Instantly an amazing plan sprouted in Bruno’s fertile mind, one he was later to call his “glorious idea.”
He was still in bed when Elmer came in at four o’clock. “Are you still sick?” his roommate asked solicitously.
“Sort of,” Bruno answered, touched by Elmer’s concern and a little ashamed of his earlier thoughts and plans.
“Gee, that’s swell!” Elmer rummaged through a large crate which stood beside his desk and produced a high-magnification microscope and a box of glass slides. “I’d like to study your germs,” he explained. “Would you mind coughing on this slide?”
“Yes, I would mind very much,” Bruno growled. “Why?”
“I’m a microbiologist,” Elmer answered. “My world is the microbe world.”
“I always thought you were very small, Elmer,” said Bruno wearily. “Go away.”
Elmer mumbled something about lack of cooperation and reluctantly put away his equipment.
“Oh, don’t take it so hard, Elmer,” Bruno reassured him. “Maybe some day I’ll catch something really good and then I’ll let you culture it.”
“Really and truly?” Elmer asked hopefully.
“Really and truly,” replied Bruno, “I promise to do my very best to get some terrible disease.”
He watched as his roommate made the rounds of his experiments. Carefully and lovingly Elmer restarted the plant experiment and shut the bottom drawer of the dresser, reminding Bruno that he had only a hundred and forty-four more hours to live out of his suitcase. The ants had completed an entire new tunnel, and he rewarded them with a spoonful of sugar. Everything was going along swimmingly in the bathtub, although no fry had hatched yet; but the fish tank was not quite so serene.
“My algae eater!” Elmer exclaimed. “He’s dead!”
“Maybe it was something he ate,” Bruno suggested. “Look how sick I got from having breakfast.”
“Have you been near this tank?” Elmer asked suspiciously.
“I haven’t even looked in its direction,” Bruno defended himself. “Fish are not my idea of a good time — unless they’re dipped in batter and served with french fries.”
“I guess I cleaned the tank too thoroughly,” Elmer decided, “and didn’t leave him enough food. Poor devil,”
Bruno rolled over, turned his face to the wall and switched on his portable radio. “No, no!” Elmer cried.
“What now?”
“Turn that off this instant! The noise is bad for my plants!”
“Your plants are closed up in the drawer!” Bruno yelled. “They can’t even hear it!”
“Not those plants — these plants.” Elmer swept open the curtains to reveal a triple row of pots on the window sill.
“I see,” sighed Bruno, and switched off his radio — more determined than ever that Elmer had to go.
* * *
When Boots returned from classes he found George on his hands and knees washing the room with alcohol.
“Good, you’re back,” said George. “Watch carefully, please. Next week it will be your turn for sterilizing duty. It has to be done every second day.”
“What do you wash?” Boots asked in amazement, wrinkling his nose from the strong odour.
“Everything,” George replied.
“Ceiling? Walls?” asked Boots. “Furniture?”
“And everything else,” George added.
“What happens if I want to smoke in this fire trap?”
“Smoke?” George cried. “Smoking is hazardous to your health! I absolutely forbid it! Besides, it’s against the rules. You wouldn’t dare.”
Boots, who had never smoked in his life, thought of taking it up just to irritate George. “All right,” he said when his anger had cooled. “Your idea of sterilizing the room is terrific. You do it.” He strode to the window and threw it wide, stifling George’s cry of protest with a look that would have melted steel. “It stinks in here,” he said bluntly, and sat down at his desk to do his homework.
After a while George said, “May I please shut the window? It’s getting very chilly.”
Boots, who was freezing but not ready to admit it, replied, “Certainly. I wouldn’t want you to catch pneumonia.”
That was the end of their conversation for the rest of the evening.
* * *
Boots arrived at the cannon ten minutes early, to find Bruno already there. “All right, Bruno, this is it!” he declared. “Either you come up with an idea tonight or I go A.W.O.L.! The Third is driving me nuts!” He proceeded to describe in detail the fine points of sterilizing duty. “And this morning when I sneezed — you know how I sneeze when I wake up — he sprayed the room and put a quarantine screen up to isolate me. I just can’t stand any more!”
