The Rat Brain Fiasco #1
Page 5
“I don’t want to feel my little bones go crunch!” Sully wailed. “I don’t want to dissolve in dog stomach acid!”
“Will you can it a minute and let me think,” Cody yelled.
Pavlov knocked off the top of the tank. The rat-boys shrank back.
The door to the laboratory opened. A head poked inside.
Pavlov cocked his head and trotted over. He attacked the bowl with noisy slurps.
The rat-boys stared at each other.
“What was that stuff?” Cody asked.
“Tapioca,” Mugsy said.
“We had it for breakfast,” Carlos said. “Mugsy put ketchup on his.”
Pavlov licked his chops. Tapioca pearls quivered on his nose. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he tumbled to the ground.
“She drugged the dog,” Carlos said. “But why?”
“Who cares!” Cody said. “This is our chance! Go, go, go!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE PRESENTATION
A team of rats crept into the back of the Splurch Academy auditorium, balancing the Rebellio-Rodent Recipronator over their heads. Sully and Carlos followed, carrying the brain-controlling headphones.
“We’ve reworked it to jam the signal from Farley’s headphones,” Carlos explained to Cody. “Now when he tries to control our bodies, these headphones will beat up his.”
They hid behind the last row of seats and watched as Farley strode onto the stage to greet his guests.
“I see my mom!” Ratface squeaked, sitting on top of a tower of rats. “Mommy!”
“Quiet!” Cody hissed. “It’s not time to make our move. Yet.”
Farley cleared his throat. “First, I’d like to thank all the parents who were able to make it here tonight. I think you all will be pleased with the work that we’ve done with your children. I hardly think that you’ll even recognize them.”
“He’s such a lamebrain!” Carlos said.
Farley adjusted his tie and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “And now it is my great honor to introduce, visiting all the way from Bucharest, the illustrious, the magnificent, the preeminent Grand Inquisitrix of the League of Reform Schools for Fiendish Children, Her Grace the Dowager Duchess of DeKay, Madame Desdemona Chartricia Sackville-Smack!”
A spotlight appeared on the stage. Trumpets sounded. Ivanov, in a tuxedo, rolled out a red carpet, and Miss Threadbare, who was trying to prance and failing, scattered rose petals.
Farley bent to kiss her hand, but she snatched it away. The pug dog in her lap growled at Farley.
“Archibald,” she said. “Turn that spotlight off! Can’t you see it’s blinding me?”
Farley clapped his hands. “Ivanov! Lights!” He swallowed and slid a finger underneath his collar. “Ahem. Before we proceed with tonight’s demonstration of the miracle that has taken place at this academy,” Farley said, “a transformation that is entirely due to my groundbreaking efforts, I’d like to commemorate Madame Sackville-Smack . . .”
Mummy?
“She’s his mom!”
Farley seized the microphone. “Our first exhibit is Cody Mack. When he arrived just days ago, his former principal said he was the worst case that he had ever seen. Ladies and gentlemen, feast your eyes”—there was a drumroll—“on Cody Mack today!”
Cody’s mother gasped. “Isn’t he darling? And so well-behaved! Dr. Farley, you’re a marvel!”
“That’s my boy,” Cody’s dad said.
“Oh, man, where’s my camera,” Carlos said. “I wanna remember this.”
“Shut your snout!” Cody hissed. “You’re all next, you turkeys!”
Cody’s body waltzed over to Madame Sackville-Smack, bowed, and kissed her hand.
“Oh, gross,” Cody the rat moaned. “When I get my body back, I am boiling my lips in disinfectant for a week.”
“It’s the greatest honor of my pathetic young life to bask in your glory, Madame Sackville-Smack,” Cody’s body said. “I’ll never wash this hand again.”
“See that you do,” the Grand Inquisitrix replied in a gravelly voice. “I loathe boys with germy hands.”
“Farley’s mind-controlling you,” Carlos the rat said. “Look at him. He’s making you sound like a dork, too. Aren’t you going to try to stop him?”
Madame Sackville-Smack said, “Tell me, Cody, what do you like best about Splurch Academy for Disruptive Boys?”
