Rasputin scampered off with a terrified squeak.
Lady Desdemona Sackville-Smack turned her gaze upon the other teachers. “The rest of you, be off! Hunt while the moon keeps her eye upon you, and in the morning, back to your posts! Remember!”
The ground lurched once more as if a massive earthquake had struck. The boys toppled. Chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling. A yawning chasm opened in the ground, and Farley’s chained body descended into the pit.
With a colossal groan, the hole closed. The floor looked as if it had never ripped in two.
When the boys rose once more, Madame Sackville-Smack was gone. The Splurch Academy faculty’s hunting cries echoed across the dark lawns.
The Grand Inquisitrix’s servant pushed her empty wheelchair out the door, her pug dog perched on the seat cushion.
Cody looked at his friends. They stared back at him.
“Everybody got their brain back okay?” he said, finally.
They nodded.
He picked up the Recipronator and swung it against the stone wall. It crashed into a thousand pieces.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE END?
The boys lay in their bunks. Nobody said much.
The moon shone through the dormitory windows.
Outside, a wolf howled.
“I don’t get it,” Ratface said at last. “Did we win or did we lose?”
“We got our brains back,” Cody said. “Would you rather still be a rat?”
“I dunno,” Ratface said, scratching behind his ears. “It felt kinda natural. For me.”
“We got rid of Farley,” Carlos said. “That’s gotta be worth something.”
“I want to go home!” Sully said. He hid his face under his pillow.
“Aw, what difference does it make?” Victor growled, punching his mattress. “What’s the big deal about home, anyway?”
“Guys, listen,” Mugsy said. “Tomorrow our parents will get us, for sure. That hocus-pocus Farley’s mom did can’t last. They’ll wake up tomorrow and come to their senses.”
“Doubt it,” Sully said.
“Look at the bright side,” Carlos said. “Farley’s gone. We’ve got opposable thumbs again. Maybe things will get a lot better.”
“Ri-ight,” Mugsy said. “Just like maybe the classes’ll get fun, and the food way better, and they’ll buy us a huge entertainment system . . .”
“So, what’ll happen now?” Ratface asked. “Who’ll be in charge?”
“What I want to know is, is Farley really gone?” Victor said.
“And, do you think he could ever come back?” Sully added.
There was quiet in the dorms while they thought about that.
Cody rolled over in his bunk. “Let’s get some sleep,” he said. “I don’t want to think about anything else tonight.”
The boys’ breathing drifted off to sleep. Cody lay awake thinking, until he, too, slept.
At midnight, Cody sat bolt upright. Something troubled him. A dream? Some sense of unfinished business? He groped in his mind for the answer.
It was something important. Urgent! Something he’d forgotten that changed everything. But what was it?
Nothing came. He lay back down.
Moonlight flickered through the dirty, old windows. Wind rattled the panes. Beams creaked, stones groaned. Splurch Academy felt alive, and restless.
Like the building itself was watching him.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, Cody told himself. You spend too much time here, you start imagining things. Go back to sleep.
Available now:
SPLURCH ACADEMY
FOR DISRUPTIVE BOYS
#2 CURSE OF THE
BIZARRO BEETLE
CHAPTER ONE
THE COFFIN
A crescent moon hung low over the topmost towers of Splurch Academy. Across the windswept grounds, wolves howled and night birds moaned.
Inside the school, all was dark. Dozens of boys slept uncomfortably on their straw-filled mats stacked in bunks against the walls of the gloomy dormitories, dreaming of ice cream and swimming pools and life the way it was before they were sent to this nightmare school.
Cody Mack was one of them. But he wasn’t alone.
Someone tapped his shoulder.
He sat up in his bunk, rubbing his eyes. He couldn’t see anybody in the dark dormitory. But someone, he knew, was there.
A flash of lightning lit the room for an instant.
It was Headmaster Farley.
He lit a candle and gestured for Cody to follow. They walked down a dim corridor to an ancient elevator. Cody wanted to resist, to fight, to turn and run from his enemy, but some force prevented him. He had to do what Farley said.
