Amanda Lester and the Gold Spectacles Surprise Read online

  “All right, all right,” said Amanda. “I actually know about this stuff. She really wants her job back. She must think that if she gets rid of Professor Also they’ll rehire her.”

  “What else did she do?” said Binnie, wide-eyed.

  “Snooped into the teachers’ private lives, way worse than my cousin Despina does with Professor Kindseth,” said Amanda. “She bugged their quarters.”

  “No!” said Clive.

  “Yes. And she stole a copy of the DNA database.”

  “Now that’s dangerous,” said Binnie. “What is Buck doing about that?”

  “Trying to get it back, I guess,” said Amanda. “But if she’s copied it good luck with that.”

  “What would she want with the DNA database?” said Ivy.

  “Search me,” said Amanda. She really did not want to be discussing her mother. “Ever since my father left she’s been out of control.”

  “She must miss him,” said Ivy.

  “You could have fooled me.” She’d never seen one sign that that was true. Lila acted as if Herb had never existed. “I miss him though. I wish he’d come back from Tibet. He never answers my emails. Well, once in a while but he usually just sends me some koan or something.”

  “What’s that?” said Gordon.

  “A Zen statement that makes no sense,” she said. “It’s supposed to get students thinking. Well, not thinking. You’re not supposed to try to reason it out. You’re supposed to meditate and find the answer. Like, for example, the sound of one hand clapping. That’s a koan. How can one hand clapping make a sound? It can’t. It needs the other hand. Do you see?”

  “Nope,” said Gordon. “Sounds nutso.”

  “It’s not nutso,” said Amanda, rushing to her father’s defense. “It’s just different. I might try it.”

  “Good luck,” said Gordon. “Be sure to record the sound and let us hear it.”

  Amanda stuck her tongue out at him. “Don’t be a David.”

  Gordon laughed. “Is that the best you can come up with?”

  “He’s really changed, hasn’t he?” said Ivy.

  “Yes, I have,” said Gordon. “Or did you mean David? He hasn’t changed from what I can tell.”

  “I’m talking about Amanda’s father,” said Ivy.

  “Oh,” said Gordon sheepishly.

  “Maybe I just never knew him,” said Amanda. She gazed out at the wood behind the school. It looked positively barren. Spring seemed far off even though it had technically arrived. “I don’t understand what my mom sees in Banting Waltz. My dad was a really good guy. Why would she replace him with someone evil?”

  “He’s ambitious,” said Ivy. “And she’s ambitious. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

  “My dad used to be ambitious,” said Amanda. She cleared her throat. She was starting to choke up. “Before everything, I mean. I wonder if she knows Waltz is evil.”

  “Maybe you should tell her,” said Ivy.

  Amanda sighed. “She won’t listen.”

  “Then we need to bring him down,” said Simon rubbing his hands together in evil glee.

  “Yeah,” said Gordon, reverting to his favorite response.

  They agreed to reconvene later and Amanda and Ivy headed to the archives. The Lovelace Earful Archives were housed on the top floor of the library in a room of their own. The space had been declared off limits to the décor gremlins; no change of scenery here, just cleaning and climate control. That was because it had been set up to look just like Earful’s original office: cherry paneling, green bankers’ lamps, an antique roll-top desk. It was considered so sacred and the material it held so critical that you had to sign in and out and wear gloves when you handled the collection. A special camera had been installed so that the guards could watch the room at all times. It was considered the most important space in the whole school.

  Amanda and Ivy signed in through the double system of fingerprint and retina scan and stepped inside. Both had been there before, but only once. Amanda noted how the glass cases shone brighter and glossier here than anywhere on campus. Not a speck of dust marred the surfaces, and the lighting was kept low to prevent bleaching of old documents. Still the room was different from most rare book departments, where a librarian supervised everyone who entered. Legatum trusted its students to handle the materials carefully. Legatum trusted its students a lot when it came right down to it. They were the complete opposite of Ysidro Middle School back in Los Angeles, where the kids had been treated like babies.

