Authors: Gordon Korman
Beware the Fisj
For Patrick J. Rankin, genius
Chapter 1: Much Ado About Spinach
Chapter 4: We’re Looking Into It
Chapter 8: A Question of Ownership
Chapter 11: In the Name of the Law
This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!
THE FISH:
William R. Sturgeon, Headmaster of Macdonald Hall, a kind, understanding, yet firm administrator who is secretly very fond of his students
.
THE FISH:
An underground criminal leader who is using public communications to send messages to members of his evil organization
.
THE FISH:
A large labelled diagram of the Pacific salmon that hangs on the wall in the room of eccentric genius Elmer Drimsdale
.
Much Ado About Spinach
Few people would argue that Macdonald Hall, located east of Toronto just off Highway 48, is not the best boarding school for boys in Canada. Even the most severe critics of modern education point to the ivy-covered walls of the Hall as a symbol of the happy blend of tradition, enlightened administration and progressive educational policies that have resulted in a rare combination of pleased parents and contented students.
Why, then, are rumblings echoing rom the dining hall?
* * *
“Yes! Okay! So we need another vegetable! But why spinach?” exclaimed Boots O’Neal in disgust.
“Stewed green leaves,” agreed Bruno Walton, pushing the spinach as far from the rest of his dinner as he could without actually toppling it off his plate onto the tray. “Last week they started serving raisins and figs instead of cake and ice cream. Now it’s spinach instead of french fries. If this keeps up I’ll be the healthiest person ever to starve to death at this school. Yeccch!”
The other boys at the dining hall table murmured their agreement.
“I told you before,” said Larry Wilson, the Headmaster’s office messenger, “it’s the dietician. I heard Mr. Sturgeon tell her to cut costs but keep the nutrition the same.”
“They’re trying to kill us all!” moaned big Wilbur Hackenschleimer, who was used to having triple helpings of everything.
“You cannot possibly die,” put in studious Elmer Drimsdale, “on this diet. It is nutritionally and chemically balanced.” He methodically deposited some spinach into his mouth.
“You can die if you don’t eat it,” retorted Bruno. “We’re starving! This isn’t
food
!”
“Seems to me Macdonald Hall is doing a lot of cost-cutting lately,” complained Boots. “Yesterday someone kicked the soccer ball out onto the highway and it got run over by a truck. End of ball, end of game. Can you imagine a school this size owning only one soccer ball?”
“And they’ve stopped our evening snack,” added Wilbur miserably.
“I never considered it,” said Elmer thoughtfully, “but the science laboratory is very low on materials and they’re not being replenished. The big microscope has been broken for a week, but Mr. Hubert has made no move to have it repaired.”
“No cereal at bedtime,” mourned Wilbur.
“The office is crazy for saving paper,” added Larry. “And Mr. Sturgeon is using straight pins instead of paper clips and staples.”
“At least The Fish gets to eat food,” said Wilbur sadly. “I’ll bet Mrs. Sturgeon doesn’t cook garbage like this for him.”
“And the thermostats are nailed at twenty in the dormitories,” Boots pointed out. “Bruno and I almost froze to death last night.”
“The food used to be so good here,” Wilbur reminisced.
Suddenly Bruno pounded his fist onto the table. The others jumped and turned their eyes towards him. “Something’s wrong,” he declared. “The Hall was never like this before. The Fish always used to stand up for us and get us the things we needed. Why isn’t he doing it now?”
Nobody answered.
“Larry,” Bruno went on, a determined gleam in his eyes, “when you’re on duty around the office, keep on the lookout. If we can find out why this is happening, we can do something about it.”
“You’ve got it,” agreed Larry. “I’ll try.”
* * *
“Mildred,” Mr. Sturgeon, Headmaster of Macdonald Hall, announced to his wife, “I see no alternative. I am going to resign.”
“Now, William,” she said soothingly, “what good would that do?”
“The situation has become intolerable!” he exclaimed, pacing the small living room of the Headmaster’s residence. “The budget is constantly being cut. My students are being deprived — not just of treats and luxuries, but of necessary school supplies as well. I cannot sit by and watch this going on, yet I can’t do anything about it. My only course is resignation.”
“That’s the easy way out,” his wife accused him. “You’d be abandoning our boys if you just quit. Why can’t you stay on and fight?”
Mr. Sturgeon stopped pacing and eased himself into the rocking chair by the window. “I’d love to fight,” he replied, “but I have nothing to fight with. The trustees do — enrolment is down and costs are soaring. They’re not giving me enough money to run Macdonald Hall properly. The fact is, Mildred, if this keeps up we’re going to lose the school.”
“Oh, dear! Can it be that bad?”
He nodded emphatically. “At the last Board meeting there was some serious talk of putting the land and buildings up for sale.”
“But this has been our home for eighteen years!”
The Headmaster shrugged unhappily. “What can I do?” He sighed. “But you do have a point: The captain should go down with the ship. I’ll stay on.”
* * *
Friday evening, just before midnight, the silence of the moonlit campus was disturbed by the squeaking of the window of room 306 in Dormitory 3. Bruno Walton and Boots O’Neal scrambled over the sill and jumped to the ground. They darted across the tree-lined campus, crossed the highway and nimbly scaled the wrought-iron fence around Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies.
