THREE
At the end of the day, after most of the teachers and students had departed for home, Robert walked out to the school parking lot. His friend Karina Ortiz was already there, circling the asphalt and doing ollies on her skateboard. She laughed when she saw Robert coming.
“Oh, no!” she exclaimed.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Laugh it up.”
It turned out that Glenn Torkells wasn’t the only one with head lice. Robert had them, too, and Miss Mandis insisted on treating both boys immediately. She washed their scalps with a medicated shampoo that smelled like tar—and then used electric clippers to shave off nearly all their hair.
“It’s cute,” Karina said “You look like a puppy.”
Robert studied his reflection in the window of a school bus. “I feel like a skinhead.”
“At least you’re not a girl. Jill Warrington was growing her hair for seven years, and this afternoon Miss Mandis hacked it all off. Said it was the only way to make sure the bugs didn’t come back.”
“That seems pretty drastic.”
“Apparently they’re some kind of super-lice. Very contagious. Twenty-eight cases were reported today. And the usual treatments don’t work. You have to go nuclear, or the little grody babies keep hatching.”
“Grody?” Robert asked.
Her face flushed. “Sorry. It means gross.”
Karina often used slang from the 1980s by accident. Technically, she was only thirteen years old, but she had died three decades earlier in an explosion at Tillinghast Mansion. Thanks to some help from Robert and Glenn, she now roamed Lovecraft Middle School like a regular student—but her spirit was trapped on the school grounds. Which is why she and Robert often found themselves goofing around the parking lot after class.
Today, they were joined by Pip and Squeak, a two-headed rat that had crawled inside Robert’s backpack during the first week of school. Robert didn’t know where the rats had come from or why they had chosen him to be their master, but after two months of being together, he couldn’t imagine life without them. Pip and Squeak were smart, courageous, and (along with Glenn and Karina) his best friends.
“So, where is Glenn?” Karina asked.
“Miss Mandis sent him home early,” Robert explained. “He was stung by this crazy purple wasp.”
“It’s been a really weird week. Today at lunch, a ladybug flew into Emily Sena’s mouth. Went right down her throat. And did you hear the janitors are striking?”
“What’s that mean?”
“They’re not cleaning the school until they get a raise. That’s why the trash is piling up. And the bathrooms smell so bad. If you ask me, it’s just going to get worse.”
Karina pushed off on her skateboard and raced toward the handicapped ramp on the edge of the parking lot. All week long, she had been trying to grind the handrail—to leap three feet off the ground and then slide down the railing while balanced on her skateboard.
Instead, she tumbled onto the pavement, and the board went skidding away from her.
“You know, there’s something I don’t understand,” Robert called. “You can’t pick up a pencil. You can’t even open a door. So how is it you can ride a skateboard?”
Karina dusted off her jeans and hopped to her feet. “It’s complicated. Do you have a lot of homework?”
Whenever Robert asked questions about her life as a ghost, Karina tried to change the subject—but this time, he wouldn’t let her. “I want to understand how it works,” he said. “Can you ride a bike? Can you paddle a canoe?”
“Just the skateboard,” she said. “It was with me when I … when the explosion happened.” She kicked the skateboard in Robert’s direction and he tried to stop it with his sneaker, but the board sailed right through his foot.
“Cool!” he exclaimed. “A ghost skateboard!”
She frowned. “You know I hate that word.”
“Right, sorry,” Robert said. “What am I supposed to say?”
“You could just stop bringing it up. We could try to have a conversation where you don’t call me a ghoulish freak.”
“I never said ‘ghoulish freak.’ ”
“What’s the difference?”
“Hey, at least you still have your hair,” Robert joked.
Karina didn’t laugh. “I’d switch places with you any day.”
Pip and Squeak made a loud chattering noise. They seemed to be harassing a trail of ants. Robert called for them to leave the bugs alone but the rats kept chattering. They wanted him to see.
“All right, all right.” He walked over and realized it was no ordinary trail of ants: it was an army. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, marching across the parking lot, ascending the brick wall of Lovecraft Middle School and disappearing through a crack in the mortar. “Look at this,” he told Karina. “Where do you think they’re going?”
“I’m guessing the cafeteria,” she said. “I bet there’s plenty of extra protein in tomorrow’s lunch menu.”
“Maybe this will stop them.” Robert removed a bottle of water from his backpack and poured some on the wall, washing away dozens of ants in a miniature tidal wave.
The rest of the army immediately changed course. Now, instead of marching toward the wall, they marched toward Robert. A few of the ants scaled his sneakers, and he kicked them loose.
“They’re coming to get me, Karina!” he laughed. “Help!”
The ants spread out in a V-shaped formation, as if they were trying to surround him. Their little legs were remarkably fast, and Robert had to jog backward to stay ahead of them. The ants couldn’t catch up, but they didn’t stop trying. They chased him all around the parking lot.
Karina watched their activity with growing dismay.
“It’s been a really weird week,” she said again.