Sewer Rats

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Sewer Rats

  Sigmund Brouwer

  orca currents

  Copyright © Sigmund Brouwer 2006

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Brouwer, Sigmund, 1959-

  Sewer rats / Sigmund Brouwer.

  (Orca currents)

  ISBN 1-55143-527-6 (bound) ISBN 1-55143-488-1 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8553.R68467S48 2006 jC813’.54 C2006-900470-6

  Summary: A group known as Sewer Rats take up the

  challenge of an underground game of paintball.

  First published in the United States, 2006

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006921143

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.

  Cover design: Lynn O’Rourke

  Cover photography: Dayle Sutherland

  Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Stn. B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on 50% post-consumer recycled paper,

  processed chlorine free using vegetable, low VOC inks.

  09 08 07 06 • 5 4 3 2 1

  chapter one

  If you ever visit a sewage lagoon, you’ll discover what I did. It only takes one good sniff to know it’s better to be on the outside, looking in. Sewage lagoons are worse than nasty.

  Put it this way. Everything you flush down your toilet goes to the sewage lagoon. That should explain enough.

  If you think the contents of one flush is bad, imagine all the toilets in your city filling a pond. If you look close—and you don’t want to, trust me—you can even see wads of mushy toilet paper floating in all the brown goop.

  Of course, kids aren’t supposed to be near the lagoons. There are high steel-link fences to keep people out. On both sides of the lagoon are holding tanks as big as houses. And between those tanks, walkways with guardrails cross over the lagoons.

  The new kid, Carter Saylor, was ready to walk above a sewage pond. He wasn’t going to use the walkway. His plan was to balance on the guardrail with all the brown goopy stuff right below.

  I was happy to be on the outside with my friends, Micky and Lisa. We leaned against the fence, and it bent inward with our weight. I had my fingers wrapped around the linked steel. The sun felt good on my back.

  “He’s nuts,” I said. This was so obvious that Micky and Lisa didn’t reply.

  Carter pushed off the walkway and onto the rail. He had ragged blond hair almost to his shoulders. He wore black jeans, a black T-shirt and black Nikes.

  “Carter must want to be a Sewer Rat real bad,” Micky said. “I never thought he would agree to this.”

  We weren’t an official club. But we were known as the Sewer Rats, along with a couple of other kids at school. We fought paintball wars against kids from other schools. But we call them tunnel wars, because we have our paintball fights in the huge pipes of the city storm drain system. Micky takes challenges from kids at other schools who have heard about us and sets up each new war. In the six months since we began, we haven’t lost once. It helps that the Sewer Rats know the tunnels better than anyone else.

  “He’s stupid,” Lisa said, staring at Carter. Her voice was angry. “Ugly and stupid.”

  I half turned my head to look at her.

  “Get your eyes off me,” Lisa told me. “If I want to think he’s stupid, I can. And I can say it too. Unless you want to make something of it.”

  I’ve seen Lisa punch guys full in the mouth.

  “Nope,” I said. “He might be stupid. But I’m not.”

  Her frown told me it would also be stupid to ask why she hated the new kid so much. All Carter had done was ask us if he could join the Sewer Rats.

  Normally we’d let kids try a tunnel war. If a kid wasn’t scared to be alone in the darkness below the streets, they could join.

  But Lisa had told Carter that all Sewer Rats passed a test at the lagoons. This test: sneaking in and walking the guardrail above the toilet stuff below.

  “Stupid or not,” Micky said, watching Carter carefully, “you’ve got to admit he’s got guts.”

  Carter was in plain view on the guardrail. A security guard might notice him any second. His arms were stretched wide as he balanced himself, taking one careful step at a time.

  “Guts? I hope he gets caught,” Lisa said. “Or falls in.”

  Her tone made me wonder if there was something I didn’t know about Lisa and Carter. Maybe Carter had made the mistake of asking her out. Maybe he wanted to join the Sewer Rats because he wanted to impress her. That would have been dumb. Lisa didn’t like guys in that way. Everyone in school knew that. Except for maybe the new kid.

  He was now halfway across, walking the guardrail like it was a tightrope.

  I thought of the brown toilet stuff in the pond below him. I thought of what might happen if a security guard came by. I started to get a scared feeling in my stomach, a ball of spiders that makes me want to throw up. The same feeling I get every time I go into the tunnels for a paintball war.

  Zantor, soldier of the galaxy, I whispered in my head. Zantor has removed all emotion as he watches the rookie soldier battle the alien swamp.

  By creating this pretend world, I was able to make the ball of spiders stop wriggling in my stomach. I did this when I was scared —in school before a test, and in the tunnels.

  Scared as I was in the tunnels, there was no way I could let Micky or Lisa know it. Ever. The Sewer Rats were my only friends. I was more afraid of losing them than I was of the tunnels.

  Zantor smiles. The swamp test provides amusement for galaxy soldiers.

  The spiders of panic in my stomach stopped wiggling.

  Lisa stepped back from the fence. Sounds of nylon and zipper told me that Lisa was opening her backpack. She began to dig through it.

