Brass Monkeys (23 page)

“Hey, I’m not joking,” I said. I told him quickly about Harriet and the others, making them sound dangerous and armed. “I’ve got a hot plan, Jack.”

“Oh yeah? Is it McGinty and that dumb map thing?”

“Of course not,” I lied quickly. I knew I didn’t dare breathe a word about that. I leaned over and tapped Lilah and Teddy on the back.

“You’re wasting your time,” whispered Jack. “They’re both out of it.”

Teddy didn’t move, but Lilah lifted her head and looked at me. I smiled, then raised the trumpet. She blinked and a small spark began glowing in her dark eyes.

“Billy …” She wobbled over and gave me a hug. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Watch it!” hissed Jack. He spoke and signed swiftly. “Stormies!”

Lilah and I turned just in time to see three guards coming down the hall toward us. Jack gestured at me to get deeper inside the group of teachers and I did, pushing my way behind a tall, bearded man in an overcoat. The guards went by laughing about something and didn’t even look our way.

Lilah turned back to me, her eyes wide with fear. “Billy, what are you doing here? This is a horrible place.”

“Listen, I came to get you guys out of here. And I’ve got a plan. Kind of.”

Jack snorted at this, but signed it to Lilah. She trembled and her eyes glimmered with pathetic hope.

“That’s wonderful, Billy. I want to get out of here. Please …”

Jack grabbed my arm in a painful grip. “Look Bumpus, if you’ve got something solid, spill it. Otherwise, you’re just stirring things up.”

I leaned in close. “Okay, listen up. There’s a drainage pipe in the gym just below the edge of the stage. If we can get inside that pipe,
we can get out of here
.“

“Hold it,” snapped Jack. “I’ve never heard about any pipe. Where does it go?”

“Jack, just trust me for once,” I said, hotly. I knew if I even hinted that the pipe went to the Blue Grotto, he would go off like an angry rocket. It turns out I didn’t have to explain anything because suddenly we started forward again.

I looked ahead and my heart sank. The walkway was carrying us toward some ugly black doors not twenty yards ahead. Clustered around the steamy doors were several heavily armed Stormies. Lilah moaned with fear.

Jack looked grim. “You should have stayed hidden, kid. Now you’re in the soup.”

With a loud
sshoup
the doors opened, and we rolled into a dimly lit room. The walkway stopped, and for a moment I couldn’t see anything in the gloom.

“This looks bad,” whispered Jack.

Now I could make out the vague shapes of several dozen reclining chairs, the kind you see in a dentist’s office, but larger and scarier looking. Complex-looking electrical equipment was suspended around the chairs, and each chair had a black metal ring just above the headrest. A group of heavily armed Stormies, who had been waiting in the shadows, stepped toward the walkway.

Lilah cried out softly and moved in front of me.

I heard Jack whisper something that sounded like, “Run!” But there was nowhere to go. All I could do was cower behind Lilah and the bearded guy.

The Stormies began yanking people off the walkway. A short, sour-faced Stormie stepped to the front of the room and picked up a microphone.

“Let’s do the renegades in the first batch, please.”

In a panic, I scrambled backward to avoid the clutching hands.

But Jack, Lilah, and Teddy weren’t so lucky. I watched in horror as the Stormies dragged them, along with several other teachers, to the chairs.

Jack struggled mightily, but three or four Stormies were all over him. Lilah battled wildly for several seconds but seemed to run out of energy and finally slumped helplessly as they strapped her into the chair. Teddy, hurt and totally gone on Zorca, walked calmly to his chair, sat down, and helped strap himself in.

The Stormies finally got Jack strapped in, and then they lowered the black ring over his head. Other Stormies were positioning rings over Lilah, Teddy and the rest of the first group.

As the rings lowered, a video screen above each teacher’s headrest lit up and began to carry what appeared to be footage from that teacher’s classroom. I recognized some of the Grindsville rooms right away, but I couldn’t figure out what any of it meant.

The teachers in the chairs seemed to know, however, and they began mumbling and moaning. I heard Jack give a loud cry of anger. On his video screen I saw a fuzzy picture of a school and then the identifying name over the front doors: Orion Middle School. I remembered that was the name of Jack’s old school back in Ohio, but I couldn’t understand why he was so upset at seeing it.

