[Janitors 04] Strike of the Sweepers (31 page)

The rushing water whipped Spencer forward, tossing him into an eddy beside the doorway. He found his dad there, fighting to tread water and not get sucked into the current. Spencer assumed that the panicked look on his dad’s face was mirrored in his own. Smashing the window had been a thoughtless reaction to save his dad from Mr. Clean’s rag. The Sweeper warlock was nowhere in sight, swept away by the torrent.

But Spencer and his dad were hardly safe! Now they were treading water deep under the ocean’s surface with nowhere to draw a breath. Spencer was a fairly good swimmer, but he knew there was no way he could make it to the portal when his lungs already felt like bursting!

They needed oxygen. They had to get a breath of air before their lungs burst! Spencer’s hand plunged into his janitorial belt and closed around the dust mask. His chance of survival now rested on an item that Mr. Clean had given him when the chalkboard eraser had exploded in the elevator. But the Sweeper warlock had said that the mask would provide pure air under any circumstance.

Spencer pulled the thin elastic band over his head and fit the mask snugly over his mouth and nose. Immediately, the water drained out of the mask and his lips felt dry. He parted them just slightly. Finding that no water filled his mouth, he took a gasping breath.

It worked! Spencer found it ironic that Mr. Clean had given him the very thing he needed to survive the destruction of the BEM laboratory.

Spencer dug in his belt for a second mask, the one Dez had handed him when he refused to wear it in the janitorial closet. In a flash, Alan had it on.

“We’ve got to hurry!” his dad said. Spencer could understand every word, though Alan’s voice sounded distant and muffled through the mask and water. Bracing himself for the long swim, Spencer and his dad allowed themselves to get pulled through the doorway and out into the hall, whipped along by the rushing flood.

It was strange to see the building underwater. Spencer was surprised to find that some of the lights still worked. It seemed as though the secret lab had been built with the knowledge that a total flood was possible. And if that was the case, then Spencer assumed the Sweepers would have some way to safely escape.

The breakneck current pulled them helplessly down the hallway, the force making it impossible to swim against the rush.

“We’ll never make it back!” Spencer yelled. They didn’t have much time before the portal closed, and Spencer knew he wasn’t a fast enough swimmer to make it against the current.

“Plunger!” his dad yelled. Spencer scrambled for the handles on his janitorial belt. His dad’s tool was already out, and Alan slammed his toilet plunger against the wall, the rubber cup anchoring him in place.

Spencer’s plunger snapped out of the U-clip, and he gripped the handle tightly. He tried twice to clamp onto the wall, but the fast water prevented a good suction. At last, the rubber end clamped tight to a wooden door.

Spencer’s body trailed out behind him as he fought the current, struggling to keep a grip on the plunger handle. He could see his dad anchored a dozen yards ahead of him in the hallway. Before Spencer could wonder how to catch up, the wooden door cracked under the pressure of the water.

Spencer let out of cry of alarm as the door ripped open on its hinges, loosening the plunger’s suction and sending the boy tumbling through the water once more, the contents of the room flooding out after him.

Spencer pushed against a broom that bumped into his side. A dustpan clanked painfully against the side of his head, and he realized that he must have opened a janitorial supply closet. It wasn’t unlikely, since every other room at the BEM lab seemed to be full of Glopified gear.

In the flood of waterlogged cleaning supplies, Spencer suddenly found his fingers wrapping around a familiar object. It was a toilet brush, with a plastic handle and bristly white scrubbers on one end.

He had seen such an item only once before. The Aurans used toilet brushes to power their recycle-bin boats across the Glop lagoon. If this was anything like those, then a simple twist of the handle should set the brush twirling.

Spencer felt the brush activate in his hand. The bristles spun like the propeller of a motorboat, instantly pushing him back up the hallway.

Spencer grinned behind his dust mask. Tucking the toilet brush close to his body, he stretched out, streaming against the current with the ease of a fish.

