The Whites of Their Eyes

by Andrew Clements

  He was on the last flight down to the first floor, and Ben realized his hand was hurting—it was clenched in his front pocket, gripping the big gold coin so tightly that his fingers had cramped up.

  The words on the coin jumped into Ben’s thoughts: First and always, my school belongs to the children: Defend it!

  Defend . . .

  That one small word pulled Ben back to himself.

  Did the coin say, Destroy any dirtbag who dares to attack my school?

  No. It said, Defend the school.

  And Captain Oakes had laid out the plan: Find the safeguards, and use them for defense. His plan did not authorize personal attacks. This was supposed to be a civilized process.

  Right now the war was going their way, and he and Jill and Robert had control of the high ground. Ben felt sure about that. And if they were smart and careful, they could hold that ground.

  Rounding the corner near his homeroom, he let out a deep sigh—mostly relief, but a touch of disappointment, too. Because part of him would have loved going after Lyman—loading up, aiming, and then blasting him right out of town.

  But the captain’s way had to be better. If the Keepers had to turn into people like Lyman in order to win, that would mean giving up a different kind of high ground. Yes, they needed to win this war, but not by turning into thugs.

  The war was under way, and the enemy forces were already marching up the hill. But they could build a strong defense—if they got all their safeguards into place.

  Ben knew what they had to do. Because if the Keepers started the final battle too soon, the enemy would overpower them. Now was the time for courage, hard work, and especially patience—“Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!”

  CHAPTER 9

  Inner Space

  “Ewww!”

  “Shhh!” Ben whispered.

  “I heard rats! And the smell . . .”

  “Either shut up, or get out—what’s it gonna be?”

  “I’ll be quiet . . . I promise.”

  “Keep your light on, and the rats won’t come near you.”

  Only minutes earlier it had looked like Tuesday would not be the day they explored under the stairs. Lyman had kept a close watch on Jill and Ben all day long, and Robert the Stealth Bomber had not volunteered for a solo mission into the darkness. Patience still seemed like the wisest option.

  As usual, they had set up their study areas in the library right after school—Ben and Jill in the alcove on the north wall, and Robert off by himself at a table near the American history section.

  And, as usual, Lyman had stopped in to check on Ben and Jill—except today he hadn’t even bothered to act like a janitor. He’d just walked in, stared at them, frowned, and then left.

  The second he had gone, Robert rushed to the alcove. “Listen up,” he whispered. “In eight minutes you two go to the north stairwell and check out that space, okay? You can only stay ten minutes, then come right back here.”

  “What?” said Ben. “We don’t—”

  “Listen—I’ve got a diversion, I planned it all weekend. Exactly eight minutes from my mark, okay?”

  “A diversion? What—”

  Robert shook his head. “No time!” He looked at his watch. “Eight minutes . . . from now! Trust me!”

  And with that, Robert had rushed out of the library, waving at Mrs. Sinclair and saying, “Have to go to the restroom!”

  Jill and Ben had decided to trust him—which was why they were standing just inside the area under the steps.

  Getting in had been easy today—the baluster turned smoothly, the triangular panel had swung open noiselessly, and they had crouched low and stepped inside, Ben first.

  And now with the door pulled shut behind them, he spotted a hook made of hammered iron that was clearly meant for holding it closed. With camera in one hand and flashlight in the other, Ben turned around.

  He didn’t really like having to be the brave one here, didn’t like having to be the one knocking down all the spiderwebs and taking the first few steps on the crunchy floor. But Jill, usually so fearless, was totally unnerved by the rats. She clung to her small light like it was the last life vest from the Titanic.

  She was right about the smell. It reminded him of the odor from the bats in his grandparents’ shed up in Maine. Rat droppings, bat droppings—pretty much the same.

  John Vining had done nice finish work in the little room, and Ben admired the carpentry. The walls were covered in pine boards with hardly a hairsbreadth between them. The slanted ceiling of the stairs rising above them was also layered with pine. From the highest point of the slant, a sooty brass lantern hung from a chain hooked to a nail.

