Homeroom Headhunters

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  Text copyright © 2013 by Clay McLeod Chapman

  Cover photo © 2013 by Sammy Yuen

  Cover design by Sammy Yuen

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-5483-9

  Visit www.disneyhyperionbooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I: October

  The Boy Who Cried Firecrackers

  My Little Friend

  The Girl on the Telephone Pole

  Tall Tales at the Dinner Table

  Keeper of the Graffiti

  Oral Reports

  The Ass in Assistant Principal

  The Girl on the Milk Carton

  Overdue Books

  Assembly (of the Dead)

  The Girl in the Boiler Room

  Piñata de Carne

  Part II: November

  Pep Rally (of the Undead)

  Lay of the Land

  Pep Rally (of the Living)

  Dodgeball for Dunces

  The Ol' One-Two Sucker Punch

  Ghost Story Number One: Peashooter

  Pop Quiz: Hallway Headhunting

  Spectral Protection

  Ghost Story Number Two: Yardstick

  The Law of Claw and Fang

  Ghost Story Number Three: Sporkboy

  Pop Quiz: Welcome to Blunderdome

  Barbershop in the Boiler Room

  Ghost Story Number Four: Sully

  Revenge of the Cootie Catcher

  Ghost Story Number Five: Compass

  Pop Quiz: Things to be Thankful for this Thanksgiving

  Part III: December

  Milk Carton Kids

  Snow Day (of the Dead)

  Living Target Practice

  Leave of Absence

  Meat the Parents

  Forty Detained Days/Forty Suspended Nights

  The Boob in Booby Trap

  Ghost Story Number Six: Mr. Simms

  The Trojan Reindeer

  Home is Where the Heart is (Carved)

  Acknowledgments

  For Indrani Sen

  Like a kid again

  Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.…

  —Joseph Heller

  et’s just get this out of the way up front:

  I totally did not burn down my last school.

  That’s an overblown rumor. Whoever tells you I did is lying, straight to your face, so don’t believe them.

  It was only a couple of classrooms.

  Most of the building is still standing.

  And as far as the classrooms that did burn—well, that wasn’t completely my fault either.

  Honest.

  And it wasn’t like I planned to set my lab ablaze. It just kind of—well, you know.

  It kinda just happened.

  One day, you’re learning about the digestive tract of amphibians, trying really, really hard to stay awake, when, out of nowhere, the fireworks stashed inside your backpack start shooting out from beneath your desk, and the hiss of mini-missiles sends everyone onto the floor like some middle-school Armageddon.

  You know.

  An accident.

  In the spirit of total honesty, I’ll admit, it wasn’t completely out of nowhere.

  The Bunsen burner probably had something to do with it.

  Billy Templeton just had to drop a double-dog dare on me. If he hadn’t goaded me into holding a bottle rocket over Mr. Bunsen’s blue flame, that firecracker wouldn’t have shot itself directly into my backpack, igniting the rest of my stash.

  In my defense, just so you know, nobody got hurt.

  Well. Mostly.

  Do frogs count?

  Who knew formaldehyde was that flammable? Just one stray spark from a Funky Monkey Fountain and—KABOOM.

  Amphibious hand grenades. Wet shrapnel splattered against the blackboard, and tendrils of frog intestine tangled in Miss Beasley’s hairdo.

  She should have ducked.

  I still maintain my innocence. You can’t blame a kid for bringing his stash of firecrackers to school.

  I mean, you could. But you shouldn’t. Not in this case.

  It was for a science project.

  I swear.

  I was working on a model of the big bang theory. And I needed—well, a big bang.

  If you’re going to talk about the cosmological conditions of the beginning of the universe, you need all the firepower you can find. That’s just a scientific fact.

  So, in a sense, this? All this? This was all in the name of science.

  Okay. The truth—the God’s honest truth: The morning this all happened, the people hereby designated as my parents decided to break some news to me.

  I’ll spare you the gore.

  Let’s just say it was the nonnegotiable, not-up-for-discussion-because-you’re-young, just-take-it-all-in-and-let-it-fester kind of news.

  The kind of news that makes your veins feel like one big wad of wicks, all of them tied to the firecracker you call your heart. Once your blood gets boiling, that fuse gets lit and there is just no extinguishing it. It’s only a matter of time before—KABLOOEY. You’re splashed all over the walls.

  So. Just to set the record straight:

  My name is Spencer Pendleton—and I totally did not set my last school on fire…

  …On purpose.

  All I wanted was for somebody to listen.

  You believe me—right?

  Right?

  ay hello to…

  My Little Friend.

  My inhaler has gotten me out of more scraps with asthma than I can count.

  Some kids have teddy bears. Others have blankies.

  I cling to my inhaler like a third lung.

  As far as medication goes, I’ve been on everything. Twice. Simply listing my prescriptions gets me wheezing. We’ve got long-acting beta-2 agonists, leukotriene modifiers, cromolyn, nedocromil, theophylline, ipratropium, fluticasone, budesonide, triamcinolone, flunisolide, beclomethasone, mometasone, salmeterol, formoterol, and zafirlukast. Even pyromediakleptogrossulfate!