He reached his dad in no time. Alan popped his plunger off the wall and accepted Spencer’s outstretched hand. They idled in the hallway for a moment, Spencer twisting down on the throttle just enough to hold them against the current.

“We can swim up the elevator shaft,” his dad said, gesturing across the hallway with his plunger. It would probably be a much faster and more direct route than winding up the stairwell, which was surely already full of water.

Spencer towed his dad across the hallway, and Alan clamped his plunger to the elevator door. It slid open about two feet, a few trapped air bubbles gurgling upward as the passageway opened. Spencer was about to squeeze into the elevator shaft when his dad shouted.

Spencer whirled around to find something swimming toward them at an alarming rate. It was a Grime Sweeper, moving through the water as though it had been born there. Spencer knew Grimes were amphibious, living comfortably on land or water. He’d hoped that characteristic hadn’t been passed to the Sweepers, but the one coming toward them looked to be in no need of air.

“Is it Clean?” Alan asked.

Spencer squinted through the water. “Nope. Just a random Sweeper. Let’s get out of here!” He opened the throttle on the toilet brush and squeezed through the opening. But his dad, whose shoulders were much broader than Spencer’s, caught in the narrow doorway.

Before Spencer could tow him through, the Sweeper hit Alan, peeling him away from the elevator door and hurling him through the water.

Spencer angled himself back through the door, twisting the toilet-brush handle and speeding through the water as fast as he could. Alan had managed to clamp onto the wall again, anchored helplessly against the attacking Grime.

As Spencer torpedoed toward the enemy, his razorblade clicked out in his left hand. The blade’s sharp edge sliced through the water, nicking into the Sweeper’s shoulder.

A pale, yellow goo oozed from the wound. It hung suspended in the seawater around the Sweeper as he let out a bubbly cry of pain. He turned toward Spencer, bulging eyes full of malice.

Spencer leaned back, twisting the toilet brush into a full retreat. The Grime Sweeper leapt off the wall to dive for him but suddenly recoiled like a dog hitting the end of its leash.

“Into the elevator!” Alan shouted through his mask. He released his plunger’s suction, and Spencer was there to pull his dad safely away from the Grime Sweeper.

“What about him?” Spencer asked. The Sweeper was thrashing and swimming frantically but didn’t appear to be going anywhere.

“Duct tape,” Alan explained. Spencer looked back just long enough to see that his dad had pasted a strip of tape across the Sweeper’s tail, pinning him to the wall. The enemy wouldn’t be following them now. Not unless he cut off his own tail.

Spencer towed his dad, pressing through the narrow gap between the elevator doors and streaming straight up into the darkness of the flooded shaft. It was nearly pitch-black when Alan clamped his toilet plunger and hefted open the elevator door.

They swam through the fourth floor of the BEM lab, finding no sign of the enemy in the flood. Spencer maneuvered them through the flotsam, dodging debris as the toilet brush pulled them along faster than any human could swim.

The barricade came into view. Some of the material that had formed the Rebel shelter had drifted off, and Spencer was counting the seconds, unsure if they’d been fast enough. But as Spencer and his dad propelled around the overturned tables, they saw the portal, still intact. Its glowing border seemed to flicker, as though it might extinguish at any second.

There was a new current here, sucking water toward the opening into Welcher. Spencer let the toilet brush wind down, releasing his dad’s hand and allowing himself to get dragged in by the current. Ducking his head and putting his arms straight forward, Spencer passed through the portal. Once on the other side, he twisted the toilet brush and powered upward until his head rose above the waterline.

His dad was right behind him, and not a moment too soon. Suddenly, the squeegee portal folded in on itself. For a second, the wall was made of glass. Then the Windex wore off and the wall became solid red brick.

Spencer and his dad found themselves treading water in the Rebels’ janitorial closet. Boxes and bags bobbed all around them, and little waves lapped at the stairs where Walter and the others waited, watching the basement fill up.

