Chapter 30
Sick Day
Monday had come and classes were in session again. But instead of hitting the books and listening to the teachers lecture about math formulas or poetry forms in a classroom with the others, Lily was lying in bed in her room, staring at the ceiling. She hadn't been feeling well since her latest adventure which had her chasing around a whole bunch of tigers. Her hands and feet felt heavy like sacks of rocks, and her legs felt like jelly at her knees. She could not for one second stand still.
Worried about the way Lily kept swaying from side to side, Viv insisted she take the day off and would not take "no" for an answer. She practically pushed Lily back onto bed before unilaterally promising to let the dorm nurse know she was taking a sick day.
Each dormitory building was looked after by a crew of school factory, the caretaker, the caretaker's assistants and the dorm nurse. The caretakers and their assistants took care of the dorms' day-to-day operations and make sure the rules were being followed while the dorm nurses looked after students when they're, of course, sick.
But that wasn't the only reason Lily was taking the day off. Another was she wanted to be alone and avoid everyone for a bit, especially Uncle Viceroy.
Flashback to the day before when everyone had gathered the Sapphire Society's hideout . . .
"Ahem! Ahem!" went Oliver. "Let's get this latest meeting of the Sapphire Society started, shall we? We're all gathered here today to welcome a new addition to our merry band, Tanja!"
Tanja stood next to Oliver by the chalkboard, flashing a sheepish smile at the scattered applause.
Oliver continued and said, "Well, I call her a new addition, but really she's been with us all along as the mysterious hacker who's been spying on us this whole time."
"Hey, I was not spying on you!" Tanja protested. "I was just listening and watching you through security and drone cameras to get to know you better."
"That's the very definition of spying," Hassan pointed out.
"Anyway," Oliver cut in, "I suspected Tanja might be the mysterious hacker after hearing from Lily and Viv about the computers in her room and all those newspaper clippings about her winning robotics contests. The article about her drone was especially striking to me and I realized something: that she was the culprit behind the drones being seen flying after curfew. And finally, all the pieces fell into place.
"While flying an illegal, homemade drone from the comfort of her dorm room one night, Tanja spotted us through the camera on one of our adventures. That's when she discovered that magic was real and there was a villain going around plaguing the school with magical trouble, like something out of a serial cartoon. Since then, she's taken part on our adventures as a figure in the shadows, with eyes all over school, always watching and letting us know when she sees magical trouble is afoot. Lily all but confirmed my suspicions when she told me how Tanja hacked the school camera system to help her find all the tigers."
"Is that all true?" Lily asked.
"Yeah, pretty much," Tanja confessed.
"That is just . . . crazy!" Lily exclaimed.
"Crazier than a magic bracelet that spits out flying carpets or plush toys that turn into full-grown tigers?"
"Why didn't you just come out and tell us instead of doing all that cloak and dagger stuff?" asked Viv.
With a shrug, Tanja replied, "I didn't know how'd you take me suddenly butting in. I figured it'd be better to show I was an ally first before actually showing my face."
"I think that's what you'd call putting the cart before the horse," said Hassan.
"Anyway," Oliver said, "now that the mystery of the hacker's been solved, let's move onto the next mystery: mainly why were you at the former matron's office-turned private storage room for the Bluestone family in the first place? You must have gone there on purpose. What was it?"
Tanja hesitated and for some reason, gave Lily a funny look.
"Is something wrong?" Lily asked.
Instead of answering her question, Tanja asked, "You're related to the history teacher, Mr. Lin, right?"
Lily nodded and replied, "Yeah."
"There's something you ought to know. You might want to sit down for this."
Lily looked down and then said, "Already sitting."
"Okay." Tanja took a deep breath and then, with a grim look on her face, "I think Mr. Lin's the Schemer."
End flashback.
As she laid in bed, Lily thought back to the videos that Tanja showed everyone on her tablet, from cameras that captured Uncle Viceroy clearly at all the places the Schemer had hit with his not-so-pleasant mischief and always on the night before something happened. The last video showed him going into the old matron's office, shortly followed after by Tanja herself. She appeared the open the door just a crack before the skeletal ghost popped out and chased her off.
With all that evidence, there was no way to refute Tanja's claim that Viceroy Kevin Lin, Lily's own uncle, was the Schemer or at least working for the villain.
But despite that, Lily could not accept that her uncle could be behind all the horrible things she and her friends had gone through. He may be a shameless weirdo, but he wasn't a bad guy. And speaking of her uncle . . .
Ping! Went the phone on Lily's bedside table.
Lily gave the device a glance and then slowly sat up. She took the phone into her hands saw that it had received a message from Uncle Viceroy. After a bit of hesitating, she opened the message and read, "Heard you're out sick for today from your roommate. I let your mom know and she wants you to see a doctor. I'll have a nurse give you a house call. Or if you're up for it, you can head over to the dorm nurse's office yourself. Let me know before Three."
Lily hesitated. Honestly, she didn't feel like even replying to Uncle Viceroy by text. But if she just stayed silent, he'll likely have the nurse barge into her room. Lily wouldn't put it past her uncle to do that, especially with her mom involved.
After a bit of thought, she texted, "I'll head over to the nurse's office myself."
It wasn't long before she got another message. This one said, "Got it. I put you down for a One-Thirty appointment. Make sure you have lunch before you go."
"Will do," Lily replied back. And then she dumped the phone beside her on the bed and laid back down.
Slowly, she drifted off to sleep. But before she completely fell to slumber, she heard an indistinct whispering and sprang back up.
