Janitors: Secrets of New Forest Academy Page 14

  Then Director Garcia grinned at Daisy. “Congratula­tions.”

  “For what?” Daisy asked.

  “For creating a masterpiece.” Director Garcia held up the sloppy artwork, and Daisy blushed as red as the ink.

  Chapter 30

  “I think you’re forgetting that.”

  Daisy poured exactly 300 milliliters of clear liquid into a beaker.

  “I can’t stop thinking about last night,” said Spencer. They were paired off in the science lab, working on a chemistry project that was much harder than the usual sixth-grade curriculum. “I mean, Slick would have had me without that glove.”

  Daisy adjusted her goggles. They squished down on her nose, giving her a comical look. “Well, that’s why Walter gave us the stuff. For emergencies. You survived.”

  Spencer was tired of simply surviving. He had lived the past few days in a state of never-ending fear. “Where is Walter, anyway? Shouldn’t he be here to rescue us by now?”

  “We barely e-mailed him yesterday. Who knows how far away he is?” Daisy pointed to a scale and a bag of white powder. “Can you measure 43 grams of that potassium stuff?”

  How could Daisy focus on this science experiment? Wasn’t she as uptight as Spencer? How could she even think about grams and milliliters while Slick was doing work for the BEM at New Forest Academy?

  Spencer grabbed the bag and started spooning powder onto the scale. “You know what freaks me out the most?” he said quietly. “Slick wants me for that package my dad supposedly sent. But I still don’t know anything about it!” He realized that he’d put too much powder on the scale, so he skimmed his spoon across the top of the pile. “I just expect Slick to be hiding behind every corner.”

  “We haven’t even seen him today and it’s almost dinnertime,” said Daisy.

  “That’s what scares me. It’s like he’s waiting for tonight to strike again.” He passed the 43 grams to Daisy.

  “You have to remember,” she said, “we’re here to watch out for each other. You don’t have to fight Slick alone.”

  “I was all alone last night. Dez and the brown team would have let anything happen. Those guys give me the creeps. I mean, they’re smart, no doubt about it. But they’re not as cool as Dez thinks. They’re a bunch of sellouts. Slick bought them for fifty bucks apiece!”

  “You’re not on the brown team anymore!” Daisy poured another 300 milliliters of liquid into the beaker and started stirring in the powder. “You’ll be safer tonight with the boys from our blue team.”

  “Min’s a genius and all,” whispered Spencer. “But he doesn’t really know about the BEM. He doesn’t know about the danger.”

  “But I do!” Daisy stared at Spencer through her foggy science goggles. “I’m here to help you. I think you’re forgetting that.”

  The chemistry teacher stood up at the front of the lab. “All right, boys and girls. At this point, you should be ready to add the diluted hydrogen peroxide to your solution.”

  Daisy picked up a graduated cylinder and carefully poured the premeasured hydrogen peroxide into the large beaker. She and Spencer watched with anticipation to see the outcome. Daisy was holding onto her goggles as if the solution might explode.

  All around them, other students were oohing and aahing over their successful experiments. Min and Jenna had a perfect result. The liquid in their beaker was changing colors dramatically—from clear, to amber, to deep blue.

  Spencer looked back at their unchanged experiment. “Isn’t it supposed to do something?”

  Daisy’s shoulders slumped. “Forget it.” She pushed the beaker away and pulled off her goggles. “Walter will come soon. But until then, all we have is each other. And if Slick’s going to take you, then he’ll have to take me too. We’re in this together, both of us.”

  “Three of us,” Spencer reminded her. “We’ve still got Dez to worry about. I should probably tell him that Walter’s on his way. In case we have to make a quick getaway.” Spencer sighed. “Dez probably won’t listen to us anyway.”

  Daisy shrugged. “We have to try. Let’s talk to him at dinner. Remember how Walter told us to gain Dez’s trust?”

  “Yeah,” said Spencer. “But I don’t think it’s working. Maybe I can just buy his trust for fifty bucks.”

  “That’s kind of expensive,” said Daisy. “Hopefully it will be on sale.”

  Chapter 31

  “Do you smell that?”

