Professor Gargoyle (6 page)

Their intelligence was extraordinary. After just a few hours, Robert had trained them to obey simple commands such as “sit” and “stay” and “roll over.” By Sunday night, they were executing even more complicated tasks. “Bring me a comic book,” Robert
would say. And Pip and Squeak dutifully walked over to his shelves, retrieved a comic book, and carried it in their mouths back to their master.

Robert rewarded them with more pretzels. “Two heads are definitely better than one,” he said, gently stroking their necks and back. “You guys are twice as smart as the average rat. Maybe even smarter.”

He went online to research two-headed animals. They were a lot more common than he’d realized. He found photographs of two-headed cows, two-headed pigs, even a two-headed crocodile. The scientific name for the condition was
polycephaly
. Robert found several articles about polycephaly in medical journals, but they were all too complicated for him to understand. Yet one of them caught his attention because its author, Crawford Tillinghast, lived right there in Dunwich, Massachusetts, just a mile or two from Robert’s house.

Robert walked downstairs to the living room, where his mother was folding laundry on the sofa. “Hey, did you ever hear of a man named Crawford Tillinghast?”

“Sure,” she said. “You remember that giant mansion on East Chestnut Street? The one they finally knocked down last year? That’s where he lived. He was some kind of scientist.”

“Does he still live in Dunwich?”

“Oh, no, honey. He died thirty years ago. There was a house fire, I think. Why do you ask?”

Robert shrugged. “No reason.”

His mother laughed. “When I was real little, we used to joke that his house was haunted. You’d go out there at night and see all kinds of crazy lights flashing in his windows. We used to dare one another to run up his steps and ring the doorbell. Poor old man.”

Upstairs, something toppled over with a crash. It sounded like Pip and Squeak had found their way into Robert’s closet.

“What was that?” his mother asked.

“Nothing,” he assured her. “Just some books falling off my bed. I’ll go take care of it.”

When Robert returned to his room, Pip and Squeak were hiding in their nest box, their heads buried
under the paper scraps. “You need to be quiet when I’m not here,” he warned them. “Do you understand me? If my mother finds you, she will freak out.”

Pip squeaked and Squeak bobbed his head, so Robert wished them a good night and pushed the box back under the bed.

When he woke the next morning, the box was empty.

Robert leapt out of bed. He searched under his bed, inside his closet, even in his desk drawers. Since his mother had already left for the day, Robert was free to run about the house, shouting their names. “Pip! Squeak! Pip and Squeak!” But there was no sign of them.

He remembered what Professor Goyle had taught him: A rat’s jaws were powerful enough to chew through brick, concrete, or lead pipe. A rat could squeeze through spaces as narrow as a half inch. It wouldn’t have been hard for Pip and Squeak to escape the house. Maybe Robert hurt their feelings when he reprimanded them the night before. Maybe they decided to go live somewhere else.

He ate a quiet breakfast at the kitchen table, brushed his teeth, and then grabbed his backpack, ready to walk out the door. Then he felt a familiar weight shifting inside the bag. He unzipped the main pouch and there they were, Pip and Squeak, grinning up at him.

“You want to come with me?” he asked. “Back to school?”

Pip nodded. Squeak chattered his teeth.

Robert didn’t like the idea. He hadn’t thought about Glenn Torkells all weekend—his new pets had been a nice distraction—but he knew the bully would want revenge.

“You have to promise me you’ll be absolutely quiet,” he told them. “No squirming around. If anyone notices something screwy, I won’t be able to protect you.”

Pip and Squeak seemed happy with this arrangement. Robert zipped them into his backpack and headed out the front door.

Lovecraft Middle School was an eight-block walk from his house. When Robert arrived on campus, he immediately saw that something was wrong. In the parking lot were five police cars and two news vans. Over by the bike rack, a television reporter was holding a microphone and addressing the camera about “a terrible tragedy that’s rocked this quiet little community.”

Robert quickened his pace, approaching the main entrance. The large digital screen beside the front doors had a new message:

Next to the words was a photograph of a young girl with long red hair. Robert recognized her as one of the twins from Professor Goyle’s class.

For the rest of the day, it was hard for Robert to concentrate on anything else. The hallways were filled with hearsay and gossip. Sylvia had run away to live in New York City. Sylvia was abducted by a hitchhiker. Sylvia was last seen walking in the woods behind Lovecraft Middle School. The truth was anybody’s guess.

Most of Robert’s teachers were upset by the news, and Mr. Loomis seemed genuinely angry. “You kids need to use common sense!” he said, stomping around his classroom in a lime-green sweater vest. “Don’t talk to strangers! Watch where you walk at night! Be careful around people and places you don’t know!”

Robert knew all this already. Teachers had been
warning him about stranger danger since he was five years old. But everyone in his class listened without protest. They understood that Mr. Loomis was simply frustrated, that he was trying to prevent a terrible thing from happening again.

At lunchtime, Robert went outside to the athletic stadium and shared a ham sandwich with Pip and Squeak. They were relieved to be out of the backpack and they ran the length of the bleachers, zigzagging up and down, over and over. Robert stood guard, making sure no teachers or students were watching them.

