He hung up and sat back, puffing triumphantly on the cigar. Mr. Sturgeon did not often smoke cigars — only when he was celebrating something.
* * *
Bruno and Boots riffled halfheartedly through their belongings, wasting as much time as possible. Every few minutes one of them would toss something into an open suitcase on his bed. Neither had spoken since they had left Mr. Sturgeon’s office.
“Don’t pack those socks,” Bruno snapped suddenly.
“Why not?”
“Because they’re mine.”
“Oh.” Boots tossed the socks across the room.
“We’ll have to meet,” Bruno said after a while.
“The Fish says we’re not allowed,” Boots reminded him.
“The Fish says! The Fish says!” Bruno mimicked. “The Fish has said enough for one day. I’ll see you at midnight. The bushes behind the cannon.”
“Midnight? What if I fall asleep?”
“Impossible. You’ll be awake all night listening to the clink-clink-clink of George Wexford-Smyth III counting his money,” Bruno growled. “Be there.”
Nothing else was said. Shortly after nine the boys took a last fond look at their former home, shook hands solemnly and went their separate ways.
* * *
Bruno paused a moment before knocking at the door of room 201. It was opened by a tall, skinny boy with a crewcut. He wore a white shirt, black tie and grey flannel slacks. Thick glasses gave him the look of an owl.
“Elmer Drimsdale? Hi. I’m Bruno Walton,” said Bruno, strolling in and setting down his suitcase. “Hey, an ant!” he exclaimed, stomping on it.
“You killed her!” Elmer shrieked. “You killed her! She was the queen of my whole colony!”
“You keep ants?” Bruno asked in disbelief.
“Yes,” the boy replied. “I’m an entomologist. My world is the insect world.”
Bruno nodded understandingly. “I always thought you were a bit buggy, Elmer. Which bed is mine? And kindly keep your ants out of it!”
“That one.” Elmer pointed to the bed by the window. “But where am I going to get another queen for my colony?” he wailed.
Bruno shrugged. “Why don’t you try spreading a little sugar around?” Then noticing Elmer’s face he added, “Hey, listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was your — uh — pet. I hope you find another one.”
“Thank you,” said Elmer reproachfully.
Bruno sighed and pulled off his sweater. “Boy, am I beat. I’m going to take a bath and hit the sack early.” He started towards the bathroom.
“No!” Elmer shouted. “You’ll kill my specimens!”
Bruno stopped in mid-step and stared at him.
“My goldfish! They laid eggs in the bathtub today.”
“Congratulations,” muttered Bruno. “I know a cat that had kittens today too. Do I get to know the reason for this aquarium in the bathroom?”
“I’m studying the crossbreeding of goldfish,” Elmer explained. “I’m an ichthyologist. My world is the undersea world.”
Bruno struggled, unwashed, into his pyjamas. “I always thought you were a bit fishy, Elmer,” he groaned.
He crawled into his new bed. It was exactly the same as his old one, but it felt strange and uncomfortable. The whole room was the same, really, even the dull cream-beige paint on the walls. But it didn’t feel the same. Maybe it was because of the posters. His old room had been plastered with movie posters, one crude enough it would have been confiscated by the teachers had it not been safely hidden away during dormitory inspections. Elmer’s idea of artistic wall decoration was a labelled diagram of the Pacific salmon. Bruno sighed. Seven hundred kids in this school, he thought wearily, and I have to get stuck with Jacques Cousteau!
* * *
Boots knocked on the door of room 109. It was opened by a handsome fellow dressed in several hundred dollars’ worth of suede and cashmere sports clothes. His haircut, Boots noted, was the hundred-dollar stylist variety.
“Yes? What is it?” the youth queried.
“Mr. Sturgeon sent me,” said Boots. “I’m your new roommate, Boots O’Neal.”
Very reluctantly he was invited inside. “Boots?” said the boy with disgust. “What kind of a name is Boots? What is your real name? Nicknames are so vulgar.”
“My real name is Melvin,” replied Boots grimly, “but nobody calls me that. Nobody.”
