The Word Eater (10 page)

With his dazzling smile, Mr. Mack was answering the questions of Ms. Ferret, the FBI official, as they finished the tour of the “Mack Technical School.”

Suddenly, he stopped. A little shiver went up his spine and tingled his brain. He gasped.

“Something wrong?” asked Ms. Ferret. She was a petite, unsmiling woman wearing a wrinkled khaki suit and dark green sunglasses.

Mr. Mack blinked. What had just happened? It felt as if his brain had gone a little numb. He couldn't explain it.

Ms. Ferret continued with her questions. “How does the Attacka method work?”

“I—I don't know.”

“Your advertisements say it's top secret. But this is the FBI you're talking to, Mr. Mack. Besides, it may help with the thumbtack investigation.”

Archibald Mack racked his brains. He knew that he was the creator of the secret Attacka method. But what was the secret? He couldn't remember.

“Do you have something to hide, Mr. Mack?”

The investigator's voice snapped him to attention. He did have something to hide. Those children that Ms. Ferret had just seen writing “Frio Re Bampas” were his workers. If the FBI discovered that, they'd throw him in jail. He had
to concentrate. He had to avoid any more questions and get rid of her.

“Well, thank you for flying to the island. I'm so glad you had the chance to see my school in session. Of course, I didn't need to start a school. But the local school is poor. And I adore children.” He smiled and escorted her out. “Please call if you have any more questions, my dear.”

At the word
dear
, a vein popped out on Ms. Ferret's temple. “The name is Ferret.”

They walked out, and Ms. Ferret stopped short. She stared at the large holding pen for outgoing dogs that stood to the right of the main gate. Twenty cute terriers were playing and wagging their tails inside the pen.

“Isn't that odd? Those same dogs growled at me on my way in,” Ms. Ferret said. “Aren't they always vicious?”

Mr. Mack stared. Those were the dogs that were ready to be shipped out. Yet, it looked as if they hadn't been trained!

If the thumbtacks and the Attackaterriers were gone, then he had nothing! Well . . . at least he still had the children to work for him, he thought. As soon as this bag of sand named Ms. Ferret was gone, he'd make the children work harder.

Ms. Ferret said good-bye and zoomed off in her rental car. After driving a mile or so, she
picked up the car phone and called FBI headquarters. “I don't have any news about thumbtacks, but I think there's a deeper mystery here. I copied down a clue from the classroom.” She held up her notebook.
“Frio Re Bampas
. Can you ask our translator to tell me what it means? I have a feeling it doesn't mean ‘See Spot Run.' ”

Lucia popped up from her hiding place in the backseat. “That's Bellitan. It means: Free the Children!”

Lerner waited until the hallways were quiet, then she hurried to her locker. Keeping Fip in her locker seemed less risky than carrying him around. She couldn't wait to find out if anything happened with Attackaterriers. Although late for class, she stopped at the pay phone and called Kenneth's Kennel.

“I'm interested in Attackaterriers,” she said. “Do you have any for sale?”

There was a pause on the end of the line. “Well, I gotta lotta terriers. Cute dogs. Nice pets.”

“You have no Attackaterriers, but you have terriers?”

“Yeah. I did have Attackaterriers. But somehow they . . . well, changed.”

“How could that be?”

“I gotta admit, I'm stumped,” Kenneth said.

Lerner hung up. Ha! Fip took the Attacka out of Attackaterriers!

By the time she got to class, Mr. Droan was already taking roll. Bobby Nitz ran in, breathless, just after Mr. Droan had closed his grade book.

“Ah. The guest of honor arrives,” Mr. Droan said. “So glad you're joining us, Nitz.”

Bobby slid into his seat.

Oh, go pick on someone your own size, Mr. Droan, Lerner said to herself, or I'll have Fip eat your grade book.

“As you people know, I gave you all detentions until the return of the photosynthesis exams,” Mr. Droan began. “Well, there seems to be a development.”