The flood was over now. The BEM laboratory was destroyed. And Spencer hoped they would never have to explain why the janitor’s closet at Welcher Elementary School was full of water from the Atlantic Ocean.

Chapter 49

“Tonight we turn the tables.”

The Rebels were sitting in Mrs. Natcher’s room. It wasn’t the most secure location, but, seeing as how the janitorial closet was full of ocean water, it would have to suffice. Daisy had asked Bookworm to guard the door, and Spencer could see his garbage-pile silhouette in the doorway.

It was nearing midnight in Welcher, but there was still so much to be done before they could sleep.

“I can’t believe you used to be friends with that weirdo,” Dez said when Alan had finished explaining what had happened.

“Rod Grush was nothing like Mr. Clean,” Alan said.

“I thought you said Rod Grush
was
Mr. Clean,” said Daisy.

“He is,” Alan admitted. “But I never thought my old partner could be capable of such crimes.”

“Why do you suppose he tried so hard to keep his identity a secret from you?” Walter asked.

Marv grunted. “Coward, is my guess.”

But Alan shook his head. “Rod Grush was anything but a coward. I knew him better than anyone. We went through a lot together. I know how he acts and how he thinks. That’s probably why Mr. Clean didn’t want me to know who he really was.”

“So how can we use this to our advantage?” Penny said. “If Rod Grush just had his hideout destroyed and his hammer stolen, what would he do next?”

The look on Alan’s face became very somber. “He’d come here.”

“Then I guess we’d better skedaddle,” Bernard said.

“It doesn’t matter where we go,” Alan said. “He’ll find us and take revenge for what we’ve done.”

“The time for running is past,” Walter said. “The Rebel Underground has survived under a rock, avoiding the BEM and trying to stay hidden. No more. Tonight we turn the tables.”

Bernard raised his hand. “I hate to be the pessimist in the group,” he said. “But there are only nine of us here, if you count the Thingamajunk. What kind of tables can we turn against the entire Bureau of Educational Maintenance?”

In reply, Walter laid a blue binder on the desk he was occupying. Spencer recognized it as Professor DeFleur’s translation of the
Manualis Custodem.
Spencer had wondered if the binder had survived the flood, but he hadn’t dared ask about it in front of the others. Apparently, Walter had untaped the binder and moved it to safety before the water came through.

“You’ve all been very patient,” Walter said. “And I thank you for trusting my orders. Our reason for stealing all three bronze hammers is much greater than a desire to take away the BEM’s warlocks.”

He opened the binder. “This is a translation of the
Manualis Custodem
an original first-edition
Janitor Handbook
penned in Gloppish by the Founding Witches themselves.”

“How long have you had this?” Penny asked, looking a touch hurt that she hadn’t heard about it until now.

“Since the landfill,” Walter answered. “Though the translation was only completed a few days ago.”

“So what does it say?” asked Bernard, sitting forward on the edge of a desk.

“It says that the Founding Witches are not dead,” Walter said. “They are trapped in the source of all Glop, counting on us to free them back into the world.”

It was silent for a moment. Penny, Bernard, and Marv looked wide-eyed at the news. Even Dez stopped grooming his wing long enough to stare at the binder on Walter’s desk.

“So that’s how we’re turning the tables?” Bernard asked. “We’re bringing back the Founding Witches?”

Alan nodded. “Exactly. And we need to do it tonight. Before Mr. Clean can recover from the blow of losing his laboratory.”

“Where’s the source?” Marv asked.

“Tonight,” Walter said, “the source of all Glop is going to be right here in Welcher Elementary School.”

Chapter 50

“What if someone gets thirsty?”

How is that possible?” Spencer asked. Hadn’t the janitors covered every inch of Welcher Elementary? If the Glop source had been at the school, surely they would have found it before now.

“According to the
Manualis Custodem,
” Walter explained, “the source of all Glop does not currently exist.”