There’s a great article on acoustic levitation at How Stuff Works (http://science.howstuffworks.com/acoustic-levitation1.htm). There are even YouTube videos on the subject. Check them out!
Q and A with Author Paula Berinstein
Where did you get the idea for the crystals?
I liked the idea of the kids discovering a new life form, and I wanted it to be so unusual that you normally wouldn’t think of it as a life form. I also wanted something visually interesting, with lots of color. I researched crystals to see if there is such a thing as living ones, and I found articles that discuss “almost living” crystals. (See http://www.wired.com/2013/01/living-crystal/, for example.) That was good enough for me. Sure, I exaggerated mine, but I often do that. Fiction has to be larger than life.
I’ve been to Windermere, and there’s no Lake Enchanto there. What’s going on?
It is absolutely true that I play with geography. In fact, when you read the next book, Amanda Lester and the Purple Rainbow Puzzle, you’ll see that I do so even more when I send the kids to Penrith, a town near Windermere. I try to retain some semblance of truth, but I change what I need to so that it supports the stories. For example, all my trains and stations are real, although they may not look exactly like they do in the books. The highways are also real, and there really is a sugar mile near London City Airport, or there was. There are still factories in that area.
How did you come up with the idea of using an acoustic levitator to get the kids past the tunnel gates?
I had to get them past those gates, and I thought and thought about how to do it. Those locks are tough! I suppose I could have had them break the locks or get through them legitimately, but that wouldn’t have been very interesting. It occurred to me that perhaps I should leave the locks in place but play with the hinge parts of the gates. Then what? Well, there are pins in hinges; what if the kids could remove them. But they’re old and rusty and won’t budge. You see my reasoning. I just go through various ideas step by step. When I found acoustic levitation on the Web, that clinched it. Clive is inventive. Of course he’d make something like that.
Are you really planning to create a game like Explosions!?
I hope so. I’ve been working with my stepson to design some games based on the Amanda stories, and that’s one of the ideas. Once I get the purple book finalized (for publication in November, 2015), I will put together some Kickstarter campaigns to raise the money to get them programmed. I can’t wait!
Have you ever skateboarded?
I have! My friend Barbara and I used to go sidewalk surfing. I had a Makaha board. Wish I’d kept it.
Do you know how to program?
I do! I used to be a COBOL programmer at an aerospace company, and I studied Java for a while. I also took a class in assembly language, and although I never followed that up, it allowed me to understand concepts I’d never got my head around before. I can also write HTML and CSS, although I’m not sure you can consider those programming.
What is it with you and monkeys?
Don’t you like monkeys? I hope you do because you’re going to be seeing a lot more of them.
Do gingersnaps really settle the stomach?
They do. I used to give them to my dog when we’d go in the car. They work wonders!
Amanda Lester
and the
Purple Rainbow Puzzle
PAULA BERINSTEIN
The Writing Show
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 A Plethora of Problems
Chapter 2 In Search of Blixus
Chapter 3 Jackie Lumpenstein
Chapter 4 Manny Companion
Chapter 5 All Together Again
Chapter 6 The Key to the Key
Chapter 7 A Big Blowup
Chapter 8 Bickering
Chapter 9 Simon Binkle, Ladies’ Man
Chapter 10 Blixus’s Trail Goes Cold
Chapter 11 Crocodile’s Flat
Chapter 12 Saving the World
Chapter 13 To Bee or Not to Bee
Chapter 14 Leprechauns
Chapter 15 Enter Inspector Lestrade
Chapter 16 Amphora’s Hidden Talent
Chapter 17 Gordon, I Could Kiss You
Chapter 18 Penrith
Chapter 19 Through the Sarcophagus
Chapter 20 In the Tunnels
Chapter 21 Angry Bees
Chapter 22 Gordon Bramble to the Rescue
Chapter 23 The Lockbox
Chapter 24 All Eyes on David Wiffle
Chapter 25 Stinky Locks
Chapter 26 A Third Way
Chapter 27 Revolting Parents
Chapter 28 The Silver Coin
Chapter 29 At the Zoo
Chapter 30 There’s Something About Mavis
Chapter 31 Chasing Rainbows
Chapter 32 Holmes vs. Hacker, Round One
Chapter 33 Metadata in Danger
Chapter 34 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
Chapter 35 Now You Tell Me
Chapter 36 Back to the Tunnels
Chapter 37 Like a Myth Come True
Chapter 38 Prisoners!
