by Brian Lies
“It was right about here,” Malcolm said, climbing up the stage curtain above the far corner. Jesse plunked himself on the stage floor, claiming he was too full to climb. Billy crouched on a beam parallel to Malcolm, sniffing away.
A little moonlight shone in through the huge windows along the sides of the auditorium, but mostly Malcolm needed his nose and whiskers now, not his eyes.
“It was probably just dust falling down.” Billy sneezed. “It’s deep over here. I think this layer has been here since the school was built.”
“Dusty and unused” was Malcolm’s first analysis too. No critters had been up here in years. Could it have been simply dust knocked loose by the fifth-graders’ activity? Maybe. But what was that thunk? Malcolm jumped over a coil of rope and followed a rafter to the wall, his paws padding softly. As he approached the outside wall, his nose twitched with a new scent. Wet wood.
He sniffed. There was a space here—a crack, really—just enough room in the crumbling plaster and worn wood for a small rat to squeeze into the side wall of the auditorium. Could another critter have done the same? A draft laced with cold and the definite scent of playground ruffled his whiskers slightly. Outside air? Crumb, that didn’t seem right. “Hey,” he called out to Billy. “I’m going to check something.” He sucked in his stomach and squirmed in through the hole.
The stale air was thick inside the wall. Malcolm felt stringy lumps under his paws that must be wires. Gristle, Ms. Brumble should see these wires. They reminded him of untied shoelaces—limp and frayed. He followed them, the air getting colder and damper as he moved farther down the wall.
He reached a frame—a window or door of some sort—that butted against the bricks. His little rat map of the school in his brain clicked in, and he realized he was probably above the side entrance steps—the ones between the auditorium and the rest of the school. Malcolm pointed his nose straight up here, still following the scent of the outside. Near the top, the space widened, and Malcolm waded through piles of leaves, sticks, and fuzz.
Malcolm could make out the gray edges of the wall’s supports now. As his eyes adjusted, he realized why: two of the outside bricks were askew on the outside wall. So crooked that the parking lot lights shone through the crack. Malcolm peered through the space between them. Just as he predicted, he was at the top of the wall, right under the eaves, where the auditorium addition joined the rest of the school building. From here, he could see all the way across the parking lot to the oak trees, their trunks dark lines against the white of the snow.
A damp breeze rippled through his fur, his eyes watering from the cold. He pushed the leaves aside to get a better view through the cracks in the bricks.
And that’s when something large (larger than Malcolm, anyway) and furry fell on Malcolm’s head.
Chapter 3
Sylvia
With a face full of fur (not his own), Malcolm plummeted down through the space between the inside and outside wall.
The two critters landed with a bump on the ground floor. Malcolm gasped for air as a bushy tail and the bottom attached to it landed on him.
He did the only thing he could think of to get a breath of air.
He nipped.
The furry bottom shot up, and Malcolm caught a foot in the eye.
“Ow!” Malcolm quickly backed away from the critter’s sharp claws. He scrambled wildly through the loose leaves in the bottom of the wall.
“Look what you’ve done!” There was a little light here from the vent next to them in the wall. Malcolm saw that it was a gray squirrel chittering at him. (Malcolm did know what a squirrel was—he often watched them playing in the oak trees outside Room 11’s windows.)
But before he could answer, Malcolm was pelted with three more critters.
“Whee!”
“Mama!”
“Mama!”
“My squirrelings!” The mother squirrel gathered her babies and curled her tail around them. They peered over it at Malcolm.
“What’s that?” one asked, pointing his stubby tail.
“Can we do it again?” another asked. All three looked up at their mother.
“Certainly not.” The squirrel drew herself up and stepped in front of the squirrelings to address Malcolm. “How dare you pull down our nest?” she scolded. “Where will we stay? It’s not spring yet. Do you know nothing of the rodent rules?”
“I—” Malcolm started to say, then realized he really didn’t know how to answer. Rodent rules? “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pull down your nest. I was checking—”
She tapped her hind foot. “That’s seven generations of nest you’ve managed to destroy in one minute.”
