Amanda Lester and the Orange Crystal Crisis

by Paula Berinstein



  Amanda Lester

  and the

  Orange Crystal Crisis

  PAULA BERINSTEIN

  The Writing Show

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s twisted imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Paula Berinstein.

  All rights reserved. Thank you for not scanning, uploading, or sharing any part of this book electronically without permission. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact the author at paula@writingshow.com.

  The Writing Show

  P.O. Box 2970

  Agoura Hills, CA 91376-2970

  www.amandalester.net

  ISBN: 978-1-942361-00-8 (softcover)

  ISBN-10: 1942361009 (softcover)

  ISBN:978-1-942361-08-4 (hardback)

  ISBN-10:1-942362-08-4 (hardback)

  ISBN: 978-1-942361-13-8 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-942361-13-0 (ebook)

  Cover design: Anna Mogileva

  Text set in Garamond Premier Pro

  Printed in the United States of America

  Also by Paula Berinstein

  Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy (Amanda Lester, Detective #1)

  Amanda Lester and the Purple Rainbow Puzzle (Amanda Lester, Detective #3)

  Amanda Lester and the Blue Peacocks’ Secret (Amanda Lester, Detective #4)

  Amanda Lester and the Red Spider Rumpus (coming November 2016) (Amanda Lester, Detective #5)

  For Aden and Ayla

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 Lestrade, Meet Holmes

  Chapter 2 Gordon Bramble Explodes

  Chapter 3 Professor Redleaf’s Surprise

  Chapter 4 Nick’s Secrets

  Chapter 5 Just the Treasure

  Chapter 6 Amanda Lester, One-man Band

  Chapter 7 Scars and Bruises

  Chapter 8 Blackpool

  Chapter 9 Earthquake!

  Chapter 10 Mushy Letters and Candy Stashes

  Chapter 11 The Crystals

  Chapter 12 Another Dead Body

  Chapter 13 Stuck

  Chapter 14 The Magnificent Basements

  Chapter 15 The Trove of Secrets

  Chapter 16 Back to the Whatsit

  Chapter 17 Crystal Weirdness

  Chapter 18 I’d Like to Thank the Academy

  Chapter 19 Triboluminescence

  Chapter 20 Eureka!

  Chapter 21 An Unexpected Party

  Chapter 22 The Whatsit

  Chapter 23 Phone Calls

  Chapter 24 Overwhelmed

  Chapter 25 Acoustic Levitation

  Chapter 26 Couple of Clowns

  Chapter 27 London

  Chapter 28 Regrouping

  Chapter 29 Answers

  Chapter 30 In Pursuit of a Culprit

  Chapter 31 Scapulus Holmes, Dreamboat

  Chapter 32 Windermere

  Chapter 33 The Quarry

  Chapter 34 Debriefing

  Chapter 35 The Detective’s Bible

  Chapter 36 Goodbye to the Crystals

  Chapter 37 It’s a Wonderful Life

  Discussion Questions for Your Reading Group

  Acoustic Levitation Is Real!

  Q and A with Author Paula Berinstein

  About the Author

  Other Books by Paula Berinstein

  Connect with Me!

  Sample Chapters from Amanda Lester and the Purple Rainbow Puzzle

  Acknowledgements

  Each new book in a series brings opportunities, both to enrich the characters and the story, but also to mess up. If you don’t stay true to your vision and maintain continuity, readers will be disappointed. So it is with deep gratitude that I thank my test readers for keeping me honest: Barry Chersky, Jim Cornelius, Cole Crouch, Sudie Crouch, Mary Fritsch-Derrick, Alex Hetzler, Blythe Kropf, Jerry Manas, Aden Mandel, Ayla Mandel, David Mandel, Alyssa Spillar, Keenan Spillar, and Barbara Wong.

  My cover designer, Anna Mogileva, is the absolute best! She not only creates stunning artwork, but her ideas make my books and Web site so much richer—and she has a fantastic sense of humor. Thank you, Anna!

