Malcolm Under the Stars

by Brian Lies

  Meeting place? Oak tree? Malcolm’s ears perked up. Amelia actually had her jacket’s hood up today, so Malcolm had to brave the elements in her coat pocket for this outing. The only way to see was to stick his head out into the rain, and, gristle, rain definitely fell into the negative category for Outside critters.

  You continued, “Because of the history, I’m not surprised if they chose to bury a time capsule here. Well, Skylar, let’s fire it up.”

  But despite pass after pass, there was no blip of anything the size or shape of a time capsule.

  “Are you sure this thing works?” Kiera grumped. Her hair frizzed out from under her hood. She also looked like she’d rather be inside.

  But it was working, because they did uncover a few treasures: twelve bottle caps, a button, four nails, and two nickels. But no time capsule.

  The bell rang. “Time to head in, folks,” you said. “I’m sorry, All-Stars, but there’s nothing here. Maybe the time capsule has already been dug up.”

  They plodded back in. “Are you going to cry?” Kiera asked Amelia.

  “No.” Amelia scowled. But Kiera was right; Amelia’s face wore a pinched look that Malcolm didn’t recognize. He wasn’t even surprised when she ducked into the girls’ bathroom instead of heading to lunch later. Once they got into the stall, she pulled her feet up on the bench and held Malcolm close to her. After a minute, he realized that the shaking of her shoulders meant she was crying.

  Malcolm didn’t know what to do. He wanted to get down, use his notebook, and ask her what was going on, but he couldn’t leave her. So he nuzzled her face the best he could and hoped she’d talk soon.

  She didn’t get the chance to, though. Right about then, voices could be heard in the hall. “I told you, I know where she is. She’s been hiding out in here for weeks.”

  The door pounded open. “Amelia?” Kiera’s voice rang out. Malcolm’s and Amelia’s eyes met. Amelia sat up fast, wiped her face, and pulled her feet up higher on the bench so they couldn’t be seen under the door.

  “Shhh! You can’t yell,” whispered another voice. “Do you want every teacher to know we’re out here?”

  Jovahn?! Amelia mouthed to Malcolm. He was as startled as she was.

  “What are you doing?” Kiera said with a little shriek. “You can’t be in here! This is the girls’ room!”

  “Oh, please,” Jovahn muttered. “A toilet’s a toilet.”

  Then a knock on their stall door. “Amelia?” Jovahn called out softly. With another swipe at her eyes, Amelia slowly extended one leg, then the other. She stood and unlocked the door.

  Jovahn was on the other side. Kiera leaned around behind him, and Skylar stood gaping in the background, still propping the hallway door open. Jovahn waved for him to shut it.

  “What are you doing here?” Amelia asked.

  “Looking for you,” Skylar said.

  “What’s going on?” Jovahn asked with a frown, glancing around. “Where is your lunch?”

  Amelia paused like she might say something, and then she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “You’re not supposed to be in here, you know. You’re supposed to go to the cafeteria, then straight outside,” Kiera said, her arms crossed. “I told Jovahn—” Jovahn stepped on her foot and she paused. She yanked it out and glared at him.

  “Is it because of the time capsule?” he asked. “Because Skylar says that just because we didn’t find anything doesn’t mean it isn’t out there. Maybe it’s not metal.”

  Amelia shook her head. “No, not exactly. Although I did really want to find it. It just seems like . . . Do you ever feel like you have no control over anything? They decide they want to close our school—and poof, they can. And then . . .” Malcolm watched her closely. What was behind that “and then”? But Amelia didn’t finish. She just drooped.

  Kiera was watching too. Slowly, she uncrossed her arms. Then she did the most surprising thing Malcolm had ever seen her do—and he had seen her bring in an entire lunch consisting of only blue food.

  She held out her hand to Amelia.

  “Come on,” she said, pulling Amelia out of the stall. “We finished the slide show, we think. But we need you to proofread it. And one of those nickels we found outside is super freaky—it’s from 1938 and has a guinea pig carved into it! Mr. Binney says it’s a bobo nickel or something.”