Chapter 39 So That’s How He Got the Coins
Chapter 40 Holmes vs. Moriarty
Chapter 41 Insight
Chapter 42 Unhappy Endings
Discussion Questions for Your Reading Group
Q and A with Author Paula Berinstein
1
A Plethora of Problems
Who would have thought a little twerp like David Wiffle could bring an entire detective school to its knees? After all, he was just a little prig with the maturity level of a toddler. Which, come to think of it, was exactly why he’d been able to mess everything up. Toddlers have way too much power, with their “No, this” and “No that,” thought his classmate Amanda Lester. But at least they don’t normally have access to priceless artifacts. Unfortunately David did, and he had destroyed it. The Detective’s Bible! On purpose. The fact that he was crazy with grief at the time only partly excused him, or at least that was how Amanda saw the situation.
So it was no wonder that when his mother, Celerie, descended on Headmaster Thrillkill’s office screaming her head off, Amanda, who just happened to be there, found it hard to be sympathetic. Yes, her son was missing, and yes, Amanda’s friend Editta Sweetgum was also missing, and—oh no! Here came her mother too, waving her arms and screaming even louder than Mrs. Wiffle. The noise coming out of her mouth was even more jarring than the earthquake repair work in the hall, and those guys seemed to be competing for the title of Loudest Hammer Man Ever.
“I demand an investigation at once,” Mrs. Wiffle spat before she’d even made it through the door. Bang!
“I said it first,” yelled Mrs. Sweetgum, practically stepping on the other parent’s well-shod heel. Bang, bang, clang! “After all, Editta went missing before David did.”
Despite her loyalty to the headmaster, Amanda had to admit that this sounded juicy. She wondered if he would kick her out of his office and she’d miss all the excitement. Parent-teacher conferences were supposed to be private. But the headmaster did nothing, which in itself was rather strange. Normally he was so strict. Still, considering all the terrible things that had been going on lately, she could see how he might be distracted.
“How dare you involve my son in such a sordid business,” said Mrs. Wiffle, who could have been a model if she’d been taller. Her pale red hair was exactly the same shade as her son’s, her eyes the same cornflower blue, and she had a look that screamed “designer.” She was rail thin, which might have explained why she was wearing a sweater in summer. Amanda thought it odd that she’d say such a thing considering that detective work involved sordid business by definition. Surely David’s mother knew that. Her own husband, David’s father, Wink, a private detective descended from Sir Bailiwick Wiffle, had been killed because of it. Clang, clatter.
“How dare you lose my daughter,” said Mrs. Sweetgum, which made more sense, since Editta had s
hocked everyone by purposely running off with the notorious criminals Blixus, Mavis, and Nick Moriarty a couple of weeks before. Of course the teachers and the local police had scoured the area, but they hadn’t found a trace of her or the Moriartys.
“I want that librarian fired,” said Mrs. Wiffle, “If it hadn’t been for her, my son wouldn’t have had to destroy that book.” Bang, bang, bang.
Amanda sighed. It wasn’t Mrs. Bipthrottle’s fault that David had taken the Bible, and it certainly wasn’t her fault that his roommates had stolen it from him. If anything, Headmaster Thrillkill was to blame. He had been responsible for keeping the Bible safe. How it had ended up lost in the school’s basement, then stashed in an obscure corner of the library by an overzealous maid, only to be secretly removed to David’s room, had nothing to do with the librarian. Well, maybe a little, but only about a tenth of a millionth of a percent. It was Thrillkill who had kept the Bible’s disappearance secret rather than enlisting the students’ help in finding it, and now he was paying the price.