  That last one I made up just to see if you were still paying attention.

  • • •

  Monday. 7:54 a.m. Main hallway.

  Welcome to the jungle.

  The first bell at Greenfield Middle hadn’t even rung yet and I already knew Riley Callahan. I had him pinned from the very moment we passed each other in the hall.

  Riley has what the rest of us call Popular Guy Complexion.

  I bet Riley Callahan has never had a blemish his entire life. Ten bucks says he’s captain of the Pimple Cream Team.

  Riley pressed his hand against my chest, his eyes locked onto My Little Friend dangling around my neck.

  “Is that a PEZ dispenser?”

  “It’s an inhaler.”

  “You got asthma or something?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I just like inhaling corticosteroids for the fun of it.”

  “Watch your mouth…newbie. Before somebody knocks it off your face.”

  “Never heard of this Newbie guy before.” I held out my hand. “Name’s Spencer.”

  The muscles in Riley’s jaw tensed, and everybody stopped walking. Bodies clotted up the hallway. The aroma of bloodlust filled the air, and, before I knew what was happening, I found myself in
the center of a boxing ring made up of our classmates.

  One kid started chanting: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  Then another: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  Then three more, ten more, twenty, until the whole hallway was echoing: “FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

  Once the Ring of Death wraps around two students, only one is allowed to leave on his own two feet. That—or a teacher comes and breaks it up.

  Everybody was waiting to see what Riley would do next.

  I must admit, I was pretty curious myself.

  I watched as the fingers on his right hand slowly curled up.

  Uh-oh.

  He reeled back his hand.

  Not good, Spence. Not good at all.

  Press the PAUSE button, please.

  • • •

  Flashback to a wise old woman saying: Don’t rock the boat.

  Mom had dropped me off at school that morning. She planted a kiss flat on my forehead in front of all the kids entering the building, even though I pleaded with her not to.

  “Ready for your first day, hon?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Did you remember to pack your inhaler?”

  “Right here, Mom.…”

  “Okay, then,” she sighed. “Promise me one thing?”

  “…What’s that?”

  “Don’t rock the boat, Spencer.”

  These were her words of wisdom.

  Thanks a lot, Mom.…

  • • •

  Now press PLAY.

  There I was, about to get my lights punched out, wondering if a fistfight with Riley Callahan constituted boat-rocking or not.

  If it didn’t, what I did next surely did:

  I brought My Little Friend up to Riley’s face and squeezed a long-winded spritz of chest steroids straight into his face. He clutched his eyes, yelling—then charged.

  I stepped to my left, clearing a path directly into the lockers behind me. Riley’s forehead met metal—THWONK!—sprawling him flat across the hallway floor.

  Suddenly I was the captain of the USS Saving My Ass, navigating my way through a sea of students, setting sail for neutral waters.

  How’s that for boat-rocking?

  I don’t think I’d ever hauled my rear end that fast in my entire life.

  That’s when my lungs started to flutter.

  Here it comes—I could feel it in my chest.

  Little Friend, don’t fail me now!

  I brought my inhaler up to my mouth, squeezed…

  …And nothing.

  Empty.

  I’d used up my medication on Riley’s face.

  This was bad. This was really bad.

  A wave of light-headedness washed through my skull. My knees softened, sending me toppling onto the floor. I lay there on my back, face up, staring at the ceiling. Prickles of light popped up at the bottom of my eyeballs.

  Then things got mondo bizarro.

  One of the fiberglass panels along the ceiling pulled itself back, and I saw a hand. A pale hand. A girl’s hand—reaching out from inside the ceiling.

  The hand was holding an inhaler.

  Oxygenated blood must’ve stopped flowing to my head because clearly I was hallucinating.

  Angels. The heavens opening. That sort of thing.

  Totally delusional.

  That hand dropped the inhaler onto my chest, and I grabbed it just in time to squeeze off a gust of medicated air. Oxygen eased into my lungs again.

  Hallelujah, I thought. I’m not dying today!

  All thanks to a guardian angel hidden behind the ceiling panels.

  Kids stopped walking through the hallway and circled around me on the floor. All I could see were their curious faces staring down.

  Mr. Jim Pritchard, my new assistant principal, rushed through the hall and kneeled next to me. “Are you okay? Can you breathe?”

  “Think so,” I huffed.

  “What happened?”

  “An angel reached down from heaven and gave me an inhaler.…”

  I pointed toward the ceiling—but the panel was in place, like nothing had happened.

  I glanced at the inhaler in my hand, looking for the name on the prescription.

  Winston Reynolds.

  I read the date along the side. Expired. Five years before.

  I’d just sucked down moldy-oldie medication.

  No wonder I was seeing things.

  “I’m taking you to the clinic.” The skepticism was thick in Mr. Pritchard’s voice. “Get you checked for a concussion.”

