Andrew North Blows Up the World (7 page)

“Wonderful!” she said. “I also just want to remind everyone to dress up
really nicely
tonight for the
big show!
When your parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles see you up there,
smiling
and singing those
great
songs, they’re just going to feel
so good
inside!”

She hugged herself to show us how good our parents were going to feel.

“You mean like this?” asked Ryan. And he smiled a
really
big smile, the kind that normal people don’t go around making because it hurts their face.

“Just like that!” said Mrs. Wellington. “That’s exactly what I mean.
Super
job, Ryan!”

“Okay,” said Ryan. “But I’m gonna need a couple of Popsicle sticks and a fishhook, and I’ll be sore in the morning!”

“Whatever you have to do,” said Mrs. Wellington. And she winked. She did that a lot. Every time I passed Mrs. Wellington in the hall, she winked at me, like I was sharing a secret with her or something.

I used to wonder if she was winking to tell me she knew all about my dad’s secret job, but I eventually figured out that she was just really into winking at people. Some people are
nuts about math, and some are nuts about winking. Normally I would say that Mr. Summers was probably better off, since being able to do math is way more important than winking, but she was
his
boss. The world’s a weird place sometimes.

“Now, those of you who are singing solos, make sure you smile and do your best!” said Mrs. Wellington. She looked right at me, Nicole, and Madison, since each of us was singing a verse of the song “Kids Are Music.”

“We will,” Nicole said, quietly enough that I could hear her but Mrs. Wellington couldn’t. “If Andrew doesn’t mess up.”

I glared at her.

“I’m sure they’ll all be fine, Joyce,” said Mr. Summers.

“Of course they will!” said Mrs. Wellington. “The program is going to be
super!
Right, gang?”

Everyone nodded again.

“Great!” she said. “Remember: big smiles!”

And she walked out to give the same speech to the next class.

“You can stop smiling now, Ryan,” said Mr. Summers. “We can all get back to work.”

“You know why she wants us to smile like idiots, right?” Ryan asked. “It’s so our parents start to worry that we
are
idiots! If they think we’re growing up stupid, they’ll donate more money to the school to make us smarter!”

“That’s enough, Ryan,” said Mr. Summers, though I could see he was trying not to laugh.

I thought Ryan was on to something. Jack once told me
that Mrs. Wellington got so pumped up about the music program because it was the best chance she had all year to hit our parents up for money.

That afternoon we had gym class, which I figured was good for me. It would give me a chance to get some exercise and maybe build up my strength a bit. I was going to need it!

Weirdly enough, our gym teacher, Coach Walker, is an old lady who isn’t even in very good shape. She’s always bent over like her back is hurting, and she’s always walking around muttering “Oh, my lungs and liver!” like she’s in really terrible pain. I think maybe they just let her be the gym teacher so we can see how we’ll end up if we don’t exercise.

Some people think Coach Walker and Mr. Cunyan are secretly married. They’re about the same age, after all. I asked Jack about that once, and even he thought it was possible. He didn’t know for sure, though. It’s a mystery.

“All right, children,” said Coach Walker as we all walked into the gym. She never shouted at us, like some gym teachers do—she didn’t have the voice for it. Every time she tried to shout, it came out more like a croak. “I know tonight is your music program, so I am not going to work you very hard today.”

Everyone cheered.

“Today you are going to play Impossible Mission!”

Everyone cheered again, especially me. Impossible Mission is the most fun game ever invented by a gym teacher.
It’s a game where you have to use your head. It was a perfect way to warm up for a spy mission!

Coach Walker went to her supply closet, and a couple kids started helping her pull out jump ropes, crates, brooms, little scooters, and junk like that. The idea of Impossible Mission is that she divides us up into teams, and each team has to get every member of the team from one end of the gym to the other using all the junk from the closet. The trick is that you’re not allowed to touch the floor. You have to use the jump ropes and stuff to get across without touching the ground. It’s pretty awesome. And I’m great at it! If there was an Impossible Mission team at the high school, I could totally make the varsity squad.

