Robert unzipped his backpack and coaxed Pip and Squeak onto her desk. The rats stretched their paws and yawned. Ms. Lavinia opened a dictionary, and a flat greasy insect wiggled out. It had a sickly gray color and two long quivering antennae. Pip and Squeak pounced on it, pinning the bug with their forepaws.
“Silverfish,” Ms. Lavinia said. She riffled the pages and another dozen critters slithered out, fleeing in all directions. “They eat cellulose, the wood pulp used to make paper.” After chasing the last of the bugs from the dictionary, she lifted one of the pages. It was speckled with holes small and large, like a slice of Swiss cheese. “In another two weeks, this book will be completely destroyed. All these books, my whole library, ruined.”
Pip and Squeak sniffed the silverfish and decided it was too disgusting to eat. They lifted their paws, releasing it, and the insect darted away.
“What can I do?” Robert asked.
“Come with me,” Ms. Lavinia said.
Robert, Pip, and Squeak followed her to an office at the back of the library. The room was small and cramped, with stacks of books piled up to the ceiling. The walls were lined with AV equipment: video cameras, digital projectors, laptop computers, and dozens of power strips and extension cords. Karina was already there. She spent most of her day hanging around the library, where the teachers wouldn’t notice her.
“Something big is happening,” Ms. Lavinia said. She sat on a chair and addressed the children in a low voice. “The lice, the moths, the silverfish—they’re all part of it. They’re being controlled by a shaggai.”
“Did you say ‘shaggai’?” Robert asked.
“It’s the arthropod occupying the body of Howard Mergler.”
Robert realized he had glimpsed the shaggai from a distance on the night of the school Halloween dance, when Howard had sprouted two membranous wings and soared into the sky. “What is he, exactly? Some kind of giant bug?”
“More like a giant bug leader,” Ms. Lavinia explained. “Imagine a queen bee with power over every bug on earth. Wasps, head lice, walking sticks, silverfish. Howard is summoning all these creatures to Lovecraft Middle School.”
“Why?” Karina asked.
“Why, indeed,” Ms. Lavinia said. “That’s what we need to find out …”
Her voice trailed off as she realized they were no longer alone. Standing in the doorway was one of the exterminators. He was dressed in a yellow hazmat suit and his hands clutched a spray wand and a tank of pesticide, as if he were prepared to fumigate the whole office and every living creature inside it.
Pip and Squeak reared up on their hind legs, hissing and baring their fangs. Robert wondered how long he’d been listening, if he’d heard any of Ms. Lavinia’s explanation. If maybe he was a shaggai himself.
The exterminator set down his tank and removed his helmet. Robert saw that it was only Ms. Lavinia’s husband, Warren.
“Sorry if I frightened you,” he said. “I’ve been doing a little undercover work.”
Ms. Lavinia explained that Warren had managed to infiltrate the exterminators by arriving at the school dressed in his own mask and hazmat suit.
“What have you learned?” she asked.
“Nothing good, my dear,” he said, sighing. “I’m afraid it’s worse than we thought.” Warren sank into an empty chair. Pip and Squeak leapt into his lap, nuzzling their faces against his chest, and he scratched both rats behind their ears. “But at least my favorite furry friends are here.”
Warren was a marine biologist who worked in a lighthouse down by the waterfront, and he was committed to foiling Tillinghast’s plans. He was one of the few adults in town whom Robert trusted completely.
“I’m confused,” Robert said. “If Howard is summoning insects inside Lovecraft Middle School, why did he hire exterminators?”
“He’s just fooling you,” Warren explained. “These goofy radiation suits are part of the charade. Watch.”
He took an empty coffee mug from his wife’s desk and placed the spray wand inside it. Then he pumped the handle on the tank, filling the mug with gloopy brown pesticide. When he finished, Warren raised the mug to his lips.
His wife grabbed his wrist. “Are you crazy? You’ll kill yourself!”
“No, I won’t. Howard supplied the tanks, and he has no intention of killing anything.”