  I had the sneaking feeling he didn’t believe in angels.

  first saw her at the corner of Spring Street and Weeping Willow.

  I had missed my bus. That meant I was hoofing it home.

  Great.

  As far as first days go, this one couldn’t have gotten much worse. All I wanted to do now was keep walking until I reached the ocean. Or the edge of the world.

  Or my old house.

  Who would notice if I was gone?

  I was only a few blocks away from school when, out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn I saw somebody staring at me.

  I pivoted and came face-to-face with a phantom photocopy: Runny ink cheeks. Fuzzy button nose. Dark eyes. Bad weather had blurred her features.

  Big bold capital letters, lined up along her chin, read:

  MISSING.

  Below that, in smaller print, her name:

  Sully Tulliver.

  It was a yearbook picture. I could tell from the pose. The half smile. Didn’t think much of it until I bumped into her again at the corner of Tompkins and Remar.

  Her eyes seemed to be watching me.

  I wondered what color they were.

  She must’ve been about my age. Maybe a little older. Sort of cute.

  Who was she?

  She was waiting for me at Apricot Avenue and Bougainvillea.

  And again at Spruce and Veranda Avenue.

  Wherever I went, there she was, staring right back at me.

  “What’re you looking at?”

  I almost expected her to answer. But she just watched me as I wandered off.

  I started making up a backstory for her on my walk home. By the time I made it to my block, I had her entire life mapped out:

  Sully Tulliver ran away from home because nobody believed her when she said she’d seen a hand reach out from her new school’s ceiling. Imagine a Lady of the Lake moment, with King Arthur clamoring for Excalibur—only this time, instead of a sword, it’s an inhaler. The kids at school thought Sully was off her rocker, making the whole thing up for attention.

  I would’ve believed her.

  Wherever you are, Sully—I sure hope it’s better than here.

  I pulled one of her MISSING flyers off a telephone pole and folded it to fit into my back pocket, like she’d written me a note or something.

  At home, I pinned it to my bedroom wall.

  She looked pixelated. There had to be thousands. Tens of thousands. Maybe even a million little photocopied dots coming together to form her face, making up her eyebrows, her cheeks, the bridge of her nose.

  The dots formed her eyes like a constellation of stars surrounding two black planets.

  There’s Andromeda. There’s Orion.

  And there’s Sully.

  Looking into that vast galaxy of Sully Tulliver’s MISSING flyer, I ended up getting lost in the pixels. I spent the whole afternoon counting them, losing my place, and starting all over again.

  “Ready for dinner, hon?” Mom asked, peeking her head into my bedroom. “Who’s that?”

  “Nobody.” I caught myself just before I said: A friend.

  y mom makes meat loaf sandwiches when she wants something from me.

  Here’s her technique:

  Make me my favorite meal.

  Wait until my mouth’s full of meat loaf.

  Force me to do her bidding.

  From the moment I smelled steaming ground beef in the ove
n, I knew something was up. Sure enough, Mom ambushed me in the kitchen with a plate of her mind-controlling meat loaf.

  “Surprise!” She blew a tuft of chestnut hair out of her face.

  “To what do I owe the honor?” I asked.

  “To celebrate your first day at your new school. I want to hear all about it.”

  “Not much to tell, really.…”

  “Come on—I made your favorite.” Mom smiled. “Meeeeat-loaf sand-weeech-es.”

  “With cornflakes crumbled on top?”

  “Yep.”

  “And barbecue sauce?”

  “Yep.”

  “And no green peppers?”

  “Notta one.”

  Honey-glazed carrots glistened under the kitchen light like candy. I could feel my tummy surrendering to my mom already.

  Keep cool. Savor my meal. Remain fully aware of the fact that Mom will drop one of her let’s-make-a-deal bombs at any moment.

  She held off until my first bite.

  “So…are you gonna tell me how school was, or do I have to guess?”

  “Sucked,” I said.

  “Sucked?”

  “Sucked.”

  “How so?”

  “Just sucked.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “A million reasons.”

  “Tell me.” She genuinely looked concerned.

  “We’ll be sitting here all night.…”

  “I’ve got the time.”

  “Your sandwich is gonna get cold.”

  “I can eat and listen.”

  “My sandwich’s gonna get cold.”

  “You can eat and talk.”

  “You told me not to talk with my mouth full.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  My second bite of meat loaf was so downright delectable I nearly lost my train of thought.

  “Okay,” I said, chewing. A solid stalling technique here for all you future stallers out there: Chew each mouthful fifty times before swallowing.

  Works every time.

  “Well?”

  “Okay.” I swallowed. “First thing that happened, right when I first walked into the building, before the first bell even rang.…”

  Big sip of milk. A third bite of my meat loaf sandwich.

  Tenth chew, eleventh chew, twelfth chew, thirteenth…

  “Any day now, Spence.…” Mom was beginning to lose her patience.

  “Okay, okay.” I swallowed. “I had to break up this fight with a few eighth graders.”