Janitors: Secrets of New Forest Academy Read online

  Spencer couldn’t decide if Mr. Gates was telling the truth or sharing one of the corny jokes he was known for. The truck rolled to a stop, and Spencer popped open the door. Daisy scooted across the seat, assuring her dad that they would be fine walking home after the concert. He waved out the window as he pulled away.

  Spencer smiled. “Your dad’s funny.”

  “Yeah,” Daisy said, working through a snag as she tried to zip up her jacket. “He’s good to have around.”

  The comment might have bothered Spencer a couple of months ago. Dad had been a sore subject for a long time. But back in September, Spencer had finally learned the truth. His dad had not deserted the family. Alan Zumbro was a Toxite scientist who had gone missing on a research project about two years ago. Walter was out there right now, investigating his dad’s disappearance.

  The news of Alan’s true identity had brought hope to Spencer and his mother. Hope and fear. Alan Zumbro could be long dead, stung to death by vicious relocated Toxites. But maybe Dad was alive. And if that were the case, then maybe—just maybe—Dad would return.

  The concert was happening in the cafeteria. The lunch tables were stacked out of the way and someone had set out rows of chairs, hopeful for a large crowd. The orchestra was already tuning when Spencer and Daisy entered. It was a dreadful sound, like a hive of overgrown hornets swooping in for an attack.

  “There’s Meredith.” Spencer pointed to the back of the cafeteria. The lunch lady was still wearing her shapeless uniform. Spencer wondered if she’d had a chance to go home since school had let out.

  Spencer whispered to Daisy, “You get the library key from Meredith while I get some Glopified supplies from the stash.”

  As he maneuvered himself toward the kitchen door, Spencer watched Daisy navigate the crowd of supportive orchestra parents and greet Meredith with an awkward gesture.

  Meredith glanced down at Daisy and smiled halfheartedly. The crowd quieted as the orchestra finished tuning and the conductor lifted her baton. Something slipped from the lunch lady’s pocket and landed on the hard floor.

  Spencer watched Daisy pick up a ring of keys and innocently attempt to hand them back to Meredith. The lunch lady ignored the girl and continued staring straight ahead at the orchestra.

  Spencer paused at the entrance to the kitchen. Some­times Daisy couldn’t take a hint. The girl jingled the keys in her hand, still striving for Meredith’s attention. Spencer was about to go back for her when Daisy gave a sudden nod of understanding. A smile spread across her face and she slipped the keys into her jacket pocket.

  Spencer sighed with relief and ducked into the dark kitchen. A moment later, he was rendezvousing with Daisy in the hallway, arms full of Glopified supplies. The fifth-grade version of Ode to Joy grew quieter as the two kids headed away from the cafeteria.

  Daisy used Meredith’s keys to open the security doors at the end of the hall next to the janitor’s stairwell. They slipped into the dark hallway beyond, but before the door could shut, a familiar face shoved through.

  “Wait for me!”

  “Dez?” Spencer and Daisy said together. Why was he always showing up at the worst of times?

  Daisy glared. “What are you doing here?”

  “Somebody said there was going to be violence in the orchestra tonight.” He bumped his beefy fists together.

  “Well, I think they meant violins,” Spencer said. “So you’re out of luck.”

  “I don’t need the stupid dorkestra.” Dez cracked his knuckles. “Maybe I can find violence somewhere else.”

  “Don’t mess with us, Dez.” Spencer tried to make his voice sound threatening.

  “Just a punch in the nose,” said Dez. “Then we’ll be even.”

  “Even?”

  “For messing with my backpack today,” Dez said. “You made me look like an idiot.”

  Spencer shrugged. “That’s really not hard to do ...”

  Dez lunged forward, his fist cocked back. Spencer flinched and tried to turn. Mop strings suddenly whipped past Spencer and coiled around Dez’s whole body, pinning back his arm. The bully flopped to the floor, his screams muffled.

  Spencer looked over his shoulder at Daisy. She was still holding the mop handle, her eyes wide.

  “Daisy!” Spencer’s mouth was agape. “Do you realize what you just did?”

  Dez was thrashing on the floor, completely tied up in mop strings. Daisy swallowed. “He was going to hit you!”

  “Shh!” Spencer said. “What’s that?” There was a noise behind the security doors.

