Chapter 18
The Singer and the Tiger
Just a quick recap, Lily and Viv skipped school to find and rescue Eddie who had disappeared after going off on his own to investigate the X marked on a map they found penned by the Waller twins' long-lost mother. The girls found Eddie trapped in a secret, underground maze that all three had to traverse and overcome its many deadly obstacles in order to get out. Towards the end, they encountered not only the evil magical parrot, but also the Schemer himself. After a brief exchange of words, the parrot and the Schemer left, allowing Lily and the twins to escape the maze only to encounter more unexpected trouble: the wrath of a teacher who was rightfully angry at the three friends for skipping school.
"Yikes," said Oliver after Lily and the twins gave him the rundown of their last adventure while having breakfast at the dining hall. "I know Mr. Lin's not shy about punishing kids for rule-breaking, but this is the first time I've heard he actually got angry about it."
"You're telling me," said Lily. "He almost looked like my mom for a second there."
Eddie took responsibility and claimed that everything was his fault. He explained that he was following clues in hopes of learning more about his and Viv's missing mom and ended up trapped until the girls came to his rescue.
Of course, Eddie left out all the dangerous magic stuff. But his story was enough to convince Uncle Viceroy who softened up a bit after learning about how the twins' mom disappeared and sympathized with them. However, that didn't stop him from giving the trio a week's worth of detention to clean his classroom and write apology letters to their other teachers for skipping, starting the next day.
"I know us teachers get paid to be here," he said, "but we're still choosing to spend the majority of our daily lives to look after you. I hope you understand what that means."
He also added, "I'd have you start detention tonight, but there's a faculty meeting at Five today."
End flashback.
Rubbing his chin, Oliver went, "Hmm. So that's why this mystery helper of ours said that Five would be our best chance to investigate X."
"Gee, if only a certain someone here was patient enough to wait, then we wouldn't be in all this trouble," Viv said, giving her brother a sideways glance.
Dismayed, Eddie fired back, "Oh, so NOW you think we should have listened to that message? Remind me again, who was it that didn't want to go check out X in the first place because they didn't trust it?"
"It's not about trust," Viv snapped. "It's about being careful!"
"Okay, you two, settle down," Oliver cut in, sounding like a parent chastising their kids. "No need to get so heated. Eddie, Viv is just looking out for you because she's worried you could get into trouble or worse. And Viv, I'm sure you already know, he just wants to do whatever he can to get your family back together."
Viv crossed her arms and grumbled, "Yeah? Well, it's a little too late for that."
Oliver raised his eyebrows. And then, in a higher pitch voice, he said, "Okay. Moving on before things get more awkward, I got a case that's going to need Lady Sapphire's attention."
Lily was more curious about what Viv's grumbling meant, but at the mention of Lady Sapphire, she turned her full attention to Oliver and asked, "What have we got now?"
"Not sure yet," Oliver said. "I don't even know what the real case is."
"Seriously?"
"Please don't look at me like that, Lily," Oliver implored. "It's really hurtful. Anyway, take a look at this."
He pulled out his phone to show everyone the message:
"Speak with Adwin Jacobs."
After reading that single sentence aloud, Lily looked up and asked, "Who's Adwin Jacobs?"
Oliver replied, "You're still new to the school, so I can't blame you for not knowing who he is, but he is one of Bluestone Academy's top singers. He's only a year older than me, but his singing could put pros to shame. Never lost a contest. But that should be no surprise, since his dad was a South African pop star and his mom owns a record label company."
Eddie raised his hand. "Dumb question: who sent that message?"
"No sender I.D.," said Oliver. "But that alone is enough to tell us it's the same guy or gal that's been sending us useful tips by hacking our phones. I still haven't pinpointed who exactly yet, but I'm close."
"Well, putting aside our mystery computer geek," said Lily, "sounds like this Adwin guy might have had a run-in with the Schemer. That can be the only reason why the geek wanted us to talk to him."
Oliver's phone pinged with a new message: "DON'T CALL ME A GEEK!"
"Not surprised," said Lily. "We already know you're watching and listening to us from someplace far away. Why don't you just show yourself already?"
They all waited, but nothing new came through.
"Fine, be that way," said Lily. "Anyway, we should go have a chat with Adwin."
"One step ahead of you, Lily," said Oliver. "I already messaged him for a meeting."
After Lily and the twins finished their detention for the day, they went straight to the library. They found Hassan working at the front desk, scanning barcodes of returned books. When he spotted the trio, he gave them a nod and told them to head to the back corner where a shortish black teen sat opposite of Oliver around a school desk with books of all colors backdropped behind them.
Innocently, Oliver asked, "How was detention . . . is what I'd like to ask, but your faces tell me it must not be all that great."
"Ya think?" Lily answered sourly.
Curious, the teen with Oliver asked, "What happened?"
"Nothing!" snapped Lily. "We swept the floors, wiped the tables, wrote apology letters and spent the rest of the time doing homework. Nothing so bad. Or it should've been. But the whole, gosh darn time! We had to listen to an audio recording of Uncle Viceroy singing a cover of some old baby show's theme song. ON ENDLESS LOOP!"
It was pure torture. To make matters worse, Lily thought, it's now stuck in my head!
Oliver whispered to Eddie, "Out of curiosity, what song was it?"
