Homeroom Headhunters (21 page)

“Something doesn't feel right.…”

All this time, I thought the attack would happen
during
the Christmas concert.

Turns out the attack had already taken place.

Good thing I'd missed lunch today.

The cafeteria ladies had gotten into the holiday spirit and served a meal of mashed potatoes, tissue-thin turkey slices, and a golf ball of stuffing, slathering it all up with a fine film of lukewarm gravy.

A quick science lesson for everybody: food poisoning happens in schools all the time. Eat a bit of, say,
contaminated
cranberry sauce
, it'll incubate in your belly until it's off to the hospital for you. Symptoms include
abdominal cramping, nausea,
vomiting, diarrhea.

Nobody knew that better than Compass.

What could infect an entire school's worth of students all at once?

Mushrooms
.

Just like the kind Compass had asked me to pick for him from the soccer field.

What had he called them? Amanita mascara-something-or-other. He said the fungus was highly psycho-hyper-active. Whatever that meant.

Oh boy.

The interval between lunch and the concert was all the time everybody's stomach needed to get this party started. And in case the gestation period varied from tummy to tummy, Compass had come up with a catalyst to kick-start a school-wide heave-ho:

The overwhelmingly meaty aroma of burned corn dogs.

Riley abruptly trumpeted a low C from below, his inverted burp heralding the prelude to a flatulent symphony.

I heard another whistle, shriller than Riley's, like a piccolo squeaking through the air from a few rows farther back.

And another.

Before long, an entire cluster of kids became the broken-wind section for a methane-fueled orchestra, performing a full-blown acoustical salute to air pollution.

I swore I heard a backside bassoon.

A colonic clarinet.

A farting flute.

The rumblings of the most odoriferous earthquake were passing through the gym, hitting a 7.9 on the Richter scale. You would've sworn a gas main had broken beneath the bleachers, belching out a cloud of noxious fumes and turning our gym into one big airborne toxic event.

At first, everybody thought it was funny to listen to this sliding scale of backdoor bagpiping. Students were hitting every note imaginable from behind—and for those who hadn't begun, they were cracking up. But the quickest way to quit snickering over your neighbor's uncontrollable tailwind was to commence letting 'em rip yourself.

And as every student of musical (de)composition knows,
What begins with the woodwinds, must eventually move on to the brass.

Pity poor Sarah Haversand.

“I don't feel so…”

Before she could finish, she puked directly on the student sitting in front of her. That student just so happened to be none other than Riley Callahan.

A blossom of vomit spread over Riley's unsuspecting head. Little dribbles of cranberry sauce trickled down his temples. He had just started to grow his hair back, and now it was buried beneath a soup of partially digested Christmas-ized cafeteria food.

Riley responded with his stomach suddenly pumping out its contents, vomiting onto the cloned Cro-Magnon crony sitting just next to him.

And then that Cro-Magnon barfed on the boy just next to him.

And he puked on her and she puked on him and he puked on her and…

You get the idea.

In the spirit of “the show must go on,” our school's choral group attempted to warble through “White Christmas.”

Ever heard a chorus of choristers puking in unison? It's a perfect pitch of
do re mi
mixed in with
urp ech hyuck
. A whole new upchucked Christmas carol:

“I'm dream-ing of a whi-ite Christ-maaaaulch
…
”

“Just like the ones I used to meaaaaach
…
”

“Where the tree tops glisteeeeeeach
…
”

“And children listenaeeeeelch
…
”

Sarah tried to break away from the bleachers, only to fall face-first in a Slip 'N Slide of cranberry sauce. She skidded halfway across the basketball court on her stomach.

“Oh God,” she wailed. “It's
everywheeeeeeeere
!”

But all that was nothing compared to what the percussion section had in store.

Ready for the grand finale?

Riley tried to stand up from the bleachers—only to freeze in midlift.

His eyes widened. Jaw dropped.

Something was happening.

Had
happened.

A dam had broke, releasing a flood. His only recourse was to quickly sit back down, a bit of a squish punctuating the impact of his soggy bottom.

Riley wasn't the only one.

Other students suddenly sensed their intestines seizing and releasing, the backfire from their jumping guts just a warning shot for wetter things to come.

Now everyone was on the run(s).

I saw several cheerleaders make a break for the gym doors in hopes of beelining to the bathroom.

“Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”

They didn't make it.

In midstride, their desperation wilted away in leaking defeat, as they buried their faces into their soggy pom-poms and plopped onto the floor.

I couldn't help myself from imagining the entire cheerleading squad chanting:

DI-ARRHEA!

D-I-ARRHEA!

D-I-A-R-R-H-E-A!

Pity poor Martin Mendleson. He was still stuck inside his Griz costume when his butt erupted.

“Get me out of here!” he yelled. “Get me out get me out
get
me ooooooooout
!”

Too late. He was essentially buried up to his neck in his own plush Porta-Potty. He waddled across the court, trapped inside the fuzzy confines of his mobile toilet. The odor drifting up from within was enough to bring tears to his eyes.

“It burns!” He clawed at his face with his paws. “It burns!”

Guess who had been left behind to conduct this symphonic fecal fiasco? This concert of Hershey squirts?

Where the Tribe had wanted revenge against Greenfield, Peashooter had only wanted revenge against me.

What was it that he said?

It's a jungle out there
.…

Try a rain forest.

I stood by the bleachers and watched the whole calamity unfold, every last drip.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for my classmates as they wallowed in this newly spawned swampland—but then it dawned on me:

For just one brief and brilliant, slippery and stinky moment—everybody, all the jocks and cheerleaders, the bullies and the bullied, each and every last clique—was exactly the same.

