[Janitors 04] Strike of the Sweepers

by Tyler Whitesides

  They arrived at the Gates home without any signs of pursuit. Either the Sweepers had given up, or they hadn’t seen the kids climb into the garbage truck. Spencer was guessing the latter. He was also guessing that the Sweepers would pick up their trail soon.

  “Okay,” Spencer said, holding the Manualis Custodem in both hands. They were still sitting in Big Bertha, engine idling, as they stared out the window at the Gates property. “We’ve got to think of somewhere safe we can keep this. Somewhere far away.”

  “How about Jamaica?” Daisy suggested.

  “Why Jamaica?”

  She shrugged. “It’s far away.”

  Spencer looked at the book. “We can’t just dump it somewhere and hope that Mr. Clean doesn’t find it,” he said. “We need to leave it with someone we can trust.”

  “How about Bookworm?” Daisy said.

  “Who the heck is Bookworm?” Dez asked.

  “He’s my pet Thingamajunk,” answered Daisy.

  “Oh, that helps.” Dez’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “What the heck is a Thingamajunk?”

  “But he’s sick, remember?” Spencer said, completely ignoring Dez.

  “Bernard told me how to make him better,” answered Daisy. She seemed to be getting quite excited. “He said Bookworm was starving. Said he needed a massive trashfusion.”

  “What’s a trashfusion?” Dez asked.

  “It’s like a transfusion, but with trash,” Spencer said. “It’s what they do to patients in the hospital sometimes. If somebody’s lost a lot of blood, they can pump new blood in.”

  “Stop talking about blood,” Daisy said. “I’m getting queasy.” She shivered. “But wait a minute. Thingamajunks don’t have blood.”

  “That’s right,” Spencer said. “They have garbage. Bookworm needs new garbage.”

  “Great!” Daisy said. “So, where do we get the garbage?”

  “Hellooo?” Dez said, knocking his knuckles softly on the side of Daisy’s head and making a hollow sound with his mouth. “We’re sitting in a garbage truck.”

  Spencer pushed Dez’s hand away from her head. “How do we know there’s still a load back there? What if we used it up with the trashcannons?”

  “Trust me,” Dez said. “There’s plenty back there.” He rolled down the window. “It’s half rotted. Can’t you smell the stink?”

  “Yeah, I can,” said Spencer. “But I thought it was you.”

  “Ha ha,” Dez faked a pity laugh. “You’re a real comedian.”

  Daisy looked at Spencer in surprise. “You are?”

  Chapter 30

  “Where’d she get it?”

  The plan to revive Bookworm was under way. Bernard had shown Daisy which controls would dump the garbage load, but first they had to get the big truck into position. Dez began the rather slow process of turning the garbage truck around in the narrow street.

  “You’ll have to back right up to the shed,” Spencer said.

  “Maybe I should get out and plunge the truck over the fence,” Daisy said.

  “No need,” muttered Dez. He put Big Bertha in reverse and gassed it up over the curb. The rear bumper smashed through the Gateses’ fence, and the heavy tires gouged into the soft grass.

  Daisy’s black dog ran the length of her chain and drew up, barking savagely as the garbage truck backed across the yard.

  “I’m telling my dad it was you,” Daisy said. “You’ll be spending the whole summer putting up a new fence.”

  “He won’t catch me,” Dez said. “I’ll just fly away.”

  Spencer was watching in the side mirror as Big Bertha drew close to the rickety wooden shed. “That’ll do it,” Spencer said. “Stop.” Dez gave it another few inches, until the bumper touched the shed and caused the wood to creak. “I said stop!” shouted Spencer.

  Dez chuckled and put Big Bertha into park. Daisy operated the controls that Bernard had shown her. The back hatch raised, and the garbage instantly began spilling through the open door of the shed.

  In no time, the deed was done. Big Bertha had emptied her load of smelly trash. It filled the shed and poured out onto the lawn.

  Dez rolled the truck forward and left it parked with the front tires on the sidewalk. Daisy scrambled to get out, anxious to see what effect the trash might be having on the sick Thingamajunk.

  In a moment, the three kids were standing on the littered grass, staring into the clogged entrance of the shed.

