Brass Monkeys (8 page)

“C’mon, you guys can’t blame me,” I said, desperately. “You read some pretty gloomy stuff in there, too.”

Weeser’s eyes widened angrily. “Duh
-wang
. The point is you weren’t supposed to, Mr. Hotshot B.B.”

“You crushed Harriet in there,” said Alvin in an awful, level voice. “She was the only one who hadn’t given up, and you dumped on her by caving in.”

“You took the coward’s way,” said Weeser, “the yellow-bellied, weak-kneed—”

“Wussy way,” finished Alvin. “You’re not the Tonka-bud I thought you were.”

Before I could say another word, they slammed their lockers shut and walked off. A prickly heat rolled over me and I leaned against the lockers, too weak to move. I groaned, a pitiful sound that I instantly hated. In desperation, I thought about running after them and begging them to reconsider. But I knew it was too late. I had lost the best friends a kid could ever hope to have. And I had a terrible, bone-deep feeling I’d never win them back.

The rest of the day went by in a depressing whirl. The next thing was hot lunch, and I got so rattled in the cafeteria line that I chose what the kid behind me called “mystery meat.” This was a horrible-looking purple meat pattie with black dots all over it. To make it worse, I had to sit alone. Even the spies avoided me.

Then there was history class with Mr. Pelkaloose. He ate crackers while he lectured, and wet, blobby pieces kept landing on me. Harriet was in there, but she avoided me like the plague. After class I started over to her, all nerved up to apologize, but she saw me coming and hurried out of the room.

I spent a miserable hour in gym class with Coach Bullmiester, a pot-bellied man with a mean look. His idea of gym class was to spend the whole period playing a game called “Bashball.” Basically, you tried to brain your opponent by hitting him in the head with a volleyball. Alvin and Weeser were in there and ignored me, except once when Alvin urged another kid to nail me. “Hit the little coward!” Alvin yelled.

Finally, the day ended and I was desperate to find Harriet and try to explain myself. I had been rehearsing all afternoon what I was going to say, and I felt if I could just talk to her, maybe I could smooth things over.

I spotted her waiting in the bus line and I hurried over. She pushed quickly past the other kids and boarded, leaving me standing there. Then, to make matters worse, I found out I couldn’t ride the bus because the driver didn’t know me. I saw Alvin and Weeser pulling out of the parking lot and I waved hesitantly at them. They thundered on by with Weeser staring at me as if I weren’t there.

Watching that Jeep disappear into the falling snow made me more depressed than I’ve ever been in my life. I knew Mom would still be at work at the salon, so rather than call her and have to explain the whole disaster, I shouldered my backpack, grabbed my trumpet case, and started down the snowy road. To really put me in the pits, the wind began to pick up and I walked head-on into the blowing snow. In a way that was good, because no one could tell I was bawling my guts out.

When I finally got to the house and staggered inside, I found a message from Mom on the answering machine. In her chipper voice she told me she was going Christmas shopping with Doris right after work and wouldn’t be home until seven, and that could I find something to eat? Then she added, “Hope you had just the best, most amazing day at school, honey.”

“Yes, Mom,” I said to the empty kitchen, “it was amazing all right.”

I looked in the fridge for something to eat, but didn’t see anything I wanted. I wandered into the living room, plopped down on the sofa and thought about dying. How was I ever going to tell Mom that my new school was a nut house and my first day a total disaster? I stayed on the sofa for a long time moaning and making a fuss, but it didn’t seem to help. Finally, I got up and put on my
Spanish Nights
CD. After about the third time through “Malagueña” I felt better, and for a moment I stopped thinking about the cowardly thing I had done to Harriet.

I decided to listen to the music again, but as I got up to hit the play button, I happened to glance outside and saw something coming along the road. I moved closer to the window and peered out. It was nearly dark, and with the wind whipping snow around, the yard was a blur. Then something—it looked like a human figure—floated phantomlike down the driveway toward the garage.

I ran quickly to the kitchen and peered out the small window over the sink. A cloud of white obscured everything. I reached over and snapped on the outside yard light. Just then the snow cleared and I had a brief glimpse of a bicycle disappearing through the big door of the garage.
An orange bicycle
. Then the door came down. Funny Frank was back and this time he was in our garage.