  “Someone’s coming!” Daisy hissed. “We’ve got to hide!”

  “What about him?” Spencer pointed desperately at Dez.

  “Got him.” Daisy, still holding the mop handle, slammed her broom against the floor. She jetted toward the ceiling, Dez’s wriggling form in tow. Spencer leveled his own broom and launched after them.

  As soon as they hit the ceiling, the security door jerked opened. Mr. Joe was silhouetted from the light beyond. And even if they hadn’t recognized his figure, they would have known his voice.

  “Hey! Who’s there? This part of the school is off-limits!”

  Don’t look up, Spencer silently pleaded. He and Daisy were gripping their brooms, bodies pressed weightlessly against the ceiling. Dez dangled from Daisy’s mop. All wrapped in white mop strings, the bully looked like a giant cocoon.

  “Hello?” Mr. Joe called again. Then he shrugged. Testing the security door to make sure it was locked, the custodian stepped out of sight and pulled the door closed behind him.

  Daisy drifted down first, Dez hitting the floor with a thud. The mop strings were starting to retract, but the bully was dazed.

  “Great,” Spencer said, floating down from the ceiling. “What’re we going to do with him now?”

  “Tie him up again?” Daisy shrugged. “We can come back and get him in a few minutes.”

  “What if he gets free?”

  “Let’s bonk him on the head. Like they do in movies.”

  “Daisy!”

  “What? He’s the one that wanted violence.”

  “Violins.”

  “Whatever.”

  Chapter 6

  “How about a trade?”

  Spencer and Daisy stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the library entrance. Daisy had just inserted the key, and the door clicked open.

  “It’s bad in there, Daisy. The Toxite breath is strong. We’re going to have to focus like never before.”

  Daisy slowly pushed open the door. “We’ll watch out for each other.”

  Spencer nodded. “In and out. Fast as we can.” He checked his pockets for vacuum dust, then hefted a mop in one hand and a broom in the other. “We’ve got to get back to Dez before he gets free. That mop won’t hold him forever, and the vac dust we threw will only buy us an extra minute or two.”

  “I still think we should have bonked him,” Daisy said.

  They rushed side by side into the dark library.

  Spencer yawned as he reached the Biographies bookshelf. In the dim glow of the exit signs, he could vaguely see the white bucket. It was balancing on the top of the bookcase, untouched from when he had fallen.

  “You doing okay?” Spencer asked.

  Daisy gritted her teeth in concentration. “I’m trying really hard not to get distracted by that table leg over there. It looks shiny.”

  “No! Focus!” But even as he reprimanded her, Spencer felt the awful temptation to lie down and rest for a moment.

  Spencer shook aside his fatigue and took the broom in both hands. “I’m going to fly up there and grab the bucket. When I bring it down, you need to have your vac dust ready. A palm blast should take their breath away for a minute so we can decide what to do.”

  He tapped his broom on the library floor and drifted up alongside the bookshelf. Reaching out, he seized the rim of the white bucket in one hand. It was hard to hold on. He felt weak from lack of sleep.

  His eyelids droo
ped, and Spencer thought he was going to drop the bucket. He wasn’t even aware that his broom was descending until his feet brushed the carpet. A puff of vacuum dust revved past him and into the bucket. All fatigue vanished and Spencer set the bucket on the floor. Daisy tossed a second shot of vac dust into the mass of trapped Toxites.

  The effects from the Toxites were momentarily subdued, and Daisy glanced back over her shoulder. “Oh, wow,” she said. “That table leg is so not cool. What was I thinking?”

  “At least they’re all in one place,” Spencer said about the Toxites, staring into the swarming bucket. “If my broom will fit in the bucket, I can just start smashing.”

  As Spencer pulled his broom around to test, the library door slammed open. Dez staggered through the doorway. He wasn’t completely untied. The mop strings still bound his arms.

  Spencer grunted, “Stay back, Dez!” He turned again to the Toxite bucket.

  The answer that came from the doorway was unexpected and chilling. “Dez will stay right where I want him!”

  Spencer and Daisy squinted through the darkness. There was a stranger standing behind Dez, holding the wooden mop handle like Dez was on a leash. He ushered the bully into the library and closed the door behind him.