  Dez wasn’t at dinner. Spencer could easily have imagined the bully roaming the campus with his brown team gang. But all the members of the brown team were seated together in the cafeteria.

  “I don’t like this,” Daisy said. “Where could he be?”

  They sat down at the table and started eating. Dez’s absence wasn’t a good sign. If the bully was off on his own, then he was probably hoping to try out some Glopified supplies.

  Just then, a girl from the brown team came up behind Daisy. She was tall, with a mousy face and a sly expression. Spencer hadn’t learned her name during his time on the brown team, but he knew she was one of Dez’s cohorts.

  The girl bent over, putting her head between Spencer and Daisy. She spoke softly. In the noise of the cafeteria, no one could overhear.

  “Looking for Dez?” she asked. “He has a proposal for the two of you. Wanted to meet somewhere quiet to discuss it. He said he’d wait for you in the janitorial closet of the rec center.” Her message delivered, the girl from the brown team withdrew and strode casually back to her dinner table.

  Spencer stopped chewing. “Can we trust her?” Daisy asked.

  Spencer glanced at the girl who’d delivered Dez’s message. “There’s no way she could know anything about Glopified stuff. It’s Dez that I don’t trust.”

  “But Dez wouldn’t set a trap for us.” Daisy looked unconvinced by her own statement. “Would he?”

  “Trap or not,” said Spencer, “we’ve got to go. Dez has probably gotten himself into some kind of trouble. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Slick is involved.”

  They quietly dumped their half-eaten dinners and headed into the hall. Pulling on their coats, they moved outside and jogged toward the recreation center.

  Spencer reached into his pocket and withdrew a latex glove. Since last night, he and Daisy had decided to carry them everywhere. A small baggie of vacuum dust filled his other pocket, and he adjusted it for quick access.

  “First sign of trouble and we’re out of here,” Spencer said as they pulled on their gloves and stepped into the rec center.

  It didn’t take them long to find the closet by the gym, the same closet where Slick had held Spencer hostage. Just remembering the taste of the janitor’s dirty finger caused Spencer to shudder, and he vowed never to bite anyone again—no matter how desperate he was.

  Spencer grabbed a pinch of vac dust and motioned for Daisy to pull open the door. She nodded bravely and jerked on the handle, Spencer’s fist already in position for a funnel throw.

  The closet looked much different with the light on. It was a long, narrow room with a hard floor. Dingy shelves lined the walls, and cardboard boxes were stacked almost to the ceiling. The back wall was covered in rows of wooden cupboards.

  Dez jumped up from the cardboard box he’d been sitting on, the corner crumpled from his weight. “About time you chumps got here,” he said.

  Spencer and Daisy stepped into the closet, still scanning the long room, searching for another person.

  “What?” Dez looked around. “Was somebody else supposed to be here?”

  “You tell us,” Spencer said. “Seems like the perfect place for a trap.”

  “Whatever!” Dez looked confused. “It was your dumb idea to meet here.”

  “Our idea?” said Daisy. “You’re the one who—”

  The closet door slammed shut. Spencer threw himself against it, but the knob was instantly locked.

  “It was a trap!” In anger, Spencer flung his vac dust at Dez. The bully went down, a stack of bo
xes toppling onto him.

  “What the ... ?” Dez shouted through the suction. “You can’t trap me! I’m on your side!”

  “Wait a minute,” said Daisy. “We’re not trapping you. You’re trapping us!”

  “What are you talking about?” Dez strained into an upright position. “If I was trying to trap you, I would’ve used bait. Like cheese or something. That seems to catch rats like you!”

  “I heard peanut butter works too,” said Daisy. “But I wonder if mice hate the way it gets stuck on the roof of your mouth.”

  “Hey!” Spencer shouted, slamming his shoulder into the door. The vacuum suction ended and Dez rose to his feet.

  “So what did you want to talk about?” Dez asked, like being trapped in a janitorial closet was a great time to discuss the weather. “One of the girls on my team said to meet you guys here. Said you wanted to talk about something.”

  “What?” Spencer shook his head. “She told us the same about you.” He shoved against the door again but it wouldn’t budge. “Looks like we’ve both been tricked.”

