“You guys have been real good all day,” he told his pets. “You stay nice and quiet, and we’re going to be just fine.”
When Robert arrived in science, the desks on both sides of him were empty. His classmates explained that Sarah Price was home with her family, helping the police investigate Sylvia’s disappearance. The mood in the class was unusually quiet. Even the caged animals in the back of the room seemed more silent than normal.
Professor Goyle arrived as if it were just another day, dropping his leather satchel onto his desk and turning to the chalkboard. “We’re going to pick up where we left off on Friday,” he explained, drawing the outline of a human skull on the chalkboard. “There are eight different bones in the cranium, and anyone who wants to pass this class is going to memorize all of them.”
Suddenly he turned around and wrinkled his nose. “What’s that hideous odor?”
Robert and his classmates exchanged glances. What was he talking about? The classroom smelled just like it always had.
Lynn Scott, one of the girls in the front row, raised her hand. “Professor Goyle? Are you going to say anything about Sylvia Price?”
He arched his bushy eyebrows. “Sylvia who?”
Lynn pointed at the empty chair. “The girl who went missing last night.”
“Ah, yes. The monozygotic twin.”
Professor Goyle sat on his desk and folded his hands in his lap, as if he were preparing to comfort the class with a bedtime story. “I understand that many of you are upset. It’s unfortunate when a child goes missing. But we must remember, students, that everything happens for a reason. There are forces in this world you cannot comprehend. The Great Old Ones have the intelligence of ten thousand men combined. We should not question their actions—but what on earth is that horrible fetid odor?”
Goyle marched up and down the aisles of the classroom, twitching his nose like a bloodhound on the trail of a scent. “It’s absolutely revolting!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe any of you can concentrate with this hideous stench in the air!” He stopped beside Robert’s desk, then knelt down, pressed his face against Robert’s backpack, and breathed in deeply. “What’s in this bag, Mr. Arthur?”
“N-n-nothing,” Robert stammered. “Just my gym clothes?”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Professor Goyle said. He unzipped the backpack, reached inside, and pulled out Pip and Squeak by the napes of their necks. Both heads squeaked helplessly as their feet swayed in the air. The other students in the classroom gasped.
“A polycephalous rodent? Where did you find this horrible two-headed mutation?”
Robert’s classmates all leaned forward for a better look while he struggled to answer the question. “Um, in the library?”
“Where in the library?”
“In the attic? Above the library?”
Goyle’s eyes widened. “An attic above the library?” This seemed to strike him as a revelation. “That’s very interesting, Mr. Arthur. But Lovecraft Middle School has very strict rules forbidding pets. If you’d read your student handbook, you would know this!”
“I’m sorry,” Robert said. “Please, Professor. I promise I’ll bring them home tonight, and I won’t bring them to school again.”
Goyle shook his head. “That wouldn’t be safe. We’ve already discussed the dangers of rats. Don’t you remember the lessons of the Black Death? Weren’t you paying attention?”
“Pip and Squeak are different. They’re friendly.”
“They’re diseased! They’re filthy! And a two-headed mutation could be twice as dangerous. I can’t let you take this monstrosity home with you.” Goyle walked to the rear of the classroom, holding Pip and Squeak at a distance, as if any physical contact posed a health risk.
Robert’s classmates watched, fascinated, as Goyle dropped Pip and Squeak in a small aquarium lined with wood shavings, then closed the top with a metal lid. “They’ll be safe in here until I can dispose of them.”
The other students cheered as if Goyle had done something heroic, as if he’d just vanquished a hideous monster. Goyle resumed his lecture, but Robert could barely concentrate. The rest of the class passed in a blur.
When the end-of-day bell rang, Robert trudged back to his locker. He wasn’t in any hurry to go home. Or to go anywhere, really. All he could think about were Pip and Squeak, trapped in the aquarium at the back of Professor Goyle’s classroom.
How was Goyle going to “dispose” of them?
Did that mean what Robert thought it meant?
He considered going to his mother or even Mr. Loomis for help, but he knew they wouldn’t understand. Rules were rules. Pets weren’t allowed on school property and wild two-headed rats couldn’t be trusted. If his mother saw Pip and Squeak, she wouldn’t rush to their defense; she would scream.
When Robert closed his locker, he discovered Karina standing alongside him, chewing gum and clutching her skateboard.
“Bummer about your pet,” she said. “Goyle can be a real jerk.”
“How’d you hear?” he asked.
“News travels fast.”
“They’re friendly animals, I swear,” Robert explained. “I played with them all weekend. They slept in a box under my bed. Pip and Squeak wouldn’t hurt anyone, I know them.” His voice was trembling. He was so upset, he was afraid he might start crying, right there in the hallway, right in front of a girl.
“I believe you, Robert.”
“Goyle said he was going to dispose of them. What do you think that means? ‘Dispose of them’?”
Karina smiled. “I think it means we need to steal them back.”
NINE
That night after dinner, Robert’s mother did something she hadn’t done in a long time: She went upstairs, put on some dressy clothes, and prepared for an evening on the town. It was Parent-Teacher Night, and she’d been looking forward to it all week.