“How do you do. I am George Wexford-Smyth III. You may have the bed by the window. I never sleep near a window. The night air is bad for my sinuses.”
Boots, who always slept with the window wide open, said nothing. He sat on the edge of his new bed and surveyed the room: it reminded him of his Grade 8 field trip to the Toronto Stock Exchange. Financial charts covered the walls almost like wallpaper. His roommate was standing staring at one of these charts as though the end of the world were at hand.
“Something wrong, George?”
“My Magneco,” George announced tragically. “It’s gone down three points and lost me a small fortune.”
“Oh,” said Boots, beginning to unpack. He carried his toothbrush, toothpaste and soap into the bathroom, but emerged a few seconds later with a puzzled look on his face. “What is that drugstore doing in the bathroom?”
“Those are my medicines,” George huffed. “Better safe than sorry. You never know when disease may strike.”
“Oh,” said Boots again. Because the shelves were overflowing with inhalers, nasal sprays, pain killers, cold tablets, tranquillizers, laxatives and antibiotics, he was going to have to store his own toiletries in his bathrobe pocket.
Climbing resignedly into bed, Boots reflected that if only Bruno were there the room would be paradise. It was completely wired with the most expensive quadraphonic sound equipment, and there was a 3D LCD TV set with remote control and a zoom system. Besides, he thought with a grin, they wouldn’t have to worry about illness: even if they caught elephantiasis, he was positive George had a cure somewhere in that bathroom.
* * *
In the Headmaster’s residence Mr. Sturgeon suddenly sat bolt upright in bed. “Now where on earth,” he exclaimed, “did they manage to find the flag of Malbonia?”
Chapter 3
The Cannon at Midnight
Boots rose from his bed and silently checked George’s solid-gold quartz crystal digital watch. Ten minutes to twelve. He had to hurry if he was going to be on time to meet Bruno. He scrambled into his bathrobe and eased the window open.
“Shut the window … pneumonia …” groaned George in his sleep.
Boots climbed onto the sill and made the short drop to the ground. Crouching beside the building, he scanned the deserted campus. All clear so far. Keeping low and in the shadows, he stole towards the meeting place on the south lawn. He slipped into the bushes behind the cannon and whispered, “Bruno?”
No answer. No Bruno.
Five long minutes passed. Boots had been nervous to start with, but now he was really worried. A few more minutes went by. He checked his own twenty-dollar watch. It had stopped at quarter past nine.
Must be an omen, Boots thought, wrapping his cold feet in the tail of his bathrobe. That was when Bruno and I left our room.
A rustling in the bushes startled him. “Bruno?” he whispered. “What took you so long?”
When a fat brown jackrabbit burst from the woods and scampered across the lawn into the darkness, Boots drooped in despair. Suddenly a familiar voice chuckled, “Aha! Talking to a rabbit, eh?”
“Where have you been?” Boots snapped. “I’ve been sitting here scared stiff!”
“Well,” Bruno shrugged, “I thought we might be a bit hungry, so I stopped off at the kitchen and got us a little snack.” He held out a huge brown bag. “Care for a sandwich?”
He spread the contents of the bag between them. There was a loaf of bread, an entire delicatessen of cold meats, a package of sliced cheese, four apples, six oranges and two half-pint containers of chocolate milk.
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Boots whistled admiringly. “Boy, with all this we could run away from school.” Then he added wistfully, “And that’s just what I feel like doing.”
“That bad?” asked Bruno, slapping meat and cheese between two slices of bread.
“Worse!” exclaimed Boots. “You wouldn’t believe it.” He bit sadly into an apple. “George Wexford-Smyth III is a crackpot! The room is full of medicines and stock exchange charts. I can’t keep my stuff in the bathroom because of all his pills and ointments, and I can’t hang my posters on the wall because the stock charts take up too much room.”
“At least he isn’t an ichthyologist whose world is the undersea world,” Bruno countered. “Our bathtub is full of caviar. The ichthyologist is studying the crossbreeding of goldfish, and I am doomed never to have a bath again as long as I live with Elmer Drimsdale — and that won’t be too long if I have anything to say about it.”