  “Who are you?” Spencer asked.

  “No one you’ll ever see again,” the man said.

  “Are you part of the BEM?” Daisy asked, gripping her pushbroom like a rifle.

  “I’m not a janitor, if that’s what you mean. But the BEM’s reach extends to all kinds of maintenance. I’m simply an electrician. The Bureau hired me to come in this morning and fix a light above the bookshelf.” He gestured toward the ceiling. “I see you found the bucket I left behind.” The stranger smirked. “And it looks like I found something you left behind.”

  The man tugged on the mop handle, and Dez fell to the floor. He was whimpering, scared. Spencer had never seen the bully like this.

  “How about a trade?” the stranger said. “My bucket for your friend.”

  Dez was anything but a friend. Yet, like it or not, Spencer knew he had to accept the trade. It wasn’t worth someone getting hurt.

  Spencer stepped away from the bucket. “All right,” he said. “Come and get it.”

  The stranger strode forward, forcing Dez ahead of him. When he finally reached the bucket, the man let go of Dez. The bully took a step and crumpled to the floor.

  The electrician lifted the bucket by the handle and peered inside. “Safe and sound,” he whispered. “There’re more than a hundred in here. Amazing how so many creatures can fit into such a small space.”

  Daisy had migrated to Spencer’s side, and the two kids watched the stranger retreat toward the library’s emergency exit. “Where are you taking them?” Spencer asked.

  “Who says they’re coming with me?” the electrician said. “The BEM is calling this an Agitation Bucket. The Toxites are trapped as long as the bucket stays upright. But they’re getting angry in there. They feel like they’re being relocated. Have you ever seen a relocated Toxite?” The stranger clucked his tongue. “Ferocious little beasts.”

  He glanced at the bucket again. “These have been stewing for a while. Once they’re released, they’ll be bloodthirsty for about a week. Very dangerous for those who can see them.” He was at the exit now, leaning back against the door. “Very effective for ridding schools of Rebel Janitors.”

  With that, the electrician tipped over the Agitation Bucket. Toxites spewed out in a seething mass of wings, tails, teeth, and quills. Vicious eyes glimmered in the darkness as the Toxites came for the kids like a cloud of death.

  Chapter 7

  “There’s too many!”

  Their only hope was to get outside. Spencer knew the angry Toxites wouldn’t leave the school. But getting to the exit was another matter altogether. They would have to blaze a path through the oncoming creatures.

  Spencer met the first wave of Toxites with a fistful of vac dust. Daisy swung her pushbroom and several creatures exploded. Adrenaline battled the sluggish effects of the Toxite breath as both kids struggled to maintain focus.

  The Toxites were enraged from their time in the Agita­tion Bucket. One slip could be fatal. The creatures would pick apart the kids like ants on a cookie.

  “Look out!” A Rubbish was swooping in on Daisy’s blind side, hooked beak parted, sharp talons flexed.

  Spencer lunged sideways, hurling his final puff of vacuum dust. The creature lost control as the suction force buckled its wings. It collided with a bookshelf and toppled to the floor.

  Something heavy and much larger than a Toxite struck Spencer from behind and knocked him to the floor. His broom tapped down and shot out of his hand. Someone grabbed his wrists and flipped him onto his side.

  “I always knew you were a freak!” Dez said, pinning Spencer under his bulky weight. Clearly, the big kid couldn’t see the dangerous swarm of oncoming Toxites. “I want some answers from you. Like, how did you tie me up with a mop? And who was that jerk guy that dragged me in here?”

  Spencer tried to twist away. Toxites were swarming over Dez’s body, clawing and biting. But the bully felt and saw nothing. Unsatisfied with Dez’s untouchable flesh, the Toxites turned to fresh meat: someone who could see them and feel the sting of their attacks. It took less than a second for the creatures to find Spencer, pinned and defenseless.

  Each Toxite brought a new pain to Spencer’s trapped body. A sharp cut on his leg from a Rubbish talon, a blistering welt on his hand from a poisonous Grime. A Filth scuttled past Spencer’s head and climbed onto his shoulder, sharp quills raking scratches across his neck.

  Dez was still shouting, but the breath of the Filth, so close to Spencer’s face, overcame him. Despite the pain and fear, Spencer started slipping into forced sleep.