Reba and Randy grinned at each other.

Mr. Droan pulled a note from his desk drawer. “I found this on my desk this morning. It reads: ‘Look for the tests in Nitz's locker. Signed, Anonymous.' ”

“That's a lie!” Bobby shouted.

The room hushed.

“Well, if you didn't do it, then you won't mind if we search your locker.”

“Be my guest.”

Mr. Droan smirked. “I already did!” He heaved a stack of tests onto his desk.

Bobby was so shocked, he couldn't even protest.

“Looks like the mystery is solved,” Mr. Droan said. “Bobby, you're going to the principal's office.”

Lerner caught Reba smiling at Randy and realized that they had framed him. They had reproduced the tests, which was easy to do because they were sample tests from the book. Then they put them in Bobby's locker.

The joy she had felt in taking the Attacka out of Attackaterriers evaporated. She was the one who had deleted the tests, and now Bobby was getting framed for it. The right thing to do would be to speak up now. But if she told the truth, then she'd get into more trouble. And what would happen to Fip? She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

“I'm escorting Bobby to Mrs. Norker's office,” Mr. Droan said. “Nobody move a muscle until I get back.”

As soon as they were gone, the class erupted.

“You put those tests in Bobby's locker, didn't you?” Lerner yelled at Reba. “That's what you were plotting yesterday after school and this morning on the bus?”

Reba grinned. “I have no idea what you're talking about. But isn't it excellent?”

“You SLUGs should be happy,” Randy said. “Now we don't have after-school detention.”

“She's not happy,” Reba teased, “because she's in love with Nitz.”

Lerner reddened. “I am not! I just don't think somebody should get in trouble for something he didn't do.”

Reba stuck her chest out. “And how do you know he didn't do it?”

That shut Lerner up.

“Drop it, Reba,” Sharmaine said. “The only person who is in love with anybody is you. You're in love with yourself.”

“Ha. Ha. Ha,” Reba said. Her glare practically set Sharmaine's hair on fire.

Lerner tried to calm down and think things through. It was all so complicated. She should never have messed with the tests or the vending machine or Ripper. Why had they all seemed like such good ideas? She needed time to think. She decided to get Fip and ditch school. She'd walk over to Ellsworth Park and spend the rest of the day alone. She grabbed her backpack and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Reba asked.

“None of your business.”

Winny the SLUG called after her. “But Mr. Droan said not to move a muscle!”

Lerner ran back to her locker. With a pounding heart, she opened her locker door—now she was going to add skipping classes to her list of sins—only to discover that Fip's bottle was gone. Lerner choked back a scream and pulled out every book and paper. Her experiment notebook was gone, too.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Was it Mr. Droan?

It was Principal Norker marching Bobby down the hall. Mr. Droan was probably headed back to his classroom. He'd find out in a minute that she was gone.

Lerner and Bobby caught eyes. And a guilty expression crossed his face. In that instant Lerner realized that he knew why she was rummaging through her locker. He knew that Fip was gone! That meant that he must have taken him! He must have done it right after she put him in, right before they both showed up late to Droan's class. He wanted Fip for himself!

“Clean up this mess and get back to class,” Mrs. Norker scolded.

Lerner clenched her teeth and tried to catch Bobby's eye again, but he wouldn't look.

Mrs. Norker led Bobby down the hall. “Bobby, you'll serve your suspension in the library until your parents arrive to pick you up.”

Lerner stuffed everything back in her locker, trying to figure out what to do next. How much did Bobby know about Fip? Even if he didn't know how the magic worked, he could do something horrible by accident. He could let Fip crawl around on the phone book and eat Washington, D.C., into oblivion, person by person. She had to get Fip back before anything happened.

Bobby sat in the back carrel of the library. He took the bottle out of his backpack, set it down
in front of him, and wiped his sweating palms on his jeans. His chest tightened with panic. He had the creature. He had the power. Now all he needed was the guts to use it.

