By the time second period ended, Bryan had written exactly one sentence in his reader response journal. It had nothing to do with true love or zombies or inhumanity. It simply said, “What is happening to me?”
He didn’t have an answer.
In an hour he could talk it over with Oz. That was what they’d said. Wait to see if things resolved themselves, and if not, they would work through them together. Or seek professional help. Things certainly hadn’t resolved themselves. If anything, they had gotten more complicated. Gym was only one period away. But first Bryan had to get through detention.
He opened Mr. Tennenbaum’s door as the stragglers in the hall behind him shuffled past, hoping that maybe the math teacher would be acting normal.
“Shut the door, my son.”
So much for that.
Bryan stood in the doorway and stared at the man, sitting at his desk, huddled over a stack of papers. The blinds had been closed, and all but one row of fluorescent lights had been turned off, draping Mr. Tennenbaum in a pool of sickly yellow and casting his shadow along the wall. He had his back turned, but even from the doorway Bryan could tell what the math teacher was doing. The fog around him was thick. The smell overpowering.
“Are you smoking? In school?”
Tennenbaum spun in his desk chair and squinted at Bryan. A pipe hung from the corner of his mouth, billowing up tendrils of white smoke. The math teacher stroked his unwieldy salt-and-pepper—predominantly salt—beard.
“Please, Master Biggins,” he spoke through clenched teeth. “I asked you to close the door.”
Master Biggins? That was a first.
Bryan rolled his eyes but did what he was told. He was already firmly planted on Tennenbaum’s bad side. “I’m pretty sure you can’t do that here,” he said, pointing at the pipe.
Mr. Tennenbaum took the pipe from his mouth, regarded it for a moment as if it were some strange artifact he’d just unearthed, then stuck it back in its corner with a considerable huff. “And I am fairly certain that I shall do whatever I wish.” The math teacher manufactured an impressive white ring and watched it dissolve in the air between them. “I trust you are here to atone?”
Atone? That didn’t sound good. Apparently, Tennenbaum was going to make a big deal out of this. “Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry about being late to class, and I promise I won’t do it again, but I’m having this really strange morning, and I thought, if it was all right with you—”
“Silence!” Tennenbaum roared, causing Bryan to take a step back, pressing up against the door. The math teacher held the bowl of his pipe, pointing the gnawed black tip at Bryan. “This is no time to blabber about, boy. There is important work to be done. A task has been set before you.”
A task. Terrific. Bryan was going to spend the next hour cleaning erasers or sorting papers. Or something worse. Tennenbaum motioned for Bryan to come closer. The smell of smoke wove its way through the room, pungent and acrid, stinging Bryan’s eyes. The math teacher opened the top drawer of his desk and fished out a black cloth pouch, barely large enough to get his hand into. He dug with two fingers and plucked out a handful of quarters. Bryan shuddered. The last thing he wanted to see right now was more coins.
“Six pieces of silver,” Tennenbaum said. “You will need them to unlock the treasure.”
Bryan looked at the coins. Were these quarters he was supposed to use to continue? Did Tennenbaum know what was going on? And what did he mean by “treasure”? He tried to sum up all these questions with a “Say what now?”
“You must journey to the room that is forbidden to those of your kind,” Tennenbaum continued, his voice scratchy with phlegm. “The sanctuary beyond the hall. Where the elders gather in repose.”
Bryan shook his head. Sanctuary? Elders? Forbidden to his kind? “You mean the teachers’ lounge?”
Tennenbaum nodded sagely, setting the quarters on the desk between them. “There you must retrieve the cake of gold from its prison of glass.”
“Cake of gold,” Bryan repeated, even more bewildered.
The math teacher put up a crooked finger. “But beware. The path will be fraught with danger. The Eye of Krug is watching.”
Eye of Krug . . . Eye of Krug . . . Bryan wracked his brain. Did he mean Amy Krug? One of the hall monitors? She was known to patrol during third period. And she wore thick glasses. “You could just give me a hall pass, you know . . . ,” Bryan began.
