“There you are!” Mr. Loomis exclaimed. “I’ve spent half the class looking for you.”
“I’m sorry. I was lost.”
His teacher grinned. “I know the feeling. A library this good, I could get lost for days.”
Robert liked Mr. Loomis. He wore pastel-colored sweater vests, loved books, and never needed to raise his voice. And he didn’t insist on being called “Professor” like a certain crazy science teacher.
“Did you find anything good?” Mr. Loomis asked.
Robert patted his backpack. “Right here.”
“You’ll need to check them out before you leave,” Mr. Loomis said. “There are lending kiosks near the entrance. Key in your student ID and the touch screen will guide you the rest of the way. Hurry now, Robert, before the bell rings.”
Robert walked over to the lending kiosks, which looked like the self-checkout machines in supermarkets. He unzipped his backpack, reached inside for the books, and felt a sudden shooting pain in his hand.
Something was biting him.
He dropped the backpack and the pain stopped. He looked down at his palm. There were two red marks on his thumb. Not deep enough to be punctures. But almost definitely teeth marks.
Teeth marks?
He glanced around the library. None of the kids were watching him. And Mr. Loomis was over by the media center, chatting with Ms. Lavinia.
Robert zipped his backpack closed, left the library, and walked down the hallway to the nearest boys’ bathroom. He set his backpack on one of the sinks and had barely unzipped it an inch when a furry brown head peeked out.
A furry brown rat head.
Its eyes were black. Its whiskers twitched. It bobbed its head from side to side. Unlike the rats from the first day of school, this one seemed friendly. Maybe even playful.
Robert opened the zipper a little more and a second head emerged. This one had the same brown fur, the same black eyes.
Twins, Robert thought.
Like the red-haired girls in his science class.
Somehow the rats must have climbed into his backpack while he was talking with Karina. Robert unzipped it all the way, planning to shake them loose and set them free. But as they stepped out, Robert realized he was mistaken—these were not twins.
This was a single rat with two heads.
“Whoa,” Robert whispered. “What are you guys?”
Both heads looked up and squealed. They shared the same torso, the same feet, and the same tail. One of them brushed its neck against Robert’s wrist. It wanted to be petted!
“All right,” he said, stroking the backs of their necks with his finger. “You like that? Does that feel good?”
Clearly it did. The two heads closed their eyes and purred like baby kittens.
“How about water? Are you thirsty?”
He turned on one of the faucets and made a cup with his hand. The rats stepped lightly onto the sink and lapped the water from his palm. The two tiny tongues felt like tabs of sandpaper against Robert’s skin.
“There you go,” Robert whispered. “Take your time and drink up. That’s a good boy—er, boys.”
Just then, the bathroom door banged open.
The rats leapt from the sink into the backpack and Robert quickly zipped it closed.
Glenn Torkells stood in the doorway, grinning at Robert.
“Dweeb tax, Nerdbert,” he said, holding out his palm. “You know you’re not supposed to use the bathroom on Fridays.”
It was another of Glenn’s stupid rules.
“Fine,” Robert said. He moved the backpack out of Glenn’s reach before taking two dollars from his pocket. “Here you go. All right? No problem.”
Glenn pocketed the money and stared at him.
And smiled.
“What are you so nervous about?”
“Nothing,” Robert said, glancing down at his backpack, relieved to see it wasn’t moving. Somehow the rats seemed to understand that they needed to remain very still.
“You’re not your usual self today, Nerdbert. I can tell. I’ve got a real good memory.”
“I paid your stupid tax, all right? Leave me alone.”
Robert grabbed his backpack and tried to leave, but Glenn blocked his way.
“What’s in your bag?”
“Nothing. Books.”
“Let me see.”
Glenn reached for the bag and Robert tried stepping around him, but he wasn’t fast enough. Glenn grabbed a shoulder strap and yanked hard, pulling Robert along with it.
“Careful!” Robert shouted.
“Careful of what?” Glenn asked.