She divided all the junk into four piles and divided us into teams. I was hoping she would put me on Tony’s team, but no such luck. I was stuck in a group with Neil, Matt, and Melvin Purvis. Melvin Purvis might be an even bigger geek than poor Tony. With a name like that, he sort of has to be. He’s really rich, though, so no one picks on him. Every time someone does, he threatens to have his dad sue them.

“All right,” said Coach Walker. “You may begin… now!”

“Okay, guys,” I said to my team. “If you just wanna sit back, I can get us through this.”

“Shut up!” said Neil.

“Yeah, Andrew,” said Matt. “You stink at this game!”

“No, I don’t!” I insisted. “I’m practically a professional!”

“A professional?” Neil sneered. “You can’t be a professional Impossible Mission player. I’m in charge of this team, and that’s final!”

“Let’s vote on it,” I said. “All in favor of Neil being in charge?”

“Aye!” said Neil and Matt.

“And all in favor of me?” I asked, raising my own hand. I looked over at Melvin. “Come on, Purvis!” I said. “Are you gonna vote or not?”

Melvin shook his head. “I’m not voting for anyone,” he said. “I don’t want to be too involved.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“If I get involved and someone gets hurt, it could be my fault,” he said. “I don’t want to get sued!”

What a dork!

“That settles it, then!” said Neil. “I’m in charge.”

“Fine,” I said. “But let’s get started, all right? We’re already behind, and I don’t wanna lose!”

I already had a whole bunch of ideas for how to get across the gym without touching the ground. We could put the crate on top of the little scooter thing and push the first person across the floor. Then that person would hop off, push the scooter back, and get everyone else across on it. We could use the jump rope as a tow rope and pull the last person across. It was simple.

“All right,” said Neil. “I’ll go across first.”

He stepped into the milk crate and started slowly
wiggling it. He was moving forward, but it would take him all day to get across, and he’d never be able to get it back across the floor to us once he got there.

“Come on, Neil!” I said. “That’s never going to work.”

“Shut your face, An-dy!”

I felt all the blood in my body rush up into my eyes. It probably turned my pupils bright red and made them look all scary and everything.

“Shut up!”
I shouted.

Just then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Coach Walker.

“What did you just say, Andrew?” she croaked.

“I was just doing some trash talk,” I said, real casual-like. “You know. Like people do in sports.”

“Do not give me any of that, Andrew,” said Coach Walker. “Being a poor sport is not the way to play, and I will not tolerate language like that in my gymnasium. Come with me!”

She grabbed my shoulder and led me away from the gym. Coach Walker thinks a lot of words that most people say all the time are curse words. Words like “butt” and “fart.” I guess people thought those were curse words when she was a kid, about a hundred years ago.

“What’s going to happen to my team if I don’t get to play?” I asked, as if I even cared.

“Never mind that,” she said. “Instead of playing with the rest of the class, you’re going to help Mr. Gormulka today.”

I felt a chill through my entire body.

“No!” I said. “Please! Can’t I just go clean all the bathrooms or something? I’ll do a good job!”

“Nonsense,” said Coach Walker. “Mr. Gormulka is right down the hall. You can help him with his duties.”

Coach Walker led me out into the third-grade hall. I followed along but pretty slowly, seeing as I was almost positive I was about to get dunked in a shark tank or attacked by evil penguins or something. Mr. Gormulka was wiping down lockers. When he saw me coming, he glared at me and raised his eyebrows. His scar went up right along with them. My knees began to shake.

“I have a helper for you today, Mr. Gormulka,” said Coach Walker.

“What’s he in trouble for?” asked Mr. Gormulka.

“Foul language,” said Coach Walker. “He will be with you the rest of the gym period.”

Mr. Gormulka nodded, and Coach Walker walked away. I shivered, waiting to be dragged off to Storage Room B. But Mr. Gormulka just handed me a rag.

“Wipe,” he said, pointing at the lockers.

I just stood there for a second. I was almost too scared to move. He must have looked at the calculator and figured out that I was a spy. So why was he letting me live? Maybe he was going to work me to death or something! He’d make me wipe down hundreds and hundreds of lockers until I died of exhaustion!

“Don’t just stand there, North,” he said. “Get to work.”

