Pennybaker School Is Headed for Disaster

by Jennifer Brown

  “We can’t,” a kid on the other side of the room piped up. There were murmurs of agreement. Heads began nodding.

  “With all due respect, sir,” a very serious-looking eighth grader said, “we don’t think it’s right for us to just go on learning when Mrs. Heirmauser’s head is out there somewhere.”

  “With a stranger,” a girl with jagged bangs added.

  “Or lost,” a kindergartner chimed in. “All alone and lonely.”

  Now the crowd was getting restless.

  “How can we be expected to pay attention in class when Mrs. Heirmauser isn’t here?” Patrice Pillow asked through the curtain of jet black hair that fell over her entire face, only the bump of a nose sticking through. “What if it was a madman who took it, and he’s going to use it to dispatch his next victim?” She ground one fist violently into the palm of her other hand. “Or a ghost made off with it and is going to drop it on the head of an unsuspecting student. Right when they don’t suspect it. When they suspect nothing.” She whipped a notebook out of her back pocket and began writing. Patrice Pillow was in my Lexiconical Arts class. She had been writing a horror novel since she was three.

  I decided to have a go at it. I cleared my throat. “Oh, or what if it was beamed up into outer space by head-stealing aliens, and we’re all next? And then there’s a creepy voice that comes out of an old barn, because there are always old barns in these types of situations, right, and, wait—no, it’s a baby. A baby crying in an old barn, and maybe some, like, creepy whispering or something. No, no. Little kids laughing. Yeah, little kids laughing. And then when you go in and open the door—which is, of course, super creaky and, like, covered with spiders and some gross slime and stuff—you follow the noise to a back corner, dig under some old straw, and there it is. The Heirmauser Head of Horror.” I threw my head back and let out an evil laugh without thinking. Everyone stared. It got very quiet. I felt my face flood over with sweat. “I thought we were plotting her novel,” I said. “Never mind.”

  “This isn’t a joke, whoever you are,” a boy carrying a net over his shoulder said. He had a wedge of grease on his shirt in the exact shape of a slice of pizza. He must have been hit by one during the mayhem.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, ducking behind Wesley, who looked like he wanted to do anything other than protect me.

  “You pick now to become a thespian?” he whispered.

  “I got carried away,” I whispered back. “I’m sorry.”

  Miss Munch came back into the vestibule with two custodians—the ones I knew only as Mr. Crumbs and Zelda the Mop—trailing behind her. Mr. Crumbs took one look at the empty pedestal and let out a small screech. He swayed, and Zelda the Mop caught him. Principal Rooster seemed shaken. He cleared his throat, pulled his hands out of his pockets, and crossed his arms, rolling back on his heels again as he tried to recuperate.

  “Excellent. John, Rose, I’m sure you’ll be able to solve this whole mystery.”

  “Who are John and Rose?” Flea whispered.

  “Heck if I know,” Wesley whispered back. “I guess they must be Crumbs and Mop.”

  This seemed to unsettle Flea, as if he really thought that maybe Mr. Crumbs and Zelda the Mop were born with those names. Like Crumbs’s mom took one look at her little baby and said, “My, that looks like a Mr. Crumbs to me.” Although … if I squinted and turned my head just right, I could kind of see that happening.

  “I … I don’t know what you mean,” Mr. Crumbs said nervously. Behind him, Zelda the Mop shook her head.

  “You didn’t remove the bust?” Principal Rooster said, waving toward the pedestal impatiently. “You aren’t cleaning it?” Mr. Crumbs swooned again and sagged into Mop’s arms.

  “We’ve been in the second-grade hallway all morning,” she said. “Stomach bug,” she whispered, and everyone in the crowd grimaced and scooted away from the second graders.

  “So … so you don’t know where it is,” Principal Rooster said. He had stopped rocking back on his heels. A bead of sweat rolled over the top of his head and down into his ear. Seeing it made my ear tickle, but I was afraid to scratch it. The entire crowd seemed to be holding its breath, and even the smallest move might make the school pop like a balloon.

  “No, sir,” Mop said. Mr. Crumbs shook his head weakly as she said it.