“I didn’t know . . . I . . .” Malcolm wondered whether Billy and Jesse could hear this conversation and if they’d come help him out. Maybe they knew the rodent rules? On second thought, they probably could hear and were laughing their whiskers off.
Malcolm straightened. Well, there was one thing he did know: his Midnight Academy training. Page seventeen of the handbook: “Always represent the Midnight Academy with dignity4 and decorum.”5 Malcolm wasn’t exactly sure what “decorum” meant, but he guessed it wasn’t slinking away. And while this technically wasn’t a Midnight Academy outing, the squirrel didn’t know that.
“Ms. . . . Squirrel—” he started.
“It’s Sylvia.”
“Well, Sylvia—”
“And who are you? I didn’t know there were rats in the neighborhood anymore.”
“Yes, well, I’m Malcolm.” Hold on. “You know I’m a rat?” Malcolm instinctively stood taller. He had grown a little in the last few months, but this was one of the very few times a species other than his own had recognized him.
“Are you mocking me?” Sylvia narrowed her eyes and tapped her hind leg again.
One of her squirrelings copied her. The other two stared. “Did he say he was a bat, Mama?”
Malcolm drew back. “What? A bat? No!” That was worse than being mistaken for a mouse!
He took a deep breath and began again. This time with dignity. “Sylvia, I apologize about your nest. I was conducting official Midnight Academy business and did not know that it was there. May I offer to . . . make amends?”6 This was the first time Malcolm had used one of Amelia’s vocabulary words on his own out loud.
Sylvia’s foot tapped faster. “Who?” she said. “What? I don’t care. And I don’t know about ‘amends,’ either, but if it means doing something about my nest, then fine. It may seem like spring’s here, but there are a few cold snaps coming yet, and I don’t want to be caught without a nest. I’ve got my squirrelings to think of, you know.”
Malcolm’s decorum wilted a little. “Of course,” he said, lifting his right paw as one of the baby squirrels tried gnawing on it. He looked up at the dark expanse above them. “We could, well, maybe . . .” He gathered some of the fallen leaves and tried to climb back up.
The squirrelings giggled as Malcolm slid down in slow motion. “Going up with leaves never works,” the smallest squirreling informed him. “You have to bring them down.”
Sylvia leaned in to study Malcolm’s face. “You’re an Inside rat, aren’t you?”
Malcolm wasn’t sure what that meant. “Well, I live inside the building, yes. I’m a pet—”
“That explains it!” she said. “Inside critters don’t know the first thing about survival.” She poked Malcolm in the chest with a claw. “Listen. It’s not only the cold. I need a safe place for my squirrelings. They’re not ready for the Outside yet. We don’t have a cushy cage to protect us. There are Dangers in those trees: I can hear them, digging, moving around at night. It’s why the Striped Shadow put us in this old nest when I asked him. And it’s been perfect—until you stuck your nose in.” She jabbed him again with a claw.
Cushy cage? “Look, I didn’t even know you were in there—” Malcolm protested.
But Sylvia was already directing her squirrelings back up the wall. “The Inside rat
is useless,” she announced. “My darlings, we’ll huddle until daybreak. Then I’ll teach you how to rebuild.”
Useless! Wait a minute. Malcolm raced after her. “I can help you. Just—”
She turned, tapping that foot again. Was that a small smile twitching her cheeks? “Well, I suppose I could teach you, too,” she said slowly.
“Well, of course you can! I . . .” Malcolm paused. Aw, gristle. Had he been tricked? Sylvia was definitely grinning now. He sighed and held up a paw. “Wait here. I need to tell my friends I’m going to be a while. I’ll be right back.” He turned. Crumb, Jesse was never going to let him hear the end of this.
But before Malcolm could figure out how to explain what had happened, a bell rang out through the building. It went on and on, rattling Malcolm’s teeth in his head.
Brrrriiiinnnnggg!
What the crumb? There was no Midnight Academy meeting tonight.
