“Lookit all these bottles of ketchup!” Mugsy said, jumping up to reach a higher shelf. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
“Maybe that’s who you should be for Halloween,” Carlos said.
Cody shuddered. “No, thanks.”
Victor smacked his face with his doughnut. “I’m the Splurch Academy ghost!”
Mugsy smacked his face with his doughnut. “I’m a marshmallow pie!”
Ratface smacked his face with his doughnut. “I’m a pair of tighty-whities!”
Sully took a bite of his doughnut. “One of your new pairs, you mean.”
Click.
“What was that?” Ratface whispered. “Everybody, hide!”
They ducked under the lowest pantry shelves.
“Only a moron wouldn’t see us here,” Carlos whispered. They waited, cringing, trying to make themselves as small and invisible as possible.
There’s almost nothing worse than waiting to get caught, Cody thought.
The lights clicked on in the kitchen. From where he crouched, Cody could see white shoes and thick, scaly ankles. It was Nurse Bilgewater, acting Headmistress. Next to Farley, she was the creepiest grown-up at Splurch Academy. She was a nurse, but she wasn’t interested in relieving suffering. She liked to inflict it.
“I smell thieves!” she cackled as she passed by the pantry door. “Grubby, filthy, stealing little boys with their hands in the cookie jar!”
“Cookie jar?” Mugsy whispered. “I didn’t see any . . .”
“Can it or they’ll find us!” Victor hissed.
The footsteps stopped in front of the door. Nurse Bilgewater wrenched the pantry door open.
“Looks like powdered sug—”
“Just as I feared,” Nurse Bilgewater said, peering at the boys cringing under the shelves. “These boys have a bad case of splagged gaskers.”
Griselda gasped. “Is it catching?”
“Very,” Nurse Bilgewater said. “They’ll all need to be quarantined in the infirmary. Immediately.”
Griselda wrung her hands. “You mean I’ll have to bring them their food? On trays?”
“Don’t overdo it, Grizzy,” Nurse Bilgewater said. “Weak broth should do the trick. Bring them a bowl every other day.”
“For how long?” the cafeteria lady persisted.
Nurse Bilgewater’s big, fishy eyes gleamed as they goggled at Cody. “No less than a week. Possibly eight.”
Cody struggled against Bilgewater’s iron grip. “You can’t lock us away for eight weeks!” Cody yelled. “You great, big, fat tub of rotten calamari!”
They heard another voice. “What’s all the commotion in here?”
The other boys shuddered as two of Splurch Academy’s most loathsome monster teachers appeared—Mr. Fronk, the Frankenmonster, and Mr. Howell, the werewolf. Mr. Howell sniffed at Cody’s armpits like an overgrown dog.
“Morning, gentlemen,” Bilgewater said. “Found these sickly boys out and about, contaminating the food supply with their germs. They’re going to need to spend several weeks locked away in quarantine.” A slow smile spread over her fat, fishy lips. “Where I can take extra good care of them.”
“And look who the ringleader is,” Mr. Fronk observed. “No surprise there. Cody Mack.”
Mr. Howell chuckled. “Weeks? Why, they’ll miss Halloween, won’t they?”
“What a pity.” Mr. Fronk’s deep voice sounded like a school bus engine downshifting. “They’ll be locked away in the sick ward while we . . . er . . . ahem. While we get on with our usual business.”
Miss Threadbare, the school secretary, poked her long, beaklike nose through the pantry door.
“Congratulations, Beulah,” she said, patting Nurse Bilgewater on the shoulder. “Not even Farley could have thought up such a perfect solution to our little childcare problem.”
Nurse Bilgewater batted her eyelashes. “I am rather a genius, aren’t I?”
CHAPTER THREE
THE INFIRMARY
The cots in the infirmary looked like they’d been used by wounded soldiers in the Civil War. Cobwebs dangled in sheets from the ceiling, obscuring the tall windows, while rows of medical instruments hung from pegs along one wall. Jars of blue antiseptic held smaller instruments, while other jars held squishy things that might have been body parts. The only sort of modern thing in the room was a refrigerator.
“See you later, Bilgewater,” Mr. Howell said. “We’ll leave you to your fun.”