He pulled a memo out of his back pocket. He had taken it from Norker's office when she wasn't looking because the name on the memo—Mr. Markus Droan—had caught his eye. Markus Droan. It looked like fine worm food to Bobby. He spread the memo out on the desk. Why should he care about anybody? Everybody thought he was always to blame, so he might as well do something really horrible.

With trembling fingers, he placed the worm on the letter
M
.

Fip stalled, sniffing at the ink. Something about this boy's vibration felt wrong. Where was the girl? He knew from experience that strange things happened when he ate. Now, this boy
wanted to feed him. That was suspicious. Well, he wouldn't eat a smatch! Not until Lerner came back. Nobody could force him to eat.

“Do it!” the boy hissed, and poor Fip jumped. What if the boy got so angry, he squashed him? Fip sniffed the letter
M
again. Maybe it wasn't a bad idea to eat just a little.

Lerner ran down the hallway. Outside the library door, she collided with Mr. Droan.

“Ms. Chanse, why aren't you in class?”

“It's an emergency!” She plowed in ahead of him.

Bobby's untied sneakers stuck out from under her favorite carrel.

“Bobby!” she hissed.

“Go away,” he whispered and hunched over the carrel.

Lerner got a glimpse of a piece of paper. “Let me see.” She pushed his arm away. Fip was eating Markus Droan!

“Ms. Chanse, come back here right now!” Mr. Droan called out.

The handful of other students in the library looked up.

“Bobby, stop!” She tried pulling him out of his seat.

“You did it to Ripper,” Bobby said.

Mrs. Popocheskovich started walking toward them.

Lerner ducked behind Bobby's carrel. “I was terribly wrong. I shouldn't have. Bobby, you can't delete a human being!”

“Don't stop me! I hate Droan. He makes me feel like dirt,” Bobby yelled and pushed her away from his desk. She fell against a table and knocked a globe to the floor.

“Cookies, stop this . . . ,” Mrs. Popocheskovich's voice trailed off.

Lerner and Bobby both looked up. Mr. Droan's body was shimmering, as if he were made of a million tiny parts and each part was beginning to head off in a different direction. His eyes shifted to the right; his mouth shifted to the left. “Onnne more word and you twooooo are out,” he said in a wavering voice. Then he put his hand to his throat and said, “Doess my voiccce sound strannnge?”

No one in the library moved or spoke. The horrible sight of a living human being disappearing before his eyes sobered Bobby. He lunged for the paper. “Okay, I'll stop.”

“Wait!” said Lerner, and grabbed his hand. “The only thing to do now is to let him keep eating. If we let him eat the phrase, ‘Markus Droan's suitable proposal,' then the proposal will disappear, not Mr. Droan.” She leaned in toward Fip and whispered, “Come on, Fip, eat some more!”

Fip moved over to the apostrophe and sucked it up.

The teacher was walking toward them, undulating with each step like a walking anemone. “Dooo yoooou waaant a detennnntion, toooooo, Ms. Chansssse?” he said.

“Markus.” Mrs. Popocheskovich moved toward Mr. Droan uncertainly, extending her hand.

Fip ate the “suit” of
suitable
, then twisted up with a horrible gizzard ache.

Bobby looked at Lerner, and Lerner looked at Bobby. Fip had eaten the words:
Markus Droan's suit!
They looked at Mr. Droan. The teacher's body solidified, but his suit was shimmering.

“What the devil—” Mr. Droan looked down.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

The hair on Mr. Droan's arm's prickled. He felt a rush of cool wind around his legs. He looked down and his eyebrows jumped up. There he was in his striped boxer shorts. His suit had disappeared!

Mr. Mack was perched at his office window when a swarm of cars approached the Mack Industries gate. Children and puppies poured out of the thumbtack factory and the Attackaterrier training facility.

Ms. Ferret got out of the leading car and put a megaphone to her mouth.