Tom Bites Back

by Steven Banks

  “Professor B, you should do a haunted house in here for Halloween!” said Zeke.

  I had to admit he was right. It looked exactly like a haunted house in one of the old black-and-white horror movies that Gram and I watch.

  “A haunted house?” said Professor B. “I need to find some ghosts, yah?”

  “Yeah!” said Zeke. “Have a séance or get a Ouija board!”

  Professor B did that creepy closed-mouth laugh again. “Well, as men of science, we know ghosts do not exist.”

  Zeke totally believed in ghosts. “They don’t?”

  “Ezekiel, my boy, think how many cell phones with the cameras there are in the world? Around seven billion. Why is there not one single authentic picture or video of a ghost?”

  Zeke scrunched his face up to think. “Well…maybe it’s because, like, you can’t take a picture of Tom, because he’s one-third vampire.”

  Professor B turned to look at me. “This is true?”

  I nodded.

  “Very interesting. We should do experiment about that. Maybe we win Nobel Prize, yah?”

  I thought about what Emma had said and did a fake smile.

  “Would you gentlemen like something to eat? A strudel? I know zombies have the ravenous appetite, yah?”

  “No, thanks,” I said. I made sure I’d eaten before we came over.

  “Come. We go to laboratory,” said Professor B as he padded down the long, dark hallway. “Do you have idea for project?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Ideas can come at any time. Sometimes, in middle of night, I get idea and go to lab and work.”

  We stopped at a door that had a big lock on it. “Here we are.”

  “Do you have, like, top secret, dangerous stuff in your lab?” asked Zeke.

  Professor B smiled. “We shall see.”

  He unlocked the door with a key he had on a string around his neck. We followed him down some wooden stairs that were even creakier than the front door, to the dark basement.

  “Be careful,” he said. “I wouldn’t want you to have…an accident.”

  Why did he say that?

  What kind of accident?

  Was he going to tell our parents that we tripped going down the stairs? And accidentally fell into a vat of acid he had left open by mistake? And dissolved, and that’s why we disappeared? Then he could turn us into robots!

  “Hey, T-Man,” said Zeke, pointing at a shovel hanging on the wall. “That’s the shovel we saw Professor B use when he was burying something in his backyard the night we tried your night vision for the first time.”

  Why did Zeke have to say that out loud?

  Professor B looked sad. “Yah. I had to bury my dear Gretchen.”

  Who was Gretchen?

  His wife? His mother? His sister? His girlfriend? I’d never seen anybody at his house. Had he murdered Gretchen and buried her in his backyard?

  “She was my precious kitty cat,” he said.

  I felt a little bit better.

  Then, he switched on a light.

  It was a big room with cement floors and walls. In the middle, under a hanging light bulb, was a long, white, metal table, like they do autopsies on. Along one wall there were shelves with glass test tubes and beakers and weird machines with knobs and dials and a really old computer.

  It looked like your basic mad scientist’s laboratory. The kind where you take brains out of people and reanimate corpses and put animal heads on people’s bodies and turn kids into robots.

  “This is excellent!” said Zeke.

  I was worried he was going to start doing jumping jacks, but he didn’t.

  Professor Beiersdorfer gestured to piles of books and stacks of papers scattered around.

  “Please excuse the mess.” Then he tapped the side of his head with his finger. “But the real mess is up here.”

  Did that mean he was crazy? Or he just had a messy brain?

  He pulled a book down from a shelf, blew off some dust, and started flipping through the pages.

  “Let us see now. What is the good science project? Something with acid?…Nitroglycerin?…Volcanoes?”

  I looked across the room and saw a shelf that had little cages with animals in them. I could hear them moving. I walked over to the cages to get a better look. He had a black hamster, a brown guinea pig—and a mouse who looked very familiar.

  “Terrence?”

  22.

  The Reunion

  The mouse looked up at me. It was Terrence. I could tell he recognized me because he started shaking and backed away to the corner of his cage.

  “Where’d you get your mouse, Professor?” I asked.

  “Otto? Very interesting story. I was taking the trash out. I look down. There is Otto. On the curb. Shaking. Quivering. Why? I do not know.”

  I knew. I’d swallowed him and then thrown him up. I’d be shaking and quivering too. I didn’t say anything. Terrence was much better off living here. His cage was clean, he had plenty of food and water, and nobody was going to try to eat him again. And Otto was a much better name than Terrence.

  Just to be safe, I asked, “You’re not doing any experiments where you try to make these animals giant, are you?”

  Professor Beiersdorfer chuckled. “Like Godzilla?” He shook his head. “No. No monsters. And no experiments. They are my friends. They keep me company while I work.”

  I was glad to hear that.

  “So, Thomas,” said Professor B. “How are you coping with your…condition?”

  “Fine.”

  That’s what I usually say when people ask me how I am. It’s the best thing to say to adults, otherwise you might get in a long, boring conversation.

  “I told Tom that he should be our science project,” said Zeke, for the millionth time.