“How do I look?” she asked. She was wearing a fancy black dress and fake pearls. She’d even put on makeup. Robert was sitting on the couch, watching television.
“You know the president’s not going to be there, right?” he asked.
Her shoulders slumped. “I thought I looked nice.”
“You do,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, I better get going. Don’t want to be late. I should be home around nine or so. Maybe later. Don’t spend all night watching TV, okay?”
That won’t be a problem, he thought.
As soon as she drove away, Robert grabbed his backpack and proceeded to follow her on foot.
Earlier that afternoon, Karina had explained that tonight was the best possible time to retrieve Pip and Squeak. If Goyle was planning to “dispose” of them, there wasn’t a minute to waste. And thanks to Parent-Teacher Night, the doors of Lovecraft Middle School would be open long after dark. It was a rare opportunity to sneak into a classroom without being discovered.
Robert jogged the eight blocks to the school in just a few minutes. He needed to be quick. He wanted to rescue Pip and Squeak and get home before his mother returned, so she’d never know he snuck out.
When he arrived at the school, he saw dozens of parents walking into the main entrance. The orientation would take place in the central auditorium, far from the east wing of the second floor and Professor Goyle’s classroom.
Karina was waiting where they’d agreed to meet, just inside the entrance to the east wing. Here, the hallway lights were dimmed. All of the classrooms were dark.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“I guess,” he said. “Have you seen anyone?”
“The coast is clear. Come on.”
He followed along, wondering how a girl who claimed to be afraid of spiders could be so fearless about breaking into a teacher’s classroom. He’d never met anyone quite like Karina Ortiz.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor and arrived at the entrance to Room 213. For a brief moment, Robert feared the door might be locked. But when he tried th
e knob, it turned easily in his grip.
The classroom seemed eerie in the dark. All those empty desks. The grinning skeleton at the front of the classroom. But Robert didn’t dare turn on the lights.
“Where are they?” Karina asked.
Robert led her to the back of the classroom, past the tropical fish and the lizards, until he arrived at the tank containing Pip and Squeak. His pets jumped up, delighted, pressing their paws against the glass. Robert tried to remove the lid but it wouldn’t budge.
“Is it locked?” Karina asked.
“I think it’s stuck.”
He felt under the lid, looking for some kind of button or latch. But the metal had a fine smooth edge all the way around. Robert grabbed and pulled as hard as he could. It was like trying to pry open a can of tuna fish with his bare hands. Impossible.
Next, he tried lifting the aquarium off the shelf. It weighed probably twenty pounds. He could carry it out of the school if he had to. He could pry off the lid when he got home, maybe use a screwdriver …
“Listen!” Karina whispered. “Someone’s coming!”
Robert heard the footsteps, too. Out in the hallway and approaching fast. He and Karina darted around the classroom, looking for a place to hide. Under the teacher’s desk? Behind the skeleton?
“Supply closet!” Karina said.
Robert ran to the open door on the side of the classroom. It was here that Goyle stored his extra beakers and test tubes and chemistry supplies. Karina entered first and it didn’t look like there was enough room for both of them.
“I won’t fit,” Robert said.
“Just get in here!”
He pulled the door closed just as the classroom overhead lights flickered on. Somehow they both fit inside.
“Shhh,” Karina whispered. “Don’t move.”
Robert was too scared to reply. He heard about a party game called Seven Minutes in Heaven, in which a boy and a girl would go into a closet for seven minutes and … well, he wasn’t exactly sure what they did. Hug? Kiss? He wondered if it was something like this.
The closet door was slightly ajar, allowing them a narrow view into the classroom. Professor Goyle was carrying a jug of water and a sack of food pellets. He brought them to the back of the classroom and proceeded to feed all the animals. He hummed a strange little melody as he worked—then stopped when he reached the tank containing Pip and Squeak.
“What’s that? You’re hungry, too? Ha!” Goyle laughed. “You’re being punished for trying to escape. For sneaking into that boy’s backpack. What if an adult had seen you? Can you imagine the consequences? This whole plan, everything Master has designed, it would all come tumbling down! Shub-niggurath! K’hala dorsath f’ah!”
Robert wasn’t sure he’d heard that last part correctly. Was Goyle simply mumbling? The words had sounded clear, yet they were in a language that was wholly unfamiliar.
“Master wants to see you both in the morning. Until then he’s asked me to give you a message.”
Goyle reached into the adjacent tank and removed a brown-and-white hamster by the nape of its neck. “Watch carefully,” he told Pip and Squeak. “This is what will happen if you attempt another escape.”
Goyle raised the hamster high above his head. The animal swung its paws wildly, desperate to scramble away, but Goyle’s grip was too strong. He opened his mouth, as though threatening to eat the animal.
It was just a dumb, cruel stunt, Robert thought. The same kind of mean prank that Glenn Torkells seemed to enjoy. Goyle was just another bully.
Then there was a hideous snapping sound, and the bottom half of Goyle’s jaw collapsed. It fell open like the mouth of a ventriloquist’s dummy, revealing sharp white fangs and a gaping black maw. Goyle lowered the hamster between his lips and swallowed it whole.