“Jam his signal, Cody,” Sully the rat whispered. “Do it now. You can’t let Farley win. Send brain waves to tell your body to do something else. Something you’d do if you were inside your own skull.”
Something else, Cody thought. But what? What would I do if I were up there?
He pressed his little rat ear against the squooshy earpiece and thought hard.
“What I like best about Splurch Academy,” Cody’s body said, “is the kind, caring, helpful . . .” He blinked. “Um . . .”
Dr. Farley frowned. Cody gripped the headphones. Come on, come on . . .
“Want me to recite a poem about it?” Cody’s body asked.
Dr. Farley’s eyebrows shot up. He fiddled with his earphones.
“Please do,” said the Grand Inquisitrix.
Cody the rat concentrated with all his might on sending brain waves through the headphones. C’mon, body, do your stuff!
“What a refreshing sense of humor our Cody has,” said Farley.
“Ketchup is red,
cheese mold is blue.
The food here at Splurch
smells like sautéed dog poo!”
shouted Cody’s body.
“T-time for the little number the boys prepared,” Dr. Farley stammered. Miss Threadbare hammered a tune on the piano. The boys’ bodies marched out.
The brain scientists applauded.
The mothers gushed.
“Boo!” the rats cried.
Cody gathered the rats into a huddle. “Now’s the time, men,” Cody said. “You ready to crash this party?”
They nodded.
“It’s now or never,” Cody said. “Mess this up, the exterminator will take us away, and it’s bye-bye brains.”
They shook their rat fists in the air.
“Each man grab a fork from the refreshment table. You know what to do. Ready?” Cody said. “Disruptive boys forever! ATTACK!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE ATTACK
The rats took off like an angry mob, squeaking war squeaks, dragging the Rebellio-Rodent Recipronator with them, jabbing their forks like spears, and climbing over the visitors.
Guests rose, screaming. It’s no fun having your parents try to squash you underfoot.
The rats stormed the stage and tripped up their own bodies. The boys’ bodies nearly stomped their rat counterparts to death! But the rats dodged in and out, poking and nipping at their own ankles until their bodies fell.
The Recipronator rat team swooped in on the fallen Victor. Victor-the-rat pointed the device at his own ear, then swapped himself back.
Victor, as himself again, pinned Mugsy’s body in a wrestling hold so they could swap him, too. And on it went.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you that . . . uh . . .” Dr. Farley gave up. “Seize them!” he shouted. “Grab the nets!”
Guests ran shrieking from the auditorium. Several plowed into the table where Griselda stood serving appetizers. The punch bowl ended up over her head.
Mr. Fronk, Mr. Howell, and the other teachers wielded fishnets. Madame Sackville-Smack’s pug jumped down, yipping like crazy. Dr. Farley tripped over it, and a pair of rats ran off with his toupee.
Cody sent brain waves to the remaining boys on the stage. Get Farley. Get Farley. Hog-tie him and throw him in the dungeon! A bunch of boys advanced on the headmaster, trying to tackle him. But he sprang from their grasp.
Cody ran up onto the stage and jumped onto his own feet. Pick me up, he told the rat brain inside his head. His own body picked him up and petted him gently, sniffing at him. Sit down. His
body sat. Victor and Carlos, now back to normal, ran over with the Recipronator.
Shoomp-thoomp. Shoomp-thoomp. Cody’s life flashed before his eyes . . . and suddenly his eyes were his own again! His head felt woozy-wobbly, but at least it was his. Rasputin curled up on his lap.
Someone’s father yelled, “This is an outrage! What kind of institution are you running here, Farley?”
An angry horde of parents stormed the stage. Fathers yelled and mothers started beating Farley with their purses. “We’re taking our boy home with us this instant!” one said. “We’re reporting you to the state! This place is crawling with vermin!”
Farley fended off the blows. “Please, dear parents, don’t be hasty! An unfortunate pest problem doesn’t change the fact that we’re achieving miracles here. I beg you!”
“Fraud!”
“Quack!”
