Beware the Fisj Page 7

  “You’ll have to take our stuff,” he said. “We’ll never get across the road with it now. Leave everything in the orchard. I’ll send a crew over to pick it up tonight around midnight. Come on, Boots. We’ll go out the emergency exit and take off across the road.”

  “But —” Diane protested.

  She was too late. Bruno pulled the lever and kicked open the door. The bus exploded with a loud alarm buzzer. Bruno grabbed a shocked Boots and the two shot across the road to their own campus, leaving chaos and confusion behind them.

  “Who did that?” shrilled Miss Scrimmage.

  Nobody answered.

  “I tried to tell them,” Diane whispered to Cathy, who was laughing too hard to reply.

  “Who did that?” repeated Miss Scrimmage.

  “It must be defective,” called out Cathy finally. “It’s a good thing someone didn’t fall out on the way home.”

  “Quite right,” fumed Miss Scrimmage. “I shall complain to the bus company.”

  * * *

  “I’m glad to see we’re all present and accounted for,” said Bruno at the dinner table.

  “Barely,” muttered Wilbur.

  “Some guy was after us at the dump,” said Pete. “If it hadn’t been for Sidney’s quick thinking, we’d have got caught.”

  “Quick thinking, my eye!” retorted Wilbur. “It was clumsiness, as usual.”

  The boys broke into a confused babble of complaints about their experiences on the hunt, all directed at Bruno Walton.

  “Most important,” cried Bruno over the din, “did you guys get a lot of cans?”

  “When you see Dormitory 3,” said Larry, “you’ll freak out! We’ve got them stacked four high and they take up the first nine doorways! I didn’t think there were that many cans in the world!”

  “Scrimmage’s has a lot too,” said Boots.

  “We’re all going over there to get them tonight,” Bruno added.

  “Count me out,” chorused everybody.

  “If we don’t get them,” responded Bruno cheerfully, “all that work we did last night will be for nothing.”

  Wilbur held his head. “What do we have to do?”

  “Each of you recruit a few more guys,” instructed Bruno. “We need lots of muscle. We’ll all meet tonight in front of Dormitory 2.”

  “Is this mandatory?” asked Elmer in a small voice.

  “Absolutely,” said Bruno.

  Elmer sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

  “When are we going to build this pyramid anyway?” asked Boots.

  “Next Saturday,” Bruno told them. “That’s the day The Fish and most of the staff go to Toronto for the big Board meeting. I’ve already called the TV station in Chutney to come and witness it for us.”

  “We’re going to be on TV?” gasped Pete.

  “Publicity and the Rankin Book of World Records,” said Bruno with great satisfaction.

  Chapter 8

  A Question of Ownership

  At midnight Cathy Burton and Diane Grant were at their window watching as about twenty-five Macdonald Hall students arrived at Miss Scrimmage’s apple orchard. It took the boys only a few minutes to locate the treasure of pop cans the girls had hidden there for them. Then, carrying four big bags apiece, the boys began to move slowly and silently back towards Macdonald Hall.

  In the lead, Bruno and Boots were just about to step onto the highway.

  “Halt!”

  The whole group stopped and wheeled about. Miss Scrimmage was running towards them, her arms waving wildly. She did not, Bruno was relieved to note, have her shotgun.

  “Run!” he bellowed, and twenty-five yelling boys, each carrying huge clanking bundles, thundered across the highway with Miss Scrimmage in hot pursuit. In a matter of seconds, a stream of girls dressed in nightclothes swarmed after them.

  “No!” howled Bruno, seeing his crew heading for Dormitory 3. “Don’t lead her there!” He could not be heard over the general din. “No! Stop! Awwwww …” He ran after them.

  Boys began to pour out of Dormitories 1 and 2, sleepy and bewildered.

  “Stop, thieves!” screeched Miss Scrimmage, still running at the head of her army of shrieking girls.

  The boys arrived at Dormitory 3, threw the door open and stampeded inside, dropping their bags and kicking the neatly stacked pop cans all over the hall. Sidney Rampulsky was the first to fall. He started a chain reaction, and soon all twenty-five boys were down on the floor, pop cans scattered all around them. More boys were pouring in through the doorway, all tripping and tumbling.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Our pop cans!”