I sighed and started wiping down lockers slowly, to keep my strength up. After I got through three or four of them, I started to think maybe he wasn’t going to kill me right then. Maybe he hadn’t figured out the truth about the calculator yet, or maybe he was waiting to kill me during the program. Either way, I was probably safe for now, but I kept my eye on him. I wasn’t going to let him sneak up on me and attack!

While we worked, Mr. Gormulka whistled. It was a pretty happy tune, but it still sounded super creepy to me.

I started on locker #27, and I was up to locker #41 when Mr. Gormulka suddenly got a call on his walkie-talkie.

“We have a two-thirteen in first-grade hall!” said a voice.

“Oh geez!” said Mr. Gormulka. And he ran off down the hall, shouting, “Keep working” over his shoulder. He was in such a hurry that he didn’t even bother to pick up all his tools. He just left his tool belt lying on the floor.

I wondered what a 213 was. Probably something pretty nasty, like someone puking. Or maybe it wasn’t anything to do with cleaning at all; maybe it meant that the head of his organization was calling him on the video phone in his secret hideout, and he had to go talk to him! Maybe he was getting instructions to make me “disappear” right then!

I kept on working for a second, but then I turned to look at his tool belt sitting on the floor. What if there was a murder weapon or a secret gadget or something on there? If I could be the person who finally found proof they could use to arrest Mr. Gormulka, spy headquarters would almost
have
to hire me on the spot!

I walked over to the tool belt and picked it up. At first I was disappointed. It looked like just a regular bunch of tools, without any bloodstains on them or anything. But then I saw something shiny poking out of a little pocket. A ring of keys! I looked closer and saw that there was a label on one of them that said
STORAGE ROOM B
—
COPY
.

Oh man!
A key to Storage Room B!

This was my big chance! I could get into Storage Room B while Mr. Gormulka was busy with the 213—whatever that was—get the calculator, and get back to wiping lockers before he even knew I was gone. The only thing I had to worry about was that he might be in Storage Room B himself, taking a call on the video phone. After all, if Mr. Gormulka had a secret spy video phone, it had to be in Storage Room B. But it was a risk I had to take.

I could handle it.

I was Andrew “Danger” North!

I took the key off the ring and put it in my pocket, took a deep breath, and started walking down the second-grade hall. When I got to Storage Room B, I reached into my pocket and fished out the key.

This was
it!
I was acting like a real spy now, breaking into the secret hideout of Mr. Gormulka. And without any gadgets or monkeys to help me. I only hoped the booby traps wouldn’t kill me.

I was just about to put the key into the keyhole when I heard a shout from down the hall:
“Freeze!”

I gulped. It was Mr. Gormulka! And when I turned
around, I saw him staring down at me, just a few feet away now, with a killer’s look in his eye!

I thought about making a run for it, but he was too close to me. My heart was beating so loud I could barely think, but I knew I was going to have to
talk
my way out of this one.

“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” he barked.

“Um, nothing,” I said as I shoved the key back in my pocket before he could see it. (That wasn’t a brilliant start, I knew, but it bought me some time.) “I was just looking for you to tell you how I was doing on the lockers.”
Genius!

“Don’t try to talk your way out of this, North,” said Mr. Gormulka. “Believe me, I know a liar when I see one! You were trying to get into this storage room!”

“No I wasn’t!” I said.

“This room is off-limits!” he said, so forcefully that he was spitting a little.
Yuck
. “No one gets into this room. No one! Not even teachers! If I ever catch you poking around here again, you’ll be in more trouble than you could ever imagine. Understand?”

I nodded.

“Good,” he said. “Now go finish wiping down those lockers!”

Was it possible he
still
wasn’t going to kill me? Even after he’d caught me trying to sneak into his secret lair?

He must have something truly dastardly planned for the concert.

I got back to wiping down the lockers, and eventually
Mr. Gormulka came back. He scowled at me while I worked, but he still didn’t try to kill me. He just went back to wiping down lockers and doing that awful whistling.

Just before the class came out of the gym and started heading back to the classroom, I recognized the melody Mr. Gormulka was whistling. It was the song that Jason had sung a bit of in the basement the day before: “The Pennsylvania Polka”! The song that the class had been singing while Mr. Gormulka killed Will Hannon!