  I didn’t take my eyes off Carter.

  “What’s this?” Micky said to Lisa a few second later.

  “What’s it look like?” she said. “A violin?”

  I finally looked over. Lisa had an air horn, the kind that uses pressurized air to make noise. Loud noise.

  “Think he’ll be able to handle it?” Lisa asked.

  “You wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Want to bet?”

  “Don’t do it,” Micky said.

  “Don’t do what? This?” She pushed the button on the air horn and the sound almost broke my eardrums.

  At the walkway, Carter staggered like he had jumped a little at the sudden sound.

  Micky spun and shouted at her. “Are you nuts? Don’t—”

  Lisa cut Micky off by blaring the air horn again.

  Lisa blared the air horn in more short blasts.

  Two things happened by the lagoon. A big security guard came running around the corner of a holding tank. And Carter saw the security guard and lost his balance. As he fell his head bounced off the guardrail.

  Carter dropped into the goop like a giant rock. No splashing around to swim. No coming up for air.

  The security guard shouted.

  There was still no splashing around, still no sign of Carter.


  The security guard dove in after him.

  chapter two

  The next morning we were in the Miss Pohl’s office. She was our principal.

  She looked at us and said one word. “Losers.”

  That surprised me. Sure, our nickname for her was Bean Pohl because she was tall and slender. She was an older woman. I read somewhere that as people age they get the face they deserve. Crabby people have a face that looks crabby from all the hours and hours spent with a crabby expression on their face. Mean people get a mask of a face with all their meanness settled right into it.

  I think there’s truth in that. Miss Pohl has the face of someone who smiles a lot and cares about people. That makes it easy to talk to her. Of all of our teachers, she was the one who seemed most human. And here she was, calling us losers to our faces.

  Which is why I was surprised at what she said.

  She walked to her window and looked outside for a few seconds.

  “Losers,” she said again without turning to us.

  I was standing at the back wall with Lisa and Micky and Carter. Micky frowned. I touched his elbow. He looked at me. I shook my head. It wouldn’t do any good to show that we were mad.

  She said it one more time. Sadly. “Losers.”

  We have all been called much worse before. I know some of the teachers say we’re dysfunctional, as if we have a disease.

  I’ve been called a loser before. I’m skinny and dark-haired, with a big nose that’s always stuck in a science fiction book. If I’m going to be honest, I’d better admit I’m short too. Okay, really short. But I don’t let that bother me. Okay, I do.

  Lisa Chambers is blond and pretty in a tough-looking way. She is even tougher than she looks.

  Micky Downs? He has a crew cut, square face and big shoulders. He could be one of the best athletes in the school if he ever bothered to try out for a team. As for Carter, I didn’t know much about him yet. But if he wanted to be part of our gang, that probably said something about him too.

  “It makes me angry,” Miss Pohl said, finally facing us again, “when a police officer comes into this school and calls all of you losers. It makes me angry when I hear other people say it too. Because I know it’s not true. You are not losers.”

  She sighed. “I just wish you kids would figure that out before it’s too late.”

  “About the videotape,” I began.

  “Jim McClosky,” she said to me. “Don’t give me one of your excuses. It’s all there, in black and white.”

  Who would have thought the city would have video surveillance at a sewage lagoon. Like there’s something there to steal.

  “It’s my fault,” Carter said. “They had nothing to do with it. It was my idea. They were just there because they didn’t believe I’d be so dumb. I deserve all the punishment.”

  “Actually,” I said. “It’s my fault. It was my idea. I deserve the punishment.”

  “No,” Micky said. “It was my idea. I’m the one who should get punished.”

  Miss Pohl sighed. “Lisa, are you going to try to take the blame too?”

  “Not a chance,” she said. She fired an angry look at Carter. Another sigh from Miss Pohl.

  “I have no choice here,” she said. “I’ve got to take action. I’m told I should suspend the four of you.”

  She shook her head. “But what good would that do? School is your best chance of proving that you aren’t losers. I just wish you kids could see yourselves the way I see you.”

  “Um,” I said, “I’d feel really horrible if you made me miss school for a few days. Please don’t suspend us.”

  “Nice try, McClosky,” she said, smiling. “I know you’re joking. I also know you have a great imagination. Ever dream of writing stories?”

  I’d never considered that. Sure I always ran stories through my head, but to put them on paper?

  “And Micky, what do you dream of becoming someday? Lisa? Carter?”

  We didn’t answer.

  “Here’s what I’m going to do,” she said. “By next Friday, I want a three-page essay from each of you about what you’d like to do most when you’re finished school.”

  “That’s it?” Micky said.

  “No. There will be some community work involved too. Don’t be surprised if it involves scrubbing toilets.”

  We groaned.

  “And please,” she said. “Nothing else, all right? If I have to call you in the office again, there will likely be social workers involved.”

  Not good.

  I decided not to mention we had another paintball war in the sewer tunnels the next morning.

  chapter three

  Five Sewer Rats met after school. We stood outside the Seven-Eleven. There was Lisa, Micky, the Cooper twins, Al and Dave, and me. The Cooper twins are tall, skinny, redheaded and hardly ever speak.

