Metal folded and glass crunched. Airbags deployed in the front, slamming Alice against the seat. Daisy flew into Spencer and he knocked his head against the window.
“Mom!” Spencer cried. “You okay?” He didn’t have to ask about Daisy. She was clinging to his sleeve, whimpering but unharmed.
“I don’t know who these people think they are!” his mother shouted from the front seat. “But somebody’s going to pay for that!” She was twisting the key in the ignition, but the attempt was futile. The station wagon was parked forever.
“We gotta get out,” Daisy said. Marv and Walter were racing back toward the station wagon.
Spencer tested the door. It was stiff, but with some pressure from his shoulder, it popped open. Daisy followed him out as Alice climbed across the passenger seat. Marv ripped open the door and helped her to her feet.
“Into the school!” Walter cried as the BEM van doors opened and several angry workers leapt out. Daisy led the group through the shattered opening in the door, Marv bringing up the rear.
The first BEM worker tried to follow them in, but Marv was ready for him. A fistful of vac dust struck the enemy, suctioning him onto the shards of broken glass.
“They’re trying to get in!” Daisy pointed down the hallway where two BEM workers knelt at the lock to Mrs. Natcher’s door. One held a flashlight while the other fiddled with slender lock-picking tools.
Walter knocked them both back with a palm blast of vacuum dust. Marv stepped over the pinned bodies and inserted his key into Mrs. Natcher’s doorknob.
“Inside! Quickly!” Walter ushered the others into the classroom. Just as the BEM workers poured into the hallway, the warlock slammed the door and twisted the lock.
Marv started shoving desks against the door for a barricade. Walter retreated to the center of the room. He exhaled a sigh of relief and briefly touched Spencer’s desk. Then he crossed to the window, pulling things along to block it.
Spencer glanced at his mom. She didn’t look so good. It looked as if the evening was turning out to be more than she could digest. As soon as she saw Spencer staring, Alice grabbed a desk and shoved it toward the door.
That was Mom. Strong and independent, if not a little frazzled. She clearly couldn’t let her son see a weakness. Especially not now, when courage was being stretched like taffy.
“What now?” Daisy pushed her own desk and Marv picked it up to make a stack.
“We hold out,” Walter said. “The BEM will have to retreat before school starts in the morning. That should buy us at least eight hours to smuggle the School Board safely away. All we need to do is survive tonight.”
Mrs. Natcher’s room seemed foreign in the darkness of night. Alice reached for the lights, but Walter stopped her. It was better if the enemy couldn’t see them. Spencer strode over to his desk, the object of so much attention. It was funny. He’d been so close to the School Board for weeks.
“Hadley already has Ninfa and the nail. If he gets into this room, all could be lost.” Walter dumped over a table and propped it against the window. “The most important thing is to keep Garth Hadley away from Spencer’s desk.”
“I think we have a problem.” Spencer looked up. “This isn’t my desk.”
Chapter 39
“Actually . . . that was me.”
Everyone stopped. Marv dropped the desk he’d been holding. All eyes were on Spencer, begging for him to be mistaken so they could ignore his last statement.
“This desk isn’t mine,” Spencer repeated.
“What do you mean? It’s got your name on it.” Marv stomped forward.
“This is my name tag, but it isn’t my desk.”
The others gathered closer, abandoning their efforts to fortify the room. Spencer felt his stomach sinking.
“Are you sure?” Walter asked.
“Positive,” said Spencer. “I know, because some dummy wrote
Mrs. N smells like cabbige
on mine. Some dummy who couldn’t even spell
cabbage.
”
“Um,” Marv grunted. “Actually . . . that was me.
I
scratched that into the School Board.”
“You?” Daisy said. “Why?”
“Well, she
does
smell.” Marv shrugged.
“But why’d you write it?”
“Walter told me to add some subtle marks to make it look more like a normal desk instead of a magic board.”
“Very subtle,” Spencer said.
“Enough!” The warlock waved his hands. “If this desktop doesn’t have the School Board, then we’ve got major trouble.”
“They switched it,” Spencer said. “They switched my desk for a fake.”
Walter nodded. “They knew we would stop at nothing to get in this classroom. All our attention was focused here.”
“But what about the guys picking the lock?” Alice asked.
“A decoy.”
Marv grabbed the stack of desks and threw them away from the door, breaking down the barrier that he’d so desperately built.
