Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy

Amanda rummaged in her drawer, looking for her flashlight. Then she grabbed Amphora’s hand and the two girls slowly ventured out into the hall. The lights were on and girls were running around in a panic. The matron, a round, red-haired woman named Mrs. Scarper, was trying to get them to stop, first by clucking to them, then by pleading, and finally by yelling. The yelling seemed to work. The girls stopped their hysterics and looked at her.

  “Enough,” she said. “We’re all alive. No one appears to be hurt. The most important thing we can do is keep calm. Please go back into your rooms and stay there. Is that clear?”

  The girls were happy to comply. Amanda didn’t know any of them very well but she could tell that most of them would never end up being detectives. Too flighty, too sloppy, too frivolous, too illogical. She felt a wave of pity wash over her. As if now were the time for that.

  It was obviously going to be difficult to explore. Mrs. Scarper had a clear view of the hall and she wasn’t letting anyone pass. Amanda wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed that she could either give up and go back to her room, getting whatever news there was when someone brought it, or figure out how to bypass the matron and find out for herself.

  She felt antsy. She hadn’t had a chance to work on her film, and she hadn’t been able to go back and see what was happening with the pink powder. It was time to do something of her own volition. She hadn’t realized it but she’d been feeling like a caged animal. She wasn’t used to being so restricted and she didn’t like it. She had to find a way out.

  What were her options? She could find another route out of the dorm, create a distraction to get Mrs. Scarper out of the way, or contact one of the boys to see if they’d managed to get away. The last didn’t seem like a great idea. Even if they’d eluded their watchers, the boys probably wouldn’t have their phones with them. She wondered if there was another way out. The only thing she could think of was to climb out the window, but since her room was on the third floor and she hadn’t been bitten by a radioactive spider, that wasn’t practical.

  The distraction idea seemed the most likely to work. All that would have to happen would be for the matron to go into someone’s room long enough for Amanda to get by and turn the corner. That didn’t seem too difficult. She could get Editta to call for Mrs. Scarper and make a dash for it while the woman was occupied.

  She explained her idea to Amphora, who agreed to help. But when they turned around and looked in the direction of the stairs, Amanda’s hopes sank. The hall was now blocked not just by the matron, but also by Professors Also and Tumble, who had come to check on the girls. Amanda didn’t see how she was going to distract all three of them at once.

  And then she had an idea. To say that it was the most ridiculous one she’d ever had would probably be correct, but Amanda was no stranger to ridiculous ideas. She would hide in plain sight. She took Amphora’s hand, ran back into her room, and threw open the closet door, knocking Amphora onto her bed. She grabbed her blue parka, dark woolen scarf, and black galoshes, all of which were exactly the same as everyone else’s, and within twenty seconds was out the door again.

  She looked left, then right. Professors Tumble and Also were talking with some girls in the hall near the corner that led to the stairs. Mrs. Scarper must have been in one of the rooms. Bundling herself up so you could barely see her face, Amanda walked past the teachers and turned the corner. As she descended the stairs, she didn’t dare look back to see if they were coming after her. After a minute had passed without incident, she concluded that she’d pulled off the ruse and breathed a sigh of relief.

  The hall downstairs was still dark. She crept along it toward the dining room. No one was around. They must have all been in the boys’ dormitory or the teachers’ quarters. Then a horrible thought struck her. What if those living areas had been bombed and people had died? She had to see. She didn’t know what she would do if it were true, but she had to know. Nick and Simon were there. She couldn’t bear it if anything happened to them. She paused for a moment as she realized that she actually cared enough about Simon to worry.

  As she turned and tiptoed down the main hall she could hear a commotion coming from the front of the school. Something was going on outside. Carefully, so as to remain hidden, she hugged the walls, snuck into the main foyer, and cautiously peeked out. Someone had turned on the floodlights and she could see a bunch of people milling around the front grounds. But there was something worse. An ambulance! Someone was hurt, maybe dead! And then the obvious occurred to her: the school had been bombed.