“But surely he didn’t mean on a day like today!” she protested.
“He said every day,” said Bruno. “Probably for the rest of the year.”
Boots sneezed violently.
“My goodness, you’re getting sick! Go to your room at once and each of you take a hot bath.”
“Oh, we haven’t got time,” explained Bruno. “In a little while we have to report for kitchen duty. But don’t worry. After dinner the hot steam from the dishes we have to wash will warm us up.”
“Well, you go and change into dry clothing first,” she ordered. “I’ll explain it to Mr. Sturgeon.” She drove off, reflecting that she had a great deal to say to her husband.
She entered the house, wiped her wet feet and removed her raincoat. “William, in all the years I’ve known you, you have never been so cruel!”
Mr. Sturgeon looked up from his newspaper in surprise. “What have I done?”
“As if you don’t know!” she exclaimed angrily. “Bruno Walton and Melvin O’Neal are out on that campus in the pouring rain picking up garbage!”
“They are being punished, Mildred,” the Headmaster told her. “It is an administrative matter and no concern of yours.”
“I’ll bet it would be a concern to those boys’ parents if they could see them now,” she snapped. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
“What would you have me do about that tollbooth?” he asked in irritation. “Reward them for their ingenuity? They have to be punished for their own good.”
“You’re not interested in ‘their own good,’” she accused him. “You’re just mad because you had such a bad experience last night. Bruno and Melvin didn’t hit you over the head. That awful girl did. They didn’t ask Miss Scrimmage to shoot at you. And they didn’t create the traffic jam. You did. Why didn’t you remove the tollbooth when you found it? And they certainly didn’t make the jack-in-the-box fall on your head. If you had any sense, you’d realize that those boys have been raising all that money for you. They adore you. At least, they used to.”
“An administrative matter,” repeated Mr. Sturgeon firmly. He had never seen his wife so angry. “When is dinner?”
“I’m not finished yet, William. I have something else to say to you. You’re angry with those poor boys for being jealous of York Academy when you yourself are green with envy over Tom Hartley’s pool. As for dinner, I haven’t yet decided if you’re getting any!”
* * *
“‘Fraud is a very bad thing,’” read Bruno aloud. “One, two, three, four, five, six. Six words. Only four thousand nine hundred and ninety-four to go.”
“Maybe you could add a few extra ‘verys,’” suggested Boots. “Only do it quietly, please. I have my own essay to write.”
Bruno sighed. “This is impossible. I can’t write with dishpan hands.”
Boots yawned in agreement. “What a day! Especially when you dropped all those dishes.”
“At least we didn’t have to wash those,” said Bruno. “Of course, we did have to pick up the pieces.” He grinned. “I wonder if we looked pathetic enough for Mrs. Sturgeon this afternoon. I’d be able to take this punishment if I thought The Fish was suffering too.”
“Oh, she’ll go to bat for us,” Boots said, “but he’ll give her the old fish-eye. This time even dynamite won’t move him. He’s really mad.”
“Hey,” said Bruno, “what do you call a guy who does fraud? A fraudist?”
“An idiot,” Boots replied.
Smash!
A large rock came crashing through the window and landed on the floor midway between the two boys. Before they could react. Cathy Burton burst in through the window, shrieking unintelligibly. Oblivious to the shattered glass, Diane followed. Other screaming girls poured in. Through what was left of the window, a bewildered Bruno and Boots could see the entire population of Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies swarming in the direction of Dormitory 3.
“What’s going on?” cried Bruno across the room to Boots. The boys were squashed up against opposite walls as their room continued to fill up. Boots’s reply was a helpless shrug. Cathy went on gesturing and screaming, but Bruno could not make out what she was trying to tell him.
The door was thrown open and there stood the Housemaster, staring in horror. “What the …?” He was knocked down and trampled as the howling overflow from 306 surged on into the hall. Still they came through the window.
Boots heard someone yelling “Help!” and realized with some chagrin that it was himself.