Out of the corner of his mouth, Eddie whispered back, "Let's just say I hate dinosaurs now."
"Anyway, Oliver," the teen cut in. "Do you mind finally explaining what this is all about? And who are these kids?"
"I was just about to get started on that, Adwin," said Oliver. "These three are my sidekicks."
"You're STILL going with that?" Viv grumbled reproachfully.
Adwin was taken aback. "Help? Me? What could I possibly need help with from an Encyclopedia Brown wannabe?"
"Oh, I think you already know," said Oliver. "And it should be Sherlock Holmes wannabe." He leaned closer to Adwin and propped his chin over his clasped hands. "You need help finding your lost voice."
Lily exchanged looks with the twins and then cut in. "Uh . . . Oliver? Isn't Adwin talking just fine?"
There was a short pause and then -
"Oh! Sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say his lost SINGING voice. Basically, he can no longer sing because the ability was taken from him."
Wide-eyed in astonishment, Adwin asked, "How did you know?"
To which, Oliver grinned, pointed both thumbs at himself and replied, "Future greatest detective in the world, remember?"
"What's in it for you?" was Adwin's next question. "I can't see what you gain by helping me."
"What? You can't just believe it's out of the goodness of our hearts?" Oliver asked.
Adwin scowled at him.
Looking hurt, Oliver said, "That really is the case, you know. But, I will admit that your problem sort of relates to something I've been looking into with my sidekicks since the start of the year. I feel like tackling your problem will get me and my sidekicks one step closer to tackling ours."
Adwin gave Oliver a look and then glanced at Lily and the twins. And then, after taking a moment to think, he asked, "Do you guys really think you can get my singing back?"
With a confident grin, Oliver replied, "Positive."
Adwin let out a resigned sighed. "Alright. I could use all the help I can get. I'm so close to the end of my rope anyway that I'll even take help from one of those super rats I heard Mr. Lin keeps as pets."
Lily blinked. "Uncle Viceroy keeps what now?"
This was how Adwin's story went:
One night, after practicing late at the music hall like usual, he was on his way back to the dorms when he heard a loud, metallic clanging noise from behind one of the nearby buildings. Curious, he went over to see what it was. To his surprise, he found a huge bronze statue sitting in the middle of the road.
"It was a tiger," he said. "A big one, sitting tall with its head almost reaching the second floor window."
At first, Adwin thought it was another art project that some student accidentally left behind. But then, just as he turned to leave, the metal statue moved. It shifted into a crouch and slowly circled around him.
Adwin was stunned, wondering if he was dreaming this or that maybe all that practice was finally getting to him and he was hallucinating.
The tiger gave him a look with its glowing, earthy-orange eyes and then took a deep breath in. As it sucked in air, a ball of light appeared out of nowhere and flew into its mouth, swallowed down its throat.
And then, as if the night could not get any weirder, the moving, metal tiger statue began to talk.
"I have taken that which is most precious to you," he said in a deep, gravelly voice. And then, it disappeared in a swirl of wind.
"And that was it," Adwin said. "It was all a bit too much for me to process, so I numbly went back to my dorm and pretended it never happened. I didn't understand what it meant until the next day when I had practice."
The day after encountering the tiger, Adwin was at the music hall like always, at the same sound booth like always, doing warm-ups like always. Everything was the same as any other day. But when he opened his mouth to do some actual singing, no sound came out.
Over and over again, he tried to sing, but he couldn't make even a single tune. He tested and found he could still talk just find. It was only when he tried to sing that his voice failed him.
Lily noticed Adwin's fingers curl into tight fists as he spoke of his loss. They shook as a pained grimace flashed on his face. There were many differences, but somehow his demeanor reminded Lily of Melody when she told her story.
"That was when I realized," Adwin continued, "that blasted tiger had taken my singing from me. I tried looking for it, hoping to get my singing back, but I could never find it. And no one's seen or heard anything about a huge, bronze tiger, let alone one that could move, talk, and apparently steal people's ability to sing. Not that I could tell anyone that's what the tiger could do. They'd think I was nuts."
"Well, don't you worry," said Oliver. "We'll find that tiger, and we'll get your singing voice back in time for you to win that contest coming up in a few days."
Adwin looked up and looked Oliver square in the eye. Lily stood right behind Oliver, and she could see the desperation on Adwin's face as he tried and failed to maintain a calm demeanor.
"I don't care about that," he said. "I just want my singing back. Singing is my love, my passion, and my life. To me, losing one measly contest . . . No, even losing every contest I ever have would be better than never being able to sing again. I don't care who, what or how. Just please, give me back my singing!"
"We'll everything we can!" Lily blurted out. "We promise."
Adding gave her a wide-eyed look and then softened up and sighed.
With a self-desparaging chuckle, he said, "I've really fallen far if I need a kid to cheer me up. But thanks, Lady Sapphire."
Lily smiled back and replied, "You're welcome."
But then that smile flipped into a frown.
"Wait, what!?"
Adding snorted. "Come on. You guys believed my story a little too easily. Not to mention, our school's very own Sherlock happens to get some new sidekicks around the same time those rumors started? It was obvious one of you was Lady Sapphire, or at least in cahoots with her."
"We really need to work on the whole secret identity thing," said Eddie. "This is the second time in a row our secret got exposed. And we've only had two cases!"
No comments:
Post a Comment