Curse of the Broomstaff

  Spencer took a chocolate pudding to the back of the head. Daisy slipped on some mandarin oranges. They each caught a splatter of Ragu to the face before they burst through the door and into the quiet hallway.

  Spencer got his bearings and raced back the way they’d come. With all eyes on the cafeteria, the way to the janitorial closet was wide open. The cafeteria was a mess, but Aaron was a hero.

  They passed the bathrooms, took a right, and came to a halt in front of the maintenance closet. A pineapple chunk fell from Spencer’s chest and splatted on the floor. Daisy absently tucked a strand of spaghetti behind her ear.

  Spencer reached into his pocket for a bit of vacuum dust as Daisy untied Baybee from her apron strings. Then Spencer threw open the closet door and they raced inside.

  Chapter 14

  “Shake your leg!”

  By this point, Spencer had visited enough janitorial closets to know the similarities. They were always highly stocked and fairly cluttered, with a bit of grit built up in the corners. Lighting was usually poor, and they often smelled of cleaning chemicals.

  The closet at Triton Charter School was no different. The room was long and narrow, and Spencer and Daisy had it searched in less than a minute.

  “He’s not here,” Daisy said, keeping watch at the door. “But this is the right location!” said Spencer. “I know I sensed him here.” He began scanning the back wall for another common feature among janitorial closets. “There’s got to be a secret passageway!”

  Then he noticed a symbol on one of the bricks. It was small and carefully painted in gold. It was a ring, with dozens of keys splaying out like rays from the sun. Spencer had seen it before. The icon was painted on a secret door in the janitor’s closet at Welcher Elementary. The keyring symbol was also embossed on the cover of The Janitor Handbook.

  Without thinking, Spencer pressed on the painted brick. The sound of mechanical gears cranked as the brick depressed into the wall. Spencer jumped back, bumping into Daisy, who had come to see what he’d discovered. A portion of the wall swung upward to reveal a dim ramp angling down.

  “Where does that go?” Daisy asked, gently rocking

  Baybee with one arm.

  “Let’s find out.” Spencer went first, vacuum dust ready between his fingers. The ramp led down to another room stocked with janitorial supplies. Bare pipes networked the ceiling and a single bulb lit the area.

  “I don’t think he’s down here, either,” Daisy said. “He’s got to be. I sensed him!” Spencer closed his eyes, trying desperately to recall the vision. He knew he was within feet of the location he had sensed, so where was Walter? He crossed over to the ramp, a strange tingling in his fingertips as he drew even nearer.

  Then he saw it: the sole of a shoe barely sticking out from under the ramp. It was almost lost in the shadows of the dim room, but Spencer recognized it immediately. He raced around, grabbed Walter’s feet, and dragged him out from under the ramp.

  “How’d you know he was under there?” Daisy asked. Spencer didn’t answer. He had just known Walter was here. His Auran sense was too keen and sharp to be wrong. Spencer stared at Walter, who was wearing khaki cargo pants and a plaid shirt. The bald warlock was in a deep slumber, his chest gently rising and falling. Spencer tried to lift the man, but the effort was futile.

  “Try to wake him up,” Spencer said. He scanned the closet for a way to get Walter out. Crossing the cluttered room, he took one of the toilet plungers from a shelf. Daisy gave Walter’s arm a timid poke. When nothing happened, she poked harder. Then she grabbed the warlock by the shoulders and shook. Daisy hovered over him for a moment, waiting for some kind of reaction, but the man slept on. Finally, Daisy lowered her face to within an inch of Walter’s and held very still.

  “BOO!” Daisy shouted. Spencer looked over at her, putting a finger to his lips for silence.

  “It’s okay,” said Daisy. “I don’t think he’s going to wake up. Heavy sleeper.”

  Spencer glanced back up the ramp. “We’ve got to get him out of here,” he whispered. “Do you think you can plunge him?”

  Glopified toilet plungers magically reduced the weight of whatever object they were clamped onto. At New Forest Academy, Daisy had easily carried Dez after plunging him on the stomach. Maybe they could do the same to Walter now.

