Upon hearing this, the Wiffle kid inserted himself into the conversation and said that they were both wrong—that “fell” in this case meant evil. Amphora looked up the meaning and discovered that David was actually correct for a change, at which point he smirked and started sending texts. What they said was anyone’s guess. However, despite their having determined the meaning of one fell swoop, the argument wasn’t over. To settle it, the two adversaries decided to conduct experiments to see whose observing technique was more effective, and they seemed to be proceeding apace when all of a sudden the bus lurched and both Nigel and David Wiffle threw up. This led to an unexpected stop after Prudence complained about the smell and said that if they didn’t throw away the dirty paper towels they’d used for cleanup that she, too, would hurl.
At last, however, they arrived at Blackpool with everyone’s stomach having settled down and Ivy having collected a large amount of money from Simon and Amphora as a penalty for their feuding. As the kids got an eyeful of all the goodies they were about to explore, the bus erupted in a large amount of shrieking and carrying on, which Professor Sidebotham interrupted with an announcement that no recording was to be allowed and they were to work solely from memory. There would be two days of testing after the field trip, so they had better pay close attention. Professors Buck and Ducey each got in a word of welcome cum warning, and the kids were off.
After about ten minutes, during which Holmes kept running up and saying, “Did you see this?” “Did you see that?” Amanda realized that Ivy was observing sounds no one else was noticing. Not only did this revelation help her attune her own powers of audio observation, it also heightened her visual skills because Ivy was always asking insightful questions. For example, she would say, “I’m hearing a loud whine. What is it?” whereupon Amanda would look for the source of the noise. Once Ivy said, “I’m hearing Japanese,” and Amanda looked and looked until she saw a Japanese child who had lost her parents and helped her find them. Seeing this, Professor Sidebotham practically did a back flip. She was so impressed with what Ivy was doing that she asked her to create yet another special presentation on audio observing when they got back.
Then Professor Ducey managed to step in some gum, and as he stood on one leg to try to get it off his shoe, he lost his balance and went crashing into Professor Buck, who collided with a bench and ended up face down on the ground. Amanda thought from that position he was getting just about the best look at environmental substances possible and tried hard not to laugh, and Ivy kept nudging her to describe every little detail. The plight of the two male professors was funny enough, but when Professor Sidebotham, she of at least seventy years, attempted to help them up, Amanda couldn’t control herself any longer and had to run in the opposite direction and hide her face to keep from being reprimanded. Fortunately, however, none of the professors was badly hurt and the field trip carried on.
After that, everything went swimmingly. Wiffle and Bramble were making up songs to help them remember what they were seeing, which Amanda had to admit wasn’t a half-bad idea. Editta had finally started to count things. Simon was mentally deconstructing and reconstructing everything he saw, which was also a good way to remember stuff, and Amphora was sketching. Amanda was used to noticing little details on film sets, so her observing was going well, except that with Holmes interrupting her every three seconds she was starting to lose her place. He too had his methods, which Amanda wasn’t quite sure about, but seemed to involve mentally writing Wikipedia entries for the items he saw and cross-referencing them with mental pictures he was snapping and adding to WikiMedia. What really got her, though, was how popular he had become after just a few days. When he wasn’t bugging her, the other kids seemed to seek him out and hang on his every word, which Amanda found so distracting that she started to fear she’d blow the tests. All the kids except Wiffle and Gordon, that is, who kept trying and failing to bait him.
Then suddenly Ivy yelled out, “Something is wrong!” She pulled on Nigel’s lead and covered him with her body. Amanda was so startled that she froze. Nobody else was paying attention until out of nowhere came two gunshots and Amanda could see a man fall to the ground while another man ran away. The noise startled the other kids and they all yelled and screamed, some of them running toward the scene and others away from it. A couple of security guards began to chase the fleeing man, and within an extremely short time an ambulance pulled up and a couple of paramedics got out and hunched over the victim.
