “Sounds good to me. Now what do we do?”

  “Test it.”

  “How do we do that?” she said.

  “We have to find your father.”

  Professor Kindseth grinned at the two students. “You two get an A plus!”

  26

  Body Snatching

  So Professor Kindseth wanted to be in film. Amanda was overjoyed, and surprised. She’d never expected to find one fellow enthusiast at the school, let alone two. Legatum was turning out to be something rather different than she’d expected. The way she’d felt when she saw that letter from Drusilla Canoodle could only be described as despairing. Now she was despairing about her father, but funnily enough no longer about the school. In fact she was quite liking being there, in an odd sort of way. She looked forward to discussing film with Professor Kindseth when all this died down, if it ever did. Maybe that was a poor choice of words. When all of this was resolved. That was better.

  She was over the moon about the way things had gone in the lab. She didn’t know what she and Simon would have done if Professor Kindseth hadn’t turned up. He’d been so eager to help and had been incredibly useful. She could see that the faculty was pretty good at their jobs, even if some of them were a bit strange.

  She thought about the conversation she’d heard outside the lab. Professor Feeney had seemed upset and secretive. There wasn’t anything particularly new about the secretive part. That was de rigeur for Legatum. But the things she’d said and the tone in which she’d said them, those were disturbing. If something else, something Amanda didn’t already know about, was wrong at Legatum, things might deteriorate even more. What had the Criminals and Their Methods teacher said? Everything would change unless something or other happened. What everything, and what something or other? That sounded serious. At least as serious as a kidnapping. Maybe as serious as murder. What was going on around here anyway?

  Amanda wanted to tell Nick about their findings in the lab but she was worried about Simon. The two boys didn’t get along, or at least Simon didn’t like Nick. Nick had never indicated any particular feelings about Simon.

  To be honest she was feeling rather queasy about all her important relationships. It was her own fault that she’d drifted away from Ivy, Amphora, and Editta lately, but she’d had things on her mind and it couldn’t be helped. Then Simon had been on suspension for two weeks and she’d turned to Nick. Of course the whole thing with her father hadn’t helped.

  Her father. She hadn’t heard anything from Thrillkill. Maybe she should go talk to him and find out what was happening. He’d told her he’d let her know, though, so maybe she shouldn’t bug him.

  Simon was right. Whatever the Met was or wasn’t doing, nothing seemed to be happening with the case. She needed to find her father herself, and the best way to do that was to follow Darius Plover’s advice: figure out the why and everything else will follow. That meant she needed to understand why the cook was involved in all of this and why her father had been in the secret room. She knew about the virus-tainted sugar, and she was pretty sure they’d figured out the reason for that, but how had the school become involved?

&n
bsp; The way to solve that mystery was to find out who had killed the cook, and why. She decided to go back to the kitchen to look for more clues, which wouldn’t be easy considering that it was still a crime scene. She’d just have to sneak in at some odd hour. That was the only way.

  She decided to case the joint to see what state it was in. As she was heading down the hall, Amphora came running up to her. She looked frantic.

  “Amanda! Stop. You can’t go in there.” Amphora barred the door with her arm.

  “I know. I’m just checking out the outside.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” Amphora said, practically spasming with excitement. “Something’s happened.”

  “Something else has happened?” Amanda wasn’t sure she could take one more thing.

  “Yes. The cook’s body has gone missing!”

  Amanda could see terror in her eyes. “What do you mean ‘missing’?”

  “I mean she disappeared. They took her to the autopsy room. The doctor left her there for an hour or so, and when he came back she was gone.” Amphora wrapped her arms around herself and squeezed as if to keep herself from exploding.

  “And no one saw anything?” said Amanda. It was possible. It was a big school and things could happen when everyone was in class or asleep.

  “Apparently not,” said Amphora.

  “Wow.” One weird thing after another. Was this normal?

  Amphora bit her lip. “You know what this means, of course.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve put the school on lockdown.”

  This wasn’t good. In fact it was a disaster. How could Amanda investigate her father’s disappearance if she couldn’t leave? How could the police investigate?

  Then she had a chilling thought. What if whoever had taken the cook’s body did it for exactly that reason—to disrupt the investigation? Suddenly the hall seemed darker, more threatening. What had been quaint and interesting in a filmic sort of way was no longer endearing. Amanda felt like she was going to jump out of her skin. Now she truly was confined, with no escape.