  He vaguely saw Dez pull back a fist. The punch was meant for Spencer’s face—and by the size of Dez’s fist, it would probably break his nose. But the punch never came down. It went up—high up—as Daisy slammed her pushbroom into the back of Dez’s head.

  The bully soared over a low bookshelf and landed with a crash, out of sight. Spencer was the next to get hit, with a much gentler tap from Daisy’s pushbroom. He jerked off the ground, Toxites falling away as he rose toward the ceiling. A few Rubbishes kept pace, their leathery wings flapping. Spencer, weaponless in the air, batted them away with bloodied knuckles.

  “Spencer!” Daisy slammed a broom against a bookshelf and sent it jetting across the library. As it shot past, Spencer snatched the handle, and the momentum pulled him away from an incoming flock of Rubbishes. He crashed into the Fiction bookshelf. Novels fell around him as Spencer stumbled to his feet.

  Daisy screamed as a nearby Filth charged her, ramming its spiky head into her leg. She crumpled onto one knee, barely managing to immobilize the Filth with a bit of vac dust.

  It was hopeless. This was the worst thing they’d been through on their own. The Toxites were thick and impenetrable. They would never make it to the door in one piece. Spencer turned his eyes to the emergency exit, wishing he could find a way to reach it safely.

  Then, unbelievably, as Spencer’s eyes were trained on the exit, the door flew open. A thin figure entered first: a young woman wearing a high school letter jacket and hood. She had a short-handled mop in each hand and wielded them like deadly ball-and-chain flails.

  A second person shot through the open door, dangling one-handed from a speeding broom. In his free hand he clutched something small and black. He wore a baseball cap, but as the broom bore him into a flock of angry Rubbishes, the hat was stripped away. In the dim light, Spencer saw a shiny bald head.

  “Walter!” Was it really him? The warlock janitor had appeared in the nick of time.

  “There’s too many!” Walter shouted to his hooded companion. “Switch to Plan B!”

  The hooded lady somersaulted across the library like an acrobatic ninja and slammed her mops into a pack of Filths. She reached Daisy, and the two of
them rushed for the exit. Walter cocked back his arm and hurled the black object in his hand. It struck the wall and exploded into a cloud of white dust. The billowing explosion grew like a mushroom cloud, engulfing half the library.

  Spencer reached for his broom, only to jerk away. The wooden handle was crawling with Grimes. The monsters leapt toward him, and Spencer fell sideways onto one of the study tables. Walter was at his side in no time, swatting away the angry Toxites with his broom.

  “Come on!” The old warlock grabbed Spencer by the sleeve and pulled him off the table.

  They were almost to the exit when Walter reached into his coat and withdrew another black object. Spencer saw it clearly this time.

  It was a chalkboard eraser.

  “Go!” Walter said, shoving Spencer out the door. Then he hurled the eraser across the library and it exploded in a white dust ball.

  Walter stepped out of the library, pulling the door shut behind him to contain the explosion. Spencer glanced at Daisy, standing in the parking lot. But her expression was not victorious. It was horrified. Then Spencer remembered why.

  “Dez!” he whispered. He had to act fast. The chalk bombs were filling the whole library!

  “Wait!” Walter cried, but Spencer leapt past him, bursting through the door before the lock clicked shut. He heard the warlock shout something—a warning. But there was no time to discuss it.

  The library was a dim mess of cloudy dust. Spencer coughed into his shoulder and drew in the deepest breath he could manage. He ran forward blindly, stumbling painfully into chairs and tables. Through the ethereal whiteness, an occasional Toxite would suddenly appear, only to vanish again like a ghostly figure in a sea of fog. They seemed to move in painful slow motion.

  Then, as if that painful motion were contagious, Spencer’s feet suddenly gave out under him. He caught himself on a low bookshelf and paused, trying to think about how to walk. It seemed like the message was taking forever to get from his brain to his feet.

  A few steps later, he fell again. But this time, his legs wouldn’t respond to his efforts to stand up. Dragging himself forward with his hands, Spencer came at last to the spot where Dez had crash-landed. The bully was covered in chalk dust, his face frighteningly white. But Dez was still breathing. Spencer could see the soft rise and fall of his chest.