Boots sighed. “That’s just it. Unfortunately we have nothing to say about it.”
“Well, we’ll just have to do something, then,” decided Bruno. “Are you kidding about the stock charts?”
“Scouts’ honour,” said Boots, saluting. “I was just dropping off to sleep tonight when the big financier got a message from his broker. Magneco went down another two points. George is wiped out.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” Bruno replied bitterly. “At least you’ve got just one roommate to put up with. I have about a thousand and I’ve already killed one — too bad it wasn’t Elmer.”
“Huh? What are you talking about?” Boots asked.
“Ants,” said Bruno. “A metropolis of ants. Elmer is an entomologist. His world is the insect world.”
“He keeps ants?” Boots asked in disbelief.
Bruno nodded. “He not only keeps them; he exercises them. His queen was out for a stroll when I scrunched her.”
“What are we going to do?” Boots wailed. “I don’t think I can put up with another minute of George swallowing pills, gargling and spraying his nose. He won’t let me open a window because of his sinuses and he wants to call me Melvin because nicknames are so vulgar! As for those charts …” He gestured despairingly with both hands, then reached for a slice of bread.
“Elmer’s not really such a bad guy,” mumbled Bruno with his mouth full, “but he sure isn’t for me. Come to think of it, he isn’t really for anybody — except maybe his ants and his goldfish. By the way, did I mention the fish tank? It bubbles day and night.” He yawned. “Listen, Boots, it’s getting late. Between the two of us we should be able to figure some way out of this mess. Meet me here the same time tomorrow night.”
“Right,” answered Boots. “Hey, what’ll we do with the rest of this food?”
Bruno stuffed the leftovers into the bag. “I’ll shove it in the cannon,” he decided. “Then we’ll have an emergency supply.”
“Just remember,” Boots prodded, “you’re always bragging that you have an answer for everything. This time you’ve got to deliver! We’ve got to find a way to ditch these guys and get back together again!”
“Don’t worry,” Bruno promised. “I’ll think of something — Melvin.”
“Very funny,” Boots growled. “Goodnight.”
“’Night.”
A corner of the lunch bag, sticking out of the cannon’s mouth, flapped silently in the darkness.
Chapter 4
Assignment: Obnoxious!
By the time Boots awoke the next morning George had already returned from breakfast. He was examining the morning paper and checking his charts, making adjustments with a red pen.
“Morning,” Boots murmured. “How’s Magneco?”
“Recovering, recovering,” George said briskly, as though he had no time for small talk.
Boots, a notorious morning sneezer, rattled off four violent achoos! in a row. Immediately George whipped out a disinfectant and began to spray the entire room, giving special attention to Boots’s bed. “Germs!” he cried in a panic. “You didn’t tell me you had a cold! I would have put up my screen!”
Boots stared, first amused and then disgusted, as George wheeled out a large screen and placed it between the two beds. On Boots’s side was a sign that said QUARANTINE.
“Cut it out,” Boots protested. “I haven’t got a cold. I always sneeze in the morning when I wake up.”
Reluctantly George put away the screen. “I’ll take your word for it,” he said. “But sneezing does spread germs, you know. You ought to keep a paper bag beside your bed and every morning you can sneeze into it and put it out with the trash to be burned.”
Boots started to insist on his right to sneeze anywhere he wanted, but then gave up and began to get dressed. Before he was finished George had turned from his charts, picked up an armload of books and headed for his first class of the day, advanced economics. A few minutes later Boots set out for his math class, but not before making a point of coughing on George’s pillow.
Boots was in a foul mood. He knew that Bruno was going to be in that class too, and that they would not even be allowed to say hello to one another. His world had become a very uncomfortable place.
* * *
Elmer’s alarm shrilled at the usual 6 A.M. Bruno managed to open one eye and was vaguely aware of a headache. “What time is it?” he mumbled.
“It is exactly six o’clock,” Elmer said.
“A.M.?” Bruno cried in dismay.
“You bet,” Elmer said brightly. “There’s lots of work to be done before breakfast.”
