Malcolm Under the Stars

by Brian Lies

  Honey Bunny’s whiskers twitched at Malcolm. “Hey, rat, it happens. The lankies don’t always know how we help.”

  Malcolm ducked his head, and Tank continued: “And now this electrical issue. They’re still trying to figure out what’s going on. We’ve seen the wiring. We know that’s not going to be good news.”

  “Well, it’s a ninety-year-old school,” Pete interjected. “What do they expect? Things get old, get worn out, maybe too small or outdated. You have to replace them. Upgrade.” He tapped his claw on his shell. “I do it all the time.”

  Polly let out that funny little chirp again. “That’s just it, Pete.”

  He raised his eye stalks to her. “What do you mean?”

  Tank finished in a rush. “They’re saying that the electrical system might not be up to code. If it isn’t, they’ll have to rewire the whole school, which will make the boiler room incident seem like loose change in the bottom of a backpack. The whole thing—well, it was proposed tonight that maybe McKenna’s time has come.”

  For a moment, all anyone could hear was Harriet’s allergic wheezing.

  It was Malcolm who stepped forward. “What do you mean? ‘McKenna’s time has come’? Time for what? Repairs?”

  Polly and Tank exchanged looks. “No, ‘time’ as in ‘time’s up.’ They’re talking about closing the school.”

  “What?” Jesse finally sat up.

  “They can’t do that!” Billy said. She looked ready to punch someone.

  “Oh, but they’ve threatened that for y-years,” Harriet sputtered. “They don’t mean it.”

  Tank pulled his head into his shell. His voice was muffled from inside. “It’s official now, though. The school board has scheduled two community ‘listening sessions,’ where lankies can say what they think of the idea. And then they’ll vote.”

  A hush fell over the group.

  Malcolm shook his head. He must have misunderstood this whole thing. Close the school? Was that even allowed? He walked around to look Aggy in the face. “Did they really say McKenna was going to close?”

  Aggy slowly nodded.

  Malcolm glanced around, a little wild-eyed. “But what will happen to the nutters if it closes? And the lankies? And what about us?”

  Aggy said, “Well, if it comes to it, Malcolm, I imagine the nutters and lankies would go to a different school. And we’d stick with our lanky, most likely, and go to his or her new classroom.”

  Harriet tutted. “No, no, you’re forgetting, Aggy. All the newer schools are pet-free. I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Oh, yes—how could we forget that?” Honey Bunny muttered.

  “Gristle,” Malcolm breathed. “So where would we go?” Malcolm literally couldn’t picture it in his head. The only place he’d ever known was McKenna. McKenna and the Pet Emporium. And he couldn’t go back there.

  It was quiet for a moment. “We’d find homes, Malcolm,” Aggy said. “A nutter family or your Mr. Binney would take you to live with them.”

  Harriet sighed. “I have a nutter—Tayler—who promises to take me home for the summer. He’d keep me, I know. Just think—one family. Quiet days. Sleeping in the sun instead of getting woken up by recorder practice.” She looked around. “There are worse things than being sent to a nutter’s home.”

  “Harriet!” Billy sounded appalled.

  Malcolm didn’t even know where to begin. What was “summer,” for one thing? “How can you say that?! If we all get separated, there’s no more Midnight Academy. And what would happen to the nutters and lankies without our help?”

  Honey Bunny puffed out his chest. “But wait a minute. It’s not closing for sure. They haven’t decided anything. How much time do we have?”

  “The first listening session is in three weeks in McKenna’s auditorium,” Polly answered.

  “So . . . we figure out something! Come on—this is what the Academy is here for! What’s our plan?” Honey Bunny hopped into the center of the group, his pink eyes darting from critter to critter.

  There was a pause in the conversation then. Malcolm could hear Oscar’s aquarium gurgling. But one by one, the critters blinked or looked away. Surely, there was something that could be done? Malcolm racked his ratty brain, but he didn’t have any experience in anything like this. He was still a little unclear on who and what exactly a school board was.

  “I don’t suppose we critters can get up and speak at the listening session?” offered Billy.

  “That would get them to close the school faster,” muttered her brother. “I can see the headline: ‘McKenna Overrun by Talking Vermin.’”

