CHAPTER 7 - ENCOUNTER WITH THE HULK
On Monday morning Toby was feeling pretty good about school. He had spent Sunday afternoon with Jason playing one on one. To his surprise he had really enjoyed it, once he understood the rules of the game. He just might be learning to enjoy sports.
However, the problem of what to do with the book still worried him. He stuffed it deep into his backpack and headed to school. Walking down the hallway to his locker, he was jarred out of his thoughts as he rounded the corner. Carson was waiting for him.
"It seems we need to have another talk," Carson said. "Let's go to my office."
Toby sat down in the same faded green chair as before. Carson leaned on the big desk, towering over him. "There is a large dent in your locker Toby. Destruction of school property is a serious offense. Can you explain why you put a dent in your locker?"
Toby looked surprised. "I didn't"
"Are you saying you don't know anything about that dent?"
Toby thought quickly. He remembered being chased, opening the locker and?but of course it would do no good to blame BAM. He shook his head.
Carson sighed in mock disappointment and ran his hand over his short, cropped hair. "I'm sorry to see you going down this path Toby. You used to be such a good student." He paused. "I suppose you don't remember cutting classes and leaving early on Friday either?"
Toby's stomach lurched. He had forgotten about leaving early on Friday. "I was..uh..I was?sick. I left early because I wasn't feeling well after gym class." He wasn't feeling too well now either.
"You know that you are supposed to see the school nurse if you're not feeling well. That's why we have a school nurse. We can't have students just leaving whenever they - think - they're sick." Carson turned his back and walked over to the bookcase.
Toby's eyes traveled to the desk where Carson's coffee mug was sitting. He blinked, and stared hard at the cup. It was a picture of the Incredible Hulk! A line from the old show came to his mind, "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry." That was a pretty tall order - not making Kick Carson angry!
"I don't know if you have heard, but there have been some thefts in the school," Carson said interrupting his thoughts.
Toby tried to make his face look passive as Carson turned around, but he could feel the flush creeping up his neck.
"A very valuable book was stolen out of my office last week. I don't suppose you know anything about that?"
Toby watched with fascination as Carson's neck muscles tensed and pulsed. His thoughts went back to the mug. Would Carson turn into the Hulk? His clothes looked a little tight, but that could be normal. At least he didn't look green yet. He certainly had a lot of muscles for an old guy. Maybe he takes steroids he thought.
Carson stared at him for a moment then said, "Friday's incidents will go on your record of course. If there is any more trouble, I will have to notify your grandmother."
Toby gasped as this threat brought him back to reality.
Carson smiled a slow, cruel smile. "Of course I don't want to bother your grandmother." He raised his hands in a sign of resignation. "But I have no choice." He dropped his arms. "You can go to class."
Toby got up to leave. He stopped when Carson continued.
"If you do think of anything that might help with the return of my book, you will let me know won't you? That sort of thing would certainly help clear up any misunderstandings on your record."
Without answering, Toby hurried out the door and went to class.
After he left, Mrs. Hightower brought in the morning mail. On the top was the letter from the school board. When he was alone, Carson read the letter. He paced up and down the room planning what to do. Toby obviously had the book. How was he going to get it back without being directly involved? Those three misfits might be of use. They could waylay Toby and find out where he'd hidden the book. He waited till lunch, and then had Buz come to his office.
The visit with Carson had shook Toby up. He had to do something before Janie got pulled into this mess. On the way home from school he came up with a plan. That evening after supper he went to his room and took the book out. Turning to the picture of the hut, he very carefully cut the page out of the book using an Exacto knife. Unless someone was looking very closely they would not notice a page was missing.
As he was closing the book, a piece of paper fell out. It was a handwritten list of figures with one or two words next to each number. Looking closer, he decided the words were probably abbreviations, because they didn't make any sense. Setting it aside, he decided to check his e-mail. There was a message from his dad.
So glad you liked the meteorite. You remember us telling you about the meteor shower about a month ago? Well we were out a few weeks later observing the penguins. It was a cold cloudy night, but for once there was very little wind. The moonlight shinning through the clouds was reflecting sharply off the ice like a faint bluegreen spotlight. Must have been something in the atmosphere that caused the strange color. Quite odd. We never figured it out. Maybe it was something like the northern lights. Anyway, we noticed black things on the ground like someone had sprinkled pepper on the ice. At first I thought I was just seeing spots from the reflected light, but your mother saw it too. Our team decided to check it out and to our great delight we found it was meteorites! We forgot all about the penguins and were busy for the next hour picking them up. We were like kids collecting loot at Halloween. We love you and miss you. Dad
There was also a message from Pete.
You've GOT to stop eating those salads your grandmother makes. I think there might be some hallucinatory mushrooms or something in there. You're starting to worry me. On the bright side - I worked some of your fantasy into my essay and Kyle thought it was pretty good. He wanted me to use the Enya part, but I said no way! How'd the basketball practice go? Did the exercise clear your head?
Toby chuckled and wrote back.
I think I'm going to be a professional basketball player when I grow up. Get it? Grow up? Jason thinks once I grow a few more feet I should be a shoo-in. Or I could go into detective work. Check out this page that fell out of THE book. You're pretty good with math and puzzles. Is this a formula for time travel or could it be some kind of treasure map?
He scanned in the page and attached it to the e-mail. Before shutting down, he wrote to his parents and told them all about the trip to the science center.
Tomorrow he would return the book. The picture was gone, so Carson would not be able to use it. Maybe once he had the book back he would forget all about the other problems and even clear up his record. Maybe.