“None of your business! Leave me alone!”
At times like these, Robert thought of the characters in his favorite books—the supposedly normal kids who possessed secret powers. Robert wished he had eyeball lasers that could fry Glenn to a crisp. He wished he could summon a giant beast that would drag Glenn away kicking and screaming.
But this wasn’t a fantasy novel. This was real life.
Glenn grabbed Robert’s wrist and twisted it behind his back, then shoved his face against the wall. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Nerdbert. I’m going to keep twisting your arm until you let go of your backpack. Do you understand me?”
“Enough!” shouted a deep voice.
Robert looked to the door of the restroom and saw Mr. Loomis charging toward them.
Glenn released his grip.
“Principal’s office,” Mr. Loomis told him. “Now.”
“But I was just playing—”
“Now!” Mr. Loomis’s voice boomed off the walls. Maybe he never shouted in English class, but here in the boys’ bathroom it was clear he meant business.
Glenn flashed Robert a dirty look. “I’ve got a real good memory,” he warned, before stomping out the door.
Mr. Loomis knelt beside Robert. “Are you all right?”
Robert shook out his arm. “I’m fine.”
“Does Glenn pick on you a lot?”
“Not really.”
Mr. Loomis frowned. “This was the first time?”
Robert shrugged. “Yeah.”
The 12:30 bell rang. Normally it would be time for lunch but today there was an early dismissal. Outside the bathroom, the hallway was filled with the noise of kids opening lockers and chatting about their weekends.
“So, can I go now?” Robert asked.
Mr. Loomis studied his face, as if he were literally searching for the truth. “Robert, you need to be focused on your schoolwork. Not worrying about bullies. I can make this problem go away, but I need you to tell me what’s going on.”
It was the opportunity Robert had been waiting for. Here was a teacher willing to listen and capable of stopping Glenn once and for all. And yet Robert was too ashamed to tell him the truth.
Boys were supposed to stand up for themselves. If Robert told Mr. Loomis everything—if he told him about the gummy worms and the dweeb tax and all the name-calling—he knew he would sound pathetic. It was too humiliating.
He could feel the creatures in his backpack squirming, getting restless.
“There’s no problem,” Robert said. “Can I go now?”
SEVEN
He ran all the way home, bolted upstairs to his bedroom, kicked off his sneakers, lay down on his bed, and gently unzipped his backpack.
The two heads emerged—first one, then the other—and inquisitively sniffed the bedroom air. “Come on out, little guys,” he said. “You’re totally safe here. This is my room. No jerks allowed.”
The rats stepped cautiously onto the blankets. Robert petted their necks and soon they were purring again, happy to be lounging on his bed.
“Now first things first,” he said. “You need a name.”
He’d considered all kinds of options while racing home—he thought Double Jeopardy sounded the coolest—but decided that he needed to pick two names. One for the left head, and one for the right.
Mario and Luigi?
; Phineas and Ferb?
Stars and Stripes?
None of them seemed quite right. And then inspiration struck. He addressed the rats one at a time, first the left head and then the right. “You’re going to be Pip, and you’re going to be Squeak. Together, you’re Pipsqueak!”
The rats seemed to love it. In fact, Squeak squeaked his approval several times, as if trying to prove he understood Robert’s decision.
“Now stay here,” Robert said, “while I get some food.”
He ran downstairs to the kitchen, where his mother was standing over the stove, stirring a pot of soup. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “How was your day, sweetie?”
“Good.”
“What are you doing?”
Robert was already inside the refrigerator and loading his arms with two apples, a brick of cheese, a handful of lettuce, and a bag of baby carrots. “Just grabbing a snack. Thanks, Mom. Call me when dinner’s ready, okay?”
In a flash he was back on his bed, sharing the food with Pip and Squeak. Clearly they were hungry; they leapt upon the apple, gripping it with their claws and gnawing it to the core. Robert watched them, mesmerized. Each head moved independently of the other; sometimes Pip would eat while Squeak rested, and vice versa.