Nobody was judging anyone anymore.

Right in time for the holidays.

Pritchard ran up to me, his Santa Claus beard speckled with recycled cranberry sauce.

“What's going on?” He grabbed my shoulders. “What on earth is happening?”

“Merry Christmas, sir.”

trike three, Spencer,” Pritchard declared as he dragged me out of the gym. “I don't need to tell you what that means.”

“Extra innings?”

“Expelled.”

• • •

Greenfield closed its doors immediately following the holiday “consquirt” so health inspectors could investigate the sudden outbreak of food poisoning.

Perfect cover for the Tribe to make a break for it.

I was sitting outside the principal's office waiting for Mom to arrive. All the other kids were heading home, hunched over and swaddled in their gym shorts.

From farther down the hall, I heard a rattle of keys, like Marley's ghost clattering his chains. Only one person in school had that many keys attached to his hip.

Mr. Simms rolled his mop and bucket toward the gym. As soon as we made eye contact, he stopped and sat down next to me.

Neither of us said anything for the longest time. We simply stared down the empty hall before I finally broke the silence. “Where do you think they're heading?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” He shrugged. “Lots of other schools in this district, by my count.”

“How come you didn't run with them?”

“I'd only hold them back. Besides, they can take care of themselves now.”

He was missing them already. I didn't blame him.

“What are you going to say to Pritchard?” he asked. “You going to tell him?”

“What? About the tribe of missing kids hiding in his school?”

I shook my head.

“So you're going to take the fall for them?” Simms asked.

“Not for them.
For me.
I'm doing this for me.”

And a little for Sully.

Simms smiled. “Guess Peashooter misjudged you after all.…”

• • •

Pritchard's office really was beginning to feel like a home away from home. But sitting there, something told me this might be my last visit.

“You really expect me to believe you're single-handedly responsible for everything that happened today?”

“Aren't I?”

“Come on, Spencer. Who are you trying to protect?”

“Just me, I swear.”

“So that's your story?”

“And I'm sticking to it, sir.”

“I hate to say it, but your word isn't worth that much to me right now.”

“Kind of like Holden Caulfield, huh?”

Pritchard blinked. “You actually read
The Catcher in the Rye
?”

“I had a lot of time on my hands during my suspension—so yeah, I did.”

“Care to share what you thought of it?”

“Well, it's like when Holden Caulfield says—
“‘What really
knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish
the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call
him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.'”

“Good luck with that.” Pritchard chuckled. “Salinger was a pretty famous recluse. After he wrote
Catcher
, he felt that people misunderstood it. They thought the book meant something that it didn't. At least not to him. So, one day, he decided to disappear.”

Sounded familiar.

I wondered if Peashooter would ever pick up a copy. He'd have to infiltrate a high school to get his hands on one.

That got me thinking about the Tribe again. Which got me thinking about Sully. Which got me worrying about the whole gang out there, in the real world now, struggling to survive.
Alone
.

Why did I miss them so much?

“I wish things had turned out differently for you, Spencer,” Pritchard said. “I wish we could've talked more about the book.…”

“Who says we can't talk now? It's not like I'm dead or anything.”

“Not yet,” Mom said.

She didn't look happy to see me. As soon as she stepped into Pritchard's office, she launched right in: “I don't know what to do with you anymore, Spencer. I really don't.”

“I'm sorry, Mom.”

“Sorry is not going to cut it.”

I took a deep breath. “I know you don't believe me. I know how hard I've made things for you these last couple months. But I want you to know—I didn't mean for this to happen. Any of this. I'm not saying it wasn't my fault. It was. I'm just saying that…I love you, Mom. I never wanted to hurt you.”

She didn't say anything for the longest time.

“I love you too, Spencer. But—”

She cut herself short. The words were having a hard time coming out of her mouth.

“But—
what
?”

She tried again. “I think it would be best if…for a while, at least…if you lived with your—”

Perfect inopportunity for Pritchard's door to open from behind me. “Sorry I'm late.”

I turned around, discovering…

Dad.

“What did I miss?”

Everything
.

• • •

My parents wanted to talk with Pritchard about my expulsion.
Privately
. So I decided to walk through Greenfield one last time.

I was still wearing the brown sweatshirt. I flipped the hoodie over my head, antlers and all, and wandered the halls.

I stepped into Mrs. Witherspoon's class. I didn't have a chance to say good-bye to her—or any of my teachers, for that matter. Not like many of them would miss me. But it was Witherspoon who got me writing about the Tribe in the first place.

I didn't have proof that the Tribe existed—but I did have their story.

Just knowing they weren't hiding in Greenfield anymore made the building feel—well, it was nothing but a school now.

I sat at my old desk and scanned the ceiling, half expecting someone to shuffle across the fiberglass panels.

But nothing. Nothing at all.

They really were gone.

Then I found it.…

• • •

There's a desk somewhere in Greenfield Middle School. It used to be in Mrs. Witherspoon's class, but it's probably been shuffled around to another room by now.

You just have to find it.

I did. Right where Sully had left it for me.

Hidden within all the graffiti and doodles on the desk, there is a tiny heart carved into its top. A spear pierces through the superior vena cava. The spearhead pokes out from the etched muscle's bottom chamber, a single droplet of blood dribbling off the tip.

Stretching across the left ventricle, it reads:
SULLY
.

Across the right:
SPENCE
.

And wrapping around the whole heart, it says:
FOREVER
.

Class dismissed.