“Montebank!”
“Lousy dresser!”
Madame Sackville-Smack rose to her feet. “Silence!” she cried. The room went strangely quiet.
She pulled a necklace out from under her dress. A small pouch was attached, and from it she shook a handful of powder.
“Come very close, so I can speak with you good people, who are naturally concerned about the welfare of your sons,” she said in a soft, sinister voice. All the parents stepped closer.
She flung the powder down onto the ground. A puff of smoke rose in the air.
Her voice rippled like water. “It’s been a long day, and you have a long drive ahead of you, back to your homes.”
One by one, the parents stretched and yawned. Cody shook the other boys. “Look. What’s she up to?”
“Your boys are thriving at Splurch Academy. Just look at the handsome little fellows. When have they ever been so charming?”
Mothers and fathers beamed at their boys.
“She’s a hypnotist!” Carlos said.
“Splurch Academy is perfectly safe. It’s so thoughtful of Headmaster Farley to allow each boy to have a pet rat. It comforts them while they’re away from home.”
One mother picked up a rat that was crawling across her shoe, and stroked its fur.
“I think she might be worse than a hypnotist,” Sully said.
“You are very proud of what your boys are accomplishing at Splurch Academy,” Madame Sackville-Smack purred. “Go home now. Drive safely. Au revoir.”
Like zombies, the parents gathered their things and headed for the door.
The Grand Inquisitrix’s dog sprang to Cody, and bit his ankle hard. By the time the boys had pried its jaws off Cody’s leg, his parents were gone.
“Make sure the guests are all gone, Archibald,” Madame Sackville-Smack said, sitting wearily down in her chair. “I get so tired of cleaning up after you.”
Farley and the other faculty followed the parents out the door, and Cody and the boys followed, desperate to catch up to their parents. But when they got there, the last headlights were pulling out of the driveway and onto the road.
Farley watched them go. He clenched his fists.
He turned around and saw the boys on the patio.
He looked up at the moon.
He looked back at the boys, his eyes full of murder and rage.
He snapped his fingers . . .
. . . and changed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE DOOR
Closer and closer Dracula Farley came. And the teacher-monsters, gnashing their fangs and flexing their claws.
“You worthless, odious boys,” Farley snarled. “You ruined everything I’ve worked for all these years. You embarrassed me publicly. You . . . you . . . you made a mockery of me before Mummy!”
Cody’s feet were riveted to the ground. Run, he told himself. Go back inside. But his feet didn’t listen. Suddenly his legs were made of jelly.
Howell growled. Fronk’s evening suit ripped where his muscles bulged through the seams. Bilgewater’s tentacles coiled.
“For eighty-two years I’ve been stuck teaching boys at this wretched school, and finally, I was going to have some rest. Twenty years I spent perfecting the Rebellio-Rodent Recipronator. Twenty years, I’ve waited for this day. The day when I would be done dealing with disgusting, naughty boys forever! What do you say to that?”
Cody backed toward the door. “Um, s-sorry?” he stammered.
“Sorry? Sorry?” Farley said. “Sorry. Is not. Good. Enough!”
And, with a horrible yell of murderous rage, he sprang for Cody.
The boys dragged Cody back into the school, just barely snatching him before Farley did. They slammed the door in Farley’s face, and bolted it tight.
Cody sagged against the wall, panting. Safe inside! Right? They couldn’t touch him here. Right? He hoped. On the other side of the door, ghoulish cries rose into the night.
“Get him!”
The monsters were attacking the doors!
“I thought they had to stay out!” Carlos cried.
CRASH!
The shattered remains of the Splurch Academy door fell in a shower of dust. Monsters picked their way over the debris and stalked toward the boys.
“At last,” Howell growled.
“I’ve dreamed of this moment,” Nurse Bilgewater chortled.
“Push us too far, and even we break the rules,” Frankenstein Fronk said.
Dr. Dracula Farley pushed his way past the others and picked up Cody like he was a toy.
“I’ve lost more to Cody Mack than any of you,” he hissed.
