Toenails scrambling on the hard floor, the creature took off down the hall, with the team in pursuit. Shank was in the lead, reeling like mad, increasing the speedy rodent’s head start, but keeping it in visual range.
Griffin was right on his heels, breathing a silent prayer with every step. If Mr. Clancy went for another snack break, there’d be no avoiding him this time.
“How do we know he’s going to take us to the ring?” puffed Melissa, struggling to keep pace.
“An animal in danger heads toward safety,” Savannah panted in reply. “For a pack rat, that’s his stash.”
Bounced and jostled by the furious activity, Ferret Face became agitated, emitting a series of wild clucks.
Ben recognized the warning signs all too well. “Oh, no you don’t! No throwing up tonight!” He set the ferret down beside him, and the two of them rejoined the chase.
By now, the pack rat had opened up a sixty-foot lead. He turned left, feet skittering, and disappeared around the corner. Instinctively, Shank yanked back on the line, bringing their quarry to a jarring halt.
Horrified, Savannah smacked his hand. “How’d you like to be manhandled by a force a hundred times your own strength?”
Shank stared at her. He was not used to being slapped. But he obediently paid out more slack, and the pack rat was off again. The team wheeled around the bend after him.
A right turn sent them racing through the heart of the school, past the gym, toward the auditorium. They could hear music from the play and snippets of dialogue. Griffin thought he recognized Logan’s strident voice, but this was no time to lose concentration. The plan had entered its most critical phase and also the most delicate. On the other side of the wall sat hundreds of people. It would only take one audience member en route to the bathroom to sink Operation Dirty Rat.
The pack rat bolted down a side hall, scurrying past a chair that was propping open a heavy metal door. Shank hurdled the obstacle, but the fishing line wrapped under the seat, sending it tumbling into the back of his legs. He tripped and went down, losing his grip on the rod. With a buzzing noise, the reel paid out as the fugitive rodent darted away. Shank clamped his hand on the spool and locked it. Scrambling up again, he rejoined the chase. The door, now free, shut behind him.
Pitch was running so hard that her momentum carried her right into it. She bounced off, wrenching at the handle. The door wouldn’t budge.
Griffin sprinted onto the scene. “Let’s move!” he rasped.
“It’s locked!” she hissed back.
“You mean we’ve lost them?” gasped Ben, scooping up Ferret Face, who was scratching at the metal.
“I don’t trust anybody who thinks wildlife is a nuisance,” Savannah added urgently. “It’s people who are a nuisance to animals!”
“Never mind that!” Griffin hissed. He was in a full panic, jerking the handle as if he believed he could tear the steel dead bolt clear of its housing. “That pack rat is our only connection to the ring! We’ve got to find him!”
“How are we going to do that?” Ben demanded. “Shank’s got no walkie-talkie, and we can’t exactly yell the school down!”
“There must be some way to figure out where they went.” Pitch looked around desperately. “Where does this door lead, anyway?”
27
Julius Caesar was in his glory. He had just been named the undisputed leader of the Roman Republic. It was his greatest triumph. And Logan was experiencing a triumph of his own — to ace a role before a spellbound crowd hundreds strong.
“Citizens of Rome, I stand before you in all humility….”
Man, this was going well! The people in the front row were practically on their feet, gasping from the effect of his performance. What Logan didn’t know was that directly behind him, the pack rat was scampering from wing to wing in full view of the audience.
“Behold the indestructible city we have built together!”
No sooner were the words past his lips than the giant set poster depicting the Circus Maximus exploded and Sheldon Brickhaus blasted onto the stage, fishing rod in hand, thundering after the rat. He knocked over an aqueduct and flattened the Pantheon before crashing through the background scenery of the Seven Hills of Rome. He was gone so quickly it was almost as if he had never even been there — except for the wreckage he’d left in his wake.