  “Well, that confirms it,” Miss Munch declared, her eyes wide and roving. “Mrs. Heirmauser’s head has been stolen.”

  Mayhem took over again.

  There was yelling and raising of fists, and some third-grade girls were sobbing loudly. Everyone started milling about and bumping into each other. There were angry shouts of “Watch it!” and “Ouch, that was my foot!” and even one “Your pencil is in my ear!” Principal Rooster kept patting the air, his mouth held in shushing formation, the actual shushing unheard through the chaos. Finally, a boy I recognized from my Active Numbering class scrambled up the stairs and called down.

  “Oy!”

  Instant silence. We all looked up. He stood on the stair rail, balanced perfectly. I guessed his unique gift was something death-defying that Grandma Jo could really appreciate.

  “Let’s stop yelling,” he said, once he had everyone’s attention. “All of us need to calm down.”

  “Yes, yes, thank you, Stephen,” Principal Rooster said. “Now, if you will all go back to cl—”

  “We’ll never find the statue if we keep panicking!” Stephen hollered, and the crowd cheered.

  “No, no,” Principal Rooster said, patting the air again. “We need to get back to studyin—”

  “Leave no corner unexamined! No desk unturned! We. Will. Find. That. Head!” Stephen pumped his fist into the sky, and now the crowd had momentum. The random milling and bumping turned into frenzied milling and bumping with a purpose as kids went every which way, leaving a flustered Principal Rooster with puffed-out cheeks and Miss Munch next to the pedestal, fanning Crumbs’s face.

  I just stood there and watched. This was hands-down the craziest thing I’d ever seen, and I once saw Grandma Jo climb all the way to the top of the Boone County water tower in her Sunday dress.

  I was just about to go back into the cafeteria to see if any of my lunch could be salvaged when I noticed one kid moving differently from everyone else. It was a sixth grader. He was in my Claymaking class. I thought his name was Reap. Reap was pale, with messy brown hair and freckles you could see from across the room.

  He was coming out of the cafeteria, his eyes shifting this way and that, his body hunkered over and his shoulders stooped. His hands clutched the bottom of his vest, which was rounded by something big hidden underneath.

  Wesley wandered by, perfecting the pensive chin-scratch of an old-fashioned movie detective. I grabbed his sleeve. “Hey, you see that?” I pointed at Reap.

  Reap hurried across the foyer and out the front door. Wesley’s eyes narrowed, his lips pooched together. He rubbed his chin between his finger and thumb so hard I was pretty sure he was going to leave a red spot there.

  “He was totally hiding something under his vest,” I said. “Something big.”

  “Hmmm,” Wesley said. “Very curious.” I was pretty sure he was trying on a Sherlock Holmes voice.

  I grabbed his sleeve again. “Let’s follow him. I’ll bet he has the head on him right now and is getting ready to hide it.”

  “Yes, yes,” Wesley said.

  But we got only two steps toward the door before someone yelled, “To the garden!”

  “The garden!” the crowd cheered, and the entire school surged in the exact opposite direction of where we were trying to go.

  “Where’s the garden?” I asked Wesley, trying to stand my ground, which was hard to do with everyone in the school smashing into me.

  “Back door,” Wesley cried, moving along with the crowd.

  Before I could even fight it, I was swept away by the sea of kids, too. “To the garden,” I said weakly, casting one last glance toward the front door, where Reap had gotten
away.

  TRICK #8

  ABRACADABRA AND ENTEMWHATEVERGY

  Chip Mason was lying flat on his back in the middle of his front yard, counting loudly, when I got home.

  “I just can’t even imagine who would steal something like that,” Mom said, climbing out of the car. “And in the middle of the day, too. What is this world coming to that people just make off with other people’s heads in the middle of lunch and force the principal to send everyone home?”

  “Mm-hmm,” I said, because I really didn’t care who’d made off with Mrs. Heirmauser’s head. I was actually kind of glad about it, because I got half the day off. Not to mention, as long as it stayed missing, I wouldn’t have to stop to pay my respects every time I passed through the vestibule. My sore knees could use a rest.

  Plus, I had the team captain straw. Wesley was too distraught to care when I asked if I had the job. He just nodded and waved.

