Amanda Lester and the Red Spider Rumpus Read online

  “David, you mean?”

  “Yes. Does he know?”

  “I don’t see how. I don’t think anyone knows except the teachers and us.”

  Nick looked panicked. “The teachers know?”

  “They sort of have to. Professor Hoxby told me.”

  “Hoxby? The purple one?”

  Amanda had to laugh in spite of the situation. Professor Hoxby was indeed a little purple, which, considering his ghoulish occupation as a pathologist and coroner, suited him down to the ground.

  “It’s not funny,” Nick said. He was deadly serious. “I don’t want the teachers to know. They’ll never let me in. They—wait a minute. Wink was a detective. I’m a detective. I’m descended from Sir Bailiwick Wiffle. I qualify!” He broke into a huge grin and fell onto the couch.

  “You do,” she said, sitting down next to him. She was so tempted to fling her arms around him. “They’ll have to let you in.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he said, gazing up at her. “There is my history to consider.”

  He was right. Nick had been a bad boy, first posing as a student and infiltrating the detectives’ organization, then participating in a criminal conspiracy to dominate the country’s sugar trade, abetting the abduction of Amanda’s father, and finally blowing up the Moriartys’ factory and injuring dozens. Amanda was the first to admit that he had acted in an evil way, although she still couldn’t convince herself that he was evil. But she also thought being descended from a detective should help balance that out.

  “Sir Bailiwick Wiffle is a powerful affiliation,” she said, attempting to ignore the bad stuff. “That should count for a lot.”

  “Not enough,” he said, sitting up and burying his head in his hands. “They’ll arrest me. I’ll go to prison.” He raised his head and looked at her. “I should go to prison. I’ve done terrible things.” So far Scotland Yard had declined to arrest him because Headmaster Thrillkill had interceded on his behalf. But the truce was fragile, and anything could happen. “Your father—”

  “He’s fine. It’s all all right now.” She moved in close and put her arms around him. It was tough if he rejected her. She had to do it.

  He didn’t respond. “Don’t do this, Amanda. It isn’t all right and you know it. I don’t want your pity.”

  She leaned back and looked up at him. “I don’t pity you.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “No I don’t.”

  He looked so sad she couldn’t bear it. So many awful things had happened to him. It was no wonder he was overwhelmed.

  He pulled away from her and stood up. “So now I’m Nick Wiffle? I don’t want to be a Wiffle. It’s a stupid name. I’ll go back to Muffet.” He was talking very fast now.

  It made sense, in a way. Muffet was the alias he’d used at Legatum. It was familiar, it didn’t tie him to any particular family, and it was all over his documentation. Amanda thought it became him.

  Then he started laughing uncontrollably. “Can you believe this? Nick Muffet. Suits me perfectly. A fake name for a guy who doesn’t know who he is. No, wait, I do know who I am. I’m no one. Nick the Nobody.”

  He was losing it. It wasn’t surprising but it was agony to watch. Then something occurred to her. It might cheer him up.

  “Nick?”

  “There’s no one here by that name,” he said, still laughing.

  “All right, then, hey you.”

  “What up?” he said.

  “You do realize what this means.”

  “I just told you. Nick the Nobody.”

  “If you’d just listen for a second, you might actually hear something positive.” He stopped laughing and looked at her. “If Blixus isn’t your father, you don’t have to divorce him.”

  It took Nick a second to absorb what Amanda had said, but when he did his face lit up. “You’re right. It’s over! I’m done with him.”

  He dragged her up off the couch, whirled her around, and lifted her into the air. It felt wonderful to see him happy again. Perhaps he’d listen to her now, finally absorb that she loved him, except it wasn’t the right time to tell him.

  “Let’s celebrate,” he said. “What shall we do?” He thought for a moment. “I know. Let’s go skiing.”

  Amanda had never been skiing before but it sounded like fun. There was just one problem.

  “But there isn’t any snow.”

  He looked at her with mischief in his eyes. “There is in Scotland. And we have just enough time to get there and ski for a couple of hours before it gets dark. Want to?”

