Authors: Gordon Korman
Next door in room 14, a tall, cadaverous man crouched with his ear pressed against the wall, trying in vain to hear what was being said in Featherstone’s room.
* * *
“Bruno, Boots — you guys must be crazy to come here after what happened the last two times!” exclaimed Diane Grant as the two Macdonald Hall boys entered through the window.
“Is the old girl all right?” asked Bruno.
“Oh, she’s fine,” said Cathy. “Don’t worry about Miss Scrimmage. She’s immortal. Mad, too. When she called to complain, The Fish didn’t believe her.”
“So
that’s
how we got away with it! Anyway, here’s your philodendron.” Boots placed a potted plant on the desk.
Bruno laughed. “At first Elmer was reluctant to part with one of his little friends. But we told him either to fork it over or come here and personally explain to you why you couldn’t have it. After that he donated it with an open heart. You really made an impression on him.”
“We try,” said Cathy modestly. “What’s happening with the world records?”
“Plenty,” replied Boots. “Bruno’s got the whole school in an uproar over it.”
“Terrific,” exclaimed Cathy. “I love uproars. Can we help?”
“Yes,” said Bruno, “as a matter of fact, you can. We’re going for the world’s largest pop-can pyramid record and we need some cans.”
“How many?” asked Diane.
“Oh, no more than thirty-two thousand,” said Bruno casually.
“Sure,” retorted Cathy sarcastically. “No problem. Tomorrow I’ll just stroll out and pick up thirty-two thousand pop cans. Simplicity itself.”
“Listen,” insisted Bruno, exasperated, “just tell the girls to get all the pop cans they can find.”
“As it happens, you’ve picked a good time. The whole school is going to the Ontario Art Gallery on Saturday — or so Miss Scrimmage thinks.”
“Cathy!” Diane protested. “We can’t —”
“We can and we will,” was Cathy’s reply. “And Miss Scrimmage can’t expel us because we’re taking the whole school along. There’s strength in numbers.”
Boots cast Bruno a strange look. He had heard that philosophy before.
“Right,” said Bruno. “You girls should be able to pick up a lot of cans in a city the size of Toronto. Keep them for us and we’ll get them on Saturday night.”
“So we won’t be seeing you for a while,” said Diane with a mixture of regret and hope.
“Right,” agreed Boots. “Goodnight.” As he swung a leg over the sill, his shoe came off and fell to the ground with a thud.
“Halt!” cried a voice, and they could see the beam of a flashlight below.
“Oh, no!” moaned Bruno, yanking Boots away from the window. “It’s her again! What does she want from me?”
“Your neck,” snapped Boots. “And mine.”
“She’ll be up here in a minute. We’d better get you guys to sanctuary.” Cathy bustled them out into the corridor and knocked on the next door. A tall, red-haired girl opened up and peered out.
“Hi, Ruth,” greeted Cathy genially. “Would you hide these for us? We’ll be back for them soon.” She shoved Bruno and Boots into the room, shut the door and reentered her own room.
“Hi, Ruth,” said Bruno conversationally. “I’m Bruno, he’s Boots.”
The girl grinned. “I’ve heard about you two. The sleeping beauty over there,” she indicated her slumbering roommate, “is Wilma Dorf.”
There were quick footsteps in the hall. “And the avenging angel out there,” whispered Bruno, “is Miss Scrimmage. What have you got in the way of a listening device?”
Ruth reached into the bathroom and handed him a drinking glass. Bruno put his ear to the glass and the glass to the wall just in time to hear Cathy say, “Oh, Miss Scrimmage, they were back! They were bothering us!”
“Never mind, dear,” comforted the Headmistress. “I chased them away. But I’ve got them this time. One of them left his shoe behind. Now that old goat — uh — now Mr. Sturgeon will have to admit that I am right and that his boys have been harassing us.”
“Miss Scrimmage, you’re so clever!” exclaimed Cathy.
“I do what I must,” replied Miss Scrimmage modestly. “Now you two go to sleep. Young ladies must have their rest.”
Bruno heard the door click, and then more footsteps in the hall. In a few seconds Cathy was tapping at the door. Ruth opened it.
“Thanks a lot,” said Cathy. “I hope they weren’t too much trouble. They’re very mischievous, you know.”
“It’s their age,” grinned Ruth. “Goodnight.”
Cathy ushered them back into her room, where they found Diane white as a sheet. “Cathy, how could you say all that with a straight face?” she asked, aghast. “Don’t you get scared?”
