The Boy Who Knew Too Much

by Commander S. T. Bolivar, III

  “Tell him what?” Mattie couldn’t comprehend what Eliot was saying. There was a whine in his head now and his armpits were sweating. Doyle was still ironing. The whole dorm smelled like fabric softener and pumpkin.

  Like pumpkin muffins, to be perfectly precise.

  Mattie gaped and stared. There was a muffin tin on Doyle’s bed and a toaster oven sitting on a table by the window. Was Doyle baking something? Where did Doyle get a toaster oven? Mattie didn’t know. Mattie could only stare and make gulping noises.

  “Tell him you’re sorry,” Eliot repeated. “And tell him you’d like to keep your arms.”

  Mattie turned to goggle at Eliot because he very much wanted to keep his arms, but how exactly was he supposed to beg for that? He never got the chance to ask, though, because Eliot planted his fist into Mattie’s back and propelled Mattie forward.

  “So. Doyle.” Mattie edged a little closer to the door in case he needed to make a run for it. “About what happened before…with the bucket…and the sponge. I’m really sorry about that.”

  Doyle looked up, his light blond eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “What bucket and sponge?”

  Mattie cringed. Doyle wasn’t really going to make him spell it out, was he? Mattie waited and Doyle waited and Mattie knew he was going to have to say it. “We were cleaning in Mrs. Hitchcock’s class and I hit you in the face with a dirty sponge.”

  Doyle’s face relaxed into a faraway smile. “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry I did it,” Mattie said quickly. “Please don’t rip my arms off.”

  “But we’re friends,” Doyle said as he started ironing another pair of black socks. Judging from the holes in the toes, they looked like Eliot’s. “Why would I rip off your arms?”

  “Because…because…” Mattie wanted to say, Because you’re Doyle and that’s what you do, but somehow it didn’t feel right. Then again, none of this felt right. Doyle was being completely weird.

  Mattie glanced at Eliot. He was studying Doyle closely too. Had he noticed Doyle was acting strange as well? Or had he noticed Doyle was ironing Eliot’s socks? Mattie figured it could be either. Eliot took the pen from behind his ear and put it in his mouth, chewing hard like he always did when he was thinking.

  Mattie leaned closer. “What’s Doyle doing?” he whispered.

  “It appears he’s ironing my socks,” Eliot said.

  “But why?”

  Eliot shrugged and chewed the pen harder. “You should ask him.”

  Mattie considered Doyle’s massive shoulders, his meaty hands, and his sausage-sized fingers—which held the iron in a surprisingly delicate fashion—and decided he was much better off not asking. “No, thank you,” Mattie said to Eliot.

  Eliot spit out the pen. “I didn’t think so. What do you think happened to him?”

  “Maybe it’s magic,” Mattie said. He was only half joking. He couldn’t think of a single logical reason why Doyle would go from, well, being Doyle to being whatever he was at the moment. Nice? Considerate? Pleasant?

  All of the above?

  “There’s no such thing as magic,” Eliot said and tapped the pen against his chin. “Magic is just science no one understands yet.”

  “Okay.” Mattie nodded. “So how does science explain the new Doyle?”

  “I have no idea.”

  That made two of them, Mattie thought.

  “Hey, Doyle,” Eliot said and Doyle looked up, holding the iron away from the socks. “So where have you been? Detention?”

  Doyle broke into a wide smile. “Oh, no. No. Not detention. I got tutoring from Headmaster Rooney.”

  Mattie perked up. “What kind of tutoring?”

  “Special tutoring.”

  “To teach you how to iron socks?” Eliot’s tone was approaching snotty and Mattie thumped him. Doyle didn’t seem to notice the tone or the thumping, though. He unplugged the iron and turned to face the two boys with the same pleasant expression on his face.

  “I want to tell you the good news,” Doyle began.

  “Wait.” Eliot shifted from foot to foot. “I think I’ve heard this somewhere before.”

  Doyle smiled. He sat on his bed (perfectly made), adjusted the cuff of his school pants (perfectly pressed), and folded both hands (perfectly manicured) onto his knee.