Pete Anderson threw his door open.
“Hey!”
He was hurled back onto his bed as some of the girls poured into his room and began milling around, knocking things over.
Other doors began to open and boys ran into the corridor to join the hubbub.
“What in the world …?”
“It’s an invasion!”
“Girls?”
“Girls!”
“They’ve killed Mr. Fudge!”
“It’s Walton’s fault! He let them in!”
“I’ve got my hand caught in the door!”
“Then take it out!”
“Ouch!”
“Something must have happened!”
Something had indeed happened. Cathy Burton, her voice almost gone, collapsed into a chair and thrust a piece of paper at Bruno.
Bruno stared at it. It was a letter.
Dear Miss Burton,
The D-Lishus Baking Powder Company takes great pleasure in informing you that your recipe for ‘The Original Triple-Decker Scrim-Apple Upside-Down Cake’ has won first prize in the D-Lishus Bake-Off. I must admit that I was dubious about certain ingredients, notably the horseradish, but the result was a most unusual and delicious cake. Enclosed is a cheque for $6,000. Congratulations.
Mavis Cook
General Supervisor, Bake-Off
“I don’t believe it!” Bruno roared delightedly over the din. “Boots! Boots!”
“Here I am,” came a muffled voice.
“Where?”
“Under the bed,” replied Boots. “And I’m not coming out!”
“Cathy’s won some money!” Bruno exclaimed. “Six thousand dollars!”
Boots scooted out from under his bed. “How? For what?”
“We were baking a cake,” Cathy croaked. “Miss Scrimmage was entertaining her sister and we had to bake, so we dumped in the horseradish just to liven up the dessert. Then Diane dropped it on the floor and it became upside-down.” She laughed, still hysterical. “They loved it! It was great! So we entered it in the contest. And we won! I’ve endorsed the cheque over to you! Now Boots doesn’t have to go to York Academy!”
“Well …” began Boots dubiously.
“Oh no!” said Bruno suddenly. “Boots, if The Fish sees this cheque, we’re on our way home! We’re not allowed to raise any more money!”
“We don’t want it!” cried Boots suddenly. “Go buy yourself a helicopter or something!”
“Shhh! Pipe down!” ordered Bruno. “Of course we want it. We’ll just have to get it to the bank without telling The Fish.”
“Speak of the devil,” whispered Cathy, pointing to the door.
In the doorway, Mr. Sturgeon was kneeling over the prostrate body of Mr. Fudge, the Housemaster.
“See you,” said Cathy. She grabbed Diane by the arm and they made an ungraceful exit through the broken window. By this time all the girls had fled the building and were stampeding across the lawn towards their own school.
* * *
“What do you mean your girls never left their beds?” demanded Mr. Sturgeon. “Miss Scrimmage, I saw them with my own eyes! … Yes, I was wearing my glasses at the time! They wrecked one of my dormitories! I have a Housemaster with a broken nose and so many bruises that he had to be taken to the hospital! And a student with three broken fingers! … They are not delicate young ladies! They are vandals! … Yes, vandals! They threw a boulder through a window! … No, I don’t
know why! They’re like the plague! There’s no reason for it! … Yes, of course I have proof! The damage! What they did to …”
He stared at the receiver. “Mildred, the barracuda hung up on me!”
“Now, dear,” soothed his wife. “I suspect you’ve hung up on her often enough.”
The Headmaster crashed his fist into his palm. “Walton and O’Neal are at the bottom of this!” he said firmly.
“How could they be? You said the rock and the broken glass were on the inside of the room. That means the window was broken from the outside. Those poor boys aren’t always to blame, you know.”
Mr. Sturgeon nodded wearily. “I suppose you’re right.”
* * *
“The Original Triple-Decker Scrim-Apple Upside-Down Cake!” exclaimed Bruno gleefully.
“With horseradish,” added Boots. “We should have known they’d come up with something like that. Six thousand dollars! How are we going to get it to the bank without The Fish finding out about it?”