The math teacher fixed him in a stern gaze. “You must go unarmed!” he insisted. “I can grant you no protections, offer you no wards. You will not need your pack.” Tennenbaum pointed to Bryan’s backpack. “And know that the vault itself is not unguarded. Within it sit three creatures of the most hideous disposition. Reynolds, Wang, and Baylor-Tore.” Tennenbaum practically hissed the names.
Bryan repeated them in his head. “Mrs. Reynolds the music teacher?”
“They are not to be trusted,” Tennenbaum warned. “Do not fall victim to their web of lies.”
Bryan laughed. This had gone from bewildering to ridiculous. Whatever Mr. Tennenbaum had put in that pipe, it had obviously shot straight to his brain and done some rearranging of what it found there. Bryan put his hands on the math teacher’s desk. “Listen, Mr. Tennenbaum, I know I screwed up, and I can’t keep coming in late to class. And I’m more than happy to sit here and do extra math problems or help you grade quizzes or whatever, but don’t you think this is a little, you know . . .”
“Dangerous?” Tennenbaum finished, a hint of mischief in his eyes.
“I was going to say ‘silly.’ ” Actually, he was going to say “stupid,” but thought that might be pushing it.
The math teacher’s eyes widened. “The cake of gold must not be broken. Only once it is returned, pure of form and devoid of imperfections, will you be free to continue on your path.” Then he stuffed the pipe back between his lips and nodded again, leaning back and half closing his eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. “I have spoken,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, but wouldn’t it be easier if you just took the money and went down to the teachers’ lounge yourself—”
“I HAVE SPOKEN!” Mr. Tennenbaum roared, lunging forward and slamming a fist on his desk, nearly causing his half-empty coffee cup to topple off the corner.
“Right,” Bryan whispered, adding “pushy old fart” so low that Tennenbaum couldn’t hear. Then he scooped up the quarters, stuffed them in his pocket, and slowly backed away as another ring of smoke drifted lazily between them.
“Remember the Eye of Krug. Beware the guardians three. Return with the cake of gold,” Tennenbaum chanted as Bryan walked backward through the room.
“Eye of Krug. Guardians three. Cake of gold. Total nutcase,” Bryan whispered. He escaped through the door and took a much-needed breath of fresh air, the smell of tobacco lingering in his nose, the clink of six quarters jangling in his pocket.
Obviously, Tennenbaum was even crazier than Bryan was. Still, it could have been worse. Breaking into the teachers’ lounge was at least better than scraping gum from the underbellies of student desks. Besides, Bryan now had something to hold over the crotchety old math teacher’s head. Smoking in school was cause for suspension for students, so it couldn’t be too good for teachers. But first he would go get this stupid treasure. After all, he could only assume there was something in it for him as well. Maybe this was the quest he was meant to complete. Maybe this was how he would finally get his day back to normal.
The teachers’ lounge was on the first floor close to the art room. He was on the second. He would have to take the stairs and then circle around. Bryan walked down the hall, passing a few kids who had been kicked out of their classrooms for one reason or another, heads bent over whatever menial task served as their punishment. One of them looked up at Bryan from the book he was reading.
“Beware the Eye of Krug!” the kid whispered, then huddled back over his dog-eared copy of A Wizard of Earthsea.
Bryan looked at him oddly. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything, dweeb,” the boy said, burying his nose farther into his book.
Of course he didn’t.
Bryan shook his head and slowly made his way to the stairs. As he descended, he ran over the names Tennenbaum had listed. The ones he was supposed to watch out for. Reynolds. Wang. Baylor-Tore. He knew Mrs. Reynolds. Ms. Wang he thought might be the eighth-grade science teacher. He didn’t know any Baylor-Tore. Maybe she was new this year. He exited the stairwell, lost in thought, eyes watching the progression of marble tiles on the floor, still struggling to make sense of it all. Finally he chanced a look ahead.
There she was, standing at the end of the hall with her hands on her hips. As if she had known he was coming. As if she had been waiting for him.
Amy Krug.
