Chapter 10

“It’s all for the Witches.”

The Sweepers stepped onto the pallet with Dez at the center. All bristling with quills, wings, and tails, there definitely wasn’t going to be room for Spencer and Daisy. But if they didn’t make it onto the platform, there would be no chance of reaching the Witches’ lair.

Dez must have realized this at the same moment. As Hal reached up to pull the chain and activate the platform, Dez thrust his arms out, knocking the Grime woman off the pallet.

She hissed in anger, and Hal seized Dez by the back of the neck with one clawed hand.

“Back off!” Dez said. “I need my personal space!” He held his arms out, drawing an imaginary circle around himself. “This is my bubble,” he said. “Nobody gets in my bubble.”

But in that moment, two invisible people had done exactly that. Spencer and Daisy slipped past the Grime woman and tucked themselves deep into Dez’s personal space. Spencer didn’t know how Daisy was faring, but he found himself in the unfortunate position of having his face pressed close to Dez’s armpit. He held his breath. It did not smell pretty.

The Grime woman stepped back onto the platform, and Hal let go of Dez’s neck. The boy kept his arms outstretched, maintaining his personal bubble while shielding his invisible classmates from detection.

Hal pulled the chain, and the platform began to lower. It took longer than Spencer remembered to reach the bottom. Maybe that was because his neck was cramping and Dez’s armpit was sweaty.

At last, the platform settled and the Sweepers cleared off the pallet. Spencer and Daisy waited behind for a moment, catching their breath before stepping onto the first level of the underground parking garage.

The place couldn’t have looked more different from when they were there last. On the mission to rescue Spencer’s dad from the dumpster prison, this level had been swarming with giant Extension Rubbishes. Now it was full of racks and shelves, spanning from one side to the other. In the fluorescent garage light, Spencer saw the eclectic collection of items on display.

There seemed to be a little of everything. There were scraps of plastic, rubber, and metal. Seashells, dirt, sand, rocks. Another shelf held dried herbs and spices. Candlesticks, cotton balls, rotten fruit, nail clippers. The list went on—the strangest assortment of random objects.

Spencer couldn’t help but wonder what it was all for. The disarray was maddening to his organized mind. The whole situation gave him the creeps.

They reached the elevator on the far wall. Spencer remembered the last time they had ridden down in it. These were freight elevators, with little more than a metal grate for a door and exposed concrete flicking by as they descended.

When they reached the bottom, Spencer knew that the Grime woman who opened the door would have to remain behind to keep it open for the others. Spencer and Daisy were the first to silently slip out as the grate door opened. The last thing he wanted was to get stuck in the elevator.

The second level was even creepier than the first. Instead of the huge Extension Filths that had battled them last time, more shelves and cabinets greeted them. This time the shelves were lined with bottles and jars.

Mysterious objects floated in various colors of solutions. Spencer recognized some common ingredients like pickles and peaches. But for every bottle he recognized, there were a dozen with unknown contents.

As they walked forward, Spencer saw a row of glass bottles that seemed to hold eyeballs and organs of some unknown creature. He heard a disembodied voice beside him whisper, “eww.” It seemed Daisy was just as repulsed by the bottles as he was.

Along one side of the level, special grow lights were shining on large potted plants. That section was enclosed with some sweaty plastic, like a makeshift greenhouse.

They reached the second freight elevator and stepped inside. The grate slammed shut and the elevator plummeted. When it stopped, a Rubbish Sweeper stayed behind to keep the door open until everyone had filed onto the third level.

Spencer didn’t have to worry about Hal overhearing his footsteps here. The third level was a noisy mess! Cages lined the parking garage, some small and some large. Inside the cages were almost every type of animal Spencer could think of.

“Umm,” Daisy whispered at Spencer’s side. “Why is there a zoo under New Forest Academy?”

“Not to mention the creepy jars and random collections,” added Spencer. He didn’t worry about being overheard. There were at least a hundred caged birds making a racket above them.

They passed a huge alligator, lying still under a hot light. A group of small monkeys jumped from bar to bar in their cage, howling at the passersby. There were lions and tigers and bears.

“Oh, my,” Daisy said, pointing to a cage with a long-haired yak. “I don’t even know what that thing is.”

It looked kind of like a cow, with dingy black hair that grew so long it almost brushed the ground. The yak stared at them, chewing its cud and rubbing a horn against the bars of its cage.

“Okay,” Dez said to Hal. “I was cool with the weird piles of stuff and the bottled eyeballs. But I’ve got to know. What’s up with the animals?”

Spencer was grateful Dez was finally asking. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to contain himself without bursting out with the same question.

“It’s all for the Witches,” Hal answered. “They’re Glopifying new cleaning supplies every day. But doing so requires experimenting to get the right formula. Witches’ brew,” he said. “And these are their ingredients.”

Dez reached out and tapped the bars of a nearby cage. “They’re putting kitty cats in their Glop formulas?” The kitten in the cage shrank back in fear.

“They’ll use anything to get the results they want,” answered Hal. “If they had their wands, they wouldn’t need all this. Until we find those bronze nails, we just have to keep carting stuff down here for their experiments.”

They reached the final elevator and everyone stepped inside. As they left the zoo sounds behind, Spencer wondered how much more time he and Daisy had before becoming visible again. He hoped they were close to the Witches. Based on the last time he’d been down here, the fourth level was the bottom of the secret parking garage.

“Wait here,” Hal instructed the final Sweeper. The Grime guy opened the elevator door, and Hal ushered Dez out. Spencer and Daisy fell into step behind them as they made their way across the final level.

“The Witches don’t get many visitors,” Hal said, his voice soft in the echoing garage. “Don’t say or do anything to upset them. Got it?”

“Believe me,” Dez said, “the gift I’m bringing them is going to make their day.”

“It better,” Hal answered.

“Have you met the Witches before?” Dez asked.

“Only once,” he said. “When they first arrived.”

“What were they like?” asked Dez.

“They . . .” Hal began. But his mouth seemed to grow dry, and he swallowed the rest of his sentence, an involuntary shudder passing from his spiky head to his clawlike toes.

At last they arrived. Against the far wall, in the spot where Alan Zumbro’s dumpster prison had once been, was a new structure.

It was a large cinder-block room, built into the existing wall. It looked plain and drab, with nothing but a heavy-looking metal door in the facade.

“This is it,” Hal said. “Ring the doorbell.”

Spencer squinted to see the little button beside the fortified door. The Witches really did have a doorbell?

Dez cast one glance all around the parking garage. Spencer knew he was looking for any sign of his invisible classmates. But the Sweeper boy looked right through them. Dez exhaled slowly, rolling his head from side to side in a neck-popping motion.

Then Dez reached out one taloned finger and rang the Witches’ doorbell.