Teacher's Pest Read online

  With an ear-splitting screech, Miss Mandis rose out of the lake, clawing at her skin and shedding her human disguise. Her true face was green, triangular, and studded with large compound eyes. Her angular limbs ended in bladed tips that made swimming impossible; she scrambled to pull herself onto the top of the barrel, which was floating like a life raft.

  She saw Robert and shrieked. “You’ve ruined everything! Our entire army, destroyed!”

  Robert realized she was unable to swim after him—that she was unable to swim at all. He paddled away from her as Pip and Squeak clung to his shoulder. Just hang on a little longer, he promised them. I’m going to get you out of here.

  A moment later, the shaggai broke through the water’s surface. His spindly limbs and heavy wings made him equally ill-suited for swimming. He reached toward Miss Mandis’s barrel, and she slashed at him with her bladed limbs.

  “Stay back!” she warned. “You’re too heavy!”

  “I’m sinking!”

  “Find your own barrel!”

  But there were no other barrels, at least none that Robert could see. He knew that only the empty barrel had risen to the surface because it was buoyant enough to float.

  “Move over!” the shaggai growled.

  “Let go!” Miss Mandis shrieked, flicking her forelimb at his head. “You’ll sink us both!”

  The shaggai ignored her threats. He reached for the top of the drum, trying to pull himself up as Miss Mandis chopped at his thorax. He bellowed in pain, sliding off but clinging to the lid to stay afloat.

  “Not the lid!” Miss Mandis cried.

  But it was too late. The shaggai’s grip was strong. The lid popped off and water rushed to fill the void. Miss Mandis shrieked as her life raft capsized.

  “No!” she shouted. “Nooooo!”

  The two creatures clung to each other, as if together they might keep themselves from sinking, but it was no use. A wave swept over their heads, and they disappeared beneath the churning waters.

  Glenn swam over to help Robert. “Are you OK?”

  “I think so.”

  “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  The boys reached the far end of the field, dragged themselves up on the muddy shore, and then turned to study the wreckage. The water had finally stopped churning and settled to a state of calm. The new lake was enormous, spanning the entire soccer field. Thousands of bloated bugs bobbed on its surface.

  Beyond the lake, police officers and firefighters were emerging from the school, pointing their flashlights at the strange body of water that had mysteriously appeared behind Lovecraft Middle School. The boys ducked behind the trees and escaped into the woods. Robert lifted Pip and Squeak off his shoulder and carried them in the safety of his arms.

  Glenn studied the rats in disbelief.

  “They’re alive,” he said.

  “I knew you would be,” Robert whispered to his pets. “This whole time, I always knew you would be.” He scratched the backs of their necks, assuring them that everything was going to be all right, and both of his rats quietly chattered their teeth.

  TWENTY

  In the end, everything was blamed on the janitors.

  If they had been doing their jobs, people said, the insect population never would have exploded. The pool drain never would have malfunctioned. The soccer field never would have collapsed into a giant underground lake.

  And, most important, Howard Mergler and Miss Mandis never would have died.

  It was widely believed that the student council president and school nurse had somehow drowned in the flood, though their bodies had yet to be recovered. Professional scuba divers made several trips to the bottom of the lake, searching for human remains, to no avail. All they could find were thousands of dead insects and bug parts. In her official statement to the media, Principal Slater admitted, “We may never know the truth of what happened here.”

  In the days to come, life at Lovecraft Middle School gradually returned to normal. There were no more flies in the hallway; there were no more pill bugs in the cafeteria food. The winter weather made it impossible for any insects to survive for very long. Already the new lake on the soccer field was freezing over, and students were asking if it could be used for skating and ice hockey. Best of all, everyone’s hair was growing back—the Lovecraft lice epidemic had finally come to an end.

  On Friday night, one week after all the craziness ended, Robert sat down with his mother for dinner. They were having chicken tacos, Robert’s favorite.

  “So,” Mrs. Arthur asked, “how’s seventh grade treating you?”