The food was gone in just ten minutes. Pip and Squeak looked to Robert with pleading eyes. “I’ll bring more after dinner,” he told them. “If I do it now, my mom will be suspicious.” Robert knew his mother wouldn’t tolerate a pet rat in the house, let alone a two-headed mutation.
He found a cardboard box in his closet, then shredded the pages of an old loose-leaf notebook, arranging the scraps of paper into a sort of nest. Then he placed a small bowl of water in one corner. “This is where you’ll sleep at night,” he explained.
Pip and Squeak grasped the idea immediately. They climbed up into the box, settled into a corner, smiled at Robert, and chattered their teeth. It was a weird clicking noise that seemed to indicate they were happy.
“You guys are going to be nice and cozy here,” he promised. “And it’s Friday, so we’ve got all weekend to play. Maybe we’ll go in the backyard tomorrow, would you like that?”
There was a sudden knock at the door.
“Robert? Can I come in?”
He grabbed the box and shoved it under the bed.
“It’s open!” he called.
His mother entered the room. “Did you just get off the phone?” Robert shook his head. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
“Must have been the radio.”
It was clear Mrs. Arthur didn’t believe him. She sat beside him on the bed and wrapped her arm around his waist.
“Is everything all right?”
“Yeah.”
“You like the new school?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you having any problems?”
“Yeah. I mean, no.”
His mother looked down at him. “I’m trying to have a conversation, Robert. Do you understand? This doesn’t work unless you’re actively listening and sharing information.”
“I’m sorry,” Robert said.
And he truly was sorry. His mother already had enough problems, between working full shifts at the hospital and cooking and cleaning and doing all the laundry. She never had any time leftover for going out and doing anything fun. The least he could do was cheer her up a little.
“Lovecraft is fantastic,” he told her. “We went to the library today? For the first time? And you wouldn’t believe it, Mom. It’s so big, I actually got lost.”
She smiled. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, and my English teacher? Mr. Loomis? He’s this really nice guy. He showed me where to check out books. Oh, and I made a new friend today!”
“Really? That’s wonderful!”
“Two new friends, actually,” Robert said, smiling as he thought of Pip and Squeak underneath his bed, their whiskered snouts just inches away from his mother’s delicate ankles.
EIGHT
Robert spent most of the weekend playing with his new friends. During the day, he brought them to his neighborhood park. At night, they stayed up late together, eating snacks by flashlight under the blankets. Pip favored chocolate cupcakes with white filling. Squeak preferred peanut butter cookies. They both loved hard pretzels and scattered crumbs all over Robert’s sheets.
Their intelligence was extraordinary. After just a few hours, Robert had trained them to obey simple commands such as “sit” and “stay” and “roll over.” By Sunday night, they were executing even more complicated tasks. “Bring me a comic book,” Robert would say. And Pip and Squeak dutifully walked over to his shelves, retrieved a comic book, and carried it in their mouths back to their master.
Robert rewarded them with more pretzels. “Two heads are definitely better than one,” he said, gently stroking their necks and back. “You guys are twice as smart as the average rat. Maybe even smarter.”
He went online to research two-headed animals. They were a lot more common than he’d realized. He found photographs of two-headed cows, two-headed pigs, even a two-headed crocodile. The scientific name for the condition was polycephaly. Robert found several articles about polycephaly in medical journals, but they were all too complicated for him to understand. Yet one of them caught his attention because its author, Crawford Tillinghast, lived right there in Dunwich, Massachusetts, just a mile or two from Robert’s house.
Robert walked downstairs to the living room, where his mother was folding laundry on the sofa. “Hey, did you ever hear of a man named Crawford Tillinghast?”
“Sure,” she said. “You remember that giant mansion on East Chestnut Street? The one they finally knocked down last year? That’s where he lived. He was some kind of scientist.”
“Does he still live in Dunwich?”
“Oh, no, honey. He died thirty years ago. There was a house fire, I think. Why do you ask?”