She stood there in her black Mary Janes with her pouty, purplish lips. Hall monitor and perennial library volunteer. President of DARE and two-time treasurer of the student council. Beloved by teachers everywhere and mocked by half the student body for the way she sucked up to anyone in authority, like a Dyson on a power surge. She was dressed in a business suit—the only girl at Mount Comfort Middle School who owned one, let alone wore it to school—black to match her raven hair, which was pulled into a taut whip, snapping like a hooded cobra behind her. She glared at Bryan with dagger eyes behind her thick, black-framed glasses. He stopped in his tracks.
Bryan wasn’t in the half that mocked Amy Krug. He actually kind of admired her tenacity. He knew that someday she’d score a full scholarship to an Ivy League university and win a Nobel Prize, coming back to Mount Comfort to rub it in everyone’s faces. Maybe, underneath it all, she was even nice. But seeing her there, at the end of the hallway, staring down at him along her hawk’s beak of a nose, mouth curved upward in a smug little smile, he panicked.
Beware the Eye of Krug.
“I see you, Biggins,” she said in her grating voice.
She took a step toward him.
“I see everything.”
Bryan turned and bolted back up the stairs, pulling himself along the handrails. He paused halfway up, listening to the sound of Krug’s shoes clicking down the hallway. Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. The Eye was on the move. Walking steadily. Like a hockey-masked killer in a slasher film.
Bryan made the turn and paused at the entrance to the upper hall, stopping to catch his breath. “This is stupid,” he whispered to himself. “What’s the worst she can do?” On a normal day she would just write him up or send him to the principal’s office.
But today was no normal day, and Amy looked like she was ready to tear somebody’s head off. Bryan pushed through the door to the second floor and listened for the slap of Krug’s soles on the stairs. No sound save for the droning voices of teachers lecturing behind closed doors. He waited a second more just to be sure. Probably she was there at the bottom, waiting for him to descend, the patient spider sitting at the edge of her web. He would have to take the long way again.
Bryan looped around the cafeteria to the east wing, taking the opposite stairwell and exiting near the gym, stopping to peek around every corner just in case. He could hear the thud of balls bouncing off the walls. He’d be back here in less than an hour—provided he could get Tennenbaum’s little treasure without getting caught. As he walked, he kept his head down and his eyes up, hoping nobody would stop him and ask him what he was up to. It helped being a mostly good kid. His permanent record was clean. The two teachers he passed didn’t give him a second look.
He turned down B Hall and stopped, ears prickling at the familiar sound.
Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop.
Bryan felt a chill run through him from scalp to heel. He looked around frantically. The sound reverberated down the hall, increasing in volume.
Clip. Clop. Clip.
There she was. At the other end. Head swiveling, Terminator style, as if she were scanning for life forms. As she twisted his way, Bryan ducked through the first door he found, throwing his back against a wall and shutting his eyes.
He was safe. For the moment. He heard water running and opened his eyes.
Tile floor. Paper towel dispensers. Sinks. Stalls. Lots of stalls.
He wasn’t safe. He was in serious danger.
“Are you really that stupid?” a voice said.
A tall, skinny Asian girl, clearly an upperclassman, stood by the row of sinks drying her hands and looking over at Bryan with disgust. Bryan backed himself into a corner, putting his hands up. Forget the “sanctuary beyond the hall.” He was trespassing on truly sacred ground now.
“Uh. Oh. Sorry. I was just, um, looking for the teachers’ lounge.”
The girl gave him a hard look. “Right. Because the girls’ bathroom is where all the teachers hang out. They keep the coffeemaker in the last stall.” She rolled her eyes, finished drying her hands, and shouldered Bryan out of the way, shaking her head. “Creep.”
“Sorry,” Bryan whispered again, making sure that he was out of visual range while the door swung open. When she was gone, Bryan sighed and shook his head, then crouched down to inspect the stalls. No feet. The place was empty, at least. He couldn’t help but notice how much cleaner the girls’ bathroom was. There were no puddles on the floor from errant aim, for one, and the sinks weren’t clogged with paper towels. Only the graffiti was the same: hierarchical lists of both girls and boys by their relative cuteness and popularity. He noticed Jess’s name was on three of the lists. Ms. Zinn was even on some. Landon Prince graced the top of several. Bryan’s name was nowhere to be found.
