CHAPTER 18 [TIM] BEAST!

On Monday night Mom had just left for the hospital and I was putting the last of the dishes into the dishwasher when the phone rang.

I picked up the receiver. A small, girlish voice said, “Is this Tim Tompkins?”

“Yeah. Who is this?”

“I can’t tell you. But I have to let you know that your friend Pleskit was staying at my house. I’m calling because he left without telling us. I wanted to let you know that he was fine until an hour or so ago, but now we don’t know where he is. My daddy is out looking for him. He said to call you to let you know.”

“Who are you?” I cried. “Where are you?”

I heard nothing but a click, and then silence.

Heart pounding, I sat down to think. Pleskit was all right—or had been, until just a little while ago. That was good news. But he was on the road again, and that was bad news. Where could he be going? And who had he been staying with?

I got out a pad and paper and started to make a list of places outside the embassy that Pleskit knew well.

I could only think of one. The school.

I grabbed my coat and bolted out of the apartment, down to the basement, where I store my bike. I unlocked my bike, sighed at my own forgetfulness, and raced back up to the apartment to get a flashlight.

Back down the stairs again. Once I was out of the apartment, it took me only about five minutes to get to the school.

The place was dark and deserted-looking. I knew it would be locked up, but I also suspected Pleskit might have some high-tech way of getting past any locks.

I leaned my bike against the side wall and started to make a slow circle of the school. I mostly kept my flashlight off, using it only when I had to.

The first door I tried was locked. So was the second. But the third, one of the side doors, was wide open. This struck me as being strange, but it was also a sign that Pleskit might have gone in.

Still, it would be unusual for him to leave something like that open, which made me wonder if he was all right.

I noticed an unpleasant odor as I walked in, and wondered if Pleskit had some special fart he made when he was particularly afraid. I thought I heard something at the far end of the hall, down toward our classroom. I stopped, held my breath, listening.

Nothing.

Then I heard a noise in the other direction, toward Pleskit’s Personal Needs Chamber.

Flicking off my flashlight, I began tiptoeing in that direction, moving cautiously, just in case it wasn’t him.

It was. He was opening the door to the chamber.

Maybe I should have shouted for him. But I was afraid that if I did, he would run and try to escape. So I slipped up quietly and put my hand on his shoulder. This was probably a mistake, since it caused him to screech and jump in surprise. The Veeblax shrieked too. Pleskit began to tremble, and for an instant I was afraid that he was going to go into kleptra. But finally he took a deep breath, then said, “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you!”

“Please go away. Pretend you have not seen me.”

He seemed so desperate and frightened, it nearly broke my heart. But I was angry, too. We were supposed to be friends, and he had run off without telling me where he was going.

“Pleskit, everyone is worried about you. Your Fatherly One is just about out of his mind.”

His face had a hard, desperate look I had never seen before. “I am not going to let them take the Veeblax, Tim. You have not had a pet, so maybe you do not understand—”

“I understand!” I snapped angrily. “All right, at least let me show you a better place to hide. Don’t forget, I’ve spent a fair amount of time scoping this place out for spots where I could get away from Jordan.”

But as we started toward the spot I had in mind, we heard a sound behind us.

We turned—and screamed.

An enormous pile of fur was lurching toward us. It reared on its hind legs. Its head nearly scraped the ceiling. It had blazing red eyes, and its breath smelled like fresh vomit.

Then it farted, releasing a horrible pink-and-orange gas that swirled around it like a cloud.

The smell was even worse than its breath.

“What is it?” shrieked Pleskit, coughing and choking.

“I’m not sure,” I gasped. “But it looks like… Harold!”

The giant woodchuck thing emitted a horrible, high-pitched whistle as it lurched toward us again.

The Veeblax eeped in terror.

Pleskit and I turned and ran, screaming as we went.

The sound of the woodchuck’s enormous paws scrabbling on the tile was horribly close behind us.