6
 
A Midnight Expedition
 

Even with the help of Caruso’s lullaby, I didn’t think I could ever get to sleep. Thoughts of all that had happened kept going round and round in my head, I finally did drop off, but I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep when I awoke with a sudden jolt. I looked at the clock by my bed. It was twelve midnight, right on the dot. I lay in my bed wondering what had awakened me. Then suddenly the picture jumped into my head. The picture became clearer, and my neck began to tingle.

What I was seeing was someone’s back. Someone with black hair in a bun. Someone in a gray dress. Someone in the library! Someone standing with her back to me, nose buried in a book, not moving an inch while I signed out my book at the desk. Just before I turned to leave, the person in the gray dress set her book back on the display shelf where she was standing. The Sorcery of Science! All at once I could even picture the very book. That must have been Miss Switch, and that was the sign! After all, Miss Switch was involved with one thing. I was involved with the other. What could be a clearer sign than that?

I knew almost at once what I had to do. I lay in bed for a few minutes, not moving a muscle, but with my skin creeping as I thought of what lay ahead. Then I slowly threw back my covers.

I decided not to turn on the light because I didn’t want to wake the pets and get them all disturbed over what I was about to undertake. But I managed to find my clothes and clanb into them. Then I grabbed my mini-flashlight from my bed table and started for the door. Before I’d reached it, however, I heard something come fluttering through the air and land squarely on my shoulder.

“What are you up to, Fred?” I whispered.

“More to the point, what are you up to?” he replied.

“I just woke up suddenly and remembered someone I saw who might be Miss Switch,” I said. “If it is, this is what she would be expecting me to do.”

“Which is?” inquired Fred.

“Meet her at Pepperdine,” I said.

“At midnight?” Fred gasped.

“That’s the usual time for this sort of thing,” I replied.

“Well, I’m going with you,” Fred said.

“What on earth for?” I asked. “This might turn dangerous.”

“Exactly,” said Fred. “That’s why I’m coming along.”

“Look, Fred,” I said, “I don’t mean to be insulting, but what could someone your size do if I got into trouble?”

“Who knows?” Fred replied. “But I can offer moral support. That’s worth something.”

I was beginning to get a stiff neck from whispering out of the side of my mouth to Fred, and I had a feeling he’d win out in the end, anyway. So I opened the door, crept out, tiptoed past my parents’ room, where they lay peacefully sleeping away, and made it to the front door. Then we set out from the house.

I have to admit it was ridiculously comforting to have Fred along with me, despite his size. There was a moon that night, but dark clouds scudded across it. They cast shadows that danced around us like crazy ghosts. But the worst was when we finally reached the Pepperdine playground. It’s one thing to be there in the broad daylight with noisy kids running around and your friends waving to you from the top of the monkey bars. But it’s a very different story at night when it’s dark and deserted, and silent. Nobody’s going down the slides. The swings aren’t moving, and the monkey bars sit there like a big bony skeleton.

“Where are we headed?” Fred asked.

“The library,” I replied. “It’s way at the end of the building. I would guess that’s where she’d be, anyway, with her … oops!”

“What’s that ‘oops’ mean, Rupert?” Fred asked. “I don’t like the sound of it.”

“I forgot,” I said. “Miss Switch may have her cat Bathsheba with her. She usually does.”

“C-C-C-Cat?” quavered Fred, his little beak chattering. “You never mentioned a cat.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said. “But honestly, I just didn’t think of it. Anyway, whose idea was it to come with me—insisted on it, actually?”

“I didn’t know there was a c-c-c-cat involved,” Fred said. “Your jacket doesn’t have a bird-sized pocket in it by any chance, does it?”

“Several that you’d fit right into,” I replied. “Are you ready to go in now? We’re just about there.”

“I kind of wanted to see this Miss Switch,” said Fred. “But maybe I’d better go into hiding until you see who’s with her. I can always come out later if it’s safe. But could I have an assist, please?”

I reached up, wrapped my fingers around him, and gently stuffed him into one of my pockets. “Do you want to be zipped in?” I asked.

“Not necessary just yet,” came the muffled voice from my pocket. “Hey, I really like it in here. Nice and cozy.”

“That’s good,” I said. I missed having him on my shoulder, but I had to respect his feelings about Bathsheba. In his position, my feelings would have been exactly the same.

At any rate, by now we had arrived at what I knew was the library. Its big, dark windows reached all around the end of the building. Its big, very dark windows. The reflection from the moon appeared on them, disappeared, then reappeared again as the clouds blew across it. I couldn’t help shuddering as I watched them.

“Courage, friend!” came Fred’s voice from my pocket.

