The Word Eater

by Mary Amato

  Please work. Lerner closed her eyes. Please work. When she opened her eyes, Mr. Droan’s exam on photosynthesis was shimmering just as the vending machine had. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw more shimmering. It wasn’t just her exam. All the tests were shimmering.

  To Fip, the magic felt like an earthquake. The paper underneath him was splitting apart, molecule by molecule, each part vibrating wildly. He screamed and waved his bristles.

  Entranced by the shimmering light, Lerner didn’t even notice him.

  One second . . .

  Two seconds . . .

  “Hey,” whispered Bobby. “What’s going on . . .”

  Three seconds.

  Fip hit the nicely solid wood of Lerner’s desktop. The paper was completely gone. Lerner looked around. All the desktops in the room were empty. The room was dead silent.

  Lost in Burning Heart of Desire, Mr. Droan had forgotten that his students even existed.

  “Uh—Mr. Droan . . . ,” Reba said. “The tests . . .”

  Mr. Droan looked up and blinked at the empty desks. “Very funny. Ha. Ha. Get back to work.”

  No one spoke.

  “This is very simple, people,” Mr. Droan said. “Put your tests back on your desk and get to work.”

  Everybody started talking at once.

  Lerner put a cupped hand over the exhausted Fip and tried to look calm. Inside her head, her own voice was shooting off like a firecracker: Fip has magic power! And I have Fip! It was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to her, the most incredible thing that had ever happened to anybody.

  Mr. Droan frowned, his eyebrows smashing together. “Bobby—”

  “Don’t look at me!” Bobby said.

  Mr. Droan whirled around to face Reba. “Ms. Silo, does this have anything to do with your little club?”

  Well, this accusation was startling. Teachers had generally thought the MPOOE Club was cute—an impression Reba had worked hard to maintain. Now, the club was actually being linked to something bad that they didn’t even do! Reba stammered that she didn’t know anything, and the sound of her faltering voice made many of the MPOOEs in the room take pause.

  Lerner grinned. She felt like standing up and shouting, “Now who’s the Most Powerful One On Earth?”

  “Ms. Chanse, you look like you’re enjoying yourself. Perhaps you know something about this?”

  Lerner’s smile vanished. She shrugged, avoiding Mr. Droan’s eyes.

  “All right, people,” the teacher said. “You all have after-school detention today and every day until the tests are returned.”

  The class groaned.

  “This is not excellent,” Reba muttered darkly.

  Sharmaine turned around and looked under Lerner’s desk as if she expected to find the tests in a neat pile under Lerner’s feet.

  “My mom is going to kill me!” Winny the SLUG sobbed. “I’ve never had detention!”

  A ping of guilt hit Lerner, but she ponged it away by remembering that she hadn’t intended to get everybody in trouble. Winny was exaggerating. After-school detention wasn’t even that big of a deal. And Mr. Droan couldn’t keep them in detention forever, could he?

  By lunchtime, the whole school was buzzing. Mr. Droan told the principal that someone had stolen the exams, and the principal made everyone who was in Droan’s first-period science class spend recess sitting in the lunchroom. The students were confused and furious—especially the MPOOEs.

  During Ms. Findley’s fifth period language arts class, Reba and Randy passed notes to everyone.

  The threat scared many a SLUG, even though they hadn’t done a thing. Bobby responded to his note by folding it into an ultralight glider and hitting the back of Reba’s head with it when Ms. Findley wasn’t looking.

  Lerner had to laugh. She should have been scared by the announcement, but she wasn’t. Nothing could bother her. Who cared about after-school detention? If you were Lerner Chanse, you could feed the word detention to Fip and it would disappear! Not a bad idea, Lerner thought. Maybe I’ll do that tomorrow.

  Altogether, it turned out to be an amazing day for Lerner. Her last class, history, went to the library to work on their “Everyday Life in Colonial America” reports. She got her favorite carrel in the back and tried to concentrate on her report, but every time she read a word she imagined what would happen if Fip were to eat it. Cotton. Tea. Stockings. Firewood. Ink!