“Frank, you big clunk,” I said. “You’re really getting on my nerves.” I felt a flood of anger. As if I didn’t have enough trouble, now the town crackpot was back. “It’s time you and I had a little chat.”

I grabbed my coat and started for the back door. I considered turning the outside light off, but then I thought about how spooky it would be, so I left it on.

I eased out the back door and hurried over to the garage wall where I flattened out next to the side door. At that moment something crashed to the floor inside the garage and like the air rushing out of a flabby balloon, my boldness left me.

“Easy, old son,” I muttered, falling into the war-movie talk I use to get my nerve up. “Hold your fire and don’t panic.” Maybe I didn’t need to
chat
with Frank after all. Maybe all I needed to do was open the door and yell at him to go home and play Chinese Checkers with his dog, or whatever.

I reached for the doorknob, but just as I did I heard something out in the darkness. I snapped around and squinted into the blowing snow. At first I saw nothing but the dim field and a dark fringe of pines at the far edge. Then, with a jolt, I saw some figures emerge from the trees and start across the field.

My eyes widened. They were coming straight toward me and moving in a strange, awkward lope. I thought I could hear the faint jingling of bells. With my neck prickling with fear, I had totally forgotten about Funny Frank.

The next thing I knew, a hand was clamped over my mouth and I was being dragged backward into the garage.

Funny Frank may have looked old and helpless, but he was strong as an ox. I struggled wildly as he kicked the door closed. At one point I got his hand partly off my mouth and burst out with, “Cut it out, Frank.”

“You stupid kid, I’m not Frank,” he hissed in my ear. “It’s me, Webster. I’m not going to hurt you, but we’ve got visitors coming this way who will. So shut up.”

He leaned around and the outside light revealed his green cap and the bushy gray beard that framed his iron-gray eyes. There was a wild look to them, but also something so urgent and truthful that I stopped struggling.

He took his hand away from my mouth and yanked me down behind a stack of boxes. “What’s the matter with you?” he rasped out angrily. “Why were you kicking and screeching like that? I told you I’d be looking you up tonight.”

“Whaat?” I stammered out. I tried to twist around to see him better.

“Sit still,” he rasped out. “If they spot us, we’re dead ducks.” He pulled out his sword and laid the blade across my shoulder. I could see the sharp edge and it sure wasn’t plastic.

I could hear clearly the jing jing jing of bells now, and I was struck by the fact that they sounded like the bells in the “March” we’d played at school.

“Those stupid bells,” snorted my companion. “They think the sound scares their quarry, but I’ve got news for them.”

Guttural voices floated in on the wind.

“Listen to ‘em jabber,” said Webster. “I’ve been leading them all over town, and the Stormies hate it when they lose the hunt.”

“Stormies?” I said.

“Storm Teachers,” he snapped. “Just like I explained in my letters. The worst of the worst.” He laughed in a low, crazy way. “People think bad teachers retire and play shuffleboard in Florida. Not hardly! Mingley hires them all!”

“Mingley? You mean my Eng—?”

“Shhh!” Webster grabbed my arm in a painful grip. The guttural voices and the jingling bells drew closer, then suddenly ceased. For a few seconds all I could hear was the wind. Then with a high chinkling of bells, a column of figures lurched by the garage window. I counted six of them. They had on flowing black cloaks with small silver bells sewn to the fringes. I couldn’t see their faces clearly because they were looking toward the house, but their gray hair certainly caught my attention. Each figure wore a crazy, swirled hairdo as if the stormy wind had combed it, but it was the last detail that really made my eyes widen: the wicked-looking, curved swords they carried.

A few tense seconds ticked away and the bells faded into the distance. I expelled my breath. Webster gave me a crack-brained smile.

“Scary aren’t they? Wait until you see them up close.”

“What are they, zombies or something?”

“Zombies? They’re not zombies! They’re humans! It’s just the way they look after thirty years of being bad teachers, working in bad schools with bad administrators, and then getting a final dose of
her.”