“And now,” Walter muttered. “Now they have us right where they want us—trapped in a classroom.”
Marv uncovered the door and threw himself against it. He shouted with rage as Walter’s prediction became reality. The door to Mrs. Natcher’s classroom was blocked. Alice ran to the window, but shadowed faces of BEM workers already clogged the escape.
“We’re surrounded,” she said. Marv slammed against the door again. The big janitor was determined, and Spencer was surprised to see the blockade hold against such a force as Marv.
“We need to find out where they’ve taken the real School Board,” Walter said.
Daisy suddenly dropped to her knees and started emptying Spencer’s fake desk. “If they really switched them, then all we need to do is find out whose desk this really is.” She pulled out a notebook. On the cover was a label:
Haley Rasmussen’s writing notebook.
“Haley Rasmussen,” Daisy muttered. “She’s in Mrs. Cleveland’s class. That’s only two rooms down!”
Marv threw his bulk against the door, but it still didn’t budge. Alice ducked out of sight by the window.
“We need another way out,” said Walter, as though no one else were thinking it. “Every moment we wait brings Garth Hadley closer to the school. Once he’s here, nothing will stop him from becoming a warlock.”
“Let me just open this door and we’ll stroll on down to Mrs. Cleveland’s room,” Marv said sarcastically. He threw his shoulder against it once more, but it was still solid.
Spencer glanced at Daisy, who was staring at the ceiling. “The vent!” she said. “We could climb into the air vent and escape.”
Spencer sized up the vent. It was small, but they would be able to fit. “Nice one, Daisy!”
In no time, Walter was standing atop two stacked desks, straining on the vent cover. “Marv!” he said, jumping down. “I need you.”
Marv lumbered over and climbed up. He was a frightening sight, gingerly balancing on two desks, like a circus elephant standing on a tiny ball. With one meaty hand, Marv seized the vent cover and ripped it from the ceiling. White dust snowed down on the shaggy man as he looked up.
“No way I’m fitting,” Marv quickly determined. He and Walter traded places on the desks.
The warlock grasped both sides of the open vent and tried to pull himself in. His bald head disappeared into the ceiling. But, to everyone below, it was obvious that Walter’s shoulders were too broad to fit.
“Useless,” he said when his head reappeared.
“Wait.” Spencer stepped forward. “What about us?”
Before Walter could answer, Alice was climbing up next to him. “Fine,” she muttered. “I guess
I’ll
go.”
Spencer knew that his offer had prodded his mother into action. Her motherly instinct would be too strong to let her son enter into potential danger.
“This isn’t going to be good,” Spencer whispered to Daisy. He had to avert his eyes from the scene. His mother was atop the desks now, clinging to Walter Jamison. “My mom’s terrified of heights.”
“I got you, I got you,” Walter assured. He helped her grasp the vent. With his hands, Walter made a cradle for her foot. Her head disappeared into the vent.
Spencer covered his ears. Any moment now, his mother would start screaming.
And she did. “Get me down! Down right now! NOW!”
It was something Spencer had learned on a family vacation three years ago. They’d gone to Mesa Verde to tour the Native American ruins. Mom had gotten halfway through one of the cliff dwellings when she just froze. It had taken two park rangers to get her back on level ground.
It wasn’t just the twelve-foot height of Mrs. Natcher’s classroom ceiling that got Alice Zumbro screaming. It was a deadly combination of . . .
“Heights
and
tight spaces,” Spencer whispered.
Normally, Spencer would have been embarrassed by his mother’s outburst. But there was no time for that now. As Walter and Marv got Alice back on flat ground, Spencer volunteered again.
“You’ve got to let us try. Garth Hadley could be here by now.”
Walter glanced at Alice for parental approval.
“Please, Mom. I can do this. I’ll be careful.”
Still flushed and out of breath, Alice nodded wordlessly. Spencer scampered up the desks and stepped into Walter’s cupped hands.
“I don’t know what you have planned,” the warlock said, “but you better be careful. Your mother will never forgive me if something happens to you.” Without waiting for a response, Walter boosted Spencer into the metal air vent.
It was a tight fit with the princess backpack. Movement was limited to something between a crawl and a slither. Daisy’s face suddenly appeared behind him. Spencer reached back and took her hand.
She was still pulling her legs into the vent when a loud crash filled the classroom below. Shouts drifted up, filling the vent.
“What’s happening?” Spencer hissed.