  Daisy nodded, taking the plunger from Spencer. “Help me roll him over.”

  Spencer tilted Walter onto his side while Daisy pulled up the back of his shirt. “Sorry if this is cold,” Daisy said, clamping the toilet plunger to Walter’s back. But when she lifted, nothing happened. Daisy tugged harder, and the plunger popped off.

  “What happened?” Spencer asked.

  “I don’t think it’s Glopified.” Daisy held out the plunger for inspection. “I think it’s used!”

  Spencer shuddered and wiped his hand against his jeans.

  “We just stuck a used toilet plunger to Walter’s back?” They both glanced at the sleeping warlock. Daisy set the plunger in the corner of the room and went to get a second one from the shelf.

  “What are you doing?” Spencer stepped out of her path. “Maybe this one’s Glopified,” said Daisy.

  “So you’re just going to keep plunging till you find one that works?” Spencer was disgusted. “He’s a person, not a toilet!”

  Daisy shrugged. “We don’t have to tell him.” She stuck the new plunger onto Walter’s back and lifted the warlock off the floor. “There we go. This one works like a charm!” Daisy held Walter at an upward angle so his feet didn’t drag. It looked like a painful position, bent over backward with his head flopped back.

  Spencer grimaced, wondering what kind of stiff neck Walter would have upon waking. “I guess plungers weren’t designed for comfort.”

  “Nope,” Daisy said. “They were designed for toilet clogs.”

  Spencer tried not to think about it. Feeling sorry for Walter, he scanned the room for a more humane mode of transportation.

  “Over here.” Spencer found something tucked against the wall.

  It was a janitorial cleaning cart, with four sturdy wheels and a yellow trash bag hanging off the front rack. He’d used a cart like this at New Forest Academy. If this one was Glopified, then Spencer knew just what to do.

  He stepped onto the cart, leaning his weight forward.

  The cart sped ahead, turning as he leaned to the side.

  Spencer wheeled over to where Daisy stood with Walter propped on the plunger.

  “Set him down on the rack,” Spencer suggested. Daisy swung the warlock around, accidentally bumping his head as she draped him across the front of the cart.

  Walter lay motionless, the plunger handle rising from his back like a mini flagpole.

  “Is there another cart back there?” Daisy asked. Spencer shook his head. “Just this one. You want it?”

  “Nah,” said Daisy. “I’m better on foot.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Spencer leaned hard and drove up the ramp. Daisy jogged after him as they entered the hallway.

  The fastest way out of Triton Charter School was through some double doors at the end of the hallway. The coast was clear, not a teacher in sight.

  Spencer was almost there when he realized that Daisy wasn’t behind him. She was casually headed the wrong direction, Baybee tucked under her arm.

  He wanted to shout for her, but that might bring teachers out of their classrooms. Right as Spencer made the decision to go back for Daisy, the BEM janitor rounded the corner. In a single bound she was onto the girl, grabbing Daisy by the shoulders.

  “Let me go!” Daisy shouted. “I’ve got to check out that wall!” She twisted easily out of the janitor’s grasp, latex glove working its magic.

  As she turned, Spencer saw the reason for Daisy’s odd behavior. A little Grime was clinging passively to the leg of her jeans. It was enjoying Daisy’s brain waves while exhaling potent distraction.

  The janitor, realizing that getting a hold on Daisy would be im
possible without a glove of her own, raced toward the closet of supplies. Leaning into his cart, Spencer gathered speed. Once in range, he pinched out a Funnel Throw of vac dust and sent it hurling. It struck the janitor just as she reached the doorway.

  Spencer was past her in a flash. Drawing alongside Daisy, he shifted his balance and spun the cart around, Walter’s weight on the front nearly causing them to topple.

  Armed only with vac dust, Spencer didn’t know how to knock out the Grime without taking Daisy down too. But if he didn’t do something fast, the janitor would recover. “Listen, Daisy,” Spencer said. “I need you to shake your leg.”

  She was standing with her nose an inch from the wall, staring intently at the blank space. “This would be a great spot to paint a picture of King Triton,” she said. “Wonder why they haven’t done that yet . . .”