  “Well, what’s your idea?” Billy said, head-butting him.

  Another pause. It was Harriet who spoke up. “I propose . . . we wait to see what the lankies’ and nutters’ action is first.”

  “What? You want to do nothing? You want to wait?” While Malcolm couldn’t think of anything to suggest, this was, by far, worse than anything he was imagining.

  Honey Bunny didn’t seem to like it either. “Harriet, come on!”

  The hedgehog’s spines bristled. “I didn’t say we weren’t going to do anything. But we don’t want to run around like critters outside their cages for the first time. We need a plan. The lankies and nutters probably don’t want the school to close either. Let’s listen to their ideas tomorrow in our classrooms. Then we can know how to support them.”

  Harriet made sense. She did. But it didn’t stop Malcolm from wanting to run around the library like a critter outside of his cage for the first time.

  And that’s when the group was interrupted by another splash from Oscar. They turned. Aggy was standing in front of the aquarium, blocking his message from view. “There is one idea,” she said. “Oscar and I think it might be the only way to go. Or at least, it’s worth thinking about.” And she stepped aside.

  Malcolm peered into the water at the new words in the gravel.

  “THE LEGEND OF ERNIE BOWMAN.”

  Chapter 5

  The Legend of Ernie Bowman

  “Ernie Bowman?” Malcolm said. “What’s that?”

  “Bowman? Like we should hire someone to tie the school board up in a bow?” Billy asked.

  “No, no!” Jesse piped in. “It’s a bowman. Like a bow and arrow. Zing!” He drew back and shot an imaginary arrow.

  “Maybe it’s the name of a good electrician?” his sister countered.

  “This is no time for jokes!” Honey Bunny burst out.

  Pete clicked his claws. “Do you two have oatmeal for brains?”

  “It’s just nervous energy,” Billy explained. But she sat down.

  “Well, what does Oscar mean, then?” asked Tank.

  Harriet had been frowning this whole time. She cleared her throat. “It’s a story. A . . . legend, as Oscar put it. But that’s all it is.” She turned to Aggy. “How can that possibly help with this?”

  Aggy smiled slightly. (This did not make her look less scary, by the way. Have you ever seen an iguana smile?) “All legends are based on facts.”

  “Well, that’s true.” Polly tilted her head and considered. “We did just learn that John Henry might have been real.”

  “And Johnny Appleseed,” mused Tank. “He was actually a man named John Chapman.”

  Malcolm didn’t know any of these other people. And frankly, he didn’t care. Not now, not with this news. “What is Ernie Bowman?” he nearly shouted.

  Honey Bunny had been staring at Oscar’s message, his pink nose twitching and his foot thumping. The sharp claws hidden in his silky fur made little tapping noises. He spoke slowly. “It’s ridiculous, is what it is—” Honey Bunny started. Oscar aimed a wave of water at him. Honey Bunny ducked. “Watch the fur, fish!” He turned to Aggy. “You can’t be thinking . . . This is what you’ve got? We’re going to chase a fairy story to save the school? To save the Midnight Academy?”

  Harriet turned to Malcolm. “It has to do with the beginning of the Midnight Academy. Didn’t you learn t
his in your pledge training?”

  “I, uh, didn’t exactly have the regular pledge time,” Malcolm reminded her, glancing at Honey Bunny, who shifted uncomfortably. The two critters had had a . . . misunderstanding when Malcolm had first come to McKenna. Malcolm had lied about who he was, and Honey Bunny had suspected that Malcolm was a skuzzy rat. But that’s a different story. And discarded greens now, as Aggy liked to say.

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, this goes way, way back—before even the time of Thomas Jefferson, our founding guinea pig. Before McKenna was called ‘McKenna.’ It was Clearwater Central High School then, and it was beautiful. I’ve seen pictures.” Harriet paused dreamily.

  Honey Bunny sidled away from the aquarium and picked up the story. “Somewhere, or should I say somewhen, back then, there was a man. We think. A teacher, maybe. Someone called Ernie Bowman. He always wore red suspenders.”

  “Suspenders?” Polly flapped her wings.

  “Yeah, you know, those stretchy straps that lankies wear over their shoulders to hold up their pants? They’re like a belt, but in the other direction.”