  “I learned how to be good,” Doyle told them. “I’m going to get to go home after the end-of-term dinner. My parents are so happy and I’m so happy and we’re all so happy.”

  “That is a lot of happy,” Mattie muttered and, this time, Eliot thumped him. Mattie ignored it because all he could think of was how Doyle was going home. Home. Mattie swallowed around the lump that suddenly formed in his throat. They had three more months before end of term, and Mattie wasn’t sure he was going to make it.

  “So, like, how’d you learn so quickly?” Mattie asked, daring to scoot closer. That’s when he smelled soap. Doyle had showered. Doyle.

  “Headmaster Rooney helped me.” His smile was full of teeth. Soap or no soap, Mattie took a step back. “We went to his office together and the other teachers were there and everyone helped me figure out how to be good. Makes sense, huh?”

  “Total sense,” Eliot said.

  “Yeah,” Mattie agreed, but inside he was gaping. Sense? It didn’t make any sense. “So,” Mattie said slowly, “what did they tell you? How’d they teach you how to be good?”

  “It’s a secret,” Doyle said with another dreamy smile.

  “A secret?” Mattie echoed.

  “Yeah, a secret.” Doyle smiled like this was his favorite subject. “I’m not supposed to tell secrets.”

  Mattie and Eliot exchanged a quick look. “Yeah,” Eliot said, nodding. “You’re definitely not supposed to tell secrets.”

  “Nope,” Doyle agreed. “It’s going to be a surprise.”

  Eliot’s pale eyebrows shot up. “A surprise? That’s cool. Maybe you should tell us where you’ve been so we know not to go there.”

  Doyle scratched his neck, his eyes moving side to side like he was searching for an answer.

  “You know,” Eliot continued, “because if you tell us where you’ve been then we’ll know not to go there and then we can still be surprised.”

  Doyle stopped scratching. “Oh! Good idea! They keep it in the headmaster’s office.”

  It? Mattie scowled. Now he knew Doyle was nuts. What kind of secret could you keep in an office—especially a secret that could make someone good?

  Ding! Doyle’s whole face broke into another toothy smile. “My muffins!” Doyle galloped to the far side of the room and crouched over the toaster oven.

  Ironing, baking, and bathing. This wasn’t just weird. This was…Mattie didn’t know what this was, but he knew “weird” wasn’t a big enough word to cover it.

  “Ironing his socks,” Eliot said to himself. “The teachers are gonna love that.”

  Mattie thought the teachers would love the fact that Doyle was showering more, but he nodded anyway. Honestly, it had never occurred to Mattie to iron his socks. What other opportunities had he missed?

  “I need Doyle’s secret,” Mattie said.

  Eliot snorted. “Why? It’s not like you need help being good, unless there’s a train involved. Is there a train coming to Munchem? Are you worried about a relapse?”

  “What’s a relapse?”

  Eliot chewed hard on his pen as he thought about this. “It’s when you do something again and again because it’s fun.”

  “Oh. Well, I’m not stealing a train again. I want to go home.”

  “What’s at home?” Eliot asked.

  Mattie blinked. “Home is home,” he said, and when Eliot kept staring at him, Mattie tried to explain again: “It’s not here. It’s better.”

  “Huh.” Eliot took the pen out of his mouth. “Mine’s not.”

  The boys watched Doyle fuss over his muffins, his great big baby head bobbing to some tune only Doyle could hear.

  “I wonder what kind of help they
gave him,” Mattie muttered.

  Eliot laughed. “Maybe they got a copy of the How to Be Good Manual and read him chapters.”

  Mattie scowled. A How to Be Good Manual? That was stupid. No one would have something like that. Except Doyle did say his secret to becoming good was in Headmaster Rooney’s office. Maybe it was some sort of manual.

  Or something.

  Obviously, it really helped Doyle—and Mattie could use help too. At the rate he was going, he was never going to get out of Munchem.

  “I want to find out what Doyle’s been doing,” Mattie told Eliot.

  Eliot watched him closely. “Are you saying you want to sneak into the Rooster’s office?”

  Mattie’s stomach dipped like he was riding a roller coaster. “No, of course not.”

  “Because that would be wrong.” Eliot was still watching Mattie, but now his eyes were bright and interested.

