Brass Monkeys (13 page)

That was depressing as the dickens and I felt sorry for this Todd kid, whoever he was. I turned to move on and ran straight into a harp that sent out some loud jangling noises. As I muted the strings, the man in the white sport coat stepped out of the shadows, his pistol pointed right at me.

He was young-looking, not real big, but there was something about the determined set of his mouth and chin that made you think he was big enough. He was unshaven, his coat was dirty, and there was something really dangerous about his movements. His blue eyes danced with a wild light.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he snapped at me.

“Duh … me?” I stammered.

“Yeah, you.” He moved closer, keeping the weird-looking pistol pointed right at me. “You know I have a real problem with drones. I don’t like them.” I saw his eyes drop to the letter on my tunic.

“Hey, fine with me,” I said, my voice yodeling with fear, “cause I’m not a—”

He grabbed me and jammed the pistol barrel against my nose. “And I especially dislike, jokesters, who think they’re funny.”

So now I knew what the “J” stood for. But I was more concerned about the pistol barrel, which had a bunch of small holes in the end. My nose would look like Swiss cheese if the gun went off.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” I burst out. “I’m serious. I’m actually looking for you and—what kind of gun is that?”

“Why are you looking for me?” he shot back. “You think you’re going to get a reward from the Big Lady?”

“No, don’t be a fardex!” I said. “Okay, wait a minute, I didn’t mean to say that. I’m looking for you because Webster told me to find you. He said find—”

“Wait a sec,” he cut in. His eyes widened. “Aren’t you whatsis face, the kid she’s after because you’ve got something she wants? I didn’t get the details, but I heard the drones yacking about it. So that’s what this is all about.”

“I’d say most of it is about you,” I snapped. “I mean, sure she hates me, but—”

“You little birdbrain,” he rasped out. He pushed me away. “I can’t believe this. You just hand-delivered me to the Stormies.” He began rummaging furiously through his pockets.

Stunned, I stared at him. “How do you figure that?”

But he was spilling out the contents of his coat pocket and mumbling feverishly. “Car keys, two quarters and a penny … a stupid button! Because, that’s why this whole area is crawling with Stormies.
You’re here!”

“Wait a minute,” I said, hotly. “Those guys were chasing
you
.”

“Just three of them were after me, J-boy. The other four hundred and ninety badhairs are looking for you. And now you’ve brought ‘em all here.” With frantic movements, he began turning out his pant’s pockets.

“I don’t believe you,” I began. “I mean, Webster told me they’d all be after you. And he said, ‘You’ll recognize McGinty because—’“

“McGinty?” He stared at me as if I had grown a second head. “What are you talking about? You thought I was McGinty?”

I nodded vigorously.

He rolled his eyes. “Loonier and loonier.” He rushed over to a desk and began hauling out the drawers and rustling through the contents. “The sad truth is, I’m just plain old Jack Hastings, ex-English teacher from Orion Middle School in Ohio. I’m a little wild, but hardly in the same league with McGinty.”

“But you’re blond and you’re wearing the ratty white sport coat,” I stammered.

He laughed harshly. “Listen, this coat is
tan
, a dirty tan at that. He spilled out the contents of a drawer. “Chalk, chalk,” he muttered. “Yeah, baby! Got it!” He dumped a box of it on the desk, popped the cylinder on the pistol, and began loading pieces into it. He glanced up and must have sensed my desperation.

“Look, I’m sorry I’m not who you thought I was. The Big Lady brought Orion Middle down here three years ago and I’ve been on the run ever since, trying to figure a way out of this joint.”

I felt my eyes filling. “So, do you know where McGinty is?” I managed to say.

“I haven’t the foggiest. All I know is he’s Number 1 on the Big Lady’s hit list. Or was until you came along. What have you got her—favorite wig or something?”

“Worse than that,” I said.

“Her favorite dentures?”

“Worse,” I replied bleakly.

He gave it up and grinned. “Then I’d say whatever it is, you’re in deep do-do.”

He finished loading the pistol and stuck it under his belt.

“You’re joking, aren’t you?” I said. “I mean, you can’t shoot chalk.”