  Their mom and dad are both doctors. You’d think this would be good, but their parents are always either working or on vacation, leaving the Cooper twins with the nanny who has raised them since they were babies.

  “It’s like this,” Micky said to Lisa. “Maybe we should lay low for a while.”

  “We?” she asked, kicking at a chocolate bar wrapper on the pavement.

  “The Sewer Rats. Maybe we should hold off on tomorrow’s paintball war against the guys at Medford school. If anything happens and Old Bean Pohl brings in social workers...”

  “No way,” she said. “Not a chance. We’re Sewer Rats. Not sewer chickens.”

  Her tone didn’t scare Micky like it did me.

  “Look,” he said. “Yesterday—”

  “What about it?” she snapped. “Some stupid kid fell in a lagoon and had to be rescued by security. It’s not our fault.”

  I shook my head at the reminder. The guard had pulled Carter from the lagoon. Both of them dripped head to toe with brown, gucky water. Their clothes had slimy lumps all over. The gross part was when the guard had given Carter mouth-to-mouth.

  “Not our fault?” Micky said. “Who started with the air horn?”

  “Part of the test,” she said. “He failed. That’s no reason for us to chicken out of the tunnel fight tomorrow.”

  “But what I’m trying to say,” Micky said, “is that everyone in the school—the teachers, Mrs. Pohl—knows why Carter was in the lagoon.”

  “That just makes us cool,” Lisa said. “Now they know if you want to be a Sewer Rat, you pay the price. Besides, everyone thinks it was funny. I bet even Old Bean Pohl giggled when she saw the video.”

  Micky started to say something, then shut his mouth as a man in a suit walked past us. The man frowned at us. Once the man was inside the store Micky said, “Even if they think it’s funny, they—”

  “The teachers can’t do nothing to us,” Lisa told him, crossing her arms. The paintball wars aren’t on school property.

  “But—,” Micky tried. It was like trying to stop a hurricane.

  “Do you think I care what the teachers think?” Lisa asked. “They think we band together because no one else likes us. And we’re proud to agree with them, aren’t we?”

  Micky shrugged. When people called us losers, it just made our group stronger.

  “It’s the Medford gang I care about,” Lisa continued. “The Sewer Rats have never lost a paintball war and we’re not going to chicken out now.”

  “Hey,” the Cooper twins said together. They pointed down the street.

  It was Carter on his mountain bike. Headed toward us. The wind blew his blond hair backward.

  “What’s he doing?” Lisa asked. “Who told him we were going to meet here?”

  “I did,” Micky said.

  “He’s not a Sewer Rat!” Lisa was angry.

  “After what he went through yesterday, he is,” Micky said, crossing his own arms. “You heard him try to take full blame this morning in Old Bean Pohl’s office. If he’s not in, I’m not in.”

  Lisa glared at Micky. Micky calmly stared straight into her eyes.


  “Come on,” I said. “You guys are friends. Think of all the times you’ve helped each other in the tunnels.”

  They kept staring at each other.

  Carter pulled up, doing a brake slide as he stopped.

  “Hey,” he said.

  The Cooper twins started to sniff the air.

  “Very funny,” Carter said. “The stuff washes out. Really.”

  He grinned. “Of course, it took three bottles of shampoo to get clean.”

  The Cooper twins laughed and gave him high fives.

  “What’s with those two?” Carter asked me.

  Micky and Lisa were still staring at each other.

  “Not much,” I said. “Any second they’re going to kiss and make up.”

  Finally Lisa uncrossed her arms.

  “Are we on for a war with the Medford gang tomorrow?” she asked Micky.

  “Sure,” he said after a couple of seconds. “With Carter, our new Sewer Rat?”

  “Come on, Lisa,” Dave Cooper said.

  “He passed the test,” Al said. “After that, he should be a Sewer Rat.”

  Lisa darted a dirty look at Carter. “I guess so.”

  Carter smiled at her.

  That was the end of our meeting.

  It wasn’t until that night as I fell asleep that I began to wonder about Carter.

  Because of Lisa’s air horn, Carter had fallen into the lagoon. Because of Lisa, Carter was in big trouble. Yet he had ridden up to us as if nothing had happened.

  Why wasn’t Carter mad at Lisa?

  chapter four

  On Saturday morning, the Sewer Rats met in the tall trees at the edge of Bell Park. Now there were six of us: me and Lisa and Micky, the Cooper twins, and Carter.

  All of us carried duffel bags that held our helmets and our paintball guns. We knew people would never stop us to ask about our duffel bags because they could have been for soccer or baseball. On the other hand, plenty of people would have had plenty of questions if we walked around with paintball guns over our shoulders.

  And what we were doing, of course, was something we didn’t want to be asked about.

  Running through the middle of Bell Park was a drainage ditch that led to the river. At the bottom of the big hill that looked down on Bell Park, a big tunnel emptied into this drainage ditch. The tunnel was connected to the entire drainage system below the streets.