“Righty-o,” Nurse Bilgewater replied. She rubbed her hands together. “Let’s see. Where shall we begin? How about a nice dose of medicine to make ’em puke all morning. That’d be fun to watch.”
Cody and his friends exchanged nervous looks. Ratface’s cheeks bulged like he was already puking at the thought.
“Then again . . . I’d have to clean it up. How about operations? It’s been so long . . . I don’t have any anesthesia, but who cares?”
Sully crashed to the floor in a dead faint. Nurse Bilgewater ignored him. Cody slapped his cheeks and woke him up.
Nurse Bilgewater snapped her fingers. “I know!” She took a huge, evil-looking device off the pegs on the wall and plugged its power cord into an outlet. “Nothing better for splagged gaskers than a little electroshock therapy.” She advanced toward them, the tip of her cattle prod sizzling.
“Um, Cody,” Mugsy whispered. His skin was the color of moldy cheese. “Wh-wh-what do we do now?”
“On the count of three,” Cody whispered. “Oh, never mind. RUN!”
“Think you’re clever, do you?” Nurse Bilgewater said. “If you aren’t ready for therapy, then it’s old-fashioned medicine you need.” She reached for a brown jug on a shelf and dunked a huge squeeze dropper into the mouth of the jug. Up came a thick, viscous glob of brown slime.
“Codfish liver oil cures most ailments, Cody Mack,” she said.
Nurse Bilgewater chuckled. “It’s tasteelicious, and good for you, too. Guzzle it on down, there’s my good little brat.”
“I’m not your little brat! I . . .” Glug.
Nurse Bilgewater took advantage of Cody’s open mouth to blast him with eight ounces of stinking slime. He spewed it out all over her dress.
“Tsk, tsk. Naughty, naughty! Cody Mack should appreciate some good wholesome fish oil. Growing up, it was like mother’s milk to me.”
“I’ll bet,” Cody said. “You let me go, you big meatball!”
“What’s the trouble in here?”
It was Fronk, Howell, and Threadbare, poking their heads in the infirmary door.
“Oh, nothing,” Nurse Bilgewater said. “I was just having a little fun with my patients.” And before Cody could squirm away, she’d strapped a metal cuff around his ankle. The cuff was attached to a gigantic iron ball by a heavy, rusty chain. One by one, Bilgewater chained up the other boys.
Eight weeks of this? Would any of them survive? And what about going to the bathroom? Never mind that. With all her crazy medical torture ideas, they’d probably all be dead long before they needed to go to the bathroom again.
And then what? She’d probably use their body parts to make new monsters! Little Frankenstein Juniors, stuck at Splurch Academy forever!
Nurse Bilgewater gestured toward the chained-up boys. “Nothing like good old-fashioned medicine. First thing the patients need,” she said, “is a course of bleeding.” She reached for a jar labeled LEECHES on one of her shelves.
“Farley’s not our problem now,” Miss Threadbare said. “We’ve got to focus on party plans. Who’s doing what?”
“I’m doing food,” Bilgewater said. “Little Boy Shish Kebabs? Cream of Crud-faced Brat? No, get this. Sauteed Organs of Disruptive Students. Yum!”
“No corpses. Medical stuff. Back off,” Nurse Bilgewater said.
Howell opened a jar of floating eyeballs and snagged one with his tongue. “So we got guests, and we got food,” he said. “What else do we need?”
“We need plenty,” Miss Threadbare said. “Decora
tions. Entertainment. Games.”
“Simple,” Howell said. “Decorate the party with little boys. Make them sing and dance to entertain us. Then, for a game, let them loose, and the first monsters to catch them get to eat them.”
“I love it when their little eyeballs go pop,” Fronk said. “That’s the best part about eating a head.”
Miss Threadbare giggled. “It’s tempting, Prometheus,” she said. “But we did promise to behave.”
Mr. Fronk stretched his arms. “We’re monsters,” he said. “Since when do we keep promises?”
CHAPTER FOUR
THE KEY
Cody was starving. The stolen snacks had worn off hours ago. He had to go to the bathroom so badly, he figured he was turning yellow.
