Pilfer Academy

by Lauren Magaziner

  Tabitha side-eyed the lasers nervously. “I want to try, too. I just hope we don’t regret it later.”

  “We’ll be really careful. Now, who first?” George said, and they both shouted, “NOT IT!” at the same time.

  But someone had to be first. George swallowed his fear with one ginormous gulp. “Okay, fine. I’ll go.” He stepped forward, so nervous he was almost feverish.

  “You can do it, George!” Tabitha said, and that boosted his confidence a bit. “Concentrate!”

  George gingerly slipped himself between two lasers. Then stooped under three more. Then tiptoed over one. It was a slow process, and he had to make sure he was as attentive as possible. There was no room for mistakes, or he would be fried to a crisp. He ducked, crawled, slithered, jumped, inched, twisted, and maneuvered through the laser beams. Very slowly. Carefully.

  Zzzzzzzzzzt!!!

  “GEORGE! LOOK OUT!”

  He looked down at his pants. There was a big hole in the fabric around his knee, but the laser missed his leg by a centimeter.

  “Pay attention!” Tabitha called.

  A droplet of sweat slid down the back of his neck.

  “Tabitha,” he said hoarsely, “you should start making your way through. We don’t have time!”

  “Okay,” she said. He could tell that she was scared, but she was hiding it well.

  George continued to slink, wiggle, and weave his way through, taking every step very sluggishly and cautiously. Arm under this one, leg over that one, head between these two, body going sideways. One at a time, he reminded himself often. Just take one at a—

  ZZzzzzzzzt!!! came the sound from across the room.

  “What’s that?” George shouted. He was stuck between three lasers and couldn’t see her. “Tabitha! Did you get hit?”

  Silence.

  “Tabitha!”

  Silence.

  “TABITHA! ARE YOU OKAY?”

  There came a slight sobbing sound.

  His heart was lead. “Are you hurt?”

  “It—it—it’s my braids!” she said mournfully. “That stupid laser just cut off half my hair!”

  Relief and rage surged through him. “DON’T SCARE ME LIKE THAT!”

  “Sorry!” she said. “I was just stunned!”

  He hopped over a low laser. “Good thing it wasn’t your head! Be careful out there!”

  “I’m trying!”

  He continued on. Over, under, sideways, up, down, around. It seemed to take forever—like he’d never get untangled from these hot, buzzing lasers.

  But at last, George reached the end. He was perfectly fine, but his pants had suffered; they were so holey that they looked like Swiss cheese.

  He brushed himself off. It had been impossible to see this side of the room when he was so busy focusing on not getting burned up by lasers, but now that he was here, he took a look around. On this side of the room, there was no door—just a single tube slide that led to who-knows-where.

  He turned back to look at Tabitha. She was about three-quarters of the way through the lasers, taking it a little faster than he had, but proving—like always—that she was talented at anything she put her mind to.

  After what felt like forever, Tabitha crawled out from underneath the last laser, and George helped her to her feet.

  She held a hand over her heart, and her face was glistening with sweat. George thought the accidental haircut made her look a bit tough.

  He led her to the tube slide.

  “I bet this is it!” George said.

  “How can we know this leads to the teachers’ lounge?” Tabitha said skeptically. “Maybe this leads to a trap.”

  “I don’t see any other choice,” George said. “If we want to escape Pilfer, we have to keep moving forward. And this is the only way. Unless you want to go back through the lasers again.”

  Tabitha shook her head.

  “Then here we go!” And he jumped into the tube and slid. “AHHHHHHHHHHH!” he shouted as he twisted and turned through pitch blackness. Round and round and round and round, down and down and down and down—until he was spit out, right on top of a beanbag chair. Then, not a moment later, Tabitha tumbled on top of him, and the force of both of them split the beanbag. Thousands of beads rolled out all over the floor.

  Immediately, George knew they had found the teachers’ lounge, because it made the Robin Hood Room look like a dungeon. The walls were lined with soda machines, candy dispensers, and full buffets of deep-fried everything. The room glowed, golden and brilliant and warm, like an underground sun.