  He smiled. “Fantastic.”

  “Really? What happened today?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Robert said. “I just went to class, listened to my teachers, and learned stuff.”

  Mrs. Arthur was surprised. “That sounds like a normal, regular day.”

  “Exactly,” he said. “It was terrific.”

  When his mother wasn’t looking, Robert broke a taco shell in his lap and pushed the pieces inside his pockets. Pip and Squeak loved taco shells. The rats had spent the past few days upstairs in his bedroom, snoozing in the cardboard box beneath Robert’s bed, and they were recuperating nicely. Their appetites had returned with a vengeance, and now they were eating twice their usual amounts. In a few more days, Robert guessed they would be begging him to go back to school.

  There was a knock at the front door, and Robert followed his mother to answer it.

  “Why, Glenn Torkells!” she exclaimed. “I was starting to worry I’d never see you again!”

  Glenn held out a plastic grocery bag. “I got you this,” he said. “I wanted to say thanks for sending over that ravioli last week.”

  “You brought me a present?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just something we had in the house.”

  Mrs. Arthur looked inside the bag. It contained hundreds of foil packets stamped with the words DUNWICH COSMETICS. “What are these? Shampoo samples?”

  “My dad gets them from work,” Glenn explained. “When they make the packets wrong—if they’re too full or not full enough—he gets to take home the defects.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Mrs. Arthur exclaimed. “Thank you, Glenn! I won’t have to buy shampoo for the rest of the year!” She insisted on giving him a hug. “Now please tell me you’re coming inside for dinner.”

  “Would that be OK?”

  “Of course it’s OK! You’re always welcome in our house, don’t you know that? I even made extra, because I had a hunch you might come by …”

  It was the strangest thing: Robert hadn’t said anything to his mother about Glenn’s problems at home, and yet she seemed to know exactly what Glenn needed to hear.

  Robert grabbed a clean plate from the dish rack, Mrs. Arthur set down some silverware, and soon the three of them were talking and laughing like old times. Glenn told a joke that made milk dribble out of Robert’s nose, and Mrs. Arthur didn’t even seem to mind.

  Since it was Friday night, they decided that Glenn would sleep over. The boys arranged some pillows and sleeping bags in the living room, and Mrs. Arthur alerted them to a terrific movie on one of the cable channels. “Night of the Critters starts in fifteen minutes,” she said. “It’s probably the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Giant bugs terrorize an entire city.”

  “It doesn’t sound that scary,” Robert yawned.

  “Sounds like a comedy,” Glenn said.

  The boys fixed themselves ice cream sodas and a huge bowl of popcorn. Soon afterward, Pip and Squeak came sneaking down the stairs, attracted by the smell of warm butter. Robert made a space for them under his sleeping bag, and he sneaked them popcorn throughout the movie.

  As the boys predicted, Night of the Critters wasn’t scary at all, and the special effects were terrible. The giant bugs looked like they were made of rubber, and the terrorized city looked like it was constructed from cardboard boxes. But Robert and Glenn enjoyed every minute, and they applauded when an army tank
shot down a giant bumblebee.

  “Boy, why didn’t we think of that?” Glenn asked.

  Mrs. Arthur was sitting behind them on the sofa, reading a romance novel. “Think of what?”

  “Never mind,” Robert said.

  The movie was halfway over when the telephone rang, and Mrs. Arthur went into the kitchen to answer it. Robert was immediately curious; their phone didn’t ring very often, especially on a Friday night. He turned down the volume on the TV and overheard his mother saying, “Of course! Hello! It’s nice to hear from you … Really? Oh, that’s great! Yes, of course, December first would be fine …” The conversation lasted only another minute, and Robert couldn’t make sense of it.

  But as soon as Mrs. Arthur hung up, she hurried into the living room. “I’ve got big news,” she said. “You boys are going to be so excited!”

  She looked happier than Robert had seen her in ages.

  “Did you win the lottery?” Glenn asked.