"Who's there?" she called out. She looked left and right, but there was no one in the room besides her. "Hello?"
She looked out the window and then peeked out of the dorm room. But as far as she could see, she was completely and utterly alone.
"Was it just my imagination?" she wondered aloud.
Lily closed the door and returned to bed. And as she climbed back on, she heard the whisper again. This time louder.
"Please, stop him!"
Lily felt a chill run down her spine and she whirled around, shouting, "Who's there?"
The whisper was so close to her ear, but again, she saw no one. It sounded like a girl around her age.
"Hello? Stop who? The Schemer?"
There was no response. Whoever that voice was, was gone.
**********
"And that's all I have to report," said the red-haired woman in a white lab coat. She stood in the dimly lit office of Julius Bluestone and just finished telling him what she had found after giving Lily Wong a check-up.
"Thank you," the old man with the white beard said. He sat slouched in his office chair. "That will be all. You may go . . . unless you have something else you want to say?"
The nurse nodded and said, "Yes, I do. I think you've gone too far this time, Director Bluestone. I've been watching over the child for a while now. On your orders, I might add. And while I can dismiss a little bit of tension piling up because of school, I cannot stay silent when she's come down with what was clearly a stress-induced illness!"
"It was necessary to bring out more power out of her," Julius argued. He straightened up and raised his voice a little.
"Necessary my foot!" snapped the nurse. "She's already brought out plenty of power. What need have you to continue this farce? Just train her like you've done me and all the others, and she'll be as powerful as you need her to be by the time she graduates.
"Let me make one thing clear, Julius Bluestone. Or should I say, the Schemer? We members of the Sapphire Society owe you for everything we've done for us. That's why we chose to help you with this ridiculous plan of yours. But we are also part of a school sworn to protect the children under our care. If anything should happen to them, a single hair out of place . . ."
Julius Bluestone cut her off. "You need not worry. If your report is accurate, it won't be much longer before she is finally ready. She just needs one more push."
"That push is exactly what I'm worried about," said the nurse.
"No harm will come to her or anyone else," Bluestone promised. "You have my word."
The nurse seemed satisfied, because not long after, she was out the door and headed back to her office at the girls' dorms.
As she disappeared down the hall, a door cracked open and out slipped Oliver with a stethoscope in his hands. He had heard the whole thing.
Oliver had come to speak with Director Bluestone as well to talk more about the Bluestone family and their magical history. It was only a coincidence that he spotted the nurse go into the director's office. Curiosity got the better of him and he couldn't help but eavesdrop, using the stethoscope to listen through the door.
Why was he carrying around a stethoscope, you might ask? Because he saw a detective on a TV show use one before and bought his own in case he ever needed it, like now. And boy did it yield results. Too much results.
The things Oliver heard made his head spin like a battle top and made his knees buckle. He leaned against the wall and muttered to himself, "Okay, Oliver. Deep breaths. Deep breaths."
I need to calm myself down, he thought. Need to sort through everything. Put all the pieces of the puzzle together. Paint the picture.
First and foremost, Julius Bluestone's the Schemer! Unbelievably, the generous and kind owner of the school that Oliver had come to know and love was actually the big baddie this whole time. Honestly, it made sense. His family built this school, so he would know everything about it best, including its deep, dark magical secrets which he could use however he liked. That should have made him Suspect Numero Uno.
Secondly, based on what the nurse had said, this whole Schemer thing was a ploy, like a badly-written script for a children's hero show. Director Bluestone made up the whole thing because he wanted something. Something out of Lily. But what could that something be?
"Whatever that is," Oliver muttered to himself, "this can't continue."
He didn't forget what the nurse had said. Lily had gotten sick because of stress. And that stress, of course, must have come from their magical adventures. Oliver never forgot the look on her face as he turned to stone. The pain in her eyes was a punch to the gut for him and constantly haunted his dreams.
"This can't go on," he mumbled. "I have to go tell her. I have to tell everyone about this. They need to know Director Bluestone's the Schemer, that the old Sapphire Society's still here in this school, and that they've been on the Schemer's side this whole time! This whole school could be our enemy!"
Oliver turned to leave, but then stopped. Standing in his way was a blue parrot. THE Blue Parrot.
Any normal person seeing this would probably think Oliver was silly for looking so afraid of a parrot, of all things. But Oliver had known the bird long enough to know that despite its harmless appearance, it was a creature as dangerous as a war tank.
He tried to run away. But when he turned around again, he found his way blocked once more, this time by a robed person whose face hid beneath the shadow of his hood.
Oliver's heart sank. But he put up a brave face and said, "Really, Director Bluestone? I think we both know that you don't need that costume right now."
"On the contrary, Oliver," said Bluestone, "I think I do need this costume. A weird getup will help make it easy to tamper with your memories."
"Tamper with my memories!? Wait-!"
Oliver's cry was cut off by the snap of Director Bluestone's fingers. Blue flashed over Oliver's eyes and disappeared when he blinked.
"Now, young man," said the Schemer, "run. And let Lady Sapphire know, she stands no chance of thwarting my plans. Not when I have a powerful ally on my side."
He spread his arms put and cackled. Streaks of blue lightning flew out of his fingers and made sparks dance across the walls and ceiling.
"Yikes!"
With a frightened yelp, Oliver stumbled back, turned and fled as fast as he could. The Schemer waited until he was gone before ceasing the light show.
"What was that?" asked the parrot. "And what ally were you talking about?"
Without taking his eyes off the end of the hall the teen detective fled down, the Schemer answered simply, "One more push."
No comments:
Post a Comment