  About five minutes into the period, Sharmaine, who was sitting in the next carrel, leaned over and whispered, “I won’t tell the MPOOEs. You had something to do with the vending machine and the tests, didn’t you?” Her voice was sincere and nicely conspiratorial; there was something in it Lerner wanted to trust.

  The thing was—Lerner liked her. Sharmaine didn’t put people down the way Reba did. And Sharmaine wrote genuine, Grade-A poems in a spiral notebook, which Lerner often read over her shoulder during Mr. Droan’s science class. Lerner also kept a secret journal, which she would consider showing to Sharmaine, if Sharmaine were her friend. The problem was—Sharmaine was a MPOOE. And she couldn’t trust a MPOOE.

  “Knowledge is power,” Lerner gloated. “I have it, and the MPOOEs don’t.”

  Mrs. Popocheskovich rolled by with her cart full of books, and Sharmaine ducked back in her own carrel. The librarian shelved a book and leaned in toward Lerner. “It was Francis Bacon who said that knowledge is power, Cookie,” she whispered. “He was a philosopher who said much things to make you run and think. He also said that the appetite for too much power caused the angels to fall.” The librarian patted her twist and pushed her cart to the next aisle.

  In the quiet of the library, Lerner thought about what Mrs. Popocheskovich said. Knowledge about Fip was an awesome power. Power that Lerner could use for good—or evil. She shouldn’t waste the power on childish things like vending machines and tests—although that had been fun. Fip was a gift to be used for the good of humankind. With a new sense of purpose and righteous excitement, she borrowed a copy of the Washington News and scanned through it for ideas.

  CRIME ON RISE

  JAPAN ROCKED BY EARTHQUAKES

  The newspaper was filled with life-and-death matters. Lerner imagined feeding Fip the word crime and watching murder weapons vanish. Ta Da! She imagined feeding Fip the word earthquake and calming a fault line in mid-tremble. Hurray! She could do it. She had the power.

  Or did she? What if Fip only had a certain amount of power and it was almost gone? Lerner didn’t know that much about Fip, after all. The books on invertebrates that she had borrowed yesterday were no help. Fip didn’t look or act like any of the worms described. All she knew was what Fip had done, not what he was capable of doing in the future. Perhaps he was a completely new—or alien?—species. She’d do more experiments and keep track of her findings in her journal. She needed to stick to things that she could see. Crime and earthquake were too big: What if the desire to commit a crime is what disappeared? How could she see that? And how could she find out whether or not she had stopped an earthquake from happening?

  She needed something specific, a name that only referred to one very immediate thing, something she could see. She needed—what did Ms. Findley call it?—a proper noun. She turned the page and an article caught her eye.

  Attackaterriers. That was it! She could delete Attackaterriers. Life without Ripper flashed before her eyes. Imagine! She and Martha could frolic in their own backyard without the constant growling. Good old Martha could become an outdoor cat again.

  Although Lerner should have been writing her “Everyday Life in Colonial America” report, she pulled out her journal and wrote plans for the next experiment:

  She could do it after school in her bedroom and see right through her window if it worked on Ripper. She couldn’t wait, but she had to. After history class, she had to report to Mr. Droan’s room for detention along with everybody else.

  The room was packed. Lerner sat in her usual place in the back and pretended to do her ho
mework. The MPOOEs were up to something, passing notes up and down the rows—to MPOOE members only—like a hive of worker bees. Queen Reba sat in the center with her chest sticking out as usual, watching every move.

  The top of Mr. Droan’s head appeared and disappeared behind his propped-up grade book with every snore.

  Lerner looked over Sharmaine’s shoulder. She couldn’t see the note Reba had passed her, but she could see the poem Sharmaine had just written in her spiral notebook.

  Now this was an interesting development.

  Lerner opened her backpack and pulled out a Nutty Munch. As she took a bite, she felt Winny the SLUG’s perfectly round eyes on her. Feeling powerful in a saintly kind of way, Lerner pulled out another Nutty Munch and handed it to Winny, who grinned and straightened up in her seat. Lerner glanced at the kids in the room who weren’t wearing MPOOE wristbands. Then she, the Good Deed Doer, pulled out a dozen Nutty Munches. For SLUGs only she wrote on each wrapper. One by one, she passed them to all the SLUGs. Well, all but Bobby Nitz.

