All three followed the cable out of the mechanical room and into the pool utility room, where it disappeared among the jumble of barrels. It took ten minutes of shoving and grunting before the boys moved the containers aside and discovered a small hole in the wall. It wasn’t like the ventilation duct; this opening definitely wasn’t man-made. It looked like it had been gnawed on by a variety of creatures, and the yellow wire disappeared through its center.
Glenn aimed his flashlight inside. The passage descended into the earth, as if it had been dug by a mole or a groundhog. “Another tunnel?”
“This is more like it,” Karina said. “This is where we’ll find some bugs.”
Robert knew she was right. “Howard said the burrow was underneath the soccer field. We have to crawl out of the school to get there.”
He wriggled into the opening headfirst. On a class trip back in third grade, Robert had toured an underground cavern; he found the insect burrow had the same cool temperature, the same dank smell, the same overwhelming sense of blackness. The passage was hollowed out of dirt and clay, and roots and stones jutted in from the sides.
“Come on,” he called back. “We’re getting close.”
The tunnel began as a tight squeeze but quickly expanded to a height that allowed them to stand. Glenn’s flashlight did little to illuminate the darkness, but they saw a faint orange glow in the distance.
“How much farther?” Karina asked.
Robert was coiling the wire around his wrist, and he estimated he had collected most of it. “Maybe another thirty feet,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
The ground sloped upward, and they arrived in a large circular chamber. The walls were ringed with torches providing heat so the insects could thrive. And they certainly were thriving. Termites and butterflies coated the ceiling. Grasshoppers and millipedes clung to the walls. The floor was teeming with bugs upon bugs—locusts on top of caterpillars on top of katydids. Robert avoided looking down and ignored the disgusting crunch of his footsteps.
As he pulled the last few inches of wire through his hands, he found it stretching up to the ceiling—to a silky white cocoon tethered to the earthen wall.
Karina gasped. “Oh, no.”
Robert knew what she was thinking. Some spiders cocooned their prey before eating them. It was a way of storing their meals for a later time—the spider equivalent of stashing leftovers in the fridge. Robert yanked on the wire, hoping to pull down the entire cocoon.
Instead, the opposite end of the wire simply popped out. Attached were the helmets and leather glove that Ms. Lavinia had stitched together in the library. The materials looked corroded, as if they had been partially digested.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Glenn insisted. “We need to get them down. There’s a chance they’re still OK.”
Inside the burrow was one of the fifty-five-gallon drums, lying on its side. It was full of crickets and moths and other bugs that liked to nest in dark, shadowy places. Glenn rolled it across the floor, slapping away the insects that scrambled across its surface. He stopped underneath the cocoon, then flipped the drum upright and hammered the lid on top. “This ought to hold me, don’t you think?”
“I’ll do it,” Robert said.
“I’m taller,” Glenn reminded him. “It’ll be easier for me to reach them.”
“But they’re my pets. I got them into this mess.”
“At least let me give you a boost.” Glenn knelt down and formed his hands into a step. “Come on.”
Robert climbed up to the top of the barrel. It wobbled from side to side on the uneven dirt floor, and he paused to steady his balance. He still wasn’t tall enough to reach the cocoon, but if he used the handle of the flashlight, he could manage to tap it.
“Guys?” he whispered. “Can you hear me?”
No answer.
He tapped it again, harder this time.
The cocoon broke away from the wall and fell to the ground.
It was perfectly still.
“Oh, Robert,” Karina said. “I am so sorry.”
EIGHTEEN
Robert couldn’t believe it. All this time, while he was crawling through the vents and slapping bugs off his face and plucking maggots out of his earlobes, all this time he was convinced that Pip and Squeak were fine. He had believed he only needed to find them. He never considered they would be …
It was unthinkable.
The cocoon was light and extremely brittle, and it reminded Robert of the papier-mâché projects he’d made in art class. He gave it a little rattle, hoping to feel something stirring inside. But the cocoon was lifeless.
