Rita Morse and the Sinister Shadow

  * * * * *

  At last the bell to end the school day rang. Mr. Bolther wished the whole Acting class a good weekend. I looked at my friends and grimaced. Mainly because my weekend was going to consist of a.) getting killed by Josh and Kristina or b.) getting turned into a Shadow One and being forced to serve A. Gist forever. Both possibilities sucked pretty bad.

  “Now what am I going to do?” Penny asked once we were fighting through the crowded stairwell. “I don’t have detention.”

  “We’ll have to think of something,” I said, worrying about that myself. “Try to see if Mr. Gorfel will let you sit with us or not. If he doesn’t, stand right outside the door.”

  “I’ll do that. I don’t know what excuse I’ll have for my dad today, though.” She stared at the floor as she walked. This wasn’t going to be a fun day for her, even if everything went okay at the detention.

  We made our way through the crowded hallways and to the science wing, passing kids who shared weekend plans with each other. I wished I could join them.

  Mr. Gorfel’s door stood wide open at the end of the gloomy hallway. He stood next to his desk, waiting for us. He grinned evilly we walked in and set off the plastic croaking frogs. Mr. Gorfel folded his arms, stood tall, and said, “Rita. Ryan. Welcome to detention.”

  I sighed, unable to help myself.

  “Why don’t you have a seat right here at the front of the room?” Mr. Gorfel asked, pointing to the front desk. “I want to keep a close eye on you to make sure you don’t cheat again.”

  I dragged my feet towards the desk and sat down, Ryan joining me a few seconds later. The frogs all croaked again as Penny took several baby steps into the room.

  “Would you like to join the detention, Miss Hart?” Mr. Gorfel snarled. “I don’t think you do. In my detentions, you get to do things like work on big piles of worksheets or clean all the tanks in here.”

  Ryan gulped, and Mr. Gorfel seemed to have noticed. His evil smile grew bigger. “And that includes the millipede tank and the tarantula tank.”

  A heavy silence followed. Ryan shifted in his seat. He hated bugs.

  “This isn’t fair what you’re doing to them!” Penny yelled. “I think it’s ridiculous! You’re the worst teacher I’ve ever had!”

  I felt my jaw drop. The rebel was back. Penny had never mouthed off to a teacher before. But hey, this was a desperate situation.

  “Am I, now?” Mr. Gorfel gestured towards the table. “You can have a seat next to your friends, Miss Hart, while I decide your fates.”

  Penny smiled at us as she sat. “Just paying you back for all the times you stood up for me,” she whispered.

  I couldn’t believe it. Penny had just gotten herself into a detention for the first time in her life…and on purpose. I had to thank her later, and big time. Her dad was going to flip out if we made it through today.

  Mr. Gorfel went to the door and closed it. The plastic frogs all croaked again. “What to do, what to do?” he pondered out loud. “Worksheets or cleaning?”

  Ryan faced me and wrapped his arms around himself. “Worksheets, please,” he mouthed.

  “I think I’ve made my decision,” Mr. Gorfel said, going for the storage room. “I hope none of you have arachnophobia. Let me get you some rags.”

  Mr. Gorfel vanished into the storage room. He ran a sink, wrung something out, and emerged with a handful of wet towels. At least he hadn’t emerged with the Shadow Regime behind him. “You will wipe down the inside walls of every tank that isn’t full of water. That includes the Venus flytrap tank, the rotting food tank, the cockroach tank in the back, the millipede tank on my desk, and the tarantula tank.”

  Shudder. Maybe coming here wasn’t such a great idea after all.

  Ryan looked around the room. “You’re…you’re going to take the bugs and spiders out of their tanks before we clean them…right?”

  “Oh, they won’t bother you.” Mr. Gorfel smiled again. “I think you’ll live.”

  The millipede reared up behind him, wiggling its tiny legs. My skin crawled. I really didn’t think so. Plus if I didn’t speak up, Ryan was going to have a heart attack. “Hey, we’ll take the worksheets. And all this is my fault. I’ll do all the tanks myself.”

  This time, Ryan didn’t argue with me standing up for him. Yeah, he hated bugs that bad.