  “This is very disturbing. I don’t suppose you saw anything? Heard anything? Noticed someone different lurking around?”

  “Seven hundred forty-two,” Chip Mason intoned from his yard. Speaking of someone different.

  “Nope.”

  “Well,” Mom huffed, shouldering her purse. “I suppose heads are going to roll over this.” Then, realizing what she said, she blushed bright red and tightened her purse strap even higher. “I mean, someone’s in for a load of trouble. As they should be. From what I’ve heard, stealing Helen Heirmauser’s head is like stealing the … the … national anthem!”

  “How can you steal the national—?” I began, but was cut off when the garage door rumbled to life.

  “Did someone say trouble?” Grandma Jo asked. She was wearing a glittery hot-pink helmet and knee pads with stars and rainbows on them, and had a skateboard tucked under her arm. Mom gasped.

  “Look at it this way, Mom,” I said, trying to take her attention away from Grandma Jo. “At least I’m not the one in trouble this time. I had nothing to do with that thing. The less I have to do with it, the better, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Seven hundred forty-three!”

  “No, but your Grandma Jo is looking for trouble, I can see,” Mom said, yanking her purse strap up over her shoulder so tightly that her purse was basically buried in her armpit. I reminded myself not to ask Mom for gum for a while, or at least until Erma had chewed all the armpit gum. “And just where do you think you’re going, Mother?” she called, stomping toward the garage.

  “Those fellas at the skate park invited me to join them,” Grandma Jo said. “They’re gonna teach me how to Gingersnap.”

  I didn’t know what a Gingersnap was, but I was pretty sure that no matter what it was, there was no way in the world Mom was going to let Grandma Jo have a Gingersnap Adventure with the fellas at the skate park.

  “You’re going nowhere,” Mom said, hands on her hips. Even for all that cinching up, her purse still slid down her arm and thunked at her wrist.

  “Says you,” Grandma Jo said, placing her hands on her hips, too, the skateboard staying snug against her side. “Barf is expecting me, and I don’t want to let him down.”

  Mom’s eyes bugged out of her head. “You’re going to skateboard with someone named Barf? Are you even hearing yourself right now?”

  “Seven hundred forty-four!”

  “Oh, now, Barf is a perfectly nice boy. It’s Sludge you have to worry about. But I’m pretty sure Sludge has a broken leg right now, so she shouldn’t be too hard to handle today.”

  “Sludge …? She …? Broken …?”

  As much as I liked to avoid Chip Mason whenever I possibly could, and as much as I was interested in hearing about the Saga of Barf and Sludge and whoever else would be at the skate park with Grandma Jo, I knew that when Mom got to the one-word-sentence portion of an argument, things were about to get really scary really fast. Scarier than screaming-haunted-head scary.

  Plus, I was a little curious about what he was counting.

  I walked across the street.

  “Seven hundred forty-five!” Chip sat up, high-fived himself, and flopped back down. “Hey, Thomas,” he said, though his eyes never shifted to look at me at all.

  I glanced upward, trying to figure out what he was looking at. I saw nothing but sky. “What are you doing?”

  “Counting.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know that. What are you counting?”

  He patted the ground next to him very subtly. “Shhh. Lie flat and pretend you don’t exist. They can sense awareness. It’s a survival thing.”

  This was not the weirdest thing Chip Mason had ever said to me, but it came pretty close to ranking in the top five.

  Current Top Five Weirdest Things Chip Mason Has Said to Me with No Explanation, Ranked in Order from Off-Putting to Outright Disturbing

  5) “If a leopard frog is ever staring at you really hard and his eyes start to swallow, you should run.”

  4) “It would be impossible for you to be the first person to pee on the moon.”

  3) “My tongue print looks like the Portrait of Eugène Boch. See?”

  2) “Did you know you could make a piano out of live cats?”

  1) “When eating casu marzu, you should always make sure to shield your eyes so the maggots don’t jump into them.”

  Still, I lowered myself to the ground and lay flat on my back, just like he said to do. Which probably says more about me than it does about Chip Mason.

  “Seven hundred forty-six,” he said. “But it’ll probably be a few minutes before I get to seven hundred forty-seven. Since you disturbed the atmosphere and all.”

