“Do what?”
“Tackle me! You nearly broke my nose! Do you want to be rescued or not?”
Robert realized that he and Lionel were alone at the end of an empty hallway. Of course Lionel thought Robert had tackled him. Who else could have done it?
Lionel picked himself up off the floor and shoved open the exit doors, climbing over the drifts. Robert lingered in the hallway, staring at the place where the gate had vanished. Things were happening so quickly, he couldn’t make sense of them. Where was Mac? Was he really gone?
Robert pushed open the doors and trekked outside into the snow. Lionel was jumping up and down, waving to the helicopter. It was hovering some twenty feet above the ground, slowly descending upon a patch of level ground. The spinning rotors were whipping up snow, and for a moment it looked like the blizzard was raging all over again. Robert had never been so close to a helicopter before. He certainly never thought he’d ever get a chance to ride on one.
Eventually, Mrs. Arthur, Karina, and Glenn caught up with them. “Where’s Mac?” Mrs. Arthur asked.
“I don’t know,” Robert said. He needed more time to think of a better answer to that question.
The pilot left the rotors spinning. He hopped out of the chopper and came running over, a stocky man dressed in an orange jumpsuit.
“Are you folks all right?” he asked, yelling to be heard over the engine.
“We’ve been better,” Mrs. Arthur said. “We lost one of our teachers last night. She wandered into the snow, and we haven’t seen her all morning.”
“Which one of you is Lionel Quincy?”
“Here,” Lionel said, raising his hand.
“All right, Mr. Quincy, I need you to come with me.” The pilot looked to Mrs. Arthur. “I’ll alert the police to your situation, ma’am. They’ll send help as soon as they can.”
Robert’s mother blinked. “What about us?”
“This isn’t a rescue chopper, ma’am. This is a private commercial aircraft. I’ve got instructions from PerfectPrice to collect one passenger, Lionel Quincy.”
“But we’ve been trapped here all night—”
“Additional passengers would violate my terms of contract. There are liability issues, you see.”
Mrs. Arthur gestured to the helicopter. There were four empty seats inside the cabin. “We haven’t had heat all night,” she explained. “One of our boys nearly died from exposure. You’ve got room—”
“She’s right,” Lionel told the pilot. “We need to bring all of them.”
“I have specific instructions,” the pilot said.
“But this is an emergency,” Lionel said. “These people need our help. I told them all night you were coming.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Quincy, but if I don’t honor my PerfectPrice contract, I don’t get paid. Now are you coming aboard or not?”
Lionel hesitated. For all of his excitement over the helicopter, it no longer seemed like he wanted to be rescued. But Mrs. Arthur pushed him toward the chopper. “You have to go,” she told him. “Your family’s waiting for you. We’ll be fine.”
Lionel followed the pilot to the chopper, climbed aboard, and belted himself into a seat. He didn’t look back or say good-bye, but Robert understood that he wasn’t being rude; he was simply embarrassed. Being the son of the 87th Most Powerful Titan in the Tech Industry wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
The helicopter rose into the sky, shaking snow from the surrounding trees, and then turned toward town, disappearing over the horizon.
“Well, I guess everybody has a perfect price,” Mrs. Arthur said, turning her back on the helicopter. “Isn’t that what all their commercials say?”
“Not everybody,” Robert said.
Mrs. Arthur went inside to look for Mac, but Robert lingered outside with his friends. He quickly explained what they had just missed, describing how Mac had saved Lionel’s life while sacrificing his own.
“Then we have to rescue him,” Glenn decided. “We’ll cross over, find the urns, open them up, and bring him back.”
Karina looked as if she was going to cry. “I’m not sure it’s that easy.” Then she doubled over in pain, clutching her sides.
“What’s wrong?” Robert asked.
She dropped to one knee, head bowed. “I don’t know. I don’t feel so good.”
Robert didn’t know it was possible for Karina to feel bad, or to feel anything. She certainly never complained of any pain before. A mild breeze blew past them, shaking snow off the rooftop, and flurries settled all around them.
“Are you okay?” Glenn asked her.
She shook off the pain and stood up. “Yeah, I think so,” she said. “Just upset about Mac, that’s all.”
But she wasn’t fine. Something in her face had changed. Her eyes and ears and nose all looked the same, yet something was extraordinarily different.
There were snowflakes in her hair.
And they were starting to melt.
“I’m fine,” she said, walking toward the school. “Let’s go inside.”
“Look down,” Robert told her. “Look at your feet.”
For the first time in thirty years, she was leaving footprints. Karina gasped. She lifted her right leg and carefully set it down again, like Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon. “Is this for real?”
“You’re for real,” Robert said.
He suddenly understood that Tillinghast had kept his end of the bargain: a replacement had been delivered through the gate—only it was Mac, not Lionel. And, as promised, Karina’s body had been restored.
“Whoa!” Glenn exclaimed. “How did this happen?”
“Mac didn’t just rescue Lionel,” Robert said. “He rescued Karina, too.”