  “Do you think it worked?” Daisy finally asked.

  “How long does it take for a trashfusion to happen?” said Dez.

  There was a slight rustling in the trash pile. Spencer couldn’t tell if it came from within or if the wind had disturbed the debris. He was leaning in for a closer look when the mound of garbage exploded.

  Spencer was knocked backward onto the grass. Dez let out an embarrassing scream and took to the sky. But Daisy stood firm, a huge smile on her face as strong garbage arms scooped her up.

  Bookworm swung her around the yard like an overexuberant dance partner. The moldy covers of his textbook mouth were flapping as he grunted and mumbled in his strange way. His lunchbox head kept nuzzling against Daisy’s face in what Spencer was sure was supposed to be an affectionate way, though it actually looked rather painful. Daisy didn’t seem to mind a bit. She was laughing and shouting playfully.

  Spencer picked himself up and glanced about, grateful that the Gateses’ property was large and the neighbors were not close by. If a giant garbage figure leapt around in Spencer’s Hillside Estates neighborhood, he could guarantee that it would be the talk of the town. But here, life was rolling along at the Gateses’ pace, and the neighbors seemed neither to notice nor to care.

  Dez lit on the ground beside Spencer. “What is that thing?”

  “That is Daisy’s Thingamajunk,” Spencer said.

  “Where’d she get it?” Dez asked, a hint of reluctance in his voice.

  “PetSmart,” answered Spencer.

  Bookworm suddenly took notice of the Sweeper boy standing beside Spencer. His gangly trash arms rolled Daisy gently onto the grass, and he crossed the yard like a charging gorilla.

  When it was clear that the Thingamajunk didn’t intend to stop, Dez took flight. But Bookworm leapt a tremendous height, snatching the boy by the ankles and dragging him back to the ground.

  Dez shouted for help, thrown to his back and pinned with one heavy refuse hand. Bookworm leaned over him and roared. The textbook opened, revealing nubs of pencil teeth held together with a pink dental retainer.

  “Easy, Bookworm!” Daisy shouted. Spencer was a little regretful that Daisy had intervened. He was really curious to see what Bookworm was about to do to the bully.

  “Bookworm,” Daisy said, “meet Dez. Dez, Bookworm.”

  “Get him off me!” Dez said as bits of trash sloughed off the Thingamajunk’s shoulder and peppered his face.

  “Bookworm,” Daisy said, “I know it’s hard to believe, but Dez is a good guy right now. Please don’t hurt him.”

  Bookworm gave a final snort in Dez’s face and then stepped away from the boy. He draped a long arm protectively around Daisy’s shoulder and mumbled something unintelligible.

  “What did he say?” Dez asked, voice trembling as he dusted himself off.

  Daisy shrugged. “I don’t speak Thingamajunk.”

  “I’m guessing he wants to tear your wings off,” Spencer said. “Right, Bookworm?”

  The Thingamajunk nodded vigorously, to which Dez responded by tucking back his precious wings.

  “How about this,” Daisy said to her pet. “If Dez ever goes back to helping the BEM, you have my permission to do it.”

  Bookworm held out a fist, and Daisy bumped hers against it.

  “You taught him to fist-bump?” Spencer said.

  “No,” said Daisy. “He learned that from watching TV in the shed.”

  “You got him a TV?”

  “He was getting bored out there,” Daisy said. “I used to r
ead him stories, but that got too expensive.”

  “What do you mean?” Dez said. “I thought reading was free.”

  “Reading is,” Daisy said. “But the books aren’t. Every time I finished reading a story, he would eat the book. I didn’t know he was starving at the time.”

  Spencer crossed over to the tall Thingamajunk. “How are you feeling now, buddy?”

  Bookworm responded by giving what could only be interpreted as a thumbs-up. Spencer wondered what his thumb was made of. It sort of resembled a soggy waffle stick.

  “I guess we should give him the Manualis Custodem.” Spencer said.

  “I wouldn’t trust him with it,” Dez cut in. “Didn’t you just say that he eats books?”