“Shh! Stop yelling,” Bruno whispered. “The old Walton brain came through. I have developed a glorious idea. Are you with me?”
“I’ll do anything!” Boots vowed. “Tell me.”
Bruno left the cover of the bushes to retrieve their bag of food from the cannon. They sat down together and began to chew on some dried-out bread.
“It’s really very simple,” Bruno said. “George and Elmer don’t like us very much. But what if they hated us? I mean really hated us — enough to go to The Fish and complain about us?”
“What good would that do?” Boots protested. “We’d just get into more trouble.”
“Now stop and think,” said Bruno. “The Fish is punishing us, not them. They’re the two best little boys in the whole school. If they demand to be rid of us, The Fish is bound to give in. And where does that leave us?”
“Chained to the office wall, probably,” Boots muttered.
“Well, have you got a better idea?” Bruno demanded.
“No,” Boots admitted glumly.
“Well then, this is it — starting tomorrow we make ourselves so obnoxious that good old George and sweet little Elmer will run screaming to The Fish to complain.”
Chapter 5
You Keep Ants?
Once again Elmer’s alarm went off with an ear-splitting shrill at 6 A.M. He rose promptly and began to dress, vaguely aware that something was not quite right. He puzzled over the odd feeling, but continued to get dressed.
“My ants!” he cried suddenly. “My ants are gone!”
Elmer stared at Bruno’s bed. It was empty. It did not take him long to realize that Bruno’s absence and the ants’ disappearance were somehow related. He threw the door open and bolted into the hall.
About three doors away, Bruno was hurrying along with the large glass aquarium that contained Elmer’s ant colony.
“What are you doing?” Elmer shrieked.
“Haven’t you ever seen Born Free?” Bruno replied. “These poor creatures are in captivity. They deserve to be free.”
“No!”
The racket was beginning to penetrate into the other rooms. Scrambling noises and cries of, “Hey, pipe down!” and “What the heck is going on out there?” could be heard all along the corridor.
“Freedom is their right,” Bruno continued solemnly. “Go, go, little ants. The wide world awaits you.” On that note, he dumped the contents of the aquarium onto the floor.
Elmer’s face wrinkled up like that of a baby about to bawl. If Bruno hadn’t been sure that he was doing something absolutely necessary, he would have felt terribly guilty.
Suddenly the door of room 205 burst open and hit the mess on the floor. Sand and ants flew all over the hall. Elmer let out a piercing scream.
“What did I do? What did I do?” asked Perry Elbert. “I just came out to see what was going on!”
“I’m going to see Mr. Sturgeon!” Elmer raged.
Perry was dumbfounded. “Please don’t,” he pleaded. “I didn’t mean to open the door!”
From room 203 a shoe came flying into the hall. “Shut up out there!” yelled a voice. “It’s only six-thirty!”
“They’re getting away!” Elmer wailed. It was true. Ants were scurrying in ev
ery direction.
“What’s going on?” asked a sleepy voice from 211.
“Stampede!” Bruno yelled. By this time he was enjoying himself immensely.
“All I did was open the door …” Perry kept insisting.
More doors opened. In seconds every boy in Dormitory 2 was milling around in the general confusion. The hubbub was broken by Elmer’s half-crazed voice. “Everyone stop!” he commanded. “Don’t move! You’ll step on my ants!”
“You keep ants?” echoed a dozen voices.
“He’s an entomologist,” Bruno intoned. “His world is the insect world.”
“Help me!” Elmer pleaded. “Help me get them back into the aquarium!”
“Born free,” sang Bruno, “as free as the wind blows …”
In a short time a gang of pyjama-clad boys were crawling around the halls after Elmer’s ants, using water glasses, toothbrush containers and even test tubes to collect them in.
“Elmer, Elmer, here’s three!”
“We’ve uncovered a whole bunch of them under the radiator!”