Daisy twisted around, peering over her shoulder. “They’ve come into the classroom!” she whispered back.
“Must have seen us escaping and tried to stop it,” said Spencer.
“Walter’s down,” narrated Daisy. “He looks hurt. Your mom’s all tangled up in a mop. They got Marv, too. No, wait. He’s breaking free. He’s heading to the door!”
Suddenly, Glopified mop strings shot up from below and filled the vent opening.
“Spencer!” Daisy cried as the strings twisted around her leg. He reached back desperately, grabbing for anything. His hands found something and he pulled . . . on her braid!
Daisy yelped from the pain as she became the victim of a human tug-of-war. At last, the mop strings retracted and Spencer let go.
“Ow,” Daisy whimpered, grabbing the top of her head. “Who do you think I am, Rapunzel?” She stroked her thick braid. “This isn’t a rope, you know.”
“Sorry,” Spencer said. “Let’s get out of here before they attack again.”
Chapter 40
“Stop singing!”
Spencer and Daisy snaked their way forward through the vent system of Welcher Elementary School.
“If we go two rooms over,” Spencer whispered, “we’ll come out right in Mrs. Cleveland’s room. They won’t expect us to pop out of the ceiling.”
Spencer sounded much more confident than he felt. A million things could go wrong between here and there. He had no idea what they would do once they dropped into Mrs. Cleveland’s room. How could they get the desk safely away when all they had was a pink backpack full of vacuum dust? Besides, Garth might already be in there, pounding the nail into the School Board.
I’ve still got the Vortex,
Spencer reminded himself.
“I think this is it,” Spencer whispered. The vent shaft branched, leading to a downward drop into a classroom.
“Have you ever noticed how shiny this vent is?” Daisy asked. Spencer glanced over his shoulder to see that she’d fallen behind. “And it’s kind of cool how they hook all the different pieces of metal together. I really like this vent.”
What was Daisy
talking
about? How could she pay attention to the vent when they were so close to Mrs. Cleveland’s room?
Then he saw it, and everything made sense.
A pale Grime was only inches behind her. Bulbous fingertips clung to the metallic vent shaft. The Toxite was enjoying Daisy’s brain waves while sending out strong waves of distraction to confuse the girl.
“Behind you, Daisy!” Spencer hissed. “There’s a Grime right above you.”
“Come back here, Spencer,” she said calmly. “You’ve got to see this.”
“No!” Spencer said. “You have to listen to me.” But it was too late. The Grime breath was doing its trick. Daisy wasn’t hearing anything else.
“I
love
this vent! I think this is the coolest place I’ve ever been.”
Spencer was torn. He needed Daisy’s help, but if he went back to vac dust the Grime, he’d waste precious time in reaching the School Board.
Daisy was beyond reason. Now she was singing a lullaby to the vent, her voice getting a little too loud. If the BEM workers below heard the noise, Spencer’s surprise attack would be ruined.
“Quiet!” Spencer urged. “Stop singing! You’ve got to be quiet!”
Suddenly, the Grime scuttled away, aware of its detection. Before Spencer could breathe a sigh of relief, before Daisy could come to her senses, a hand clamped over the girl’s mouth from behind.
Daisy tried to scream, but the sound was muffled. Someone had followed them into the vent! But who? It had to be someone small enough . . .
A blast of flowery perfume hit Spencer as a face appeared behind Daisy. It was Leslie Sharmelle. And if Leslie was here, that meant Garth would be . . .
“I found them!” the thin woman shouted. Her voice echoed down the resonant vent, sounding in every nearby classroom. “They’re up in the—”
Spencer hit Leslie with a fistful of vac dust from the backpack. Her voice cut short as the suction dragged. Daisy was trapped helplessly beneath the BEM woman, but Spencer had no choice.
Spencer reached the branch in the vent shaft and entered feet first. He wriggled backward until he arrived at the drop into the classroom. Reaching down with a palm blast of vac dust, Spencer hit the vent cover. Suction ripped the bolts out of the ceiling and sent the slotted cover crashing into Mrs. Cleveland’s room. He pushed his legs through the blown-out opening and peered into the classroom.
There were at least half a dozen BEM workers prowling the room with a myriad of Glopified weapons in hand. The door was barricaded by a few stacked desks, just as Marv had done in Mrs. Natcher’s room. The window, too, was blocked and under watchful eye.