Warren sipped from the mug, grimacing at the taste but forcing himself to swallow. Robert waited for him to choke or gag or clutch his throat, but he seemed perfectly fine.
“It’s maple syrup,” Warren explained.
Of course, Robert thought. That was the smell he’d recognized that morning—not pancakes, but maple syrup!
“Which is basically sugar,” Karina realized. “Instead of killing the bugs, you’ve been feeding them.”
“Exactly,” Warren said. “And that’s not all.”
He explained that real exterminators would set about spraying every inch of an infested space. But Warren’s team received instructions to spray only certain hallways. He showed Robert and Karina a floor plan of the school—the targeted areas were highlighted with a yellow marker. It looked like a sunburst, with all the lines converging in the center of the building.
“They’re trails,” Warren explained. “We spent the day marking trails for the insects to follow.”
“Where?” Ms. Lavinia asked. “And why?”
“That’s what we need to find out. All the lines lead to one place.” He pointed to the middle of the sunburst—a room labeled NURSE’S OFFICE.
“Miss Mandis?” Robert asked. He thought back to the previous morning, when Glenn was lying on her cot. He thought of the three chunky houseflies flinging themselves against her window. “What does she have to do with this?”
“Maybe nothing, maybe everything,” Warren said. “I propose we follow the bugs to her office and see what they’re doing.”
“What if we see a janitor?” Karina asked. One of the strange conditions of her existence was her confinement to the property of Lovecraft Middle School. She lived in the school twenty-four hours a day and spent a good portion of every afternoon hiding from the janitors. She knew all of their schedules and work habits.
“They’re still on strike,” Ms. Lavinia explained. “At this point in the day, we’re probably the only ones left in the school.”
That wasn’t completely true. It was nearing four o’clock when Ms. Lavinia led them out of the library, and the hallways were empty of students and teachers. But they were far from alone.
Creeping along the edge of the hallway was a long procession of insects—crickets, caterpillars, ants, beetles—all of them following the trails of maple syrup.
“Should we stomp them or something?” Robert asked. “Just to be safe?”
“It won’t make a difference,” Ms. Lavinia said. “For every one you stomp, a thousand more will be right behind it.”
Warren nodded. “They’ve got us outnumbered.”
Even Pip and Squeak seemed intimidated by the sheer number of bugs. Instead of walking beside the critters on the floor, they rode atop Robert’s shoulder.
Eventually they arrived at the nurse’s office. Along the bottom of the door was a half-inch opening, just enough space for the bugs to pass underneath. Ms. Lavinia knocked on the door, waited a moment, and then turned the handle.
The office was empty. The lights were off. The trail of insects passed through the reception area, under the privacy screen, and then disappeared beneath one of the cots.
“Give me a hand,” Warren said to Robert.
Together they dragged the cot away from the wall. In the floor was a small slatted vent. The insects were squeezing through the slats and disappearing into a tunnel behind the walls.
“It’s a ventilation duct,” Warren explained. “Used for heating and air conditioning. There’s a whole network of these ducts traveling all over the school.” He knelt down, grabbed a screwdriver from his belt, and used it to remove the vent cover. Then he aimed a flash
light inside. The duct was short and narrow, barely eight inches wide. The long line of bugs marched into the darkness.
“Can you see where they’re going?” Karina asked.
“No, not at all,” Warren sighed. “And I’m sure this is part of their plan. Now they can travel anywhere in the building, and we’re too big to follow them.”
“Well,” Ms. Lavinia said, “we’re not all too big.”
She turned to the rats who were perched on Robert’s shoulder.
EIGHT
“No way,” Robert said.
“Why not?” Ms. Lavinia asked.
“I’m not sending my pets behind those walls. Anything could be back there.”
“Exactly. We need to know what’s happening.”
“And how do you expect them to tell us?”
“Ah,” Ms. Lavinia smiled. “That’s the fun part.”
They returned to her office in the library. Ms. Lavinia approached her shelves of audiovisual equipment and pulled down several boxes of supplies: webcams, flashlights, wire, pliers, Velcro, glue. She spent the next fifteen minutes at her desk, stitching parts onto an old leather glove. Finally she called for the rats to join her.
