Chapter 18
Slime Mold
Amanda was excited at the thought of trying to analyze the pink stuff. But before she and Nick could get to the lab, the Wiffle boy and another kid, a pleasant-faced, freckled boy named Gordon Bramble, who seemed smart and should have known better than to hang around with that troublemaker, accosted them.
“You’re ruining the project for everyone,” said the Wiffle boy looking straight at Amanda.
“What do you mean? I haven’t done anything,” she said.
“You did. You contaminated the garage and now the evidence is tainted.” He stood back, folded his arms, and gave her a smug look.
“Yeah,” said Gordon. “We saw you.”
“Look here,” said Nick. “We followed procedure. We carefully removed the debris where we stepped. You can check it yourself. It’s in cartons in the outbuilding next to the garage. Everything is labeled. We did that to make sure the evidence was clean and organized and everyone could use it.”
“I’m talking about the first time,” said the boy. “The first time you went in there you contaminated the evidence.”
“No, we didn’t,” said Amanda, although she wasn’t at all sure that they hadn’t. “Look, Thrillkill isn’t worried about it, so why are you?”
“You and your hotsy-totsy friends think you can just waltz in and take over. There are other people at this school, you know—three other teams trying to solve this mystery. If you’ve ruined the project for us there’s going to be a lot of trouble. We take our training seriously. We’re going to be important detectives one day. You’re a bunch of amateurs.”
Amanda wanted to pop him. She had never known anyone so self-righteous. He really needed taking down a peg.
“You know, you’ve got quite a reputation, Lester. You vomit all over people, you get everyone all lathered up pretending to be zombies or monsters or something, you make your own rules, and you think you can get away with anything you want to. Well, you can’t. You’re nothing but a laughingstock and you’ll never be a real detective. I don’t care, except when you mess things up for the rest of us. You’d better wise up and stay out of our way. And you too, Muffet, her little dog.” What a pretentious, nasty little prig he was.
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Watch it, Wiffle, or you’ll get more than you bargained for.” He raised his fist as if to threaten the kid. Amanda was afraid they’d get into a fight and Nick would be expelled. “Now get out of here, and take your candy-ass friend with you.”
“This isn’t over,” said Wiffle snidely. “Not by a long chalk.” He nodded at his friend and the two boys walked away, avoiding disaster for the moment.
“That was unpleasant,” said Amanda.
“We can handle them,” said Nick. “Bunch of chicken hawks.”
“Let’s hope so.” At least the kid hadn’t said anything about Lestrade this time.