  Polly blinked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know! It’s just how the story goes!” Honey Bunny grumbled.

  “Stories always have weird details like that,” Billy offered.

  “Anyway, the story also goes that he could . . . do stuff.”

  “He held the original Knacks,” clarified Aggy.

  Malcolm realized he was holding his breath. He let it out. “Wait—lankies can have Knacks?” He thought only critters had special skills and talents that the Academy called Knacks. Malcolm’s was learning to read without actually learning to read. Octavius could type almost two hundred words per minute. Jesse and Billy prided themselves on being able to sneak into any room10 undetected.

  Aggy nodded. “Of course. Everyone—critter, lanky, nutter—has a Knack. The trick is recognizing and honoring them.”

  “Well, what were Ernie Bowman’s?” Pete asked.

  “It’s said . . .” Honey Bunny shook his head. “This is crazy.”

  “Most stories are,” urged Aggy. “The good ones, anyway.”

  Honey Bunny took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said. “It’s said that Ernie Bowman had powerful Knacks. He could grant wishes to nutters. He could turn dogs into silver.”

  “Why would you want to turn dogs into silver?” Pete asked.

  “How should I know?” Honey Bunny glanced at Aggy, and only the force of her look kept him going.

  Polly had been bobbing her head from her perch. “Wait . . . wait . . . I think I know this story.” She jabbed her wing out. “Could he bring a bird back to life with the touch of his finger?”

  Honey Bunny nodded. “That’s another one.”

  “Fried niblets, now that’s a good Knack,” Billy said.

  “There’s more,” Honey Bunny pressed on, like a nutter trudging through an extra-long reading assignment. “The part that’s got Aggy’s tail in a knot and Oscar swimming in circles. The last part of the story is that Ernie Bowman so loved Clearwater that he hid treasure in the school, in a ‘Loaded Stash’ for times of trouble.”

  “Whoa!” Malcolm raised up on his hind legs. “Times of trouble?! Like now?” He should have known that Aggy would have this all figured out.

  Tank had slowly been extending his neck out of his shell. “Yes, I know this part! I remember hearing about the Loaded Stash from Gertrude—she was the old turtle who used to be in my room,” he explained to Malcolm, Jesse, and Billy. “You never got to meet her, but she was the one who perfected the scooter slingshot. Good greens, we used to rocket down that hall . . .” His voice grew soft. He ducked into his shell. “She was legendary in her own way.” From deep within, he cleared his throat. “But Gertrude always said that no one knew where the Loaded Stash was anymore. Or even what it was.”

  “Well, yes,” Aggy said. “That’s kind of where we’re at. The details have been . . . lost to time.”

  Tank edged his head back out. “Zapped by Skylar, is how Gertrude put it.”

  Malcolm’s attention had been zinging about the circle of critters almost as fast as a scooter slingshot. Knacks! Silver dogs! Loaded Stashes! But . . . “Skylar? From my Room 11?”

  Aggy nodded. “Yes. When Skylar was in kindergarten, there was a little accident with Oscar’s aquarium.”

  Oscar nudged around in his gravel. “ALMOST DIED.”

  “Anyway, we lost a great deal. The lankies threw out most of our historical records, and the sole computer that we had been keeping files on was . . . drowned.”

  “Then Octavius came,” Harriet said. “He brought us up to speed, and we went to computer files in the cloud.” The spider saluted.

  “But even before that,” Aggy continued, “our records were a little . . . whimsical.11 You see, before computers, everything was told critter to critter. You know our Marks?” Malcolm pictured the symbols the Academy scratched throughout the building to communicate safe places or danger. “That’s how Marks came to be,” she explained. “They were like signposts, really. Markers to remind critters of a bigger story. And the problem with oral records is that—”

  “It depends on who’s telling them,” Honey Bunny finished. “Even that Ernie Bowman story. If Harriet had shared it, likely she would have told it differently.”

  “That’s for sure,” Harriet said under her breath.