  My sister, Jan Berinstein, is a technical wizard. Her extensive knowledge of Microsoft Word helped me out of multiple jams. Jan, you’re amazing. Thank you!

  I can’t believe how patient my husband, Alan, is. It isn’t easy living with a writer who needs complete peace and quiet, but Alan makes accommodations few others would even consider. In addition he reads every word I write and tells me the absolute truth about my stories. With this book he was quite concerned that I was changing the characters too much and stretching credulity with some of my scientific exaggerations. He won on the character point; Thrillkill and the others are now much more consistent than I originally wrote them. On the scientific matter, well, let’s just say that literature is supposed to be larger than life and leave it at that. But because he’s Alan, he’ll accept my decision with uncommon grace and keep egging me on. I am one lucky woman.

  Grab a Free Ivy Story!

  Amanda’s friend Ivy Halpin may be blind, but she’s the best detective in the school. And now she’s discovered something no one else knows about.

  Get the free “The Locked Room Mystery,” featuring Ivy and her friend Simon Binkle.

  Visit https://www.amandalester.net

  1

  Lestrade, Meet Holmes

  Amanda Lester wasn’t ready for what she’d just heard. Life was already weird enough at Legatum Continuatum, the secret school for descendants of famous detectives, in England’s Lake District. After the events of the last few months, including her father’s kidnapping, two murders, a teacher’s disappearance, an explosion, and a criminal plot to corner the world’s sugar market, she was battered, fed up, and downright depressed, especially since one of the kidnappers had turned out to be the boy she thought was her best friend. So when she arrived at Headmaster Thrillkill’s office on the first day of the new term and overheard one of the teachers say that the school was facing the worst crisis in its history, her first impulse was to run. But when she caught the word “Moriarty,” she couldn’t help listening, even though she knew eavesdropping was wrong. And that was when all the trouble started, or at least this round of trouble.

  Moriarty, of course, was the master criminal Blixus Moriarty, whom Amanda had helped catch just a few weeks before. Elegant, brilliant, and cruel, he was at least as dangerous as his infamous ancestor Professor James Moriarty, archenemy of the renowned detective Sherlock Holmes. Even though Blixus was locked away in Her Majesty’s Prison at Manchester, nicknamed Strangeways, and his wife, Mavis, in Holloway Castle in London, the detectives who ran Legatum kept him under constant surveillance. And now, it appeared, there was news.

  Amanda moved as close to the door as she could without being seen and closed her eyes so she could hear every word.

  “I’m starting to think we’re out of luck,” said one of the teachers. “This is a catastrophe.”

  “You’re overreacting,” said another. “There are still places to search. It will turn up.”

  “Hogwash,” said a third. “The Moriartys have it.”

  “If that’s the case,” said yet another, “it’s gone. It wasn’t in their possession when they were captured, or in their rooms here at the school. It must have been destroyed in the fire.”

  The teacher was referring to the fire that that had killed the Moriartys’ son Nick, aka Nick Muffet, and d
estroyed the sugar factory where their cartel had manufactured deadly sugar-powered weapons—the factory where they had created a virus that tainted their competitors’ products. The same factory that had housed Schola Sceleratorum, the secret school for criminals, where Amanda had discovered that Nick wasn’t the person he’d claimed to be. The factory where they’d held her father and beat him till he nearly died. That factory, which Nick had deliberately destroyed by igniting the highly flammable sugar dust inside.

  “Look,” said the evidence teacher. “Whatever happens, we can’t alarm the students or the parents. We have to keep this quiet.”

  “I think we can all agree on that,” said Headmaster Thrillkill.

  “It wasn’t our fault,” said the dead bodies teacher.

  “No, of course not,” said the self-defense teacher. “We did everything in our power to protect it.”

  “I don’t think we did,” said the poisons teacher. “If we had, it would be here, wouldn’t it?”

  “I don’t see how you can say that,” said the police procedures teacher. “I’ve got the checklist right here. See? Every requirement followed to the letter up until the 22nd of February. Then boom, gone. What else could we have done?”

