The students started pouring out of the bus, their faces pale and streaked with tears. They had certainly been through a lot more than they’d ever expected.
No sooner had Spencer and Jenna descended from atop the bus than Daisy burst through the crowd and gave Spencer a huge hug. Min gazed back toward the big curve in the distance.
“I thought for sure we were in the trees,” Spencer said.
“Given our initial velocity and descent, we would have been,” Min said. “We were fortunate to have Daisy modify our course with that mop.”
Daisy started beaming from the praise, but then she noticed something. “Where’s Dez? Didn’t you get him?”
Spencer remembered Dez’s shadowy eyes. “He didn’t want to come.” The betrayal was hard to believe and Spencer did not want to think about it. The hurt surprised him. Wasn’t Dez just a bully? So why did it matter if he stayed?
Jenna peered around Spencer, white faced and shaking. Daisy reached out for the girl’s cold hand. “Are you okay?”
Jenna shook her head and swallowed. “What exactly just happened?”
To the surprise of Spencer, it was Min who answered. “The marvel of modern science,” he lied smoothly. “Seems almost like magic.” He lifted an eyebrow at Spencer and Daisy. “You see, Jenna, the undercarriage of the bus is embedded with multiple gravitational field deflector arrays. When necessary, the driver can send out a signal to polarize the ...”
Gratefully, Spencer and Daisy slipped away as Min continued his elaborate scientific explanation. Spencer hoped it was a sound theory, since Min would most likely have to repeat it to all the students in the runaway bus.
Meredith intercepted Spencer and Daisy, a concerned look on her face. “This isn’t the end of the road for you.” The lunch lady put a hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Walter’s on his way to get you,” Meredith said.
“How does he know where we are?” Daisy asked, glancing at the mountain scenery.
“We were supposed to rendezvous with him in a town called Boulder.” Meredith pulled a cell phone from her pocket. “But when I saw that we weren’t going to make it, I phoned in and told him where we had ... landed.” She pointed across the meadow. “The road’s not far. He should be here any moment.”
“What about the rest of you?” Spencer looked over to where the Academy rejects stood in shivering groups, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
Meredith glanced at the bus. “It’ll take me some time to put the spare tires on the bus and get her back on the road. I’ll form a contact list for all of the students. I might be able to drop off the ones that live close. I’ll contact the rest of the parents and let them know where to pick up their children.”
“Those are going to be some unhappy parents,” Daisy said.
“I suppose so,” answered Meredith. “But the alternative was Toxite-saturated children.” She lifted her hands like she was balancing the options. “I think I can deal with unhappy parents.”
Spencer and Daisy nodded.
Meredith looked back toward the students. “Perhaps you two should head over to the road. Slip away before anyone asks more questions.”
Spencer hesitated. Shouldn’t he at least explain something to Min? And couldn’t he say good-bye to Jenna? What if he never saw her again?
But Daisy quickly thanked Meredith, took Spencer by the arm, and headed toward the road. They skirted around the trees so the recruits wouldn’t see them. Soon they stood side by side at the edge of the dirt road, watching both directions for Walter’s familiar van.
“Why do you think Walter’s coming?” Daisy asked.
Spencer had a hopeful idea, but he voiced another. “Probably just taking us somewhere safe. He must have found out that the Academy is run by the BEM.”
“Or maybe he found out what’s wrong with you,” said Daisy. “You know, your fainting problem.”
Or, Spencer thought, maybe he’s discovered something about my dad.
No sooner had the hopeful thought taken root in his mind than a brown van appeared down the road, kicking up a wake of autumn leaves. Spencer felt the anxiety build as the van drew up and came to a stop in front of them.
Penny leapt out of the passenger seat, red hair shimmering in the sunlight. Her usual letter jacket was flung over one shoulder so the gymnastics patch hung upside down. She went to the back of the large van and opened the rear doors. “Jump in,” Penny said.
Spencer and Daisy climbed into the back of the cluttered, strange-smelling van. Walter looked over his shoulder from the driver’s seat and greeted them.