  “No, no, no!” said Dez. “Brown team wouldn’t trick me. I’m their fearless leader. They wouldn’t do that to me! Those guys are my friends!”

  “Looks like their friendship went to a higher paying customer,” Daisy said.

  “We’ve got to bust out of here,” Spencer said, giving up on the door. “There’s got to be something we can use in this closet.” Overhead, the heater clicked on.

  “Hold on a sec,” Daisy said. “Do you smell that?”

  “It wasn’t me,” said Dez. “You smelt it, you dealt it.”

  Spencer sniffed. It wasn’t so much a scent as it was a change in the air. It smelled dusty—no—it smelled chalky!

  Suddenly, a plume of white chalk dust streamed through the ceiling vent. The heater circulated the air, swirling the chalk cloud around them and dimming the light.

  Slick must have thrown a chalkboard eraser into the vent! The explosion wouldn’t take long to consume the small closet.

  Spencer, Daisy, and Dez pounded on the door, throwing their whole force against it, pushing and pulling frantically. But anyone that might have heard them was still eating dinner across campus.

  In the haze of the janitorial closet, they felt the chalk dust engulf them. It stung their lungs and sent them into bouts of choking coughs.

  “Not this again!” Dez shouted, but Spencer and Daisy wisely held their breath. The white chalk settled into their hair. It clung to their shirts and pants, turning their clothing white.

  With only an ounce of breath left in his lungs, Spencer remembered his first experience in this closet. Slick had mysteriously disappeared when Min had opened the door. That meant there had to be some kind of secret escape passage!

  Spencer ran his fingers along the walls of the closet, searching desperately for any weakness that could lead to escape. Unable to hold out any longer, he gasped for air. But the chalk-tainted air did not satisfy. His feet were going numb. He tried to speak, but his tongue felt heavy.

  There was a thump as Dez fell to the hard floor. Daisy was moving clumsily, stumbling over boxes. Spencer’s hand slipped from a shelf, and he collapsed onto his face.

  Hadn’t he fled Welcher to escape this fate? Now it seemed the BEM had him at last.

  Chapter 32

  “Life ain’t fair.”

  Spencer awoke to the sound of a squeaky door. The floor beneath him was rock hard and dreadfully uncomfortable. He tried to move, but his whole body seemed full of lead. He attempted simply to wiggle a finger, but even that action was denied him. Spencer could only manage to open his eyelids. But as soon as he did, the overhead light caused him to squint blindly.

  Spencer heard footsteps, accompanied by a drawling voice. “Lovely morning, ain’t it?”

  Morning? How many hours had passed in this chalk-blasted closet?

  Spencer opened his eyes again as the speaker stepped forward, blocking the light. The voice had already given him away, but seeing the janitor made Spencer’s stomach twist in anguish. Slick had a malevolent grin on his pocked face.

  Spencer tried again to move. He had a shout of defiance for the janitor, but the chalk explosion from last evening still held him paralyzed.

  Slick strode across the long closet and opened one of the cupboards on the back wall. As the little door swung open, a dim light shone from beyond. From his place on the floor, Spencer could see that the cupboard was not full of shelves, as he had expected. It appeared to be an entrance into a hidden tunnel.

  If only he could have discovered that when the room was filling with chalk dust!

  Returning, Slick stopped in front of Spencer. “The Bureau only needed one of you, but I could think of a good reason to catch all three.”

  The chalk bomb had left the inside of the closet in a fine white coating, like freshly fallen snow. Slick grabbed Spencer under the arms and dragged him toward the cupboard, leaving tracks in the white dust. “You are the obvious one.” He hoisted Spencer’s limp body through the cupboard door and into the dim tunnel. “You’ve got information ’bout the package that the Bureau’s searching for.” He set Spencer into a waiting wheelbarrow, the metal edge digging uncomfortably against his neck.

  Dusting residual chalk off his hands, Slick stooped through the cupboard door and approached Daisy. “Course, we couldn’t have you running around trying to play hero.” He dragged her into the tunnel and set her in the wheelbarrow next to Spencer. “So I had to nab you, too.”