“OMG, it’s a murder!” yelled Amphora. Simon was rummaging for his camera, Holmes was edging as close to the scene as possible, Editta was staring into space, Wiffle and Gordon fled, and Ivy was attending to Nigel. Realizing what had happened, Amanda found herself next to Holmes, pushing forward to see what she could. As the crowd surged, she felt herself collide with him and was held there for what seemed like forever as everyone strained to get a look. She was so surrounded by tall people that she couldn’t see anything. Finally, realizing that she was too short to see what was going on, Holmes pulled her in front of him and they were both able to see the fallen man lying in a pool of blood with a paramedic compressing his chest. After a minute or so the technician looked at his partner, shook his head, and recorded the time of death. Then he pulled a sheet over the man and stood up.
Amanda was devastated. This was way worse than finding Legatum’s cook dead in the pantry with her head in a bag of sugar as she had last term. She’d seen this man killed right in front of her eyes. Her heart was pounding and she fought to catch her breath. Holmes turned her around and searched her eyes to see if she was all right. For some reason that caused her to burst into tears and she covered her face in her hands. Then, without warning, she felt herself engulfed in his arms and realized that he was not only patting her back, but hugging her. This liberty so affronted her that she forgot all about crying and screamed, “Stop it!” then disentangled herself and ran back to where Ivy was pulling Nigel’s lead so tight that it looked like he was about to lift up off the ground.
“Stupid Holmes,” she muttered. “That guy—”
“What?” said Ivy. “Are you all right? What happened? Was that a murder?”
“Yes, and yes,” said Amanda. “I’m okay except for what that Holmes did to me, and yes, that guy is dead. They tried to revive him but they couldn’t.”
“Oh no!” said Ivy, pulling Nigel even tighter, then wrapping him in her arms.
“Say there,” she heard from behind her. It was a policeman. “You girls. We’d like to talk to you.”
“You would?” said Amanda.
“Yes, ma’am. You’re witnesses to a crime. Please come with me.”
Amanda had been interviewed by the police before—three times, to be exact. The first was when the cook was murdered. The second was when the doctor was murdered. And the third time was after she’d saved her father from the Moriartys at the sugar factory. Ivy had been interviewed for the same reasons.
The police interrogation added several more hours to the field trip. All the observations they’d been engaged in had to be cut short, but Professor Sidebotham promised them that there would still be an important test on Monday and to review their notes carefully over what was left of the weekend. On the way back the kids were a lot less animated than on the trip out. Some of them looked dazed. Others were crying, and some were making notes. Wiffle and Gordon had managed to sit together this time, and Amanda could hear whispering from their direction. The teachers spent the drive home in a low confab as well, but otherwise all was quiet.
When the bus drew up to the school, Professor Sidebotham surprised the kids by saying, “Class, please go to the Observation classroom and make note of everything you saw from the time you realized someone had been shot. After that I will join you for a brief discussion.” That led to a lot of groaning and carping, since it was late and the kids were tired and hungry. But go to the classroom they did. Amanda made as many notes as she could, but after ten minutes she was all writte
n out. Holmes wrote for about thirty minutes, finishing long after everyone else had stopped.
Finally Professors Sidebotham, Buck, and Ducey entered the room. “Send your observations to me now,” said Professor Sidebotham. Everyone clicked Send. “Has everyone forwarded their notes?” She looked out. The students all nodded. “Excellent. Now, Professors Buck, Ducey, and I have something to tell you.”
Ivy went rigid. Amanda had learned that her friend was a great early warning system and she trusted her instincts. Something was up. Were the police coming out to interview them again? Did they suspect that one of them was an accomplice? What could be so important all of a sudden?
“Mr. Holmes, what did you see this afternoon at Blackpool?” said Professor Sidebotham.
“I saw a murder, Professor,” said Holmes. “A man was gunned down in front of us.”
“Mr. Wiffle? What did you see?”
“The same as Scapulus said, Professor,” said David Wiffle.
“Miss Lester?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Amanda. “The same.”
“Class? Anyone disagree?”