  Professor B nodded. “You would be very interesting project.”

  “See! I told you!” said Zeke.

  “Have you transformed yet, Thomas? Made yourself into the bat? Tried to fly?”

  I could see Zeke, behind Professor B, mouthing the word: Yes! Yes! Yes!

  “I tried,” I said. That was the truth. I didn’t have to tell him I succeeded.

  Professor B sighed. “To fly would be…wunderbar.”

  Zeke went over to a long, narrow, wooden box in the corner.

  “Is this a coffin?”

  Professor B chuckled. “No. It is seismograph. For recording earthquake activity. I show you.”

  I knew Zeke wished it was a coffin. Professor B opened the lid, which also creaked, and showed Zeke how it worked. I saw a notebook on the shelf next to Terrence’s cage. I figured it must be notes on one of his experiments. I leaned over to read it. Since it was open, I wasn’t technically spying.

  Dear Diary,

  Robot experiment XL-5.

  Today I will try to turn a boy into a robot. It can work! It must work! No one can stop me! I just need two boys to start! Maybe some kids from the neighborhood will do?

  For the first time in her life Emma was right. Professor Beiersdorfer really was a mad scientist and he wanted to turn kids into robots.

  “Zeke!” I shouted, moving toward the stairs. “I-I forgot something! We gotta go!”

  “What? We do? Why?”

  “We gotta go to…to…uh—that thing!”

  “What thing?” Zeke just stood there. He never stands in one place, but today, for some reason, he did.

  “The party!” I said.

  “What party?”

  “Uh…Tanner Gantt’s birthday party! Come on!”

  “Tanner Gantt is having a birthday party?”

  Zeke was even more confused than usual. Tanner Gantt would never invite us to his birthday party. But it was the first thing I thought of and luckily, Zeke believes a
lmost everything I tell him.

  “You must go?” asked Professor B. “So soon?”

  “Yeah! Sorry! Come on, Zeke! Hurry up!”

  Zeke has never moved slower in his life than he did walking toward the stairs.

  “T-Man, that’s so weird that Tanner Gantt invited us. I hope they have ice cream cake.”

  “What about science project?” said Professor B, standing by the wooden box that probably was a coffin.

  “Oh, yeah, uh, I forgot,” I said. “I already made a project.”

  “You did?” said Zeke.

  “What is it?” asked Professor Beiersdorfer.

  “It’s…uh…called ‘Can Ants Escape from an Ant Farm?’ ”

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to do that?” said Zeke as I pushed him up the creaky stairs.

  “I changed my mind!”

  “Excellent!”

  “Thanks anyway, Professor B!” I said at the top of the stairs.

  I pushed Zeke down the dark hall and out the creaky front door. We ran across the street to my house. When we got inside, I slammed the door shut.

  “Don’t slam the door!” yelled Dad from somewhere.

  “Sorry!” I yelled back.

  Zeke and I leaned against the front door and caught our breath.

  “T-Man…what are we…gonna get…Tanner Gantt…for his birthday?”

  “Zeke…there’s no…birthday party.”

  “There isn’t? Aw, man.”

  He was disappointed, like I knew he would be. I told him about what I read in Professor B’s notebook.

  “He really wants to turn us into robots?!” said Zeke.

  “Yeah. Emma was right.”

  “A robot army would be awesome!”

  “Not if we’re the robot army!”

  “But what if we were, like, cool robots, that could shoot fire from our eyes and rockets from our mouths and fly?”

  “Zeke, we don’t want to be robots!”

  “Yeah, I guess. Should we call the police, T-Man?”

  “They wouldn’t believe us. We’d have to show them the notebook.”

  “We gotta steal it,” said Zeke. “To prove it.”

  “How are we going to get into his lab?”

  “You can turn into a bat, sneak inside, and get it!”

  Sometimes I forget I can do stuff like that.

  “Mom, can Zeke spend the night?”

  She looked up from the old dollhouse she was painting in the garage.

  “If it’s okay with his mom, it’s okay with me.”

  I grabbed a pair of binoculars from the shelf.

  “Who are you going to spy on?” she said suspiciously.

  “Nobody. It’s for a school assignment.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  As long as you say something is for school, you can pretty much get your parents to let you use anything.

  * * *

  From my bedroom window we had a perfect view of Professor B’s house. Zeke watched him through the binoculars.

  “Suspect is in his living room, T-Man, sitting in a chair, reading a book.”

  “I know, Zeke, I can see him. I have night vision.”

  “Copy that, T-Man!”

  “Can you see what book he’s reading?”

  “Negative. It’s probably How to Make Kids into Robots— Wait! I can see it. Suspect is reading…I don’t know. The title’s in German, I think.”

  I looked through the binoculars: Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik.

  We translated it on my computer. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

  We looked at each other.

  “Why’s he reading that?” asked Zeke.

  “I don’t know…. That’s bizarre.”

  “Do you have any chocolate up here, T-Man?”

  “No.”

  “Does Emma?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does your mom have some in the kitchen?”