  Someone had devised an excellent cataloging system and the girls were able to go right to the section having to do with Earful’s residences. Amanda found photographs of the house he’d owned in town—a small, creepy-looking structure with an untended garden—but to their dismay the domicile had long since been torn down. The land belonged to a company that owned a lot of Windermere and the site was now home to a bed and breakfast.

  “I suppose he must have cleared everything out when he sold the property,” said Amanda.

  “Which he did long before that company bought it,” said Ivy. “You don’t suppose he left anything there for the new owner, do you?”

  “That’s a thought,” said Amanda. “But it was razed seventy years ago. Whoever that was has to be dead by now.”

  “Their heirs then?” said Ivy.

  “We could try to trace them. Although why they’d keep a bunch of old junk—well, not junk, but you know . . .”

  “Okay, let’s keep that idea in reserve,” said Ivy. “It is a long shot.”

  “So now what?”

  “You’re sure Nick doesn’t know where the secrets are?”

  “Positive,” said Amanda. “And anyway, you know I can’t get in touch with him.”

  Ivy paused for a moment, then took her hand and stroked it gently. “He still loves you, you know.”

  This was definitely something she didn’t want to talk about. Sometimes she believed it and sometimes she didn’t. “Let’s talk about Earful.”

  “Fair enough,” said Ivy, but she didn’t let go of Amanda’s hand. “Now I know we’ve checked but let’s make sure there are no towns called Earful. What Blixus said just doesn’t make sense. Say, do you think any of Earful’s family might run a business with their name in it?”

  “Good thinking,” said Amanda. “Let’s check that.”

  They settled themselves at a long mahogany table that was so shiny Amanda could see their reflections. Nigel curled up at Ivy’s feet and Amanda opened a browser on one of the laptops installed there.

  “I don’t like these laptops so much,” she said peering at the screen to make sure it was actually working. “They’re always breaking down.”

  “Use your phone then,” said Ivy.

  “That’ll take forever. I’ll just try—nuts. The screen just went black. Why does that happen every time?”

  “They really should do something about these,” said Ivy. “I’ll mention them to Dean Canoodle.”

  “Good luck with that,” said Amanda. “The last time I spoke to her she told me the budget was too tight.”

  “Maybe Celerie Wiffle would donate more money,” said Ivy.

  That was a painful subject. As one of the tasks Nick had had to perform in order to enter Legatum, he’d had to convince David’s mother to give money to the school. Considering her antipathy to both the headmaster and Nick, it seemed impossible but he had actually pulled it off, leaving Celerie appeased and content. Everyone had been astonished and Amanda had been immensely proud. But now the memory just reminded her of how much Nick was missing by running away.

  “Let’s just do this, shall we?” she said stiffly, scanning her search results.

  “Sure enough,” said Ivy. “Are you finding anything?”

  “Nope. Not a thing. There’s an Earffel Tower at the Paris Disneyland but that’s it.”

  “Maybe we should ask Ramon to try to contact Earful’s ghost,” said Ivy with a giggle.

  “Yeah, right,�
�� said Amanda. And then she thought of something. “Wait a minute. Ramon.”

  “You’re not serious.

  “Don’t you see?” said Amanda, turning to face her friend. “Micajah Splunk, Ramon’s great-great-grandfather, was Earful’s best friend and business partner. They had a falling out, but Splunk took many of Earful’s secrets with him. Maybe he took Moriarty’s secrets too.”

  “And you think Ramon might know something about them?”

  “I do,” said Amanda, absently running her fingers over the table. “We saw in the séance that he knows stuff about the Bible. He doesn’t know he knows it, but he does. We need to get the secrets out of him. Everything.”

  “You realize you’re asking the impossible,” said Ivy. “Ramon is not the easiest person to deal with.”

  “I know. But maybe you can get on his good side.”

  “Me?” said Ivy. “He doesn’t like me any better than he likes you.”

  “You get along with Amphora, and she’s his girlfriend.”

  “If she finds out you’re involved, Amanda, she won’t even listen to me.”

  “Don’t tell her. Look, if anyone can sweet talk Ramon it’s you.”

  “Oh, brother,” said Ivy. “Well, all right. But I think I should find out more about Splunk first. And brush up on Professor Moriarty.”

