“Yes, please,” he answered faintly.
Mr. Sturgeon was disposed to be kind. “Don’t take it so hard, Wizzle. They once switched my tuxedo for a judo suit on Founders’ Day.”
* * *
Bruno had gone to sleep laughing and he woke up laughing.
“I just can’t wait to see what G. Gavin Gunhold is going to do next,” he chuckled to Boots. “You know, when he gets back from helping the farmer.”
Boots began to dress. “Maybe we should downplay G. Gavin Gunhold a little. We’re in for a lot of trouble if we get caught.”
“Are you nuts? It’s going perfectly. Will he make it to Edmonton in time to receive his award? Maybe we should send him to Europe or something, or to New York to mediate in United Nations debates. How about we make him special emissary to the Vatican?”
“Calm down, Bruno,” grinned Boots.
“It almost makes me sad that Wizzle will have to leave,” said Bruno. “I’ve never had so much fun in my life. It reminds me of the good old days.”
There was a knock on the door. Boots opened it to admit Larry Wilson. Larry looked worried.
“Hey, you guys, The Fish wants to see both of you right away.”
“Oh, no!” gasped Boots.
“We’re on our way,” said Bruno. “I wonder what he wants? What have we done lately?”
“What haven’t we done lately?” snapped Boots. “Do you think he’s found out about The Committee?”
“No. How could he? The Security Department would never allow that. Anyway, don’t worry. Whatever it is, we’ll bluff our way through it.”
Boots shook his head. “This isn’t Wizzle, Bruno! It’s The Fish! He’s going to kill us if he’s found out about The Committee!”
“Come on,” said Bruno stepping into his shoes.
“Let’s find out what this is all about.”
Boots just moaned.
The two boys ran across the campus to the Faculty Building, rushed inside and tapped on Mr. Sturgeon’s door.
“Have a seat.” Mr. Sturgeon motioned toward the decidedly uncomfortable wooden bench reserved for students called on the carpet.
“Walton, O’Neal,” he began grimly, “I have some distressing news for you. G. Gavin Gunhold is dead.” He paused for effect, noting with satisfaction their stricken expressions.
Bruno studied the carpet, then looked up. “Uh — how did you know it was us, sir?”
“When has it ever been anyone else?” retorted Mr. Sturgeon. “Although this time I must admit that you have dragged an inordinate number of people into your unworthy scheming. Do you realize that Drimsdale and Anderson could be in serious trouble because of this?”
Both boys gazed at the floor.
“This hoax is responsible for wasting” — he paused to choose his words carefully — “a good deal of staff time. It may seem like a great joke to you. There are some of us, however, who are not amused.”
He began pacing up and down in front of them. “In addition, I am certain that, were I to investigate Mr. Wizzle’s recent problem with paper delivery, I would find you at the bottom of it. You can thank your lucky stars that I have no proof of this.” He fell silent, debating whether or not to mention Mr. Wizzle’s earthquake problem. He decided against it. After all, it was obviously impossible for schoolboys — even seven hundred of them — to create earthquakes. Besides, how could Wizzle be having earthquakes which were not affecting the whole area? Better not to mention the earthquakes.
“Are you going to give us demerits, sir?” asked Bruno, thinking securely of the Lines Department.
“No,” said the Headmaster shortly. “You will each deliver to me in one week’s time a one-thousand-word essay on the morality of practical jokes. I am assigning Drimsdale and Anderson the same.”
Bruno’s mind raced. Could The Committee set up an Essay Department?
“You are dismissed,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “Please bear in mind that if you are called into my office on this subject again, things will go very hard with you. Good day.”
Bruno and Boots fled.
“Just like the good old days!” mimicked Boots savagely. “Just like the bad good old days!”
* * *
Cathy Burton lay on her bed feeling as stiff as a board. As soon as she had recovered from her post-war-games cold, Miss Peabody had pounced on her to do the ten punishment laps.
“The march starts at seven o’clock tomorrow morning,” Diane was saying, “and she says it’s going to be around forty kilometres.”