  “Shake your leg!” Spencer steered closer to her, but the Grime scurried around Daisy’s thigh, like a squirrel on a tree trunk. “There’s a Grime on you!” he tried, but Daisy was too distracted. Now she had an imaginary paintbrush in her hand, making invisible brushstrokes against the white wall. Spencer leaned on his cart, brought it swinging around and crashed into Daisy from behind. She slammed against the wall, forcing the Grime to leap away to safety. The moment its slimy fingers touched the floor, Spencer hit it with a Palm Blast of vacuum dust. The Grime’s breath caught in its throat, and Daisy instantly revived.

  “Go!” Spencer shouted.

  Daisy spun around once, getting her bearings. Then she sprinted down the hallway toward the double doors, the BEM janitor struggling to rise and stop her.

  Spencer turned back to the little Grime on the floor. He had to finish it off, like a good Rebel janitor. Otherwise the creature would continue to distract the students of Triton Charter School.

  Spencer lined up the wheels of his cleaning cart and leaned back sharply. He felt a thump as the Glopified wheels passed over the Toxite. As the cart rolled clear, there was nothing left but a splatter of pale slime on the hard floor. When he looked up from the task, Spencer saw that Daisy was free. She must have pressed the wheelchair access button, opening the automatic doors to make a quick es cape.

  But between Spencer and his way out stood the BEM janitor. Reaching into a deep pocket on her coveralls, she withdrew a spray bottle. The liquid inside was green, just like the solution that Mr. Clean had used at the prison. Spencer felt his knees weaken. The latex glove wouldn’t protect him from the green spray. He needed to find another way out. But riding through the school with an unconscious Walter draped across his cart was not an option.

  Stripping off his latex glove, Spencer reached for Walter’s limp hand. He curled the warlock’s fingers into a fist and stuffed on the glove. Spencer’s sweat trickled out of the glove and ran down Walter’s arm. It wasn’t pretty, but it would do the trick.

  Spencer leaned hard and fast. The cart raced forward, building speed and momentum as Spencer tried to line it up with the distant door. He held on till the last second, seeing the janitor raise her green spray bottle.

  She pulled the trigger, sending a green mist at the cart.

  But Spencer was gone. He had bailed from the speeding cleaning cart, tumbling painfully to the hard floor and rolling twice before he managed to get back on his feet. The janitor shouted in surprise. She threw down the bottle and lunged for Walter. Her hands gripped his ankles, but the latex glove pulled him free as he zoomed past. Sprinting back toward the front office, Spencer looked over his shoulder only once to see Walter’s cart speed through the open doors and into the midday air. Now it was up to Daisy to get Walter safely to the garbage truck. The BEM janitor was coming after him. Spencer heard her footsteps but didn’t dare look back. Without his latex glove, there would be no way to escape if she caught him. Spencer was so worried about the pursuing janitor that he didn’t even see Ms. Bellingham as he rounded the corner. He was almost to the front doors when her firm hand snatched him by the elbow.

  “Going somewhere?” she asked.

  Spencer didn’t even attempt an escape as the BEM janitor caught up to him. At least for the moment, he was safer in Ms. Bellingham’s grasp.

  But the moment didn’t last. The teacher pulled him down the hallway, escorting him once more to the cafeteria.

  Pushing open the lunchroom doors, Ms. Bellingham ushered Spencer in.

  “MESS!” roared the ogrelike voice of the lunch man.

  With one hairy, tomato-sauced hand, he seized Spencer by the back of the neck and pressed him up against the wall.

  Chapter 15

  “It’s all in the system.”

  As soon as the lunch man released his grip, Spencer realized that he was not alone. There were probably twenty or thirty students standing with their backs against the cafeteria wall. The kids were covered in food, some of their faces barely visible beneath a layer of Ragu. And as bad as the students looked, the lunchroom was worse.

  Spaghetti dangled from the ceiling like limp stalactites. The floor was a swamp of red sauce and milk, with pieces of pepperoni pizza floating like lily pads. Fruits and vegetables were smeared on the walls, and steamed broccoli was smashed all over the tables. It was as if the food pyramid had exploded and left no survivors.