“Well, I’m not leaving them here,” he said. “I won’t let them be lunch for a bunch of stupid bugs. I’ll take them home and bury them.”
“That’s a good idea,” Karina said. She was already blinking back tears. “You can bury them under your bedroom window. They were always happiest in your house.”
As they turned to leave, they heard voices coming from the entrance of the burrow.
“Oh, this is wonderful, wonderful!”
“Yes, Master is very pleased with me.”
Robert grabbed the cocoon and ducked behind the barrel. “Over here,” he called, and Glenn and Karina squeezed in beside him. The drum wasn’t big enough to conceal all three of them, but the shadows at the edge of the dark underground space helped to hide them.
Howard Mergler and Miss Mandis entered the burrow, carrying trash bags full of moldy peaches and rotten banana peels. Together, they flung the fruit across the room.
“Come and eat, my brothers and sisters!” Howard exclaimed. “Your master commands you!”
“Eat, grow, and multiply!” Miss Mandis cried. “Your bodies must be strong for the Great War!”
As Robert crouched behind the barrel, he became acutely aware of the beetles and cockroaches walking over his sneakers, of the crickets and termites and stinkbugs clinging to the walls. The insects were clicking their jaws and beating their wings, trying to draw attention to the intruders, but Howard and Miss Mandis were too caught up in their crazy pep rally to notice.
“For centuries, the humans have trampled us! Squashed us! Swatted us! Poisoned us!” Howard exclaimed. “But this spring, with Master’s help, you will have your revenge!”
Robert felt the pitter-patter of tiny feet creeping up his back, over his neck, and into his hair. It was either a lot of little bugs or one giant bug with a lot of little legs. He couldn’t decide which was worse.
“Don’t move,” Glenn whispered.
Robert glanced over. A greasy brown cockroach crawled over Glenn’s ear, walked across his cheek, and tickled his nose with its antennae. Moths were fluttering around Karina’s forehead, trying but failing to nest in her hair. The bugs were intent on scaring the friends out of the shadows, but they refused to budge.
“When the snow thaws, we will no longer live in the cracks and crevasses of society!” Miss Mandis cried. “We will no longer hide beneath rocks!”
Robert felt a red-hot pinprick on the back of his neck—and then another and another. It felt like staples were being fired into his skin. Something was biting him. A tingling sensation began coursing through his bloodstream. The bugs were also biting Glenn, and probably trying to bite Karina, too, but none of them flinched. They knew they only needed to endure a few more minutes of pain. Howard and Miss Mandis had emptied their feedbag and were now dumping the last few scraps on the ground.
“Be strong, my brothers and sisters!” Howard cried.
“We will return in the morning with more nourishment!” Miss Mandis promised. “Farewell!”
They were turning to leave when all the shadows surrounding Robert vanished. Suddenly the walls were illuminated by a ghastly green light. He looked up and saw dozens of fireflies hovering above his head. Their glowing tails formed a signal that couldn’t be ignored.
Robert and his friends stood up, realizing there was no point in hiding anymore.
&n
bsp; “Intruders!” Miss Mandis shrieked.
“You shouldn’t be down here,” Howard said. “This entire basement is off-limits to students.”
“It’s too late,” Robert said. “We already know your plan. We know all about the army you’re building.”
“Yeah,” Glenn said, “and we’re going to tell everyone. They’ll bring in real exterminators with real poison. They’ll fumigate the whole place.”
Howard’s shirt split along its seams as two long wings burst from his back and rose above his shoulders. “You’re not telling anyone,” he said. “You’re going straight to Tillinghast Mansion, and you’ll surrender your vessels once and for all!”
Spiky bristles sprouted from his face, and huge compound eyes erupted from the sides of his head. It looked like a metamorphosis, but really he was just shedding his human skin and revealing his true arthropod form. A second pair of segmented limbs unfurled from his torso, and his hideous vertical mandibles clacked with laughter.