  “Ryan, you take the millipede tank first,” Mr. Gorfel ordered, ignoring me. “Penny, you can do the cockroach tank. And Rita, you get to make sure Suzie’s walls are clean. You can empty out her water dish and refill it while you’re at it.”

  He pointed to—you guessed it—the tarantula tank. My heart sank.

  “That thing’s name is Suzie?” Ryan asked, mouth hanging open.

  “To the millipede tank.” Mr. Gorfel scowled and pointed behind him.

  Ryan turned towards the desk as Penny went for the back of the room. I sulked over to the tank to find the tarantula sitting very close to the water dish I’d have to empty. Oh, joy.

  Ryan made a gagging sound as he opened the millipede tank. I couldn’t blame him. I turned back to the tank and decided to start working before Mr. Gorfel came and yelled at me. After all, I’d run into worse things than a tarantula today.

  I lifted the lid off and looked down at the biggest, hairiest spider ever. It looked just like the ones I’d seen killing people in countless B-movies: black with orange bands on its legs. I started to wipe down the wall farthest away from it. The tarantula sat there like a rock.

  Mr. Gorfel slowly walked around the room as we worked, grinning. “That’s right, Ryan…get those water stains off the walls…and don’t forget to get that spot at the bottom…”

  I really, really hated him.

  I finished the first wall of the tank and moved on to the next one, inching closer and closer to the spider. Suzie still would not move out of the way. Maybe she was asleep.

  “You’re braver than most kids, Rita,” Mr. Gorfel said behind me. “Most kids won’t stick their hands in the tank at all. Now why don’t you empty out that water dish right now?”

  I didn’t say a word. I didn’t want to put my hand within a foot of that tarantula, but the thought of giving Mr. Gorfel any kind of satisfaction was worse. So I grit my teeth and reached for the water dish.

  BANG!

  I jumped, Mr. Gorfel whirled around, and Penny let out a squeak.

  The banging sound came again. Someone was hammering on the door. Okay, that was an understatement. Someone was trying to break it down.

  “What’s that?” Penny yelled, dropping her rag right into the middle of the cockroach tank.

  “I don’t know,” Mr. Gorfel said, backing for his desk.

  The hammering noise came again and the door shook with the force of a blow. Everyone in the room had frozen. My mind spun with possibilities. Well, two of them. I had who was breaking down the door narrowed down to two people.

  “Who…who is it?” Mr. Gorfel demanded, voice trembling. “I will make sure you get suspended!”

  Josh’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door. “I don’t care if he’s in there! They’ll pay right here!”

  So it was Josh and Kristina, not the Shadow Regime. The thought didn’t make me feel any better.

  Another loud BANG sounded on the other side of the door. I pictured Josh smashing in Mr. Gorfel’s door with a baseball bat and thought of going for one of the windows. But no. I’d never squeeze out in time.

  “You three get back!” Mr. Gorfel demanded. “I’ll call the office!”

  I pressed against the tarantula tank, heart thumping. Josh and Kristina weren’t coming in for an ordinary fight.

  Mr. Gorfel ran for his desk, nearly running Ryan over. The door shook again. Ryan glanced at the door and ran to the back of the room. Mr. Gorfel fumbled with a phone on his desk. He lifted it to his ear and muttered something into the receive
r just as the door came flying open with a deafening crash.

  The plastic frogs croaked as Josh and Kristina stormed into the room, faces twisted into rage. Kristina’s jaw quivered. Her eyes looked ready to burst from their sockets. Josh growled, reached over, and threw one of the tables down onto its side with another crash. I’m not exaggerating.

  They were in here to kill us. Literally.

  “What…what are you doing in here?” Mr. Gorfel yelled.

  Josh stopped for a second and glared at Mr. Gorfel, who slammed the phone down and ran right at him. Josh growled and shoved him back as hard as he could. Mr. Gorfel flew back into his desk with another crash. He let out something between a gasp and a scream.

  And then Josh turned back to us, but Kristina cut in front of him and stormed through the tables.

  “You’re…dead!” Kristina puffed, thrusting her hand into her pocket.

