Sinister Substitute (2 page)

And yet…

And yet on this particular frog-slicing day she was absent.

It was, in fact, her first absence in the nine years she’d been teaching at Geronimo Middle School. Never had phlegmy colds or fiery fevers or scratchy rashes or sties in the eyes or great gusting bouts of gas kept her away.

She was there, without fail, each and every day.

So this was, truly, a rare and joyous occasion.

But it was also strange.

Ah, yes. As Dave would soon discover, it was very strange indeed.

It’s a well-known fact among people in education that substitute teachers are saints. You may not be aware of this well-known fact, but that’s most likely because you’re on the receiving end of a substitute’s mission to maintain law and order (and, if time allows and they know the material, teach a little).

It’s also a well-known fact (this time among students) that substitute teachers are either too lax or too strict; either you’re allowed to monkey around or you’re barely allowed to breathe.

Both kinds are, for the record, still saints because no matter when they’re called in to work, it’s always feeding time at the zoo.

Now, by “feeding time at the zoo,” I do not mean the feeding of hungry young minds.

Oh no.

By “feeding time at the zoo,” I mean the tossing of a single well-intentioned adult into a cage of thirty or more monkeys hungry for a little fun. And the students in Ms. Krockle’s class were, without question, ravenous. To them, this day was like uncovering a Reese’s peanut butter cup on a plate of broccoli.

Like discovering chocolate milk in a bottle of V8.

Like finding Cap’n Crunch in a box of All-Bran!

In a word, sw-eeeet!

It was almost irrelevant whether the substitute was a lax one or a strict one. Even the strictest of substitutes would be a pushover compared to the ironfisted Veronica Krockle.

It was a popular boy named Fons Soto who
started the fun. “Switch seats!” he whispered to the kids around him as they filed into fifth period. “Everybody!”

And so it was that Dave wound up in Reuben Medina’s seat, Reuben Medina wound up in Fons Soto’s seat, and Fons wound up in Dave’s seat.

The rest of the class, too, was completely scrambled.

“Good afternoon,” the substitute said. “My name is Dr. Schwarz, and I have the distinct pleasure of delving into the fascinating complexities of science with you today.”

Having been so intensely absorbed in the switching of seats, the students had, until now, avoided looking at the substitute. But now that they
were
looking, each and every jaw dropped.

Dr. Schwarz looked like something out of a storybook: Dressed in a tweed suit (complete with matching vest), he wore stylish rectangular hornrimmed glasses and held a pipe. (Yes, the sort
that’s smoked, as opposed to the sort you might run water through or, say, clonk against a villain’s head.)

He had a full head of dark hair, with just a smattering of gray (giving him a distinguished, professorial look), and a gold watch on a chain was tucked neatly inside a waistcoat pocket.

“So!” he said, chomping down on his pipe (which, due to smoking regulations, was not lit). “What do you want to talk about?”

Thirty pairs of eyes went this way and that, signaling, “Is he serious?” in the sly and semaphore-ish manner only teenage eyes can.

And when the signals that returned were “I think so!” thirty minds kicked into immediate overdrive, thinking, Oh, this guy’s gonna be
easy
to mess with.

Dr. Schwarz laughed. “Surely you don’t want to dissect frogs. …”

“I do!” a boy named Greg Lazo (who was, incidentally, sitting in Tyler Mills’s seat) called from the back of the class.

All the students whipped around in their seats to shoot Greg down with their semaphore-ish eyes.

“Well, I
do
,” he said meekly.

Dr. Schwarz went to the podium and scanned the seating chart. “Well, Tyler,” he said, looking directly at Greg, “let’s rethink your position on this, shall we? Because frogs are one of nature’s most magnificent creatures. Why, did you know that most frogs can jump twenty times their own body length? That would be like you jumping one hundred feet! Could you imagine?” He paused for Greg (or, according to the seating chart, Tyler) to
imagine himself hopping such a distance, then quietly asked, “Why would we want to kill and dissect such a wonder?”

“But they’re already dead,” Greg muttered.

The rest of the class whipped around again.

“But they are!” Greg grumbled.

“Ah, young man,” Dr. Schwarz said with a gentle tisk. “You have so much to learn.” He gave Greg a wink. “Which, I suppose, is why you’re in school, hmm?”

Dr. Schwarz was now pacing, his hands and his pipe clasped behind his back. “Perhaps you’d be more sympathetic if the subject were a snake?” He looked around the room. “How many of you like snakes?”

All the boys (including Greg Lazo) raised their hands.

All the girls (especially Lily Espinoza) left theirs firmly in their laps.

“How about… iguanas? Hmm?”

This time, almost all hands went up.

“How many of you
own
an iguana?”

To everyone’s surprise, Yasmine Branson (who was known for her addiction to peanut M&M’s and little else) said, “I do.”