Cathy laughed. “Of Miss Scrimmage? Never!” She turned to Bruno and Boots. “I’m afraid you’ll have to stick around for a while. I think Miss Scrimmage is going over to Mr. Sturgeon’s house with Boots’s shoe. If she sees you two walking across the campus she’ll blast you to kingdom come!”
“My shoe!” moaned Boots. “The Fish’ll know it’s mine!”
“Don’t be an idiot,” soothed Bruno. “It’s just a sneaker, that’s all.”
“I know,” said Cathy brightly. “Nothing livens up a dull evening like food. Diane, see what you can find in the kitchen.”
* * *
It was after 1 AM when Mr. Sturgeon answered the insistent ringing of his doorbell. He opened the door to find Miss Scrimmage standing there, indignation written all over her face.
“Your gang of marauders was back tonight!” she accused. “I scared them away.”
“I see,” said Mr. Sturgeon cautiously. “I trust they didn’t harm you?”
“No, I’m fine, thank you,” the Headmistress replied. She waved Boots’s tennis shoe under his nose. “One of them left this behind. A significant clue, wouldn’t you say?”
Mr. Sturgeon smiled thinly. “Miss Scrimmage, that shoe could very well belong to one of your girls.”
Miss Scrimmage stiffened. “Young ladies do not have feet of such gargantuan proportions,” she retorted icily. “I want you to have a bed check immediately. And every boy at Macdonald Hall must be made to try on this shoe. That way we shall discover who one of the terrorists is.”
Mr. Sturgeon did something he seldom did. He laughed out loud. “Miss Scrimmage,” he replied finally, still chuckling, “this is a school, not a twenty-first century version of Cinderella. May I suggest that you go home and sleep it off. No doubt things will look brighter in the morning. Goodnight.”
Miss Scrimmage turned around and marched off in a huff.
Mrs. Sturgeon appeared at her husband’s elbow. “Mildred,” he said, “wait till you hear
this
!”
“I heard,” she sighed. “Cinderella.”
He nodded. “Mildred, if things go badly and we do lose Macdonald Hall, my one consolation will be that I’ll never have to put up with
her
again!”
* * *
Elmer pulled Bruno and Boots in through the window of room 201. “Where have you been? It’s after three!” Bruno cast Elmer a look that could have melted lead, and hurled himself onto his bed without a word.
“You’ll have to excuse him,” Boots explained with a grin. “Miss Scrimmage was out there again and he’s having a confidence crisis.”
“I don’t know,” Bruno growled. “It’s getting to be so a guy can’t sneak out after lights-out any more. What’s going on around here anyway?”
Boots shrugged and began to prepare for bed.
“I have some news,” offered Elmer timidly. “My cure for the common cold is ready to be tested.”
Miraculously restored, Bruno jumped up. “Hot gazoobies! We’ll do that tomorrow! Who do we know with a cold?”
“Nobody,” said Boots. “None of the guys have colds right now. It’s not the cold season.”
“Surely
somebody
has a cold,” insisted Bruno.
Across the hall in room 200, Housemaster Flynn went into a spasm of violent sneezing. He could be heard rustling around, clearing his throat and blowing his nose. Bruno and Boots exchanged looks of pure delight.
Good morning, all! The Fish launches Operation Popcan! Beware the Fish!
Sergeant Featherstone noted with some excitement that Wednesday morning’s announcement also came at 8:45. When the fish disappeared, he switched off the television set. His mind reeling with ideas and suspicions, he turned on his voice recorder.
“Investigation Fish — Field Report Number Two — Sergeant Harold P. Featherstone, Special Division, reporting,” he dictated.
“A pattern is beginning to emerge. There have been Fish broadcasts reported at all hours of the day, but 8:45 AM seems to be standard. It is my suspicion that ‘the Fish’ is a code name for the leader of a terrorist cell which is using public communications to send messages, also possibly in code. This morning ‘Operation Popcan’ was announced. This could be a major manoeuvre planned by the Fish and his associates. I will have to be extremely alert and watchful. Featherstone out.”
He switched off the recorder, and responding to a rumble in his stomach, left his room in search of breakfast.
The door of the next room opened slightly and two eyes watched intently as Featherstone walked through the parking lot to the street and across to the diner. Then the tall thin man in room 14 also left the motel and casually headed for the little restaurant.
* * *
“And that’s the way I expect you to complete the obstacle course,” said Coach Flynn, jumping off the climbing apparatus in the gymnasium. “Any questions?” He sneezed violently.
Bruno elbowed Boots in the ribs. Boots raised his hand.
“Sir, I have a question about the vaulting horse in the far corner. Isn’t there too much space between it and the springboard? Could we take a closer look?”