  And there—on the table—was a beautiful, diamond-encrusted phone, just waiting for use. George walked over to it. His heart was pounding.

  “Ready?”

  Tabitha nodded.

  George picked up the phone and put it to his ear—when someone fell down the slide and smacked to the floor with a groan.

  “Oh! My back!” Dean Dean Deanbugle groaned as he stood up from the floor, slipping on some of the loose beans. “I was the only one who voted for an orzo-stuffed chair. But it would have been so much more comfortable.”

  A machine operator sung into George’s ear. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try again.

  “Hang up,” said Dean Dean Deanbugle, baring every single one of his terrible teeth. “If you don’t want to be strapped in the whirlyblerg for the rest of your livelong days, you’ll hang up this moment.”

  George hung up the phone.

  1-800-We’re-in-Trouble

  There was no way around it: They were caught.

  George glanced at Tabitha, who looked frightened to the point of tears. He knew that he had to come up with a plan—lightning fast.

  “Who were you talking to?” Dean Dean Deanbugle said. “Did you just call the police?”

  Tabitha squeaked. “We didn’t call any—”

  “Any of the police,” George said. “We placed a call to the Duke of Valois. He’s on his way here right now to pick up his mansion.”

  Tabitha’s eyes bugged out, but Dean Dean Deanbugle didn’t seem to notice. His face went ghostly white, and his hands shook wildly. “You called the Duke of Valois?”

  “Of course,” George said.

  “Absolutely,” Tabitha said.

  “But how?”

  “We placed a collect call. Operators connected us.”

  The dean ran to the phone, picked it up, and began frantically dialing in numbers. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and trickled down his face.

  George was holding his breath—the room was so silent he was sure he’d be able to hear an amoeba move.

  Dean Dean Deanbugle was waiting, his ear pressed to the ringing receiver. George could hear it very clearly from where he stood. When the call finally patched through, the conversation ping-ponged back and forth so much that George could barely keep track.

  The Duke: Allô?

  The Dean: Hello!

  The Duke: Alors?

  The Dean: (extraordinarily long pause) It’s me.

  The Duke: (extraordinarily longer pause) You! You—you fiend! Eet’s been seven years since you’ve called on zis number. And ten years since I last found you in ze Americas with your . . . your school of leetle criminals.

  The Dean: I don’t know what those kids told you—

  The Duke: Kids? What kids?

  The Dean: Oh, so that’s how you want to play it!

  The Duke: Play what?

  The Dean: (growling) You think you’re so shrewd! So clever! Well, I know that Beckett and Crawford contacted you. I know you’re on your way.

  The Duke: Excusez-moi?

  The Dean: DON’T PLAY MIND GAMES WITH ME! I KNOW THAT I KNOW HOW I KNOW WHAT I KNOW!

  The Duke: All I know iz zat you ’ave my ’ouse. And I weel get it
back.

  The Dean: It’s my house now! FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS WEEPERS!

  The Duke: You deedn’t find it! You stole it! And I deedn’t lose it! I left for ’alf an ’our to go to ze café with my wife!

  The Dean: Well, you shouldn’t have left it behind—

  The Duke: I am ze victim ’ere! ’ow iz zis my fault?

  George’s brain was whirring. He looked at Tabitha, but she was clearly panicking. It was all up to him—all he had to do was to somehow get to that phone. If he could just tell the duke where they were. But he knew that the second he started screaming for the duke, Dean Dean Deanbugle would just hang up.

  He had to get Dean Dean Deanbugle himself to say it.

  “We told him the exact coordinates of our school, sir!” George said suddenly. “We charted stars for months and figured it out—”

  Tabitha squeaked, “We used the primary sources from the library! Galileo, Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe!”

  George had no idea what Tabitha was saying, but he nodded and added, “I’m so sorry that we told the duke where to find us—I regret it now!”

  Dean Dean Deanbugle pulled the receiver away from his mouth. “You told him we were at Latitude 43.05, Longitude 75.38? Are you crazy?”

  George tried to hide his shock—he couldn’t believe the dean fell for his trick. He feared his expression might give away everything, and he silently hoped that the dean wasn’t looking at him too closely.