  She slipped a note around the last Nutty Munch and passed it to Sharmaine.

  The MPOOEs watched silently. Reba looked like she wanted to spit thumbtacks. Bobby pretended not to notice.

  School was getting fun.

  After detention, Bobby Nitz ran out the door and kept running, fast and hard, until it felt as though his lungs would burst. He hated school. He hated Droan and he hated the other kids. He hated Helmet Head with her stupid candy bars for SLUGs only. He slowed to a walk, the concrete sidewalk slamming up through his thin-soled sneakers. He wished he could run so fast that his feet would leave the ground. He wished his bones were hollow like a bird’s so he could fly. He’d fly above Thirty-sixth Street, past the turnoff to his house, past the parkway and the zoo. He’d fly and fly and keep on flying, out of town, out of the world.

  Ahead, the stoplight turned red. He pounded right into the intersection, and a car screeched to a stop, honking. The driver got out to yell, and Bobby took off running again, plowing past a group of third graders on the corner who were too scared to protest. When he got home, he ran straight to his father’s den and locked the door.

  He turned on the computer and called up the Internet.

  Outside, Ripper barked. Somebody screamed. Bobby parted his window curtain and looked out. Helmet Head. She was in the driveway walking over to Ripper’s pen, closer than Bobby had ever seen her dare to come. Staying hidden, he eased the window a crack.

  “That’s the last time you’re going to scare me.” Lerner was talking to Ripper. “I’ve got a little surprise for you named Fip.”

  Every cell in Bobby’s brain came to attention. What did she mean—a surprise named Fip? Bobby saw her flash a smile at Ripper and walk into her house. No way! Lerner Chanse never smiled at Ripper. The image of Lerner riding on a broomstick with her short blond hair sticking straight up flew in and out of Bobby’s mind. Maybe she wasn’t a witch, but odd things were happening and she was involved. It all started with the thumbtacks, which he got when he slammed into her. She brought in an article about Jay’s Star, and the next day the star disappeared. Then, she used the lunch menu to hold some bug, and the spinach soufflé disappeared. A bunch of coincidences? No way! Today the principal talked about the missing vending machine, and guess who was passing out candy bars like a millionaire? And Lerner was smiling when Droan’s tests disappeared. That was definitely odd.

  Bobby got his binoculars and tried to see into Lerner’s bedroom window. What was going on? And what was this surprise named Fip? No luck. Her curtains were drawn.

  Turning back to the computer, he typed in “vending machine.”

  Lerner ran in the back door, holding her backpack tightly against her chest.

  Martha met her at the door with a meow.

  “Hello, good old Martha!” Lerner scooped up her cat. “Come on up to my room! I’m going to do a little experiment that I think you’ll like.”

  “Stop right there, young lady,” Mrs. Chilling said with a sour smile on her face. “I have three messages for you. Number one: The school called your mother at work to inform her of your detentions! Number two: Your mother called here to get an explanation! And number three: You’re grounded until further notice!”

  Lerner looked at Mrs. Chilling’s pursed lips. You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Mrs. Chilling? she said to herself. She took Martha up to her room where the cat climbed onto her desk and settled down for a nap.

  Lerner sighed. She wished Marie were here. Marie would help her figure out what to say to her parents. She sat at her desk and started spilling her guts.

  Lerner shook Fip out of his ink bottle and set him on the top of her desk so that she could get a good look before describing him to Marie.

  Fip took one whiff of good old Martha and his gizzard practically turned inside out. He screamed and curled into a ball.

  Martha blinked and twitched her whiskers, but she didn’t bother getting up.

  “Sorry, Martha, I think he’s scared of you.” Lerner scooped up her old cat and put her in the hallway.

  Fip took a quick breath in and glanced around to get his bearings. Ever since that earthquake, he was on edge. But, ah! A tangy whiff! There was a piece of paper with quite a bit of food on it. Lerner’s attention was calm and focused toward him, which made him feel calm, too. He liked the vibrations he felt when she paid attention to him. He skinched closer to her hand, and she smiled.