  It was easy for Ben to imagine lots of uses for this room back when Captain Oakes had his shipping business—especially when the British began taxing everything going to and from the colonies. This would have been a perfect place to hide chests of tea, bolts of silk, or barrels of molasses—also a safe spot for bags of gold or silver coin.

  Jill was right behind him, almost stepping on his heels. “Any rats?”

  “Shh—no!”

  He shined his light straight ahead—a door, slightly ajar! He’d expected to see the area there to his left, the space directly below the landing, but a door? Leading where? The pictures he’d snapped Saturday night hadn’t shown that.

  Ben pulled an index card and a pencil from his pocket, and holding the flashlight in his mouth, he made a quick sketch that showed the layout of the space.

  “Look!” Jill was shining her light elsewhere, and Ben swung around.

  On the board next to the triangular door through which they had entered, someone had scratched tally marks into the wood.

  “Sixty-seven,” she whispered.

  “Shut your eyes,” said Ben, aiming his camera.

  He did the same and snapped a photo of the marks. Then he turned around again, gave the same warning, and took another picture.

  “I’m gonna open that door.”

  “I’m staying here,” Jill said. “No, wait, I’m coming!”

  She took two steps, then aimed her flashlight left. “Look!” she said softly. “What’s that doing in here?”

  Ben had seen it too. “No idea,” he said, then, “Picture,” and he took a photo of a narrow iron bed along the back wall, its straw mattress rotted and falling through the slats to the floor.

  “What is this place?” Jill whispered. “Gives me the creeps!”

  Before opening the door, Ben shined his flashlight at the hinges. They were brass, blackened with age. He pushed the door gently, and the hinges squeaked a little, but they were a lot quieter than rusty iron ones would have been.

  There wasn’t much to see. In one corner, a wooden bucket, its rope handle nearly disintegrated. In another, a low pile of rope, and what looked like a moldy woolen coat and some scraps of leather, all thoroughly chewed by rats.

  The most interesting thing to Ben’s eye was immediately to his left. A low block of rusty iron sat on the floor, with the remains of a folded blanket beneath it. A good-size hammer lay nearby, and to one side of the block there was a pile of iron scraps, badly rusted. There was a scattering of clear greenish glass that might once have been a bottle. Snapping picture after picture, Ben documented everything.

  “How’s our time?” he asked.

  “Two more minutes,” Jill replied, “but I think we should leave early, don’t you?”

  Ben wasn’t quite done. He stood in the middle of the room and did a slow turn, shooting overlapping photos. Then he went out the door, stood in the center of the area under the landing, and did the same thing. Clear pictures would help them focus their next search. And he especially wanted Robert the genius to have a good look.

  “Okay,” he whispered.

  They both went to the low doorway and listened carefully—no sounds from nearby. Ben nodded, and Jill unlatched the hook, then pushed the panel open. Stepping out onto the stairwell floor, Jill pointed behin
d them. “Problem!”

  They were leaving dusty footprints—and rat droppings.

  Jill shut the door and pointed up at the baluster. “You do that; I’ll get this,” she whispered.

  As Ben started up to twist the baluster closed, Jill took off the thin cotton sweater she was wearing over her T-shirt. Dropping to her knees, she swept the area clean, gathering up the rat mess in the folds of the cloth.

  “Here,” she said, as Ben came down. She made a face and held it out to him at arm’s length. “You get to carry it.”

  Ben smiled. “Deal.” He folded the soiled side inward until the sweater was a small blue packet, then tucked it under his arm.

  They took one last look around, peeked through the hallway door, and then hurried out and walked toward the library.

  They didn’t meet Lyman in the hall, they got no questions or odd looks from Mrs. Sinclair as they entered the library, and there was Robert, sitting at his table, taking furious notes from a large book. He didn’t even glance up at them.