Malcolm hurried to the wall’s opening. On the stage, Jesse flailed about, wild-eyed. The bell must have caught him in the midst of a post–Nosh and Fodder nap. “What’s going on? Is it a fire alarm? Tornado drill?”
“No, cheddar brain. Wake up. It’s a Tangerine Alert,” said Billy, climbing down from the rafters. “Something’s going on that can’t wait until Thursday. We’re supposed to report to the library within thirty minutes. I wonder what it is?” She bounced on her paws a little. “Let’s go find out!”
“Yeah . . .” Malcolm looked over his shoulder toward Sylvia and the wall. Maybe if he worked fast he could still help rebuild and make the meeting. “Listen . . .”
“Did you find something?” Jesse asked in the middle of an enormous yawn.
“Not exactly,” he started slowly. “But . . . I met someone. A family, really. Of squirrels. And the thing is . . . I kind of knocked down their nest. I think—” He looked back over his shoulder again. “I think they need my help rebuilding.”
Jesse began to laugh. But Billy frowned. “There’s a squirrel inside? That’s not right.”
Jesse poked her with a claw. “Now, now, haven’t we learned that lesson already about who belongs and who doesn’t?”
“I’m just saying, Outside and Inside critters don’t mix. It’s a matter of survival. Outside critters don’t understand our rules, and we don’t know theirs. Critters don’t last long on the wrong side.”
This made Malcolm laugh. Was she kidding? “What? Rules? You’ve never followed a rule in your life, Billy! I’m pretty sure your whole Nosh and Fodder tours are not in that Academy handbook. And, besides, we’re the Midnight Academy. Helping is what we do.”
“We help the lankies and the nutters—Inside,” she pointed out.
“But how do you decide who to help? And why?” This conversation made no sense to Malcolm.
Jesse finally stepped in. “What Billy’s trying to say is that there are deeper rules—ways of life—than what’s in the handbook. But it’s fine.” He held up a paw, and his sister stayed quiet. “You go ahead and fix their nest, hero brain. We’ll let Aggy know you’re on your way.”
It took more than a few minutes, but in the end, Malcolm was able to help Sylvia rebuild her nest, despite being an Inside rat. He even impressed the squirrelings by successfully bringing up a few mouthfuls of leaves that were scattered all over the bottom of the wall. It seemed such a shame to waste them—they were already warm and dry. He tucked them around the squirrelings.
“Thank you, Malcolm,” Sylvia said. “For an Inside rat, you make a pretty good nest.”
“Thanks,” Malcolm said. He had noticed that she had calmed down a little now that she knew her squirrelings were safe. He hesitated. He was still thinking of the shadow earlier in the day. “You know, sometimes there are Dangers Inside, too.”
She nodded. “I suppose. But you have the choice about exposing yourself to them. We don’t.”
Malcolm thought about it. “Maybe. I guess.” It sure didn’t feel like it. Then he nodded toward the outside wall. “So . . . what kinds of Dangers are out there?”
She made a small whirring noise deep in her throat. “You have no idea.” Then she laughed a little. “Actually, I don’t either, really. I only know, as a rodent, I don’t want to find out. It only takes one encounter with a Danger.”
Malcolm nodded. That was the same instinct that made him stick to the shadowy edges of the hallways at night. “Well, if you ever hear of any, let me know. I thought I saw something earlier. It’s why I was in the wall in the first place.”
Sylvia smiled. “Will do, Malcolm. You can find us here until the snow melts.”
“Thanks,” Malcolm said again. And with that, he slipped down the wall and back out to the stage. He probably didn’t have time to skirt the edges of the hall now, though. He was late for the Tangerine Alert.
Chapter 4
Tangerine Alert
Malcolm raced down the dark hallways to the library. How much time had passed? How late was he? As he approached the library, he heard other critters making their way to the meeting. Good—he wasn’t the last one.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Pitter-pat. Pitter-pat.
Scritch . . . scritch . . . scritch.
Malcolm followed, ducking under the door. A blue glow from a single computer on the front counter lit the room; Octavius the tarantula was already poised on its keyboard.
Malcolm raced up to the countertop and looked around, gasping for breath. “Aggy’s not here yet?”
