Amanda took another sip. Her tongue was feeling numb now. “Idz’s just dat everything’s cubbig at me all at once add I cad get anything settled.”
“Tell me,” said Ivy.
Amanda’s voice started to clear up. “First of all,” she said, “there’s the whatsit. I’m really worried about it. Now that Blixus and Mavis aren’t in prison anymore they probably have it and we’re all doomed.”
“We’re all worried about that,” said Ivy, “but the best detective minds in the world are working on the problem. We’ll be okay.”
“I don’t think so,” said Amanda. “If that’s the case, why are the teachers all freaking out?” The tea was nice. She was feeling better.
“I don’t know,” said Ivy. “But we can only do what we can do, right? How’s the tea?”
“It’s lovely, thank you,” said Amanda.
“I know you’re upset,” said Ivy. “But try to remember the hidden treasures.” She patted the hand Amanda wasn’t using to hold the tea.
Amanda took a long sip. She hadn’t thought about Ivy’s secret weapon for some time. The idea of giving herself up to her curiosity seemed to help her friend keep her cool. Could it work for her too?
“The treasures, yes. Which reminds me about the crystals. Those are literally hidden treasures, aren’t they?” Ivy nodded. “I am curious about them, but all I can think of is that Blixus is going to find them and abuse them. We have to save them.”
“We will,” said Ivy. “I wish I could see them. They must be a sight to behold.”
Amanda felt bad for her. Ivy didn’t usually complain about her blindness, but she had to feel disadvantaged sometimes. Amanda wished she could wave a magic wand and make her see again. “It’s not that easy. We have to get to London, then we have to find the crystals, and what if he already has them?”
“One step at a time,” said Ivy. “We’ll manage that. We did it before and we’ll do it again. Or at least you did. And in the process you discovered what strong stuff you’re made of. What else?”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, Ivy,” said Amanda. “Anyway, these stupid relatives of mine came out of the woodwork and are calling me all day long.” She knew she was exaggerating but didn’t care.
“What relatives?”
“Oh, some dumb relatives of my dad’s. From Liverpool. Well, of course they’re dumb. They’re Lestrades.”
“So’s your dad,” said Ivy. “He isn’t dumb.”
“Yes, but he’s different,” said Amanda. “And then my mother calls and starts hovering. The original helicopter parent. Aaaaaah!”
“Your mother can be difficult,” said Ivy, making a cup of tea for herself. The water boiled in seconds with one of those little electric one-cup doohickeys. “That must not have been pleasant.”
“No,” said Amanda. “Now she wants me to text her every day. She thinks the Moriartys are going to get me.”
“It’s just a little text, right?” said Ivy. She mashed the teabag.
“Nothing’s a little text with my mom,” said Amanda.
“You’ll handle it. I’ll help you. What else?”
“Scapulus. He’s driving me crazy.”
“Oh, right, Scapulus. Boy, has he changed. He’s been acting so weird lately. Do you think this is the real Holmes coming out and the earlier one was just an act?” She blew on the hot tea.
“I can’t even tell what’s an act anymore,” said Amanda. “You are talking to the most gullible person in the world.”
“Nick was clever,” said Ivy gently. “He fooled all of us.” She sipped the tea and flinched. It was still too hot.
“I should have known,” said Amanda. “Now I’m wondering if Scapulus is either bipolar or another mole. And by the way, what’s with the bad boy act?”
“He’s trying to be tough,” said Ivy. “I’m guessing he’s feeling insecure and wants to look less vulnerable.”
“He’s acting like an idiot,” said Amanda.
“True,” said Ivy. “But I think he’s scared inside.”
“Scared of what?” said Amanda. “He is a Holmes. They don’t scare.”
“I don’t think there’s a scared gene,” said Ivy. “He’s human like the rest of us.”
“You could’ve fooled me. Anyway, who cares about him? The book is important. The crystals are important. Blixus is important. Scapulus is not important.” Ivy opened her mouth to say something when Amanda interrupted her. “And then Amphora.”
“What about Amphora? You’re not arguing with her too, are you? I’ll fine you.” Ivy giggled.
“No, I’m not, but I just heard her having the weirdest fight with David Wiffle in the hall. You won’t believe this but they were arguing over who was more aristocratic.”
“Oh no,” said Ivy, trying the tea again. It seemed to be fine because she took several sips.
“Oh yes,” said Amanda. “And then he told her she was a lousy detective and would never amount to anything. She looked like she’d just met a dragon or something.”
“That’s terrible,” said Ivy. “You know how insecure she is.”
“I know,” said Amanda. “But I think she might be getting worse. Not that David has the best judgment, but that was all she needed to hear. She’s already having trouble in Logic. I heard her complain that Professor Ducey was out to get her.”
“Professor Ducey? Never.”
“I know. I think she’s starting to lose it, Ivy.”
“Oh great. Just what we need. Say, you don’t think she has PTSD from the earthquake, do you?”