  Back at their place in the alcove, Ben looked at the twenty or thirty images on the tiny screen of his camera. The shots were clear, but he had no idea what he was looking at. A room, yes—but what were they supposed to find in there? And what about all that random stuff?

  He shrugged. Maybe Robert would be able to make some sense of it.

  Anyway, it was a successful raid. Whatever Robert’s diversion was, it had worked. Ben didn’t feel like they had actually found the next safeguard yet—the things they’d seen didn’t seem particularly useful—yes, a few interesting antiques, but nothing like a codicil, nothing with the power to stop the Glennley Group. Still, they’d made good use of their tactical advantages. The teamwork had been perfect, and they’d proven that Lyman couldn’t blockade them in the library.

  The school was still theirs.

  CHAPTER 10

  Believable,

  Unbelievable

  Robert munched on an onion ring, thought a moment, then said, “Simple . . . I launched a puke grenade in the south stairwell.”

  “A puke grenade?” Ben said.

  Jill made a face. “I don’t think I want to hear about this after all . . .”

  “It wasn’t actual puke,” Robert added quickly.

  “Oh . . . that’s lovely,” said Jill. “Because fake puke is ever so much more appealing. Could this maybe wait till after I finish my milkshake?”

  It was almost four o’clock, and the Keepers had met up at Buckle’s Diner on Central Street for a secret war council. And once they’d settled into a booth near the back, Jill had asked Robert how he had managed to keep Lyman busy after school.

  “Tell me about the grenade part,” Ben said.

  Robert shook his head as he took a bite of cheeseburger. He enjoyed being the professor, and he wasn’t about to let lowly pupils direct his lecture. He chewed slowly, took a swig of root beer, wiped his mouth, and began.

  “First, with any weapon system, there’s the payload, and there’s the delivery mechanism—you can’t really separate them. And before you begin, you have to have your objective clearly in mind. In this case, the mission was to keep Lyman away from the north staircase and, really, the whole north side of the school, for at least twenty minutes.”

  “But you told us we had to get out of there after ten minutes,” said Jill.

  Ben smiled to himself. Jill pretended she was all dainty, but only when she thought she should be. She was just as interested in this stuff as he was.

  Robert held up his index finger. “Important tactical rule: Always plan for mistakes and malfunctions—it’s called redundancy.”

  He took another bite of cheeseburger, and kept talking as he chewed. “When you consider a weapon design, you also have to consider your enemy. In this case, we’ve got Lyman the Spyman—except he can’t just hang around the school spying all day. To maintain his cover, he has to actually be the janitor. So, that’s his weakness—as you already know. And really, in today’s action I was sort of copying what Ben did last Friday, when he created the flood in the art room—an excellent tactical diversion that accomplished a specific objective.”

  Ben nodded wisely. It was nice to have his work praised by an expert.

  “Okay, okay,” Jill said, then paused to vacuum up the last of her shake. “Let’s hear about this fake puke of yours.”

  A pair of elderly women in the next booth swiveled their heads and stared at Jill disapprovingly. Apparently, they did not want to hear about fake puke. They waved at the waitress for their check.

  “Well, it’s sort of like making a stew,” Robert began, lowering his voice. “You have to use the right ingredients. First, I checked the school district website and found the cafeteria schedule. Lunch at Captain Oakes today was going to be tacos, fried rice, ham and cheese on a bagel, corn, and then the regular desserts and fruit and stuff. So, to make believable vomit—”

  Jill interrupted, “Most people live a whole lifetime and never get to hear the words ‘believable vomit.’”

  Again, the women in the next booth glared, then got up and walked to the cash register near the front door.

  Robert kept talking. “I used some bits of sliced ham, some frozen corn, some lettuce, a dash of Italian salad dressing, six or seven squashed grapes, some apple juice, a chunk of chocolate cheesecake, a piece of white bread, and then the secret ingredient—milk.”

