TWENTY
In the end, everything was blamed on the janitors.
If they had been doing their jobs, people said, the insect population never would have exploded. The pool drain never would have malfunctioned. The soccer field never would have collapsed into a giant underground lake.
And, most important, Howard Mergler and Miss Mandis never would have died.
It was widely believed that the student council president and school nurse had somehow drowned in the flood, though their bodies had yet to be recovered. Professional scuba divers made several trips to the bottom of the lake, searching for human remains, to no avail. All they could find were thousands of dead insects and bug parts. In her official statement to the media, Principal Slater admitted, “We may never know the truth of what happened here.”
In the days to come, life at Lovecraft Middle School gradually returned to normal. There were no more flies in the hallway; there were no more pill bugs in the cafeteria food. The winter weather made it impossible for any insects to survive for very long. Already the new lake on the soccer field was freezing over, and students were asking if it could be used for skating and ice hockey. Best of all, everyone’s hair was growing back—the Lovecraft lice epidemic had finally come to an end.
On Friday night, one week after all the craziness ended, Robert sat down with his mother for dinner. They were having chicken tacos, Robert’s favorite.
“So,” Mrs. Arthur asked, “how’s seventh grade treating you?”
He smiled. “Fantastic.”
“Really? What happened today?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Robert said. “I just went to class, listened to my teachers, and learned stuff.”
Mrs. Arthur was surprised. “That sounds like a normal, regular day.”
“Exactly,” he said. “It was terrific.”
When his mother wasn’t looking, Robert broke a taco shell in his lap and pushed the pieces inside his pockets. Pip and Squeak loved taco shells. The rats had spent the past few days upstairs in his bedroom, snoozing in the cardboard box beneath Robert’s bed, and they were recuperating nicely. Their appetites had returned with a vengeance, and now they were eating twice their usual amounts. In a few more days, Robert guessed they would be begging him to go back to school.
There was a knock at the front door, and Robert followed his mother to answer it.
“Why, Glenn Torkells!” she exclaimed. “I was starting to worry I’d never see you again!”
Glenn held out a plastic grocery bag. “I got you this,” he said. “I wanted to say thanks for sending over that ravioli last week.”
“You brought me a present?”
He shrugged. “It’s just something we had in the house.”
Mrs. Arthur looked inside the bag. It contained hundreds of foil packets stamped with the words DUNWICH COSMETICS. “What are these? Shampoo samples?”
“My dad gets them from work,” Glenn explained. “When they make the packets wrong—if they’re too full or not full enough—he gets to take home the defects.”
“Oh my gosh!” Mrs. Arthur exclaimed. “Thank you, Glenn! I won’t have to buy shampoo for the rest of the year!” She insisted on giving him a hug. “Now please tell me you’re coming inside for dinner.”
“Would that be OK?”
“Of course it’s OK! You’re always welcome in our house, don’t you know that? I even made extra, because I had a hunch you might come by …”
It was the strangest thing: Robert hadn’t said anything to his mother about Glenn’s problems at home, and yet she seemed to know exactly what Glenn needed to hear.
Robert grabbed a clean plate from the dish rack, Mrs. Arthur set down some silverware, and soon the three of them were talking and laughing like old times. Glenn told a joke that made milk dribble out of Robert’s nose, and Mrs. Arthur didn’t even seem to mind.
Since it was Friday night, they decided that Glenn would sleep over. The boys arranged some pillows and sleeping bags in the living room, and Mrs. Arthur alerted them to a terrific movie on one of the cable channels. “Night of the Critters starts in fifteen minutes,” she said. “It’s probably the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Giant bugs terrorize an entire city.”
“It doesn’t sound that scary,” Robert yawned.
“Sounds like a comedy,” Glenn said.
The boys fixed themselves ice cream sodas and a huge bowl of popcorn. Soon afterward, Pip and Squeak came sneaking down the stairs, attracted by the smell of warm butter. Robert made a space for them under his sleeping bag, and he sneaked them popcorn throughout the movie.
As the boys predicted, Night of the Critters wasn’t scary at all, and the special effects were terrible. The giant bugs looked like they were made of rubber, and the terrorized city looked like it was constructed from cardboard boxes. But Robert and Glenn enjoyed every minute, and they applauded when an army tank shot down a giant bumblebee.
“Boy, why didn’t we think of that?” Glenn asked.
Mrs. Arthur was sitting behind them on the sofa, reading a romance novel. “Think of what?”
“Never mind,” Robert said.
The movie was halfway over when the telephone rang, and Mrs. Arthur went into the kitchen to answer it. Robert was immediately curious; their phone didn’t ring very often, especially on a Friday night. He turned down the volume on the TV and overheard his mother saying, “Of course! Hello! It’s nice to hear from you … Really? Oh, that’s great! Yes, of course, December first would be fine …” The conversation lasted only another minute, and Robert couldn’t make sense of it.
But as soon as Mrs. Arthur hung up, she hurried into the living room. “I’ve got big news,” she said. “You boys are going to be so excited!”
She looked happier than Robert had seen her in ages.
“Did you win the lottery?” Glenn asked.
“It’s better,” she said. “I’ve got a new job!”
Robert was shocked. “What about the hospital?”
“This is better than the hospital. The money’s better, the hours are better, I even get a paid summer vacation.” She raised both arms over her head in triumph. “You’re looking at the new head nurse of Lovecraft Middle School!”