“It’s a good thing we’ve got this place handy,” said Bruno in an undertone. “If Cathy and Diane weren’t feeding us we’d starve to death!” He picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them at a second-storey window.
Cathy Burton’s dark head appeared over the sill. “Your provisions will be right down,” she called softly.
A few moments later a large paper bag came sailing out the window and landed at their feet. Printed on the bag in green was the message:
Happy eating. Courtesy of Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies, Cathy Burton and Diane Grant, Caterers
.
Boots looked up at the open window. “You’ve just saved a couple of lives,” he called.
“Our pleasure,” answered Cathy. “Any time. Just don’t expect frequent flyer miles.” She waved, then shut the window.
The boys grabbed the food parcel and retraced their steps to the Macdonald Hall campus and their own Dormitory 3. They climbed back into their room.
Boots shut the window as, still in the dark, Bruno hurled himself onto his bed. There was a wild, terrified scream. Squinting in the moonlight, Boots could just make out the figure of his roommate struggling on the floor with an unknown assailant. Without hesitation he threw himself into the battle. Arms and legs thrashed. Muffled grunts filled the room. Boots could feel the intruder slowly forcing him into a headlock. He reached out blindly, grabbed a foot and started twisting.
There was a sudden click and the light came on. The arm around Boots’s neck was Bruno’s; the hand twisting Bruno’s foot was Boots’s. Standing by the light switch, pale and shaking, was Larry Wilson.
“Douse that light!” Bruno gasped angrily. “Do you want The Fish on our necks?”
Larry switched off the overhead light. “Sorry,” he said, still stunned.
“What the heck are you doing in our room?” demanded Boots as he and Bruno disentangled themselves and stood up.
“You asked me to keep my ears open,” Larry complained. “I came here to report, not to get beaten up. You guys were out, so I lay down to wait for you. I guess I fell asleep. Do you think the racket woke up the Housemaster?”
Boots laughed. “Wake up Mr. Fudge? Don’t you know about him?”
“Old Fudgie wouldn’t wake up if an express train passed under his bed,” said Bruno. “The first year we were here at the Hall, Boots and I came back from Scrimmage’s one night and climbed into his room by mistake. If that kind of laughing in his ear won’t wake him up, nothing will.”
“You said you heard something,” Boots reminded their visitor. “What’s up?”
“You aren’t going to like this very much,” Larry said nervously.
“Oh, no,” groaned Bruno. “I suppose they’ve eliminated lunch.”
“Worse than that,” said Larry. “The Fish has given orders to close up Dormitory 3.”
There was a long moment of stunned silence.
Bruno was the first to find his voice. “No,” he said quietly. “They can’t do that. This is our home.”
“It’s being done,” said Larry. “Tomorrow the orders will go out telling you where to move.”
“We won’t go!” stormed Boots. “We’ll barricade ourselves in and hold out to the end!”
“Why?” cried Bruno. “Why would The Fish do this to us? Why?”
“Well,” said Larry, “no one has actually said it, but it looks to me as if Macdonald Hall is going broke. They can’t afford to run three dorms any more.”
“Then let them close 1! Or 2!” howled Bruno. “But not ours! It’s not fair!”
“What if you get sent to one room and me to another?” put in Boots in a strangled voice.
“No, no,” soothed Larry. “You two guys are both being sent to 201.”
There was another shocked silence.
“Elmer Drimsdale!” Bruno and Boots howled in unison.
“I can’t live with Elmer Drimsdale!” cried Boots. “He’s crazy!”
“Oh, no!” moaned Bruno, who had once been Elmer’s roommate. “No, no, no!”
“But you guys are friends of Elmer’s,” Larry said, mystified.
“Yes, but that’s a lot different from
living
with him!” Bruno exclaimed. “Elmer keeps ants! And fish in the bathtub! And plants all over the place! And he’s always performing some experiment that takes up half the room! And he gets up at six in the morning!”
“What have we done to deserve this?” asked Boots in despair.
Bruno felt around in the dark, located the bag from Cathy and Diane and ripped it open. “Let’s eat,” he suggested glumly. “I always suffer better on a full stomach.”
The three boys began to eat the assortment of cookies, fruit and cheese filched for them by Miss Scrimmage’s girls.
“I’m getting sent to Dormitory 2 as well,” Larry told them as he savoured the almost forgotten taste of a chocolate chip cookie. “I’ll be across the hall in 204.”
“204!” Bruno laughed despite his unhappiness. “That’s Sidney Rampulsky. Be sure you pay up your accident insurance. That guy could trip over a moonbeam.”
“At least he doesn’t keep ants,” moaned Boots.
“You know,” said Bruno thoughtfully, “we’re losing sight of the most important thing in this whole mess. If Macdonald Hall really is going broke, then we won’t only be out of a dormitory. We’ll be out of a school!”
“We’re going broke, all right,” said Larry. “Today I took a phone call from a real-estate company. Maybe the Hall is being put up for sale.”