Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy

Amanda was really looking forward to cyberforensics class. The previous term when she’d needed to get into the Moriartys’ computer she’d had no idea how to get past the logon screen. After that she’d promised herself she’d become an expert so that would never happen again.

  The class was taught by Professor Redleaf, a white hat hacker of mysterious origin who was rumored to have broken into some of the most sensitive computer networks on the planet. A number of the older students said she came from the Amazon jungle. Others said she had been born in the heart of Africa. She always wore a white hat of one sort or another, Amanda guessed for symbolic reasons, and appeared to be completely emotionless, speaking in a voice that resembled a dial tone. She also seemed to be full of secrets, which wasn’t unusual at Legatum, but her manner implied that her secrets were rather more sinister than those of the other teachers. There was an air of magic about her, which was saying something considering that detectives are among the least magical people in the world. What really floored Amanda, however, was that as soon as Scapulus Holmes walked into the class, Professor Redleaf seemed to know him and even smiled at him, whereupon he smiled back and said, “Good morning, Professor. How’s that Silver Fern project coming along?”

  Showoff! How did they know each other? Did this mean that Holmes was some hacking genius? Was he going to be the teacher’s pet? Amanda could feel herself fuming. She realized she was being irrational but she didn’t care. Sometimes irrationality was called for, and this seemed like one of those times. Who did he think he was, anyway? Here not half a day and already acting like the great Sherlock.

  Professor Redleaf didn’t answer Holmes’s question out loud, but somehow Amanda got the feeling she had conveyed the answer anyway. Holmes seemed satisfied with whatever invisible message she had delivered and settled in his chair. Professor Redleaf started the class immediately after that, and told them that their project for the term was to divide into teams that would simultaneously try to hack into each other’s computers.

  Instead of going by the school’s houses—Holmes, Van Helden, Dupin, and Father Brown—the students would be assigned randomly using an algorithm Professor Redleaf had written. Amanda was disappointed to find that she wasn’t on the same team as her friends, who had been split up as well, but when she learned that she would be working with the Wiffle kid, she just about had a fit, and so did he. Whiny brat that he was, he asked the teacher if he could be transferred, a question Professor Redleaf wouldn’t dignify with an answer. Normally Amanda and the kid found themselves competing, and the idea of working together not only didn’t sit well with either of them, but seemed to make them hate each other even more. Amanda had no idea how she was going to manage this. The only consolation was that she wasn’t on the same team as Holmes and wouldn’t have to listen to his bragging. Not that she knew for sure that he would brag. She just figured it was in his genes. That and winking, apparently.

  Amanda knew the class was going to be hard, but when Professor Redleaf offered an overview full of unfamiliar jargon (she’d heard of SSL and IP addresses, but that was about it), she realized that it was going to be way more difficult than she’d imagined. She was conversant with a variety of media capture and editing programs, but the technical details that made them all work were another thing. Apparently Amphora was feeling the same way because when Amanda glanced at her, her mouth was hanging open. Ivy seemed unperturbed, thank goodness, and Simon, well Simon was eating the whole thing up with a relish Amanda had seen only when he’d made the smartphone microscope last term. Needless to say, Holmes was smiling as if he knew something the others didn’t, which no doubt he did. Oh great. Another freakish Holmes.

  Suddenly it occurred to her that perhaps they would all emerge from the school as freaks. Look at the kind of observational skills they were developing. They were so attentive and detail-oriented that they might never be able to turn off all that analyzing and would be beset by runaway trivia racing through their heads day and night. And what about the self-defense training? Could they ever walk down a street again without imagining that everyone they saw posed a physical threat? No wonder all the teachers were so weird. This stuff warped a person. It had certainly warped Sherlock Holmes, but funnily enough not her ancestor, G. Lestrade. He was too dumb to get it, and yet his stupidity had saved him and let him live a normal life. Maybe she should get out now, before she turned into a freakazoid.

  Suddenly she realized that something was going on up front and she was so lost in her own morbid thoughts that she was missing it. Professor Redleaf was standing there staring at her screen with a horrified look on her face. She looked at Scapulus Holmes and said sharply, “Mr. Holmes, please see me after class.”

  During the rest of the session Professor Redleaf seemed distracted. Everyone was jumpy as a result—except Holmes, who remained stolid. Just watching him convinced Amanda that Simon wasn’t the world’s most irritating nerd anymore. Holmes had just bumped him out of first place.