  “Very wrong,” Mattie said. “I’ll think of something else.”

  “Like what?” Eliot asked in a tone that said he knew very well Mattie wouldn’t think of something else because what else could he think of? If the secret was in the headmaster’s office and Mattie wanted the secret…

  “Face it, Mattie.” Eliot looked at him. “What do you have to lose? You’re already stuck here.”

  Mattie stared at Eliot and thought of all the reasons he should never ever sneak into the headmaster’s office—reasons like it was wrong, it was scary, and if Rooney caught them he would string them up by their ankles. They were all excellent reasons and yet they somehow still paled in the light of one reason: Mattie really wanted Doyle’s secret.

  “How bad do you want to know?” Eliot asked.

  Bad. Maybe more than anything Mattie had ever wanted before. Until now, Mattie had always been able to figure out how to be good. It had been a matter of smiling and agreeing and holding open doors. But now it seemed to mean pressed socks and baked goods. Or did it? If Mattie learned Doyle’s secret, he would know for sure.

  Doyle turned from the toaster oven, holding a tray of muffins. “Would you like some?”

  Mattie and Eliot exchanged a look. They were both thinking about the headmaster’s office and they were also thinking about muffins, but their look said the same thing: How hard could a little breaking and entering be?

  OTHER BOOKS MIGHT SAY THIS LITTLE brush with breaking and entering was Mattie Larimore’s Great Beginning, but really it wasn’t. It was more like Mattie Larimore’s Brush with Mattie Larimore’s Great Beginning.

  In later years, Mattie and Eliot wouldn’t be troubled by something so trivial as how to break into Rooney’s office. By then, they would have the Eiffel Tower Job under their belts and the Tragic Toothbrush Incident on their resumes. But for now, this was Mattie’s first experience with breaking and entering.

  At the moment, however, Mattie and Eliot weren’t thinking about where breaking and entering might lead them—they were thinking about how to get into the headmaster’s office without getting caught. They thought and they thought and they pretended to do their homework, but neither of them could concentrate while Doyle was making another batch of pumpkin spice muffins. They smelled too good.

  “What if we used disguises?” Mattie suggested the next morning. The boys were walking downstairs to the cafeteria, their shoes sticking to the floor.

  It had been so nice before, Mattie thought to himself as they pushed through the heavy double doors into the cafeteria. Long tables with long benches stretched the length of the room. Teachers paced the perimeter, watching the students, and students sat on the benches, watching the teachers. The cafeteria workers watched everyone.

  “What would we disguise ourselves as?” Eliot asked as they picked up plastic trays from a teetering stack at the end of one table.

  “Parents?”

  “You are way too short for that.”

  Mattie sighed because it was true. “What about a distraction?”

  Eliot considered it, his blue eyes narrowed in concentration. “That could work. We could set off fireworks near the woods and, while Rooster is investigating, we could break into his office.”

  “Do you have fireworks?”

  Eliot’s shoulders slumped. “No. Do you?”

  “No.”

  They went through the breakfast line in miserable silence. Mattie put scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast on his plate. He started to put strawberry yogurt on his plate too, but he noticed Mrs. Hitchcock watching him, her veiny hands wrapped around a clipboard. Her eyes narrowed when Mattie reached for the gooey sweet stuff. Mattie panicked. He grabbed plain Greek yogurt instead, and Mrs. Hitchcock smiled at him and made a little mark on her clipboard.

  Mattie smiled back even though he hated plain Greek yogurt.

  “That stuff’s gross,” Eliot said.

  “It’s good for me,” Mattie told him and hoped Mrs. Hitchcock heard. If he was going to eat the stuff he might as well get credit for it.

  Eliot rolled his eyes as they took their seats at the table. “I know how to break into computers,” Eliot said, digging into his scrambled eggs. “I don’t know how to break into offices.”

  Mattie thought for a moment then said, “Your sister knows how to break into cages.”

  “No way. We are not asking Caroline.”

  “Ask me what?” Caroline sat down next to them. Even though it was breakfast, her tray was filled with salad, salad, and more salad. She stuffed a forkful of lettuce into her mouth.