Lilah’s and Teddy’s screens were evidently carrying pictures of their Iowa school, but I couldn’t see them clearly. Teddy wore a goof-ball smile, but Lilah twisted inside her metal ring and cried out in a voice filled with grief.

I felt my stomach tighten with fear. What was going on here?

The short, sour-faced Stormie watched the screens closely and spoke in a smirky, lisping voice.

“Do you remember this school, teachers?” he said. His voice whistled a little on the “S” sounds. “This is the one where you had all the trouble. Remember? Let’s relive that again, shall we? Then we’ll know what letter you should really have.”

Just as he said this, I saw one of the Stormies check the back of Lilah’s head.

“It’s gathering,” he called out.

At last I understood. They weren’t merely looking for the right letter; they were making Jack and the others relive something awful in order to drive their Amberlight into the pocket.

The sour-faced Stormie walked over to Teddy’s screen. “This one’s not disorganized at all. He’s a bit odd but quite competent in the classroom. He’s really an eccentric, so put him down for an ‘E.’ After two more days of classes and the loss of his Amberlight, he’ll be happy to live down here for good!”

Lilah had been twisting her head inside the metal ring and crying out. A burly Stormie grabbed her jaw and held her firmly. The little sour-faced Stormie left Teddy and came over to check Lilah’s screen. He watched it for several seconds, then began laughing.

“And Miss Lilah Corbett is not a ‘T’ at all,” he lisped. “A true temperamental has trouble with all his or her relationships. They’re constantly losing their temper whenever things don’t go their way. This woman gets along fine with the students. It’s only when she’s driven to it by incompetent administrators—which we love to provide—that she finally loses it! She’s merely an ‘F’—a poor, frustrated teacher, which is what she’ll be after she loses her Amberlight!”

The sourpuss Stormie was grinning widely at his cleverness, but he stopped when he came to Jack’s screen. Even from where I stood, I could see the screen had gone blank. There was nothing but a bunch of fuzzy lines.

“Who is this man?” asked the sourpuss. Somebody leaned in and told him.

“This
is Jack Hastings?” The sourpuss smirked. “The renegade from … what was that sardine-box of a school called?”

“Orion Middle,” said the burly Stormie.

“Right. What a depressing little place that was. But how we helped them along! How are you, Mr. Hastings? Do you remember your little role in our victory at Orion? Do you remember how you gave us the one chance we needed?”

The sourpuss nodded at the burly Stormie, who suddenly cuffed Jack hard in the face. His screen lit up immediately. Jack took one glance at it, groaned, and tried to look away, but the burly Stormie grabbed his chin and forced him to watch. I watched, too, and after it was over I wished I hadn’t.

It must have been near the end of the year and Orion Middle was having some kind of student assembly. Ming, Strobe, and Fundabore were hovering around backstage in the gym, whispering like crazy. They looked worried about something. Then a man who must have been the principal came out on stage in front of the kids, smiled broadly, and said, “As you all know, Jack Hastings has announced that he will not be returning next year.” There was a big groan from the kids and the principal made a little face, pretending to be bothered. “Yes, yes, sad as it may be,” he said, “that’s his intention. But as a little farewell gift and surprise to the student body, Mr. Hastings has consented to demonstrate another of his many talents—his musical ability on the piano!” The kids broke out into applause and Ming, Strobe, and Fundabore looked even more tense.

The little sourpuss Stormie laughed. “Remember this, Hastings? This was the one chance you had to stop us from taking Orion Middle.”

In the video Jack came out on stage and the kids applauded wildly. The camera took in some of their expressions. They looked hopeful and excited. Jack appeared pale and nervous as he sat down at the piano. He raised his hands and flexed them. I think I must have had the same kind of hopeful expression as the kids. I desperately wanted him to play something brilliant, so full of light and energy that it would blast Ming and her friends into oblivion.

Instead, Jack turned to the assembly and said, “I wish I could leave all of you on a brighter note. But after two long years in this place, battling certain factions, it’s obvious this school has some very serious problems. In short, as I pointed out in my article for the school newspaper, the atmosphere around here stinks. Literally. And I think this music reflects the way I feel.”

And, incredibly, Jack began playing “March of the Midnight Scholars.” The Stormies who had gathered around Jack’s black chair burst out in wild laughter and applause, but the kids in the video gasped in disbelief as the camera panned over them. I never saw such grief and incomprehension.