  “Focus, Zeke!”

  * * *

  We pretended to be asleep at eleven o’clock, when my mom checked on us. I’m good at doing that, but Zeke does the worst fake snore ever.

  “Nice snoring, Zeke,” said my mom.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Marks!” said Zeke, from his sleeping bag on the floor.

  “Don’t stay up too late.” She closed the door.

  We went back to the window. At eleven fifteen, Professor B yawned, closed his book, and went upstairs. The light went on in his bedroom. Thankfully he went into the bathroom to get into his pajamas. Then he got into bed, and turned out the light.

  Zeke lowered the binoculars and turned to me. “Commence Operation: Steal Notebook.”

  23.

  Code Red

  As we went downstairs and snuck out the back door, Zeke started singing.

  “Da, da, dum-dum! Da, da, dum-dum! Da—”

  “What are you doing?!”

  “It’s our spy theme song”

  “Zeke, real spies don’t sing theme songs.”

  “I know. But in movies they always have cool music.”

  “Just be quiet.”

  “Okay, T-Man,” he said as we crossed the street to Professor B’s house.

  “Did you make up that song?”

  “Yeah.”

  I have to admit, it was a pretty good spy song.

  First, we had to figure out how to get in. We walked around the whole house, but all the windows were shut tight.

  “How are you going to get in, Bat-Tom? Chimney? Air vent?”

  I looked at the front door.

  “Mail slot.”

  We quietly crept up to the front porch, and Zeke lifted up the mail slot in the front door.

  “I’ll go in, go down to the lab, and get the notebook,” I said. “Then, I’ll open a window and pass it out to you.”

  Zeke saluted.

  I made sure no one was watching us and said, “Turn to bat. Bat, I shall be.”

  I turned into a bat, slipped in through the mail slot, and landed on the floor. The hallway looked even scarier at night with all the dark shadows.

  “Good luck, Bat-Tom,” said Zeke, peeking through the mail slot. “I’ll keep an eye on the suspect from the front lawn. Over and out!”

  I flew down the hallway to the locked lab. I had to squeeze in under the door. It was tight, but I made it.

  I hopped down the stairs. The basement lab was like the set of a horror movie, especially with my black-and-white night vision. You’d think because I’m a monster—well, technically three monsters—that stuff like that wouldn’t be scary. I have to admit it was.

  “Turn to human. Human, I shall be.”

  I walked over to the shelf where I’d seen the notebook, by Terrence’s cage. He was asleep and so was the guinea pig. The hamster was awake, watching me.

  The notebook wasn’t there.

  Had Professor B hidden it?

  Destroyed it?

  Locked it up in a safe?

  If we couldn’t get the notebook, people would think we were crazy. I looked on the other shelves and tables, but it was nowhere. I was about to give up when I saw the long seismograph box that maybe was a coffin. The notebook was on top.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  I turned around and saw Zeke banging on the window.

  “Bat-Tom! Code Red! Repeat: Code Red! Suspect is awake and on the move! This is not a drill!”

  I heard Professor B’s footsteps right above me. He went down the hallway and stopped at the door to the lab. Then a key turned in the lock, and the door at the top of the stairs opened. He was coming down.

  “Turn to bat! Bat, I shall be!” I whispered.

  I flew over to the shelf and landed between Terrence’s and the guinea pig�
��s cages. Terrence woke up, saw me, and started making those loud, high-pitched mouse noises.

  “Terrence! Shh! Shut up!”

  I wished Emma had trained him. Can you train mice?

  The light went on and Professor B came down the creaky stairs. He was whistling. It was one of those creepy nursery-rhyme songs that you hear in scary movies just before somebody gets killed.

  Terrence, The World’s Nosiest Mouse, kept squeaking and freaking out. The guinea pig and hamster didn’t make a sound.

  “Otto?” said Professor B when he got to the bottom of the stairs.

  He was walking right toward me, so I slid behind the guinea pig’s cage, against the wall where it was dark, and hoped he wouldn’t see me.

  Professor B bent down and looked in Otto’s cage.

  “Otto? What is wrong, Liebling?”

  I figured I had two options:

  Stay hidden and hope he didn’t see me.

  Fly out across the lab, up the stairs, down the hallway, and out through the mail slot. Hopefully, he’d think I was a real bat that had gotten into his basement.

  I went with #1. I curled myself up into the tiniest ball I could, wrapping my wings around me. I squeezed my big bat eyes shut, so he wouldn’t see them. Why was he down here? He must have had some stupid scientific idea.

  Then, I felt a warm hand wrap around me.

  “Hello, little bat,” Professor B said, picking me up.

  I tried to wriggle away, but I couldn’t get out. This is what Martha Livingston must have felt when I grabbed her.

  “How did you get in here? You must be smart bat, yah?”

  Should I bite him? No. Then he might turn into a vampire if our blood accidentally mixed together.

  Should I talk and tell him who I was? No. He might get mad because I’d snuck into his house.

  “I think I keep you a little while. Study you for a few days.”