  I stopped breathing. I had a couple of ideas of what she’d pull out. I was the only one between her and my friends. A single thought raced through my head: I couldn’t let anything happen to them

  It’s amazing what you’ll do to save your life. I whirled around and stuck my hands into the tarantula tank. Before I knew it, I was sliding one hand right underneath the huge, hairy spider. Its orange-striped legs flexed up and down as its prickly feet struggled to grasp my skin. I lifted it up and whirled around to see Kristina just a few feet away, closing in on me.

  Kristina froze in place, her fist around something metallic and shiny. Her face went from beet red to ashen as her gaze flickered down to the spider.

  Then, she screamed. Yes, Kristina screamed. “Get that away!” She leapt back and the object fell from her grasp. Kristina crashed into a cabinet as a folded pocketknife spun across the floor and shot under a cart of books.

  “Leave her alone!” Josh roared.

  Oh. Him. I turned my head to find him running at right at me. I had no time to move.

  “Against the wall!”

  I leapt out of the way as a large hand caught the front of Josh’s shirt and slammed him back into a filing cabinet. A guy with a buzz cut and a whistle around his neck stood there. The Gym teacher, I guess. His knuckles turned white as he clutched the front of Josh’s shirt.

  The whole room fell silent again. Josh stood there pinned, open-mouthed. Kristina flattened herself against the cabinet, pale. Penny and Ryan huddled together near the cockroach tank. And did I mention what a relief this was? I heaved out the biggest sigh of relief, breaking the silence.

  “What is your problem?” the Gym teacher roared at Josh.

  “Leave him alone!” Kristina whined. “They were the ones shoving spiders at us.”

  “You deserved it!” Mr. Gorfel peeled himself away from his desk, rubbing his back.

  “Are you okay?” the Gym teacher asked Mr. Gorfel, his grip tightening on Josh’s shirt. “This was the one that shoved you, right?”

  Kristina kept whining. “I…hate…spiders! My brother used to drop them down the back of my shirt!”

  “You know what you’re really going to hate?” the Gym teacher growled. “Military school. I will strongly recommend it to both your parents.”

  This was swinging in our favor. Maybe I’d live through today after all.

  “Get him down to the office,” Mr. Gorfel said, disgusted. “I don’t want him back in this school ever again. I have zero tolerance for this kind of thing.”

  For the first time, we agreed on something.

  The Gym teacher pulled Josh away from the cabinet. He’d gone dead silent. I figured he’d never been the one slammed up against a wall before.

  “And you!” Mr. Gorfel yelled at Kristina.

  She stood pressed against the cabinet for a second, then turned and bolted for the door as fast as she could. The sound of the exit doors opening and slamming echoed through the hall. Mr. Gorfel started after her but stopped, rubbing his back and grimacing.

  “I will call the boy’s parents,” the Gym teacher growled as he pulled Josh across the room. Josh growled like a caged wolf again. A bunch of mechanical ribbits sounded through the air as they passed the frogs and went out the door.

  Mr. Gorfel leaned against his desk and heaved out a long sigh. I didn’t know what to say. I could only stand there as the tarantula slowly crawled up my arm. I’d only just remembered it.

  At last Ryan broke the silence. “Y…you picked up a tarantula? But those are poisonous—right?”

  By that point, I’d gone numb. I didn’t even care that I had a huge, hairy spider on me. It beat getting stabbed any day.

  Mr. Gorfel sighed. He sounded a million years old. “Most tarantulas are not dangerous to people. Suzie’s used to being picked up, and she’s never even tried to bite. Now please put her back in her tank, Rita, and don’t drop her. Tarantulas are very fragile.”

  Suzie had stopped halfway up my forearm like she didn’t even care. I lowered her back into the tank, touched one of her fuzzy legs, and watched her walk off my arm. I couldn’t believe that she had actually picked her up, but hey, I was desperate. My mom would’ve died if she’d seen it.

  Mr. Gorfel stood up straight and winced for a second. His back must still hurt. “Let’s get down to the office. I’ll need you three to be witnesses. You should have told a teacher about those two. I can’t believe how bad you kids are getting nowadays.”

  He led the way out of the room and shut off the light. I grabbed my backpack and followed, walking between Penny and Ryan. After that, I didn’t want to walk alone. Anywhere.

  “If only I’d had a camera,” Ryan said dreamily. “I would have framed that picture.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought Kristina was terrified of spiders.” Penny squinted at me. “How did you know?”