“All right, boys, step up.”
Pip and Squeak hopped onto her desk. Ms. Lavinia fitted a tiny webcam on top of Pip’s head, fastening a tiny strap of Velcro under his neck so that he wore it like a helmet. “A perfect fit!” she exclaimed. “By connecting this camera to a laptop computer, we can see everything Pip sees. A rat’s-eye view of the ventilation ducts.”
“What about light?” Karina asked.
“That’s where Squeak comes in.” She fitted a second helmet on top of Squeak. This one was equipped with a small but very bright LED bulb. “He’ll illuminate the vent so we can see.”
The helmets were secured by the split leather glove that the rats wore like a jacket. They seemed amused by the outfit, as if they were dressing up like characters in a play. Pip opened his mouth in a hideous snarl while Squeak aimed the headlamp at his twin, casting terrifying shadows on the wall.
“You see?” Ms. Lavinia said. “They love it.”
The group returned to the nurse’s office with the laptop computer and a hundred-foot-long yellow cable. “This wire transmits the camera imagery to the computer,” Ms. Lavinia explained.
“What if we run out of wire?”
“We’ll give it three sharp tugs. That will be their signal to turn around and come back. Until then, they just need to follow the bugs as far as they can.”
Robert knelt down and explained these instructions to Pip and Squeak. It was the strangest thing: he had found he could give the most complicated directions to his pets, and they always understood exactly what he wanted. He assumed it was because they had two brains, that they were twice as smart as an ordinary rat. Sometimes Robert had only to think what he wanted, and his rats would obey the order.
But this afternoon, he needed to be a little more persuasive. Pip and Squeak glanced into the duct and shook their heads. Maybe you should crawl in first, they seemed to be suggesting.
“You’re the only ones who can fit,” Robert said. “If there’s any trouble, I’ll grab the wire and reel you in.” He pulled on the cable to demonstrate, raising them off the floor. Pip and Squeak flailed their legs until he set them down again. They were not amused.
Warren powered up the laptop and started the camera program. A grainy image of Robert’s face appeared on the computer screen. This was because Pip and Squeak were looking at him, and the camera was transmitting everything the rats could see.
“Perfect,” Warren said. “All systems go.”
“All systems except Pip and Squeak,” Karina observed. She had spent enough time with the rats to know their moods. “They still look scared.”
Don’t be scared, Robert thought. I’ll be watching the whole time. I won’t let anything bad happen.
He knew Pip and Squeak could hear his thoughts and he knew they trusted him. He had always been a loyal parent to them; he changed their litter once a week, he sneaked them vegetables from the dinner table, he let them sleep under his blankets on cold nights. If Robert said the ducts were safe, then Pip and Squeak believed they were safe.
His rats approached the trail of insects, hissing loudly, and bugs scattered out of the way. Pip and Squeak cut in front of a stinkbug, then looked over at Robert and seemed to grin.
“They’re doing it!” Warren said. “You convinced them!”
Karina looked at Robert. “What did you say to them?”
He shrugged. “They just needed a pep talk, that’s all.”
The rats followed a black beetle into the duct and soon they were swallowed up by the darkness. Everyone turned to look at the shaky image on the laptop computer. The rats were still following along behind the black beetle—only now, seen in extreme close-up, it looked like a lumbering rhinoceros. As Pip and Squeak crept along, Robert fed out more wire; Warren was measuring every handful. “That’s about fifteen feet.”
Ms. Lavinia consulted a map of the school. “They’re moving east. Toward the swimming pool.”
The helmets were working perfectly; the flashlight illuminated the entire duct. From the rats’ perspective, it appeared to be a large, boxy tunnel with brushed aluminum walls.
“Twenty feet,” Warren counted. “Twenty-five.”
As they watched, Robert began to relax. Pip and Squeak were doing fine. The duct seemed safe and well lit. Maybe the task wasn’t so dangerous after all.