His eyebrows lifted as if he couldn’t believe what a slug I was. “Kid, you better wake up. This is a
chalk pistol!
Get hit with it and, bam, you flash back to all the bad times you had in school.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. And the long guns the Stormies are using? Eraser guns. Catch an eraser head-on, and it’s
phhtt!
Everything’s erased. You’re a zero.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Got that right.”

He headed toward the front window of the shop and I followed nervously. He flattened against the wall and peered out and I did the same. The street was packed with armed Stormies. They were going from shop to shop, searching for us.

He snapped me a look. “You’ve got her favorite ground-up-toenail sandwich spread?”

I tried to grin, but it didn’t come off. “Worse,” I said. “A lot worse.”

His blue eyes glinted with amusement. “What could be worse?”

Just at that moment a young woman drone stepped out from behind a stack of bass drums. She held a weird, long-barreled pistol and it was pointed directly at us.

“This could be worse,” I said.

The young drone woman was probably in her early twenties and really pretty, with curly black hair and snappy dark eyes. She wore the letter “T” on her tunic. She grabbed Hastings’ pistol and slipped it into her tunic pocket.

“Easy lady; don’t shoot,” said Jack in a tense voice. He turned to me. “She’s holding a test gun. It shoots rolled-up test papers. Get nailed with it and it’s like getting back an ‘F’ on an exam. You stay depressed for weeks.”

A loud crash of breaking dishes could be heard from a nearby shop.

“Ma’am, please,” I burst out, “you’ve got to let us go.”

But she waved me quiet and held a finger to her lips.

“Kid, you’re wasting your breath,” said Jack in a low voice. “She’s a drone and they all work for the Big Lady.”

At this the woman’s dark eyes sparkled with anger. She jammed her pistol under her belt. Then she began hand signing at Jack and I realized she was deaf. She ended by speaking in a peculiar, even-toned voice. “Not all drones!”

“Whoa, not all drones?” Jack, who evidently understood her, began signing and speaking back. “Lady, if you believe that, then you’ll want to buy Mozart’s hat, which I happen to have in my back pocket.”

The young woman groaned angrily and signed back with a flurry of motions.

I grinned at Jack in amazement. “How do you know what she’s saying?”

“I taught hearing impaired for a while,” he said, keeping his eyes on her hands. Now he snorted sarcastically. “You’re going to help us? Who’s kidding whom here? Okay, don’t get peeved. And don’t sign so fast. I’m a bit rusty.”

“Inaccurate, too,” snapped the young woman. She hurried to the front of the shop and peered cautiously out the window. She had her test pistol back out again.

I whispered to Jack. “So are the drones bad? I mean, she seems okay.”

“Kid, snap out of it,” Jack hissed back. “They all spy for Mingley.”

I was confused. “Where do they come from? And what do the letters mean?”

“Mingley recruits bad teachers from all across the country,” Jack said in a low voice. “They’re usually friendless people, no families. The mean ones become Stormies and the gossipy, spying types become drones. The letters refer to their rotten classroom personality.”

“She’s got a ‘T,’” I said. “So what does that mean?”

Jack snorted. “Probably ‘Terrorizer.’“

The young woman came back, eyeing Jack suspiciously. “What are you saying to him?” she demanded.

Jack grinned, then signed and spoke back. “He wanted to know about drones, and I’m trying to explain how wonderful you all are. And what your letter means. But if you really want to help, lady, maybe you should let us get out of here.”

“We’ll all go in a minute,” she replied coolly. “I have help coming.”

“Oh, woo woo, you’ve got help coming,” snapped Jack. “That’s wonderful, but we don’t have a lot of time to wait.”

She turned to me with a warm look. “My ‘T’ means ‘Temperamental.’” “Oh hey,” said Jack, “who could have guessed?” “But it means nothing,” she replied sharply, “because I’m not a real drone.” She turned back to me with an encouraging gaze. “I just need to know two things and quickly. One, what’s your name, and two, did someone send you?”

At that moment a light bulb went on in my head. It wasn’t bright, believe me, but all of a sudden I understood. “I’m Billy Bumpus,” I blurted out. “And Webster sent me.” It was funny the way I said Billy Bumpus. It seemed easy and natural.

A beautiful smile flooded the young woman’s face. “I knew it was you!” she burst out. “I just knew it. Webster gave us your initials.” She put out a slim brown hand. “I’m Lilah Corbett, and we’ve been expecting you.”