“Where are we going?” Daisy asked as the van rolled away.
“Somewhere we can talk,” said Walter. “Penny and I have learned a lot in the last week.”
“About what?” Spencer probed.
“About New Forest Academy.” Walter looked at Spencer through the rearview mirror. “About you.”
Chapter 42
“Why’s this so important?”
They bounced off the dirt road and into the residential neighborhood. Walter merged onto a freeway, heading in what seemed like the direction of home. Penny passed some food to the kids as they drove: apples, granola bars, and some salty potato chips. Spencer was glad to have something to snack on. It kept his mouth from asking questions—questions that Walter refused to answer until they got safely away.
Spencer was looking for a place to dispose of his apple core when he saw a familiar object nestled on one of the van’s dusty shelves.
His apple core forgotten, Spencer reached forward, gently touching the papery material. It was the Vortex vacuum bag. In the side of the bag he saw the tear. It was only a small hole, torn by a sharp pencil in Welcher Elementary School. It seemed so long ago that he had ripped the Vortex and unleashed the overcharged magic.
Last time he had seen the bag, he’d been overwhelmed by grief at Marv’s loss. But something was different this time. Marv was still alive in there. And from what they’d heard from that brief recording on Penny’s phone, the big janitor might be bowling!
Spencer leaned closer to the shelf. There was a stack of papers under the vacuum bag. They looked like pages torn from a notebook. Nothing out of the ordinary, but the heading on the first page, scrawled in Walter’s steady hand, instantly caught Spencer’s attention.
Operation Vortex
Spencer slid the vacuum bag aside to see the full page. There was a list in the top corner—an assortment of ingredients. Some items had been crossed out, others circled.
Glop formula:
1 cup raw Glop
Sprig of dried oak
Lung of Filth
Mini marshmallows
And the list went on, but Spencer didn’t read it all. He pulled aside the paper to look at the next one. The second page was covered with a pencil sketch diagram. The black-and-white artwork depicted a small motor with a handle. Extending from the motor was a long plastic tube.
Spencer instantly recognized it. He’d seen plenty of neighbors using such a device, especially this time of year when the trees dropped their leaves. The sketch was labeled.
Operation Vortex: Leaf Blower
This was Walter’s plan to rescue Marv! It seemed perfectly logical. If the Vortex had strong suction power, pulling everything inward, then they would need something with the opposite power in order to reverse the effect. Walter was going to Glopify a leaf blower and blast his way into the Vortex!
“Operation Vortex,” Spencer said, his hand resting on the shelf with the papers. He wanted to see Walter’s reaction, but the old warlock simply glanced at him in the rearview mirror.
“Wait a minute,” Daisy said. “Who’s having surgery?”
Spencer shook his head. “Not that kind of operation.” He grabbed the papers from the van shelf. “Operation Vortex. It’s a plan. It’s Walter’s plan to get Marv out of the vacuum bag! It totally makes sense. He’s going to Glopify a leaf blower and—”
“Slow down, Spencer
.” There was an edge to Walter’s voice that cut off Spencer’s excitement about rescuing Marv. “Operation Vortex isn’t a plan. It’s only a hypothesis—a theory. And even if I get a leaf blower Glopified and running, there’s still no way of knowing what effect it will have against the Vortex.”
Spencer clutched the papers between both hands. He stared at the hand-drawn diagram of the leaf blower. “How long till we can try?” he asked. “How long till you have this thing Glopified?”
Walter sighed. “A couple of months at best.”
“Months?” The plan on the papers looked close to completion. Spencer was expecting days, maybe weeks. But months? “Marv’s alive in there,” he said. “We’ve got to save him!”
“Save him?” Daisy said. “I thought he was bowling!”
“We don’t know that,” Spencer said. “That’s just what we heard on the recording. Anything could have happened since then!”
“You’re right!” Daisy agreed. “I bet he finished his game by now. Do you think he used bumpers? I’m no good without bumpers.”