Karina turned to Robert. “Remember when I said I only hated spiders? And other bugs didn’t bother me very much?”
“Yeah?”
“I was wrong about that.”
The burrow had just one exit, and the shaggai was blocking it. He waved his four upper limbs menacingly, daring Robert and his friends to get past him.
“Sit down, children,” Miss Mandis told them, “and we’ll promise not to hurt you too much.”
Robert thought back to earlier in the day, when he had struggled with Miss Mandis outside Tillinghast Mansion. He remembered that she wasn’t strong enough to keep him from leaping into the pond.
And then he remembered what Miss Lynch had taught the class during homeroom: the average adult housefly weighs remarkably little … less than a cotton ball.
He had nothing to lose. He gripped the cocoon tightly and charged toward the shaggai with his head down, slamming his shoulder into its thorax. To his astonishment, it was like tackling a department store mannequin. The arthropod fell to the ground, all six limbs flailing wildly, and Robert kept running.
His friends followed behind him.
“Dude, that was awesome!” Glenn said. “How’d you know that would work?”
“I pay attention in class,” Robert said. “You should try it sometime.”
Miss Mandis wasn’t even trying to stop them. She just kept chanting “S’von delagos! S’von delagos!” over and over. It sounded like a cry for help.
“What’s she saying?” Glenn asked.
“I don’t know,” Karina said.
“Why isn’t she following us?”
“Just keep moving.”
They scrambled through the tunnel and emerged in the pool utility room, crawling past the storage drums. All they needed to do was open the door to the mechanical room and head upstairs to the school …
But the door was blocked by a huge cloud of wasps—hundreds of them, with long wings and spiked purple abdomens, all buzzing loudly.
“Uh-oh,” Glenn said.
Now Robert understood why Miss Mandis hadn’t bothered following them. They were already trapped. One sting from a wasp had been bad enough. Dozens of stings would be fatal.
“What do we do?” Karina asked.
“I don’t know,” Robert said.
He tucked the cocoon under his shirt to keep it safe. Then he took off his windbreaker and waved it like a cape, snapping it at the wasps, keeping them back. He knew it was a desperate move; no windbreaker in the world would be big enough to stop them. He needed a better weapon, something that could take down all of them at once. He needed—
“Water!” Karina shouted.
She pointed to the pool filtration system in the corner of the room; in its center was a large wheel valve used to divert water away from the filter.
“Open it!” Karina explained. “You can spray them!”
Robert grabbed the wheel, but it didn’t budge. He wasn’t strong enough. A wasp buzzed toward his head, and he ducked away from the attack just in time.
Glenn hurried over, and both of them tried together. The wheel turned a few inches, enough to unleash a torrent of chlorinated water. Within seconds, hundreds of gallons blasted across the room. The wasps flew in all directions, trying to avoid the spray, but it was too big and too fast. Their wings, soaked and heavy, soon grounded the entire swarm.
“All right, that’s enough!” Karina shouted. “Turn it off!”
Robert and Glenn tried to spin the wheel in the opposite direction, but their fingers slipped along its surface; their hands were too wet to grip the slick metal. Somewhere above them, a siren was blaring—the drain had triggered some kind of alarm.
“We need to go!” Glenn shouted.
“We can’t leave the water running,” Karina said. “It’ll drain the whole swimming pool. You’ll flood the entire basement!”
That gave Robert an idea. “We won’t flood the basement,” he said. “We’ll flood the burrow!”
There was a large round grate in the middle of the floor, meant to drain the water in precisely this kind of emergency. Robert took his windbreaker and placed it over the drain, immediately clogging it. The water, already ankle deep, began rising even faster.
“Hurry!” Robert shouted to Glenn. “Get the door!”
The door to the mechanical room swung inward, and too much standing water would make it impossible to open. Glenn struggled to pull it against the rising tide. Karina and Robert squeezed through, then Glenn followed, and the door slammed shut.
