The Poison Plot by Annabelle Sami

Author:Annabelle Sami
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stripes Publishing
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Zaiba stepped inside the cool of the library to find her teams of detectives furiously hunting through bookshelves and under tables. One team, dressed in Hawaiian shirts and long black wigs, had taken to removing all the books from the shelves one by one. Another team was dressed as mimes – complete with black and white face paint. They were busy checking inside each book, flipping through the pages and shaking them to see if any clue fell out. A final team was carefully replacing each book back on its shelf after they’d searched it for clues.

Teamwork, I like it! Zaiba mentally gave them bonus points for being thorough. The contestants were all so engrossed in their detective work that they didn’t even notice Zaiba, Poppy and Ali walking down an aisle.

Zaiba counted heads. It looked as though four contestants hadn’t reached the library yet. Had she made the trail too hard? But there wasn’t time to worry about that now.

“Hi, everyone! If you could stop what you’re doing for a minute,” Zaiba called out. The shuffling and rushing around slowly died down and they turned their attention to Zaiba. The library was a large square room, with one corner dedicated to an IT suite and the remaining space lined with huge floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. To ensure everyone could see her, Zaiba took up position in front of the librarian’s desk at the top of the room.

She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid there’s been an incident with the head teacher and the trail is, uh … on pause.” She didn’t want to concern the detectives by using words like ‘poison’ and certainly not ‘cancelled’.

“Maybe you can finish the trail another time?” Poppy offered, noting the disappointed looks on the contestant’s faces.

“Aren’t you meant to be dead?” one of them asked.

Ah yes, Poppy had forgotten about that. She still had a few smears of fake blood left on her face and arms. “Erm, that was, I mean…” Her voice trailed to a halt.

“That was pretend,” Ali finished for her. “Poppy was just acting!”

“Not just acting,” Poppy protested, pulling her shoulders back. “I worked really hard to make my performance perfect!”

A contestant in a Sherlock Holmes cap rolled his eyes. “We know you weren’t really dead! We just wanted to win the prize. But a real-life crime? That’s much more interesting!”

Zaiba held a hand up to stop any further conversation. “Only professionals can investigate this case.” She gave the group a warning look. “Amateur detecting could prove disastrous. And dangerous.”

There was a moment of silence before a little boy – the one who’d seemed particularly queasy over Poppy’s murder – piped up. “Can we at least finish the detective trail?” He had a steely look of determination and Poppy positively beamed – her dramatic performance had paid off!

Zaiba looked to Poppy and shrugged. “OK then! We wanted to keep you informed. Carry on, but just be aware that we may not be around to judge the teams. Not until this new case is

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