Everyone shook their head no.
“You are all incorrect,” said the teacher gravely. Professors Ducey and Buck were looking dead serious. That was pretty much Professor Buck’s usual way, but Professor Ducey was normally a jolly fellow and he looked weird all stone-faced.
The room buzzed. Finally David Wiffle said, “What do you mean, Professor?”
“There was no murder today,” said the teacher.
Ivy elbowed Amanda as if to indicate that she knew what was coming. Amanda looked at her quizzically, but of course Ivy couldn’t see her expression.
“It was a fake, arranged by the school,” said Professor Sidebotham.
This time, instead of buzzing, the room went deathly still. With the exception of Ivy, Holmes, and Simon, all the kids’ jaws dropped. Then, after about sixty seconds David Wiffle called out, “You mean it was a joke?”
“Absolutely not,” said Professor Sidebotham. “I mean it was a demonstration, designed to inspire you to observe in a way you haven’t before.”
“That’s not fair!” yelled Wiffle.
“Yeah!” said Gordon.
“How could you do this to us?” said Owla Snizzle, who was practically in tears.
The three teachers stood like monuments, waiting for silence. Then Holmes spoke.
“Good one, Professor!” He grinned from ear to ear, but this show of support did not cause any change in the three teachers. However, Holmes’s actions so irritated Amanda that she grabbed hold of Ivy’s hand and squeezed hard enough that Ivy cried out. Then she leaned over and said, “See what I mean? He’s an idiot.”
Ivy whispered back, “Don’t be so hard on him. He’s got a great sense of humor.”
“How can you say that?” said Amanda, wondering if her friend had indeed lost her mind. First she was grumpy and now she was finding insults humorous. She must have forgotten her own advice about hidden treasures. Amanda would definitely have to get to the bottom of this.
Amanda could hear some of the kids whispering about how ruthless the teachers were. Why, last term they’d spent hundreds of thousands of pounds to blow up the school’s garage and everything in it just so the first-years would have a mystery to solve. This was getting ridiculous. Sure, they wanted to be detectives, but the teachers’ methods were extreme.
“I see you’re upset,” said Professor Sidebotham. Amanda thought she was about to apologize, but instead she said, “Get over it.” A ripple of protest skittered through the classroom. “You heard me,” she said. “Do you remember that first day when Headmaster Thrillkill told you that you would not be coddled at Legatum? He meant it. This is how we instruct. You may adapt, or you may leave. The choice is yours.”
For an old lady, she was really tough, thought Amanda. And mean as a hyena. But the woman was one of the sharpest people she’d ever met, and so highly regarded that people came to her for help with their toughest cases. Amanda realized that what the teachers had done made a lot of sense, and she relaxed in her seat. Still, she wasn’t amused by Holmes’s outburst—or his touching her. Who did he think he was anyway?
After Professor Sidebotham dismissed the class so they could go to dinner, the tension was so thick you could have made pockmarks in it. Kids were grumbling, arguing, slinking, shuffling, starting, stopping, and in one case, snuffling. Wiffle and Bramble seemed to be plotting as usual. Simon and Amphora were arguing, and Editta looked like she was sleepwalking. Nigel was acting as if someone had hit him, a condition that seemed to have come on all of a sudden once they’d left the classroom.
Amanda saw some of the kids go to their rooms, others to the various lounges. She, Ivy, Nigel, and Simon made for the dining room. They had just sat down with their plates when out of the blue the room started shaking—and shaking, and shaking, and shaking. As dishes clattered to the floor and glass broke all around them, Amanda knew exactly what was happening. Legatum Continuatum was smack in the middle of a huge, honking earthquake.
9
Earthquake!
An earthquake in England! Amanda had never expected that. Back home in L.A. she’d constantly prepared for one and her parents had experienced several, but she’d never actually felt more than a few minor tremors. This one was much stronger, and much more powerful and long lasting than the blast that had rocked the school last term when the garage had exploded.