“Lilah!” I said, shaking her hand. “Yeah! Not Lulu! What a moron I am. I got the name wrong! You’re the fabulous
Lilah
at the
Blue Note
, not Lulu at the Blue Goat!” I gave a nod toward Jack. “This is my friend, Jack Hastings.”

“Friend?” said Jack. He’d been signing everything for both of us and looking increasingly confused. “What are you jabbering about, Bumpus? I don’t understand this. Who sent you and what’s the goat stuff?”

Lilah’s dark eyes flashed wickedly. “You’re so slow,” she signed and spoke to Jack. “Webster escaped from here, went to the surface and found the book, and sent Billy back with it. It’s simple.” She turned to me. “You do have the book?”

“I certainly do,” I said.

Jack was squinting as if he had a bad headache. “What stupid book?”

Just then Lilah’s cell phone cut loose with a neat ring tone.

“Whoa, cool,” I said. “That’s Spanish music, I think.”

Jack nodded. “‘España Cañi.’ But she isn’t hearing it; she just feels the pulse.”

I was amazed that he recognized the music and was going to say something about it, but I didn’t get the chance.

“Rebel Two, this is Rebel One,” Lilah said into the phone. “We’re ready!”

A loud banging on the front door reverberated through the shop and I could tell Lilah felt the sudden vibration. She also saw my reaction.

“Stormies,” whispered Lilah. “But I’ve got the front door locked.”

“Oh, gee, that’ll help,” Jack’s hands snapped as he signed and spoke.

The Stormies outside yelled out a warning in guttural voices. This was followed by a tremendous bang, which must have come from a battering ram.

Lilah tossed Jack his pistol, then rushed over and picked up Todd Lemons’s trumpet. She underhanded that to me and I caught it. Her eyes glinted emotionally and she signed something to me, then rushed on toward the back entrance. Jack and I followed, but we didn’t go two feet before the front door came crashing down. Two burly Stormies burst in, waving their weapons.

“Get down!” Jack yelled, “they’ve got compass guns!”

Lilah dove behind a desk while I stumbled in among some drums. The lead Stormie cut loose with his big oily gun and a line of compasses—the pointed kind you use in math class—went shuddering up the wall right by my face.

Jack fired back with two bursts from the chalk pistol and the lead Stormie was hit in the chest. He crashed to the floor where he started rolling around and screeching out, “I forgot my lunch money again! I don’t have my science project done and Coach Hasselbeck hates me!”

The second Stormie came toward us firing loudly, and I saw Lilah hold up a world globe to stop a line of compasses. Jack stood his ground and got the Stormie in the knee, who went flying back into a bin full of glockenspiels. While he plinked and plonked around in there, I heard him start to sob, “School is scary, Mom, and I don’t wanna go!”

Jack curled a lip. “Pathetic,” he muttered.

Lilah yanked the back door open and we bolted into a narrow alley. A mix of furious shouts and thudding feet rose behind us. Lilah led us at a blistering run down the alley, then we veered left down a side street. We skidded to a stop alongside a fantastic looking van. The body was constructed from parts of desks and chairs, while the exposed “engine” was a nightmare of old typewriter parts.

Lilah yanked open the van’s back door and we all tumbled in. She slammed the door shut, and the driver, who was out of sight in the cab, put the van in gear and we lurched away, the sudden motion setting off a tremendous clattering racket.

When I sat up, I could see what was causing all the racket. The interior walls of the van had school junk hanging all over them—copy machines, typewriters, table lamps, staplers, music stands, and a bunch of plastic skeletons. One of them came crashing down on Jack.

“Well, isn’t this just sweet!” He flailed about, trying to get the skeleton off.

“You sound like a bamboo wind chime,” I said. I mouthed it again largely to Lilah and she giggled.

Jack gave me a flinty look. “You know, kid, you’re very annoying. Has anyone ever told you that?” He jammed his pistol under his belt, then signed and spoke to Lilah. “You know what? The Wild Bunch needs to work on their equipment.”

Lilah lifted an angry eyebrow at the nickname and snapped, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” She jumped up and peered out the back window. “I think we’re clear.”

The van leaned sharply and we all swayed with it, trying to keep junk from raining down on us.