  “Miss Scrimmage is coming! She’s going to find our pop cans!”

  “Don’t be silly! What would she do with thirty-two thousand pop cans?”

  “Ouch!”

  Outside, a hysterical Miss Scrimmage was being restrained by several of her girls.

  “Don’t go in there, Miss Scrimmage,” Diane Grant pleaded. “You won’t like it!”

  “Release me!” insisted Miss Scrimmage.

  The girls’ gym teacher, Miss Smedley, arrived on the scene. “Miss Scrimmage,” she shrilled, “all the girls have left their rooms!”

  “I can see that!” cried the Headmistress.

  From room 200 in Dormitory 2, Coach Flynn’s head appeared. “Shut up out there!” he bellowed. He took in the wild scene and exclaimed in horror, “What the heck is going on?”

  “It’s Al!” cried Cathy. “Hi, Al!”

  “Are you all crazy?” shouted Flynn. “Get off our campus! Go back where you belong!”

  “Release me!” shrilled Miss Scrimmage once more.

  Bruno finally scrambled out the door of Dormitory 3.

  “Walton!” yelled Flynn. “What are you doing out of bed?”

  “There’s one of them!” cried Miss Scrimmage. “Stop, thief!” She pulled herself loose and, arms waving, began to chase Bruno around the building. A crowd of her girls followed, screaming for her to come back. Boots darted after them.

  Bruno gulped as he ran. Approaching on the dead run was a familiar figure in a red silk dressing gown and bedroom slippers. It was Mr. Sturgeon.

  “Hello, sir,” panted Bruno as they met.

  The Headmaster thrust Bruno behind him, held up both hands and announced quietly and firmly, “Stop this at once!”

  Boots ran up and joined Bruno behind Mr. Sturgeon.

  “Now,” cried Miss Scrimmage triumphantly, “proof at last! Your boys robbed our school!”

  “Miss Scrimmage …” began Cathy uneasily.

  The Headmistress pointed to Dormitory 3. “There is where they stashed the loot! Just have a look inside!”

  “I believe I will,” responded a grim-faced Mr. Sturgeon in a controlled voice. The crowd parted to let him through. He walked around the corner of the building to the front door and looked inside. His jaw dropped in amazement. About fifty of his students were inside, wallowing in a sea of shiny pop cans. The scene resembled a battle in a bad science-fiction movie.

  Miss Scrimmage caught up to him. “You see? They stole my girls’ souvenirs from —” She stopped in mid-sentence to stare at the spectacle.

  Cathy nudged Diane. “Boy, oh boy,” she whispered. “The soda pop is going to hit the fan now.”

  Mr. Sturgeon cleared his throat purposefully. “You boys come out of there at once.”

  “I’m trying, sir!” cried Sidney Rampulsky, hopelessly attempting to swim to the door.

  Mr. Sturgeon turned to Miss Scrimmage. “As you can see,” he said icily, “nothing has been stolen from your school. In the interests of peace and quiet, then, I think the best thing for you to do is to depart.” His face turned momentarily red, indicating suppressed anger. “At once, if you please.”

  Miss Scrimmage gathered up her staff and students and began to march towards home.

  Mr. Sturgeon turned to his boys. “You will all go to your beds immediately.” The boys began to scatter, gr
ateful to be out of the Headmaster’s presence. “Walton, O’Neal, not you. I will see you in my office.”

  “But, sir,” protested Bruno, “the Faculty Building is locked up for the night.”

  “I am entrusted with a key,” replied Mr. Sturgeon, producing a key ring from his dressing gown pocket. “Come with me. We shall discuss this while it is still fresh in our minds.”

  Silently Bruno and Boots followed the Headmaster into the darkened Faculty Building. Mr. Sturgeon switched on the lights in his office and led the boys inside. Instinctively, they seated themselves on the bench.

  Mr. Sturgeon closed the door and began pacing in front of them, his backless slippers flapping loudly. “Now,” he said grimly, “I want an explanation. From the beginning. Everything. Omit nothing. A complete and concise summary of all the events leading up to the presence of that abomination in our dormitory!”

  There was an awful silence.

  “Come, come!” Mr. Sturgeon prodded. “You cannot possibly get into any more trouble than you are already in! I wish to know this instant why our dormitory is burgeoning with aluminum cans!”

