March by Gabrielle Lord Page A

to really help me out of my situation.
    A couple of the messages drew my attention more than the others:

    My spirits lifted a little as I read the words of support. Even the message from Maryanne Helfgott made me feel better.
    Boges rolled his eyes when he read her message. ‘You have quite a following. You should record an album. Seriously, you’re a star. I could do back-up vocals for you? Cash in on some of your fame? What do you think, huh?’
    ‘I don't think so, buddy.’
    Next we started searching for the Ormond Riddle—just in case something new had come online.

    ‘“Kilkenny”, that’s the name of Great-uncle Bartholomew’s property in Mount Helicon,’ I said.
    ‘He must have named it after Kilkenny in Ireland. Here’s something,’ said Boges, and I leaned closer to read what he had up on the screen.

    ‘Big deal,’ I said. ‘A riddle with eight lines. Could be Three Blind Mice, ’ I groaned. ‘That doesn’t help us. Like all the other connections,’ I said, ‘I think for a minute we’re getting somewhere and then I realise we’re back where westarted—still in the dark and still totally confused.’
    ‘Come on,’ said Boges, thumping me on the back, ‘cheer up. We’re going to work this out. We have to.’
    We spent a little more time searching for something about the Ormond Singularity but we couldn’t find anything. The problem with search engines is that you have to know what you’re looking for—know what questions to ask. And we didn’t know. All we had were the notes we’d made about the drawings and the drawings themselves. All we had were bits of paper.
    ‘Try “Piers Ormond”,’ Boges suggested. ‘We should check up on him. He might have been some sort of hero, to get a memorial like that.’

    I looked at Boges and he looked at me. ‘We sorta knew that already,’ I said.
    ‘But we should make a note of it.’
    More paper piling up, I thought. Like Oriana de la Force’s desk. She’d had piles of paper and files. But she was a lawyer and that was hardly unusual. We needed action .
    Boges looked at his mobile, checking the time. ‘I have to start heading home. Besides, you should go, too—school will be out soon and this place will start to get busy. I’ll check up the transparency names later, OK.’
    He was about to put his mobile away, when he started scrolling through his photographs. ‘I nearly forgot. I took this for you. Your mum let me go with her the other night.’
    He turned the screen of the mobile to face me. It was a close-up picture of my little sister’s pale face, looking as if she were asleep. Her hair was spread out over the pillow, and a transparent, narrow tube snaked up her nose. Slowly, I took it from him, staring at it for a long moment. I felt my stomach lurch at the sight of her. She looked so small and so helpless.
    ‘You can have it,’ said Boges, immediately bluetoothing it to my mobile.
    ‘Is this the only one?’ I asked. ‘Or have you got more?’
    ‘Just that one,’ he said.
    After saving Gabbi’s picture on my phone I accidentally clicked on the thumbnail of the photo I’d taken of Oriana de la Force when I’d been up the tree outside her window. It opened up to fill my screen and I was about to close it down, when I noticed something in the photo I hadn’t seen before.
    I frowned. ‘Look,’ I said, pointing to the small screen, and turning it so Boges could see. ‘There’s something written there.’
    The mobile had focused much better on some papers on Oriana’s desk, rather than on the red-headed woman herself, and I could just make out what looked like a piece of creamy paper on her desk with pale-grey lettering across it. I peered closer to see what it was then passed it to Boges.
    ‘There’s definitely something written there,’ said Boges. ‘But it’s too blurry. Here,’ he said, opening up his laptop, ‘let’s see what I can do. Let me play with it a bit.’
    Boges quickly joined my mobile to his