His ankle was sore and raw from tugging at the iron cuff. And he’d thought this rotten place couldn’t get any worse. He needed to bust out! If only he could mind-control a trained hawk to smash through the windows and peck out Nurse Bilgewater’s eyes. Or blow up his chains with a motion-activated percussion bomb. Or teleport to another dimension.
But if he could do any of those things, he’d have ditched Splurch Academy for Disruptive Boys a long time before this.
The door to the infirmary opened. In came Nurse Bilgewater and Griselda. Each carried trays of foul-smelling liquid in bowls, and slabs of dry, moldy bread.
“Cabbage soup tonight,” Bilgewater announced. “Everyone’s special favorite. Don’t anybody say I don’t take good care of the patients in my infirmary! Eat up.”
She passed out the soup bowls and spoons.
The soup was swimming with floating dead bug bodies. The boys were so hungry—and so used to the disgusting food served at Splurch Academy—that they almost didn’t care. They dug in and ate—all but Ratface. He looked like he didn’t know how to eat.
Nurse Bilgewater scowled at Ratface, tapping her toes impatiently, but he only sat there like a confused lump.
“Don’t be all day about it, boy,” she told Ratface. “I’ve got better things to do than wait for you to eat.”
Ratface gagged and spluttered. The soup ran down his chin and onto his prison suit. Some of it splashed onto Nurse Bilgewater’s uniform.
“You’ll get no more soup tonight!” she bellowed. “Serves you right! Idiots would all starve, if I had my say.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ratface said, hanging his head low. He sat on both of his hands. What was he doing?
“That’s funny,” Nurse Bilgewater said, patting herself all over. “I just had those keys. Didn’t I?” She looked under the cots, on the shelves, in her armpits. Finally she stormed into her office and returned, gnawing on a candy bar and dangling another set of keys.
“Let’s go, Grizzy,” Nurse Bilgewater said. “These disruptive sickies can rot here till tomorrow.”
They turned off the light. The door shut behind them. If the infirmary was creepy by day, it was way creepier at night.
Suddenly, Cody heard noises. Rustlings, and clinkings, and footsteps! Who was out to get them now? They were lying there helpless, like bait! Was the faculty coming back in their monster shapes to eat the kids?
Then someone whispered in his ear. “Hang on a sec, Cody, and I’ll get you out of here.”
The lock sprang open at his ankle. The cuff clattered to the floor.
Victor tumbled off his cot, moaning and rubbing his ankle. “Thanks, man.”
Carlos was next. “Ratface, you’re my hero,” he said.
“A thieving genius!” Cody added.
“I’m going to call you Harry Houdini from now on,” Sully said.
“Why, what did I ever do to you?” Ratface said.
“It’s not an insult,” Sully said. “Harry Houdini was a world famous escape artist.”
“Oh,” Ratface said. “In that case, sure.”
Once Mugsy was set free, he went straight for the fridge.
“Oh, man, am I thirsty,” he said. “Hey, look, guys. Juice pouches! Looks like apple and tomato juice. Figures those teachers would keep all the good stuff hidden for themselves.”
“I hate tomato juice,” Victor said. “My granddad drinks it. It’s gross.”
“Here then. Take apple,” Mugsy said. “I don’t mind tomato juice. It’s like runny ketchup. At least, that’s how I like to think of it.” He pulled his own red pouch from the fridge. “Hmm, there’s no straw. Only one way in, I guess.”
“’Fraid so,” Cody said. “How much did you drink?”
Victor was shaking. “None, yet,” he said. “But I was real close.”
“Well, no harm done then,” Ratface said. “What’re we going to do now?”
“You’ve got a full set of keys, haven’t you?” Cody asked. “Let’s bust out of here for good!”
Victor pumped his fist in the air. “Yeah! Right out the front door!”
“Sayonara Splurch!” Carlos cried. “Hasta la vista!”
“I’m awesome! I’m awesome!” Ratface chanted. “I’m the hero! I’m the hero!”
An unearthly shriek pierced the night air.
It wasn’t a bird.
They gathered around the window and gazed out at the dark, shifting shadows on the grounds below.
It was their teachers, in their true shapes.
