The Word Eater

by Mary Amato

  The mystery was bigger than Bobby thought. Why, he wondered, did only Mack’s Thumbtacks disappear? And why wasn’t this Mr. Mack guy commenting? And what did thumbtacks have to do with Attackaterriers?

  On Bellitas Island, Lucia closed her eyes and made a wish. This magic that made the thumbtacks disappear, she said, I want more of it. I want the whole Mack Industries to disappear.

  Mr. Archibald Mack’s voice snapped her out of her daydream.

  “Any thumbtacks?” he said.

  “Any thumbtacks?” bellowed Boris, his bodyguard.

  Lucia jumped and stared at the empty boxes in front of her. She was sitting at the Mack Industries thumbtack packing table with twenty other children. Their orders were to keep making and packing tacks, but no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t do it. The children over at the machine kept pouring the steel, but the thumbtacks would vanish before they could pop open the molds.

  Mr. Mack, a handsome man in a sharp white suit, gritted his sharp white teeth. “Stop production!”

  “Stop production!” Boris yelled.

  Thrilled, Lucia stood up. “That means we get to quit—”

  Mr. Mack smiled at her. “That means nothing of the kind. I’m giving you other work to do. Clean this place from top to bottom. And I want the chalkboards and desks and school things put into place. The FBI is coming on Friday to investigate the thumbtack mystery and—”

  “The FBI!” Lucia blurted out. “They’ll see what you’re doing and close you down for good, Mr. Mack. You work us like slaves and you’re cruel to the puppies—”

  Mr. Mack’s neck and face turned an angry red, and the sweep of blond hair above his forehead began to shake. He looked like a long white stick of dynamite about to explode, but he didn’t explode. He smiled sweetly. “The FBI is going to find children learning to read and write at the Mack Technical School.”

  “But this isn’t a school.”

  “We have books and report cards and test scores.” Mr. Mack gestured toward a pile of books and papers gathering dust in the corner of the workroom.

  “Those are fake and you know it.”

  “Why don’t you just leave then, if you think my school is so horrible?”

  Lucia glared at him. Hundreds of Attackaterriers prowled the grounds. There was one safe exit, and Boris unlocked it only when the shift was over.

  Mr. Mack laughed and Boris joined in. Then he said, “Scrub the walls, the floors, the ceilings, the tables. Scrub the air.” His nostrils flared as he inhaled. “It stinks in here.”

  “You’re not going to get away with it, Mr. Mack,” Lucia said.

  “Maybe she got a point,” Boris whispered.

  “I’m not worried about the FBI,” Mr. Mack said as he headed back to his office. “I’ll charm the FBI into thinking I adore children and puppies.”

  Lucia tugged on her long black braid. “Well, at least the puppies are safe.”

  Mr. Mack turned around. “What do you mean?”

  “We know what you do over there.” She pointed to the Attackaterrier training facility connected by a long corridor to the thumbtack factory. “You stick thumbtacks into their paws to make them mean.”

  “I do?” Mr. Mack said with a look of false concern. “That does sound cruel.”

  “Maybe she got another point,” Boris whispered. “You can’t do the Attacka method of training without thumbtacks.”

  “True. Puppies need a solid year of my Thumbtack Tactics before they become vicious enough to win the ‘Mack’s Attackaterrier’ seal of approval.”

  “So,” said Lucia brightly. “You can’t do any more training, can you?”

  The other children grinned.

  Mr. Mack scowled at the skinny girl in the center of the crowd. Maybe she led them all in a plot to get rid of the thumbtacks. They certainly looked happy about it. Well, he could change that in a second.

  “It’s true that I can’t do the training today. But I’ve already ordered a dozen cases of thumbtacks from my competitor. As soon as they arrive and the FBI leaves, I’ll be back in business.”

  Lucia’s smile disappeared.

  “And don’t forget,” Mr. Mack warned, “the adult dogs who are guarding this factory are as mean as ever. The training they had when they were puppies is wired into their memory. All the thumbtacks in the world could disappear and they’d still be mean. So don’t even think about leaving.”