“Like what?” Bruno snarled. It was his habit to miss breakfast, sleep until quarter to nine, then make a frantic effort to get washed and dressed and to his first class on time.
“I have to check on my goldfish experiment,” Elmer explained, “and make some notes. Then I have several other experiments to tend to, and my ants to take care of.”
Bruno sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, then paused. “Is it safe to stand on the floor?” he asked. “I wouldn’t want to step on anybody important.”
“Oh, perfectly safe,” said Elmer. “They’re still sleeping.”
“That proves they’ve got more brains than we have, Elmer, but since I’m awake I may as well unpack.” Bruno heaved his suitcase onto the bed and threw it open. He went over to the large dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer. “This one mine?”
“No-o-o!”
Bruno was frozen by Elmer’s anguished scream. He stared down into the drawer. Lining the bottom were dozens of tiny pots of earth with little plants sprouting in them.
“You’ve ruined my experiment!” Elmer wailed. “Those plants were supposed to be in total darkness for a hundred and forty-four hours. Now have to start all over!”
“What do you have plants in a drawer for?” Bruno asked.
“I am a botanist,” Elmer explained. “My world is the world of plants.”
“I always thought you were a bit earthy, Elmer,” Bruno grunted, “but this is too much. Just where do I get to keep my underwear?”
“Couldn’t you keep it in your suitcase for the next six days?” Elmer pleaded.
“Oh, all right,” Bruno agreed. “Anything for you, Elmer.”
Washed, dressed and at least half awake, Bruno arrived at the dining room for his first breakfast ever at Macdonald Hall. Wearily he picked up a tray and walked over to where two elderly women in white uniforms were dishing out breakfast.
“Look, Martha,” one said, “a new boy.” She turned to Bruno. “Welcome to Macdonald Hall, dear. When did you arrive?”
The other boys being served hooted loudly.
“This is my second year,” Bruno grinned sheepishly. “I guess I’m just not much for breakfast.”
But unaccustomed as he was to eating early, he quickly managed to put away three scrambled eggs, six strips of bacon, four large pancakes with maple syrup, two pieces of toast and three glasses of milk. “It’s a good thing you don’t come to breakfast too often,” one student observed as Br
uno was downing the last of his milk. “They’d have to raise the fees just to feed you.”
Bruno patted his stomach. “That was delicious. You know, I may even come again sometime.”
As he entered math class, he noted that Boots was already there, sitting as far away from his usual place as possible without actually being outside the room. He also found that he was incapable of giving his friend the usual smile of greeting, forbidden or not. Breakfast was sitting very heavily on his stomach; he felt sick.
The geometry class was a horrendous experience for both of them. Bruno was trying to keep his spirits up and his breakfast down, and Boots was yawning hugely. So the teacher was confronted on one side with Bruno’s green face, and on the other with Boots’s gaping mouth.
“Are we keeping you up, O’Neal?” he finally demanded.
“Sorry, sir,” said Boots. “I was up late last night. I guess I’m pretty tired.”
The teacher turned to Bruno. “I think you should have stayed in bed this morning, Walton. You don’t look at all well.”
“Oh, it’s nothing, sir,” replied Bruno. “I just ate too much breakfast.”
A boy in the front row turned around. “Breakfast? You?”
“That will do,” said the teacher. “Walton, I’m sending you back to bed. Here is your authorization.” He scribbled a few words on a piece of paper and handed it over. Bruno was more than happy to obey.
* * *
Boots sat in a corner of the dining room munching on a sandwich. News of Mr. Sturgeon’s order had spread. Boots’s friends, sensing that he was in a grim mood, left him alone, although five of them sat conspicuously at a table for six with one chair pulled out invitingly in case he chose to join them. He didn’t.
He was very much aware that Bruno had not come to lunch. He must be sick, really sick, Boots thought. And a lot Elmer Drimsdale was going to care!
* * *
Bruno spent most of the day in bed, although as soon as his mammoth breakfast had settled he felt considerably better. He lay there thinking. Elmer hates me, he mused cheerfully. I’d like to booby-trap one of his experiments, but that would just make him mad. He’d probably complain to The Fish …