  “Milk?” Jill wrinkled her nose. “Why milk?”

  “Ever get a sniff of that metal can in the lunchroom where you dump your trash, especially on Thursday or Friday, and especially if it’s hot and humid at school? That horrible, sour, spit-uppy smell? That’s spoiled milk. Anyway, late Saturday night I sealed all my ingredients into a superstrong plastic zipper bag, mooshed everything around, then put it down in the basement behind the hot-water heater—warm and dark. And nature did the rest. By Tuesday morning, I had myself a bag of first-class, weapons-grade garbage, also known as the puke grenade.”

  Jill made a face. “You should file for a patent.”

  “And your delivery system?” Ben asked.

  Robert shook his head sadly. “Primitive—and dangerous. I had to deploy it by hand. I left the library, got around to the south stairwell without being seen, and ran up five flights. Then I backed down from the landing between the second and third floors, squeezing the payload out of the plastic bag. I slimed six steps plus the wall—a believable pattern.”

  “So . . . how did it smell?” Jill whispered, leaning forward. It was like she was watching a horror movie—the part that’s so awful you can’t look away.

  “Perfect,” Robert said, then added proudly, “I almost puked myself!”

  Ben held up a hand, like a student in class. “But what I don’t get is, why did you tell us to wait eight minutes—exactly?”

  “Ah—this is the good part, and also the part that reveals how close I am to being truly crazy. Because I notice things, and I always remember everything I notice. You know how I stay after school to get help and do extra work and stuff? Well, Mrs. Hinman has a daughter in day care, and Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, she leaves school at exactly ten after three. So I knew when she’d be walking down the south stairwell, and I knew that on her way past the office she would tell Mrs. Hendon about the mess, and I knew Mrs. Hendon or the principal would call Lyman and order him to get it cleaned up right away before smelly stuff got tracked around. I timed all that out and calculated that by 3:18, Lyman would be busy for at least twenty minutes—and he’d be on the exact opposite side of the school from where you guys were.”

  Ben nodded, and he raised his soda glass in a toast. “Very cool—the Stealth Bomber delivers!”

  “Anybody could’ve done it,” Robert said modestly.

  Jill laughed. “You don’t believe that for one second, and neither do we. You’re the right kid in the right place at the right time.”

  Ben looked at the large neon clock on the wall behind the counter. “Speaking of time
, I’ve got to go, so here’s where we are. First of all, Robert, Lyman knows we disarmed that door—which means he’s probably pretty sure we’ve been inside again.”

  He explained about the note in his locker and the tape, and that Lyman had probably figured out they had Mr. Keane’s keys.

  Robert gave a low whistle. “This guy’s not messing around.”

  “You’ve got that right,” said Ben. “From now on, we should assume that he’s got some way of checking every door, and he might try to set up cameras or listening devices too. I think he’s getting desperate to know what we’re doing. Oh, and nobody leaves anything important in any locker at any time, okay? Now, about the new room, we’re going to have to get back in under those stairs again, but I’m not sure when it’ll be safe. Robert, you want to think about that some more?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “And do you have an e-mail account, some place I can send you the photos I took in there today? It ought to be an e-mail account your family doesn’t use.”

  As they exchanged information, Jill said, “Maybe there’s a place at school where we can leave notes for Robert—no, that’s silly. If we’re careful, we can always talk a little in math or social studies or chorus. It’s not like Lyman’s got eyes everywhere.”

  “Okay then,” said Ben. “Everybody has to study today’s photos, Robert’s going to think about another diversion plan, and we’re all gonna be super careful where we leave any information. Anything else?”

  They spent another few minutes counting out money for their food, and then walked outside. It was clouding up, and Ben could smell rain on the breeze from the east.

  “See you tomorrow,” Robert said, then walked west on Oak Street.

  Jill and Ben crossed Central and walked downhill on Water Street.

  Jill smiled and said, “Robert’s amazing, don’t you think?”