  Underneath the surface of the soil, Fip inched along. He had been crawling all night, past colonies of ants, slugs, mites, and fungi, determined to find a home and food for himself. Just because the clan had given up on him didn’t mean he would give up. He poked his head through the soil and looked around hopefully.

  Unfortunately for him, the Cleveland Park Middle School Environment Club had cleaned the playground. Not a scrap of paper to be found. A lump formed in Fip’s throat and his skin prickled.

  A voice surprised him from behind. “Who’s skinching? You sound too young to be out alone.”

  Fip turned around to face an enormous blob of a worm. “I’m of the Gamorm Clan,” the worm said. “And you?”

  “Lumbricus Clan, sort of,” said Fip. “I guess I’m looking for a new clan.”

  “Tank up your gizzard!” said the large worm as it pushed a piece of rotted bark toward Fip. “You sound like you need plumping.” The Gamorm worm began chewing on the moldy bark.

  Fip wriggled closer, wondering if this Gamorm Clan would take him in. “Smells ummy!” he said, trying to be polite. He sucked up a fleck of the bark rot. “Bluch!” He spit it out and was about to apologize when the air around them darkened. Fip’s instincts should have propelled him into the nearest hole. He should have known it was a bird on the lookout for fat, juicy worms. But little Fip didn’t go underground. Unfortunately, he screamed and grabbed the fat, juicy worm’s rear end.

  In a flash, the crow pinched the Gamorm worm in her beak, and before Fip could even think to let go, they were off the ground.

  In Mr. Markus Droan’s first period science class every seat was full, yet Mr. Droan sat behind his desk calling out the roll. Winny Auster. Here. Randy Butler. Here. Sharmaine Cabott. Here.

  Lerner Chanse sat in the far back corner staring out the large window next to her desk. She had tried pretending she was sick, but her parents didn’t buy it. Now she had to face another day and the same dare, which she didn’t think was fair. After all, Bobby Nitz had his hawk eyes pinned on her, ready to pounce.

  Lerner pushed her bangs out of her eyes and watched the red leaves of a distant maple shake in the strong wind. She’d tell the MPOOEs to forget it. Who needed them? She’d build a cocoon around herself. She’d go underground, become a SLUG. The school year would be over, anyway, in only nine months.

  Out of nowhere, a huge crow flew toward Lerner’s window. Lerner ducked instinctively, but the crow didn’t thump against the glass as she’d expected. Instead, it landed awkwardly on the ledge, gobbled something in its beak, and flew away.

  Bobby laughed at Lerner’s response. “Did you think it was going to fly in and eat you, Helmet Head?”

  As usual, Lerner ignored him. The window was an ancient kind that pushed open from the bottom, and it was open a crack. Lerner reached over to close it and noticed a tiny movement on the white concrete ledge. A bug? A caterpillar? She opened the window more and leaned out for a closer look. A rosy worm, about the length of two rice grains, wriggled toward the window as if trying to find a place to hide. Lerner wasn’t crazy about worms, but she didn’t like the thought of him being gobbled up by some obnoxious crow.

  She picked him up and set him on her desk, next to an article she had cut out of the newspaper.

  The little worm was Fip, who had dropped to the ledge the millisecond before the crow had eaten the Gamorm. Now, a tangy whiff flooded Fip’s sensors. Food! Food! He stretched out and sniffed in wonder at the words of the article laid out before him. A smorgasbord! He skinched onto the paper and began nibbling the neares
t thing to his mouth, the letter J.

  “I suppose no one thought to bring in an article for extra credit,” Mr. Droan said.

  Lerner raised her hand, forgetting about the worm. “I brought in an article from the Washington News,” she said, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Everyone in the room turned around to stare at her.

  After a moment of silence, Mr. Droan raised his bushy eyebrows. “Well, there’s a first time for everything. Two points for Ms. Chanse.”

  Reba rolled her eyes and Randy snickered.

  Sharmaine, the MPOOE who sat in front of Lerner, turned around and whispered helpfully, “Extra credit is not considered cool.”

  Lerner felt like crawling under a rock.

