Deceiving Mr. Bevison

By Nanette Fynan

“You, MacDonough! You know who I’m talking to. Come on over.” Not a bad greeting for his first day at a new school. Being greeted by a gaggle of friendly bagpipers certainly makes fifteen-year-old Mac feel welcome right off the bat. Little does he suspect that trouble is lurking just around the corner at St. Rupert's Academy for Boys. Something is going horribly wrong in the life of the band's beloved pipe major. Ms. Kent's problem goes by the name of Harley Bevison and she thought she'd gotten rid of him a long time ago. It seems he's come back to haunt her with constant demands to get him an invitation to visit the academy's famous private museum. Ms. Kent suspects Harley Bevison has greedy designs on something in the museum. She is afraid her job will be in peril if some board member thinks she has been helping Mr. Bevison with his dubious scheming. Her loyal students step right in to make sure she gets the help she needs. She sends them off on a research mission, but Mac is soon is lured by Brookie, his uber-hyper new friend, into a more hands-on approach to discovering just what that mysterious work of art is and where it is hidden. Prakash and Ian and the rest of the band are dragged into a tangle of events that lead to sleepless nights spent rappelling down the sides of buildings and endless days trying to create something to decoy Harley Bevison away from the valuable museum piece. The boys of St. Rupert’s Pipe Band manage to turn Ms. Kent’s thorny situation into victory as they rush to substitute a fake for the original masterpiece. Imagine their surprise when they find out the headmaster, Fr. Dell, has been moving in a parallel direction with the same goal in sight: to deal with Harley Bevison. As glad as Ms. Kent is to get Harley Bevison out of her hair, she is thrilled that they are all safe and able to get back to their studying. Most importantly, Mac and the boys forge true friendships and prove themselves deeply loyal to both their school and their teacher.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nanette Fynan
• Release date: Oct 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310171123

Nanette Fynan

Nanette Fynan knows that life is full of fun and unexpected surprises. She is the typical 'boomer geek' appreciating the offbeat and exceptional. She may even be a lightning rod for the unusual because her interests attract fun and unique people. In any event, she collects stories from situations that really occur in her busy life. And busy she has been, homeschooling three kids, working with horses, and working as a research scientist, both in hospitals and in plant bioengineering. She currently spends her time as band manager and fiddler, website designer and music teacher for the Celtic band, Plaid Menagerie.

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Deceiving Mr. Bevison

Copyright 2014 Nanette Fynan

Published by Nanette Fynan at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

About the Author

Acknowledgements

I feel the deepest gratitude to all the people listed here. Without each and every one of them, I wouldn’t have begun or completed this book. I wouldn’t have learned about writing and editing, and I certainly wouldn’t have gotten to the point of publishing. I wouldn’t have laughed and cried, and I wouldn’t have become the person I am today.

My mother’s voice came to me many times as I flogged the prose. My kids helped me hone my skills by demanding engaging reading. My husband held it all together by writing checks and cooking brunch and washing the ever-present dishes. Thank you.

All the people in Leslie Keenan’s ongoing writing class, You Can Complete This Book: Leslie, our awesome teacher; Evlaleah, Janis, Michael, Christine, and all the rest. Thank you.

My editors: Phyllis DeBlanche, Alan Jones, and Christine Mann, who helped me with editing and formatting these pages. Thank you.

My cover artist: Sharon Eisley. Thank you.

Chapter 1

Bold. Outrageous. Cool. That’s what bagpipes are. Hey! You aren’t totally sure you like bagpipes? Get over it! I play in the St. Rupert’s Academy bagpipe band and I’m proud of it and seriously biased. Besides, it’s the people in this story who matter, not my so-called musical tastes.

Story? What story, you say? What story! Why, just the best caper that ever went down in the history of St. Rupert’s Academy for Boys, that’s all. Basically, the new school year found me, Charlie MacDonough, and friends plotting to keep our favorite teacher’s ex-husband, Harley Bevison, away from a . . . well, I don’t want to give away the whole story here. You could get the wrong idea about some people I really like if I don’t explain it all carefully from the start. So stay with me here, while I start at the very beginning, like my first day of school at St. Rupert’s Academy for Boys.

****

There I was, standing in the damp grass at the edge of the athletic field in the midst of a bunch of rumpled and silent guys. I mean, how uncomfortable can you get on the first day of school? My new-school nerves were about ready to redline, and my speech centers were frozen, so I just kept to myself, not doing much talking to the guys around me. But neither were they talking to me.

I mean, think about it. It was seven a.m., the crack of dawn, and we were having trouble just breathing in and out that early in the morning. Starting conversation was out of the question, don’t you think? Yes, we were waiting for the start of the first band practice of the year. I was straddling my good old bagpipe case, my arms wrapped across my chest, rocking on my heels to boost my confidence and to keep off the chill in the morning air.

My gaze wandered across the field to the row of trees on the opposite side. Through my bleary eyes, I could vaguely see a height-challenged female type straining on tiptoe to talk to a husky, balding dude all dressed up pretty flash in a suit and tie. She, however, was clad in plain jeans and a bulky sweater, and she was acting mega-incensed, like he was trying to sell her something she didn’t want.

I scented something very interesting going on there, so I perked up and watched the woman closely. The person in question was very animated, shaking her head and pointing, making little chopping motions with her hands. The guy was red in the face. Anybody watching the pair could see she wasn’t buying it, whatever he was selling. In fact, I would call it a very heated argument. Whatever was going down, it was serious.