Monsters.
Werewolves. Frankensteins. Sickening mutants.
Roaming the grounds and hunting for prey. Just like every night.
“We’d never get past them,” Carlos said. “Not in a million years.”
Something thumped against the glass, and they all jumped.
“It’s only a bat,” Sully said, but that didn’t stop him from shaking.
“Look at this! Look! Look!” Cody looked over to see Mugsy buried waist-deep in a cupboard in Nurse Bilgewater’s office.
They pulled Mugsy out by his ankles and looked inside the cupboard. There, swarming with bugs, were dozens upon dozens of bags of Halloween candy!
“I call the Nutty Nougat Nubs!” Carlos said as he grabbed a handful of candy.
“Gimme that Caramelly Belly Bomb,” Victor said. “I saw it first!”
“Then give me the Tart & Tangy Lickety Stix,” Carlos said. “You can share, but I warn you, I double dip.”
“Sugar,” Mugsy sighed. “Beautiful sugar . . . happy sugar . . . I died and went to sugar heaven . . .”
They sat there for hours, sorting through the candy, picking out the bugs, chowing down till their stomachs ached.
“There’s still some candy left,” Ratface said. “Do we just leave it here?”
“I’ll bet it’s for the teacher’s big Halloween party,” Cody said. “Didn’t they say Bilgewater was in charge of the food?”
“What’s with them and their stupid old party, anyway?” Victor said.
“I think they only locked us away so we wouldn’t interfere with their party,” Sully said.
“Then I say we interfere,” Cody said.
The boys all looked at Cody, wide-eyed.
“Are you serious?” Sully shook his head. “They’ll slaughter us!”
“No, they won’t,” Cody said. “They’re not allowed.”
“Yeah!” Carlos said. “Let’s do it. Let’s booby-trap ’em!”
Cody picked up Nurse Bilgewater’s keys and jingled them.
Ratface rubbed his hands together. “Time for a little exploring.”
“Right.” Cody looked at the clock. “I think we’ve got about another hour before the teachers come inside and go to bed.”
“We could look for stuff to make booby traps,” Carlos said. “The science rooms, the art room . . .”
“Griselda’s kitchen,” Mugsy added.
“Farley’s lab,” Ratface said.
“While we’re at it, let’s find stuff to make our own costumes,” Carlos said. “After we sabotage their party, let’s have our own.”
“Yeah!”
“Aw, it was nothing,” Cody said. “I do that kind of thing all the time.”
/> They took off down the hall, tiptoeing so Ivanov, the hunchbacked hall monitor, wouldn’t hear them. They could only pray that Pavlov, the gigantic devil dog, wouldn’t smell them.
“Where to now?” Victor asked.
“First stop, the library,” Sully said.
“The what?”
“I need to go to the library,” Sully said. “If we have to die of boredom sitting around here all day, at least I can read.”
“Yeah, but this library doesn’t have any comic books,” Ratface said. “What are you going to read?”
They reached the library and slipped inside. It smelled like old, dusty paper. Sully, who spent more time here than any other boy, went right to the shelf he wanted. “I’ll read the perfect Halloween book,” he said, holding up a cover that looked awfully similar to the one face Cody never wanted to see again.
“I’ll read Dracula.”
They dragged a protesting Sully away from the library and rampaged all over the school, looting it of anything useful they could find that might help them make costumes or booby traps.
“Don’t make too much of a mess or they’ll suspect us!” Sully chewed on his fingernails.
“Are you kidding?” Ratface was busy gnawing on a stolen doughnut from Griselda’s kitchen. “We’re locked up in the infirmary! We’ve got the perfect alibi. If anything, they’ll blame kids from the other grades.”
“Get a bunch of eggs,” Carlos instructed. “In a few days they’ll be the best stink bombs ever.”
“Guys,” Sully pleaded. “Seriously. We’re really pushing our luck. Let’s get back to the infirmary. They’re gonna come back inside any minute. If we’re not in bed . . .” He drew a finger across his throat.
“Aw, quit being such a worrywart,” Victor said. “We’re starving. I’m not leaving until I eat.”
Curse of the Bizarro Beetle #2 Page 2