  He returned and started lugging Dez toward the cupboard. “And you ...” Straining, he lifted Dez into the tunnel. “I’ve got my own ideas for you.”

  Spencer and Daisy grunted unintelligibly as Slick plopped Dez on top of them. Dez moaned, clearly trying to say something.

  “I know,” Slick said. “Life ain’t fair. You thought you was the brown team leader, till they sold you out.” The janitor chuckled. “They were never really your friends. Just users. Couple hundred bucks and they set this whole thing up for me. It was the only way I could get the three of you alone together.”

  Slick picked up the wheelbarrow and started down the long, dim tunnel.

  “A true friend is hard to come by these days. Too bad, right? You should pick your friendships as careful as you pick your nose.”

  Chapter 33

  “Do you feel it?”

  Spencer had no idea what time it was when he finally regained the use of his voice. In his paralyzed state, the passage of time was excruciatingly slow. He drifted in and out of nervous sleep for what seemed like days.

  “Hello?” was the first word Spencer tried. When that proved successful, he tried another. “Help!”

  The last moment worth remembering seemed like hours ago. Slick had pushed the wheelbarrow out of the tunnel into an adjoining janitorial office in the Academy’s main building. He’d dumped Spencer, but had taken Daisy and Dez out of sight up some stairs.

  Spencer turned his head clumsily from side to side, a skill he had recently recovered. “Hello?” he tried again. “Anybody?” He was alone.

  The janitor’s office was cluttered with cleaning supplies. Some of the stuff had to be Glopified. If he could just get something to help him escape ...

  Spencer tried to lean forward. His head swung, chin coming to rest on his chest. He was slumped in a hard chair, unable to summon the strength to stand and run. He was a prisoner, held not by ropes or chains but by the paralyzing effects of the chalkboard eraser.

  “You’re one stubborn fool.” Slick’s voice cut through the room. Spencer lolled his head around to find the janitor standing in the doorway. “It didn’t have to be like this. I gave you plenty of chances to tell me ’bout that package. But you refused to cooperate. Now it’s a big mess and you dragged your friends into it.”

  “Where’s Daisy?” Spencer’s speech was still slurred, and his tongue felt thick and foreign in his mouth.

  “Why don’t you leave the question-asking to me?” S
lick dragged a hand across his greasy hair. “I’m gonna start simple. The questions only get hard if you make them hard, okay?”

  “What questions?” Spencer said.

  “Are you the son of Alan Zumbro?” Slick grinned. “See? Not too hard.”

  Spencer tried to nod his head, but Slick grabbed him by the hair and looked into his face. “Not like that. You’ve got to speak it out so there ain’t no confusion ’bout what you’re saying.”

  “Yes,” Spencer said. “I am.”

  “Have you seen or spoken with your father since his mysterious disappearance two years ago?”

  “No.”

  “Have you received any gifts or packages from your father during his absence?”

  “No.”

  “Try again.”

  “I said no.”

  Slick sighed and pushed up his glasses. “I see you want to make things complicated.” He walked out of sight and returned a moment later, trailing an orange extension cord in one hand.

  “I brought a little friend to help jog your memory ’bout the package your daddy sent in the mail.”

  Slick tugged on the extension cord, and Spencer saw a Filth stumble around the corner. The creature’s breath instantly caused Spencer a moment of drowsiness. He blinked against the fatigue as the Toxite tried to scurry into hiding. But for some reason, the Filth couldn’t get away. Then, with a twinge of horror, Spencer saw the reason. The extension cord was plugged directly into the Filth’s back!

  “He’s a little shy right now,” Slick said. “But as soon as I plug him in, he’ll warm up to you.” Slick carried his end of the extension cord over to an electrical socket in the wall and inserted it.

  The moment the electricity hit the cord, the Filth stopped squirming. It turned to face Spencer, an almost serene expression on its face. Then the creature began to hum and pulsate gently. Its breath came in deep, intoxicating rushes.

  Spencer’s head lolled forward and his eyes drooped. But exerting every muscle in his body, Spencer willed himself not to sleep. His eyes traced the line of the orange extension cord back to the Filth. What he saw shocked him.