  “Let’s do it together.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  It soon became obvious that Micajah Splunk was a nut job. If there had been such a thing as punk rock back in the 1880s he would have been a lead singer. He had pink hair and an earring and was known as an all-around bad boy, which made the girls wonder how he had come to be on the detectives’ side in the first place.

  “Check this out,” said Amanda reading while she talked. “This old news report says that Splunk was arrested for murder!”

  “Really?” said Ivy. “Who did he kill?”

  Amanda continued to skim the article. “Apparently no one. He was arrested but they let him go. The victim was a guy named Asa Sandwich, a real piece of work. He was the head of a crime ring in Liverpool. Their specialty seems to have been robbing dock workers. Oh, this is awful. There were a lot of street gangs then and this guy led one of them. He was positively brutal. I’m not even going to tell you what he did. It seems the police thought Splunk killed him.”

  Ivy shivered. “That’s creepy.”

  “Wait a minute. Here’s something else. Splunk was also arrested for forgery. Yikes, what kind of a guy was this? How could he be Earful’s business partner?”

  “If that’s what he was like it’s no wonder they fell out,” said Ivy. “Reading about Splunk makes me wonder about Earful. I’ve had this vision of him as some kind of icon, but maybe that’s wrong. I mean what would a dignified old man be doing hanging around with a weirdo like that?”

  “Good point. When Nick found out he was descended from Bailiwick Wiffle he talked to Thrillkill about the guy. He turned out to be a rogue! I mean really decadent, like Lord Byron.”

  “Sir Bailiwick Wiffle, the detective who was knighted?” said Ivy.

  “The very same. I was shocked too.”

  “Then maybe Earful was like that too. They never tell you that stuff.”

  “Yeah, I wonder why,” said Amanda.

  “Obviously Thrillkill thinks they wouldn’t set the best example for us.”

  “Can you imagine what Harry Sheriff would do if he knew the truth about them? He’d want to be just like them.”

  “Harry Sheriff. Now there’s a real prat. Wonder what’s happened to him. He seems to have disappeared since Thrillkill threw him out.”

  “Ask me if I care,” said Amanda.

  But suddenly she did. Not about Harry—about Earful.

  “Ivy, I just want to check something. I’ll be quick.”

  “Take your time. What is it?”

  “Well, if Splunk was a weirdo, what about Earful? I want to see what he was really like.”

  “I’m curious too. Go on.”

  Amanda consulted the catalog and decided that pictures would be the place to start. You could tell so much from a face. Funny, though. There were hardly any pictures of the man. She could find only one old sepia tucked away in a diary. But when she saw it she did a double take. She held the book up to her face, then far away, and then close again. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Ivy!” she cried, running her gloved finger over the image.

  “What’s wrong?” said Ivy.

  “OMG, OMG,” said Amanda, rushing to where Ivy was sitting.

  “What’s going on? Are you all right?”

  Amanda threw the little volume down on the desk and said, “Feel.”

  Ivy ran her finger over the page. “It’s old paper. Is that significant?”

  “Not the paper,” said Amanda. “Oh, I know you can’t tell but Ivy, Earful is a babe! Oh, give me that.” She grabbed the diary back. “I want to kiss it. Do you think that would hurt the paper?”

  Ivy giggled. “What?”

  “You know how all the girls are crazy over Carlos?”

  “Yes, sure. Even Owla likes him.”

  “Well, ‘old’ Earful, and believe me he isn’t old in this picture, is fifty times better looking than him.”

  Ivy burst into laughter. “Seriously?”

  “Yup,” said Amanda. “Thick dark hair, doe eyes, cleft chin, OMG.”

  “Is he tall?” said Ivy.

  “Yes,” said Amanda. “He’s got it all. And I’ll tell you something else. His eyes smolder. Smolder, Ivy, like a movie star. Who would have believed it?”

  “Wow,” said Ivy. “Just wow. Can you tell what he was like?”

  “Not from this diary. It’s all pretty technical. But I sure want to find out. Why don’t they tell us these things?”

