The Word Eater (8 page)

Lerner ran in the back door, holding her backpack tightly against her chest.

Martha met her at the door with a meow.

“Hello, good old Martha!” Lerner scooped up her cat. “Come on up to my room! I'm going to do a little experiment that I think you'll like.”

“Stop right there, young lady,” Mrs. Chilling said with a sour smile on her face. “I have three messages for you. Number one: The school called
your mother at work to inform her of your detentions! Number two: Your mother called here to get an explanation! And number three: You're grounded until further notice!”

Lerner looked at Mrs. Chilling's pursed lips. You're enjoying this, aren't you, Mrs. Chilling? she said to herself. She took Martha up to her room where the cat climbed onto her desk and settled down for a nap.

Lerner sighed. She wished Marie were here. Marie would help her figure out what to say to her parents. She sat at her desk and started spilling her guts.

Lerner shook Fip out of his ink bottle and set him on the top of her desk so that she could get a good look before describing him to Marie.

Fip took one whiff of good old Martha and his gizzard practically turned inside out. He screamed and curled into a ball.

Martha blinked and twitched her whiskers, but she didn't bother getting up.

“Sorry, Martha, I think he's scared of you.” Lerner scooped up her old cat and put her in the hallway.

Fip took a quick breath in and glanced around to get his bearings. Ever since that earthquake, he was on edge. But, ah! A tangy whiff! There was a piece of paper with quite a bit of food on it. Lerner's attention was calm and focused toward him, which made him feel calm, too. He liked the vibrations he felt when she paid attention to him. He skinched closer to her hand, and she smiled.

Fip had grown plumper now, about the size of a large buttonhole, and was looking more like a caterpillar than a worm to Lerner. He had the cutest way of scrunching up the middle part of his body when he crawled. He was really quite remarkable, with delicate lines around his body, and when he chewed, his whole body trembled. Fascinated, Lerner watched him, and then realized with horror that he was eating the letter
M
in “Marie.” She screamed and grabbed him. Just then, the sound of barking came through the window.

Ripper! She had forgotten about her plan to delete Attackaterriers.

Lerner looked out her window just in time to see Ripper killing a bird. She opened her journal. Attackaterriers. All she had to do was set Fip down on the word, and she could make Attackaterriers history.

“What do you think, Fip? Should we do it?”

Martha meowed at the door.

“Not now, Martha!”

Lerner thought about her cat and started losing her nerve. Ripper wasn't a pet to the Nitzes, but what if someone somewhere loved an Attackaterrier the way she loved Martha?

Outside the window Ripper growled. An idea came to her. She wouldn't delete all Attackaterriers. She'd just delete Ripper! She wrote out a new experiment and set Fip down near the
R
.

Fip looked at her, trying to figure things out. Just a moment ago her alarm chemicals filled
the air when she saw him eat. Now she wanted him to eat. It was confusing!

“Come on, Fip,” Lerner said.

Fip sniffed the
R
. It was hard to resist such an ummy snack.

Lerner grabbed the binoculars hanging in her closet. As soon as Fip finished eating the last little curl of the last letter, she put him into his ink bottle and looked out the window. In the Nitzes' backyard, Ripper's body began to shimmer. He opened his mouth and a yelp wobbled out. One, two, three seconds . . . then the dog pen was empty.

Completely empty.

So empty that it gave Lerner a little chill. What had she just done? An uneasy feeling crept into her stomach.

The Nitzes' car pulled up with Mr. and Mrs. Nitz in it. Lerner froze. Oh great! The one time they come home from work early has to be today.

They got out, hoisting fat briefcases. According to Lerner's dad, Mr. Robert Nitz, Sr., was a very important prosecutor who put countless criminals in jail, and Mrs. Nitz was a very important flower arranger who arranged flowers for dinner parties at the White House. They always looked very important, Lerner supposed. But she didn't like them. Mrs. Nitz was too quiet, and Mr. Nitz was too loud.

“Where the devil is that dog?” Mr. Nitz was asking as they headed inside.

Lerner held her breath. A moment later he came out with Bobby.