“Same way we do everything we’re not supposed to,” said Bruno. “We sneak out under cover of darkness.”
“Bruno, people who visit banks at two o’clock in the morning are usually burglars,” Boots reminded him.
“Oh,” said Bruno. “That does raise a little problem, doesn’t it? Well, we’ll sit on the cheque for a while until I figure out a way. We sure can’t go until we ditch this punishment. No time.” He leaned back with a great sigh of contentment. “We have over fifteen thousand dollars.”
“It’s a long way from fifty thousand,” said Boots mournfully.
* * *
Three days after the riot, Mr. Sturgeon was in his office when he received a telephone call from Mr. Hartley of York Academy.
“Hello there, Hartley. To what do I owe the honour of this call? … I beg your pardon? … Well, I’m sorry if we happen to be poor competition for your swim team, but my boys cannot accept your kind offer to use your pool. They are asleep at that hour …”
A pencil in Mr. Sturgeon’s hand suddenly snapped in two.
“The parents of some of our boys, you say? Visiting you? Anderson? Jones? O’Neal? Well, I’m sure the parents will do what is best for their sons. Parents have every right to choose the school that their children will attend … Yes, thank you for calling, Hartley, but we at Macdonald Hall have much more important things to do — like maintaining our high academic standing. We don’t want to slip to second place just for the sake of a little splashing around. Good-bye, Hartley.”
He slammed the receiver down hard and clicked on his intercom. “Mrs. Davis, send the messenger for Bruno Walton and Melvin O’Neal.”
The truth of what had been going on was suddenly crystal clear to him. Here were these boys trying to save Macdonald Hall, trying to keep from losing their friends to York Academy, trying the only way they knew how to stay together, and he, their Headmaster, had accused them of the low motive of jealousy. Certainly there was jealousy present, but there was also something much, much more. He felt a twinge of shame.
It took more than half an hour for the office messenger to locate Bruno and Boots, as they were off picking up litter in a remote corner of the campus.
“You sent for us, sir?” said Bruno as they entered the office.
“Yes. You have taken your punishment well and have performed your duties satisfactorily. I have decided to lift your punishment as of now.”
“The essay too?” Bruno asked hopefully.
“I still want the essay,” said Mr. Sturgeon. “I want it to be clear to you that what you almost did might have adversely affected your whole lives.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” chorused Bruno and Boots gratefully.
Chapter 13
Did Someone Mention Money?
“Is it ever good to be on this side of the counter!” exclaimed Bruno, enjoying his dinner.
Boots nodded. “The last three days were pure torture. All we have to do now is get the fraud essays finished.”
“Yes,” Bruno agreed. “And we’d better hurry because we’ve got to figure out a way to raise the rest of the money.”
Boots pounded a fist on the table. “Has your mind finally jumped its one track?” he shouted. “We are never going to raise all that money!”
“Money?” said a voice at the next table. “Did someone mention money?”
Bruno and Boots turned to see George Wexford-Smyth III regarding them with great interest.
“We’ve been trying to raise money for a pool,” Bruno told him. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand that. It’s vulgar.”
George picked up his yogurt and came over to join them. “Money, especially in vast quantities, is never vulgar,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
“Where have you been?” asked Boots. “Don’t you know about the swimming pool?” George looked mystified. “The budget won’t allow us to build a pool, and we’re in danger of losing students to York Academy because of it. That’s why we’ve been trying to raise fifty thousand dollars — so we can beat those turkeys in the next swim meet and keep our fathers happy.”
“You mean,” said George, “all the horrid things that have been going on around the campus were for money?”
Bruno and Boots nodded.
“Well, that makes it different,” declared George. “How much did you raise?”
“About fifteen thousand,” said Bruno.
“Hmmm. And you need fifty thousand. That shouldn’t be difficult.”
“What?”