  Spencer hesitated. It wasn’t just that Dez had a good point, but giving the Manualis to Bookworm only seemed like half of a good plan. He was a Thingamajunk from the landfill. V had described them as dim-witted on the best of days. Did they really want to leave all their hopes in the hands of a walking pile of trash?

  Spencer looked at Daisy. “What’s Bookworm going to do if we give him the book?”

  She shrugged. “Protect it. I once told him to watch my backpack, and he sat on it for three and a half days. By the time I got it back, all my homework was overdue.”

  “But that’s the thing,” Spencer said. “We can’t just leave Bookworm sitting on the Manualis Custodem. It’s too important.”

  “Maybe he could deliver it to somebody we trust,” Daisy suggested.

  “But who?” Spencer said. “All the best Rebels are trapped in the BEM laboratory.”

  “What about Meredith?” Daisy said. She was a Rebel lunch lady at Welcher Elementary who had helped them with little tasks in the past.

  Spencer shook his head. “I’m sure Meredith would keep it for a while. But that’s not good enough. We are going straight back into the heart of the BEM. Straight back to where Mr. Clean said not to go. There’s a good chance none of us will be coming out of there again. Whoever takes the Manualis has to be someone who will use it to finish what we started.”

  “No one can use it,” Daisy pointed out. “It’s locked.”

  “We have Holga and one of the bronze nails in the truck,” Spencer said. “We can open the Manualis Custodem.”

  “But even if we did,” said Daisy, “it’s written in Gloppish. Nobody knows how to read Gloppish.”

  “Professor DeFleur managed to translate it,” Spencer said. “There’s got to be someone we trust out there with enough brains to translate it again.”

  Spencer’s train of thought had led him to answer his own question. He held up the Manualis Custodem. “Min!” he said. “Min Lee!”

  “Wasn’t he that pain-in-the-butt, know-it-all kid from New Forest Academy?” Dez asked.

  “I thought that was you,” Spencer said. “Min is the smartest person I know. If we can give him the Manualis, I’m sure he could translate it. Plus, he’s so well connected with the Monitors that he knows where to find Rebel janitors all over the country.”

  It was the first time in a while that Spencer had felt solid about something. He would feel much more confident heading back to the BEM lab if he knew the Manualis was in Min’s hands. In the long run, it didn’t matter if Spencer and Daisy succeeded in rescuing the Rebels from Mr. Clean. At least Min could find the source of Glop and bring back the Founding Witches.

  Dez sighed in annoyance. “Where does this brainiac live?”

  “Sacramento,” Spencer said.

  “As in, California?” Dez asked. “I don’t think your garbage pet can make it that far.”

  “Are you feeling strong enough for a journey?” Daisy asked. Bookworm nodded in excitement. He would clearly do anything for her, no matter how he felt.

  “We need you to carry something important to California,” Daisy explained. “Do you know where that is?”

  In response, Bookworm did something strange. He wriggled his stomach, made a gurgling sound, and then barfed a piece of trash onto the grass. Stranger still, he seemed to be pleased by the fact that he had just regurgitated some of his own trash. Bookworm picked up the piece of garbage and pointed at it.

  It was an empty juice pouch with a little yellow straw sticking out the top. The colorful label showed a man surfing on a whitecapped wave. Bookworm pointed to the picture and nodded his head.

  “Surfing?” Daisy said.

  “Yeah,” said Spencer. “There’s a lot of surfing in California.”

  “I told you, he watches a lot of TV,” she said.

  “Doesn’t mean he knows where California is,” Dez mumbled.

  Bookworm’s expression changed. He lowered the pouch and snarled at Dez. Then he flipped the piece of garbage around and gestured to the back. Spencer leaned forward and read.

  Made in California.

  “So you know how to get there because a little piece of you was made in California?” Daisy asked.

  Bookworm nodded in excitement.

  “That’s pretty cool,” Spencer said. “How fast can you get there?”

  Bookworm took a deep breath and worked up another scrap of trash. This time, he spat it into his hand and held it out for the kids to see. It was a Kleenex box, or part of one. The scrap he was holding had some writing on it.

  20% softer than other brands!

  Daisy scratched her head. “You’re softer than other Thingamajunks?”

  Bookworm made an exasperated face and pointed his waffle-stick thumb at the big number 20.