Dr. Schwarz consulted the seating chart, gave Yasmine a warm smile, and said, “Amazing, aren’t they, Carla?”

Yasmine smiled uncomfortably as her head bobbed up and down.

It’s fair to say that at this point the students were beginning to regret their little seating prank. Tyler Mills, especially, did not like Dr. Schwarz thinking he was the one who wanted to kill and dissect frogs. But what else could they do but play along?

“What about chameleons?” Dr. Schwarz asked, pacing thoughtfully as he looked around the room. “Don’t you wish you could change colors like they do? Wouldn’t it be fun to camouflage yourself that way?” He dropped his voice in a conspiratorial manner. “Imagine if you were walking the halls without a pass and the principal was coming and you could instantly take on the shade and markings of the wall!” He chuckled. “Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”

And that was it. With the possible exception of Greg Lazo, every student in Ms. Veronica Krockle’s fifth-period class instantly liked their substitute.

He wasn’t just a spiffy dresser.

He wasn’t just nixing the dissection of frogs.

He was funny!

Understanding!

In a word,
cool
.

But then came a question that gave one particular student pause:

“How about geckos?” Dr. Schwarz asked. “Know anybody with a pet gecko?”

The particular student pausing was, as you’ve almost certainly guessed, Dave Sanchez. Since Sticky had moved into Dave’s apartment, Dave had taken him to school almost every day because, well, Sticky was his little buddy.

However, bringing pets to school was against the rules, and since there was the additional worry
over Sticky being no ordinary gecko, the lizard spent most of the school day snoozing inside Dave’s backpack or quietly cruising the campus for bugs and some sizzly sunshine. So (amazingly enough) it was not common knowledge that Dave had a pet gecko, which is the way Sticky liked it. “If someone sees me,
señor,”
he had instructed Dave, “just tell them you found me outside.”

This was, I might add, a perfectly reasonable thing to say, given the nature of nature in the area. Geckos were common. Found here and there in gardens or buildings or just stuck to walls soaking in the afternoon sun.

And since it’s a long-held belief that geckos bring luck, nobody minded finding one hanging from the ceiling of their sitting room.

Or bathroom.

Or classroom.

So although someone asking about geckos was, to the average student, no big deal, to Dave it was.

Especially since his gecko was no ordinary gecko.

And double-especially since it wasn’t just
having
a gecko that was supposed to stay secret. There was another secret much bigger than that.

A life-and-death get-caught-and-you’re-toast sort of secret.

And it was most definitely connected to geckos.

We are now at the part of the story where I ask myself, How in the world am I going to explain this and not have you say, “Yeah,
right.”

I will do my best, and all I ask is that you don’t jump in and say, “Yeah,
right,”
right away.

All right?

All right. Here goes:

When Sticky moved into Dave’s apartment, he brought with him an ancient Aztec wristband. A
magic
Aztec wristband also known as a powerband. One that, when matched with special notched ingots, could make the wearer invisible.

Or super-strong.

Or lightning fast.

Or…

But let me stop right there because Dave, at this point in time, had only one ingot (and, consequently, only one power), and that was Wall-Walker.

Now, as time passed, it became known in the city that there was a mysterious person who appeared out of nowhere, scaled walls, and saved people.

Was he a boy?

A curiously compact man?

A girl who dressed like a boy?

People weren’t sure, but regardless, they immediately dubbed this wall-walking wonder the Gecko.

And so it was that Dave (through the coaxing and coaching of Sticky) had reluctantly become a
superhero, even though nothing about it seemed to fit. The magic wristband had originally been worn by an Aztec warrior, so it was much too big for Dave to wear on his wrist. Instead, he had to wear it on his upper arm (where it was conveniently hidden by his shirt). And what sort of power was walking on walls? Dave thought “Gecko Power” was ridiculous and, compared to flying or becoming invisible, totally lame.

His community, however, did not think he was lame. Any sighting of the Gecko was news.

Big, gaspy, gusty, happy news.

Which is why Dave froze when the substitute asked about geckos. And it wasn’t just that Dr. Schwarz had asked about geckos, it was something about the
way
he’d asked.

It was too consciously casual.

Too deceptively disarming.

Too slyly suave.

Too …
smooth
.

And for the first time since he learned of the unexpected absence of Ms. Veronica Krockle, the situation seemed to Dave to be a bit odd.

Almost creepy.

Who was this man?

He sure wasn’t
teaching
them anything.

Maybe he wasn’t a teacher at all!

Maybe he was a reporter!

Someone who was trying to find out who the Gecko was!

But… why was he at Geronimo Middle School?

Why not some other school?

Why not just out on the street looking for curiously compact men?

Had somebody tipped him off?

But… they wouldn’t let some reporter teach science!

That was crazy!

Still, what had happened to Ms. Krockle? Her
absence on an ordinary day would have been unusual enough, but being gone on dissection day? There was something strange about this.