  She nodded. She’d do anything to be with him.

  He ran to a cupboard, pulled out a skateboard, and grabbed her by the hand. She swooped down to get her backpack and they were off.

  On the train to Scotland Nick turned to Amanda and said, “Why would Blixus adopt me? Did he know?”

  “That Wink Wiffle was your father?” She’d stashed her backpack under the seat but it was hitting her leg and she kicked it back. It was still sticking out so she bent over and tried to locate the obstacle. It was Nick’s backpack. She decided to let it be and rested her legs on the back of the seat in front of her.

  “Yes. Was it some kind of revenge? He hated the guy. Although obviously he didn’t know about Wink and my mum. I mean Mavis.”

  It was hard to talk to him in that position so she lowered her legs, bent down, and reshuffled the backpacks. With her head practically underneath the seat she said, “You can still call her your mum, you know. For all intents and purposes she was.”

  Nick hunched over and looked to see what she was doing. “Here, let me take that,” he said, reaching for the backpack. She gave it to him and he placed it on his lap. “I can’t get my head around the fact that she was such a good person, but also bad.”

  For all the dealings she’d had with Mavis, Amanda still didn’t know much about her. Truth be told, she’d never been particularly interested—until now. “Tell me about her.”

  “She was fun,” said Nick.

  That was a shocker. The idea of Mavis being fun would never have occurred to Amanda. Every time she’d seen the woman she’d been working, scheming, or complaining.

  “How so?”

  “She liked games,” Nick said happily. “She was really good at word games, for example. You know she had a first in English.”

  Another surprise. Mavis a good student? Headmaster Thrillkill had never mentioned that. Maybe he hadn’t deemed it important.

  “I had no idea,” said Amanda.

  “Yes,” he said. “And she was brilliant at adventure games. She even specced some out and was planning to get me to code them. They were really cool.”

  No wonder Nick had been so attached to her. They were kindred spirits. He loved games, although his tastes ran a little more to the stereotypical guy kind.

  “She was also a good athlete,” he said dreamily.

  This was something Amanda couldn’t picture at all. Mavis had been petite and soft looking. If she’d had muscles, she’d hid them well. “What kind?”

  “Climbing. She loved mountains. We went to America once and you should have seen her. She was a regular mountain goat.”

  His eyes were shining. Amanda was gobsmacked. This was definitely not what she was expecting.

  “Do you like to climb?” she said. There was still so much she didn’t know about Nick.

  “I like to do everything,” said Nick, grinning. “Want to?”

  Amanda had climbed to the top of the Moriartys’ sugar factory, but that was it. She’d never even been to Yosemite. It was about time she tried something new.

  “I want to do everything,” she said, grinning back.

  “He’s going to come after me, you know,” said Nick later. “I’m surprised he hasn’t already.”

  “You mean Blixus?” said Amanda.

  “Yes. First I try to divorce him, and now I take up with the detectives. He probably means to kill me.”

  For some reason this
hadn’t occurred to Amanda. She’d been so caught up in her own problems with Nick and the issue of his being descended from a detective that she hadn’t even considered what Blixus would do. He obviously kept tabs on what his son, that is, Nick, was doing. He’d know about the application to enter Legatum. Now she was scared. What if he did kill Nick?

  “I have a secret weapon though,” said Nick before Amanda had a chance to respond. “Kind of.”

  “What’s that?” It had better be a good one. Blixus had proved a formidable enemy. He was ruthless, elusive, and deadly.

  “Blixus has secrets—a lot of secrets. I don’t suppose that comes as a surprise.” She shook her head. “What you wouldn’t know is that they’re encoded as mathematical formulas. A little nod to our ancestor—I mean his ancestor, Professor Moriarty, the mathematician.”

  This was weird. Why was everyone coding information as mathematical formulas? During the previous term the new logic teacher, Professor Darktower, had assigned the class the task of finding the formulas behind the text in Alice in Wonderland. Until then she’d never heard of such a thing.

