By the fourth week of eighth grade, everybody in class, including know-it-all, Curtis Lamont, decided that having Dr. Dread Wraith as a teacher until June was going to be worse than a bowl of turnips for dessert.
The pop quizzes weren’t even a surprise anymore because he gave one almost every day. And all any kid had to do was squirm when Wraith was giving one of his lectures on the theory of general relativity, which nobody—even Weasel—had ever heard of, and he’d slap them with detention.
They cringed every time they heard his name. It was a cringe-able name after all. Pete wanted to tell the kids the reason Dr. Dread Wraith called himself that, but he didn’t want to bring up how their sub was really a bigwig in the Cross-Temporal Consortium of Witches and Wizards. Or that he had to go toe to toe with bad dudes like Genghis Khan. Like Wraith told him, without his bone-chilling name, he didn’t have the clout he needed.
If Pete did explain all of that, then that would lead to having to explain how Wraith, who wasn’t really a bad guy, just a menace of a teacher, had followed Pete and Weasel back from their last time trip. And that... well, that was just too much for any eighth grader to swallow.
Almost daily, kids clumped together in the hall, their heads close, their voices low and buzzy. They didn’t talk about the cafeteria gravy tasting like brown chalk either. No. This was major moping and grumping about how to get Mrs. Costanza to come back.
The whispers ran something like,
“We can’t hold out much longer.”
“How about we chip in and get her a babysitter?”
“Can we sabotage Wraith and live?”
“How did this happen to us?”
Good question, but even Pete and Weasel hadn’t figured that out. Wraith just said, they’d know why he was their sub soon.
Then one morning when they scurried to their desks to avoid getting tardy slips and Wraith’s evil eye, Principal Pitt stood in front of the class, his hands clasped behind his back.
Clearing his throat in that phlegmy way Pitt had, he rocked onto his heels and began. “Dr. Wraith has been called away on an emergency. For a few days, I will be your teacher.”
A chorus of low moans rumbled through the classroom. Then, after everyone had a chance to think about what that meant, hope for a better year spread around the room. As if on cue, the sun popped out from behind a cloud, its bright rays filtering through the windows. All the students’ faces suddenly lit up with smiles. Pitt was bad. Wraith was worse.
Weasel swiveled in his seat and locked onto Pete with a huge question mark of a look.
Pete did what he always did in these clueless moments. He shrugged. Holy beans, how should he know what was going on?
His shoulders were on the way to relaxed when a voice popped into his mind and stopped him short. “Pete, where are you?”
Fanon.
His familiar liked to drop into Pete’s head a lot these days, now that he’d truly mastered mind-to-mind communication. For a moment Pete wondered how it would be if his magical friend was a cat, like normal wizards had, instead of an alligator. Would its voice sound soft and furry inside his head instead of so snappy?
“Big trouble. Uncle Cenozo says you’d better come to the swamp and now,” Fanon said, and this time he sounded even louder and snappier.
Usually, Pete welcomed Fanon’s interruptions during school, especially during one of Wraith’s lectures. But not today. The alarmed sound of the alligator’s voice froze Pete to the spot. And if Cenozo was saying come right now, something was brewing. This had to be important wizard business if the head of the Ornofree alligator tribe was sending for him.
Ever since Pete found out he had wizard powers, he’d been in nothing but one pot of hot water after another. Now something else was up, and from the sound of Fanon’s message, the water was about to boil.
When Principal Pitt turned to write on the board, Pete scribbled a quick note. Cenozo’s calling a meeting. We got to sneak out of class. Now. He passed it forward to Weasel who sat in his usual front seat and one aisle over.
Weasel pushed his glasses higher onto the bridge of his nose and squinted at Pete’s scrawl. Shaking his head, he looked to the back of the room where Pete sat. “No way,” he mouthed.
“Fine,” Pete mouthed back. He jabbed at his chest. “I’ll. Do. This. By. Myself.”
“Finally.” Even though he didn’t say that out loud, Weasel’s word vibrated in Pete’s brain.
Weird, Pete thought, lightly hitting the side of his head and shaking it. He could have sworn Weasel’s voice had come directly to his brain. But that wasn’t possible. Only Harriet , the head Hadleyville witch, and Fanon could talk to him that way.
Principal Pitt pointed to the board. “Free reading for half an hour.”
Weasel opened his book, The History of Medieval Times, and, after adjusting his glasses, leaned back in his seat.
Pete hated that smug look Weasel pulled when he thought he’d gotten the best of the situation. And right then Pete could tell his face was beyond smug. His nose was so buried in his book, that he wasn’t even noticing the you’ll-be-sorry vibes Pete was sending.
Then Pete turned up the juice on his telepathy. “I’m coming ASAP, Fanon.” He darted his eyes toward Weasel, but Weasel didn’t so much as twitch. “Weasel—you know our best ever friend—isn’t.”
There was a small tic at the corner of Weasel’s mouth. He didn’t look up from his book, but he started twirling the stubborn spike of hair that always stood up at the back of his head. That was a sure sign he was nervous, and ten to one he was nervous because he was eavesdropping on Pete’s mind-to-mind messages.
Pete sent another telepathic message across to Weasel. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
Nothing.
“Give it up. You’ve tuned into my brain just like Harriet and Fanon.” Pete had suspected Weasel of eavesdropping on his mental communications for a few weeks. He’d show up in Aunt Lizzie’s kitchen right after Pete thought about serving himself some of his aunt’s hot apple pie a la mode. Or he’d text Pete to say he was going to his mom’s lab and wouldn’t be home—code for bug off. I’m reading—just after Pete had the notion to bike to his place and hang out.
He had to know if what he suspected was really true, so he sent an extra loud mind-to-mind message directly at Weasel. “Well?”
Weasel swiveled in his seat. “Well, what?” he mouthed.
“I knew it!” But Pete forgot to keep the mind-to-mind connection, and said this out loud. Very out loud.
Principal Pitt spun around to face Pete. “You knew what?”
Pete swallowed and licked his lips. “I knew... our wonderful,” he squirmed under the stares of Pitt and now the whole class, “wonderful teacher would leave us with a... wonderful—”
Pitt tapped one foot.
“Pete!” Fanon yelled inside Pete’s head. “Hurry. Not kidding. Serious. This is 911, man.”
“911?” Weasel shouted and jumped to his feet, his book clutched in one hand.
In a shot, Pete was next to him.
Curtis Lamont dived under his desk. Some other kids grabbed their cell phones and started punching in their emergency numbers. Suzie Swift, the girl with braces who sat behind Weasel, burst into tears.
Pete grabbed Weasel by the arm, and before Principal Pitt could block their way, he dragged Weasel past the open-mouthed eighth graders and out the door.
They ignored Pitt’s “You come back this instant!”