Safe and dry on the other side, they watched through the window as water filled the pool utility room. Within a minute, it was waist high and rushing into the burrow. The insects inside were trapped—as were Howard and Miss Mandis. The entire underground cavern was about to become an underwater grave.
The siren continued to blare, loud and shrill.
“We should go,” Karina said. “The police will be coming.”
All three ran up the stairs to the first floor. Luckily, the door to the mechanical room was locked only from the inside, and they had no trouble opening it. Together they ran down the central corridor toward the school’s main entrance—but as they approached, they realized it was too late. Police cars and a fire truck were already waiting in front of the building, and Principal Slater was unlocking the doors.
They turned and ran in the opposite direction.
“Who’s there?” Principal Slater called. “Stop right this instant!”
Robert heard boots hitting the ground, running behind them. He and Glenn and Karina were quickly approaching the end of the hallway, which forked in two directions.
“We need to split up,” Karina said. “You and Glenn go through the gym. I’ll lead them the other way.”
“What if they catch you?”
She grinned. “No one’s going to catch me. I’m a ghost, remember?” Robert was surprised to hear the word come out of Karina’s mouth, but she no longer seemed ashamed of it. She seemed to finally understand that it made no difference to Robert either way. “Now go on, hurry!”
Glenn didn’t need to be told twice. He was already racing through the gym. Robert ran after him while Karina lingered in the hallway, ready to lure the grown-ups in the opposite direction. “Thanks,” he called.
“Don’t thank me,” she called back. “Just run!”
NINETEEN
The boys raced through the locker room and sprinted outside onto the athletic fields. The stadium lights were off, and the grounds of the school were completely dark.
Glenn pointed to the far end of the soccer field, which was bordered by a thick tangle of woods. “We’ll cut through there,” he said. “If anyone follows us, we’ll lose them in the trees.”
But Robert realized something was wrong. The grass on the field was wet and muddy, even though it hadn’t rained in nearly a week. He felt like he was running across soft, spongy marshmallow; in some places, his sneakers sank six inches into the ground.
“What’s g
oing on?” Glenn asked.
“I don’t know—”
Suddenly the field ruptured and Robert sank to his waist in dirty water. He held tight to the cocoon and gripped the sides of the earth with his free hand, trying to hoist himself out even as the muddy ground collapsed around him.
At first he thought it was an earthquake. The soccer field appeared to be cratering. Water was gurgling up out of the ground. Then Robert smelled chlorine and immediately realized what was happening.
The burrow was bursting.
The soccer field was just a thin skin across its surface, and now it was sinking into a giant underground lake. The water churned like an ocean at high tide; dead or drowning bugs were floating everywhere, thousands of them, flies and beetles, spiders and centipedes. Robert would have to swim to survive; he had to let go of the cocoon. The silk strands were melting, dissolving like cotton candy, revealing the mummified corpses of his pets. He looked down at Pip and Squeak for a final farewell.
“I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “This was all my fault.”
Squeak seemed to twitch his whiskers, and Robert thought it was just his imagination. But then Pip opened his eyes halfway and shook his head. It’s not your fault, the rat seemed to be saying.
“Wait, you heard that?” he asked.
This time, Pip nodded. Squeak opened his eyes, and the rats managed to wag their tail. Robert quickly checked their body for cuts or bites. Their fur was matted with gunk, but it seemed the helmets and homemade glove-coat had protected them from any serious injuries. The water was still raging all around them, and Robert was struggling to stay afloat. He placed the rats on his shoulder, explaining to them, “I need you to hang on while I swim. Can you do that?”
He felt a familiar tug on his shoulder as the rats dug in with their claws.
“Look out!” Glenn shouted.
A fifty-five-gallon barrel erupted from the churning sea, casting giant waves that nearly struck Robert in the face. He kicked his legs, treading water, doing his best to keep Pip and Squeak above the surface.
Teacher's Pest Page 7