But then, the building shook and the windows rattled in their casings. Was it an earthquake? Even the faculty looked afraid.
A cloud of smoke came barreling like a sandstorm down the corridor. A voice from the cloud sounded like it came from the earth’s core.
The monsters cringed. Mugsy tried to crawl away, but the vampiress plucked him up.
“My little dumplings,” Madame Sackville-Smack crooned. “My helpless little naughty humans! I won’t let anyone hurt you.” She hissed like a cobra at the faculty. “BAD! Bad boys and girls. To scare my precious students! SHAME on you. You know my rules.”
Farley and the monsters quivered like Jell-O.
“I founded reform schools around the globe to help wayward children,” Madame Sackville-Smack purred. “Not to feed them to teachers. My schools run like clockwork. Except this one. The one managed by my own son!” She sighed. “If only there’d been such schools when he was a boy.”
Madame Sackville-Smack set Mugsy down on his feet and patted his head.
“P-please, m-madame,” Cody said. His voice squeaked as if he was still a rat. “Can’t we go home? You saw the kind of stuff Farley does. Can’t you send us back to our parents?”
“Gracious, no,” Madame Sackville-Smack crooned. “It’s sweet of you to miss your parents. But we’re not done reforming you. Oh no, mercy, no, you can’t go home.” She looked over at Farley, “Even if my son is a nincompoop.”
Farley stuck out his lower lip. “I am not a nincompoop! It’s all Cody’s fault!”
Then, he spied the Recipronator in Cody’s hands. “Give me that!”
Cody pulled it back. “No way. I’m not gonna let you swap me again!”
Farley yanked harder. “It’s mine, you little cretin!”
“Boys,” Madame Sackville-Smack said in a warning voice. “Stop bickering.”
“But it’s mine,” Farley wailed, lunging for the Recipronator. “He stole it!”
“That’s because you used it to steal our brains,” Cody shouted.
“Give it BACK,” Farley growled, straining to pull it from Cody’s hands.
Rasputin squeaked in terror. The Recipronator slipped out of Cody’s grip and revolved in the air.
“Cease this tomfoolery, Archibald!” Madame Sackville-Smack snapped.“Now, march!”
Farley’s face softened into a pleasant smile. Without a word, he marched back to where the other teachers stood, like an obedient soldier. Rasputin, still connected to the Recipronat
or, yanked his helmet off and scampered down from Farley’s shoulder.
Madame Sackville-Smack approached the monster teachers. She glared at them with her evil eye until their knees knocked together. The monsters howled and moaned, except for Farley, who just smiled a vacant smile.
“You will each be punished for threatening innocent boys,” Madame Sackville-Smack said.
“They weren’t innocent!” Bilgewater wailed. “They were never innocent!”
The other monsters fell to their knees.
“Please, madame,” Miss Threadbare screeched. “Farley made us do it. He wanted to eat Cody Mack. We tried to stop him!” The other monsters nodded frantically.
“Hmmm.” Madame Sackville-Smack fingered her amulet. “This is an important point. If I punish you, then who will run the academy?”
“Why, how about us?” Fronk the Frankenstein said. “We practically do it now, anyway. Farley spends all his time in his laboratory, thinking up new ways to, um, be evil.” He attempted a hearty laugh but it came off sounding about as lighthearted as a cement truck. “Somebody’s got to take care of things while he’s so busy. That’s us!”
“Take care of things? That’s what we do best!” Octopus Bilgewater gurgled.
Madame Sackville-Smack stroked the stray whiskers on her chin. “Why should I belive you?” she said. “Can I trust you to run the academy?”
The teachers all nodded furiously.
“You betcha!”
“We promise!”
“We’re more trustworthy than . . . something that’s really trustworthy!”
“If you fail,” she said, “don’t think for one minute that I won’t find out. And, if you fail, have no doubt. I will come for you. Very well. And now to business.” She flicked a finger toward her son. Farley’s body hovered in the air. Magical chains bound him fast. “This one’s going to time-out. A few years down there should set him straight. To the crypt with you, son!” She shook her head. “You always were a disappointment, Archie.”