  “Hugh’s good at math,” Nick continued. “So am I—well, you know that.” He was understating his skill. He was dazzling at math. “But Blixus never thought I was good enough. He never thought I was good at anything. Now I know why.”

  “Because of Wink, you mean?”

  “Apparently.” He leaned back with his hands behind his head. “Now that I think of it, that explains a lot. He had to know that Wink was my father. But why would he adopt the child of someone he hated?”

  She wasn’t sure she should say what she was thinking. If she didn’t, he’d think of it anyway though. “You don’t think . . .”

  “That he meant to torment me to get back at his enemy? From the beginning, I mean.”

  It was a horrible thought. Amanda had a hard time believing that even Blixus would do something so terrible.

  “Don’t you think if that were the case he would have been even worse to you?” said Amanda. “I mean Oliver Twist worse?”

  Nick ran a hand through his hair. “Hard to say. I’m not sure I want to know though.”

  The topic was making Amanda so uncomfortable that she needed to change the subject. She waited a minute, then said, “So, these formulas. You have them?”

  “No, I don’t have them. I don’t even know where they are.”

  “Then what do we want to do about them?”

  “We have to find them. If we do, we’ve got him.”

  “Just out of curiosity, what kind of secrets are we talking about?”

  “Oh, well, he’s got a lot of dirt on people. But also James Moriarty’s techniques. Floorplans and maps with annotations about secret places. Families sympathetic to the Moriartys. Hidden treasures. That kind of thing.”

  “Oh, is that all?” She winked at him.

  He forgot himself for a moment and let his love for her show through his eyes. “You can see how important this stuff is.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  He got all thoughtful and looked out the window. They had arrived at Edinburgh. From there they would take a bus to Glencoe, which Nick had touted as one of the UK’s premier ski areas. As the train drew into the station he turned to her with a big grin on his face and said, “Ski now, think later.”

  It didn’t matter that she fell down more times than she could count. It didn’t matter that it was so cold she thought her thumbs would fall off. And it didn’t matter that they were so late they ended up skiing in the dark. All Amanda cared about was that she was with Nick and they were happy. Until she got a text from Holmes.

  “Where are you?” it said. “I’ve just cracked another part of the Detective’s Bible and I need to tell you about it!”

  GOING BANANAS

  That Scapulus Holmes had unlocked another part of the Detective’s Bible was great news. That Amanda’s new stepfather, Banting Waltz, had stolen the actual Bible pages the week before was terrible. The good thing about the theft, though, if there was anything good about it, was that Waltz probably hadn’t been able to decipher the codes and didn’t know what the Bible contained. Amanda and Holmes now had a leg up on him. They also knew more about what was actually in the Bible, a document so secret that some of it had been hidden even from Legatum’s teachers.

  Amanda wished she could tell Nick about Holmes’s discovery but didn’t dare. As an outsider he wasn’t even supposed to know that the Bible existed, although he did, and Holmes was the reason. A few weeks before, the two boys, who hated each other for reasons historical, professional, and romantic, had cut a deal. Nick would give up the page he’d found in Windermere and stay away from Amanda, and Holmes would not turn him in to the authorities. When Amanda had learned of this agreement she’d been livid, but that was all behind them now. Nick knew the book existed and there was no way to wipe his memory.

  Still he had no right to know what the pages said. Technically she couldn’t even tell him they’d cracked the code. The thing was, though, he might be helpful. Waltz was turning out to be a bully and a crook, and Nick was smart and tough. He’d be a terrific ally against the lawyer. Furthermore, she now trusted him in a way she hadn’t for a long time. As far as she was concerned, he’d proven that he’d changed. But if Holmes found out she’d discussed the Bible with him, or heaven forfend Thrillkill did, she’d be in the worst trouble of her life. So she decided to sit tight and ignore the “Tell him, tell him” beating in her head.

  Now that she was thinking about the Bible, though, she couldn’t stop. What was Waltz going to do with the pages? If he could find someone to crack the codes he’d know the detectives’ secrets, and it was obvious he’d use them in a nefarious way. What was he up to? She needed to find out.