“I want to know who brainwashed my daughter,” said Mrs. Sweetgum, changing the subject entirely. She was almost a dead ringer for Editta, or perhaps Editta was a dead ringer for her. The woman had the same beaky nose, brown eyes, and limp hair as her daughter. The main difference was that the mother dyed her hair black, as opposed to Editta’s natural brown. It didn’t become her. “Editta would never have associated herself with those people on her own. It had to be the influence of that Amanda Lester, the one descended from that incompetent Inspector Lestrade. I wouldn’t put anything past that family.” Crash.
Uh oh. This was getting personal. Amanda had been criticized before for being related to Lestrade, the inept Scotland Yard detective who sometimes worked with Sherlock Holmes. Fortunately she had finally come to terms with her ancestry and decided that Lestrade was Lestrade and she wasn’t and that was that. What did matter, though, was that she was being accused of something she hadn’t done and would never even think of. And by the mother of a friend she had tried to help—a mother who didn’t seem to recognize her.
Editta’s story was certainly an odd one. When she had returned to the Legatum Continuatum Enduring School for Detectives from spring break despondent and uncommunicative, Amanda had tried to talk her out of whatever had been bothering her. That her friend had ignored her and run off to be with the Moriartys’ thirteen-year-old son, Nick, Amanda’s ex-best friend and sort of ex-boyfriend, wasn’t her fault. In fact, Amanda had been horrified and had been trying to find Editta ever since. How could her mother say such things?
“Ms. Sweetgum is right,” said Mrs. Wiffle. “You need to do something about that Lestrade girl.” Amanda’s father had changed the family name to Lester, but people who wanted to insult them called them Lestrade. Fortunately, she was getting used to that too. “Ever since David came to Legatum, she’s gone out of her way to make trouble for him. Why, she even hit him over the head with a drawing pad last term and wasn’t punished. What kind of a school are you running, Gaston?” Clunk.
“I second that,” said Mrs. Sweetgum. “That Lestrade girl encouraged the Moriarty boy to corrupt my daughter. If he hadn’t played those tricks on her, she’d be home where she belongs and he’d be in custody now instead of causing grief all over the UK.” Blunk!
Actually, Nick Moriarty, aka Nick Muffet, was causing grief all over the UK, or at least parts of it. Since he’d betrayed Amanda and the detectives, he and his parents had contaminated the domestic sugar supply, invented new types of deadly weapons, and nearly caused the extinction of a freshly discovered species of living crystal before disappearing into thin air. However, if the Moriartys indeed possessed the Bible, they would do a lot worse than that.
Amanda was beginning to wonder why Headmaster Thrillkill still wasn’t saying anything. It wasn’t like Mr. Gruff not to hold his own, especially with two hysterical women. Perhaps it was because he felt guilty. Wink Wiffle had been his best friend and he hadn’t been able to prevent his murder. In fact, he hadn’t even realized that Wink was dead. And he should have been able to keep Editta from running off with the country’s most notorious criminal, a man he’d tangled with again and again.
“We demand that you expel the Lestrade girl,” said Mrs. Wiffle. Clash, clang, clatter, thunk.
“And find my daughter at once!” said Mrs. Sweetgum. Thud.
“And furthermore, I hold you personally responsible for the death of my husband,” said Mrs. Wiffle. “I don’t care what the two of you were to each other. I’ve instructed my solicitor to file a suit for wrongful death.” Glunk.
Wink Wiffle’s body had been discovered a few weeks previously when a powerful earthquake had struck the Lake District and exposed the remains. The detectives suspected that Mavis Moriarty had killed him but they hadn’t been able to establish proof. They had, however, found Wink’s wedding ring in Mavis’s quarters—quarters she’d occupied when she infiltrated the school in the role of cook’s assistant during spring term.
Finally, after what seemed like minutes, Thrillkill spoke. Amanda had never been so relieved to hear his voice, which was much gentler than usual.
“Ladies, let me say how sorry I am for everything that’s happened,” he said. Sklunk.
“Sorry isn’t good enough,” interrupted Mrs. Sweetgum.
“Sorry won’t bring back my Wink,” said Mrs. Wiffle.