“Here, Elmer, here’s nine or ten.”
“Elmer, Elmer, there’s a crack in the floor and they’re going in there by the hundreds!”
“Be careful, stupid, you just stepped on one!”
“Elmer, about fifty have run up the wall and they’re going out the window!”
“Yecch!”
“Report nine dead in room 213. Arthur has a chameleon and he’s eating them!”
“Who’s clumsy? You stepped on three!”
When the dust settled, about fifty ants were present and accounted for; another thirty were proven dead. The rest, some five hundred and twenty, were still at large.
As the boys settled back to normal and began to dress for breakfast, Perry walked over to Elmer. “I only opened the door,” he implored. “I don’t even understand the bit about the ants.”
* * *
At 7:30 that same morning Boots was writing to his mother. George was still asleep.
Dear Mom, Boots scribbled. How are you? I’m fine. He hated writing letters, but his parents expected to hear from him once a week. Everything is okay. I have a new roommate. He is rich and a crackpot, but with him I will never get sick. Your loving son, Melvin.
Boots watched George intently for a few seconds to be sure he was sound asleep. Then, on tiptoe, he approached the only shelf in the room that was not filled with medicines. Carefully he took down the book marked MINT STAMPS — CANADA and opened it up. A set of Queen Victoria 1886 definitives caught his eye. He removed a few different types of stamps and left the book open on George’s desk. After neatly arranging a few coins on the open page, he stuck the stamps on the envelope and mailed the letter on his way to breakfast. He had never felt so rotten in his whole life.
Boots joined his friends in the dining room, hoping the company would help him forget what he had just done. But he didn’t take part in their chatter; instead he sat wondering about Bruno’s first attack on Elmer. Bruno can’t possibly be putting Elmer through what George is going to suffer, he decided.
Just then the peace and quiet of the dining room was shattered by the half-demented voice of George Wexford-Smyth III. “Where is he?”
George charged into the dining hall in his pyjamas; Boots dropped his fork with a clatter. “AHA! There you are!” George screamed. “You dirty rotten cad! Where are my stamps?”
“I borrowed some to mail a letter,” Boots replied offhandedly, trying to keep cool.
“You stuck them on a letter?” George cried. “You’ve ruined them!”
“What’s all the fuss about?” Boots asked. “I left you seventeen cents.”
“Seventeen cents!” George’s face grew purple. “Those three stamps are worth three hundred and fifty dollars!”
Boots pretended to be astonished. “Three hundred and fifty dollars?” he scoffed. “They added up to less then a buck.” He spoke with amazing nonchalance.
Growling something about seeing the Headmaster, George Wexford-Smyth III wheeled and tore out of the dining room.
* * *
Bruno smiled when he received the summons from Mr. Sturgeon. His plan was obviously right on schedule. He was still humming Born Free as he walked to the office. Mrs. Davis greeted him with her usual sympathetic smile and sent him right in.
Mr. Sturgeon was waiting for him. So was Elmer Drimsdale. Elmer’s face wore a smug now-you’re-going-to-get-it expression.
“You are familiar with the bench, Walton,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “Sit down, please.” Bruno sat down on the hard wooden bench, noting that Elmer was comfortably established in the padded visitor’s chair. “Drimsdale tells me that you have destroyed his valuable ant colony. Is that true?”
“Well, I guess so, sir,” Bruno answered. “You see, I was trying to set them free. All my life I’ve hated circuses and zoos … anywhere animals are held in captivity.”
“Those are very fine feelings,” said the Headmaster, “but they are your own. The ant colony, however, was not your own: it was Drimsdale’s. I think you owe him an apology.”
“I’m sorry, Elmer,” Bruno said readily.
Elmer did not reply.
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “And now I think you owe him something else.”
Bruno waited silently. Mr. Sturgeon leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers together. “Drimsdale, how many ants did you have in that colony?”
“Six hundred, sir,” Elmer answered. “And now I’ve got fifty.”
“Walton,” said Mr. Sturgeon, “how is your arithmetic? What is fifty from six hundred?”