  Malcolm stared up at Kiera as she led the group out of the bathroom. Maybe Kiera’s water dish was deeper than it seemed.

  Chapter 14

  The Council Oak

  Then finally, finally, it was Wednesday again and the night Malcolm was due to meet with the Striped Shadow. He had had a week to think about how he’d get back outside, and he had come to the conclusion that it’d be easiest to sneak out through Sylvia’s nest. Honey Bunny had reluctantly agreed, even though it meant Malcolm had to go alone.

  “Sylvia?” he whispered. He didn’t want to wake up her squirrelings or surprise her. He figured either one might result in him getting bitten.

  “She’s out,” a squirreling said, poking his head out of their nest.

  “Hey, it’s that bat, Malcolm,” his sibling said, popping up next to him. “Did you bring corn dogs?”

  “Rat,” Malcolm corrected. “And you heard that? I thought you were sleeping last time.”

  The squirrelings shrugged. “Squirrels have good hearing.”

  Malcolm tiptoed around them. “I don’t really need your mom; I’m just passing through tonight.”

  The squirrelings bobbed in the nest and waved. “Okay—we’ll tell her you stopped by.”

  That was weird—Sylvia being out. Where would a squirrel go in the middle of the night? Squirrels, from what Malcolm understood, were day critters. And Sylvia had been so concerned about the Dangers Outside.

  But Malcolm didn’t have time to contemplate it further. He was worried he might have missed the clock chiming. Maybe the Striped Shadow was already there, waiting for him. He struck Malcolm as a critter who wouldn’t hang around long if someone didn’t show.

  Malcolm pushed through the loose bricks and immediately was blasted by frigid air. The light flickered from dark to darker and back again as clouds whisked by the moon. The oak trees’ branches clacked against one another in the wind. The stars were nowhere to be seen. Across the parking lot, the Council Oak swayed, taller than the rest. You were right, Mr. Binney: it was a funny shape. It must have once been a majestic tree, but now it looked like someone had snipped out a pie piece from the tallest part of it. Malcolm itched to get out there. He would bet the whole Loaded Stash that the Council Oak was Marked with a Shadow Sign.

  Malcolm took a running start, then flung himself at the tree branches next to the roof. For a moment, he got the same soaring feeling he’d had when he flew with Beert the other night. Then, unlike with Beert, he started to fall.

  Malcolm caught himself on the tiny tips of a branch. They were so slim, even Malcolm’s small weight bent them down. He pulled himself up and crawled along the branch until he came to the trunk. Then he crossed to the other side of the tree. Here, it was easier. These branches crisscrossed with the next tree’s. Malcolm hopscotched from tree to tree, until he was in the branches of the tallest of them all: the Council Oak. Crumb, if this Council Oak was big from the ground, those nutters ought to see it from its branches! It was like a whole world up here. Malcolm made his way to the center of the V of the tree. Was that . . . ? By crumb! Another Mark. The same “dwell here” Mark that was on the dictionary in the library. Malcolm wondered if it was an Inside or an Outside critter who had carved it there.

  “Nice jump,” said a deep whisper from behind Malcolm, which nearly made him jump in a whole different way and fall out of the tree.

  He whirled around. The Striped Shadow, in the branches above him. Malcolm could barely make him out.

  “How was your week?” the Striped Shadow asked.

  Malcolm opened his mouth, but suddenly the entirety of th
e week weighed on him. He didn’t have the time or the energy to play games. So he answered with a question. “Did you find anything out?” Gristle, he sounded tough.

  The Striped Shadow tilted his head, and his eyes flashed in his raccoon mask. “Maybe. Do we have a deal?”

  “Really? You found something?” Malcolm stumbled over his words, the tough-guy voice already evaporating. After so many days of nothing turning up, of everything leading to nos and more nos, he was fully expecting the Striped Shadow to say the same thing.

  The Shadow nodded. “Of course. It’s what I do. It’s why critters come to me. So, do we have a deal?”

  Malcolm remembered about the promise under the stars. A secret or a favor. Now, after a week of nothing, it felt like he had even less to lose. “Yes, that’s fine.”