  But the dean didn’t seem to be paying any attention to George. Or Tabitha for that matter. He was clearly far too panicked. His sweat-soaked eyebrows clung to his clammy forehead; he looked like a hairless cat that took a miserable swim in a bathtub.

  The dean began to pace. “Listen, Nicolas!” he shouted into the phone. “The information the kids gave you is wrong. We are south. Very far south. In fact, we’re so south that I’m getting sunburn.”

  And without another word, the dean slammed the receiver on the phone. Then he ran over to the wall, smashed open a glass case, and pressed a big red button.

  At once, an earsplitting, headache-throbbing, mind-numbing, nerve-aching alarm began to screech. WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! it blared. CODE RED! ACTIVATE EMERGENCY RELOCATION PLAN! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

  George and Tabitha had to cover their ears.

  But not for long—Dean Dean Deanbugle grabbed George and Tabitha by the wrists and roughly dragged them across the room.

  Tabitha found her courage first. “Where are you taking us? To the whirlyblerg?”

  Dean Dean Deanbugle did not answer her, which terrified George even more. Instead, the dean simply knocked on a part of the wall, and out popped a drawer with a lever inside. Dean Dean Deanbugle flicked the switch, and the whole wall folded outward to reveal a long, rickety staircase leading down.

  Dean Dean Deanbugle shoved George and Tabitha into a chamber so silent that it blocked out the sound of the blaring alarm entirely. As he pushed them down the steps, Tabitha and George exchanged a dark look. But there was no way to escape. Dean Dean Deanbugle was hulking behind them, and there was nowhere to go but down.

  “How did you find us so quickly? Milo, right?” George asked.

  “Mr. Hubervick was running out as I was running in, but there was a silent alarm that alerted me first. We might let students rot in spaghetti pits for a while, or get singed by lasers to teach them a lesson about prying into asparagus closets, but just in case, we need to be notified if an intruder gets too far.”

  A silent alarm! Of course. Just like the time he raided the kitchen with Tabitha. He should have known.

  There was a chill in the staircase, and Tabitha shivered. The stairs twisted like a piece of fusilli, and the more steps they took, the darker it became. George was certain they were heading right back to the basement. To the whirlyblerg. He couldn’t—simply couldn’t—live the rest of his life on a never-ending roller coaster.

  George turned around—Dean Dean Deanbugle’s eyebrows were furrowed so low on his face that it looked like he might accidentally eat them. “Why? Why did you do this?”

  George was silent. He thought that the dean might not appreciate his musings on how he was choosing to be a better person going forward.

  “Happy Mischief Night?” Tabitha squeaked.

  “What you did is unspeakable!” Dean Dean Deanbugle cried. “This was beyond a Mischief Night prank. You have almost destroyed my life’s work. Luckily, we’ll be moving the school momentarily.”

  George’s heart thudded. By the time the Duke of Valois arrived, the mansion would be long gone. After all that, Dean Dean Deanbugle was just going to transport Pilfer Academy across the country.

  At last, they reached a door at the bottom of the staircase, which led into a hallway full of chaos. George tried to wriggle out of Dean Dean Deanbugle’s grip and into the throng of panicking students, but the dean kept a firm grasp on his arm. The alarms were piercing, people were blindly running into one another, and a bunch of students were nicking small things from the exhibits and pocketing them—just in case.

  But if George thought the students were frenzied, they were nothing compared to the teachers. Strongarm ran past, her bony arms flailing in the air like two wild kite strings. “SAVE THE ICE CREAM! SOMEBODY SAVE THE ICE CREAM! SAVE THE TRIPLE-DIPPLE ULTRA-DELUXE MELTY CREAMY CREAMER RAINBOW SWIZZLE MILK MUNCH!”

  And the others—Browbeat, Ballyrag, Pickapocket, Bagsnatcher, Nurse Embezzle, and a few George didn’t recognize—were bouncing around the grand hall, screaming wildly.

  “There you are!” Browbeat shrieked, when he spotted Dean Dean Deanbugle. He ran up to them with the rest of the staff. “We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  “What’s going on?” Ballyrag said. “Are we really moving vocations?”

