Malcolm Under the Stars

by Brian Lies

  Ms. Brumble hung Malcolm’s water bottle and closed his cage. Her lips pressed together. “I know,” she said softly.

  There was silence between you for a moment that scared Malcolm more than even seeing Snip alive again. Ms. Brumble picked up the phone. She pressed another button, brought the phone to her ear, and headed back out the door. “I guess we have to hope for some good news.”

  Malcolm lay on his back in his cage for the rest of the day and evening, staring up at the ceiling tiles. It’s a very unnatural position for rats to be in—it exposes their soft bellies to any sort of predators.

  But Malcolm didn’t care. What was the point? Amelia was gone. The school was doomed. The stupid legend of Ernie Bowman had gone nowhere. A Loaded Stash for times of need! One junky Niche had been all they’d found—full of stuff more useless than the scraps and comics at the bottom of Skylar’s desk. And those poor nutters. All that time on their presentation, and it was ruined by a rat and a soggy ceiling.

  The Midnight Academy bell rang, and Malcolm remembered he was supposed to give a report to the district Academy.

  He didn’t budge. Finally, Honey Bunny came by.

  “Hey, rat,” Honey Bunny said, hopping up onto Malcolm’s table. “You missed the meeting.”

  Malcolm rolled over so his back was to the rabbit. He buried his face in his paper scraps.

  Honey Bunny waited, then said, “We heard how the meeting ended last night. The district would still like your official report about it eventually. Octavius said he’d help you type it up in an email, if you want.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, Malcolm nodded.

  Honey Bunny cleared his throat. “Hey,” he said, his voice gruffer than usual. “That’s rough, not being able to say goodbye.” He swallowed. “I know.”

  Malcolm turned toward Honey Bunny then. Honey Bunny’s ears drooped even more than usual. He did know, Malcolm remembered.

  “Yeah,” Malcolm said in a whisper. He hardly trusted his voice, but he asked, “What’s going to happen now?”

  Honey Bunny lay down on the table so he was eye to eye with Malcolm. “We go on. Like Aggy said, there is no shortage of nutters who need us. No one will ever replace Amelia, but surely you can think of others—maybe even in your classroom now—who need a friend.”

  Skylar’s face flashed before Malcolm’s eyes. And, for some reason, Snip’s. But Malcolm pushed them away. “I don’t think I could do it again,” Malcolm said finally.

  Honey Bunny nodded. “Maybe not now, but—well, I’ve seen you in action, Malcolm. You have too good a heart to not help people. You know how Jesse teases you about your ‘hero brain’? Well, there’s ‘hero heart,’ too. I’m afraid you’ve got both.” Honey Bunny sat up. “And besides, we have work to do. The Loaded Stash is still out there.”

  Malcolm rolled over. “What’s the point? I heard the lankies talking today. They’ll never vote to keep the school open after last night’s disaster.”

  “Oh, Malcolm. You haven’t been in the Academy all that long. You have no idea how many times the lankies don’t know exactly what they need to know until the Academy helps them to see it. So let’s find that Stash. Harriet went out through the basement and tried an experimental dig outside tonight. Sure, the tree is down, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a Loaded Stash out there like the message said. It’ll turn up. You’ll see. And you never know, it might be what McKenna needs. There’s a reason Ernie Bowman hid it. Come on, now. Time to stop wallowing. We need you. All of us do.”

  And with that, Honey Bunny hopped off the table and left, leaving Malcolm to think it over. Nutters and critters worse off than he was? Yes, maybe. But that didn’t make Malcolm hurt less. Still, after all he had heard today—Sylvia’s nest being cleaned out, the Council Oak being hit by lightning, even Harriet going Outside (!)—well, it was time for Malcolm to see for himself what exactly was going on.

  Chapter 22

  Paid in Full

  Malcolm couldn’t get out of the school through Sylvia’s nest anymore. Ms. Brumble hadn’t been kidding when she said the lankies were working on repairing the auditorium. In the end, he went up to the clock tower, bonged the clock, and got another ride from Beert.

  Malcolm had wanted to see what the tree looked like, and as Beert banked and glided past it, a shiver ran through him.

