Amanda Lester and the Red Spider Rumpus Read online

  AMANDA LESTER

  AND THE RED SPIDER RUMPUS

  (AMANDA LESTER, DETECTIVE #5)

  Also by Paula Berinstein

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

  Amanda Lester and the Orange Crystal Crisis (Amanda Lester, Detective #2)

  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 Gold Spectacles Surprise (Amanda Lester, Detective #6), forthcoming 2017

  Amanda Lester and the Red Spider Rumpus

  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 © 2016 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 [email protected].

  The Writing Show

  P.O. Box 2970

  Agoura Hills, CA 91376-2970

  www.amandalester.net

  ISBN: 978-1-942361-15-2 (hardback)

  ISBN-10: 1-942361-15-7 (hardback)

  ISBN: 978-1-942361-11-4 (softcover)

  ISBN-10: 1-942361-11-4 (softcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-942361-14-5 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-942361-14-9 (ebook)

  Cover design: Anna Mogileva

  Text set in Garamond Premier Pro

  For Sudie

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 Holy DNA, Batman?

  Chapter 2 Going Bananas

  Chapter 3 I Don’t Have Any Deep, Dark Secrets

  Chapter 4 Transitions

  Chapter 5 Searching

  Chapter 6 The Secret Life of Scapulus Holmes

  Chapter 7 Ivy Does It Again

  Chapter 8 Ramon

  Chapter 9 The Inquisition

  Chapter 10 Spiders

  Chapter 11 The Moment You’ve Been Waiting For

  Chapter 12 Those Wretched Secrets

  Chapter 13 Simon’s Bright Idea

  Chapter 14 Salty’s Test

  Chapter 15 The Ghost

  Chapter 16 To Be Continued

  Chapter 17 The First Labor

  Chapter 18 The Second Labor

  Chapter 19 The Contest

  Chapter 20 Just Think of Those Eyes

  Chapter 21 Blixus Spills

  Chapter 22 Travels with Blixus

  Chapter 23 But I Really Want to Direct

  Chapter 24 Nick and Holmes’s Excellent Adventure

  Chapter 25 The Ladder

  Chapter 26 Ramon’s Accusation

  Chapter 27 The Interrogation

  Chapter 28 You’d Better Come In

  Chapter 29 With Me or Against Me?

  Spring Term Second-Year Class Schedule

  Discussion Questions for Your Reading Group

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My deepest thanks to:

  Amanda’s Irregulars, my incomparable boosters and advisers.

  My wise and wonderful marketing assistant and counselor, Lola Verroen.

  My amazing artist, Anna Mogileva, without whom I’d be lost.

  My good friends Sudie Crouch, Barbara Wong, Greg Bolcer, Jerry Manas, and Barry Chersky, who stick with me through thick and thin.

  My generous advisor, Derrick Belanger, Sherlock Holmes expert and author extraordinaire.

  Test reader and all around great person MaryLeigh Ware.

  The fantastic book bloggers who open their virtual homes to me.

  My readers, whom I love more than the sky.

  And my husband Alan, who is so patient and generous that I can’t believe he’s real.

  HOLY DNA, BATMAN!

  Amanda Lester had just discovered that her new stepfather was evil, but that wasn’t the most pressing thing on her mind. Yes, the man had stolen the only remaining pages of the precious Detective’s Bible, and yes, she was wondering whether her mother knew what she’d gotten herself into, but more important was the secret that was burning a hole in her brain.

  She sneaked a glance at her handsome dark-haired frenemy, Nick Moriarty, a former criminal who had decided to join the other side. Intent on his game Explosions! , he was doing a good job of acting as if she weren’t there. He’d always been a good actor. Anyone else would think he didn’t care. She knew better.

  Sounds of blasts streamed from Nick’s tablet as he blew up one target after another. In the old days he would have pumped the air, but now he was grimacing. After everything that had happened he was in a huge amount of pain, some of it due to her. She couldn’t stand seeing him like that. And now she was about to make it a whole lot worse.

  When she’d come calling at his father’s boat, The Falls, he hadn’t wanted to let her in but had finally left the door open and told her to suit herself. Truth be told she hadn’t wanted to come. Their last meeting hadn’t gone well. After he’d confessed that he loved her, it had seemed that they would be together at last. But then for some reason he’d got it in his head that she didn’t want him. She’d tried to protest but he hadn’t wanted to hear, and in the end she’d given up, disappointed and sad.

  She ran her hand through her bushy brown hair and met with so many tangles she could barely get it out. She absently pulled at the knots, trying to smooth them, but all that did was hurt. She’d have to look into getting a new brush or crème rinse or something.

  For about the millionth time Amanda considered not telling Nick what Professor Hoxby had discovered. After all, what you didn’t know couldn’t hurt you. Except that wasn’t true and she knew it. A year at the Legatum Continuatum Enduring School for Detectives had taught her that. Information was power. Stick your head in the sand at your peril.