  Fip had grown plumper now, about the size of a large buttonhole, and was looking more like a caterpillar than a worm to Lerner. He had the cutest way of scrunching up the middle part of his body when he crawled. He was really quite remarkable, with delicate lines around his body, and when he chewed, his whole body trembled. Fascinated, Lerner watched him, and then realized with horror that he was eating the letter M in “Marie.” She screamed and grabbed him. Just then, the sound of barking came through the window.

  Ripper! She had forgotten about her plan to delete Attackaterriers.

  Lerner looked out her window just in time to see Ripper killing a bird. She opened her journal. Attackaterriers. All she had to do was set Fip down on the word, and she could make Attackaterriers history.

  “What do you think, Fip? Should we do it?”

  Martha meowed at the door.

  “Not now, Martha!”

  Lerner thought about her cat and started losing her nerve. Ripper wasn’t a pet to the Nitzes, but what if someone somewhere loved an Attackaterrier the way she loved Martha?

  Outside the window Ripper growled. An idea came to her. She wouldn’t delete all Attackaterriers. She’d just delete Ripper! She wrote out a new experiment and set Fip down near the R.

  Fip looked at her, trying to figure things out. Just a moment ago her alarm chemicals filled the air when she saw him eat. Now she wanted him to eat. It was confusing!

  “Come on, Fip,” Lerner said.

  Fip sniffed the R. It was hard to resist such an ummy snack.

  Lerner grabbed the binoculars hanging in her closet. As soon as Fip finished eating the last little curl of the last letter, she put him into his ink bottle and looked out the window. In the Nitzes’ backyard, Ripper’s body began to shimmer. He opened his mouth and a yelp wobbled out. One, two, three seconds . . . then the dog pen was empty.

  Completely empty.

  So empty that it gave Lerner a little chill. What had she just done? An uneasy feeling crept into her stomach.

  The Nitzes’ car pulled up with Mr. and Mrs. Nitz in it. Lerner froze. Oh great! The one time they come home from work early has to be today.

  They got out, hoisting fat briefcases. According to Lerner’s dad, Mr. Robert Nitz, Sr., was a very important prosecutor who put countless criminals in jail, and Mrs. Nitz was a very important flower arranger who arranged flowers for dinner parties at the White House. They always looked very important, Lerner supposed. But she didn’t like them. Mrs. Nitz was too quiet, and Mr. Nitz was too loud.

  “Where the
devil is that dog?” Mr. Nitz was asking as they headed inside.

  Lerner held her breath. A moment later he came out with Bobby.

  “All right,” Mr. Nitz said. “You show me where he is.”

  Bobby looked at the empty pen. “He’s . . . he was—”

  “You’re an imbecile! Do you know how much that dog cost?”

  “But I didn’t let him out—”

  “I suppose the dog let himself out?”

  “I don’t know how—”

  “You know what’s going to happen? That dog is going to kill somebody, and I’ll get sued.” Mr. Nitz slammed the gate. “Robert Nitz getting sued! Imagine that one! You’re going to pay for this, Bobby!”

  “But I didn’t let him—”

  Mr. Nitz wheeled around to face his son. “You can’t do anything right, you know that?”

  At 8:00 A.M., Lerner got on the school bus with Fip in her backpack and a hat pulled over her head.

  About fifteen kids were already on the bus, a few MPOOEs, a few SLUGs, and some kids from other grades. Randy stood up from his usual seat in the center and looked beyond her. “Where’s Nitz?” he wanted to know.

  Another MPOOE jumped up and peered out at the Nitzes’ house. “If he’s absent, it won’t be as good.”

  “Shut up,” hissed Reba.

  The bus driver yelled at everybody to sit down, yanked the doors shut, and pulled out.

  Lerner’s stomach was in knots. What were the MPOOEs plotting? And where was Bobby? She felt horribly guilty about Ripper. Mr. Nitz’s words kept playing over and over in her head. She couldn’t imagine her parents talking to her that way.

  Her parents had been angry about the detentions, but they didn’t call her names. They gave her a nice long lecture about behavior and how important it was to make a good impression at school. Usually, she hated lectures, but after hearing Mr. Nitz yell at Bobby, she didn’t think her parents’ lectures were so bad.