“Get in the doorway,” she yelled to everyone in the dining room. She grabbed Ivy and pulled her inside the jamb leading to the hall. “Under the tables now! And stay away from the windows!”
“What are you doing?” yelled Ivy. “Nigel!” She screamed her dog’s name over and over.
“It’s the safest place,” yelled Amanda. “Now stand there and don’t move.”
Of course only a couple of people could fit inside each of the various doorways, but the rest of the kids were able to make it under the tables without anything falling on them. Nigel was cowering under one of them, squealing with his paws over his eyes, poor thing. Simon had made a dive for him and was holding him to keep him from lunging. He called out to Ivy that Nigel was with him and was okay despite the whining and whuffling. Needless to say, the screaming and carrying on in the dining room was even worse than it had been when the man at Blackpool had been shot, or whatever had really happened to him.
Amanda felt her phone buzz. She wondered if Amphora was all right. There was nothing she could do for her with all this shaking going on, so she ignored the text. It buzzed again. Could it be Thrillkill? If it was, she wasn’t in a position to answer. He’d just have to wait.
She could hear loud crashes coming from the kitchen, where it was obvious that pots and pans were falling out of cupboards, probably along with everything in the pantry. Amanda hoped there wasn’t anything hot on the stove. She could hear people running up and down the hall and cried out for them to get away from the windows.
Ivy was shaking so hard Amanda had to hold her still. Looking out for her made her forget how scared she was. If anything happened to her friend—or her dog—she’d never forgive herself. The shaking must have gone on for twenty seconds—the ground’s, not Ivy’s, which continued for much longer than that. It was a very long time for an earthquake. The room moved back and forth sharply, and by the time the shaking had stopped all the dishes, glasses, flatware, and just about everything else had fallen and mostly broken.
“Is everyone okay?” Amanda called out.
“No,” said a lot of people raggedly.
“Someone is hurt?” she said.
“No, we’re not hurt,” they said, but they didn’t sound convincing.
“Just scared then?” Amanda’s background as an Angeleno somehow made her feel as if she should take charge. Even though she hadn’t experienced a quake of this magnitude, everyone looked to her as the expert, which compared to them she was. The people she could see were nodding. Despite the vigor of
the quake, no one seemed to be injured, although most of the kids were freaking out at least as much as Ivy.
“You obviously know that we just had a huge earthquake and you need to be careful,” she said. “There will be aftershocks—lots of them. When that happens, do exactly what you did this time. Stand in a doorway, get under a table, stay away from the windows.”
“But what about Nigel?” wailed Ivy.
“Good question,” said Amanda. “Simon, can you think of anything?”
“I’ll rig up something for him. He might have to stay in a crate for a while.”
Upon hearing this, Ivy started to wail even louder.
“I’ll keep him with me, shall I?” said Simon. He knew Ivy could manage without Nigel guiding her, but he also knew that she couldn’t stand to be away from him.
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
Just then, Amanda’s phone buzzed again. This time Ivy’s and Simon’s did too. Boy, Thrillkill was quick.
When Amanda finally looked at her phone, she just about screamed. The first two texts, the ones she’d felt as she stood in the doorway, were from Holmes! He was checking to see if she was all right. Didn’t he have anything better to do while an earthquake was going on? The guy didn’t know when to quit.
The last text, and the ones Ivy and Simon had received, were a blast from Thrillkill telling everyone to keep calm and take precautions. “Do not go to the chapel,” he warned. “It isn’t safe there.”
He was right. The chapel was just about the oldest part of the school and was probably in ruins. Amanda wondered if the rest of the school was even still standing. What if everything had collapsed? What if someone had been killed? As she contemplated these disasters, she finally started to tremble herself.
After several minutes during which no one had the courage to move, one of the older kids stuck his head in the dining room and inquired after them. He told them that a lot of stuff had spilled all over the floors and you could see cracks in the walls. This information was met with additional shrieking, with kids asking whether the school was going to fall down on top of them and demanding to go home to their parents.
Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set Page 43