Cathy sat up with an audible creak. “Forty kilometres? Is she nuts?”
“Forty kilometres. That’s what Peabody said,” confirmed Diane. “Over rough terrain. She said we’d get back sometime in the early evening.”
“Well, I don’t care what Peabody said,” announced Cathy. “There is no power in the universe that can make me go on a forced march!”
* * *
“Okay, fall in for the march!” bellowed Miss Peabody.
The scorching sun of Indian summer beat heavily down on the girls of Miss Scrimmage’s. It was the hottest day of the fall.
“Thought you weren’t coming,” commented Diane as Cathy hefted her backpack.
“Leave me alone,” growled Cathy. “I’m dying.”
“All right — forward, march! Hut, two, three, four! Hut, two, three, four! Come on, look alive, Burton!”
“If I survive this,” muttered Cathy darkly, “which I doubt, Peabody will rue this march. Maybe a nice long walk will give me a chance to plan some strategy.”
“The last time you planned strategy,” said Diane, we all ran a lot of laps.”
“Shhh,” said Cathy. “I’m detaching my mind from my body.”
* * *
A practical joke is funny, but sometimes it’s not so funny, wrote Pete Anderson. “Hmmm. Eleven words.”
Pete, Elmer, Bruno and Boots were sprawled in various poses around room 306 writing their punishment essays.
“I still say we should have formed a department or subcommittee or something to do this,” said Bruno. “I mean, we shouldn’t be wasting our time. We’re important officials of The Committee.”
“We’re going to do the essays ourselves and stay out of trouble,” said Boots. “You can fool Wizzle, but you can’t fool The Fish.”
“And we did deserve it,” added Elmer. “Mr. Sturgeon is always very fair.”
“Fair to poor,” admitted Bruno grudgingly.
“Huh!” snorted Pete. “If there’s one thing I hate more than doing tests, it’s writing essays. Hey, Boots, how many words have you got? I’ve got eleven.”
“I haven’t counted.”
“How about this?” said Pete. “A practical joke isn’t funny unless everyone’s laughing. For example, when Mr. Wizzle isn’t laughing, nobody’s laughing.”
“I suggest that you revise that,” said Elmer seriously. “What Mr. Sturgeon wants is a general critique on the morality of practical jokes, not specific examples.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Pete, drawing a line through his last two sentences. “That leaves me with — let’s see — eleven words.”
“Ah,” said Elmer with an elaborate pen stroke. “Finished.”
“Me, too,” said Boots. “I don’t think I’m up to a thousand words, but it’s close enough.”
“Oh,” said Pete brightly. “You mean you don’t really have to have a thousand words?” His face fell. “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure you need more than eleven.”
“Probably,” grinned Boots.
“Come on, Pete,” said Bruno, “just write any old thing down.”
* * *
It was half past eight when the forced march finally ended at the front gate of Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies.
“Okay, girls,” sang out Miss Peabody, her step still springy, “well done. Because of today’s good effort, there will be no calisthenics tomorrow. You can sleep until nine.”
There were a few weak,
hoarse cheers.
“I’ll get her for this!” rasped Cathy. “My feet are gone! Gone!”
“They’re still there,” confirmed Diane, looking down.
“I can’t feel them!”
“You’re lucky,” said Diane. “I can feel mine and they hurt. All I want to do is get back to our room and sleep.”
“Well, you’re not going to sleep,” said Cathy. “No one is.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain it when we get back to our room.” The two walked into the residence hall, went up the stairs and entered their room.
“Okay,” said Diane, “before I fall asleep I want a full explanation of why I can’t.”
“Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn,” said Cathy, “in a showing of solidarity against Peabody, we’re all going to run away from school.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Nope,” said Cathy, beginning to undress. “We’ll tell all the girls right after I soak in a hot bath.” She grabbed a towel and disappeared into the bathroom.
“Wait a minute!” cried Diane. “Where are we going to go?”
She could barely hear Cathy’s answer over the sound of running water. “Macdonald Hall.”
* * *
It was 5:30 in the morning when Bruno and Boots were awakened by a tapping at their window. The two boys got up and looked out to see Cathy and Diane crouched there.