Robert felt dizzy, like he was going to pass out. The walls of the closet were spinning. He grabbed a shelf to steady himself.
“Stay calm,” Karina whispered. “Don’t make a sound.”
Goyle stroked the top of his chest, coaxing the hamster down his digestive tract. Then he uncapped the jug of water, took a long drink, and burped.
“Let that be a warning to you,” he told Pip and Squeak. “I’ll bring you to see Master in the morning.”
A minute later, the classroom went dark again and Robert heard Goyle close the door and leave.
“What just happened?” he whispered.
“We nearly got caught is what happened,” Karina said. “We’re lucky.”
“Do you think he’s really gone?”
“It’s fine. Get us out of here.”
Robert opened the door. His brain was screaming for him to run but he couldn’t leave without Pip and Squeak. Not after what he’d just seen.
“You’ll have to carry the aquarium,” Karina said.
“Too heavy,” Robert said. “If Goyle sees us? And chases us? Forget it.”
He would have to take more drastic measures. He opened the classroom door and peered into the hallway. Still empty. There was no sign of Goyle, and all the parents and teachers were in the auditorium on the far side of the school.
Robert returned to the back of the classroom and unzipped his backpack. “Get ready to run,” he told Karina.
“What are you going to do?”
He tapped on the side of the aquarium. Pip and Squeak stood up against the glass, like they were trying to smell his fingertips. “Hang on tight, guys. There’s only one way to get you out of here, but it’s going to be a little bumpy.”
Robert tilted the aquarium on one side and let it topple off the shelf, landing with a crash. Glass shards and wood shavings exploded in all directions. Pip and Squeak leapt from the blast and landed with a tumble inside Robert’s backpack.
“Let’s go!” Karina cried.
They raced out of the classroom, stopping just long enough to close the door behind them. No one was chasing them, but Robert wasn’t taking any chances. He ran like a madman down the hallway, down the stairwell, and out the door of the east entrance. He looked back and saw Karina hesitating inside the school.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked. “Come on!”
“I’m going the other way,” she said, pointing down the hallway toward the west entrance. “I live on the other side of town.”
“What are we going to do about Goyle?”
“We can talk tomorrow. Meet me in the attic.”
“Be careful,” he said. “Make sure no one sees you.”
Robert ran all the way home. There was so much to think about, so much he didn’t understand. Why was Professor Goyle speaking to Pip and Squeak like they could actually understand him? Where had they escaped from? Who was this Master he kept talking about? None of it made any sense.
When he returned home, he fixed Pip and Squeak a big dinner of roasted ham, raisin bran, celery, grapes, and a half dozen hard pretzels. They tore through the food in minutes, and then Robert ushered them into their nest and put them to bed.
Ten minutes later, his mother’s car pulled into the driveway. She entered the house looking exhilarated, like she’d just returned from the greatest party of her life.
“Unbelievable!” she exclaimed. “Did you know you can start taking Mandarin Chinese in eighth grade? Did you know Mr. Loomis has a master’s degree from Yale University? Did you know the school was built from all these different recycled materials?”
“You liked it?” Robert asked.
She swept him up in her arms. “I loved it, sweetie. It’s such a wonderful school. I’m so happy for you. Happy for us.” Her smile faltered. “Though it’s a real shame about that missing girl, Sylvia Price. All the parents were talking about the investigation. Did you know her?”
“Not really.”
“I hope they find her soon. I can’t imagine what her family’s going through. Your science teacher—I think his name was Mr. Goyle? He told us all not to worry. He said he was confident Sylvia would come home.”
At the m
ention of Goyle, Robert remembered how his teacher had unhinged his jaw like a boa constrictor and then pushed a live hamster into his mouth.
“He seemed nice,” Robert’s mother added.
TEN
When Robert woke the next morning, Pip and Squeak were waiting in his backpack, apparently ready to return to Lovecraft Middle School.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Did you hear anything Goyle said yesterday? Remember how he smelled you through my backpack? Remember the hamster?”
Pip and Squeak nodded their heads as if they shared all of Robert’s concerns. But when he reached into the backpack, they squirmed away, avoiding his grasp.
“Guys, this is crazy. You’re not safe at Lovecraft. You need to stay here until I figure out what’s going on.”
Pip and Squeak shook their heads. They seemed determined to return to the school—to follow Robert wherever he went—but he couldn’t understand why.
“Fine, suit yourselves,” he said, zipping up the backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. “But you’re staying in my locker during science.”
It had just started raining when Robert arrived at school, and his morning classes seemed to last for hours. He couldn’t concentrate on anything besides the events of the previous evening. He could remember exactly what Goyle had said to Pip and Squeak:
What if an adult had seen you? Can you imagine the consequences?
This whole plan, everything Master has designed, it would all come tumbling down.
Shub-niggurath! K’hala dorsath f’ah!
What the heck did it all mean?
After what seemed like a hundred million hours, the lunch bell finally rang. Robert was just leaving English class when Mr. Loomis stopped him.
“Hey, Robert? Got a second?”
“Yeah?”
“Is everything all right? I noticed you weren’t paying attention in class today. You seem like you’re worried about something.”
Professor Gargoyle Page 4