The elevator began to descend. Second floor. First floor. Dungeon. Down, down, down it plunged, growing faster by the second. It opened into a room lit by a single torch. Inside were . . . coffins! Cody lifted their lids and found them full of dirt and old bones. He shuddered. Dr. Farley pointed to another coffin and, reluctantly, Cody threw back the lid.
Inside the coffin lay . . . Dr. Farley!
Cody took a step back. There were two of them! The Farley in the coffin looked asleep. His teeth gleamed in the candlelight. Clutched in his long fingers was a strange device that Cody knew all too well—the Rebellio-Rodent Recipronator, Farley’s evil brain-swapping invention.
“But we broke the Recipronator!” Cody yelled. “We smashed it to smithereens!”
And that was true. But here was Farley—two Farleys—and a perfectly whole Recipronator. Not good.
Something moved near the sleeping Farley’s shoulder. It was Rasputin, Farley’s old pet rat. He scampered over to Cody and handed him a chunk of cheese.
“Thanks, Rasputin, old pal,” Cody said, taking a big bite of cheese. Dee-licious.
The Farley in the coffin opened his eyes, and sat up. Both Farleys seized Cody and pinned the Recipronator nozzle against his ear, attaching the other nozzle to Vampire Farley’s ear. A third nozzle appeared, attached to a helmet on Rasputin’s little rat head. Wait, there’s not supposed to be three of them, Cody thought.
They were going to suck his brain out one more time! Only instead of swapping him with a rat, they were going to swap him with . . . Farley? And Rasputin?
“Nooooo!” Cody screamed. He kicked and fought and thrashed.
The Farleys threw back their heads and laughed.
And then—they pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWO
THE RAID
Cody’s eyes opened. It was dark. Pitch-dark. No torch, no candle.
And no Farley.
It was only a dream. He watched, weeks ago, when Madame Desdemona Sackville-Smack banished Farley to a crypt deep under the school. The ground opened up like an earthquake!
The dream faded. Rasputin, who had once had Cody’s brain in his skull, was curled up on his pillow, warm and comforting. He’d been hanging around ever since Farley got banished. It was nice having a pet. Especially in a spooky, creepy place like this.
He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.
The next morning before the breakfast bell, Cody and his classmates tiptoed down the dark stairs leading to the cafeteria.
“This way,” Ratface whispered. “We’re almost there.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Mugsy asked. “There had better be some good eats.”
“Trust me,” Ratface said. “I do this a lot. The pantry’s loaded.”
“If it isn’t,” Victor said, “I’m gonna bust your head.”
“If Pavlov or Ivanov catch us stealing,” Sully said, “the teachers will use our heads for bowling balls.”
“This isn’t stealing,” Mugsy said. “It’s survival. They’re supposed to feed us. Real food, not cockroach Raisin Bran.”
“So, Cody,” Carlos said, “what’re you gonna be for Halloween?”
“I already told you, Carlos,” Sully said. “Halloween doesn’t happen at Splurch Academy. Not for
us. Forget it.”
“Yeah, but if it did,” Carlos said. “What would you dress up as?”
“A kid stuck in a prison school, I guess,” Cody said. “I’ve already got the costume.”
“I’m serious!” Carlos said. “Last year, I was Lord Galactitron.”
“My granny made my costume,” Mugsy said. “I was a supersize order of fries. I squirted myself all over with real ketchup.”
“Gross!” Ratface said.
“Yeah, Granny wasn’t happy about that.”
They reached the kitchen door. Ratface twisted the doorknob, listened, then stuck an unbent paperclip into the lock and listened some more. There was a click, and the door swung open.
“Bingo,” he said. “We’re in. Come on!”
They switched on their flashlights.
“Welcome to the best thing about this lousy school,” Ratface said. “Griselda’s pantry.” He threw open the door to a skinny room full of shelves. The shelves were stocked with dusty, cobwebby cans and bottles labeled “insta-gruel” and “fortified beet stew” and “dehydrated cabbage nuggets.” But on the other wall were . . .