Walter pulled off the freeway and parked the van at a truck stop. He turned around to face Spencer and Daisy. “I know it seems important, but Operation Vortex is going to have to wait. For right now, we have other things to discuss. Things that cannot wait.”
Spencer swallowed his questions about the leaf blower as Penny opened the vehicle’s back door. Soon, all four of them were headed toward a picnic bench at the edge of the parking lot. The bench was dappled in late afternoon shadow from a tall evergreen tree. Spencer sat down and shivered, though he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or from his anxiety over hearing Walter’s report. Daisy zipped her coat up to her neck.
“First off,” Walter said, removing his cap, “my apologies. New Forest Academy was nothing but a trap.” Walter shook his head. “Penny and I were already on our way when I got your e-mail. We’d heard the news about Roger Munroe, but we were too far out to help, so I sent Meredith. It took her a day to work into the kitchen. By then, that BEM janitor already had you.”
“What really happened to Roger?” Daisy asked.
Walter grimaced. “The Bureau ... disposed of him. Since the BEM founded the Academy, it was a simple effort to get rid of Roger and hire Slick just in time for your arrival.”
“But I don’t get it,” said Spencer. “If the Academy is run by the BEM, why would they have hired a Rebel Janitor in the first place?”
“They were using our resources against us,” said Penny. “Hiring Roger to clean the Academy accomplished two things. First, it got Roger away from helping other Rebel schools. And second, it made us think the Academy was part of the Underground. We never suspected that fighting Toxites in New Forest Academy was exactly what the BEM wanted.”
Penny shook her head. “It took the news of Roger’s death for us to realize that the Academy and the BEM were united. Now the Bureau’s motives are finally beginning to make sense. The BEM is letting all the other schools in the nation suffer from Toxites while they raise up a clean Academy full of handpicked students.”
“But why?” Daisy asked.
“In order to understand the BEM’s motives, you have to think long-term,” Walter said. “Imagine life in thirty or forty years. All schools will have crumbled. The next generation of American citizens won’t even know simple math or science. The only people who will be capable of doing anything intellectual will be the Academy students. They will become the next doctors, scientists, and politicians. The BEM is handpicking them to suit their needs. And who knows what other devious lessons they will teach at the Academy?”
“Long-term,” Penny said, leaning forward, “we’re looking at the BEM taking over the entire nation.”
“It won’t work,” Spencer said. “Even if they did take over, the country would just be full of uneducated people. They couldn’t get anything done.”
“But maybe that’s exactly what the BEM wants,” Walter said. “It’s a plan as old as the devil. Uneducated people are easier to control. The uneducated simply believe what they are told, since they don’t know anything else. The history of the world shows many sad examples of an elite upper class ruling the uneducated masses.”
It was hard to digest. The janitors were trying to take over the nation. No one would ever expect it!
“So, what’s your plan?” Spencer asked. “Are we going to infest the Academy with Toxites?” He remembered Slick dumping an Agitation Bucket on the front steps of that public school. It would feel good to return that gesture at the Academy.
But Walter shook his head. “We’ll continue fighting Toxites, just as we have been.”
“But we have to stop the Academy!” Spencer said. He thought of Dez and the ruthless brown team becoming the only educated people in America. Now that Spencer understood the BEM’s motives, he was desperate to take action. “We have to bring them down!”
“Then what?” Walter said. “Then no one would be educated.” He sighed deeply. “If we focus on bringing down the Academy, it will destroy us all. We must do everything to save education, not destroy it. We must focus on bringing up the Rebel forces.”
“How?” Spencer asked.
Penny leaned forward. “We might have a secret weapon to help predict the BEM’s moves.”
“What is it?” Daisy asked.
Walter turned to Spencer. “How long has it been since you’ve cut your hair?”
The question was so far off topic that Spencer couldn’t even think of an answer.
“Spencer’s hair is the secret weapon?” said Daisy.
Penny couldn’t suppress a grin. “No,” she said. “But we need to know how long since he’s cut it.”