  “Well, sir,” began Bruno. There seemed no way out of it, and he was about to resort to the truth. “It’s like this. We were —”

  There was the sound of running feet in the hall outside. The door flew open and in burst Cathy Burton in a pink quilted dressing gown and matching fleece slippers.

  “Oh, sir,” she panted, throwing herself at Mr. Sturgeon’s feet, “I confess! The pop cans — they’re mine!”

  Mr. Sturgeon jumped back as if he had been burned. “You will remove yourself from the floor, young lady,” he commanded sternly.

  Cathy got up and sat down on the bench between Bruno and Boots.

  Oh, no, thought Boots miserably. If she’s trying to get away with the same stuff she pulls on Miss Scrimmage, The Fish’ll cut all three of us to pieces!

  “Cathy …” murmured Bruno warningly.

  “Silence!” thundered Mr. Sturgeon. He seated himself at his desk. “You are Miss Burton, I believe. Tell me, Miss Burton, how did you come into the possession of so many soft-drink cans?”

  “I’m a collector, sir,” Cathy explained. “I can never pass up a pop can. When I see them, I just have to have them.” She detected the beginnings of a smile on Mr. Sturgeon’s face and decided to elaborate. “I now have 41,683,” she said proudly. “I’m one of the foremost collectors in the country.”

  “Congratulations,” said Mr. Sturgeon dryly. “May I ask how this formidable collection came to reside in my dormitory?”

  Cathy hung her head dramatically. “My collection got so big that it was clogging up my room. I needed more space. Of course, cans can’t be stored outside. Rust and corrosion are the can collector’s nightmares.”

  Mr. Sturgeon nodded understandingly. “Do go on,” he prompted.

  “The fact is, sir,” Cathy confessed, “I talked Bruno and Melvin into letting me keep my collection in your empty dormitory. It was all my fault. I’m sorry.” She gave him her most innocent, dark-eyed look.

  Mr. Sturgeon indulged in a long coughing spell. Finally he asked, “Does Miss Scrimmage know about your celebrated collection?”

  “Uh — no, sir,” replied Cathy.

  “Well,” said the Headmaster, smiling broadly, “why don’t we tell her?” He reached for the telephone.

  “Hello, Miss Scrimmage,” he said genially, much different from the man who had just ordered her off the campus. “I think I have straightened things out around here. There is a Miss Burton in my office at the moment … No, she is here of her own free will. We have not kidnapped her … I was hoping you would ask that. She is here to confess to ownership of the 41,683 soft-drink containers which are currently in my dormitory. Isn’t that right, Miss Burton?”

  “Yes, sir,” mumbled Cathy half-heartedly.

  “Yes, they belong to her,” Mr. Sturgeon continued in great good humour, “and therefore to you … But it is the girl’s collection, Miss Scrimmage, and quite an impressive one at that. It is not often that you see this sort of dedication in young people … Well, from what she tells me, you allotted no space at your school for this monumental project. It seems to me that you have sadly neglected the specialized interests of one of your young ladies. The poor girl is very upset. That is why I do not intend to punish my lads. Even though they did not consult me, I consider their housing Miss Burton’s collection an extremely commendable act. However” — he was enjoying himself hugely — “now that you know about the existence of this wondrous collection, I’m sure that you will want to claim it for your school. So I expect it — all of it — to be out of my dormitory by noon tomorrow … Oh, no, no, don’t disturb yourself at this hour, Miss Scrimmage. I shall escort Miss Burton home. Goodnight.” By the time he had hung up, the smile had grown even broader.

  “Off to bed, boys,” he said to Bruno and Boots. “Come along, Miss Burton. I’ll take you home.”

  * * *

  “I could just choke!” exclaimed Bruno Walton as he and Boots walked down the hall of Dormitory 2. “When I think of all those cans! We had a world record in the palm of our hand, and it all turned to gazoobies!”

  “We got away with it, though,” Boots pointed out. “Cathy saved our lives! Did you see the way she handled The Fish? I don’t understand it. She told him the most ridiculous story and he fell for it like a jerk. We never could have gotten away with that.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Bruno, “but if we’d admitted the cans were ours he couldn’t have socked it to Miss Scrimmage. He loves getting the best of her.”