He stood by the entrance and pressed his ear to the door. He could still hear her moving out there. Clip. Clop. Clip. Getting closer and closer still. The hairs on Bryan’s arms stood up. The footsteps stopped right outside the girls’ bathroom.
She’s coming in. She knows I’m in here. Maybe the other girl had told her. Or maybe Krug just sensed it. He looked over at the stalls, wondering which one to hide in, afraid that she would hear him if he tried to move, afraid that somehow, at least today, the Eye of Krug could see through cinder block. He held his breath for ten seconds. Twenty.
And then . . . the clop of black Mary Janes retreating back down the hall. Fading.
Bryan’s heart hammered as he peeked outside. The hall was clear. Krug was nowhere to be seen and the teachers’ lounge was just down the hall with the door half open. He couldn’t stay in the girls’ bathroom any longer; it was totally creeping him out, not to mention he was afraid of someone else catching him here. Bryan counted to three and burst through the bathroom door, scrambled down the hall, and practically dived into the teachers’ lounge, then turned and shut the door softly behind him.
He listened for a moment, then sighed. No sign of Krug. He turned to take in the room.
The sanctuary. It wasn’t much to look at, actually. Refrigerator. Microwave. Sink. Vending machine. Stained carpet. Peeling paint. On the far wall was a poster with a hot-air balloon and a message telling whoever cared to REACH HIGHER. Someone, presumably a teacher, had Sharpied in a doodle of a man dangling from the basket by one hand, ready to plummet to his death, and the message FALL FARTHER. The whole place smelled of coffee and Mexican food.
In the center of the room sat a scratched-up laminate table surrounded by three middle-aged women, each huddled over an early lunch. Bryan recognized Mrs. Reynolds instantly—her characteristic beehive hairdo and heavily lipsticked pout were unmistakable. And he had been right about Ms. Wang—she was the science teacher—a scarecrow of a woman with sunken cheeks and frizzy black hair that might have been styled via electric socket. The third figure he had seen only once and guessed to be Baylor-Tore. Judging by her size, he guessed she was the new boys’ wrestling coach. Or school security. She slightly resembled a gorilla, with moderately less hair.
None of the three of them bothered to look up. Instead they all stared blankly at one another across the table, spooning or shoveling their meager meals into their frowning mouths. Reynolds was sucking down low-fat Greek yogurt. Wang was sawing through a Weight Watchers chicken breast congealed in what could be mushrooms. Baylor-Tore was just looking at celery stalks. She had a row of them, all lined up. The teachers stared ominously ahead, each at the other, like Capulets risen from the dead—mindless yogurt-, celery-, and rubber-chicken-eating zombies. Bryan didn’t even garner a glance.
“Um, hey,” he said, feeling the urge to break the silence, to get them at least to acknowledge that he was in the room. After all, he was a student. It would be like an antelope nosing around a lion’s den. They should have shooed him out instantly, but they didn’t seem to care. Like most everyone else today: completely zoned out. “I just need to get something for Mr. Tennenbaum and then I’ll be out of here,” he explained. The teachers didn’t respond. Baylor-Tore blinked once. Wang poked at her chicken slab wordlessly.
“Okay, then,” Bryan said, then maneuvered around the table to the vending machine in the corner. He scanned all the selections, just to be sure, but there really was nothing else that could be mistaken for a cake of gold. The package containing a single Twinkie sat in the center row. D-3. It was a dollar. Mr. Tennenbaum had obviously overestimated the going price for golden treasure.
Bryan looked at the coin slot and shuddered at the memory of the last two he’d encountered—even knowing coin slots belonged in vending machines didn’t make him feel better. He reached into his pocket for the quarters Tennenbaum had given him and dropped four in, listening to the rhythm of their descent, turning each time to see if the expressions on the women’s faces had changed, if they cared he was there. Mrs. Reynolds slurped her peach yogurt with a sickening, slow, slick sound. Sssccchllrrrrrrp.
Bryan tried not to watch. He punched in D-3. “Come on, hurry up,” he whispered. The wire uncoiled. The cake of gold inched forward.
Schllrrrrrrp.
And then it got stuck. Snagged on a corner of its cellophane package.
“No. No. No. No. No. Not today.”