  The lankies had cut down the giant. It lay sprawled across the muddy gray-brown grass, cut in chunks, like how Tianna cut up her hot dog before eating it with a fork. A charred black streak ran the length of it, and it smelled faintly of matches.32

  Malcolm hopped off Beert and waved. “It’s okay. I just want to look around a bit.”

  “All right,” the owl said. “I’m going to swoop the jogging path down by the river. Pick you up in a few minutes?”

  Malcolm nodded.

  It was much harder going than the last time he had been out here. Then, there had been snow that Malcolm could walk over. Now, the snow was gone and what was left was gummy mud. Soon Malcolm was coated up to his eyeballs. He crawled over the blackened trunk of the tree. It had been so wide that Malcolm was now several feet in the air. He walked down the length of it and couldn’t help thinking that this was another part of McKenna that was gone forever.

  Malcolm came to a crook in the branches and stopped. The “dwell here” Mark was half gone, shredded when the branches had fallen. Looking at it, Malcolm realized that Amelia and, potentially, the Midnight Academy were not the only ones who were losing their homes. What animals had lived in the huge branches of the Council Oak? Of course, there were other trees, but those Outside critters probably felt the same way about their Council Oak home as Malcolm did about Room 11.

  Maybe Honey Bunny was right. Malcolm needed to stop feeling sorry for himself.

  As he continued on into what had been the upper branches, an argument from the ground below filled his ears.

  “No refunds. No redos.” Malcolm recognized the Striped Shadow’s voice. As usual, he was lurking in the shadows of the branches. He sure took his name seriously!

  “But you promised! Aren’t you as good as your word?” Malcolm heard Sylvia say. Sylvia? Well, he supposed that made sense. She was the one who had told him about the Striped Shadow, after all, and now that her nest was gone, she was probably desperate for a new one for her squirrelings. Malcolm turned to slip away. He didn’t need to hear her negotiations.

  “I am as good as my word.” The raccoon’s whispery voice was dangerous. “I provided you with a nest like you asked for—Inside, no less.”

  “But it’s gone now! And I still helped you! I let that cat in the building. Can’t you see how you still owe me?”

  Malcolm’s heart thumped in his chest. What had she said? Sylvia had let Snip in? Suddenly, Malcolm could see: when he had refused, the Striped Shadow must have gone to Sylvia, who apparently still owed him. If there was anything the Shadow was about, it was keeping up his business model. He couldn’t have Snip going around saying he didn’t keep his promises. And Sylvia probably didn’t even know what she had done. Her only concern had ever been for her squirrelings.

  The Shadow sighed. Malcolm heard the rattle of dry oak leaves as they moved away. “Fine,” the Shadow said. “But it’s almost spring now. Why do you even need me? Take your pick of any tree.”

  Malcolm jumped down off the branches to follow them, wanting to hear where exactly Snip was now. The ground was soft here too. Both the Striped Shadow and Sylvia had left their footprints in the mud.

  Malcolm paused. Their footprints. The smaller, shallower ones must be Sylvia’s. But the Striped Shadow’s looked almost like little nutter hands with their five fingers.

  But that wasn’t what made Malcolm stop. It was the number of prints. The Striped Shadow—and that had clearly been the Striped Shadow’s voice—had only three paws.

  Just like . . . Acer.

  Malcolm remembered the night before. Snip’s confusion, Acer not letting her talk.

  Ac
er wasn’t working for the Striped Shadow.

  Acer was the Striped Shadow!

  “Figured it out, huh?” said Acer/the Striped Shadow from behind the oak’s branches—he was using Acer’s voice now, not the dramatic, deep whisper that the Striped Shadow used.

  Malcolm turned. The Striped Shadow—Acer—was looking directly at him. Sylvia was gone.

  “But—but—why?” Malcolm sputtered. “You help people. Why hide it?”

  “It’s the reputation,” Acer said, climbing out of the shadows finally to sit by Malcolm. “Who’s going to come to a young raccoon for help? A three-legged raccoon, at that? I’m not a fixer without the name. I’m only Acer, the raccoon who was dumb enough to get his paw caught and is lucky to be alive. But the Striped Shadow? Well, he can do anything. The real Striped Shadow retired ages ago. I took over after about . . .” He counted on his paw. “The seventh. The last Striped Shadow trained me. And I’ll train the next, and the Striped Shadow will live on as the legendary Outside fixer.”