Amanda thought for a moment. “I guess it’s possible. Everything has been so stressful around here lately. It’s amazing anyone is acting normal. Speaking of which—well, not speaking of which exactly, but on the subject of all the stressful stuff, do you think the book—I guess we don’t have to call it a whatsit anymore—could be in the secrets trove? How could we possibly search that? There are thousands of compartments.”
“Let’s think about this logically,” said Ivy. “Could the book fit in those compartments?”
“Yes,” said Amanda. “Definitely.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think so.” Amanda picked up a book and tried to estimate its size.
“But you don’t know?”
“Well, I, uh . . .” She held up the book and looked at it back and front.
“What are you doing?” said Ivy.
“Measuring,” said Amanda.
“And?”
“Hard to say.”
“Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say it can,” said Ivy. “The next question is, how could it get in one of them?”
“Someone would have had to put it in there,” said Amanda. She replaced the book.
“Deliberately?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“And who would do that?”
“Someone with a key?”
“Undoubtedly,” said Ivy. “And where are the keys?”
“I have no idea,” said Amanda. “Professor Snaffle’s office?”
“How many keys are we talking about?” said Ivy.
“Billions. There are two keys for each compartment. Even if one of them is the same for all the compartments, that leaves thousands of unique ones.” Somehow it didn’t matter that her math was flawed.
“And where could you store thousands of keys?” said Ivy. “I mean, that’s a lot of keys.”
“I don’t know,” said Amanda, feeling defeated. “We could ask Editta to calculate how much room they’d take up.”
“Let’s do that later,” said Ivy. “But whoever put it there—if someone did—would not only need access to all those keys, wherever they are, but also have to be able to tell which key goes to which compartment.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You know exactly what I’m trying to say,” said Ivy. “It isn’t practical. I’d say the chances of the book being there are slim to none.”
“Think
so?” said Amanda. She was relieved. That would have been some project. Of course she still wanted to get into the compartments, but just for curiosity’s sake.
“Yes, I do,” said Ivy. “So we should look in the more logical places. Of course, that means London.”
“Yes,” said Amanda. “It does.”
Late that night Simon texted Amanda and told her that he had both good and bad news. This sounded intriguing and she knew she wouldn’t be able to wait for the details. “Common room?” she texted back.
“CU in 2,” he answered.
She wasn’t supposed to be downstairs so late, but everything at the school was so chaotic that Mrs. Scarper had given up trying to track the girls. Still, there might be teachers lurking about so it was best to be careful.
She tiptoed down the stairs and snuck into the common room where Simon was waiting for her. He must have been there when he texted her. He couldn’t have run from the boys’ dorm that fast.
Before she could tell him that she’d rather hear the bad news first—better to get it over with—he said, “Here’s the bad news.”
“How bad is it?”
“Pretty bad,” he said, leaning close. “The only way to save the crystals is to commit genocide. I mean we have to do it.”
“What?” she said, pulling back so fast she thought she might have wrenched something. “I thought Blixus would be committing genocide if he made crystals just to kill them.”
“He would,” said Simon. “Come back here. I don’t want anyone to hear.”
Amanda leaned in again and felt a pang in her back. She winced and almost fell right into him. His breath smelled like toothpaste. He reached out to steady her. She remembered Nick doing that when they’d found her father’s watch in the secret room. She’d been so upset she’d almost collapsed.
“Thanks,” she said.
“De nada,” said Simon. “But think about it. To save the crystals we’ll not only have to rescue whatever existing ones there are, but we’ll also have to kill the virus so he can’t make any more.”
Amanda’s eyes widened. “You’re not talking about committing genocide on the virus, are you?”
“No,” he said. “Not the virus.”
She rubbed the sore muscle. “If we stop him from making more, the existing crystals will be the only ones on earth and there can never be any more. Killing the virus means killing the crystals forever.”
“You got it,” said Simon so softly that she practically had to put her listening device in to hear him. “They’ll be extinct. But we don’t just have to kill the virus. We have to destroy the formula the Moriartys used to make it so they can’t bring it back.”
Amanda gasped. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Of course: because Scapulus Holmes, Gaston Thrillkill, and David Wiffle were always in her face, distracting her from what she needed to be doing.
“This is terrible,” she whispered. “We lose either way.”
“Yes,” he said. “But there is good news.”
“I could use some,” said Amanda.
“The crystals understand language.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. She leaned in toward him again, careful not to strain the muscle. Maybe she should take up yoga as her father had suggested. She caught the smell of toothpaste again. If she could smell him, he could smell her. What if she was stinky? “Hey, is my breath bad?” He shook his head. “Good. You know, it’s one thing to blink when they want to be rubbed. It’s another to conclude that they understand what we’re saying. They’re rocks, after all.”
“Smart rocks,” he said. “I’ve been doing more testing and they respond to words.”
“You mean they respond to tones of voice,” she said. “That’s not surprising.”
“Nope. Words. I was really careful to keep my voice steady, and they changed color and blinked or didn’t blink depending on what I said.”
“That’s nuts. They didn’t do that before. Remember when you tested that?”