  “So long as we don’t get expelled,” Boots sighed.

  “We don’t have to get expelled,” mourned Bruno. “No pop cans, no pyramid, no record, no publicity, no enrolment, no Macdonald Hall.”

  He opened the door to room 201 and switched on the light, startling Elmer who had, in the end, been exempted from pop-can duty. Elmer was on his knees tinkering by flashlight with a huge mechanical device which had materialized in the centre of the room in place of the chemistry lab. That had been pushed to a corner and had not been used since the incident with Coach Flynn. Flynn, who had been more than bewildered about losing a day somewhere, still had his cold.

  “On the plus side,” muttered Boots, “no Macdonald Hall, no Elmer Drimsdale.”

  “Where have you been?” asked Elmer anxiously. “What happened?”

  “Miss Scrimmage again,” moaned Bruno. “The pop cans are gone. End of pyramid. Zap.” He threw himself onto his bed. “She caught us with Elmer; she caught us with Sidney; she was there when you lost your shoe; she darn near got us sneaking off her bus; and she got us tonight and ruined our pyramid! I don’t know what I’m going to do with that woman!”

  Boots pointed to the immense contraption towering over Elmer. “What on earth is that?”

  “It’s the new remote control device I’m working on,” Elmer replied.

  “What does it do?” asked Boots.

  “It is an extremely inexpensive remote-control guidance system with a high-speed capability,” explained Elmer.

  “What’s so great about that?” murmured Bruno, depressed and weary. “Everybody flies model airplanes.”

  “Not, I believe, at these speeds — nor for the price,” replied Elmer. “If it’s successful, it may be an extremely important discovery.”

  Bruno was suddenly interested. “Do you think it will get us lots of publicity?”

  “I should think so,” said Elmer cautiously.

  “Okay,” decided Bruno. “You work on that non-stop. We’ll take care of your plants and ants and stuff. Meanwhile Boots and I will think of other records to set. I’m not going to let Macdonald Hall collapse because of Miss Scrimmage!”

  “Couldn’t we go to sleep now?” yawned Boots. “We haven’t slept since Thursday!”

  Bruno, fully dressed, was already asleep.

  * * *

  “Catherine, I’m shocked,” said Miss Scrimm
age. “Shocked and disappointed.” The two were in Miss Scrimmage’s sitting room having a late night discussion over warm milk. “Haven’t I always been a fair Headmistress? You should have come to me when you needed someplace to keep your collection. I’m very hurt.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Scrimmage,” murmured Cathy. “I was afraid you’d think collecting pop cans was unladylike.”

  “Nonsense, dear,” replied the Headmistress. “It’s a lovely hobby. We can keep your collection in the empty storage room in the basement. It’s dry and comfortable and always locked, so your cans will be perfectly safe there.”

  “Oh, thank you, Miss Scrimmage,” said Cathy gratefully.

  “Now, run along to bed, dear, and we’ll say no more about the events of this night.”

  Congratulating herself on a successful evening, Cathy went to her room.

  * * *

  “William!” exclaimed Mrs. Sturgeon as her husband entered the kitchen where she was brewing tea. “What happened? You look ten years younger!”

  “Mildred, you would have died!” chuckled the Headmaster. He told her about the riot and the pop cans in Dormitory 3. “And I had Walton and O’Neal dead to rights. They were just about to tell all when that awful Burton girl burst in. You won’t believe this! She said the cans were hers and that she’s a collector! Forty thousand of them! Mildred, that girl should be on the stage! You never saw such a performance!”

  “Surely you told her that you didn’t believe it,” said Mrs. Sturgeon.

  “I did nothing of the kind!” chortled her husband. “I called up Miss Scrimmage and lectured her about neglecting the interests of her students. Lord, I enjoyed it! I cannot recall enjoying anything so much!”

  “What about the boys?” she asked. “That was a terrible disturbance. Are you going to punish them?”

  “Punish them?” he laughed. “I should reward them for providing me with such a golden opportunity! Why, I gave Miss Scrimmage until noon to get that rubbish collection off my campus. And I intend to supervise the removal personally.”

  “But, William, you know the cans belong to our boys.”