  “Fault is not the issue,” said Thrillkill. “The point is that the situation is dire. We need to correct it immediately. Suggestions?”

  This was freaky. Amanda had never heard the teachers talk this way before. She’d never seen them panic, and that scared the wits out of her. These were hardened detectives with years of experience. They’d faced down the world’s most evil criminals without blinking. Or had they? What was that crack in Professor Also’s armor she’d seen the time someone had mentioned the Khyber Pass? Or when Professor Ducey had slipped and accidentally revealed that someone in his family had been a dirty cop? Even if they’d occasionally made mistakes, she was certain that these people were the toughest in the world—the Navy Seals of detecting—and they were close to unflappable. Except that now they were flapping like a pair of your grandfather’s BVDs in a hurricane. The situation was more than unsettling. It was downright weird.

  “Hey, you’re eavesdropping!”

  Amanda whirled around to see that prissy little Wiffle kid standing before her, the one who was always getting on her case about not following the rules. What a Goody Two-shoes he was, always complaining that her behavior didn’t measure up to some mythical standard. And here he was doing it again, except this time she was eavesdropping, and if he tattled the teachers would be furious.

  “Shut up,” she said in a stage whisper. “Thrillkill asked me to come to his office.”

  “Not like this,” said the kid, who seemed to have gotten a really bad haircut over the break. His pale red hair looked as if someone had taken a machete to it. “You’re not supposed to listen to other people’s conversations.”

  “I’m not listening,” she protested. “I’m waiting for a lull.”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are—”

  “What’s going on out there?” Headmaster Thrillkill poked his head out. His beard was covered with crumbs. “Oh, Miss Lester, I’m glad to see you. I have a task for you. Will you please stop by my office after your classes? Now off you go.” He shooed the two first-years off, then turned back to the teachers and closed the door behind him.

  “He’s going to give it to you,” said the kid. “Wish I were a fly on the wall. Probably something about how you helped that crook Nick Muffet infiltrate the school and—”

  “You are a fly,” said Amanda. “You’re nothing but a bug, David Wiffle. I feel sorry for you. Go back to your dog poop.”

  “Ha ha! You wish. You just can’t deal with the fact that I’m descended from an aristocrat. I’ll have you know that my ancestor, Sir Bailiwick Wiffle, was the most popular and successful detective of the 1930s, way beyond . . .”

  But Amanda wasn’t listening. What was up with Thrillkill? He hadn’t taken them to task for their arguing, and he’d given no indication that he thought they’d been eavesdropping. The omission only added to Amanda’s worry, especially because he didn’t seem to remember that he’d asked her to come to his office in the first place.

  What could the headmaster want from her? Did it have anything to do with the argument the teachers were having? She didn’t want to know. The man had thawed a bit by the end of last term, but he was still demanding, gruff, and awkward. And yet if she didn’t know what he wanted she would be caught unaware by whatever it was, and that might be even more unpleasant.

  “And by the way, it wasn’t cool what you and that criminal did to me. You got me in a lot of trouble over that kicking thing. I’m not done with you, Lester.”

  Wiffle was referring to the time he’d accidentally injured Amanda with an errant kick in self-defense class. Despite her antagonism toward him, she had taken the high road and insisted that it was an accident, but Nick, who always came to the rescue, had tried to punch him and ended up twisting his ankle. The teacher had punished the kid anyway, and now he’d never let her forget that there was a permanent note in his file.

  “You don’t scare me, chicken hawk,” she said. She glanced at the clock. “OMG, you’re going to be late to class. Can’t afford another detention, can you?”

  Wiffle took one look and started running toward their observation class. He was so predictable.

  Amanda knew she should go too, but suddenly she heard the name “Holmes” from behind the door. Oh brother. It was probably the new kid—Sherlock Holmes’s descendant, Scapulus Holmes, whom Thrillkill had mentioned at the end of last term. What was he going to be like? And what could he possibly have to do with the missing item? Did they think he had taken it?