  “These little noodle-brains told the duke where to find us!” Dean Dean Deanbugle shouted.

  “Bravo!” said Strongarm. “How sneaky!”

  “Well done, well done! An A+ for you!”

  “Happy day for stealthery!”

  “THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING, YOU GORMLESS FOOLS!” Dean Dean Deanbugle shouted, a vein on his forehead popping.

  “Oh, yes, right! Very naughty, children! Very naughty, indeed!” the teachers scolded. Then they scratched their heads . . . except for Ballyrag, who stroked his glorious golden mustache.

  “NOW, TELL ME—WHY HAVE YOU ALL BEEN PANICKING?” the dean roared. “WE HAVE AN EMERGENCY ACTION PLAN. WE HAVE PRACTICED THESE DRILLS TWICE A YEAR, EVERY YEAR, FOR THE PAST TEN YEARS.”

  “Oh, we forgot,” Strongarm said as Neal ran straight into her and fell on his bottom. “What do we have to do again?”

  George tried wrenching his arm away from Dean Dean Deanbugle again, but he couldn’t get free.

  “You aren’t going anywhere, Beckett!” the dean howled. Then he turned to address the teachers. “I’m going to take these children down to the whirlyblerg for ETERNITY. I’ve already pressed the button, and the new coordinates were selected years ago, so any moment now—”

  RUMBLEEEEEEEEE.

  The ground shook.

  GRUMBLEEEEEEEEE.

  Vases began to crash.

  BRUMBLEEEEEEEEE.

  The floor splintered beneath them.

  “EARTHQUAKE!” the teachers shouted.

  “EARTHQUAKE!” the students echoed.

  “IT’S NOT AN EARTHQUAKE!” the dean roared. “PILFER ACADEMY IS ON THE MOVE!”

  The mansion shook; the walls quivered. Dean Dean Deanbugle yanked George and Tabitha to the windows. “Keep your eyes on that vent!” Dean Dean Deanbugle shouted as he pointed to one on Pilfer’s outer wall.

  With a loud screech, the vent opened like a mailbox flap, and six spidery metal legs crawled out of the hole. They stretched their way to the ground, and when they were perfectly curved, they pushed against the earth,
and the mansion shook again.

  George looked to the left and saw another vent opening up, revealing its gigantic legs. Each time a group of legs hit the ground, the mansion shuddered violently.

  “Five vents open, one to go!” shouted the dean, clasping George’s wrist so tightly that he stopped being able to feel his fingers.

  George couldn’t see the last vent from his window, but the school shook all the same. Then with a sound like a kiss, the mansion rose off the ground, just high enough to pull the basement out from underground.

  Dean Dean Deanbugle smiled proudly. “Pickapocket’s crowning jewel. She stole them from a research facility that was creating machinery inspired by dung beetles.”

  “Dung beetles?” Tabitha asked.

  “Dung,” George snickered.

  “Dung beetles can lift more than a thousand times their own body weight. And so, too, can Pilfer Academy’s legs.”

  The mansion shook again as the legs began to move. The mansion scampered across the hill, barreling into the gate. It scuttled down the road, toward town, but then it turned at the last second and started to scurry across some empty fields. It moved faster than George thought possible for a massive building.

  “Okay, we are on our way,” the dean sighed in relief. But then he turned to George and Tabitha, gripping their arms a little tighter. He stared at them as if they were the most hideous things he had ever seen—like they were tarantula burgers. Like they were blankets made of boogers. Like they were stinky, smelly, putrid piles of rancid fish. “And now,” Dean Dean Deanbugle snarled, “it’s time to deal with you.”

  A Most Indecent Temper Tantrum

  George tried to twist around, but he couldn’t get a good angle on the dean. Tabitha was wrestling with his other arm.

  “YOU WILL NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN!” Dean Dean Deanbugle howled, pulling them away from the window.

  “Not if we can help it!” said a voice from across the hall.

  George looked up. A crowd of waitstaff and janitors were standing on the grand staircase, their arms full of kitchen tools. George recognized the balding waiter, the one doing the shouting in front.