“Doughnuts!” Carlos whimpered. “Doughnuts!”
“Not just doughnuts,” Cody said. “Storebought Doopy Doughnuts!” He ripped into a box.
“And look!” Mugsy said. “Look at all these bottles of ketchup! Aren’t they beautiful?”
“You’d better not put ketchup on that doughnut, man,” Victor said.
Mugsy was offended. “These have powdered sugar. I only put ketchup on plain doughnuts.”
Cody stared at all the shelves. “There’s squirty cheese,” he said. “And Garlic Smackems and Choco-fluffcakes and Cheddar Puffballs and Taco Twistitos.” He took his doughnut and smacked it all over his face so the powdered sugar stuck to his skin.
“Cody’s gone off the deep end,” Sully said.
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.”
Mugsy inhaled his doughnut. “I’m coming here every night from now on. To get a real meal.”
Click.
“What was that?” Ratface whispered. “Everybody, hide!”
They ducked under the lowest pantry shelves.
“Only a moron wouldn’t see us,” Carlos whispered. They tried not to breathe.
The kitchen lights clicked on. Cody could see white shoes and thick, scaly ankles. Nurse Bilgewater! Acting as headmistress after Farley got banished to the crypt and, next to Farley, the creepiest grown-up at Splurch Academy.
“I smell thieves!” she cackled. “Grubby, stinking little boys with hands in the cookie jar!”
“Cookie jar?” Mugsy whispered. “I didn’t see any—”
“Can it!” Victor hissed.
Nurse Bilgewater wrenched the pantry door open. “Aha!”
“I’ve been telling you, something’s been stealing my food, Beulah,” said Griselda, standing behind her. “You kept saying it was rats.”
Nurse Bilgewater grabbed Cody by the collar. “Once a rat, always a rat,” she said. “What’s this on your face?”
She dabbed at Cody’s face with one finger, then wiped it off on her uniform like it was hazardous waste. She sniffed the air. Her nostrils were huge.
Without warning, she wrenched Cody’s mouth open and grabbed his tongue.
“Aaagggh!” Cody gagged.
“Do you see the contagious white boils all over their tongues?” Nurse Bilgewater said. “Their pale, ashy faces?”
Cody spit on the ground over and over. Bilgewater had touched his tongue! Infinite and eternal disgustingness!
“Looks like powdered sug—”
“Just as I feared,” Nurse Bilgewater said. “These boys have a bad case of splagged gaskers.”
Acknowledgments
Several highly disruptive people ooched
this project along, and we feel they
at least deserve a poke in the nose for it.
Alyssa Eisner Henkin first told us to
give it a whirl. Tim Wynne-Jones, Brent
Hartinger, Sergio Ruzzier, Joan Hilty, and
Jen Camper endured early drafts and art.
Rob Valois and Christina Quintero made
Splurch even Splurchier. Our great big
family and certain goofy friends fed us a
steady stream of both encouragement and
subject matter. Louise Sloan, Jennie
Livingston, Ginger Johnson, Jayme Lynes,
Hilary Lorenz, and Phil Berry, we mean
you. Our intrepid sister, Joanna Gardner,
came to Cody’s rescue and saved our skins
as well. And our lying little sneak of a
mother, Shirley Gardner, who never
could resist a naughty critter, deserves any
embarrassment this project merits.
About the Authors
Sally Faye Gardner and Julie Gardner Berry
are sisters, both originally from upstate
New York. Sally, who now lives in
New York City with a smallish black dog
named Dottie, has, at various times,
worked as a gas pumper, janitor, sign painter,
meeting attendee, and e-mail sender.
Julie, who now lives near Boston with her
husband, four smallish sons, and tiger cat
named Coco, has worked as a restaurant
busboy, volleyball referee, cleaning lady,
and seller of tight leather pants. Today she,
too, attends meetings and sends e-mail.
Julie is the author of The Amaranth
Enchantment and Secondhand Charm,
while this is Sally’s first book.
The Rat Brain Fiasco #1 Page 6