  “Twenty what?” Spencer said. “Twenty days? Twenty hours?”

  Bookworm shook his head, chunks of garbage flinging left and right.

  “Twenty minutes?” Spencer said.

  Bookworm dropped the scrap of box and nodded excitedly, making strained grunting sounds.

  “If he thinks he can get there in twenty minutes,” Dez said, “then he definitely doesn’t know where California is.”

  Spencer ran to Big Bertha and brought out the crinkly road map they’d used to get home. Bookworm tried to eat it, but Daisy asked him not to. Spencer spread the map on the grass.

  “We’re here,” he said, putting his finger down on Welcher. “Sacramento is here.” He touched the map again. “And you think you can get there in twenty minutes?”

  Bookworm nodded slowly, as though he were sick of everyone doubting him.

  Dez folded his arms. “How?”

  In response, Bookworm suddenly disintegrated, his body collapsing into a lifeless heap of garbage on the grass.

  Chapter 31

  “His head’s empty.”

  The kids looked around the yard, but the Thingamajunk was nowhere to be seen. A second later, he burst from the garbage pile in the shed, textbook mouth curved up in a smile as he ran toward them.

  Beside the map, the old, lifeless garbage still remained, but Bookworm had constructed a new body for himself. Spencer remembered how the Thingamajunks could travel at the landfill. They seemed to move fluidly through the garbage mounds.

  “So,” Spencer said, “you can hop from trash pile to trash pile and use the garbage to make a new body?”

  Bookworm nodded, seeming grateful that someone was finally understanding him.

  “How far can you go?” Spencer asked.

  Bookworm thought about it for a second, then belched out an old, plastic grocery bag. In his new body, his thumb was a glass bottle, which he used to point at a label on the bottom of the bag.

  WARNING: To avoid suffocation, keep bag away from babies and children.

  “You have children?” Daisy said. “I didn’t know you were a dad!”

  If Bookworm had had eyes, Spencer thought, he would have rolled them.

  “I don’t think that’s it, Daisy,” Spencer said.

  Bookworm pointed to the word suffocation.

  “I get it,” said Spencer. “If you go too far between piles of garbage, you’ll run out of air. You’ll suffocate.”

  Bookworm clapped his huge hands and
nodded.

  “Great,” Spencer said. “So you can trash-hop over to California in twenty minutes. But if your body has to change every time, how will you carry the book we need you to take?”

  Bookworm pointed at his head. Spencer noticed that, despite the body change, it was the same dented lunchbox atop that moldy, pencil-studded textbook.

  “Your head always stays the same?” Spencer said.

  Bookworm nodded.

  “I still don’t see how you can carry anything.”

  Bookworm reached up a hand and grabbed his lunchbox skull. Flipping aside the clasps, he opened the box, showing an open container that smelled faintly of tuna fish.

  “I can’t look!” Daisy said, shielding her eyes. “He’s showing us his brains!”

  “It’s okay, Daisy,” said Spencer. “His head’s empty.”

  “That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Daisy said.

  Spencer leaned over and looked into the open cavity. It would definitely be big enough to hold the Manualis. He returned once more to the garbage truck, this time to grab the old book. It would be safer to transport it sealed, but if something bad happened to the Rebels, Min would be stuck with a closed book. They needed to open it for transportation, no matter the risk.

  The Dark Aurans had said that any of the bronze nails would work as a key to open the latch around the old book. “Someone else will have to open it,” Spencer said. Touching the bronze would send him right into a vision.

  Daisy stepped up to the task, digging Holga’s nail out of the glove compartment. They knelt on the grass, the Manualis Custodem lying before them.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Daisy said. “What would Walter want us to do with the Manualis?”

  “He would want us to keep it safe,” Spencer said. “The BEM doesn’t know about Min, and if something bad happens to us, he’ll be able to translate the Manualis and finish the task. It’ll be okay. Bookworm’s the perfect messenger. He’s impossible to track when he hops from trash to trash.”

  She turned to Bookworm. “Do you feel okay about it?” He gave her a clear thumbs-up and a solid nod. “What are the chances of you getting caught?” she asked.