  “Not sure,” I said. Then it came to me. “Oh, yeah. Kristina scooted away from the spider tank on the first day. I guess I remembered without realizing it.”

  Ryan smiled for the first time in days. “Well, that’s one problem down. I so hope Josh gets military school. I’d love to see him getting chewed out by a drill sergeant.”

  I couldn’t help but smile, too. We had one problem down. Kristina terrified and jumping back, and Josh getting slammed against the wall…it was the first good thing I’d seen in days. No, weeks. If we made it through this nightmare, I’d cherish the memory of it forever.

  Mr. Gorfel led us into the office and pointed to an old maroon couch in the reception area. “Stay right here,” he ordered. “I’ll have to call the principal up here, and you’ll need to tell her what happened. We’ll be making a police report, too.”

  Mr. Gorfel vanished into a side office. Behind another door, Josh argued with the Gym teacher. I knew it was him because of all the profanity. And the growling.

  “This is grounds for expulsion!” the Gym teacher bellowed. “Have you got anything else on you we need to know about?”

  Josh muttered something that I couldn’t make out.

  “Do you realize how serious this is?” The walls practically shook with the Gym teacher’s yells. “You’ll probably end up in juvenile court for this. You know what they do to kids that bring these things to school.”

  “Oh, man,” Penny said. She started to tremble, understandably. It’s not every day someone tries to murder you.

  “I could tell they weren’t just planning on giving us black eyes when they came through the door,” I said. Now that I thought about what almost happened, I felt sick. “I hate them. I really do. It’s people like them that make all teenagers look bad.”

  “We were lucky,” Penny whispered, staring down at the floor. “If you hadn’t picked up that tarantula…”

  She didn’t finish. I didn’t want her to.

  “At least it wasn’t the Shadow Regime,” I said, trying to lift the mood. “I doubt any of us would have been able to hold them off. If it was t
hem they’d probably be putting us through the horrible transformation right now.”

  The door to an office opened and the Gym teacher stepped out, quickly closing the door behind him. Josh cussed at the top of his lungs inside.

  “This kid has some very serious charges coming down on him,” he said, shaking his head. “I really think he’s going to be put away somewhere. He attacked a teacher, broke down a door, knocked over tables like a maniac, and had a pocketknife with him. Not to mention he was going to attack you three if he could.”

  “He has a history,” Penny said. “So does his friend.”

  “When we find her, she’ll be facing the music too,” the Gym teacher went on. “They’ve got no discipline. If this was a military school she’d be scrubbing every toilet in this place for a month.”

  There was another thought I liked.

  Mr. Gorfel came out of the other office. The Gym teacher turned to him and whispered something, pointing to another office. The two of them vanished into it, closing the door. Leaving us alone out in the reception area. I could do the math. Alone = Bad.

  “Well, d…do we stay or go?” Ryan whispered. He was thinking the same thing.

  I couldn’t decide what was more dangerous as I squashed down into the couch. “I don’t know. There’s people here, and we might even be worse off if we leave.”

  The door to the third office opened again, and Mr. Gorfel and the Gym teacher stood in the doorway.

  “I think it would be a good idea if the three of you went to the police station after what Mr. Greywood just told me,” Mr. Gorfel said. “That girl is still out there. This is also bad enough to make a report. I’ll leave Mr. Greywood here to watch Josh and I’ll drive you there.”

  “Okay,” Penny said, almost smiling.

  I felt like doing that myself. An invisible boulder lifted from my shoulders. Police station = Good. It was the last place A. Gist would open a portal, with the exception of the moon.

  “I definitely want to help put them in military school,” Ryan said. “You know he whole school would back us up.”

  “I just have to go get my car keys,” Mr. Gorfel said, going for the office door. “I left them in my desk. Don’t you even think of moving.” He jogged out of the room, tie flapping.

  Josh started to swear at the top of his lungs again. Didn’t he get the picture that no one wanted to hear him? No, because a bunch of crashing noises followed. Now he had to trash the office, too.

  “Wait here!” Mr. Greywood ordered. He ran for the office and threw open the door. The crashing noises got louder for a second, and Josh tried to make a break for it. But Mr. Greywood forced him back into the room and shut the door behind him.