I felt the same way. Why had Jack done it? But then it burst in on me, as clear as anything, and I saw the parallel with my own actions earlier in Ming’s class. We both could have saved our schools, and we both had failed miserably—I because I was a coward, and Jack because his moodiness and temper had gotten the better of him.

“You got sooo angry and frustrated, didn’t you Hastings?” crooned the little sourpuss Stormie. “You thought you were striking back at us by playing
our
music. Instead you made a fatal error and crushed your students!”

Under the black ring, Jack strained to say something, but all that came out was a strangled, horrible, “Noooo!”

“You gave up on the kids at Orion, Hastings,” chortled the sourpuss Stormie. “And you left them right at the most critical time in their lives.”

He leaned down close to Jack and whispered loudly, “I guess there’s nothing worse than an
uncommitted
teacher, is there?” He turned to the others. “Give Hastings the letter he truly deserves, and then send him down to the Amberlight Room.”

Quickly, the Stormies ripped Jack’s old tunic off and put one on him with a big “U.” He struggled desperately against them, and I think it was his terrible look of despair that finally made me snap.

“Just quit it now,” I said loudly. I cleared my throat. “Leave him alone!”

The rest of it seemed to happen in slow motion, but it must have only taken a couple of seconds. I dropped my trumpet, then snatched out my slingshot and jumped to the floor.

There was a stunned silence as every Stormie in the room turned to stare at me. With no stone in the sling, I pulled it back and assumed a menacing stance.

“Drop your guns before I cut loose with this!” I yelled. I was totally out of control. “This is a very dangerous weapon and if you get hit with it you get …
kidney stones
for the rest of your life!”

At this, the Stormies burst into laughter. I saw Jack shake his head as if he couldn’t believe how dumb I was. The burly Stormie stepped toward me swiftly, and I found myself looking right into the business end of his eraser gun.

“You miserable little shadrack,” he growled, his bad breath rolling over me. The barrel of the eraser gun looked as big around as a wastebasket. I screeched in fear and accidentally let go of the rubber sling. It snapped forward viciously, hitting the guy right in the lip. He screamed and dropped the gun.

I heard Stormie voices yelling out, “Look out! Grab him!” But

Jack’s voice was loudest as he roared,
“Get the gun!”

In a flash, I snatched up the eraser gun. The Stormies dove for cover and, crazy with power, I pulled the trigger and sent erasers flying.

“Yeah,” I yelled, “it’s B.B. Hulkarama. You’d better run!” But returning fire from the Stormies made me sober up fast. Jack was screaming at me to release him, and after sending out another burst, I managed to unsnap the belts around his wrists.

“Give me that,” he yelled. He snatched the gun and let go with a series of bursts that drove the Stormies back again.

I hollered at him, “Jack, cover me.” I dashed toward Lilah’s chair, undid her straps in one motion, and then unhooked Teddy’s. Lilah jumped up immediately, but Teddy sat in a daze. In a second, Jack was at my side. He had snatched a chalk pistol from a fallen Stormie and tossed it to me.

“Make yourself useful,” he yelled. He let go with another round of erasers, then he and Lilah started dragging Teddy toward the door.

I followed them, shooting madly. We were almost to the door when I remembered the trumpet.
I had to have it
. I turned back.

I heard Jack yelling at me. “No, Bumpus! This way!”

But somehow the silver trumpet had come to symbolize all my hopes for escape, and I couldn’t leave it. With erasers and chalk flying around me, I dodged from chair to chair, making my way back to the belt. It seemed it took a century to get there, but finally I grabbed up the horn. When I turned, Jack and the others were long gone and I was pinned down behind one of the black chairs.

Chalk and erasers pounded the chair. I yelled, “Jack!” just once, but no one was coming back. I was frozen in fear, but then I imagined how my phantom squad of men must feel. “Gotta move, guys!” I yelled. “We can’t stay here!”

Firing blindly, I rose to my feet and headed for the door. Miraculously, I made it without getting hit and came pile-driving into the hall.

There wasn’t a person in sight, and I turned and ran wildly down the hall, heading toward the storage room. Once or twice I was sure I heard gunfire coming from the direction of the gym. This sent a shot of panic through me so I ran even harder. Finally I saw the storage room ahead and I slowed. It’s a good thing I did because several