He would have said something worse, but there were teachers present, even if they didn’t seem to be listening. He punched the buttons again and again, then grabbed both sides of the machine, looking to shake it, except it was way too heavy. The Twinkie didn’t budge. He took a step back, then rammed his shoulder into the vending machine glass.
-1 HP.
Bryan rubbed his sore arm and glared at the already-fading red letters hovering in the air before him. The cake of gold remained suspended behind the glass force field.
“Forget this.” He fished in his pocket for what was left of his change. Not counting the quarter he’d fed to his alarm clock, he had started the day with two quarters, a dime, and three pennies to his name, one of which had gone into the parking lot after the bike crash. Adding Tennenbaum’s other two coins to his own, though, he had enough. He dropped another dollar’s worth into the machine and typed in the code. The coil turned, and not one but two packages dropped into the bin below. Double cakes of gold. Bonus buy. Sort of. Bryan bent down and thrust both hands through the flapping door, pulling his treasures free. Finally.
He was about to apologize to the teachers for having interrupted their lunch when he heard a hissing from behind.
“Cakesssssss . . .”
Bryan twisted around slowly. The table in the center of the room was empty now. The yogurt abandoned. The chicken half eaten. The celery still in formation. The three teachers were all up out of their chairs. They were looking at Bryan.
The languid zombie trance they had been in had vanished. Their eyes were now sharp slits, their coffee-stained teeth bared. Mrs. Reynolds had her head cocked to one side, watching him, curious, catlike. Ms. Wang was nearly crouching, her spine arched, hands on the back of her chair. Baylor-Tore was blocking the door. She could easily block two of them. Bryan clutched the two packs of Twinkies to his chest.
“Hello, ladies,” he said.
“The caaakesss. We must have the cakesssss . . . ,” they all said in hoarse whispers, two of them circling around the table, creeping toward Bryan, their hands stretched out before them. Ms. Wang’s nails looked obnoxiously long and were painted the color of rust or dried blood. Mrs. Reynolds’s head kept twitching uncontrollably as she sniffed the air. “You must give them to us.”
Bryan pointed to the vending machine. “Um. There’s still another package in there.”
“We will share them, yessss?” Mrs. Reynolds hissed.
“Yes. Share them with you, we will. Delicious cakesss,” Wang agreed.
Tennenbaum’s words echoed in Bryan’s head. Beware the guardians three. They are not to be trusted.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. They aren’t really mine to share. I really . . . I really should just go.” Bryan made a move to get around, but Mrs. Reynolds mirrored him, cutting off his escape.
“They are not yoursssss,” she hissed.
“Trespasser!” Ms. Wang croaked. “Bandit. Thief. You are not welcome here.”
“Gives us the cake-sees,” Baylor-Tore added in her unusually deep voice from her spot by the door, licking her lips voraciously. “We wants them!” The other two teachers were on either side of Bryan now, closing in with wide, wild looks in their eyes. You weren’t allowed to touch students anymore, he knew. You couldn’t even hug them without a parent’s permission. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that these three were about to tear him to pieces. They continued to advance, slowly, pressing him farther into the corner. Reynolds licked the tips of her teeth. Wang opened and closed her clawed hands. He had to do something.
Almost instinctively, Bryan lunged forward, dodging the swipe of Wang’s ragged nails, holding both packages of Twinkies with one hand and reaching out for the table with the other. He grabbed the first thing he could, wrapping his free fist around it. He could sense Mrs. Reynolds right behind him, nearly on top of him, but he spun around, holding his weapon out toward her.
“Stand back!” he cried.
“Hissssssss!” Mrs. Reynolds brought her hands up in front of her face and instinctively cringed from the stalk of celery Bryan was waving back and forth. Both teachers bared their teeth and squinted, but they slowly backed away.
Bryan took a step forward, pointing the celery from one to the other, forcing them into the corner by the vending machine. He thrust and they clawed, trying to swipe the deadly vegetable out of his hand. Bryan quickly turned and glanced at the door to try and figure some way to get past Baylor-Tore and out of this nest of monsters.
Except Baylor-Tore was no longer guarding the door.