  “Well, we’ll be safe as soon as we get to the police station.” Penny smiled. “That’s the last place they’ll open a portal.”

  “Do you really think we’re going to let you get there?” a cruel voice cut in.

  My stomach dropped as I jumped up off the couch. A gagging sound escaped my throat, because three armored Shadow Ones stood in the office doorway.

  Ryan yelped and Penny stood frozen in horror. The tall, dark woman stood in front of Gabe Cruz and George. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Kristina stood to the side of them, smiling. So that was why my tracker hadn’t burned this time. They hadn’t needed it, because she’d brought them here. I wanted to strangle her.

  “Oh, god!” Ryan’s eyes got huge as he stared at Gabe Cruz. “It’s true!”

  I opened my mouth to scream like a wuss, but nothing came out. The Gym teacher kept struggling with Josh in the back office. More thumps followed. He couldn’t come out to back us up right now.

  “I take it she must have told you all about it,” George said with a stupid grin. Then he raised his voice and grinned even wider, cruelly mocking us: “Oh my god, Gabe Cruz is one of them now…Oh no, that’s what they’re going to do to us…we’re doomed!”

  Gabe Cruz shifted and shrunk back from the door. Poor guy. I had a feeling he didn’t like being in the Shadow Regime too much.

  “George, that’s enough,” the tall woman said. Her voice trembled a little. “We’ve got to make this quick and quiet.”

  I frantically looked around for an escape—big surprise—but the Shadow Ones stood in the only way out of the office. Another loud thump sounded somewhere behind us. An ominous silence followed, and a few seconds later the office door came open.

  It wasn’t Mr. Greywood. It was Josh, catching his breath.

  “Josh!” Kristina yelled. “Are you okay?”

  “Knocked him out,” Josh puffed, leaning against a wall. “Hit him over the head with the chair.”

  The tall woman sighed with relief. “Now we just have that other teacher to worry about.”

  My heart thudded and my throat got so dry, it hurt. I scanned the hall outside for anyone, even the janitor. No luck. Things were officially going downhill.

  George raised his voice so everyone could hear. “Oh, we don’t need to worry about him. I believe Ted and Monica are making sure he gets locked in his classroom right now.”

  Kristina smiled wider. “I told you you’re dead!”

  The tall woman turned to Kristina. “Oh, I don’t think so. Though I think now they’re wishing they were.”

  Yeah, I was just then. I didn’t like the alternative I was about to be put through. Bile rose in my throat as I stared at the Shadow Ones’ horrible uniforms. The thought of getting stuck in one for all eternity made me want to hurl, preferably on them. “Were all of you like us once?” I asked, something like hatred surging through me. My fists clenched with fury as I stared at Gabe Cruz, who stared back with wide eyes. His parents probably worried about him every day and thought he was dead.

  The tall woman stared into the air as if trying to see something in the distance. “Yes, we all were, once. But that was then.”

  Josh groaned. “If you’re not going to kill them, then what are you going to do to them?”

  George snorted and the tall woman sighed.

  “Man, you’re thick,” the tall woman said. “If you can’t figure it out for yourself, I’m not going to tell you.” She turned back to George. “Are you sure no one’s going to see us?”

  “Oh, man, oh man, oh maaaaannnnn…” Ryan moaned, shuddering. “I’ll pay you not to turn me into one of you.”

  Kristina’s eyes nearly popped out of her head and her jaw nearly fell to the floor. “That’s it? You’re just going to turn them into Shadow Ones? What about getting our bikes back? What do we get to do to them?”

  “What do you mean, ‘That’s it?”’ Geez, sorry to disappoint you, Kristina. I couldn’t think of a time I’d dreaded anything more in my life.

  George smiled. “You’re wrong about that, Kristina. We won’t be drafting them into the Shadow Regime. He will.”

  He pointed behind me. A tingly, electric sensation filled the air. The lights didn’t go dead, but they didn’t need to. We were hosed whether or not the power went out.

  I whirled around and choked back a scream.

  A. Gist himself stood in the middle of the office, grinning triumphantly. Behind him, a portal spun and waited.

  Chapter Fifteen