4
“Let’s try to stay calm,” I heard Mr. Kimpall whisper to Tonya. They stood eye to eye. He stared hard at her, as if trying to tell her something with his eyes.
“Calm, okay?” he whispered.
“But—” Tonya started to say.
He took the shredded backpack from her and tossed it behind his desk.
Mr. Kimpall continued to stare her down. “We have a new boy in class,” he told her, speaking through gritted teeth. “We don’t want to upset him—do we?”
Her face still red, Tonya lowered her eyes to the floor and didn’t reply.
Upset me? I thought.
He doesn’t want her to upset me?
What’s going on in this school? Why is Mr. Kimpall acting so strange?
He had his hands on her shoulders and he was talking to her softly. After about a minute, Tonya walked to her seat in the front row and sat down.
Mr. Kimpall stepped back to the front of the class. “What a busy morning,” he muttered.
He glanced at me. “It usually isn’t this exciting around here, Sam.”
A few kids chuckled. But most remained silent.
I wanted to ask a thousand questions. About the animal in the hall. About Tonya’s shredded backpack.
But Mr. Kimpall quickly went back to his verb list on the chalkboard.
The morning dragged on. I couldn’t wait for the lunch bell to ring. I was desperate to talk to Tonya.
I needed to know what had shredded her backpack. And why Mr. Kimpall didn’t want her to talk about it in front of “the new boy.”
Finally, a loud buzzer went off.
Everyone began packing up, preparing to leave.
“Have a good lunch,” Mr. Kimpall called. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”
I left my sax case and backpack at my desk and hurried after Tonya.
The hall was jammed with shouting, laughing kids. Lockers slammed. One guy was bouncing a soccer ball on his head. Two boys were tossing a milk carton back and forth, keeping it away from a third kid.
I lost Tonya in the crowd. Then pushing my way past a group of girls in blue-and-gold team sweaters, I caught up to her just outside the lunchroom.
“Hey, what happened to your backpack?” I asked breathlessly.
She was half a foot taller than me. She blinked at me. “Are you the new kid?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Sam Waterbury.”
“Hi,” she said. We had to move out of the way. We were blocking the door. “I’m Tonya Black.”
“Your backpack—” I repeated.
She turned and waved to two girls down the hall. “Did you bring your lunch?” she shouted to them.
I couldn’t hear their answer. The noise in the hall was too loud.
“Tell me what happened,” I insisted. “What happened to your backpack?”
She shrugged. “It’s your first day. You really shouldn’t ask me about it.”
“But I really want to know!” I shouted. “Why did you scream like that? Why did you look so frightened?”
“Please,” Tonya begged, backing away from me. She glanced tensely up and down the hall.
“Please—I can’t tell you,” she said. “Just drop it—okay? Drop it—before you get us both in trouble!”
“Give me a break,” I said. “I don’t get scared too easily. Tell me—”
But she darted into the lunchroom.
I’m not the kind of guy who just gives up. I followed her into the lunch line. “Tell me,” I said. “Did it have something to do with that green creature I saw in the hall?”
Her mouth dropped open. “You—you saw it?”
I nodded.
“Oh, wow,” she muttered, shaking her head.
“Answer my question,” I insisted. “What happened to your backpack?”
Before Tonya could say a word, I heard the thud of footsteps. Then I felt a hard bump, a slap on my back from behind.
The creature had returned!
5
No.
Not the creature.
With a gasp, I turned—and saw that kid with the spiky brown hair—Simpson.
“How’s it going?”
He grinned at me. He had kind of a dopey grin. His two front teeth were crooked.
He had brown eyes and a short, snubby nose. I spotted a tiny silver ring through one earlobe. He wore a black sweatshirt over faded jeans, torn at both knees.
“Whoa. They’ve got fried chicken today! Excellent!” he exclaimed as the line moved forward. “The fried chicken and the pizza are the only good foods. Everything else in this place is garbage.”
“We didn’t have fried chicken at my old school,”
I said. “Everything we had was garbage.”
I turned back to Tonya. But she was already carrying her tray to a table filled with girls.
“Hey, how come you changed schools in November?” Simpson asked.
I scooped a big pile of mashed potatoes onto my plate. Then I reached for a piece of chicken.
I snickered. “Well, actually, I got kicked out of my other school.”
He stared at me. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really,” I said.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I added quickly. “Some other kids started a big fight in the gym. And I’m the one who got blamed.”
I paid for my lunch and followed Simpson to a table. I sat down across from him and gazed over his shoulder at Tonya’s table across the lunchroom.
She was talking rapidly to the girls at the table, gesturing with her hands. I wondered if she was telling them about what happened to her backpack.
Simpson lifted a chicken leg to his face and bit into it. “Not too many fights at Broadmoor,” he said, chewing with those big front teeth. “It’s a pretty quiet school.”
And then he added, “Unless you look for trouble.”
What does he mean by that? I wondered.
I shook salt onto my potatoes. “What kind of guy is Mr. Kimpall?” I asked. “Is he strict or what? He is such a little shrimp!” I laughed.