Julius Caesar, Rome’s greatest general, stood in the ruins of his eternal city. Surely Johnny Depp himself had never faced an acting challenge as enormous as the one Logan found himself confronted with. His next line was supposed to be “Our beloved Rome will stand for ten thousand years!” But he couldn’t very well say that, could he? This Rome hadn’t even lasted until the third act.
What words could possibly rescue the play from this terrible disaster?
Julius Caesar turned back to the audience and gave it his best shot: “You know, you just can’t get good marble these days!”
The show must go on.
Griffin saw the pack rat first and managed to catch up to Shank by the time the burly boy emerged from the backstage corridor. The others converged from all directions, footfalls echoing up and down the halls.
“Where were you?” Griffin panted.
“It’s not good,” Shank admitted, his usual calm a little ruffled. “Julius Caesar says yo.”
“You were in the auditorium?” Ben wheezed. “Did Dr. Evil see you?”
“Everybody saw me! I was on the stage!”
“Oh, no!” moaned Pitch. “Griffin, you better take off. We’re about to get caught, and you can’t be a part of it!”
“This isn’t over yet,” Griffin said through clenched teeth. “If we find the ring, getting caught won’t matter.”
Even the unshakable Shank was starting to get nervous. “She’s right, Justice. You’re in too deep. Let us take the heat.”
Griffin shook his head stubbornly. “If we go down, we go down as a team.”
Melissa pointed. “Speaking of going down —”
They stared. The pack rat was making a bee-line for the storage area and the staircase that led to the basement.
The team pounded down the steps after him, Shank in the lead, reeling like mad.
“Don’t hurt him!” Savannah begged.
“If I can’t keep him close, he’s going to lose us in all this junk!” Shank retorted.
They looked around, catching their breath. The basement was filled with broken desks, extra chairs, rolled-up mats, gym equipment, and hundreds of crates and cartons. At the center stood the furnace. An enormous central boiler fed dozens of pipes and ducts leading upward and outward like the gnarled branches of an ancient tree.
The pack rat led them through an obstacle course, jumping expertly from box to stack to crate.
“He knows exactly where he’s going!” Savannah marveled in a whisper. “Look how sure he is. He’s close to home!”
They watched, transfixed, as their quarry hopped from a file cabinet to the side of the furnace itself. He climbed high on the boiler before detouring onto a pipe, following its length until it disappeared into the suspended ceiling. The last thing they saw was his long, skinny tail being drawn inside.
“That’s it,” said Shank positively. “His stuff is there.”
Savannah nodded. “Definitely.”
The nuisance wildlife expert and animal behavior specialist were in agreement.
“Wouldn’t you know it,” groaned Ben. “How are we supposed to get way up there?”
“That’s my department.” Pitch adjusted her coil of rope. “One Super Bowl ring coming up.” She scrambled along a series of metal rungs on the side of the boiler and then expertly shinnied out onto the pipe, following the path that their quarry had taken. She moved with athletic grace and ease, completely unfazed by the fact that she was suspended more than twenty feet above the basement floor.
Ben craned his neck to track her progress as she worked her way higher on the pipe. “I know she tries stuff twenty times harder
when she goes climbing with her family, but this freaks me out. I mean, one wrong move and she’s a grease spot on the cement.”
“She knows what she’s doing,” said Griffin, but even he seemed tense watching her operate so high up.
As the pipe steepened to vertical, Pitch met the fishing line that was still attached to the pack rat’s harness. She touched it. “He’s stopped,” she called down. “He must be just inside the ceiling.”
Moving slowly now, she inched upward until her hair brushed the suspended ceiling. Then, locking her powerful legs onto the pipe, she carefully moved the tile aside and stuck her head inside for a look.
The crawl space was tight, designed to accommodate ducts, pipes, wires, but certainly not people. A few feet away sat the pack rat, gnawing at the leather strap of the unfamiliar harness. He was surrounded by a vast array of shiny objects — prisms, paper clips, costume jewelry, dozens of colored beads.
And there in the center, pride of the collection, sat Art Blankenship’s diamond-studded 1969 New York Jets Super Bowl championship ring.