  So she couldn’t hide the truth from Nick any longer. He needed to know, and she would tell him—she really would—in ten, nine, eight, seven . . . two seconds.

  “Um, Nick,” she said, half hoping he wouldn’t hear her over the noise.

  “Mmm,” he said, punching his tablet as if he were trying to break it.

  “Can I have a word?” Amanda never would have phrased a request that way before coming to the UK. Americans would say, “Can I talk to you?” She was speaking like a Brit and she felt weird about it.

  “Let me just get this—whoa! I blew up an outhouse.”

  “Oh, yuck,” said Amanda. “There’s really an outhouse in that game?”

  “Yep,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the stuff they have in level forty-nine. What’s up?”

  Now that the moment had come, she didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t as if she was going to ruin his life because it was already ruined. His mother was dead, he’d fled from his arch-villain father, and if the detectives didn’t let him into Legatum, which they probably wouldn’t, he would have exactly nowhere to go, and then what? He did have a place to live for the time being: the boat, which was moored in Lake Windermere. But at fourteen, Nick needed more than that. You couldn’t just sit around an old boat all day punching a screen. What would happen when you were sixteen, or eighteen, or twenty-five?

  She took a deep breath. Her news would come out however it came out.

  “I came here because I have to tell you something,” she said. Nick put down his tablet and looked at her with
those sky blue eyes of his—the eyes that always got to her. She swallowed hard. “You’re not going to like it.”

  He gave her a so-what-else-is-new look. “They’ve changed their minds. They’re not letting me in even provisionally, are they?”

  It wasn’t a bad guess. There wasn’t much chance the detectives would allow the boy who’d infiltrated their school and betrayed them back in, even with a whole bunch of conditions. But that wasn’t it.

  “I don’t know,” said Amanda, looking down at her hands. “It’s not that.”

  He shook his head. “You already told me you love Scapulus. I get it. What I don’t understand is why you’re not with him.”

  Amanda didn’t understand either. Why, if she loved Scapulus Holmes and Nick didn’t want to be with her, could she not get Nick out of her mind and just be happy? But that wasn’t the issue either.

  “Can I please just say this?” she said. “This is hard for me.”

  “Go on.”

  She lifted her head and looked into his eyes from across the tiny space. She was about to ruin his world and she could barely focus.

  “You know how you were injured in the fight at Dandy Castle and they brought you to the hospital?”

  “Yes, of course. It was only a few weeks ago.”

  “And do you remember that they took blood?”

  His face took on a “whatever” expression. “Not really, but if you say so.”

  “They did a DNA test on you.”

  Nick froze. He knew what that meant. DNA was always a serious topic.

  Seeing the change in him Amanda forgot her fear. He needed her, whether he would admit it or not. She got up from the hideous yellow beanbag chair, squeezed in next to him on the couch, and took his hand. He pulled it away.

  “I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to blurt it out. Blixus Moriarty isn’t your father.”

  Nick laughed but he wasn’t amused. “Very funny, Amanda. Pranks don’t become you.”

  She shook her head and moved closer, taking his hand again. He looked down at what she was doing with an unreadable expression. “I’m not joking. You know me better than that. Your DNA doesn’t match his.”

  Nick extricated himself and jumped up. Then he sat right back down again. “There was obviously some mix-up. Have you seen my father? I look just like him.”

  “Coincidence,” she said. “You’re not related. Anyway, you really don’t. The resemblance is pretty superficial.”

  “Contamination. Degradation. It’s obviously an error.”

  “Professor Hoxby is ninety-nine percent sure. In DNA terms that’s certainty. You know that.”

  “Maybe Blixus is really my uncle then,” said Nick. He was obviously having trouble accepting what she was telling him. She couldn’t exactly blame him.

  “I’m afraid not. You have no genetic material in common. You’re complete strangers.”

  Nick still resisted. “Even if that’s true, which it isn’t, I’m still my mum’s son.” He stopped and thought for a moment, realizing something. “She must have cheated on him. Blimey. I’m not sure I can get my head around that.”

  Amanda shook her head.

  Nick’s eyes widened. “She’s really my mum, right? Was, anyway, before that Gorgon killed her.”

  Amanda sighed.

  “She’s not related to me either?”

  “No.” Her voice was so low she wasn’t sure any sound had come out.

  Nick hunched over, rested his hands on his knees, and looked at her sideways, his expression quizzical. “You’re telling me I’m adopted?”

  She nodded.

  He frowned and turned back slowly, his eyes sweeping the floor. “Who are my parents then? No, wait, I suppose they wouldn’t know. They wouldn’t have the DNA of some random people on file.”

  “Not random people,” said Amanda. “At least not your father.”

  “Oh no,” said Nick, balling his fist and bending his head to lean on it. “My father is someone terrible. Who is it?” His voice cracked.

  She drew in a breath. He was going to have a fit. She’d just have to say it as fast as she could.

  “Wink Wiffle.”

  Nick’s jaw dropped. “Wink Wiffle? That isn’t funny, Amanda. I know you don’t love me but you don’t have to be so cruel.”