  Honey Bunny’s hind foot started tapping again. “So, I still don’t see what you think we’re going to do with this, Aggy. Save the school with this Loaded Stash? Even if this story was true—which I can’t say I agree with—we don’t have enough information. We don’t know where or what to look for!” He lowered his voice. “Aggy, you know I respect your ideas. But I think this is so serious, we need to focus on something practical.”

  She whirled about then, and Malcolm had to leap out of the way of her flying tail. The folds of scales beneath her chin flared. Malcolm had never seen her so . . . What was it? Angry? Desperate? Frustrated? Or maybe a combination of all of them. “Practical?” She snorted. “Honey Bunny, have you heard anything that’s been reported back in the last year from the district? What’s practical is closing the building. It’s too old, outdated, worn-out, and expensive!”

  Honey Bunny closed his mouth, his ears drooping. Harriet sucked in her breath and groomed her spines. Even Pete’s eye stalks turned away.

  But not Malcolm. He twisted his tail, thinking hard. Yes, the story was skimpy and difficult to believe, but the truth was that Aggy was the one critter who had always stood by him, even when everyone had thought he was a skuzzy rat. And if Aggy believed this was all they had to save the school, then Malcolm was in. Maybe Jesse would say that was his hero brain talking, but he owed Aggy this, no matter how crazy it sounded.

  He cleared his throat. He very rarely addressed the whole Academy, but now he was about to. “I think we should look into it.” He scuffed his rear claws, then looked up. “After all, what do we have to lose?”

  Chapter 6

  The Dictionary Niche

  ”Thank you, Malcolm. Now follow me.” Without waiting to hear the Academy’s response, Aggy lumbered to the edge of the counter and slipped of into the darkness. Honey Bunny watched her go and blew out a long breath. He glared at Oscar. “Did you put her up to this? What’s this all about?”

  Oscar swished his fins. The gravel in the bottom of his aquarium was now in the shape of an arrow. Pointing in the direction Aggy had just disappeared in.

  “Come on, HB,” Malcolm urged. “Just give it a chance.”

  “It’s not that I don’t support her,” Honey Bunny grumbled as he followed Malcolm to the edge of the counter. “I do. She’s gotten us through more scrapes than even the state math team could count. But I don’t want her to get her hopes up. This all is so unlikely.”

  Polly glided down to land next to Honey Bunny. “Maybe hopes are what she needs right now.”

  “But—�
�� Polly cocked her head and Honey Bunny sighed. “Aw, crumb. Maybe you’re right.” He grabbed a small flashlight with his mouth.

  The group made their way over to where Aggy paced near the reference bookcases. Honey Bunny clicked on the flashlight, and Malcolm saw fluffs of dust waft with each sweep of Aggy’s tail. Gristle, how long had it been since some of the books had been taken out? Then he spied a familiar one on the bottom shelf.

  “Hey, my dictionary!” He took a deep whiff of the musty, dusty old paper smell. You couldn’t tell from looking at it, but the dictionary was hollow on the inside. Malcolm had stayed there for a bit when he had kind of bitten Amelia and couldn’t go back to Room 11. It was no three-story deluxe cage with a Comf-E-Cube, tail-safe exercise wheel, and an antibacterial water bottle, but it had been comfortable. And warm. And safe. Which is really all you can ask of from a home.

  He reached out and traced a shape scratched into its spine. An Academy Mark, one of those “signposts” that Aggy had been talking about earlier. “What does this one mean, again?” he asked. “‘Dwell here’?”

  Aggy nodded. “That’s really where it began.” She looked up. “Do you remember last fall when we found this Mark? It perplexed us. We thought we knew all the Marks of the building. But here was a new one. Or, should we say, a very old one. So I decided to take a little closer look.”

  With her tail, she shoved the dictionary off the shelf. It fell open, revealing the cozy little space Malcolm had lived in. But Aggy didn’t stop there. She knocked the rest of the row of books off the shelf too.

  “Cheez, Aggy. I’m not sure Mrs. Snyder’s going to like this,” Jesse said.

  “I’m not just making a mess. Look.” She stepped back.

  The critters leaned forward. Behind all the books was a narrow cabinet door built into the wall. Aggy hooked her tail through the handle and gave a tug. The door popped open.

  A dark space yawned before them. The stale air swirled out, reminding Malcolm of the closed fourth floor.