He yanked me up and dragged me toward his bike. “All that poison and hate for the kids is right there in their faces. Real pretty characters. And now, since you’ve accepted the mission, they’ll be after you.” He chuckled as if this were the funniest joke in the world. “What’s worse, old Mingley will be after you.”

“Okay, hold it,” I said. I was in a total daze. “I think we need to talk.”

“Talk?” He barked out a laugh. “Way too late for that, sonny. Just hold the light and stop whining.” He snapped on a flashlight and handed it to me. Then he bent over the suitcase, undid the clasps, and began rummaging through what looked like dirty laundry. At this point I could have made a run for it, but I was so dumbfounded, I just stood there holding the flashlight.

He began tossing clothes left and right and grumbling. “What a generation! I explained everything in the letters, and what’s the first thing you blat out? ‘We need to talk.’ That takes the cake!”

Some red long johns went flying past me. “I went over and over it,” he continued, “right down to the smallest detail. I told you how Mingley operates, how she looks around for an ugly, depressing school and how she and her two stinkers—Strobe and Fundebore—move in and drive out the good teachers. And of course, I assumed you read it all! But your generation—you don’t read either! Little button brains!”

“Listen, I read a ton of stuff,” I began. A stinky sock landed on my shoulder and I snatched it off fast. “But I still don’t have the slight—”

“Told you to watch out for the music and incense so it didn’t change you into a fur brain. Maybe too late now.” He tossed some boxer shorts back that would have hit me right in the face, but luckily I batted them away. “And of course you really botched up the deal with Harriet Grove. Smartest kid in the school, and I knew she’d be the one, to help you so I let her know you were coming.”

“You
wrote the note to Harriet,” I blurted out.

“Of course I did! I told you in the last letter she’d be your contact. You were supposed to bring her tonight.” He shook his head. “Totally fouled that up.”

“Okay, look,” I said, “I see what happened. I never got your dumb let—”

But he was rattling loudly in some pots and pans—evidently his cooking equipment—and not listening at all.

“Couldn’t figure out where you were living,” he grumbled on. “And of course after I escaped, all I could find to travel around on was this stupid bike.”

“Escaped?” I said. I was sure he meant from a mental ward, or maybe jail.

“Yes, escaped!” he snapped. You know, from
there.”

“Right,” I said, trying to humor him.
“There.”

“Then I finally spotted you by the laundromat,” he continued, “tried to follow you to your house but fell down and nearly killed myself. On top of that, I had to keep chasing off this local character called Funny Frank who wanted to be my friend.” He lifted out a frying pan, examined the grease in the bottom, then tossed it down. “And while I’m doing all this running around,” he went on, “I’m worried sick about how Mingley would be driving all of you into the Monkeymind zone.”

“Uh, well,” I began, “it’s funny you should mention that because today—”

A clatter of dishes drowned me out. He was waving off my response anyway with a know-it-all look. “I figured so. It takes her about this long to darken them, ruin their imaginations, and put them into that awful helpless funk. And once she starts using the word ‘Monkeymind,’ then it’s just about zero hour—”

He froze suddenly and peered off, his eyes wide and crazy looking. “Bells,” he whispered. “They’re circling back.” He began scrabbling wildly in the suitcase. He flung aside some old newspapers. “Yes, here’s my little baby right here. All nice and safe.”

He brought up a book. In the beam of light I could see the cover was red, but I couldn’t see a title or an author’s name.

Webster’s gray eyes sharpened. “McGinty’s book,” he whispered. “Good old
Brass Monkeys
.” He handed it to me and, like a brainless squash, I took it.

“It’s all yours now,” he went on. “You’re the one. You can save Harriet Grove and every kid in the country, or you can let them sink. It’s all up to you.”

I stared at him. “You mean I can still help Harriet? With this book?”

He looked at me like I needed a brain transplant. “Of course you can still help her! You nougat head! That’s what we’ve been talking about for days. Do you want to help her and the others, or not?”

“Oh man, do I ever,” I blurted out. “More than anything.” I felt my eyes filling. “See, I did something really rotten at school.” I was stopped by the sound of voices.

“They’re getting close,” hissed Webster. “Got to move fast now. That means I do a review and you listen.” He yanked me up by my coat collar. “You listening?”

I managed to bob my head. “I’m listening.”