Mistletoe and Murder by Robin Stevens

Author:Robin Stevens [Stevens, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141369730
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2016-10-19T23:00:00+00:00

5

As we stood in the doorway, I had a moment where time came unstuck. It was last year, and it was Miss Tennyson looking up at us in horror from her table in the Willow. But then I blinked, and we were back in Cambridge. The case that faced us this time was quite different – and so was our suspect. Amanda did not even look round, so intent was she on what she was writing. We had the chance to go all the way up to her and stand one on either side of her chair, her outdoor coat draped across it, to peer down at the paper in front of her.

It was a History essay, boldly handwritten. George III, I saw, and rebels, led by. But the thing that shocked me was not the words at all, but the hand they were written in. I had seen this writing before, I realized, twice: in Chummy’s rooms, and then in Donald’s. I had noticed the similarity before, but I had simply thought that their handwriting was so similar because they were twins. But if this was Amanda’s handwriting … we had the answer to the question of why she was so busy with essays. She was not just writing them for herself.

‘You’re writing their essays!’ exclaimed Daisy, and Amanda jumped, splashing black ink across her page. She cursed, and blotted.

‘What are you doing here?’ she cried. ‘Why aren’t you—? Go away, can’t you? I’m writing!’

‘We won’t go away until you tell us what you’re doing,’ said Daisy. ‘I don’t think it looks very legal at all. Bertie said you were giving him lecture notes, but he didn’t say you were writing Chummy and Donald’s essays for them as well!’

Amanda glared. ‘They pay,’ she said. ‘I need the money. And I can do it all – I’ve managed so far, haven’t I?’

‘Have you?’ I asked. I looked at her, and thought that she did not look as though she was managing in the slightest.

‘I’m the cleverest in my year,’ said Amanda. ‘Not that the dons acknowledge it. D’you know that the last essay I did for Chummy got ten marks more than mine? I wrote both of them, but he’s a man, so his must be better.’

‘You didn’t write any essays for Bertie, did you?’ Daisy asked.

Amanda turned red. ‘Not for money,’ she said. ‘He’s my friend.’

I suddenly understood at least part of the exchange we had seen between Bertie and Chummy – they were both in on the essay-writing trick. I also saw what I ought to have realized all along: that Amanda’s feelings for Bertie were not just a pash. She lit up for him in a way that I recognized.

‘Oh, bother Bertie!’ cried Daisy. ‘Getting himself mixed up in something else illegal! He really has acted dreadfully this term. I can’t think what’s got into him! But, listen, you mustn’t write any more essays. Not for him, not for anyone. You’ll be sent down for it, and so will they!’

‘I may be sent down anyway,’ said Amanda.

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