TWO
At that moment—just before Coach brought the clipboard crashing down—the wasp fell from Glenn’s neck, dropped to the grass, and died.
“What are you waiting for?” Glenn shouted. He still had his eyes squeezed shut. “Go ahead! Get him!”
“It’s over,” Robert said.
Glenn opened his eyes and blinked.
Coach reached down and lifted the wasp by a wing. Strangely, all the purple color had drained from its body; it was now just a lifeless gray husk. “Well, I’ll be darned. How do you feel, Torkells?”
Glenn pressed his fingers to the welt. “Not so good.”
“Better go see the nurse. Robert will take you. And bring this.” He held out the dead wasp, but neither boy wanted to touch it. Exasperated, Coach yanked one of his attendance sheets from his clipboard, wrapped it around the insect, and gave the packet to Robert. “Go on, hurry! This could be serious.”
As the boys set out across the field, Glenn tripped over his own feet, and Robert grabbed his shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“I feel weird,” Glenn said. “Like I’m all hot.”
“Keep walking,” Robert said.
The boys entered Lovecraft Middle School through a side entrance. It was a brand-new building, not even three months old, and filled with state-of-the-art technology. The hallways were lined with high-definition video screens; the lockers had electromagnetic doors to prevent theft; there were multiple computers in every classroom. But all these fancy features were masking a sinister secret.
Hidden throughout Lovecraft Middle School were mysterious “gates” that led to an alternate dimension—a sort of world within our world, where a demented physicist named Crawford Tillinghast was planning to overthrow the entire human race. He was raising an army of demons and monsters, disguising them as humans, and sending them into the school. Some looked like teachers; others looked like students. Danger was everywhere, and no one could be trusted.
“What about Miss Mandis?” Glenn whispered. After a few minutes of walking, the boys had finally arrived at the nurse’s office, but Glenn stopped just outside the door. “What if she’s one of them?”
“We’ll know if she tries to bite us,” Robert said, and he was only half kidding. “Come on.”
It was their first time meeting the nurse. Robert expected to find Miss Mandis dressed in scrubs, like the uniforms worn by nurses in hospitals. Instead, she looked like a regular mom, in a regular blouse and skirt.
She saw Glenn and leapt out of her chair. “What happened?”
Robert handed her the wasp. “This thing stung him. It was purple five minutes ago.”
Miss Mandis hurried the boys behind a privacy screen and told Glenn to lie down on a cot. “Are you allergic to bee stings?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Have you ever been stung before?”
“Never like this.”
“How are you feeling? Headache, nausea, any trouble breathing?”
Glenn scratched the top of his head. “No.”
She aimed a lamp at the welt on his neck, then studied it through a magnifying lens. It looked redder now, almost violet, and it had swollen to the size of a marble. “I don’t see a stinger anywhere. That’s good.” She cracked open a cold pack, wrapped it in a washcloth, and pressed it to the welt. “This will stop the swelling. Are you feeling any pain?”
“Only where it got me. It feels like my neck’s on fire.”
“We’ll try some antihistamine.” She lifted the cold pack and squeezed some white cream onto the welt. “Let’s see if this helps.”
Robert was afraid Miss Mandis might tell him to go back to gym class, so he tried to look busy. He paced around the office, studying all of the health safety posters. After a few moments, he became aware of a faint buzzing noise. He traced it to the nearest window, where three chunky houseflies were throwing themselves at the glass, over and over, desperate to get outdoors.
He reached to open the window but Miss Mandis stopped him. “Leave them be,” she said. “I don’t want those flies buzzing around my office.”
Robert then realized he was mistaken. The flies were outside the school and trying to come in. They were all flinging themselves against the glass as if they were expecting to smash through.
It might have been funny if it wasn’t so weird.
“How are you feeling?” Miss Mandis asked Glenn. “Is the medicine helping?”
He scratched the hair above his neckline. “I’m not sure.”
“You should probably go home,” she said, reaching for the telephone. “What’s your mom’s number?”
“She lives in Arizona,” Glenn explained.
This was the only thing Robert knew about Glenn’s mother: she lived on the other side of the country and hadn’t been home in a long time. Glenn never mentioned her, so Robert didn’t ask questions.
“How about your father?”
“He’s at work.”
“Can I call him?”
“His boss doesn’t like it. If he gets a phone call, they have to stop the whole line.”
Mr. Torkells worked at Dunwich Cosmetics, the last surviving factory within fifty miles. His job was to squirt shampoo into little foil packets that were bound into magazines as free samples. Glenn sometimes bragged that they never had to buy shampoo in a store, because they had thousands of defective shampoo packets stashed in their bathroom.
“This is an emergency,” Miss Mandis explained. “What’s the phone number of the factory?”
Glenn scratched the top of his head again. “I’m not sure.”
“You keep scratching yourself,” she observed. “Is your scalp bothering you?”
“That’s normal,” Glenn said. “It’s been itchy all week.”
“That’s not normal,” Miss Mandis said.
She pulled on a pair of latex gloves and redirected the lamp to Glenn’s scalp. Then she used a comb to poke through his wavy blond hair. “Oh, dear,” she said, sighing.
“What do you see?” Glenn asked.
“A bunch of tiny wingless insects,” she explained. “Head lice.”