  “Well, then. There are two bits of information you may find interesting. First, your ‘Midnight Academy’—they’re quite well known.” He tilted his head again. “When I talked to one of the oldest critters around this school, she knew of them immediately. She also said that the Academy used to keep their records in a ‘Marked’ set of books. Inside the books, the Academy would underline certain words to make a message. It sounds rather primitive to me, but if you look for these Marked books, you may be able to fill in some of the gaps in your story.”

  Sweet niblets, that was genius, as Jovahn would say. This must have been before computers. Malcolm felt like he should have been able to guess this, though. It was not that different from how he communicated with Amelia, only he pointed to the words with his tail instead of underlining them. “How do we know where the books are?” Malcolm asked. “I mean, I know you said they were Marked, but have you ever been in a school? Every room is packed with books. And there are dozens of rooms. You could spend weeks just in the library looking for Marks.”

  “Ah, but that’s the other thing,” the Shadow continued. “It seems that the Academy has not always been a critters-only club.”

  “What?”

  “Years and years ago, before any of your current members were hatchlings, the Academy always had one human who helped them. Someone they trusted, who kept their secrets and served as a bridge to the human world. I don’t know all that you do, but I can imagine that sometimes it’s hard to carry out your work, simply because you’re critters among humans. Anyway, this person also guarded the Marked books of Academy records and made sure they were passed to the next generation of pets.”

  “Ernie Bowman!” Malcolm whispered. It had to be. It all made sense.

  “Maybe, but my source didn’t know that name. But this group of human helpers did call themselves something: ‘the Elastic Order of Suspenders.’”

  “Suspenders?” Malcolm remembered the old catalog page in the Dictionary Niche. “That fits with our legend, doesn’t it?”

  The Striped Shadow nodded. “It does seem to suggest there is something to your story.”

  “And now,” Malcolm said, “we need to find the Marked books, and we can learn the rest of it. Do you think there’s still someone who is in the Elastic Order of Suspenders in our building who could show us the books?”

  “My source didn’t think so,” the Striped Shadow said. “She hadn’t heard anything about it since she was a kitten. That was before any of the current teachers were there. But the last one was a ‘librarian,’ whatever that is. My source said that’d mean something to an Inside critter.”

  But Malcolm had stopped listening: his brain had snagged on an earlier word. A word that had shut down all his senses. His tongue felt like a waterlogged football. “D-d-did you say ‘kitten’?”

  The Striped Shadow smirked slightly. “Yes.” Was Malcolm imagining it, or had the raccoon’s eyes flicked to something behind him for a second? “I don’t normally divulge my sources like this. In my business, it works much better to keep all the business partners separate. But this case was quite unusual.” He dropped to Malcolm’s branch. At the same time, Malcolm stepped behind the trunk of the tree. The Striped Shadow followed. “I think I told you the other night that I deal in secrets and favors. It’s all about being a good listener, really. Noticing things. Then you put them together. All these so-called problems of critters are actually interconnected. Like a web.

  “For example, this winter I was approached by a critter who needed something. I asked her what she could help me with, and she said she knew secrets, so many secrets, of a school she had hidden in for years. I scoffed at first—because why would I bother with Inside business? I had enough on the Outside. But she recognized my Shadow Signs. That intrigued me. So I struck a deal with her. And I tucked her secrets away for later. And then, last week you came along. You also knew my Shadow Signs. And you needed something.”

  No, it couldn’t be. Malcolm trembled, his heart thudding. He glanced left and right. Where to go? He had walked to the end of a branch. He whirled and sprang across to another tree.

  The Striped Shadow, however, continued talking as if nothing had happened. “Suddenly, I had a use for her secrets. And I had a way to give her what she wanted. It’s business, you see, Malcolm.”

  A cloud scuttled in front of the moon, and in that blink of darkness, the Striped Shadow leaped across to Malcolm’s tree. The branches bowed low under his weight, swinging wildly, and Malcolm was almost thrown off. As the raccoon jumped, for a second Malcolm thought he spied something funny with his front paw, and then the Shadow was there, breathing in Malcolm’s face, too close for him to see anything but the pointed teeth that were now bared. “Remember your deal, Malcolm. Because, as it turns out, I believe you can help this critter in return.”