Flynn took Boots and the rest of the class over to the far corner of the gym. Bruno stole away from the group and moved swiftly to the bench where Coach Flynn kept his glass of Muscle-Ade, a high-energy drink. From the pocket of his shorts he took out the eye-dropper bottle of cold remedy that Elmer had given him. Holding the dropper over the coach’s glass, he administered exactly six drops, as per instructions. Then he strolled back and merged with the group. Boots’s problem had apparently been cleared up.
The coach again sneezed violently. “Oh, this cold!” he groaned. “I’ve got a beaut!”
“Maybe some Muscle-Ade will help,” suggested Bruno hopefully. “People with colds should drink a lot.”
“Good idea,” agreed Flynn. He jogged over to the bench, picked up the glass and drained it.
Boots shut his eyes.
A strange look came over Flynn’s face.
“Funny,” he said. “It never tasted like that before.” He hiccupped, took three faltering steps and collapsed to the floor, where he began to snore loudly.
Boots opened his eyes and took in the scene with a gasp of horror. “Bruno, we’ve killed him!”
“He isn’t dead,” declared Bruno. “He’s just asleep. Funny, Elmer didn’t mention that he was going to fall asleep.”
“What happened?” cried Pete Anderson. “I’d better go get The Fish!”
“No! No Fish!” shouted Bruno. “No Fish!”
“Fish,” murmured Flynn. A goofy grin spread over his face and he began to giggle softly, still asleep.
“What’ll we do?” asked Rob Adams nervously.
“We’d better take him home to bed,” Bruno decided.
“How are we going to get him all the way to Dormitory 2 without anybody noticing?” demanded Boots, slightly hysterical.
“If we all crowd around him,” explained Bruno, “we can walk him all the way.” He looked at the rest of the class. “You guys with us?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” said Chris Talbot uncertainly.
“Well,” said Bruno, “if we don’t get him out of here, you guys will have to share the blame when The Fish catches us.”
“I’m not sure, but I think that’s blackmail,” commented someone.
“Gee, I didn’t even do anything and I’m in trouble!”
“What did you do to him?”
“Was it poison?”
“Poisoned guys don’t snore, stupid. They die.”
“Let’s get him out of here!”
Bruno and Boots hoisted their coach to his feet, supporting him under each arm. All the boys crowded around and in a body walked him across the campus to Dormitory 2. Flynn sang “The Maple Leaf Forever” all the way.
“My, he’s patriotic,” chuckled Bruno as they crowded down the hall to room 200.
“Yes, and he’s also heavy!” panted Boots. “Open the door!”
Bruno plucked the key from Flynn’s jacket pocket and unlocked the door.
“In days of yore,”
sang Flynn as the rest of the boys beat a hasty retreat, leaving Bruno and Boots to tend to their coach. They dragged him across the room and dropped him on his bed.
“Paper,” ordered Bruno. “Get paper.”
“We don’t need paper! We need an ambulance!” said Boots frantically.
“It’s almost lunch time,” insisted Bruno. “Elmer will explain everything. Meanwhile we’ve got to put a sign on the gym door saying that afternoon classes are cancelled because the coach has a bad cold. See to it.”
“But, Bruno, what if —?”
“It’s a beautiful day,” shouted Flynn, throwing his arms and legs in the air.
“He’s not sick,” insisted Bruno. “You can see that. I don’t know what he is, but he isn’t sick. Let’s make that sign and go meet Elmer in the dining room.”
“Hey, you guys,” mumbled Flynn, “don’t go. The party’s just getting started.”
Boots shot Bruno a worried look as they left the room. After a short detour to place the sign explaining Flynn’s absence on the gymnasium door, Bruno and Boots caught up with Elmer Drimsdale at the entrance to the dining hall.
“Elmer, we have to talk to you!” said Bruno. Elmer gazed at him questioningly.
“Your stupid cold cure!” cried Boots. “It poisoned the coach!”
“Impossible,” said Elmer. “There is no toxic material in my formula.”
“Then why did he pass out?” cried Boots.
Elmer cocked his head. “He shouldn’t have. Perhaps it’s all psychological. Did you explain to him that it’s completely harmless?”
“Not exactly,” replied Bruno. “We slipped it into his Muscle-Ade.”
“Oh, dear!” said Elmer. “There’s the reason. Muscle-Ade has citric acid. My formula should not be taken with citric acid.”
“What happens?” gasped Boots.
“There is a reaction,” explained Elmer, “rather similar to the ingestion of large quantities of alcoholic beverages.”