  She’d never wanted to hold him as much as she did now—smooth his brow, take away the pain—but that wasn’t going to happen. She willed herself not to show her feelings.

  “I don’t mean to be cruel. I wish none of this were true. Wink Wiffle was really your father.”

  “Wink Wiffle—a detective? I’m a detective?”

  Amanda nodded.

  Nick was aghast. “But Wink Wiffle was soft. My dad—I mean—blast, he’s not my dad. Blixus always told me how soft Wink Wiffle and Gaston Thrillkill were. I’m descended from a pansy? I’m doomed!”

  This response she could work with. “You’re not doomed. First of all, Wink Wimsey wasn’t a pansy, and second, even if he were, genes aren’t destiny. You’re looking at living proof of that.”

  That he was. For years Amanda had been ashamed of the fact that she was descended from Inspector G. Lestrade, that bumbler of a Scotland Yard detective the great Sherlock Holmes had worked with. When she’d found out her parents were sending her to Legatum based on her heritage she’d just about died. Everyone would know who her ancestor was and make fun of her. But it hadn’t happened that way. Amanda had proven herself talented, resourceful, intelligent, and strong, and now everyone admired her. Well, almost everyone. Okay, some people. She did have a few enemies among the student body but she could handle them.

  She could see Nick’s face relax. “You’re right. You’re not a bit like old ferret face. Well, then, I’m not destined to be soft.”

  “Wink wasn’t soft.” The man had, in fact, been one of the toughest detectives around. Nick needed to know that.

  “But my dad—I mean Blixus . . . wait a minute.” He got to his feet, paced to the window, and looked out at the lake. Then he whirled around to face her. “The only way I know that Wink was a namby-pamby was from Blixus. That’s not exactly a reliable source, is it?”

  Amanda shook her head.

  A smile spread over his face. “Do you realize what this means? I’m not a bad person. Well, I was, but I don’t have to be. That was just the Moriartys—wait a minute.” He looked confused. Amanda could see the wheels turning in his head. “Wink and my mum were together before she married my dad—I mean Blixus. She is my mum.”

  “No,” said Amanda, sadly. He was grasping at wisps now. Not that she blamed him. “She really isn’t.”

  “Right. You just said that.” He absently ran his hand through his hair. “Then who is?”

  “No one knows.” She wished she had better information for him, but Professor Hoxby had been clear. “You don’t match Mavis’s DNA, and you don’t match anyone else’s either. Whoever your real mom is, she isn’t a criminal. Or she hasn’t been caught, anyway, because her DNA isn’t in the database.”

  “Let me get this straight,” said Nick, rubbing his forehead. “Blixus and Mavis Moriarty aren’t my parents. That means Hugh isn’t my brother. Or is he? Did they adopt him too?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Amanda, getting up and stretching. It hurt her neck to look up at him like that. “But his DNA isn’t on file, so we can’t be sure.”

  “All right,” he said, eyeing her. “The Moriartys aren’t my parents. Wink Wiffle is my father. Which means—oh no! David Wiffle is my brother?”

  “‘Fraid so,” said Amanda. Given David’s terrible personality, that might be the worst news of all.

  Nick looked like he was calculating something. “Then does this mean that Celerie Wiffle is my mum?”

  What an awful thought. David’s mother, Celerie, was a troublemaker. She was suing the school because David had run off with the Moriartys after finding out that his dad had once dated Mavis—a criminal. Celerie hadn’t kn
own about Wink and Mavis’s relationship either, and she’d been just as freaked out as her son. Since there had been no one else to blame, she’d decided the whole thing was the school’s fault and was now suing Headmaster Thrillkill.

  “I don’t know,” said Amanda. “Her DNA isn’t on file and either is David’s. There’s nothing to compare with.”

  “Holy DNA, Batman. If she’s my mother I might have to go live with her. That would be a disaster. Can you imagine me and David at the Christmas dinner table? Except, of course, David has no intention of going home. Why he wants to stay with Dad, I mean Blixus, I can’t imagine. He seems not to know what he wants.”

  David had been living with Blixus for a while now—he and Editta Sweetgum, the girl who’d been so besotted with Nick that she’d run away from Legatum to be with him. To say that the arrangement was weird would be an understatement, especially because Nick had left but Editta had stayed on.

  Suddenly Nick started to laugh hysterically. At least Amanda thought he was laughing. He might have been crying. It was hard to tell.

  “This is rich,” he puffed between guffaws. “I’m not a Moriarty.” He stopped laughing and Amanda could see tears running down his cheeks. “I don’t have to be a Moriarty anymore. I’m free!”

  He grabbed Amanda and waltzed her around the cabin. He was happy! Amanda was so relieved that she burst into tears. Then both of them were laughing, whirling around so fast she was becoming dizzy, and then suddenly Nick stopped and she went flying toward the window.

  “My father is dead. I never knew him. The only family I have in the world is David Wiffle!” He buried his face in his hands. Then he slowly raised his head and stared at her. “Does he know?”