  “Seven hundred forty-seven what?” I asked, searching the sky, thinking maybe he was counting clouds or birds or leaves on a tree or something.

  “Bugs,” he said simply. “I’m taking a science enrichment day off from school today. Seven hundred forty-six bugs have landed on me. Every nerve in my body is in tune with the atmosphere. I feel every tiny insect foot that traverses my epidermis. I don’t even have to look to know that there’s a ladybug—that’s Coccinellidae—on my ankle, and a fly—Diptera, of course—on my forehead. Seven hundred forty-seven and seven hundred forty-eight, by the way.” He scratched his forehead, and sure enough a fly took to the air. “It was really hopping out here right around dawn, but I seem to have gotten another good run just over the past forty-five minutes or so. Maybe a bug convention let out nearby.” He giggled. “I’m being ridiculous, of course. Bugs tend to hold their conventions during the winter.”

  “You got a day off from school and you were out here counting bugs at dawn?”

  “Can you think of a better time?”

  Yes. How about never? I wanted to say, but I didn’t really have the energy to bust Chip Mason’s chops right now, especially given that I was lying in the yard with him, and, yes, I had started to mentally keep tally of the five—wait, six—flies that had briefly landed on me since I’d gotten down here. Why were there so many flies?

  I sniffed the air and wrinkled my nose. “Do you smell something?”

  “Oh, it’s probably my entomology socks,” he said, reaching down and pulling off a brown sock.

  “Entomology socks?”

  “The study of insects,” he said. He dangled the sock over my face, and the stench intensified by nine thousand. “I soaked them in rotting fruit and old hamburger for thirteen days,” he said proudly. “I could attract some really exciting Insecta with these. If I stayed out here long enough, I would become a ripe breeding ground for maggots. Pretty amazing, when you think about it, that maggots could writhe around inside my socks, feeding off the garbage enzymes, until they molted into pupae.”

  I batted the putrid sock away, gagging. “Are you crazy? That thing reeks. How could you put that on your body? It could kill a horse.”

  Louis XIV: Devoured from the feet up by rancid entemwhatevergy socks. Tongue permanently tied from saying entemwhatevergy.

  “I doubt it could actually kill a horse, but it could
definitely feed an infantile horsefly,” Chip said, grinning, taking the sock back and draping it over one knee. Instantly, three flies gathered on it. “Seven hundred fifty-one, by the way.”

  Across the street, Mom’s argument with Grandma Jo escalated.

  “So your grandma is a skateboarder, huh?” Chip asked. “I wish Grandpa Huck could still do stuff like that.”

  “Your grandpa would have skateboarded?” Translation: The man who invented mean did things that made people smile?

  “Never,” Chip said. “At least I don’t think so. I didn’t really spend a whole lot of time with him before he got sick. In a way, his getting sick has been a good thing for our family. Which sounds like a terrible thing to say. But I’m learning a lot about him. Did you know he went to the school you’re going to?”

  “Ugh, don’t remind me that I go there.”

  Chip Mason shrugged. “Can’t be worse than Boone Public. This might surprise you, but I’m not very popular there. I’m having trouble securing friendships, even though I wore my sociology socks for an entire month straight.”

  “From the smell of things, that might be why you can’t make any friends.”

  He sat up, his entomology sock sliding off his knee and tumbling into the grass, taking a bevy of flies with it. He pulled off the other sock and wiggled his bare toes, which were somehow grosser than his socked toes were. I could imagine some of the popular guys at Boone Public—Brandon, Gavin, and Paris—making puke noises while listening to Chip talk about bugs and rotted stuff. I could imagine them laughing at him when he said words like “entomology” or talked about his astrophysics socks. I could totally hear them telling Chip to take a hike and see them making him sit at the Unfortunate Bologna Incident lunch table. A part of me hoped this was all in my imagination, because even though I avoided Chip whenever possible and thought he was pretty much the weirdest person in the world, it still made me sad to think about people treating him that way.

  “Give it time. You’ll make friends.”

  “Nah, I don’t think so. But that’s okay. I have other friends. I have Mom and Grandpa Huck. And you. Hey, come to think of it, Thomas,” he said, “you’re the best friend I ever had.”