  “Good question. Do you think the teachers are hiding something?

  “Dunno,” said Amanda. “But I intend to find out.”

  “I’m in,” said Ivy. “Can’t wait.”

  “Anyway, now what? Earful’s house has been torn down so the secrets can’t be there. What about his office?”

  “You mean here at Legatum?”

  “Yes. Maybe he left stuff in there. Do you know where it was?”

  “I do, but that’s a problem. It’s Thrillkill’s office. Buck is using it.”

  “We’re going to have to get in there.”

  “There’s also the headmaster’s residence. Maybe there?”

  “Oh, right. How are we going to search that? Slide down the chimney and look around? Anyway, what if Earful stashed the secrets in the basements, or the tunnels?”

  “Who was it that suggested starting with this topic?” said Ivy. “Just because it’s a new one doesn’t make it easy.”

  “I think it was Clive,” said Amanda. “Or maybe Gordon. I don’t remember. But you’re right. We’re not getting anywhere. I think we need to start with Ramon.”

  Ivy tensed and sat up straight. “What was that noise?”

  Amanda hadn’t heard anything. “What noise?”

  “I think you have a text.”

  She checked her phone. “I do. It’s from Basilica. How did I not hear that?” The room had been as quiet as a tomb. It was the only place in the entire building that was completely silent. Everyone treated it as a shrine. She must have been concentrating awfully hard to have missed the alert.

  “I don’t know. What does she say?”

  “She wants me to phone. She has something to tell me.”

  Spectacles

  Holmes hit the punching bag as hard as he could. The thwack was most satisfying and he hit it again. Ah, that was good. Such a lovely sound. It was the fifth day of his new training regimen and his muscles were already harder. The kickboxing, weight lifting, and running made him feel alive, and he found himself energized like never before.

  Take that, Moriarty, he thought as he pummeled the bag. Bash. You think you’re so fine, hotwiring cars and coshing policemen and stealin
g Amanda away from me. As he struck again and again he imagined Nick’s visage on the leather, that smug, pretty face with the flashing grin and fiery eyes. Well, I can be just as fine. I can be everything you are and more.

  He watched his reflection in the full-length mirror. Okimma’s eyes stared back at him. He scarcely recognized the tall, trim, dreadlocked young man. Legatum had changed him from a wimpy prep school kid into a man—a man who was tough and aggressive and a little bit scary. He liked it. He liked it very much. He laughed and said the words aloud. “Watch out, Moriarty, because I’m coming for you.”

  Lila had spent days pondering Waltz’s behavior. It had come as such a shock that at first she had gone into denial. He couldn’t possibly be proposing that they become criminals. He had to be intending to use the cartel for good and was just putting her on with all that Bonnie and Clyde talk. But as he began to show her his plans over candlelight dinners, she realized he was serious. And that put her in an awkward position.

  She loved Banting Waltz more than she’d ever loved anyone. It wasn’t just that he was intelligent or good looking or inventive, though he was all that. It was the energy he radiated—something almost otherworldly, as if he were a different species altogether. This aura of his, this magnetism, drew her to him on a level so deep she couldn’t begin to fathom it. She craved the feeling of it, craved him, desperately.

  If she were to say no, turn down the generous and loving offer she had already accepted, what would happen? He would probably leave her, because how could he run a criminal enterprise with a detective wife? As much as he loved her, and he did, she knew, he wouldn’t be able to trust her. There would always be that nagging voice reminding him that she was the enemy, that she disapproved of what he was doing and could betray him at any moment. No, he would never stand for that. He would leave her at once.

  If she said yes, though, the light in his eyes would shine for her and her alone. She needed that light. It powered her, made her feel things she’d never felt, completed her. She wanted to bask in that light forever, bathe in it, devour it.

  And yet . . . what he was asking went against everything she’d ever been. She might not be descended from detectives but she’d always felt like one. That was why she’d taken up writing mysteries, married Herb Lester, sent her daughter to that school, taught there. It was the reason she’d poisoned those stupid birds and tried to kill the Moriarty boy. She’d even become involved with Waltz because of it. It was all for the good and glory of the profession she loved so much.