“You guys have been real good all day,” he told his pets. “You stay nice and quiet, and we’re going to be just fine.”

When Robert arrived in science, the desks on both sides of him were empty. His classmates explained that Sarah Price was home with her family, helping the police investigate Sylvia’s disappearance. The mood in the class was unusually quiet. Even the caged animals in the back of the room seemed more silent than normal.

Professor Goyle arrived as if it were just another day, dropping his leather satchel onto his desk and turning to the chalkboard. “We’re going to pick up where we left off on Friday,” he explained, drawing the outline of a human skull on the chalkboard. “There are eight different bones in the cranium, and anyone who wants to pass this class is going to memorize all of them.”

Suddenly he turned around and wrinkled his nose. “What’s that hideous odor?”

Robert and his classmates exchanged glances. What was he talking about? The classroom smelled just like it always had.

Lynn Scott, one of the girls in the front row, raised her hand. “Professor Goyle? Are you going to say anything about Sylvia Price?”

He arched his bushy eyebrows. “Sylvia who?”

Lynn pointed at the empty chair. “The girl who went missing last night.”

“Ah, yes. The monozygotic twin.”

Professor Goyle sat on his desk and folded his
hands in his lap, as if he were preparing to comfort the class with a bedtime story. “I understand that many of you are upset. It’s unfortunate when a child goes missing. But we must remember, students, that everything happens for a reason. There are forces in this world you cannot comprehend. The Great Old Ones have the intelligence of ten thousand men combined. We should not question their actions—but what on earth is that
horrible
fetid odor?”

Goyle marched up and down the aisles of the classroom, twitching his nose like a bloodhound on the trail of a scent. “It’s absolutely
revolting
!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe any of you can concentrate with this hideous
stench
in the air!” He stopped beside Robert’s desk, then knelt down, pressed his face against Robert’s backpack, and breathed in deeply. “What’s in this bag, Mr. Arthur?”

“N-n-nothing,” Robert stammered. “Just my gym clothes?”

“I sincerely doubt
that
,” Professor Goyle said. He unzipped the backpack, reached inside, and pulled out
Pip and Squeak by the napes of their necks. Both heads squeaked helplessly as their feet swayed in the air. The other students in the classroom gasped.

“A polycephalous rodent? Where did you find this horrible two-headed mutation?”

Robert’s classmates all leaned forward for a better look while he struggled to answer the question. “Um, in the library?”

“Where in the library?”

“In the attic? Above the library?”

Goyle’s eyes widened. “An attic above the library?” This seemed to strike him as a revelation. “That’s very interesting, Mr. Arthur. But Lovecraft Middle School has very strict rules forbidding pets. If you’d read your student handbook, you would know this!”

“I’m sorry,” Robert said. “Please, Professor. I promise I’ll bring them home tonight, and I won’t bring them to school again.”

Goyle shook his head. “That wouldn’t be safe. We’ve already discussed the dangers of rats. Don’t you remember the lessons of the Black Death? Weren’t
you paying attention?”

“Pip and Squeak are different. They’re friendly.”

“They’re diseased! They’re filthy! And a two-headed mutation could be twice as dangerous. I can’t let you take this monstrosity home with you.” Goyle walked to the rear of the classroom, holding Pip and Squeak at a distance, as if any physical contact posed a health risk.

Robert’s classmates watched, fascinated, as Goyle dropped Pip and Squeak in a small aquarium lined with wood shavings, then closed the top with a metal lid. “They’ll be safe in here until I can dispose of them.”

The other students cheered as if Goyle had done something heroic, as if he’d just vanquished a hideous monster. Goyle resumed his lecture, but Robert could barely concentrate. The rest of the class passed in a blur.

When the end-of-day bell rang, Robert trudged back to his locker. He wasn’t in any hurry to go home. Or to go anywhere, really. All he could think about were Pip and Squeak, trapped in the aquarium at the back of Professor Goyle’s classroom.

How was Goyle going to “dispose” of them?

Did that mean what Robert thought it meant?

He considered going to his mother or even Mr. Loomis for help, but he knew they wouldn’t understand. Rules were rules. Pets weren’t allowed on school property and wild two-headed rats couldn’t be trusted. If his mother saw Pip and Squeak, she wouldn’t rush to their defense; she would scream.

When Robert closed his locker, he discovered Karina standing alongside him, chewing gum and clutching her skateboard.

“Bummer about your pet,” she said. “Goyle can be a real jerk.”

“How’d you hear?” he asked.

“News travels fast.”

“They’re friendly animals, I swear,” Robert explained. “I played with them all weekend. They slept in a box under my bed. Pip and Squeak wouldn’t hurt anyone, I know them.” His voice was trembling. He was so upset, he was afraid he might start crying, right there in the hallway, right in front of a girl.

“I believe you, Robert.”

“Goyle said he was going to dispose of them. What do you think that means? ‘Dispose of them’?”

Karina smiled. “I think it means we need to steal them back.”