She reached toward the door, pulled on the handle, and laughed with delight when it opened. “Did you see that?” she asked. “Did you see what I did?”
She stepped into the school, leapt toward the ceiling, and whooped when gravity brought her down. She started running, banging her fists on the metal lockers, marveling at the earsplitting racket. She tried doing a cartwheel, tumbled to the floor, picked herself up, and ran some more.
Robert and Glenn stared after her.
“She’s lost her mind,” Glenn said.
“Can you blame her?” Robert asked.
Pip and Squeak came scampering out of the Music Room, attracted by the sudden commotion. They appeared safe and sound after spending the night inside a trombone.
Karina shrieked with delight, grabbing the rats, spinning them around, and kissing each one on its nose. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that!”
Even after several minutes of running, leaping, hugging, and shrieking, Karina refused to believe that she was free of Lovecraft Middle School once and for all.
“You’re sure I can just walk out of here?” she asked. “Nothing bad’s going to happen?”
“We’re going to find out,” Robert said.
But Karina didn’t have any winter clothes, so first they had to raid the school’s lost-and-found box. She took her time, matching checkered hats with striped scarves and vice versa, while Pip and Squeak helped her sort the garments into winners and losers.
“Can’t you just pick something and get on with it?” Glenn asked.
“I haven’t tried on new clothes in thirty years,” Karina reminded him. “Let me enjoy this, all right?”
As she sifted through the box, Robert paced in circles. His excitement over Karina’s transformation was short-lived. Yes, she was finally free of Tillinghast Mansion—but now what? Where would she live? Who would take care of her? How would she get money for food, clothes, or shelter?
Every time Robert thought he had middle school all figured out, the rules seemed to change and everything got more complicated.
Pip and Squeak came scurrying over and crawled up Robert’s leg. Don’t worry, they told him. You know what you have to do. Often the rats would read his thoughts without Robert ev
en realizing it. He scratched his pets behind the ears and then helped them crawl inside his jacket pocket for the long walk home.
Karina emptied the entire lost-and-found box before deciding on a spectacularly mismatched outfit: blue jacket, black scarf, green cap, one left glove, and one right mitten. “And here’s my favorite part,” she said, plucking orange Garfield earmuffs from the box and placing them on her head. “Are these cool or what?”
“Hey, that reminds me,” Glenn said, turning to Robert. “Did you ever give her that card?”
Robert blushed. “No—”
“What card?” Karina asked.
“Robert bought you a valentine. He told me yesterday, when we were out on the ledge. He said that if he fell off the ledge, I was supposed to give it to you.”
Karina turned to Robert. “Seriously?”
“It’s just Garfield,” Robert said. “I know how much you like him—”
“Like him? I love him!”
Robert gave her the envelope. She began to open it, but he stopped her. “Open it later,” he said. “Open it when you get home.”
The word home stopped Karina in her tracks. She suddenly realized she didn’t have one. “Where am I going to go?” she asked. “What happens when we get to town?”
“Come on,” Robert said. “I have an idea.”
They walked outside the school and found Mrs. Arthur peering out across the frozen landscape, dressed in her coat and hat, still searching for Mac. “I can’t imagine where he’s wandered off to,” she said. “It’s the weirdest thing. Like he simply vanished.”
“Mac’s not coming with us,” Robert said.
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Arthur asked. “Why not?”
He took a deep breath. “Mac’s been captured,” he said, and then the whole story came spilling out: “He’s imprisoned in Tillinghast Mansion. His soul is trapped in a small ceramic urn, but I think we can rescue him. Yesterday, Glenn and I found chorus robes that will let us sneak into the mansion unnoticed. But first we have to go home, because Karina doesn’t have any place to live. She’s been trapped here in spirit form for thirty years—”
“Stop,” Mrs. Arthur said. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“You’re telling it wrong,” Karina said. “Start from the beginning. Tell her about your first day of school.”
“Yeah,” Glenn said, “tell her how you found Pip and Squeak.”
“Who?” Mrs. Arthur asked. “What’s a Pip and Squeak?”
At the mention of their names, the rats emerged from Robert’s coat pocket, twitching their noses, and Mrs. Arthur shrieked.
About the Author
Charles Gilman is an alias of Jason Rekulak, an editor who lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Julie, and their children Sam and Anna. When he’s not dreaming up new tales of Lovecraft Middle School, he’s biking along the fetid banks of the Schuylkill River, in search of two-headed rats and other horrific beasts.
About the Illustrator
From an early age, Eugene Smith dreamed of drawing monsters, mayhem, and madness. Today, he is living the dream in Chicago, where he resides with his wife, Mary, and their daughters Audrey and Vivienne.
Monstrous Thanks
All hail the hard-working folks at Quirk Books, Random House Publisher Services, and National Graphics! Thanks also to Jonathan Pushnik, Deanna Perlmutter, Julie Scott, Roseann Rekulak, West Philly’s Green Line Cafe, and Mary Flack.
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