Touch of Fear ▸ House of Anubis [2]

chapter forty-six. house of hasty

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            "Miss Devenish," Mara begins presenting her case, "you worked as a cook at Beacon Grove School nine years ago. Is that right?"

            Vera replies, "I wouldn't have put it on my resume if it weren't."

            "So can you explain why you are not in this photo," she clicks a key on her computer and an article appears on the monitor to the side, "of the entire kitchen team when they won the award for excellence that year?"

            "I arrived at the beginning of the academic year, which starts in September. Uh, what is the date of that article, Mara?"

            Mara glances at the date of the article the photo she just showed everyone came from and answers slowly, "April twentieth."

            "Five months before I arrived."

            The audience erupts into hushed whispers. Okay, this is just...a small problem. Mara can find her way back out of this, I'm sure. She's got all that other evidence in the article, stuff that can't be explained away like Vera just did. How does she explain one of her references being dead for twenty years? I doubt Sweetie called a dead man!

            Sweet urges us to quiet down, and then the next person on the stand is Fabian's godfather, Jasper. Mara's article said Jasper's the one who recommended Vera for the job in the first place, so maybe he can help prove that everything she wrote is right.

            "You recommended Vera for the job," Mara says to him, "but you told me you barely know her."

            "She was a friend of a friend," Jasper says. "I was happy to make the recommendation."

            "Did you think it strange Vera was the only applicant?"

            "I wouldn't know about that."

            Vera chooses then to speak up. "Mara, I'm confused. Are you questioning Mr. Choudray's character now, too? Do you have any scruples at all about whose reputation you tarnish?"

            If this wasn't a public hearing, I might stand up and say something stupid, like I'm wont to do. But it is a public hearing, and saying something stupid wouldn't help Mara at all, and might actually get me in trouble as well. So I keep my mouth shut, chewing the inside of my cheek and tapping my foot quickly on the ground.

            Jerome must notice, because all of a sudden he's taking my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. When I look at him, I see he's got his head tilted a little and his assuring eyes are on me, and I find it in me to give him a small smile before taking my hand away. My hand feels cold now.

            "I'm trying to establish," Mara says, "how you came to get the job here and why."

            "Mr. Sweet hired me," Vera responds. "Perhaps you'd like to interrogate him next."