Eventually, the rats arrived at an intersection. The passage divided into three ducts, one of which was much larger than the others. The bugs were moving into this new, larger passage, but Pip and Squeak hesitated.
“Go on,” Warren whispered. “Follow the bugs.”
Yes, Robert thought. Follow the bugs.
Pip and Squeak stepped forward, turning left and climbing into the new duct. This one was three times the size of the original duct—large enough for a person to squeeze through. It seemed to be sloping downward.
“Fifty feet,” Warren counted.
“Where are they going?” Robert asked.
“Downstairs,” Ms. Lavinia said.
“There’s a downstairs?” Robert’s copy of the student handbook included a floor plan of Lovecraft Middle School, but it didn’t mention anything about a basement.
“It’s off-limits to students,” Karina explained. “There’s a mechanical room with boilers and air vents. The drains for the swimming pool. All the machines that keep the school running.”
“Seventy-five feet,” Warren said.
“Maybe we should call them back,” Robert said. “I didn’t know there was a downstairs.”
“Just another minute,” Ms. Lavinia said. “Let’s see how far they can go.”
The rats traveled a full ninety feet before stopping. They appeared to have reached the edge of a chasm. The duct continued on the other side of a three-foot gap. Pip and Squeak peered down into the void, but their headlamp revealed nothing except a yawning black pit. It seemed bottomless.
“End of the road,” Robert said. “Time to turn around.”
Pip and Squeak were looking across the chasm. The duct continued on the other side, and the bugs were having no trouble getting across; they simply climbed over via the walls and kept going. Pip and Squeak stared after them, anxiously pacing from side to side.
“They see something,” Warren said. “Is there any way to make the camera zoom in?”
Ms. Lavinia laughed. “I built streaming-video camera helmets for a two-headed rat in fifteen minutes, and you’re complaining that they don’t have a zoom lens?”
Pip and Squeak stepped closer to the edge of the gap, as if they were contemplating a jump.
“Forget it, guys,” Robert called into the duct. From their rat’s-eye perspective, it looked like a leap across the Grand Canyon. “You’ll never make it.”
“It’s too bad,” Warren said. “They’re so close.”
Robert tugged three times on the wire, the signal for the rats to stop and turn around. But they ignored his call. They seemed to be calculating the size of the gap.
I’m serious, he thought. Come back right now. I know you can hear me. Pip and Squeak backtracked several steps, and Robert relaxed. Thank you.
Then the rats sprinted forward, a running start.
“No!” Robert shouted.
Pip and Squeak hit the edge of the chasm and launched themselves across the opening. For a moment, the camera feed was a blur. Robert was so nervous, he forgot to breathe.
Then the image slammed into focus.
For a split second, he saw two claws gripping the edge of a metal precipice, desperately trying to lift themselves to safety.
Then the image was all blurry again.
Before Robert could even think, the camera wire whipped through his fingers, popped out of the computer, and disappeared through the vent.
The screen went dark.
NINE
If Robert thought he had any chance of fitting into the duct, he would have leapt right through the vent.
“This is going to be fine,” Warren insisted. “We’ll just go down to the basement and get them out.”
“Where’s the basement?” Robert asked.
Ms. Lavinia led them down the hallway to a door labeled MECHANICAL ROOM: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Robert tried the door but it was locked.
“The janitors have the key,” Karina said.
“The janitors are on strike,” Robert said. He threw his weight against the door, hitting it with his shoulder, like he’d seen action heroes do in the movies. Of course, that did nothing except hurt his shoulder. Warren grabbed his arm, trying to settle him down.
“Take it easy,” he said. “You can’t get through that way.”
Robert turned to Karina. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Can’t you just squeeze through a keyhole or something? Turn yourself into mist and roll under the door? What kind of ghost are you?”
Karina’s lower lip trembled, as though she was going to start crying. She turned abruptly and ran off down the hall. Robert threw up his hands in frustration. What was wrong with her? He was the one who had lost his pets. Not her. He felt like he was going to start crying.
Teacher's Pest Page 3