“My dear Bruno,” said George. “Didn’t Melvin tell you that I am a financial giant?”
“It’s true!” exclaimed Boots breathlessly.
“Okay,” said Bruno. “But how are you going to take fifteen thousand dollars and turn it into fifty thousand?”
“With considerable ease,” said George smugly. “The stock market, of course. I happen to have an inside tip on a mining stock. If you will give me your money, I will invest it for you.”
“Hold on just a minute,” said Bruno. “I don’t know much about the stock market, but if you can make money, you can also lose money. What if we buy and the stock goes down?”
George stiffened. “My stocks never go down.”
Boots nodded. “That’s true too.”
“Okay,” said Bruno, “even if we trusted you, there’s still a problem. The money is in a special bank account.”
“In whose name is this account?” asked George.
“Ours,” replied Bruno.
George shrugged expressively. “Then I fail to see your problem. Go and withdraw the money at once. The stock market will not wait, you know.”
“We can’t touch that money!” exclaimed Boots. “The Fish would slaughter us!”
George smiled. “Mr. Sturgeon would have to find out about it before he could become angry. And when he does find out, it will be because you have all that money to give him.”
“My view exactly,” said Bruno enthusiastically. “Boots, this is a really cool guy! Why wasn’t I told about him?”
“You were told,” said Boots, “and you know what I told you. Bruno if we lose that money, The Fish will kill us for sure!”
Bruno ignored him. “George, how much time do we have to get to the bank?”
“There should be a week or two,” George calculated, “but it is usually good to buy earlier. Don’t delay too long. Contact me when you have the money.” He left them.
“Bruno, are you crazy?” Boots cried. “How can you even consider putting money that doesn’t belong to us into the hands of that crackpot?”
“You’re the one who told me that that crackpot never loses,” said Bruno. “So what’s the problem?”
“If you can’t see the problem, you’re as crazy as he is!” Boots shouted. “You also need my signature at the bank, and I’m not signing!”
“Then you’re going to be a turkey,” said Bruno. “As a matter of fact, you’re going to be worse than a turkey beca
use you could have saved yourself and you didn’t!”
“Better a turkey than a dead duck!” Boots insisted. “There’s no way I’m signing over fifteen thousand dollars for George to play with.”
“How about ten thousand?” said Bruno hopefully.
“No,” said Boots firmly.
“Well, what about Cathy’s six thousand?” suggested Bruno. “The Fish doesn’t even know about that, so he can’t possibly find out it’s missing.”
“No!” said Boots.
“You know,” said Bruno, “you don’t have the right to decide this thing for guys like Pete Anderson who really want to stay here at the Hall. Just because you don’t have the belly for it doesn’t mean the other guys don’t. The Fish said this bank account was a great responsibility. Well, it is. It’s our responsibility to poll all the guys — and all the girls too — to find out what they want us to do with their money.”
“You know darn well they’d want us to invest it,” said Boots angrily.
“Well, then, that’s what we have to do — morally,” said Bruno. “The question is how much.”
“No more than a hundred dollars,” said Boots.
“That would be a waste of time,” said Bruno. “I tend to lean towards two thousand.”
“All right,” sighed Boots, “two hundred.”
“Fifteen hundred and not a penny less,” argued Bruno.
“Four, then,” said Boots.
“Ridiculous.”
“Five?”
“It’s a deal!” said Bruno, much too quickly.
Boots grinned despite his fears. They were friends again.
* * *
The following morning, the Ralph’s Laundry truck that picked up and delivered at Macdonald Hall twice a week went slowly down the driveway with its load of dirty laundry. As it was about to turn out onto the highway, the engine coughed once, sputtered and ground to a halt. The driver checked the gas gauge. Empty. He left his truck and began walking back to the Faculty Building.
Inside the truck, under a mound of rumpled sheets, Bruno nudged Boots.
“Why are we stopping? We can’t be there yet.”
“I don’t know,” said Boots. “This was a terrible idea in the first place.”