Simpson didn’t laugh. “He’s okay, I guess,” he said. “He’s not too strict. But he’s always popping surprise quizzes on us.”
“I hate that,” I said.
Simpson jumped up. “I forgot to get a drink.” He hurried back to the front counter.
I dug my fork into the mashed potatoes on my plate. Suddenly, I felt really hungry.
I had been too nervous to eat breakfast in the morning. But now my stomach was growling and complaining.
I shoveled potatoes into my mouth. They tasted buttery and salty on my tongue. Really good.
I shoveled in another big heap of potatoes.
I started to swallow. But stopped when I felt something move.
Something prickled the side of my mouth. Something scratched my tongue.
Something is moving inside my mouth, I realized. Something alive!
6
“Aaaagggghl”
I spit a gob of potatoes noisily onto my tray.
And stared down at a fat black beetle crawling over the potatoes.
I felt something prickle my tongue.
I spit again—and another big beetle flew out of my mouth, onto the table.
“Uggggh.” I felt sick. I started to gag.
I saw another shiny insect poke out from the pile of mashed potatoes on my plate. Then another one.
“Oh—grossl” I choked out. I could still feel the prickle of the fat bugs inside my mouth, all down my tongue.
My stomach lurched again. I gagged.
I stared in disbelief as more shiny black insects swarmed over my food.
My stomach heaving, I jumped to my feet.
“You finished already?” Simpson returned to the table, carrying a milk carton.
“Bugs—” I rasped. “My food—”
He lowered his gaze to my tray. “Excuse me?” “I’ve got to tell the cook,” I said. “The food—it’s crawling with bugs l”
A smile spread over Simpson’s face. “You’re kidding—right?”
I pointed to the pile of potatoes. “They—they—”
The bugs had vanished. No sign of them.
I grabbed my fork and poked it into the potatoes. No beetles. Frantically, I spread the potatoes over the plate. Then I picked up the plate and peered underneath it.
No. No bugs.
I turned the plate upside down and let the food drop onto the tray.
No bugs.
“You’re weird,” Simpson said, squinting hard at me. “I don’t get the joke.”
“It—it wasn’t a joke,” I muttered.
But what had happened here? The beetles had been real. I hadn’t imagined them. My potatoes were swarming with them.
How could they have disappeared so fast?
Why weren’t any other kids complaining about bugs in their food?
Simpson raised a chicken leg to his mouth and began to chew.
My stomach began to heave again. I spun away and started to jog to the lunchroom door.
“Hey—your tray!” Simpson called after me.
I turned back. “We get in major trouble if we don’t return the trays,” he explained.
I picked up the tray and carried it to the counter. My legs felt shaky and weak. I was kind of dizzy. I could still feel the prickle of the bugs on my tongue.
I started to set the tray down—and saw a piece of yellow paper clinging to the tray bottom.
I pulled it off. It was folded up.
I unfolded it. Turned it around so I could read it.
And stared at the message scrawled in red ink: READ MY LETTER: WHO WILL DROP FIRST?
7
I found a boys’ room a few doors down. Inside, I pressed my forehead against the cool tile wall and shut my eyes.
I could feel the blood pulsing at my temples. Taking a deep breath, I forced my heart to stop racing.
When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was still gripping the yellow piece of paper. I raised it to my face and squinted again at the scrawled red letters: READ MY LETTER: WHO WILL DROP FIRST?
I read it again and again. What did it mean?
Was it meant for me? Or had I picked up the tray with the message attached by accident?
WHO WILL DROP FIRST?
Was it some kind of challenge? Some kind of threat?
Was it written in some kind of code?
I jammed the note into my pants pocket. Then I washed my face with cold water.
I made my way upstairs. I searched for Tonya and Simpson. I needed one of them to explain to me what was going on.
But I couldn’t find them. The halls were nearly empty once again. The buzzer rang for the start of the afternoon classes.
Mr. Kimpall greeted me with a smile. I saw that I was the last one to return to the room. He closed the classroom door behind me.
“I hope you all had an enjoyable lunch,” he said.
I stopped halfway to my seat. I turned and opened my mouth to tell him about the bugs swarming from my potatoes.
But the teacher spoke first. “Sam, I’m afraid you have to leave us now.”
“Huh?” I let out a startled gasp.
What had I done? Did I do something wrong?
“The school band practices after lunch on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,” Mr. Kimpall continued. “I guess no one told you the schedule. You need to get up to Mr. Kelly in the band room as fast as you can.”
A sigh of relief escaped my mouth. I picked up my saxophone case and hurried out.
Mr. Kelly, the band instructor, greeted me at the door to the band room on the top floor. “How’s it going, kid? Did you get lost? First day isn’t exactly a piece of cake—is it!”
He was big and gruff and talked out of the side of his mouth in a raspy, deep voice. He wore a baggy gray sweatshirt over loose-fitting khakis. He reminded me more of a football coach than a music teacher.
The room was big and high-ceilinged. A row of windows looked out on the back of the school.
About twenty kids sat in three rows of folding chairs behind music stands. They were warming up their instruments. A short, red-haired boy stood behind a snare drum, pounding out a frantic rhythm.