Robert shrugged. “No reason.”
His mother laughed. “When I was real little, we used to joke that his house was haunted. You’d go out there at night and see all kinds of crazy lights flashing in his windows. We used to dare one another to run up his steps and ring the doorbell. Poor old man.”
Upstairs, something toppled over with a crash. It sounded like Pip and Squeak had found their way into Robert’s closet.
“What was that?” his mother asked.
“Nothing,” he assured her. “Just some books falling off my bed. I’ll go take care of it.”
When Robert returned to his room, Pip and Squeak were hiding in their nest box, their heads buried under the paper scraps. “You need to be quiet when I’m not here,” he warned them. “Do you understand me? If my mother finds you, she will freak out.”
Pip squeaked and Squeak bobbed his head, so Robert wished them a good night and pushed the box back under the bed.
When he woke the next morning, the box was empty.
Robert leapt out of bed. He searched under his bed, inside his closet, even in his desk drawers. Since his mother had already left for the day, Robert was free to run about the house, shouting their names. “Pip! Squeak! Pip and Squeak!” But there was no sign of them.
He remembered what Professor Goyle had taught him: A rat’s jaws were powerful enough to chew through brick, concrete, or lead pipe. A rat could squeeze through spaces as narrow as a half inch. It wouldn’t have been hard for Pip and Squeak to escape the house. Maybe Robert hurt their feelings when he reprimanded them the night before. Maybe they decided to go live somewhere else.
He ate a quiet breakfast at the kitchen table, brushed his teeth, and then grabbed his backpack, ready to walk out the door. Then he felt a familiar weight shifting inside the bag. He unzipped the main pouch and there they were, Pip and Squeak, grinning up at him.
“You want to come with me?” he asked. “Back to school?”
Pip nodded. Squeak chattered his teeth.
Robert didn’t like the idea. He hadn’t thought about Glenn To
rkells all weekend—his new pets had been a nice distraction—but he knew the bully would want revenge.
“You have to promise me you’ll be absolutely quiet,” he told them. “No squirming around. If anyone notices something screwy, I won’t be able to protect you.”
Pip and Squeak seemed happy with this arrangement. Robert zipped them into his backpack and headed out the front door.
Lovecraft Middle School was an eight-block walk from his house. When Robert arrived on campus, he immediately saw that something was wrong. In the parking lot were five police cars and two news vans. Over by the bike rack, a television reporter was holding a microphone and addressing the camera about “a terrible tragedy that’s rocked this quiet little community.”
Robert quickened his pace, approaching the main entrance. The large digital screen beside the front doors had a new message:
MISSING STUDENT
Seventh-grader Sylvia Price has been reported missing. If you have any information, please tell a teacher or dial 911.
Next to the words was a photograph of a young girl with long red hair. Robert recognized her as one of the twins from Professor Goyle’s class.
For the rest of the day, it was hard for Robert to concentrate on anything else. The hallways were filled with hearsay and gossip. Sylvia had run away to live in New York City. Sylvia was abducted by a hitchhiker. Sylvia was last seen walking in the woods behind Lovecraft Middle School. The truth was anybody’s guess.
Most of Robert’s teachers were upset by the news, and Mr. Loomis seemed genuinely angry. “You kids need to use common sense!” he said, stomping around his classroom in a lime-green sweater vest. “Don’t talk to strangers! Watch where you walk at night! Be careful around people and places you don’t know!”
Robert knew all this already. Teachers had been warning him about stranger danger since he was five years old. But everyone in his class listened without protest. They understood that Mr. Loomis was simply frustrated, that he was trying to prevent a terrible thing from happening again.
At lunchtime, Robert went outside to the athletic stadium and shared a ham sandwich with Pip and Squeak. They were relieved to be out of the backpack and they ran the length of the bleachers, zigzagging up and down, over and over. Robert stood guard, making sure no teachers or students were watching them.
Professor Gargoyle Page 3