  Malcolm’s mouth hung open. “So no other critters know?”

  Acer shook his head. “Only you.”

  Malcolm swallowed. “And maybe . . . Snip.”

  Acer made a face. “Yeah, I really messed that up. When I first met with her, I never thought I’d be doing business again with an Inside critter, so I let her see me. The business model is to stick to the shadows so if you run into customers, they don’t recognize you. But then you came along.”

  Malcolm nodded toward Acer’s missing paw. “How did you lose it?”

  “Last year. I snuck into the factory and boxes fell on me. I was in rough shape. But it was the Striped Shadow who found me. Saved me. And eventually trained me. And now, that’s me.”

  “Where is the old Striped Shadow?”

  Acer got a faraway look in his eyes. He gestured behind him. “He’s gone downriver now,” he said quietly.

  Malcolm wasn’t sure what that meant exactly. But then, he figured, maybe it didn’t matter. Because what it meant to Acer was that he was gone.

  Like Amelia.

  Acer broke the silence. He cleared his throat. “What I was trying to say is if you keep my secret, we’ll call it even. You’ve paid your favor.”

  “Really? That’s it?” Malcolm said. He couldn’t believe how he had gone from having to help Snip to just keeping his mouth shut. “It’s not much of a favor. I don’t know who I’d tell anyway.”

  Acer nodded, studying the rat for a minute, until Malcolm squirmed. Finally, Acer said, “Have you Inside critters found that Loaded Stash yet?”

  Malcolm leaped up. “No. Why? Do you know something else? Because we are really, truly desperate.” He waved at the exploded tree. “This caused us problems Inside, too.”

  “I don’t, I’m sorry—and the old Striped Shadow would be cuffing me on the head right now for admitting that, but it’s the truth. If you want my advice—which people ask for a lot less frequently—it sounds like you need to talk to someone who has been through the history of the school.”

  Malcolm sat back down slowly. “We have. Aggy and Harriet don’t know,” Malcolm said sadly. “And they’ve been here the longest.”

  “Huh,” Acer said, getting up to leave. He switched to his whispery Shadow voice. “Too bad there isn’t someone else. Someone who’s also been at McKenna a long time. Listening . . . hurting.” Malcolm could barely hear that last word as the Striped Shadow leaped onto the trunk of a maple nearby.

  Malcolm leaned back. “I know what you’re doing!” he nearly shouted up at the tree. “I know who you mean! But I’m not going to talk to Snip. I can’t. Do you have Jell-O for brains? Apart from everything she’s done in the past, she just single-handedly destroyed the meeting last night. Thanks to her, I didn’t get to say goodbye to my nutter. You think you miss the last Striped Shadow? That’s nothing to how I miss Amelia. And now there’s more reason than ever to vote to close the school. Snip’s ruined everything. Everything she’s ever been a part of has gone wrong.”

  His words echoed in the quiet night. Acer didn’t answer. Malcolm hunched his shoulders. He shouldn’t have said that about the old Striped Shadow. While Malcolm didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than he did, Acer certainly could feel as bad, and Malcolm wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Then, just as Malcolm was about to leave, he heard words from above.

  “I know,” the Striped Shadow said. “And she knows it too.”

  Then he disappeared into the branches of the maple.

  Chapter 23

  Under the Stars Again

  After Beert dropped him back off, Malcolm hunkered in his cage, overwhelmed with Snip, the building closing, and Amelia. But as the weekend passed, his tail started twitching. What would Monday bring? Finally, late Sunday night, he popped his cage and wandered the halls.

  He found himself at the auditorium. He could already smell the wet wood and plaster. He squeezed under the door and climbed up on the balcony railing to look below. A tall ladderlike structure stretched to the ceiling, and huge fans roared as they blasted air at the wet seats.

  With a pang, Malcolm glanced at the stage where he had last seen Amelia. Where she had mouthed his name. Was that the last time they would see each other? She didn’t even get all the goodbye notes from Room 11—not even Malcolm’s, which he had pasted together from nibbling out words from a magazine (with Jovahn’s assistance—glue is very tricky for rats).