Pete the hermit crab shook his head.
“Neither is Polly or Tank,” Billy pointed out.
“I’m telling you, there’s going to be trouble,” said Harriet, a hedgehog with more gray than brown in her whiskers. She stepped forward and sniffed. “That new initiative—allergy-free in the classrooms?—they’re going to be going after us at McKenna next.”
A huge white lop-eared rabbit hopped up. “Harriet, would you let it go?” Honey Bunny (or HB, as he strongly preferred to be called7) growled. He tossed his silky long rabbit ears. “We have enough in our food dish already. It’s not that.”
She coughed. “If you had to suffer allergies like I do, you wouldn’t take this so lightly—”
Just then, Aggy Pop stormed into the library, her long green iguana tail swinging and her claws scritching on the floor. She held a rope clamped in her mouth, pulling a square scooter from the gym with Tank the turtle riding on it. She strode so fast, Tank swung wide and slammed into the doorjamb. Polly, a blue parakeet, followed, flapping hard to keep up with her.
Aggy didn’t stop upon reaching the counter. In one fluid motion, she let go of the rope and climbed from the step stool to the chair onto the countertop. (Tank had it a little harder. Malcolm, Billy, and Jesse rushed down to push him up the two-by-four plank the Academy used for this purpose.) Polly came to rest on the computer monitor, almost as out of breath as Malcolm was.
“Thank you all for coming,” Aggy said, nudging her head along the countertop, pushing a pair of red reading glasses8 onto her nose. Her orange eyes loomed huge behind the lenses as she turned to the rest of the group. “I hope I wasn’t interrupting your evening, but something has occurred that demands our immediate attention.” She peered over her glasses at each critter in turn. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but we are in the gravest of situations.” She nodded up at the parakeet. “Polly?”
Polly let out a chirp, and her black and white wings fluttered. “Well, as you know, Tank and I video-conferenced with Van at the district Midnight Academy tonight.”
Tank pushed his head out of his turtle shell. “There was a school board meeting. It got over a couple of hours ago. Well, when we heard, we told Aggy right away.”
Pete scuttled forward, snapping his claw (the large one). “What happened?”
“I’m trying to tell you,” Polly said. “If you’d quit interrupting me—”
But it wasn’t Pete who interrupted next. It was a splash of water from the aquarium. “Oscar!” Billy said, and raced to the top of t
he tank behind Malcolm. “We always forget your light.”
A giant orange and black fish swished by. He shoved his mouth into the gravel and spit out colored beads. When he backed away, the gravel spelled out “I KNOW.”
“Sorry,” Malcolm said, and moved to the side so Oscar could see Polly.
“Honestly,” Harriet scolded. “You think you two would remember. It’s your one job—”
Aggy rapped her claws on the counter. Then she pulled them back. Scriiiiitch. “Really. We don’t have time to squabble. This may be the most insurmountable problem McKenna has ever faced.” She turned to Oscar. “I’m sorry, old friend. I should have thought of you.”
The spines on Harriet’s hedgehog forehead pricked up. She glanced between them. “What’s going on? This isn’t the allergy-free classroom initiative, is it?”
But the iguana simply nodded at Polly. “Please. Proceed.”
“Okay. Um, so there was a school board meeting. And McKenna came up.” She clacked her beak for a moment. “Tank, you’re better at numbers.”
“Somebody had better get telling,” growled Honey Bunny under his breath.
Tank pushed himself to the center of the group. “The school board heard a report from the Building and Grounds department. About McKenna. It was twenty thousand dollars to replace the damaged windows in the upper floors this winter—the school board insisted on energy-efficient panes. And two hundred thousand dollars to fix the boiler room mishap last fall. The, uh, ‘broken pipes’ uncovered a host of other problems with the plumbing.” Malcolm winced as the Midnight Academy all looked his way. The pipes hadn’t exactly been broken. He had gnawed through them. Granted, it was to stop Snip from putting her brew in the school’s water, but, nevertheless, he had kind of . . . flooded the lower level of the school.9