  “Nothing,” Eliot said and took an equally huge bite of his scrambled eggs. He chewed with his mouth open.

  “You’re disgusting,” Caroline told him. She turned to Mattie. “What do you want? I haven’t done my good deed for the day yet. If you’re lucky, I’ll do something for you. If you’re very, very lucky, it will be something you like.”

  “Um…we need help with a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Caroline wanted to know.

  Mattie sighed. He knew this was going to sound crazy even before he said it. “I need to get into the headmaster’s office and find the How to Be Good Manual so I can read it, memorize it, and go home.”

  Caroline cocked her head. “A manual about being good?”

  “I’m sure they call it something different,” Mattie said. “But that’s what we’re calling it.”

  “How will you know it when you see it if you don’t even know what it’s called?”

  Mattie sighed again. He was starting to regret telling Caroline anything. “I just will, okay?”

  Caroline studied the windows across from them as she considered this. A roof tile plummeted past and, outside, someone screamed. “If there is a book like that,” Caroline said in a faraway tone, “I want to use it for my essay. I can’t think of five hundred words on how Munchem taught me how to be a better person. I bet that book would help.”

  Mattie squirmed. “I don’t know that it’s a book exactly.”

  She shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll do it.”

  “You’ll help us?” Mattie sat up straight. “Really?”

  “Why?” Eliot asked.

  Caroline scowled and stabbed her salad with her fork. “Because I was going there anyway. The Rooster confiscated Beezus and I need to get him back.”

  “Who’s Beezus?” Mattie asked.

  “Not Beezus again!” Eliot said at the same time.

  Caroline pretended she didn’t hear her brother. “Beezus is my pet rat,” she told Mattie. “The Rooster found him and confiscated him because of Rule Ten.”

  “What’s Rule Ten?” Mattie wanted to know.

  “No pets,” Caroline said.

  “Beezus is not a pet.” Eliot scrunched up his face. “He’s a rat! And he looks like he’s melting.”

  “It’s called molting,” Caroline said, narrowing her eyes at her brother. “And his hair only falls out when he’s stressed.”

  Eliot’s expression was triumphant. “Then he must be stressed all the time!”

  “Rule
Twenty-Seven: No electronics of any type,” Caroline said, putting both elbows on the table and glaring at her brother.

  Eliot shut his mouth. He concentrated on cutting his bacon into tiny pieces.

  “Now,” Caroline said and wiped her hands twice before putting the napkin on the table. “I’m very good at breaking into locked-up places, as I’m sure Eliot told you.”

  “You don’t like me talking about you,” Eliot complained.

  “It’s not that I don’t like you talking about me,” Caroline explained and took another bite of salad. “It’s just that I prefer you use terms like ‘genius’ and ‘visionary’ when describing my work.”

  Eliot pointed his fork at her. “Letting animals loose is not work.”

  “Do you want my help or not?” Caroline asked.

  “Yes!” Mattie said quickly, waving one hand between the brother and sister. “Yes! We want your help!”

  Caroline sniffed and spent a moment rearranging the carrots on her salad. “Do you need my help?”

  Mattie stared at her and then looked at Eliot. Eliot rolled his eyes. Mattie turned back to Caroline. “Yes. We need your help.”

  She brightened, her smile as wide as her face. “Good. Remember that. You came to me. You needed me.”

  “Okay,” Mattie said even though he was starting to wonder if he should have opened his mouth at all.

  “We’ll break into the office tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Mattie’s question escaped on a squeak, and Caroline shook her head like he was an enormous disappointment. Actually, at that moment, Caroline and Eliot were both looking at Mattie like he was an enormous disappointment. They might look different, but their expressions were exactly the same.

  “Tonight,” Caroline repeated, and Mattie didn’t realize until now that her smile could get even wider and whiter. “We’re going to break in tonight and I know just how we’re going to do it.”

  MATTIE COULD BARELY CONCENTRATE on his classes. He didn’t notice when Doyle’s best friend, Maxwell, put thumbtacks on Mr. Karloff’s seat. He barely noticed Mr. Karloff’s screaming shortly thereafter. All Mattie could think about was Caroline and Eliot and how he might be getting out of Munchem.