28
“Jackpot!”
Pitch thrust her hand inside the ceiling to pick up the ring, praying that the pack rat was a collector, not a fighter.
Frightened, the little animal backed away until it had reached the end of the slack on the fishing line. There he cowered, wide eyed and quivering, as this huge invader approached his precious stash.
The hand drew closer and closer until it was eight inches from the ring.
“Have you got it?” Griffin asked anxiously.
“I can’t reach it,” said Pitch in a strained voice.
“Try harder,” Griffin begged.
“It’s no use. My shoulders are too wide to fit past the ceiling grid. I just need a few more inches….”
“We’ll have to send Ben,” Griffin decided.
“What — up there?” Ben blurted.
“Pitch doesn’t fit, but you will,” Griffin explained. “You’re our tight spaces specialist.”
“Yeah, here on earth. How am I supposed to get up there? Fly?”
It almost came to that. Pitch took the coil of rope from her shoulder and slung it around a horizontal section of heavy pipe, dangling both ends down to the floor. Following her directions, Griffin wrapped one end around Ben’s waist and between his legs, forming a strong harness. Like he was going to the gallows, Ben handed Ferret Face over to the only person he trusted to deal with an apprehensive ferret — Savannah. Then Shank and Griffin began to haul on the free end of the rope, winching Ben up toward the ceiling. He had only one request as he was ratcheted higher and higher.
“Don’t let go.”
Working the makeshift pulley system, Shank regarded him skeptically. “I think your friend up there might be crying.”
“Make no mistake,” Griffin replied confidently. “Ben complains a lot, but when push comes to shove, he gets the job done. If he stays awake.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a long story. Keep pulling. Nothing can stop us now.”
At that moment, there were pounding footsteps on the stairs, and Darren Vader barreled into the furnace room. “You’re busted, suckers! The minute the play got trashed, I knew it had something to do with you!” His eyes bulged as he caught sight of Pitch, perched at the ceiling, and the rising Ben just a few feet below her position. “Okay, I don’t get it.”
“Beat it, Vader!” Griffin snarled in a strained voice. “This is none of your business!”
“It’s the ring, isn’t it?” Darren was triumphant. “Great hiding place, Bing! A little extreme maybe, but I give you props for picking a spot nobody’s going to look.”
Savannah glared daggers at Darren. “Even you can’t be mean enough to turn us in, knowing what it’ll mean for Griffin.”
“I’m not turning anybody in,” Darren assured them. “So long as I get my fair share.”
“Your fair share of what?” Griffin demanded.
“Of the money from when you sell it! I want my cut — plus maybe a little bonus for keeping my mouth shut.”
“Nobody’s selling anything,” came a firm voice behind Darren.
Everyone wheeled. Even Ben managed to dangle in that direction. There stood Tony Bartholomew, a look of grim determination on his face.
“That ring is mine. It’s going home with me.”
“Mrs. Blankenship donated it to the school,” Savannah argued. “It was a gift.”
“So how come you hid it in the basement ceiling?” Darren challenged.
“Ignore them,” Pitch told Ben. “Let’s just do our job.” She reached down and guided the hanging boy onto the pipe. The young climber didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone quite so terrified. “It’s no big deal,” she soothed him. “It’s just high.”
Ben was nearly hysterical. “I don’t care about the high! I’m worried about how fast I could be low again!”
She shuffled over and pushed him into the crawl space. “You see the ring, right? If you can just get your shoulders past that wood frame …”
Other people had best friends, Ben reflected bitterly. Normal ones, the kind that didn’t send a guy into the ceiling of his school’s furnace room to burglarize a pack rat. But there was no way around it. Griffin needed this to happen, and Ben was the only one who could get in there. Griffin would do the same for him.
Holding his arms in front of him like a high diver, he made himself small and eased through the opening, the wood frame scraping the skin of his shoulders. He reached for the ring at the center of the collection of trinkets, keeping an eye on the pack rat, who was watching him resentfully.