  “What’s wrong?” said Nick, peering at her in the nighttime illumination. “You look upset.”

  Nuts. Was she that obvious? “It’s nothing. Well, not nothing. Nigel is sick. But he’ll be okay.” Nigel was Amanda’s friend Ivy Halpin’s guide dog and he wasn’t sick at all, thank goodness.

  “I hope it isn’t serious,” said Nick. She knew he meant it. Until recently he’d never shown any particular interest in the dog, but in the last few weeks Amanda had discovered that he liked animals a lot. In fact he’d taught the blue peacocks that hung around Windermere to talk, which was how she’d discovered he was in love with her. He’d confided in the birds and they’d repeated his words. It seemed he was full of surprises. Who was the real Nick Muffet anyway?

  “Nuh uh,” she said. “Ivy’s giving him drops.”

  “Glad to hear it,” said Nick in a very un-Nickish way. He looked down at her hand, seemed about to take it, then stopped himself and looked away.

  She turned and looked out the window. They were passing some weird-looking buildings but she didn’t even notice them. All she could see was Nick’s beautiful hair, and all she could think about was how much she wanted to touch it. She made herself look down the aisle instead. He was way too distracting.

  While she couldn’t discuss the Bible with him, she could discuss Banting Waltz. Waltz had been on the legal team that had prosecuted the Moriartys after the whole sugar factory incident and Nick knew who he was. He might have some insight or suggestions.

  “Um, Nick,” she said, “did you know that my mother got married?”

  “She did?” he said with genuine surprise. “Nice bloke?”

  “No, and actually you know him.”

  “I do? Did she marry Buck or something?”

  The idea of Lila Lester marrying the Legatum profiling teacher made her laugh. Neither of them got on with the man.

  “Professor Buck and my mother? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  He winked and her heart soared. “Well, you did say he wasn’t nice.”

  “Ugh,” said Amanda, giggling. “What a yucky idea.”

  “Who then?” said Nick.

  “Banting Waltz,” she said, and Nick froze. So he did know w
ho the guy was. “That’s what I thought.”

  He got very serious. “Amanda, you don’t want to have anything to do with that guy, and I’m not just saying that because he put my parents in jail. I mean Blixus and Mavis.”

  Suddenly the thought of her mother with that terrible man and Nick knowing about him and everything else overwhelmed her and all her thoughts just spilled out. “Oh Nick I know he stole the pages from me and Scapulus but he didn’t get the translation thank goodness and he’s a terrible man Professor Scribbish told me he bribes juries and I don’t know how she could have done this to me and do you think she’s in on it what should I do and thank goodness Scapulus has cracked the code so at least we know about Poe.”

  Nick stared at her. “Holmes cracked the code?”

  What had she just done? Now she was in for it. “Uh oh.”

  Nick put his hand on her shoulder. It was warm and strong but she couldn’t enjoy the feeling. Not after what she’d just done. “Look, I know I’m not supposed to know any of that but I swear I won’t tell anyone. You know that.”

  She squirmed in her seat. “I could get thrown out for this.”

  He turned those eyes on her and said, “You won’t. See, I’m not even asking you what about Poe.”

  She still couldn’t relax. “What is wrong with me? I have the world’s biggest mouth.”

  Whether it was big or small he was staring at it, and oh, how she wished he would kiss her, but he looked down at his shoes and turned away.

  “We have to do something about Waltz,” he said after an awkward moment. “I can’t let this happen to you. I won’t.” He hit the seat in front of him and the red-haired woman occupying it turned around and gave him a dirty look. “Sorry, ma’am.” The woman huffed and turned away.

  Amanda lowered her voice. “What do you suggest? If I go to my mother she’ll take his side.”

  “Does she know what happened?”

  “I have no idea. She’s been acting all weird lately but I don’t know what she’s thinking.” Nick knew Lila Lester hated him but Amanda was not about to tell him how much.