Early the next morning with everyone in class, Amanda reconnoitered. It wasn’t going to be easy to get out of a locked-down school. Plainclothes constables were guarding all the gates, and everything was secured and double-bolted.
There might be a way, though. Although no one was to enter or leave the grounds, that didn’t include delivery people. The school still needed food, and trucks were still coming and going. There would be a lot of security at the gates to make sure whoever was coming in was authorized, but she hoped there would be less checking of those who left the campus.
She ran up to the disguise classroom. Just a few minutes remained until the next class began, so she had to work fast. She went to the hair cupboard and grabbed a brown wig. Then she ran to one of the wardrobes and chose a maid’s uniform, first in her usual size, then realizing she’d lost so much weight that it would be too big, a smaller one. Finally she selected a pair of glasses. It was a gamble, but since most people didn’t pay much attention to the maids, she figured she’d be as good as invisible. The approach had certainly worked for her the night of the explosion. She put the disguise on, hid her bag and street clothes inside some linens, and made her way down both flights of stairs without anyone noticing. However when she got to the main hall, a lot of people were milling around and the going looked treacherous.
The best thing to do was to play her part with absolute confidence. If people saw what they expected to see, they wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. She ducked into a utility closet and grabbed a trolley full of cleaning and bathroom supplies, and keeping her head down, rolled it toward the Holmes House common room and the restroom outside it. At one point a sixth-year boy gave her a good ogle (yuck) and a few of her classmates stared right at her, causing her heart to flutter, but miraculously they didn’t seem to recognize her. It was a perfect disguise and Amanda resolved to use it again—if she survived the trip to London.
She was just about to ditch the trolley in another supply closet when she heard Thrillkill’s voice.
“Miss, would you come here a moment, please?”
Oh no! The jig was up. She’d be expelled for sure and her father would die. She absolutely could not let that happen.
Then she had an idea. Actors could make themselves appear different just by changing their facial expressions. If she did that, maybe the headmaster wouldn’t recognize her. Put on an accent and it was worth a try.
“Yes, sir,” she said, affecting a Cockney accent and screwing up her face as subtly as she could.
“I say, may I have a packet of those towels, please? I seem to have spilled tea in my office.”
“Oh yes, sir.” She handed the headmaster a packet of paper towels.
“Thank you,” said Thrillkill. “Carry on.” He gave her a wink, turned, and left.
Amanda couldn’t believe it. She’d pulled it off. She wondered what Thrillkill would think if he knew. Now to ditch the cart and get to the delivery area. She pushed the trolley into a nearby closet and slowly walked to the south common room, then out the door.
Spotting a large truck pulling up, Amanda watched while the driver parked in front of the gym and opened the back. Then while he was rolling the delivery into the building, she ducked inside the belly of the truck and secreted herself behind an empty carton. When the driver came back a few minutes later, he slammed the doors shut, started the engine, and drove toward the front gate.
When the truck reached the checkpoint Amanda heard a guard ask the driver for his ID. They sat there a moment and then she heard the gate open and felt the truck surge forward. They were out of the school! She took off the disguise, changed into her own clothes, and settled in for the short drive.
Now she’d have to figure out how to get out of the truck and to the train station. She figured the station was fifteen minutes from the school, so she was hoping the driver would stop for a cup of tea or a snack near there, but he didn’t. After thirty minutes he still hadn’t stopped, and when he was still going after forty, she started to panic. What a dumb idea. What had she been thinking?
A million things started to race through her mind, starting with her parents and how this whole thing was their fault, although she wasn’t sure that if she’d been nearby she could have prevented her father’s kidnapping. Of course if they hadn’t moved to the UK in the first place it never would have happened. Or would it? The kidnappers could still have gotten him in L.A. A prosecutor was never really safe anywhere.
She thought about the new friends she’d made: Ivy, Amphora, Editta, Simon, Nick. They were way better friends than the stick dogs had ever been and she felt grateful to have them, even if they could be weird sometimes. And now she really did have her own authentic stick dog, Nigel, who was the best dog ever.
Then for some reason she thought about the whole idea of a detective’s mystique and how Simon had looked so ridiculous with that fedora. What was her mystique? Was it possible even to have a mystique when you were a Lestrade? Maybe as a filmmaker she’d develop one, but as a detective? The thought was ludicrous. What was Professor Also thinking anyway? Surely you could do a great job without having a mystique. Why did it matter?
When you really thought about it, some of the things they were teaching were downright bizarre. Sure, you needed to understand how to process evidence, build a case, and profile suspects, but drawing rooms? Stakeout recipes? Roof walking? Either there was a lot more to being a detective than she realized or these people were nuts. She didn’t see a practical application for sending messages via cat, or using nose grease to develop photographic images. Who used film in still cameras anymore anyway?
But she could see the utility of learning to sketch and make a record of what you saw if no camera was available. Or being able to tell how a person was feeling from the way they crossed their legs. Or processing over-large evidence. She’d never thought about these things before and suddenly she wondered why. Every one of them could be useful in making films. There was so much to know no matter what you did for a living. How would she ever know all of it? It was too much.
After an hour, first on curvy roads and then on what felt like a freeway, Amanda felt the truck slow and pull off the road. She heard the driver get out and slam the cab door. She couldn’t open the back doors from the inside and there were no windows, so she couldn’t tell where they were or what was going on. She heard the driver say, “Edinburgh” to someone, although he pronounced it “ed-in-bo-row.” OMG! The truck was going north to Scotland, not south toward London—completely the wrong direction. She had to get out now!
“When should we expect you?” she heard a man’s voice say.
“I should be rolling in at about two o’clock,” said the driver, who had returned and was starting the engine again.
What had she been thinking getting into that truck? Whatever gave her the idea that the driver would go toward Windermere? Instead, he must have gotten onto the A591 and headed for the M6. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Well, there was nothing for it now but to wait until the truck stopped again and get out.
The driver must have been schizoid, because he alternately sped up and drove in a fashion that seemed reckless, only to change his mind and slow down. This kind of driving, plus the road itself, did not do wonders for Amanda’s sensitive stomach. However she was in luck on that front at least. After the two vomiting incidents, Simon had discovered that gingersnaps helped settle the stomach, and from then on she was never without a handful, which she now consumed. They made her thirsty, though, and there was no relief for that.
She realized she should have told someone exactly what she was doing. She’d been arrogant and short-sighted running off secretly like that. It was that old one-man band thing of hers rearing its ugly head. She thought she’d learned to get along with people, to cooperate and share, but it seemed she hadn’t. She was just like Sherlock Holmes, and the realization made her ill despite the gingersnaps. And she was dumb just like Lestrade, which was even worse.
The truck ro
lled on for an eternity. Amanda could hear rain on the roof and wished she could open it and let the drops fall into her mouth. Then a text arrived. It read “midnight.” There was an image attached, a picture of her father bloodied and beaten against a cement background. The lighting was terrible and there was a green tint to the picture. The text was anonymous, again. One thing was for sure though. It wasn’t the Wiffle boy this time.
Amanda checked the time: one-thirty. If she was interpreting the text correctly, she had less than twelve hours to save her father. And here she was going the wrong way!
Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy Page 74