Touch of Fear ▸ House of Anubis [2]

chapter forty-three. house of evidence

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            "Ew, creepy."

            Those are the words of one Miss Amber Millington as we explore the next tunnel. Creepy may be an accurate description, because right in front of us is a painting of a lion with really, really creepy eyes. No wonder Nina screamed when she saw it.

            "Way creepier when you can only see its eyes..." Nina comments. "And you think it's alive. Trust me."

            "You seriously need to man up, Nina," Alfie comments.

            "Alfie, behind you!" Patricia exclaims, even though there's clearly nothing behind him.

            Alfie shrieks and spins around in search of the nonexistent threat behind him, which is absolutely hilarious considering he just told Nina to man up. I roll my eyes, clapping my hand on Alfie's shoulder as Fabian retorts, "Now who needs to man up?"

            Sibuna walks through into our next room, our next task, only to be greeted by a bunch of vintage, tinted bottles with no labels on low shelves. I really hope we don't have to possibly drink poison to get through this task. I mean, I guess I'll do it so we can find the Mask, but I certainly won't be happy about it.

            Oh, stop being dramatic, Ashley, Anubis says in an exasperated tone.

            "Chemicals, no labels," Fabian remarks.

            I pick up one of the bottles. I turn it around in my hand as Nina joins me, picking up her own bottle. Then I shrug and say, "Think I'm going to smell it."

            "No, Ashley, don't—never mind."

            My nose scrunches up as I hand the bottle over to Nina. "What's that smell like to you?"

            Nina takes the bottle from me and takes a whiff. "Familiar...like Christmas, maybe?"

            "Yeah, like cinnamon. What else is in these bottles?"

            Alfie's defending his shrieking, "I was just on high-alert, which we should all be on, by the way."

            "Uh, sure, whatever, Alfie," Patricia replies dryly. "Fabian." He hums. "Okay, this freaky lion head thing?"

            "Sekhmet, the goddess of medicine," Fabian identifies.

            "Look, there's openings in these," Nina says, "and there's this channel," there's a water-channel type thing in the ground which she's following, "and it leads to the door...ooh, with some kind of goo on it. Must hold it in place."

            "So we've got a big bunch of chemicals," Fabian recaps, "six snakey tubes that go down to this mixing jar that leads straight on to a door with a weird goo around it."

            "So...maybe we put all the chemicals into the tubes, and abracadabra, they magically open the door?"

            "Could be, but I guess it has to be the right six chemicals."

            Alfie claps his hands together. "Okay, then, everybody grab a chemical, and then let's get—"

            "It's a bit late for science experiments, Alfie," Fabian interrupts. "Come on, let's go."

—

            "Okay, these are the riddles Nina found," Fabian tells us the next day in the lounge, the photos of the riddles on the cobweb-covered walls of the next task room up on his tablet. Alfie's the only one not sitting down with us; instead he's behind us playing around with a ping-pong ball and a ping-pong paddle for some reason.

            "We think they're clues to the different chemicals we need to use," Nina informs. "There are six funnels down the lion's mane, six of those, so one per snake."

            "The first one, 'the taste of the great bitter lake,' that's a real lake in Egypt. The water's salty, so that makes it bitter."

            "So the bitter taste is salt."

            Patricia holds up a finger and corrects, "Uh-uh-uh, sodium chloride. Sweetie made me copy out the periodic table one hundred times after that algae incident."

            "All right, salt/sodium chloride," I state with a shrug. "So we've got one. That leaves five."

            Alfie stops playing with the ping-pong equipment and suggests, "You know what we could do. We could bring samples of the chemicals up from the tunnels and try to identify them in the chemistry lab."

            That's actually....a pretty good plan. I turn back to look at Alfie, pretty impressed along with the other Sibunas, and Fabian questions, "You came up with that while bouncing the ball really badly?"

            "Yep," Alfie confirms, throwing the ball up in the air again, except this time it doesn't come down. See, his aim must've been off, which means whatever the reason for his sudden obsession with ping-pong is not going to go well for him, and when the ball does come back down a few minutes later, after Alfie's sat down defeated, it hits me in the head.

            Nina and Amber bite back their laughter, while Alfie just looks apologetic. Me, I'm just calm, because guess what? "This would happen to me."

—

            "So why exactly are you playing with a ping-pong ball?" I question Alfie after class as I lean against the locker next to his, trying to get an answer to why I've got a small bump on my head now. "And why exactly are you no good at it? Fix your aim, Lewis."

            "I'm practicing," Alfie replies pointedly. "In three days, there'll be a ping-pong tournament, and we are going to win it."

            This is the first I've heard of any ping-pong tournament. I frown at the mention of it, retorting still, "With your skills? Please. So who else is playing in this so-called ping-pong tournament, and why is there going to be a ping-pong tournament in three days?"

            "Jerome, and because there can be."

            Knowing that Jerome's going to be playing in it as well doesn't exactly help any of it make any more sense. I nod slowly, blinking at him. "Okay. So you and Jerome are going to play in a ping-pong tournament. I've never heard either one of you mention ping-pong even once, so obviously there's something in it for you."

            "There's always something in it for us, but you should probably talk to him about it—"

            "No, I want you to tell me about it. So spill it, Alfred. What's in it for you? Money, fame?"

            "Fame," Alfie answers quickly. Too quickly. That's not what's in it for them. "If we win, we will restore the name of this school back to its former glory. And everyone will know our names and all of the girls will want to go out with us."

            I look at him doubtfully. "You're a terrible liar."