Mr. Kelly led me to the center of the room. “This is Sam Waterbury, everyone. Sam plays heavy-duty sax. When he auditioned for me last week, I knew we had someone who could help our band—big-time.”
A fat kid with a tuba blasted out a rude sound.
Several kids laughed.
“You can leave your case over there,” Mr. Kelly instructed me. “Then take a seat next to Teri, the clarinet player.” He pointed to a blond-haired girl in the second row.
I unpacked my sax and put it together. I pushed the mouthpiece into place and slid the strap over my back as I walked to my seat.
“Hi,” I said, sitting down next to Teri. “How’s it going?” I licked the mouthpiece and pushed my fingers down, testing the pads.
She flashed me a short smile. She had awesome green eyes. “That sax looks pretty new,” she said.
I held it up. “Yeah. It was a birthday present.”
Her eyes locked onto mine. “Well, you’d better get a good lock for the case,” she said.
I stared hard at her. “A lock? Why?”
She shrugged. “You’re a new kid in this school, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. So?”
“Well, didn’t they tell you anything?”
“No,” I replied. “No one told me anything, Teri. Why do I need a lock on my sax case?”
It took her a long time to answer. Finally, she whispered, “You’ll find out … soon enough.”
8
After school, I found Tonya waiting for me in front of the building.
The clouds were low and dark. A few raindrops fell on my shoulders.
Tonya didn’t see me at first. She appeared tense. She kept twisting a strand of her straight black hair around a finger.
When she turned and spotted me, two circles of pink darkened on her cheeks. “Follow me,” she whispered.
She led the way to the street. She didn’t say anything till we were away from the school.
Our shoes crunched over the wet dead leaves that covered the patchy grass. We stopped beside a thick and gnarled old oak tree.
Tonya glanced all around, as if making sure no one was spying on us.
“What’s going on?” I asked again, “Why are you acting so mysterious?”
“There is something you should know about this school,” she said. She spoke just above a whisper.
A van filled with kids rumbled past. The horn honked. I couldn’t hear what she was whispering.
“Tonya, what are you talking about?” I asked eagerly. “What should I know?”
She glanced around again. Then she leaned close to me and whispered. “It gets kind of dangerous here—especially for a new kid. The new kid is always It.”
A gust of wind shook the old tree. Cold rainwater sprinkled down on us from the bare limbs.
I shivered. I suddenly realized I had run out of the school without my jacket!
I knew I had to go back for it—but not now. First, I wanted to hear what Tonya had to say.
“But—what does that mean?” I asked.
She pushed her black hair over the collar of her coat and turned to the street. “An imp lives in the school building,” she said softly.
“Excuse me?” I cried. “A what?”
“An imp,” she repeated. She shuddered and wrapped the coat tighter around her.
I stared hard at her. “You mean, like a gremlin?” I asked. I don’t know why, but for some reason, I laughed.
She spun toward me. “It isn’t funny, Sam,” she snapped. “It isn’t funny at all.”
I backed away a few steps. The wind blew fat leaves over my shoes, around the legs of my jeans.
“You mean the green animal-thing I saw in the hall this morning?” I asked. “The one Mr. Kimpall wouldn’t talk about
?”
Tonya nodded. “He’s an imp. He lives in the school. He does horrible things. Everyone is terrified of him. The kids and the teachers, too.”
I shivered. I tried to kick the wet leaves away, but they clung to my jeans.
“In the lunchroom,” I said. “I started to eat, and bugs crawled out of my potatoes.”
“That was the imp,” Tonya whispered.
Two girls rode by on bikes. She waited for them to pass before she spoke again.
“He has all kinds of special magic,” Tonya continued, her voice trembling. “And all of it is evil. Putting bugs in your food—that was just one of his jokes. If he wants to, he can really hurt you.”
I squinted at her. Was she really as frightened as she looked? Or was this imp thing a joke?
Yes. Of course. It’s a joke, I decided.
A joke the Broadmoor kids play on all the new kids to make them look like idiots.
“Tonya,” I said softly, still studying her. “Imps aren’t real. They’re made up. You know. Imaginary. They’re only in fairy tales and things.”
Her dark eyes bulged angrily. “You saw him—didn’t you? I didn’t make him up, Sam. You saw him!”
“But … that was a puppet or something,” I said. “I know what you’re doing. You’re playing a joke on the new kid. Slip some bugs in my potatoes, dress someone up in a furry green suit. It’s all to scare me. I get it.”
Tonya’s expression turned angry. “I’m not playing a joke, Sam. I’m trying to help you. You’re the new kid. He always goes after new kids.”
“Because …?”
“Because he has to show you that he is the boss,” she answered. “He has to show you how powerful he is, and how weak you are. He has to defeat you. He has to make sure that you won’t stand up to him. That you won’t challenge him.”
“And what if I do stand up to him?” I asked.
Tonya frowned and shook her head. “Don’t be a jerk, Sam. The imp has too much power, too much magic. We all do whatever he wants. And we pray if we keep him happy, he’ll leave us alone.”
I blinked several times. This was all too much to take in. I suddenly felt totally dizzy.
“And the teachers know?” I asked.