  The Striped Shadow twitched his white-tipped tail as if he was signaling something—or somebody. “I’d like you to meet someone, Malcolm. I believe you may have already met. Still, allow me to introduce . . . Blackberry.”

  Malcolm had been creeping backwards again. He was almost to the trunk of this tree. Now he spun around to run. He wasn’t even sure in what direction. Up or down. To jump if he needed to. It didn’t matter. He had to get away, get Inside. Now. Sylvia was right: there were Dangers in these trees.

  But there was nowhere to go—because behind him was a cat. A black cat with overlong claws, spider breath, and a white-tipped tail. A cat who was supposed to be drowned, dead, by Malcolm’s own actions. A cat very much alive and—if not well—at least here and licking her whiskers. A cat once named Blackberry as a kitten, but who more recently went by another name.

  Snip.

  Malcolm felt his legs go out. And then he fell right out of that tree.

  Chapter 15

  The Deal

  It turns out that falling is not at all like flying. For one, you’re not in control. As Malcolm fell, he bounced off of branches, and twigs scraped at his ears. And then there’s the landing. The landing is much, much worse when you’re falling. He hit a melting snowbank hard, and everything went dark.

  When Malcolm woke up, he wasn’t sure where he was. Cheez, he had been having the worst dream! Snip—looming over him!

  Then Malcolm opened his eyes. Snip—looming over him! And the whole night came rushing back. The meeting with the Striped Shadow. The promise under the stars. And Snip. Alive.

  “You again!” she hissed, her voice just as raspy-dry as it had been in Malcolm’s nightmares. “It’s always you—always in the way of what I want.”

  He leaped to his feet, backing away quickly until he ran into the tree trunk again. He scampered up it and hid behind a dried clump of oak leaves. “How . . . how . . . You were dead! Honey Bunny told me. The lankies found something.” He didn’t know if it was from his fall or from seeing his nightmares come to life, but Malcolm felt wobbly, like the whole world was tilting and if he didn’t hang on tight, he could slide right off.

  “I don’t know what they found,” she said, pacing back and forth below him. “But it wasn’t me. Could be the lankies weren’t telling the truth. Could be your Academy wasn’t.” Malcolm saw that, while stil
l thin, Snip was actually looking healthier than the last time he had seen her—scary-skinny and soaking wet in the boiler room of the school. If you looked closely, you could still see a bare white line where her too-tight collar27 had once been, but mostly her fur had now grown over it.

  The Striped Shadow stirred under a shrub. Apparently, everyone had come down from the Council Oak. Malcolm wondered how long he had been out. His eyes pinged between the two critters beneath him. “How do you two even know each other?”

  “Like I said,” the Shadow answered, “she approached me. Much like you did—only without knocking over two thousand tin cans and waking up the whole neighborhood. And she knew things. About the school. About the Inside. It’s been very valuable for my business. But I still owe her the one thing she wants. And I think you can provide it.” He gestured with a paw at the dark bulk of McKenna. “Entrance back into McKenna. Let Blackberry in, and we’ll be even.”

  “Are you crazy?!” Malcolm nearly shouted. “She’s demented. She’s evil. She . . . can’t be trusted. She flung me out a window, she slashed my ear, she made my friend fall off the clock tower—”

  Snip calmly blinked. “Says who?” Her tail with the white tip started weaving in a figure eight. Malcolm stared at it for a second, then pulled his eyes away. Oh, no, he was not going to get sucked into that hypnotic trick of hers again.

  “I do!”

  The Striped Shadow’s tail bristled under the bush. “Malcolm, you agreed—”

  “She ate Beert’s owlets, she kidnapped our Academy leader . . . she was going to mix this crazy brew into the nutters’ water! And all because of a mistake! She thought she had been abandoned, but she even had that messed up. All of that—for the wrong reasons! Who does that?”

  Snip’s tail lowered. Her yellow eyes, so intently staring at Malcolm, blinked away.

  The Striped Shadow said quietly, “So you are saying she doesn’t deserve anything.”

  “Yes!” Finally the Shadow understood!