  “It’s better,” she said. “I’ve got a new job!”

  Robert was shocked. “What about the hospital?”

  “This is better than the hospital. The money’s better, the hours are better, I even get a paid summer vacation.” She raised both arms over her head in triumph. “You’re looking at the new head nurse of Lovecraft Middle School!”

  About the Author

  Charles Gilman is an alias of Jason Rekulak, an editor who lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Julie, and their children Sam and Anna. When he’s not dreaming up new tales of Lovecraft Middle School, he’s biking along the fetid banks of the Schuylkill River, in search of two-headed rats and other horrific beasts.

  About the Illustrator

  From an early age, Eugene Smith dreamed of drawing monsters, mayhem, and madness. Today, he is living the dream in Chicago, where he resides with his wife, Mary, and their daughters Audrey and Vivienne.

  Monstrous Thanks

  To all the hard-working folks at Quirk Books, Random House Publisher Services, and National Graphics. A special tip of the antennae goes to Jonathan Pushnik, Griffin Anderson and his parents, Ed and Heidi Milano, Julie Scott, and Mary Flack.

  LOVECRAFT MIDDLE SCHOOL

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  LovecraftMiddleSchool.com

  “Just five more m-m-minutes,” Robert Arthur said.

  “In five minutes we’ll be dead,” Glenn Torkells said. “We have to go now.”

  The outdoor temperature was barely twenty degrees. The boys were dressed in jeans and chorus robes but little else: no jackets, no hats, no gloves, no sneakers, no socks.

  And they were trapped on a narrow ledge outside Lovecraft Middle School, four stories above the ground.

  A freezing wind pinned them against the stone wall. Robert’s right hand had found a crack in the mortar, the smallest of handholds, and he wedged his fingers inside.

  “We can’t just stand here,” Glenn said.

  “Someone will s-s-see us,” Robert insisted. “We have to be pa-pa-patient.”

  Glenn looked down—all the way down—but didn’t see a single person. The boys were perched on the back wall of the school, high above the empty athletic fields. All of their classmates were indoors, attending a special Valentine’s Day concert in the auditorium.

  “This is our last chance,” Glenn said. “If we wait any longer, we’ll be too numb to move.”

  Robert worried the moment had already passed. His fingers and toes were tingling, as if all of his hands and feet had fallen asleep. Was it frostbite? Or hypothermia? Which was worse?

  “Let’s try yelling again,” he suggested.

  “It’s no use,” Glenn insisted.

  The boys had already screamed themselves hoarse, but Robert hadn’t given up. “J-j-just a few more tries,” he said. “It’ll warm us up.”

  So together they shouted Help! and Please! and Somebody! and Can anyone down there hear us?!? but it was hopeless. No one could hear them. Their cries were lost beneath the blustery winds.

  “We have to get to the balcony,” Glenn said. “It’s our only way out of this.”

  He was referring to the small railed patio on the side of the building. To reach it, the boys would need to follow the ledge around the corner of the school.

  “What about the roof?” Robert suggested. The top of the building was maddeningly close, just inches beyond their fingertips. “What if you gave me a boost?”

  Glenn shook his head. “I’ve seen you climb the ropes in gym class,” he said. “You’re not strong enough. Reaching the balcony is our only option.”

  “I won’t make it,” Robert said. “I’ll fall.”

  “You might fall. But if you stay here—if you do nothing—you’ll definitely fall. So what’s it gonna be?”

  Robert looked around for alternatives. At four stories high, the world seemed like it had turned to black and white; there wasn’t a trace of color anywhere in the sky. Just layers and layers of murky gray. The sun had vanished.

  “All right,” he decided. “Here goes nothing.”

  He eased his fingers from the crevasse and pressed both palms flat against the stones. Almost instantly, a fresh blast of wind whipped beneath his robe, blowing it up and over his head. Unable to see, Robert panicked. He reached out for Glenn, grabbing his shoulder, clinging to him until the wind settled down.