“Go away!” Boots hissed nervously. “We’re in enough trouble!”
“Come on in,” invited Bruno. He helped the two girls into the room. “What’s up?”
Cathy batted her eyes innocently. “We are two poor waifs who ask only for a place to rest our weary bones.”
“What are you babbling about?” asked Boots, slightly hysterical.
“We’ve run away from school,” said Diane.
“What? Both of you?”
“No,” said Cathy. “All of us.”
“Who else is there?” asked Bruno.
“Everybody,” said Cathy. “They’re waiting in the woods.”
Boots went white. “You mean there are three hundred girls hiding in our woods?”
“Yeah,” said Cathy. “We need someplace to hide out until we’ve decided where to go.” She smiled. “And I wouldn’t mind something to eat.”
“We can’t do it!” squeaked Boots. “We have no room for three hundred extra people!”
Cathy’s face fell. “Well, we really have nowhere else to go —” she began pitifully.
“Have no fear,” said Bruno. “The Committee is here.”
“Oh, no, Bruno!” moaned Boots. “Not The Committee! If The Fish —”
“What’s The Committee?” asked Diane.
“Only the most sophisticated, well-organized operation in existence,” boasted Bruno. “I’ll wake up some of the major department heads and we’ll form an Emergency Housing Task Force. We’ll have all the girls sheltered in no time.” He grinned at Cathy. “And we should be able to coax Wilbur Hackenschleimer into raiding the kitchen. He doesn’t take much convincing.”
“We’ll never get away with this, Bruno!” said Boots.
“When a friend asks for help,” lectured Bruno, “you can put yourself out a little. Come on. Let’s go wake up Wilbur to give the signal.”
Chapter 13
The Coalition
Mr. Sturgeon had made it his habit to sleep in on Sunday mornings, but that morning he was awakened shortly after nine by a distressing noise. He got up, donned his red silk bathrobe and his bedroom slippers and peered out the window.
An appalling sight met his eyes. There in the open area in front of the dormitories stood Gloria Peabody, ramrod straight, barking orders at the top of her lungs. He stared. Girls seemed to be coming out of his dormitories! Dozens of them! No, hundreds! Miss Scrimmage was also on the scene, running around shrieking and wringing her hands. Wizzle was there too, standing beside Miss Peabody. He seemed to be talking to her, but he was also shouting in the direction of the dormitories.
The Headmaster ran down the stairs and burst out of his front door. He sped across the campus toward the ruckus.
Miss Peabody’s voice was deafening. “All right, get out of there! On the double!”
“Oh, girls, girls! Please come out!” shrilled Miss Scrimmage. “Oh, please!”
Some more girls came wandering out through the dormitory doors.
“Come on! Hurry it up! Get back to school! Move!”
“Boys,” called Mr. Wizzle, “you will do nothing to interfere with the evacuation! Assist the girls out of the dormitories!”
“Back to school!” Miss Peabody barked at another group. “You’re confined to quarters!”
“Don’t forget to eat a good breakfast first!” added Miss Scrimmage.
“Wizzle, what is going on here?” demanded Mr. Sturgeon.
Miss Scrimmage rushed up to the Headmaster. “Your terrible boys kidnapped my poor defenceless girls!”
“Well, we’re really sorry, Miss Scrimmage,” began Mr. Wizzle, “and —”
“Don’t apologize, Wizzle,” said Mr. Sturgeon coldly. “Miss Scrimmage’s girls are quite capable of taking care of themselves. If they are in our dormitories, rest assured that that is where they choose to be.”
“Come on! Move it!” shouted Miss Peabody as more girls trickled out.
In room 306 Boots noted how Diane cringed each time Miss Peabody’s voice rang out. The four had spent the past few hours filling each other in on recent happenings at the two schools.
“You’re a great storyteller, Cathy,” Bruno approved. “I especially liked the part where you all gave it to Wizzle in the war games.”
“And you’re an organizational genius, Bruno,” said Cathy sincerely. “The Committee is a work of art.”