My curiosity did an override on my good sense, and without thinking I turned and blurted my question out into the awkward void of silence that was echoing around me.

Who’s the guy in the suit? I croaked in my morning voice, wagging my finger in the general direction of the duo arguing by the trees.

The hip-looking blond dude next to me glanced languidly at the couple then paused a moment to stare back at me. He shrugged.

No idea. He studied me sideways in a way that didn’t set off my dread sensors too badly. Then he totally surprised me by shooting his hand out in my direction and giving me the full introduction.

Ian here. Welcome to St. Rupert’s. How’d you get incarcerated?

Charlie MacDonough. I reached across the gap between us and shook his hand. I even attempted a response. I’m an employment orphan, Ian. That’s how I ended up here. My dad just took a job with a construction firm in the Middle East last week.

That’s rough, man. He paused, either to ponder the data or just to go back to sleep for a minute. But now I’d started, he was just going to have to wake up and listen to the end. I had been so wound up before that my talk was all coming out of me at once, like hot steam out of a geyser.

My mom decided she’d rather stay in the Mediterranean with Dad, so they could spend his time off together, instead of hanging here with me in the States.

Yeah, he mumbled, picking up his bagpipe case.

Could be worse, I blithered on. It was a no-brainer that I had to finish high school in the States. I paused a moment for breath as we walked onto the athletic field lugging our bagpipe cases. I set my case down and opened it.

Squatting down, I began to assemble my bagpipes. The polished wood shone in the early morning light. I slid the parts together, giving them a twist to make sure they were snug. I got a feeling of confidence from just handling my well-worn, much-used instrument. I stood up and occupied myself with fiddling with the mouthpiece so that my new-school nerves could have a chance to chill. That moment of repose didn’t help. I felt another burst of talk coming on.

By the way, does St. Rupert’s band compete? I asked.

Yeah, we try. Ian’s blue eyes lit up in an eager way. Competition might be the love of his life from the way he acted. We’re not hot, but Ms. Kent gives us something of a competitive edge.

Ms. Kent?

Yeah, our pipe major, Amanda Kent. What year are you? he asked.

I’m a sophomore. I’m lucky my mom cared enough to scare up a school with a pipe band for me.

Yes, you are. Okay then, so St. Rupert’s it is. We are ‘it’ when it comes to boarding schools with bagpipe bands. We’re lucky to have you. Ian smiled a friendly smile, and we subsided back to our awkward silence. He finally nodded at me before drifting off to talk to someone else.

So there I stood alone, fidgeting awkwardly, my bagpipes on my arm, waiting for band practice to start. To ease my edgy nerves I did a panoramic scan of my surroundings. Ahhh, picturesque St. Rupert’s Academy with its decrepit, medieval-style buildings covered with untidy ivy. Yup, a boarding school run by Episcopal brothers is what St. Rupert’s Academy looked like, and that’s exactly what it was.

Just like in the brochures, there were lots and lots of trees scattered across the hushed green lawns, pines, maples, and a few oaks. There was a peaceful air to the place, with plush green moss nosing between the cracks of the crumbling old stone of the dormitories. The classroom buildings slumbering in the morning sun had yet more ivy clinging around the arched windows and doors. All in all, the buildings pictured in the brochure had seemed fresher somehow. I guess for the benefit of the parents, the brochure’s artist had airbrushed out a lot of embarrassing details, like the peeling paint on those old window frames and the loose gutters dangling from those ivy-choked eaves.

I felt my uneasiness leaching away from me as a couple more guys arrived. Here be pipers, spare and stout, tall and squat, meandering onto the mist-covered athletic field. There was one consolation. If nothing else, we had one thing in common: bagpipes.

The guys and I were kind of clustered in a mob at the center of the field, kind of like we were all trying to stand on a small iceberg together, when I heard a voice of thunder erupt from the edge of the throng.

You, MacDonough! You know who I’m talking to. Come on over. I remember to this day how I cringed as that hearty voice shattered the morning calm. My name echoed raucously off the nearby buildings, and I felt utterly exposed. Admittedly, the voice sounded friendly, just loud, especially to those of us suffering from early-morning-fragile-nerves syndrome. And the boys, all turning to stare interestedly at me, parted their cluster to reveal our new pipe major, the same height-challenged female I had seen talking to the suit by the trees. She strode through the boys’ midst, showing a lopsided grin on a very humor-filled face. She looked up at me—way up. I am kind of above average height. This new teacher took in my flabbergasted look and extended her hand like I was supposed to shake it. I stumbled forward and stuck my hand in her direction. She grabbed it and shook it so emphatically that her head with its glossy brown hair bobbed along in time. I summoned the vigor to return the handshake as it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, this first day of school wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

Pipe Major Amanda Kent here. Welcome to St. Rupert’s Pipe Band. Charlie MacDonough, right? I could feel her grilling me with her friendly green eyes, sizing up my character. I guess I passed judgment; she was still smiling. I gave a feeble grin in return.

Band! Circle up to receive order of practice. My new pipe major turned smartly on her heel to face the band.

There were seven guys, besides myself, in gray sweatshirts and navy pants. One and all were Hey, dudeing me, nodding and smiling, milling around as we formed a circle around tiny Ms. Kent.

"C’mon, boys, the morning is wearing on. If you haven’t got your pipes out, get them