Just then two beefy brown arms closed around him, one of them wrenching the celery stalk from his hand, sending it flying into the wall. Baylor-Tore bear-hugged Bryan and lifted him off of his feet, swinging him back and forth like a pendulum, roaring in his ear. “Givesss us the cakesss!”
The celery gone, the other two teachers swooped in. Bryan kicked out with his feet, trying to keep them at bay, feeling their hands on his legs, reaching for him, clutching at him. His right arm was pinned to his chest, but his left hand—the one holding both Twinkies—was still free.
He realized then what he had to do. He had no choice.
He brought one package to his teeth and frantically tore through the top, releasing the sickeningly sweet scent of cream-filled sponge cake, then flung the open pack as far as he could, careful to keep hold of the other. The open Twinkie hit the wall and slid down, leaving a splotch of its white innards on the painted cinder blocks.
Bryan felt his feet hit the floor as Baylor-Tore released him, then he watched as all three teachers bolted for the dessert, scrambling over one another, clawing at one another’s faces, growling like wild animals. He watched in horror as Mrs. Reynolds sank her teeth into Ms. Wang’s leg to keep her from reaching the Twinkie.
Bryan ran. Only Wang turned and scowled as he scrambled to his feet and headed toward the door. He pushed his way out, giving no thought to Amy Krug or anyone else, just wanting to get as far away from the teachers’ lounge as possible. He glanced down both halls, then he ran all the way back up to Mr. Tennenbaum’s room, ignoring the shouts of the other teachers he passed, commanding him to slow down. He burst into the room and flipped on the overhead lights, causing the math teacher to stare at him through shielded eyes.
“Blast it, boy, don’t you have the sense to knock?” Tennenbaum asked, setting his pipe down and leaning back in his chair.
Bryan slammed the door closed and stepped up to the desk, tossing the remaining package with its lone Twinkie on top of it. “You should have told me they were dieting,” he said through ragged breaths.
Tennenbaum smiled mischievously. “I’m surprised you made it out alive,” he said. Then the math teacher looked down at his desk and frowned.
Bryan followed his gaze. The clear package was nearly pressed flat, the cream leaking out the sides, completely pancaked. It must have happened during the escape, perhaps when Baylor-Tore tried to crush him to death.
“I warned you. The cake of gold was not to be broken. Pure and devoid of imperfections.”
“Dude . . . you weren’t there. It was everything I could do just to get away. They tried to bite me.” Bryan started to explain, but the math teacher cut him off. He picked up the smashed package of sponge cake and tossed it in the wastebasket.
“I am afraid . . . you have failed,” he croaked.
“But I got your stupid cake,” Bryan protested.
“Be gone.”
“You can still lick the inside of the package.”
“I said BE GONE!”
The math teacher looked at Bryan with burning red eyes.
Bryan had so many other things he wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. He picked his backpack up from where he’d left it and headed for the door, eager to be out of the room, away from Tennenbaum and the cloud of smoke that hovered around him, but the handle wouldn’t budge. The door was locked.
Then Bryan noticed the slot set into the door. The words flashed above, right next to the narrow paneled window.
INSERT COIN TO CONTINUE.
Bryan dropped his head. “Seriously?” Reluctantly he dug in his pocket as the timer started counting down. He had only three coins left. At the rate he was going, he’d never make it through the day. He dropped a dime in the slot and the timer stopped with eight seconds to spare.
He turned back to Mr. Tennenbaum, who had swiveled around and was staring out the window, where the blanket of dark clouds had finally unzipped, loosing fat raindrops that thumped against the panes. Bryan couldn’t help it. He had to ask.
“Do you know what’s going on here? What’s happening?” he said to the back of the math teacher’s head. “Because if you do, please tell me. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be doing, or why everything’s different, or why everyone’s acting so weird. It’s all just a big, jumbled, confusing mess, and none of it makes any sense at all.”
Bryan watched as a tendril of smoke wove itself into a halo over the math teacher’s head. It was a full ten seconds before the man spoke.
“Welcome to middle school, my son,” Tennenbaum said. Then he pointed behind him with the tip of his pipe. “Be sure to shut the door behind you.”