“Hurry it up, girls!” came Miss Peabody’s voice.
“Boys,” called Mr. Wizzle, “help the girls outside. Miss Peabody is waiting.”
“Waiting to pounce,” added Diane fearfully.
Cathy sneaked a look out the window at Mr. Wizzle and Miss Peabody, side by side, shouting orders. “Look at those two!” she snorted in disgust. “They’re made for each other! They should get married! Why ruin two schools?”
Bruno’s eyes bulged. “That’s it!”
“That’s what?” asked Boots suspiciously.
“That’s how we’re going to get rid of Wizzle and Peabody! We’ll marry them off! Then they’ll go off into the sunset and leave us alone!”
Cathy broke into a wide grin. “Bruno, you’re a genius!”
“It was your idea,” said Bruno generously.
“That’s right! In that case, I’m a genius!”
Outside, Mr. Wizzle turned to Miss Peabody. “I think that’s all of them,” he said.
“All except Burton and Grant,” said Miss Peabody. “Where are they?”
“Follow me,” said Mr. Sturgeon wearily. He walked to Dormitory 3 and tapped on a window. “Walton,” he said with mock politeness, “would you be so kind as to send Miss Burton and Miss Grant out immediately?”
Bruno’s face appeared at the window. “Yes, sir.”
Cathy appeared beside him. “Hi, Mr. Sturgeon. Long time no see.” She spied Miss Peabody and ducked down again.
“Burton, get out here! And bring Grant with you!”
“Walton, O’Neal,” said Mr. Wizzle sternly, “you’ve been harbouring them in your room! Ten demerits!”
Cathy and Diane scrambled over the window ledge, and Miss Peabody began running them home.
“That was really stupid, Burton! Really stupid!”
“But Miss Peabody,” Cathy protested, “how could you possibly know that I’m responsible?”
“I’ve got a gut feeling about you, Burton. The whole school’s going to run a lot of laps because of this.”
Cathy was too happy to worry about laps. She was already planning the wedding.
* * *
Bruno and Boots sat on the bench in Mr. Sturgeon’s offic
e.
“I am not going to ask you to explain the presence of Miss Scrimmage’s students in our dormitories,” began the Headmaster. “I would not force my students to dignify the gross misbehaviour of others with an explanation.” He cleared his throat. “I would like to speak to you on a matter that is of much greater importance. Of late, especially in the aftermath of this morning’s events, I have been hearing something around this campus which has become almost a catch phrase: The Committee.”
Boots turned suddenly white, and even Bruno paled a little.
“Ah,” said the Headmaster. “I see the name is familiar to you. You will forgive me for immediately associating you with this committee, but you must admit that in the past such activity has usually found you at the hub. And said activity generally culminates in a good deal of heartache for all concerned.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Walton, O’Neal — What is The Committee?”
Boots was too stricken to speak.
Bruno cleared his throat. “Well, sir, one day a group of us got together and — uh — formed The Committee.”
“I suspected that much. But for what purpose? What is the goal of The Committee?”
“Well,” said Bruno carefully, “we all work together to — uh — see to it that Macdonald Hall remains the wonderful place to go to school that it always was.”
“I see,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “So I suspected. The object of your group is to harass Mr. Wizzle. Am I correct?”
“I guess it sort of looks that way, sir,” Bruno admitted.
The Headmaster nodded. “And The Committee was no doubt behind The Macdonald Hall Free Press? And the computer paper shortage? And the sudden burst of student energy during calisthenics? And, of course, our man Gunhold?”
Both boys nodded miserably.
Mr. Sturgeon sighed. “Boys, it is a fact of life that things change in the normal course of events. Sometimes we like the changes; sometimes we do not. But we must accept them and learn to live with them. Do you understand?”
Bruno and Boots nodded again.
“Very well. I assume that you two are very high officials in The Committee. You will go and disband it immediately. There will be no more Committee. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. If there are any more complaints of harassment from Mr. Wizzle and you are found responsible, your punishment will be very severe, and your parents will be notified of your activities. Dismissed.”