Bruno’s heart sank. He swallowed hard. “Five hundred and fifty, sir.”
“Very good. That is the exact number of ants that I expect you to collect, together with new sand for the aquarium, by the end of the week.”
“Me, sir?” Bruno asked. “Alone? By myself, sir? With no one to help me?”
“You catch on quickly,” Mr. Sturgeon replied. “That will be all. I suggest you begin immediately: five hundred and fifty is a lot of ants.”
“Yes, sir,” said Bruno. He rose to leave. Just as his hand touched the doorknob, the Headmaster spoke again.
“Oh, Walton, one more thing. I have been forced to call an exterminator to spray Dormitory 2. The cost will be deducted from your spending money.”
“Yes, sir,” Bruno repeated, and escaped from the office. He was no longer singing. Then and only then did it dawn on him that neither Mr. Sturgeon nor Elmer had mentioned the riot that had taken place in the dormitory hall. Elmer, in dire distress over the loss of his ants, had simply not noticed the ruckus.
As he walked through the outer office, Bruno saw George Wexford-Smyth III, white-faced and tightlipped, waiting to see the Headmaster. “I wonder what Boots did?” he thought.
* * *
With the note from Mrs. Davis in his hand, Boots crossed the campus on his way to Mr. Sturgeon’s office. As he approached the flagpole in front of the Faculty Building he suddenly caught sight of Bruno — on his hands and knees in the grass, surrounded by jars and boxes, spreading sugar on an anthill.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Bruno was chanting. “Uncle Bruno will take you to a new home with your wicked Uncle Elmer, where you can dig tunnels until you drop dead.”
“Hey,” Boots hissed, “what are you doing?”
“It’s quite obvious what I’m doing,” Bruno grumbled. “I’m finding the five hundred and fifty ants I owe Elmer. What are you doing?”
“I’m on my way to see The Fish too,” Boots said uneasily. “George finked.”
“What did you do?” Bruno asked.
“Mailed a letter.” Looking very unhappy, Boots walked on.
“Sometimes I just don’t understand him,” Bruno muttered, daintily picking up an ant.
Boots walked through the big oak doors of the Faculty Building and proceeded down the corridor to the office. Mrs. Davis was still wearing her sym
pathetic smile. She sent him right in.
“Bench,” snapped Mr. Sturgeon, pointing to the seat across from his desk. Like Elmer before him, George was seated in the visitor’s chair.
“O’Neal,” Mr. Sturgeon began, “I hear that you have ruined three valuable stamps that belonged to Wexford-Smyth.”
“But I paid for them, sir,” Boots defended himself.
“Yes,” Mr. Sturgeon said, “you paid for them. You paid a few coins when in reality they were worth three hundred and fifty dollars.”
“But, sir,” Boots protested, “they were just sitting there. I didn’t want to wake George up, and the letter to my mother was late, so I just —”
“I know what you ‘just,’” Mr. Sturgeon interrupted. “Now, see here, O’Neal. You cannot possibly expect me to believe that you thought those were ordinary stamps. One need not be a philatelist to know the difference between Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II. I think you owe Wexford-Smyth an apology.”
Boots studied the carpet. “I’m sorry, George,” he mumbled.
“And I think you also owe him three hundred and fifty dollars.”
Boots’s head jerked up. “But sir! Where am I going to get three hundred and fifty dollars?”
“Washing dishes,” replied Mr. Sturgeon. “After school, from seven till nine. The school will pay you two dollars an hour.”
“But, sir!” Boots exclaimed. “That’s three whole months!”
“Quite correct,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “That will be all, O’Neal. You are dismissed.”
As he crossed the campus and passed Bruno, Boots muttered, “Well, you’re ahead five-fifty to three-fifty.”
“What are you talking about?” Bruno growled.
“I got three months of dishwashing,” Boots snarled, “at two dollars an hour!”
“What did you do?”
“I told you,” Boots snapped. “I mailed a letter.”
Chapter 6
Round Two
This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall! Page 3