Professor Gargoyle (5 page)

It was another of Glenn’s stupid rules.

“Fine,” Robert said. He moved the backpack out of Glenn’s reach before taking two dollars from his pocket. “Here you go. All right? No problem.”

Glenn pocketed the money and stared at him.

And smiled.

“What are you so nervous about?”

“Nothing,” Robert said, glancing down at his backpack, relieved to see it wasn’t moving. Somehow the rats seemed to understand that they needed to remain very still.

“You’re not your usual self today, Nerdbert. I can tell. I’ve got a real good memory.”

“I paid your stupid tax, all right? Leave me alone.”

Robert grabbed his backpack and tried to leave, but Glenn blocked his way.

“What’s in your bag?”

“Nothing. Books.”

“Let me see.”

Glenn reached for the bag and Robert tried stepping around him, but he wasn’t fast enough. Glenn grabbed a shoulder strap and yanked hard, pulling Robert along with it.

“Careful!” Robert shouted.

“Careful of what?” Glenn asked.

“None of your business! Leave me alone!”

At times like these, Robert thought of the characters in his favorite books—the supposedly normal kids who possessed secret powers. Robert wished he had eyeball lasers that could fry Glenn to a crisp. He wished he could summon a giant beast that would drag Glenn away kicking and screaming.

But this wasn’t a fantasy novel. This was real life.

Glenn grabbed Robert’s wrist and twisted it behind his back, then shoved his face against the wall. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Nerdbert. I’m going to keep twisting your arm until you let go of your backpack. Do you understand me?”

“Enough!” shouted a deep voice.

Robert looked to the door of the restroom and
saw Mr. Loomis charging toward them.

Glenn released his grip.

“Principal’s office,” Mr. Loomis told him. “Now.”

“But I was just playing—”

“Now!” Mr. Loomis’s voice boomed off the walls. Maybe he never shouted in English class, but here in the boys’ bathroom it was clear he meant business.

Glenn flashed Robert a dirty look. “I’ve got a real good memory,” he warned, before stomping out the door.

Mr. Loomis knelt beside Robert. “Are you all right?”

Robert shook out his arm. “I’m fine.”

“Does Glenn pick on you a lot?”

“Not really.”

Mr. Loomis frowned. “This was the first time?”

Robert shrugged. “Yeah.”

The 12:30 bell rang. Normally it would be time for lunch but today there was an early dismissal. Outside the bathroom, the hallway was filled with the noise of kids opening lockers and chatting about their weekends.

“So, can I go now?” Robert asked.

Mr. Loomis studied his face, as if he were literally searching for the truth. “Robert, you need to be focused on your schoolwork. Not worrying about bullies. I can make this problem go away, but I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

It was the opportunity Robert had been waiting for. Here was a teacher willing to listen and capable of stopping Glenn once and for all. And yet Robert was too ashamed to tell him the truth.

Boys were supposed to stand up for themselves. If Robert told Mr. Loomis everything—if he told him about the gummy worms and the dweeb tax and all the name-calling—he knew he would sound pathetic. It was too humiliating.

He could feel the creatures in his backpack squirming, getting restless.

“There’s no problem,” Robert said. “Can I go now?”

He ran all the way home, bolted upstairs to his bedroom, kicked off his sneakers, lay down on his bed, and gently unzipped his backpack.

The two heads emerged—first one, then the other—and inquisitively sniffed the bedroom air. “Come on out, little guys,” he said. “You’re totally safe here. This is my room. No jerks allowed.”

The rats stepped cautiously onto the blankets. Robert petted their necks and soon they were purring again, happy to be lounging on his bed.

“Now first things first,” he said. “You need a name.”

He’d considered all kinds of options while racing
home—he thought Double Jeopardy sounded the coolest—but decided that he needed to pick two names. One for the left head, and one for the right.

Mario and Luigi?

Phineas and Ferb?

Stars and Stripes?

None of them seemed quite right. And then inspiration struck. He addressed the rats one at a time, first the left head and then the right. “You’re going to be Pip, and you’re going to be Squeak. Together, you’re Pipsqueak!”

The rats seemed to love it. In fact, Squeak squeaked his approval several times, as if trying to prove he understood Robert’s decision.

“Now stay here,” Robert said, “while I get some food.”

He ran downstairs to the kitchen, where his mother was standing over the stove, stirring a pot of soup. “There you are!” she exclaimed. “How was your day, sweetie?”

“Good.”

“What are you doing?”

Robert was already inside the refrigerator and loading his arms with two apples, a brick of cheese, a handful of lettuce, and a bag of baby carrots. “Just grabbing a snack. Thanks, Mom. Call me when dinner’s ready, okay?”

In a flash he was back on his bed, sharing the food with Pip and Squeak. Clearly they were hungry; they leapt upon the apple, gripping it with their claws and gnawing it to the core. Robert watched them, mesmerized. Each head moved independently of the other; sometimes Pip would eat while Squeak rested, and vice versa.

The food was gone in just ten minutes. Pip and Squeak looked to Robert with pleading eyes. “I’ll bring more after dinner,” he told them. “If I do it now, my mom will be suspicious.” Robert knew his mother wouldn’t tolerate a pet rat in the house, let alone a two-headed mutation.

He found a cardboard box in his closet, then shredded the pages of an old loose-leaf notebook, arranging the scraps of paper into a sort of nest. Then he placed a
small bowl of water in one corner. “This is where you’ll sleep at night,” he explained.

Pip and Squeak grasped the idea immediately. They climbed up into the box, settled into a corner, smiled at Robert, and chattered their teeth. It was a weird clicking noise that seemed to indicate they were happy.

“You guys are going to be nice and cozy here,” he promised. “And it’s Friday, so we’ve got all weekend to play. Maybe we’ll go in the backyard tomorrow, would you like that?”

There was a sudden knock at the door.

“Robert? Can I come in?”

He grabbed the box and shoved it under the bed.

“It’s open!” he called.

His mother entered the room. “Did you just get off the phone?” Robert shook his head. “I thought I heard you talking to someone.”

“Must have been the radio.”

It was clear Mrs. Arthur didn’t believe him. She sat beside him on the bed and wrapped her arm around his waist.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah.”

“You like the new school?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you having any problems?”

“Yeah. I mean, no.”

His mother looked down at him. “I’m trying to have a conversation, Robert. Do you understand? This doesn’t work unless you’re actively listening and sharing information.”

“I’m sorry,” Robert said.

And he truly was sorry. His mother already had enough problems, between working full shifts at the hospital and cooking and cleaning and doing all the laundry. She never had any time leftover for going out and doing anything fun. The least he could do was cheer her up a little.

“Lovecraft is fantastic,” he told her. “We went to the library today? For the first time? And you wouldn’t believe it, Mom. It’s so big, I actually got lost.”

She smiled. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, and my English teacher? Mr. Loomis? He’s this really nice guy. He showed me where to check out books. Oh, and I made a new friend today!”

“Really? That’s wonderful!”

“Two new friends, actually,” Robert said, smiling as he thought of Pip and Squeak underneath his bed, their whiskered snouts just inches away from his mother’s delicate ankles.

Robert spent most of the weekend playing with his new friends. During the day, he brought them to his neighborhood park. At night, they stayed up late together, eating snacks by flashlight under the blankets. Pip favored chocolate cupcakes with white filling. Squeak preferred peanut butter cookies. They both loved hard pretzels and scattered crumbs all over Robert’s sheets.