  The lunch man looked like a human salad. His face was still dripping bleu cheese dressing, and a leaf of lettuce covered his head like a skullcap. None of this stopped him from producing a powerful scowl with enough intimidation to keep all the students quietly against the wall.

  The cafeteria door opened once more, and a sternlooking woman entered.

  “PRINCIPAL!” the lunch man announced.

  The principal carefully maneuvered through the mess, careful not to put her pointy heel through a piece of pizza. At last she stopped, just a few feet in front of the dripping students. She gave a sharp clap of her hands, not unlike a gunshot from a firing squad, and everyone jumped.

  “I will be contacting your parents,” the principal began. “You’ll have some explaining to do to them. And you have some explaining to do to me.”

  Under the intensity of her gaze, a meatball fell from one trembling student and landed with a splat.

  “This cafeteria is your responsibility,” said the principal. “Our substitute janitor has other things to do besides clean up your mess.”

  Spencer rolled his eyes. Little did the principal know that the substitute janitor’s “other things” involved abducting the good guys.

  “So you will clean it.” She pointed down the line at every student. “And you will not leave the lunchroom until it is spick-and-span.”

  The students nodded in submission, bits of food flecking from their faces. “I expect more out of you,” she said. “Now, would someone like to tell me how this started?”

  A profound silence overtook the cafeteria. Even the lunch man seemed to hold his breath in anticipation. The students didn’t dare look at each other, for fear of where the blame might land.

  Spencer stole a quick glance down the line. Aaron was looking back at him. The Monitor had a pineapple chunk stuck to his nose and a mournful expression on his face.

  Spencer thought back to his own mess at Welcher Elementary. Five months ago, he’d caused a disaster at the ice-cream social, hurling cans of root beer like grenades. After it was over, he’d felt horrible. He had disappointed his family and his school and wished there were some way to take it back.

  “I started the food fight,” Spencer said, stepping forward. “I got mad at Aaron and threw some spaghetti at him. He wouldn’t fight back, so I threw some food at his friends.”

  The principal listened to his false confession with squinted eyes. When he was finished, she tilted her head. “What’s your name?”

  “Spencer Zumbro,” he said. “I’m a new student. Like, really new.”

  “You clearly don’t understand our expectations at Triton Charter School. Perhaps we should go to my office and discuss them.”

  Spencer nodded, wondering ho
w all of this was about to play out. He followed the principal out of the cafeteria, glancing back at Aaron as he slipped through the door. The Monitor put his hands together and mouthed the words thank you!

  A moment later, Spencer was seated in the principal’s office. She drummed her fingers against the table, and Spencer wondered if that was standard procedure for all principals.

  “Whose class are you in, Spencer?” the principal finally asked.

  Spencer shrugged. It looked insubordinate, but he didn’t know how to answer.

  The principal pursed her lips. “Okay, so you want to play the hard way.” She grabbed the computer mouse, clicked twice, and typed his name into the system.

  Spencer braced himself. He knew what would happen once she discovered that he wasn’t actually a Triton student. The police would have to get involved. He’d be cited for trespassing and who knew what else.

  “Hmm . . .” the principal squinted at the computer screen. “So you’re in Ms. Bellingham’s sixth-grade class. She’ll be disappointed in you.” The principal scrolled down. “But I’m afraid that Mr. Alan Zumbro will be even more upset. I’m afraid I have to call your father.”

  Spencer’s eyes grew wider as she went on. “How do you know my dad’s name . . . ?” He was so ripe with astonishment that he could barely get the question out.

  “It’s all in the system.” The principal swiveled the computer screen so Spencer could see. How was it possible? There was a complete student profile for Spencer Zumbro!

  “Min,” Spencer mumbled. Somehow he had hacked Triton Charter School’s system and written a false profile.

  The principal dialed Alan’s phone number and waited. “He’s not answering.”

  Of course not. Alan was off the grid with the rest of the team. And now Alan was the only team member unaccounted for. Spencer found a clock on the wall. It was 11:58. In two minutes the final rendezvous time would expire. Once Spencer got free of the principal’s office, the team would have to move on without Alan.