Just as his fingers closed on Art Blankenship’s treasure, the creature darted forward and snatched it with his teeth.
“Hey!”
The pack rat tried to flee, but the fishing line was taut and held him in place a few feet away.
“What’s going on?” called Griffin from below.
“I had it,” Ben tried to explain, “but the rat took it back!”
“Grab it!” ordered Shank.
“I can’t reach him!”
“Not the rat, the fishing line!” Shank yelled. “When we bring you down, he’ll have to come with you!”
Ben snatched at the black nylon fiber, wrapping it around his fist so he wouldn’t drop it. Then he eased himself out of the crawl space and rasped, “Lower away!”
Griffin and Shank began to ease on the rope, raising their end hand over hand, and beginning Ben’s descent. A few seconds later, the pack rat popped out of the suspended ceiling and hung below him, wriggling madly, the gold Super Bowl ring clenched in its jaws.
“Ben Slovak, if you let that poor helpless creature fall, I’ll break every bone in your body!” Savannah promised, watching nervously.
Ben was too terrified to reply. If that rope slipped, breaking every bone in his body would happen with or without Savannah.
“Careful, shrimp,” Darren brayed. “That’s my bank account you’re holding.”
“In your dreams,” seethed Tony.
“The ring goes right back to Dr. Egan,” Griffin said emphatically. “It was already stolen by one rat. I’m not giving it to two others.”
As he spoke, Griffin lost his grip for a moment, and the rope lurched. Shank hung on, stabilizing Ben’s descent. But the pack rat squeaked in fear, and the ring dropped from his mouth.
It fell fifteen feet, hit the floor, and skittered across the cement. It took every ounce of Griffin’s willpower not to abandon Ben’s rope and lunge for it. Darren, Tony, Savannah, and Melissa scrambled after it. Darren got there first, snatched it up, and headed for the door.
A powerful force grabbed him by the back of the collar and hung on — Shank, with one hand on the rope, and the other on Darren. An instant later, Tony joined the struggle.
“Get off!” Still clutching the ring, Darren tore himself loose and barreled for the stairs.
“It belongs to the school!” Griffin cried.
Darren laughed. “Later, losers!”
The words died in his throat. There in the doorway, observing the action, stood Dr. Egan.
29
The Bings’ van left a lot of rubber on the road as it screeched into the driveway. Husband and wife hit the walk running and burst in the front door.
“Griffin, get down here this minute!” ordered Mr. Bing.
There was no response. The couple exchanged anguished glances.
Mr. Bing pounded up the stairs, while his wife headed for the basement. She could hear her husband rummaging around the bedrooms. Griffin didn’t appear to be there, but he wasn’t down here, either.
What had their reckless son gotten himself into this time?
Her eyes fell on the PEMA hub. With a gasp, she realized that the transmit light was out. That wasn’t supposed to happen!
Without thinking, she reached for the reset button.
The principal’s red face almost glowed in the subdued light of the furnace room. His emotions seemed so intense Griffin was sure that, when the man exploded, they’d all be showered with acid.
Griffin and Shank lowered Ben back to the floor and watched as Pitch clambered down the boiler to join them so they could face the music as a team. The agitated pack rat shook himself at the end of the fishing line like a dog on a leash.
Still, the principal remained speechless. For some reason, Dr. Evil, who was so quick to jump on his students for the slightest misstep, could not find anything to say about this enormous incident.
At last, Darren broke the silence. “Coach, I got your ring back.” He handed it over.
The principal accepted it, but his eyes were on Griffin. “A rat?”
“I can explain….” Griffin managed weakly.
The Man With The Plan was the author of the wildest explanations in history, but as he spoke, he knew that this one was the most outlandish of them all — retainer lost at Savannah’s, pack rat finds retainer, pack rat brought to school, pack rat trades retainer for ring. It was the kind of story that your own grandmother wouldn’t believe, much less the toughest principal on Long Island.
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