“All right,” Mr. Nitz said. “You show me where he is.”

Bobby looked at the empty pen. “He's . . . he was—”

“You're an imbecile! Do you know how much that dog cost?”

“But I didn't let him out—”

“I suppose the dog let himself out?”

“I don't know how—”

“You know what's going to happen? That dog is going to kill somebody, and I'll get sued.” Mr. Nitz slammed the gate. “Robert Nitz getting sued! Imagine that one! You're going to pay for this, Bobby!”

“But I didn't let him—”

Mr. Nitz wheeled around to face his son. “You can't do anything right, you know that?”

At 8:00
A.M
., Lerner got on the school bus with Fip in her backpack and a hat pulled over her head.

About fifteen kids were already on the bus, a few MPOOEs, a few SLUGs, and some kids from
other grades. Randy stood up from his usual seat in the center and looked beyond her. “Where's Nitz?” he wanted to know.

Another MPOOE jumped up and peered out at the Nitzes' house. “If he's absent, it won't be as good.”

“Shut up,” hissed Reba.

The bus driver yelled at everybody to sit down, yanked the doors shut, and pulled out.

Lerner's stomach was in knots. What were the MPOOEs plotting? And where was Bobby? She felt horribly guilty about Ripper. Mr. Nitz's words kept playing over and over in her head. She couldn't imagine her parents talking to her that way.

Her parents had been angry about the detentions, but they didn't call her names. They gave her a nice long lecture about behavior and how important it was to make a good impression at school. Usually, she hated lectures, but after hearing Mr. Nitz yell at Bobby, she didn't think her parents' lectures were so bad.

She had made a horrible mistake deleting Ripper. It was absolutely wrong to delete something living. She definitely was
not
going to go through with the Attackaterrier experiment.

The bus rumbled over a pothole. Sharmaine turned around and looked at her. For a second, Lerner thought she was going to declare herself a SLUG. But then Sharmaine looked away.

Reba moved to an empty seat next to Lerner. “So, where did you get all those Nutty Munches yesterday, SLUG?”

The bus turned a wide corner, rolling on and off the curb with elephant-like thumps. She turned to Reba calmly and said, “My name is Lerner, not SLUG.”

Lerner saw Sharmaine smile.

“I have an excellent idea,” Reba went on. “Why don't you open your backpack and let me see if you've got any more candy in there.”

“Forget it.” Lerner pulled her backpack in. “You're just mad because I gave them to SLUGs. You can't tell me what to do, Reba.”

“I'm just worried about you, Lerner. I think you might have stolen those candy bars and I don't want you to get into trouble.”

The bus rumbled over another pothole. Lerner kept quiet, hoping Reba would go back to her seat.

“So, where's neighbor boy?” Reba asked.

“I don't keep track of Bobby.”

Reba glared. “There's something going on. We think both you and Nitz are in on it. You have both been acting strange. And we're going to find out what it is. Just wait till you see what we have planned for Nitz.”

The bus pulled into the school parking lot. What did they mean they have something planned for Bobby, Lerner wondered. Now what?

At 8:45
A.M
., the Mack Technical School on Bellitas Island was ready. The children were sitting at their tables, penmanship books open on their desks, newly sharpened pencils poised. Fake test scores were taped onto the bulletin board. Boris, the bodyguard, was sitting on a stool at a large chalkboard pretending to be a teacher, scratching under his collar as if his fancy suit gave him hives.

Mr. Mack surveyed the scene. The FBI investigator was due to arrive any moment. There was only one thing left to do, Mr. Mack thought, get rid of that skinny girl with the big mouth.

As if she could read his mind, Lucia spoke up, “Shouldn't we be writing something in these notebooks?”

Boris looked at Mr. Mack. “She got a point, Boss.”

“Fine. Fine,” Mr. Mack said, as he walked the floor. “Write ‘See Spot Run' on the board and everyone can copy it.”

Lucia went to the board and wrote:

Anybody who speaks Bellitan knows that Frio Re Bampas does not mean See Spot Run. It means: Free the Children. And when Lucia wrote the revolutionary statement on the board, all the children in the room straightened up in their seats.