After class, Amanda, Amphora, Ivy, Nigel, and Simon met up and headed for the east door. Amanda was sure that this so-called blood Simon had seen was either not blood at all or was drippings from some meat in a leaky package. But she figured she may as well tag along.
Simon opened the door for the girls and Nigel, and they all stepped out onto the stone walk outside the east common room, which was Holmes House’s stomping grounds. “There,” he said, pointing to an imaginary spot.
“There’s nothing there,” said Amphora giving a cursory glance.
“No, there isn’t,” said Amanda, looking more closely.
“Of course there is. It was only an hour ago,” said Simon, kneeling down and crawling all over the area.
“Nigel isn’t sniffing anything,” said Ivy. “Although if it was old blood he wouldn’t.”
“I don’t understand,” said Simon. There was a lot of blood.” He looked really let down, as if no one had shown up to his birthday party.
“Now it’s a lot of blood?” said Amphora. “A little while ago it was ten drops.”
“Ten drops, twenty drops, two drops, I don’t know,” said Simon. “It was just blood.”
“Well, it isn’t now,” said Amphora folding her arms in a Stegelmeyer sort of way.
“No, it isn’t,” said Simon, looking to see if he’d missed anything.
“You’re sure you really saw it?” said Amphora.
“Yes, of course I did,” said Simon. “I’m not delusional.”
Amanda didn’t want to mention that he should have taken a picture of the blood, although she was pretty sure she would have. She was starting to get the feeling that Simon didn’t have a lot of confidence in himself, even though he sometimes acted like he did.
“You don’t seem delusional,” she said.
“I’m not,” said Simon.
“We’d better go back in,” said Ivy. “It’s freezing, and there’s no blood.”
“Guess so,” said Simon. “I really did think . . .”