  Mr. Droan handed out work sheets and told them to work quietly. Then he created his usual barricade by propping his grade book on his desk. Behind it, he cracked open a paperback book with a red foil cover (Burning Heart of Desire). As he began reading the first page, he reached into his pencil drawer and pulled out a half-empty bag of chocolate chips.

  Lerner stared at the work sheet.

  If she had to be a SLUG in Washington, D.C., why couldn’t the classes, at least, be interesting? In history, they did long reports that the teacher didn’t bother to grade. In language arts, they didn’t read books; so far Ms. Findley just gave spelling tests and handed out grammar work sheets. And they never did any experiments in science. If Lerner didn’t see Mr. Droan outside on recess duty, she’d hypothesize that his rear end was chemically bonded to his chair.

  She glanced at her newspaper article, which Mr. Droan hadn’t even bothered to look at or read. Newspaper articles were more interesting than work sheets. Why couldn’t they study real science news?

  Lerner imagined herself standing up and ripping the work sheet into confetti. “You call yourself a teacher?” she’d say to Mr. Droan. She imagined all the other students standing up, uniting to demand change.

  It would never happen. The MPOOEs were too snobbish and the SLUGs were too spineless. She glanced around the room. Hardly anyone was working. Reba and Randy, the gossip queen and king, were passing notes, probably nasty ones about her. Bobby Nitz was folding his work sheet into a paper airplane, and Julio, an artistic SLUG, was sketching cartoons on his desktop.

  Lerner was about to crumple up the article when a small movement caught her eye. That little worm she had rescued was wriggling around. She noticed something—or rather, a lack of something—as he inched to the right. There was a blank space in the article. She peered closer. The worm was hunched down, his body pulsing. Underneath what seemed to be his head, the letter r disappeared. The worm curled into a ball and seemed to fall asleep. Lerner looked at the blank space in the article. The words Jay’s Star had disappeared.

  In a distant galaxy, the reddish light of Jay’s Star began to flicker as though a huge breath were trying to blow it out. One second, two seconds, three seconds, and then—poof!—the star and its light vanished completely.

  In the science classroom, Lerner put the worm in the palm of her hand. He felt rather nice—cool and smooth like Play-Doh. “I’ve never heard of a worm eating words,” she whispered.

  She slipped the worm into a neglected terrarium on the shelf next to the window. That should be a safe place for him to live. A little dirt, a few dead leaves. No predators. What more could a worm want?

  But saving powerless worms wasn’t enough to make Lerner’s day bearable. The hours dragged on. During recess she went to the nurse’s office with a genuine, Grade-A stomachache. Of course, the MPOOEs would think she was faking it to get out of recess. After school, she deliberately missed the bus so that she wouldn’t have to put up with Reba’s questions or Bobby’s nasty remarks.

  Cleveland Park Middle School was in an old neighborhood with big brick houses that were similar to the houses in Lerner’s Wisconsin neighborhood. The difference was that the houses here were smooshed up against each other, separated by the skinniest driveways Lerner had ever seen.

  She and her best friend, Marie, had always walked to and from school in Wisconsin. Although it was a lot farther to walk here, it felt good to be out in the cool October wind. The maples were already red and the oaks were just turning to gold. Lerner took her time, imagining that she had won a million dollars and was on a shopping trip to buy her own house. By the time she arrived home, she was lost in a fantasy in which Marie had come from Wisconsin to live with her in her new, kids-only mansion.

  As she walked up her driveway, Bobby Nitz’s Attackaterrier broke the spell by hurling himself against the chain-link fence. Involuntarily, Lerner screamed and was mortified to hear Bobby’s bedroom window open.

  “Gets you every time, Helmet Head,” he yelled, and laughed.

  “I don’t ever see you playing with Ripper!” Lerner said. “My dad says people shouldn’t keep Attackaterriers as pets! He’s a vet, you know. And stop calling me Helmet Head.”

  She was about to go inside when he added, “You don’t have to feel scared about going in. Your baby-sitter is already there.”

  Lerner pushed up her glasses. “She’s not my baby-sitter! I don’t need a baby-sitter! So mind your own business,” she shouted, and slammed the door behind her.