  “Take it easy,” Glenn said.

  “I can’t handle this,” Robert told him.

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I can’t. I was okay when Professor Goyle turned into a winged demon. When Sarah and Sylvia Price turned into snake-women. When Howard Mergler turned into a giant fly-faced bug monster. All that crazy stuff, I could handle. Heck, I even fought back. But this ledge? At this height? With this wind? This is too much.” Robert shook his head. “This is the worst.”

  For a few moments, neither boy said anything.

  And then a fluffy white speck twirled out of the sky and landed on the tip of Glenn’s nose.

  A snowflake.

  All around them, all at once, it was snowing.

  “Things could always be worse,” Glenn said.

  Some kids might have trouble understanding how two boys could find themselves trapped on a narrow ledge outside their school and forty feet off the ground.

  Of course, these same kids have probably never been trapped in their lockers by giant tentacled beasts. Or trapped in their bedrooms with boa constrictors. Or trapped underground with thousands of chirping and chattering insects.

  But for Robert Arthur and Glenn Torkells, these kinds of near-death experiences were all just a regular part of seventh grade.

  A few months earlier, the boys had discovered that Lovecraft Middle School was constructed from the recycled remains of Tillinghast Mansion—a crumbling estate that was once home to the mad physicist Crawford Tillinghast. Because of a botched experiment, the mansion still existed in a parallel dimension; Robert and Glenn could pass from the school to the mansion and back again through hidden portals called “gates.”

  The boys soon learned that Tillinghast was capturing teachers and students, placing their souls in ceramic urns, and then using their flesh and hair as disguises for an army of bizarre monsters. The school was slowly being infiltrated by demons, snake-people, giant insects, and other ancient creatures summoned from distant dimensions.

  Armed with this knowledge, Robert and Glenn went to school every day determined to stop Tillinghast and always expecting the worst. Yet nothing could have prepared them for the strange events of February fourteenth.

  The day began with an announcement from the principal inviting all students to a surprise Valentine’s Day concert by the music department. As Robert
followed his classmates into the auditorium, teachers gave out programs listing all the songs.

  Glenn read the titles aloud in disbelief. “‘Love Me Tender’? ‘Eternal Flame’? ‘You Are the Sunshine of My Life’?” He crumpled the program into a ball. “This is going to be torture!”

  “Well, don’t spoil it for the rest of us,” said Karina Ortiz. “Robert and I are looking forward to it.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Glenn said, laughing. “Robert hates Valentine’s Day even more than I do!”

  Robert just shrugged. A year ago, he would have agreed with Glenn that Valentine’s Day was a dumb holiday designed to sell overpriced chocolates. But since arriving in seventh grade—and meeting Karina—his feelings had changed. Karina loved Valentine’s Day and she was one of the coolest people Robert had ever met, so how bad could it really be?

  The kids found seats at the back of the auditorium, far from their classmates.

  “Well, I don’t care if you like it or not,” Karina continued. “I got you both presents, anyway.” She whistled for Robert’s pets, a two-headed rat named Pip and Squeak. They wriggled out of his backpack carrying two chocolate hearts wrapped in red foil. “One for each of you.”

  The rats crawled onto the armrest, passing out the gifts and happily chattering their teeth.

  “Thanks,” Robert said. “How did you get these?”

  “Second-floor vending machine,” she said. “Pip and Squeak fished them out for me.”

  Glenn studied his candy and discovered the rats had already taken a huge bite from it. He unwrapped the foil and ate the rest of the chocolate, anyway. “Isht preddy goot,” he said, chewing through the caramel center. “Thanks.”

  Robert and Glenn were the only ones who knew that Karina had been dead for thirty years and that her spirit was confined to the property of Lovecraft Middle School. She may have looked and acted like a regular seventh-grade girl, but in truth she couldn’t hold a pencil or even turn on a computer. That was why she did all of her holiday shopping from school vending machines, with a little assistance from a two-headed rat.