He shook his head. “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’”
“You know Hamlet?” Amanda cried. “Oops, sorry. That was kinda loud, wasn’t it?” She looked around to make sure no one else had heard, then lowered her voice. “You know Hamlet?”
“Sure, I know Hamlet,” said Simon. “I’m English, aren’t I?” He gave her a goofy-looking smile. Suddenly a vision of Nick popped into her head. He would have known Hamlet, and it wasn’t because he was English.
“Are you trying to tell me that the crystals can understand what we’re saying?” she said.
“To some extent, yes. How much I don’t know. Not yet, anyway.”
“But theoretically they could understand what we’re saying about Blixus and the virus and genocide and everything.”
“I think that’s a bit over the top,” said Simon.
“But they could sense our moods and intent from the way we talk, just the way Nigel does, right?” she said.
“I think so,” he said. “At least as much as Nigel.”
This statement surprised her. Simon loved Nigel almost as much as Ivy did and thought he was the smartest dog in the world. His describing the crystals as being more intelligent than Nigel meant he thought they were geniuses.
“Wow,” she said. “Do you think they understand how much danger they’re in?”
“Quite honestly, I wouldn’t put it past them. They are wicked smart. Please don’t do that.”
“Do what?” She realized she’d leaned back again and was talking too loud. “Oh, sorry.” She huddled again. “Gosh, do you think they’d do well on one of Professor Sidebotham’s quizzes?”
“Ha ha,” he said. “Although actually, I don’t think they’d fail.”
“That’s a little creepy,” she said. “I’d really like to see a demonstration.”
“You will. I almost brought one with me, but I remembered I was going to talk about stuff that would scare it so I left it in the lab.”
“Yikes,” she said. “The thought of Blixus torturing these smart little cuties so he can make weapons out of them, or even use them as energy sources, makes me sick. I feel like running up to the lab and petting them.” She was amazed that Simon didn’t roll his eyes. He was so not a touchy-feely person. “What do we do about this?”
“You mean about the genocide?” he said.
She flinched. The word “genocide” gave her the creeps. “That and everything else.”
“Considering that Blixus is going to kill them anyway if he gets his hands on them, we have no choice. We have to destroy the virus.”
“But that’s terrible,” Amanda said. “Do we really need to do that? What if he doesn’t find them?”
“Do you want to take that chance?” He looked at her in a way that said, “No, you don’t. You know you have to do this.”
Amanda thought for a moment and said, “This is really hard, Simon.”
“No one ever said being a detective was easy.”
“I didn’t even want to be one.” She sat back and stared at the badminton net the gremlins had installed for the day.
“But you do now.”
“I do now.”
“Then you’re going to have to toughen up,” he said.
She thought she had. She was way tougher than she’d been when she arrived at Legatum a few months before. You had to be or you wouldn’t survive. She didn’t like the idea that she was still soft. That meant she was vulnerable, and there was no way she was going to let that happen. She opened her mouth to reply but then thought, “What am I going to say?” and stopped.
“There’s something else,” said Simon. “This is separate, but it’s important.” He motioned for her to come really close.
Something else? How could there be so many things to deal with at the same time? “Tell me,” she said, getting a whiff of peppermint again. “I need to know everything.”
“Professor Redleaf’s computer. Remembe
r when she looked at it and got upset?”
This was a change of subject. She didn’t like the sound of it. Anything to do with Professor Redleaf involved Holmes. “Yes. What was that about? You know?”
“I don’t know what it was, but I have a hunch.”
“Blixus?”
“Could be, but I don’t think so.”
“The teachers have lots of enemies,” she said.
“Yes, they do. But whoever did it and whatever it was, we have to make the data even more secure than it is. Even if they already got hold of some.”
“Isn’t Scapulus already working on this? He practically admitted to me that Professor Redleaf had been hacked.”
“He did? That’s interesting because I overheard him saying that they have to solve the hacking quickly or all the school’s data will be compromised. It might even be posted on the Web! We would be completely ineffective.”
“That’s terrible of course, but is the situation any worse than it was when Professor Redleaf saw something?”
“Actually, I think it is,” said Simon.
Oh great. Another crisis. “What are you trying to say, Simon?”
“For one thing, I think Scapulus is going to have to spend more time on the project. That means he won’t be able to keep helping us look. It might also mean he has to quit the film project. And, he might not be able to help us look for the virus.”
As much as Amanda did not want to work with Holmes, this wasn’t the best news. She felt relieved that she could finish the film without his interference, but they did need his help searching the school, and now that Simon had mentioned it he would be the best person to help them locate and destroy the virus formula. But what was going on with Professor Redleaf’s computer? Had Blixus—or Mavis—hacked into it, and if so, what kind of damage had they inflicted? Even scarier, if it wasn’t them who was it?
“And?” she said.
“You’re going to think I’m nuts,” he said.
“I never think you’re nuts, Simon. Just argumentative sometimes. Tell me.”
“I think Professor Redleaf saw something way worse than Blixus Moriarty. I think the real-life equivalent of Voldemort is out there.”
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Acoustic Levitation
Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set Page 58