  From the family room, Mrs. Chilling yelled, “Save the pieces!” Then, all that could be heard was a man and woman moaning on Hot Days and Nights, the TV show that Mrs. Chilling had to watch every day.

  In Wisconsin, she didn’t need a Mrs. Chilling to be there when she got home from school. In Wisconsin, she and Marie kept each other company.

  “You must have been worried when I didn’t get off the bus, Mrs. Chilling,” Lerner said to herself as she grabbed a handful of cookies from the pantry. “I can see why my mom and dad hired you!” Lerner took a chomp out of a cookie. If she were kidnapped, Mrs. Chilling probably wouldn’t even notice.

  The family cat slipped into the kitchen and rubbed against Lerner’s leg. She bent down to give her a long stroke. “Hello, good old Martha. How’s my fellow prisoner?”

  With Martha in one arm and more cookies in the other, Lerner locked herself in her room.

  First, she wrote a long letter to Marie. Then, she and Martha curled up on the bed and stared at the ceiling for what seemed like an hour. (Well, Martha fell asleep.) Finally, Lerner got out a pair of scissors and stood up close to the mirror.

  “The time has come to take my hair into my own hands, Martha,” she announced. She put the scissors in place and made a tiny nip. A massive amount of hair flurried down. She kept cutting across, holding the scissors perfectly, absolutely straight. Then she stepped back to look at the big picture and experienced a near-fatal heart attack. “Oh, Martha! Why didn’t you stop me? It looks like an army of naked mole rats chomped across my forehead.”

  Martha had nothing to say.

  Just then, Lerner heard the sound of the front door opening and closing. Her mom and dad were home.

  A few minutes later she heard the door again. Mrs. Chilling was going home. After a while, footsteps sounded on the stairs. “Lerner?” Her mom said, and the doorknob jiggled.

  “It’s locked,” Lerner said.

  “Well, open it and say hello. I want to hear about your day.”

  “I’m not coming out until you promise we can move back to Wisconsin,” Lerner yelled at the door.

  “Honey.” Her mother’s voice sounded tired. “We can’t do that. Your dad and I have new jobs here. You just need more time to get settled. We think this is a wonderful opportunity for all of us.”

  Wonderful for you, thought Lerner as she pulled on her hair, but not for me.

  “Come down when you’re ready,” her mom said. “We’re making chicken and biscuits!”

  Five minutes later, Lerner could hear her parents banging around in the kitchen. Cooking was something they all liked to do together. Music started up—an old Beatles’ album, which was a favorite of all three—and the banging and clanking got more rhythmic. Lerner could tell her dad was
pounding on the flour tub with his wooden spoons. A few seconds later, her mom started wailing along with the chorus. All Lerner had to do was walk down the stairs and she could join in the fun.

  Stubbornly, she climbed into bed and put her pillow over her head.

  By the time Dr. William Jay arrived at Figer National Observatory, his assistant was already there, looking white in the face. “I have bad news,” she said. “Your star disappeared.”

  Dr. Jay spent the next few hours searching the silent sky with a 10-meter telescope, his mouth hanging open like a black hole.

  Mr. Droan sat behind his desk, honking out the roll: Winny Auster. Here. Randy Butler. Here. Sharmaine Cabott. Here. When he got to Lerner Chanse, her wish to be absent was so overpowering that she mistakenly said, “Not here.”

  “If I had that haircut I wouldn’t want to be here, either,” Queen Reba said.

  Everybody laughed.

  Lerner pressed her bangs against her forehead. She had heard that the MPOOEs were going to pronounce her a SLUG if she skipped recess again. Lerner’s goal of the day was to barf at lunchtime. Right on the table. The nurse would have to send her home. She glanced over at the school lunch menu that was taped on the wall. Today was spinach soufflé. That should do it.

  Mr. Droan started to close his grade book, and Bobby Nitz called out, “I have an extra credit article.”

  Randy groaned.

  “Bring it up,” Mr. Droan said.

  Bobby walked up and held it out. “It was in this morning’s paper. So do I get two points?”

  The teacher looked it over without touching it. “Two thousand extra credit points couldn’t help your grade, Nitz.”