  And all that work Amelia, Jovahn, Kiera, and Skylar had put into their presentation! Looking for the time capsule. McKenna’s history. “The stars of our class,” you had called them, Mr. Binney. “Rescuing our school.” And for what? Not a single person in the audience had heard what they had had to say. They were too distracted by a rat falling out of the ceiling.

  “The stars of our class.” Your words echoed in Malcolm’s head as he stared at the stage. The stars . . . Malcolm sat up with a jolt. Like she was next to him, he heard Amelia scolding Skylar about “bored” and “board.” Words did have different meanings, sometimes. Stars. Jovahn was the school basketball star. And apparently, there were movie stars—Tianna talked about them all the time. What if the yearbook message meant a different kind of star?

  Suddenly, Malcolm’s feet began to sweat as he remembered the rest of Amelia’s scolding. What if “beneath the oak under the stars behind McKenna” didn’t mean one Loaded Stash, outside under the Council Oak? What if there were . . . Malcolm tried to remember what those little marks in writing were that Amelia got so excited about. Commas. “Commas matter,” Amelia had said. It had changed the meaning of Skylar’s sign. What if commas could change this meaning?

  Malcolm tried it. “Beneath the oak, under the stars, behind McKenna.”

  There could be three places, not one.

  And if “under the stars” meant Inside rather than Outside . . . He glanced at the stage. Could it mean stars of the stage?

  He had to find out. So he took the quickest way down. He leaped onto the velvet wall hanging (you have to admit, how Snip and Acer got down the night before looked like too much fun not to try it) and zipped up the aisle.

  The stage looked even bigger right beneath it. Huge. Malcolm climbed up the steps onto it and looked out at the audience seats. It was so vast that he wasn’t sure how Amelia had done it, had gotten up in front of everyone. If anyone did, she had hero brain—doing something that scary for a school she wasn’t even going to anymore.

  Malcolm bounced on his toes. So . . . this was where the “stars” stood. Now, how to get “under” them?

  He raced back and forth on the smooth wooden surface of the stage, sniffing along, scanning for a Mark. Nothing. He climbed back down the steps and stood facing the stage again.

  And that’s when he spied it. At the base of the stage, on the left-hand side: 1938. The year on the yearbook and the second hobo nickel. Malcolm reached out a paw and scratched the mortar with a claw. Just like the bricks in the wall above, it crumbled like sand. As he scratche
d, he noticed something on the wall, etched into the brick below the date. A Mark. “This is the place”—like the Sign outside the Striped Shadow’s headquarters.

  Malcolm scratched harder. And soon, the whole stone was loose. But it wasn’t even a whole stone, it was a shallow stone facing, and as Malcolm chipped away at the mortar, the 1938 fell right off the wall.

  Another hollow. A Niche. Or a Loaded Stash?

  Malcolm dove in.

  It was a shallow space with only one thing filling it: a smooth metal box. As Malcolm looked for the latch, the box seemed familiar, like he had seen it before. But where? He found the latch, and—by bracing himself against the wall of the space and shoving hard—he popped it open.

  He read the note inside: “Welcome, future students! This time capsule was buried to honor the construction of our new auditorium and gymnasium in the fall of 1938.” Malcolm almost laughed. He had found the time capsule! And then he almost cried. Because the very first person—the only person, really—he wanted to tell about it, he couldn’t. He had no way of letting Amelia know that they had been successful. That it had been her commas, in fact, that had made the discovery possible.

  To distract himself, he nosed through the box. Maybe there was still a bag of gold or a magic wand in there somewhere. What he found instead—amid a yellowed newspaper, a flag with the letter C emblazoned on it, a list of all the students, some photos, and a 1937 Clearwater yearbook—was an envelope.

  “A message from Mr. Walton McKenna. October 17, 1938” was written in long, slanting letters that reminded Malcolm of Tianna’s notes when she wrote them “fancy.”

  A message from the man himself? Would it tell what had happened to his missing money?

  Well, would you be able to wait, Mr. Binney? Malcolm couldn’t. He nibbled the envelope open. (He figured no one could prove he’d done it, anyway. Who’s to say another rat, over the many years, hadn’t gnawed on the letter?) Then he dragged the letter out to the floor in front of the stage to read it.