“You are correct,” said Thrillkill. “Wink’s death and Editta’s disappearance occurred on my watch and I take full responsibility.” He seemed to think of something, turned around to the shelves behind him, and grabbed the hair dryer sitting there. He opened a desk drawer and threw it inside. Amanda didn’t know why he’d left the thing out. He used it to melt icicles. Winter was months away.
“So what?” said Mrs. Sweetgum. “My daughter—” BANG! “What’s going on out there? It sounds as though Beelzebub and his legions have invaded.”
“It’s just construction,” said Mrs. Wiffle, inclining her head toward the other parent. “Ignore it.” She turned back to Thrillkill. “My son is devastated. He’ll never be the same.” BANG.
“I demand your resignation,” said Mrs. Sweetgum, scowling at the headmaster.
“Yes, your resignation,” said Mrs. Wiffle. “And restitution, starting with the expulsion of—” CRASH!
“I’m afraid it isn’t our policy—” said Thrillkill.
“Policy!” yelled Mrs. Sweetgum. “My daughter is being held prisoner by the most evil criminals in the world and you talk to me about policy?” Bang, bang, thud.
“You should be ashamed, Gaston,” said Mrs. Wiffle, looking for something in her purse. “I thought you were Wink’s friend.”
“I was Wink’s friend,” said Thrillkill. “You know very well that we were like brothers, Celerie. Of course I understand how you feel—both of you—and I can assure you that we’re going to make this right. Whatever it takes.” Rap, rap, rap. “Oh, blast that noise.” He stood up and peered out into the hall.
Surely he didn’t mean he was going to make things right by expelling Amanda? How would that help? She couldn’t believe he would do such a thing, especially after having asked her to stay for the summer to make a film that would, in his words, “save the world.” She’d planned to go to Los Angeles and work with her idol, action film director Darius Plover, who’d offered her the opportunity to help him with his movie “Sand” for a couple of months. However, when Thrillkill had appealed to her sense of duty, she’d agreed to stay, even though it meant missing out on the chance of a lifetime—and having to work side by side with Scapulus Holmes.
Poor Holmes. She’d discovered only recently how crazy he was about her. At first she was horrified, since she had never wanted anything to do with Sherlock Holmes or his descendants. The famous detective was an arrogant jerk. If it hadn’t been for him, no one would have heard of Lestrade and she wouldn’t have had to suffer the eternal embarrassment of being related to him. But against all odds, she’d found
herself head over heels about Scapulus and they’d finally gotten together . . . until Nick Moriarty had turned up. As soon as Holmes had seen the tender way Amanda looked at him, he’d clammed up and had barely spoken to her since.
She felt terrible. Yes, she had been shocked to see that Nick wasn’t dead after the explosion at the Moriartys’ sugar factory. She must have had some weird expression on her face when he’d popped up at the quarry outside Windermere with the living crystals she’d tried so hard to save. And yes, she had once had feelings for him, which might have leaked out onto her face for just a teensy moment. But those were long gone. Once she discovered who he really was—not Nick Muffet, her best friend, but Nick Moriarty, criminal—those feelings had died.
Still, Holmes had seen something on her face that had spooked him. Was he right? Did she still care about Nick? No, it was impossible. Just because she’d momentarily pictured him holding out a welcoming arm for her, as he’d once done, didn’t mean anything. It was a slip. She knew that the real Nick was a heartless boy who had laughed at her for trying to save her father, not the gallant friend who’d tried to protect her from David Wiffle or broken a clock just because she didn’t like the noise it made.
She should tell Holmes how she really felt and make everything right. He was a wonderful boy and she was mad about him. It wouldn’t take much. She’d explain everything and the hurt would melt away. But if it was that easy, why did she balk every time she felt the urge to approach him?
“So you’re going to resign then?” said Mrs. Wiffle, breaking into Amanda’s thoughts. “And expel that girl?”
“I didn’t say that,” said Thrillkill. “What I meant was that we’re going to find Editta and bring Wink’s murderer to justice.” He riffled the pages of a book that was sitting on his desk: School Administration for Dummies. Celerie Wiffle eyed it. He pulled the volume toward himself and onto his lap. She made a tsk tsk face.
Amanda Lester, Detective Box Set Page 72