  It was true that a few short months ago Amanda would have done anything to avoid Sherlock Holmes. And it was true that now she was somewhat less sensitive, although not entirely sanguine, about the man who’d made her own ancestor, Inspector G. Lestrade of Scotland Yard, and by extension her, a laughingstock. She had finally decided that she was no longer embarrassed to be the descendant of a police detective known by all to be a dodo. She was pretty sure she had resolved all that. Lestrade wasn’t her and she wasn’t him. She was going to be the greatest detective ever, as well as the greatest filmmaker, her life’s desire, despite her duddy genes. But theory was one thing and practice another. The new kid was probably here, right now, doing his worst. This was getting juicy as well as nerve-racking. She had to find out more.

  “Chop, chop,” Miss Lester, said Professor Mukherjee, the legal issues teacher, who had suddenly emerged from Thrillkill’s office to look for something in the anteroom. “We don’t want to be late on the first day of class, do we?”

  Nuts. There was no way she’d hear anything now. “Er, no, Professor. I was just . . . I’m on my way.”

  Oh well. If whatever it was was that important, there would be other opportunities to find out about it. Truth be told, Amanda was looking forward to seeing this legendary Holmes. Thrillkill had said that he wanted her to show him the ropes. Her! Little did he know that she was the last person who should be doing that. All she’d have to do was take one look at the boy and she’d throw up—a stunt she’d become well known for ever since that first day of spring term when she’d hurled all over poor Simon Binkle’s jacket. Fortunately Simon was now a friend, although he could still be irritating in a nerdish sort of way.

  But between that incident and the one in the dead bodies, aka pathology, class, where she’d made the entire class puke, she had quite a reputation and didn’t want to enhance it. She just knew, though, that this Holmes kid was going to be trouble, although what sort of trouble she wasn’t sure. She was pretty sure he’d be arrogant. These sorts of things ran in families: the Wiffle family was arrogant, the Moriarty family was arrogant, Sherlock Holmes was arrogant, ergo their descendants would be the same. She wondered if Professor Ducey, the logic teacher, would buy that argument. It seemed airtight to
her.

  Suddenly she realized she hadn’t had breakfast. In her haste to get to the headmaster’s office before class, she’d completely forgotten to eat and she was hungry. Breakfast was officially over as of one minute ago, but she took a chance and snuck into the dining room, making sure to keep an eye out for the new cook, whoever she might be. The previous one had been strict about mealtimes, and if you missed them you were out of luck. Of course the previous cook had also been a mole working on behalf of the Moriarty cartel, so you couldn’t go by anything she’d done. Perhaps the new one would be nicer and a bit more lenient, not to mention less crooked.

  Amanda hustled as quietly as she could to the dining room, which was next to the stairs leading to the girls’ dorm. She looked around, first behind her, then to either side, then whirled around to get a 360-degree view and almost lost her balance. She heard some clunking coming from the kitchen, but there was no sign of the new cook. Was someone coming? Should she chance it?

  She tiptoed up to the kitchen door and looked through the round window. No one. The new cook and her assistant must be in the pantry or outside accepting deliveries. She twirled around again, then felt both dizzy and silly. Enough of that. She tiptoed over to the sideboard and grabbed the last roll, sticking it in her bag for a surreptitious getaway. Yay! She’d done it! She stepped out of the dining room as quietly as she could and power walked down the hall toward her first class.

  Unfortunately, as soon as she started moving she realized there was no way to consume the loot without anyone seeing, and if they did she’d probably get into trouble. As great a school as Legatum had turned out to be, sometimes it still felt like a prison. Should she duck into a closet and eat the roll? Why not? She opened the door to a supply area, stepped in, tore the thing in two, and stuffed it in her mouth, almost choking in the process. When she’d swallowed the last lump she was so thirsty she knew she’d never make it to class, so she stopped at a water fountain and managed to get water all over her face, hair, and sweater. Great.