Realizing that they were serious about the question, Spencer thought back ... and back. “I don’t remember,” he said. “Probably two months, maybe more.” He ran a hand through his hair, surprised that it was still so short.
“And your fingernails?” Walter asked. “How long since you’ve trimmed them?”
Spencer looked defensively at his nails. He always kept them short and clean, just as they were now. But Spencer couldn’t remember the last time he’d used nail clippers.
“Not for a long time,” he mumbled. Before Penny and Walter could ask any more uncomfortable questions about his hygiene, Spencer cut in. “Why’s this so important?”
“You’re not growing, Spencer.”
“What do you mean, I’m not growing?” He jumped up from the picnic bench.
“You’ve been suspended in time,” Walter said. “Your body has stopped growing. It’s too early to judge by height, but your hair and fingernails are the final clue we were looking for. Your body’s being preserved in its current state.”
“What?” Spencer looked around for someone to explain the joke. Penny and Walter looked deadly serious. Daisy was staring dumbfounded. “For how long?” His voice was tightening.
“Forever.”
Chapter 43
“Just like me.”
Spencer took a step back. Hot tears were springing to his eyes, so he turned away. Penny called after him, but he ducked out of sight behind the warlock van. He expected the others to appear around the vehicle’s bumper at any moment to see his tears.
Why? Why wasn’t he going to grow anymore? He wanted it to be a lie, but Walter always told the truth. There was no mistaking the honest look in the warlock’s eyes.
He was an ageless boy. A boy forever. Spencer tried to fathom it. He thought of time rushing on without him. He thought of little Max growing up, growing taller. His youngest brother would start a family, have children—grandchildren!—and Spencer would see it all through his twelve-year-old eyes. It felt as though Walter’s statement had stripped away any hope for a normal future.
Spencer leaned heavily against the cold van, realizing that the others weren’t coming after him. They were giving him a moment of contemplation. Walter must have known Spencer would come back on his own. He had to go back if he wanted
an explanation of the warlock’s ridiculous report.
Spencer took a deep breath, wiping tears from his cheeks. If he was going to be a kid forever, he might as well get over childish crying. He stepped around the van and strode toward his friends, determined to face the news like a hero.
Walter went straight into business, as though Spencer had never left. “This is going to take a bit of explaining,” he said. “Did Marv ever tell you about the Aurans?”
Spencer shook his head, still too numb to respond verbally.
Walter rubbed his bald head and continued. “Remember that special dumpster behind Welcher Elementary where we put all the maxed-out Glopified supplies?”
This time, Spencer and Daisy nodded. Marv had taught them that Glopified equipment lost its power after killing fifty Toxites. All Toxite-fighting schools had a special receptacle where they could put used brooms and mops to dispose of them safely.
“When that dumpster fills up,” Walter said, “someone has to come along and pick it up. There are thirteen people who serve that purpose. We call them Aurans. They were enlisted by the Founding Witches in the early 1700s.”
“What?” Daisy stopped the conversation. “They must be super old!”
“Yes,” answered Walter. “The Aurans are hundreds of years old. But their bodies are young, preserved in a perpetual state of childhood.”
Spencer swallowed against the lump in his throat. Wasn’t that what Walter had just said about him?
“The Aurans pick up the maxed-out Glopified supplies from the schools and take them to a secret landfill. Only the Aurans have the power to extract raw Glop from the cleaning supplies. Most of the raw Glop is destroyed in their facilities, but a small portion is delivered back to the three warlocks so we can use it to Glopify new supplies.”
Walter stood up and headed over to the van. Spencer, Daisy, and Penny followed. Walter opened the rear door, crawled inside, and returned with a coffee can. Spencer peered over the lip of the can and saw a grayish mud, gurgling and bubbling like it was alive. It smelled of sulfur and a myriad of unidentifiable scents that caused Spencer to pull back, crinkling his nose.
Janitors: Secrets of New Forest Academy Page 18