“Thanks!” I said, my courage being in short supply at that moment.

But I remembered the last time I had seen what I’d thought was the moon’s reflection turned out to be the reflected light of a Bunsen burner inside my classroom, with Miss Switch hovering over it. I had no reason to think there would be a Bunsen burner in the library, but with Miss Switch you never knew. I needed a closer look. Reaching up and grabbing the windowsill, I hoisted myself up onto a ledge that ran around the building, and peered into the window. But except for some dim light from the moon, the library was dark. Pitch-dark. And empty.

“Anything there?” asked the voice in my pocket.

“Nothing that I’m looking for,” I replied, and dropped back to the ground. What a letdown! Not that I wanted anything really nasty to happen to Fred and me, but it seemed a real waste of time, getting all scared for nothing. “I guess it’s back to school tomorrow with eyes peeled,” I said. “Unless … unless …”

“Unless what?” asked Fred.

“Unless she might be someplace else!” I said excitedly. “And I’ve got an idea where—my classroom!”

I started to run. Well, it stood to reason, didn’t it? Wasn’t my classroom where Miss Switch and I had always met before? Of course, that used to be the fifth grade, and now I was in the sixth, but I was certain she would figure that out. I quickly found the Room Twelve windows, took a deep breath, and hoisted myself up.

“Here goes!” I said, and pressed my nose up against the glass.

And someone was there! Sitting at her desk with a small desk lamp on, marking papers. She must have heard me scrambling onto the ledge, because I had barely pressed my nose against the window, when she looked up. She jumped up and came toward the window. I was so startled, I couldn’t even manage a squeak. She unlatched the window and threw it up.

Oh no! It couldn’t be, I thought. But it was!

“M-M-M-M-Miss B-B-B-B-Blossom?” I croaked. I very nearly lost my grip on the windowsill and went sailing off the ledge backwards, with Fred and all. “E-E-E-Excuse me, but I was looking for s-s-s-some-one else,” I quavered, hoping stupidly that I would not be pressed for details.

“For goodness’ sake, Rupert, I am someone else,” Miss Blossom snapped. “Don’t you recognize me? I thought you knew who I was.”

“M-M-M-Miss S-S-S-Switch?” I stammered.

“No other,” said Miss Blossom. “And you’d better climb on in here before you fall and break your head. It would be a great loss to the scientific community if you did, you know.”

I scrambled speedily through the window. But I was still in a daze and had to hang on to the nearest desk to keep from keeling over.

As I was trying to steady myself, I saw Miss Blossom’s lips widen into a thin smile. “Didn’t recognize me, eh? Splendid!”

Uh-oh! I thought immediately. If this actually was some kind of crazy disguise, couldn’t it just as well be disguising Saturna as Miss Switch? Had I walked right into a trap? At any moment, could I find myself turned into a toad or a rat or just about anything? As for poor Fred hiding in my pocket, he could end up birdseed. And what could I do about it? Not much; I’d just have to try to bulldoze my way through, and somehow figure out how to make my escape.

“What’s so splendid about it, Miss Switch … or Miss Blossom … or … or … ”—I paused to narrow my eyes as if I wasn’t being fooled for a minute, and was ready to deal with any situation—“or whoever you really are.”

“What do you mean by ‘whoever you really are’?” asked Miss Blossom, peering out from under her huge eyelashes. “Haven’t we just established that?”

“You have,” I said with the best sneer I could manage under these conditions. “You … you could be just about anybody, for all I know.”

“Well, then,” said Miss Blossom, “please wipe that silly look off your face, step outside the classroom, close the door behind you, then stand and wait until I call you.”

My chance to escape! The school doors were all unlocked on the inside. I could easily get away and race home. Instead, all I did was wipe, step, close, stand like a dumb dodo—and wait.

“What’s up?” came the voice from my pocket.

I groaned. “Don’t even ask,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life.

I couldn’t have waited more than three minutes, when the order was given from behind the door: “You may return now, Rupert!”

I did, and was I ever glad I hadn’t turned chicken and run off! Standing right where Miss Blossom had stood was a familiar figure all in black—black dress, long black cape, and over long, charcoal-black straight hair, a tall, pointed black hat. From under the brim of the hat, a pair of eyes, slanted and glassy green, shot out sparks that fell hissing onto the teacher’s desk. The mountain of lemon-yellow curls was gone. The long eyelashes were gone. The pink dress with the bows and frills was gone.

No, not quite gone. Because those items were all lying on a desk—mine, as it turned out. The yellow curls that were now nothing but a collapsed wig, the eyelashes that looked more than ever like a pair of dead centipedes, and the ridiculous pink dress. That was, for the moment, all that remained of Miss Blossom.