Clink. Two down.
“It’s short for schizophrenic.”
“What?” Clink. Three. Sometimes it was difficult to have a genius for a best friend.
“That means mad.” Freddy tapped his head and rolled his eyes. “Insane. Cuckoo. Nuts. Bonkers. Off his rocker. But I don’t think he’s schizophrenic. He’s definitely paranoid, but he doesn’t hallucinate. At least, I don’t think so.”
“Okay, okay!” said Pete. His friend could drive him nuts. Freddy had learned early in his life that it wasn’t a good thing to be different from other kids, so he developed all kinds of ways to hide his mental ability from his parents and teachers. But with Pete around, he didn’t need to pretend, and sometimes Pete had to listen to long discussions on astrophysics or philosophy, just so that his friend could get it out of his system.
The rest of the morning was a nightmare. An ambulance had arrived for Miss Peach. She had to go to hospital for a tetanus shot, and would be gone for the rest of the day. The Rat ’n Roach Extermination Company came with three trucks full of rat-catching/-killing equipment. Since their classroom was under quarantine, the seventh graders had to sit in the school hall for the rest of the day – under the supervision of the school caretaker, a grumpy old woman who ran to old Schiz at the smallest provocation. All the time Pete was waiting for the dreaded call to the headmaster’s office.
“Ah, Smith! Come in,” Schiz said when Pete arrived at his office just before closing time.
Schiz signalled him to close the door.
Pete instinctively looked for another route of escape. The window behind the desk was open. (Two paces to the desk. Jump on it. Over the chair. No, the chair could trip him. Sidestep the chair. Left foot in the fern pot. Headfirst through the window.)
Schiz sat down at the desk, stiff as a drill sergeant, blocking the only escape route.
“So, young Master Smith,” he said, tapping the points of his bony fingers together. “How many times have we been in my office this year?”
Pete stared at a bare spot on the red carpet. This wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been late for at least three months, not since Mrs Burton had given him an alarm clock.
“Stand up straight and speak up so I can hear you!” Schiz commanded. “Can’t remember, boy? Well, let me remind you.” He screwed his reading glasses onto his nose and consulted a large black book that lay on his desk. “Late for school … late for school again … truancy … late once again, truancy, et cetera, et cetera. Hmm, it seems we did try to rehabilitate ourselves in the last three months or so, but now look, here we are again. Do you know why, Smith? It’s-because-you-are-a-miserable-LOSER!”
With this he brought his flat hand down on the desk with such force that his glasses fell off his nose.
“Tell me, Smith, because I’m curious: Did you have any particular reason why you wanted to put poor Miss Peach through all that pain and misery? Is it merely the natural expression of your mean little criminal mind or are you taking after that drunk of a father of yours?”
Schiz put his glasses back on. This time he made sure that they were on tightly, but since he didn’t need them to read anymore, he had to peer over their rims to see Pete.
The initial stab Pete felt at the word “loser” gave way to a much deeper emotion.
Anger.
It welled up from the pit of his stomach, a fire burning through his chest and into his throat. It made his green eyes even darker, and gave him the power to speak.
“It’s not fair, Sir,” he said slowly. “It wasn’t my rat.”
This didn’t have a very good effect on the headmaster. His face turned as white as his thin hair. “How dare you suggest that I’m not fair, you little pestilence of a pipsqueak?” His words marched over Pete in single file. “And remember, there’s still the matter of assaulting that boy, Mutton, er … Mouton.” He halted, preparing for the final assault. “When the school board meets again, I shall recommend that you be expelled from our midst. In the meantime your father will receive the bill for the extermination of the vermin …”
2
Butterfly Magic
“Pete! PEE-YEET!”
Pete stopped on the pavement in front of Paradise Mansions.
“AHOY, PETE SMITH!”
Pete looked up. It was Mrs Burton, a beacon in her red jersey. She was leaning out of her third-floor window, waving a dishcloth to attract his attention. The sun was behind the gargoyle on the roof, transforming it into a menacing black shadow that seemed to descend from above on the old lady. The building looked even more ancient than it was: tired, as if it would keel over and die if it weren’t for the two modern skyscrapers supporting it on either side. Pete waved back at her.
“I need your help!” Mrs Burton shouted.
Pete waved again, and ran in at the front door of Paradise Mansions and up the stairs. The lift had been stuck on the third floor for as long as he could remember, and it served as an art studio for Nathaniel the Artist, who lived next door to Mrs Burton. (He was actually a handyman, since he had never sold a painting and he had to eat. But, as Mrs Burton observed, selling a painting didn’t make you an artist, and he had such a sensitive and artistic soul.)
“What’s wrong?” Pete asked as he entered her small flat and threw his schoolbag on the floor.
“The Bubonic Plague, that’s what’s wrong!” fumed Mrs Burton, wiping her hands on her apron. “The Black Death!”
“Rats,” said her son Spike from behind his coffee mug at the kitchen table. “She found some rat droppings in the bathroom this morning. You’d think they’d be decent enough to use the can.”
“It’s no joke, Spike. Aren’t you supposed to be on duty?” Mrs Burton tugged at the collar of his police uniform. “You’re all wrinkled. Don’t you have an iron?”
“This is my tea break,” said Spike. “We’re allowed fifteen minutes teatime in the afternoon.”
Mrs Burton smiled at Pete. “I’m so proud of him.” She took a pair of cups from the shelf and poured some tea.
“It must be a plague,” said Pete. “There was a rat in my schoolbag this morning.”
“Listen, I want you to ask old Humperdinck to set traps and catch these horrid things. He’s supposed to be the caretaker of this building. It’s time he starts doing his job!”
“Why don’t you tell him yourself?”
Spike sniggered. “They aren’t talking to each other.”
“Not talking to each other? He isn’t talking to me!”
“Broke my old lady’s heart, he has,” said Spike. It was an open secret that Mrs Burton was in love with Mr Humperdinck. “She ambushed him on the second landing this morning when he went up to his flat for tea. Lipstick, scent, feather boa and all. Didn’t even
