The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt Read Free Book Online

the two cages together, hard, and they let out a high, awful rat screech. They both turned their little black eyes toward me—bulging with demonic light—and clawed hysterically at the bars that were hardly holding them from escape. And they kept on screeching.
    "Don't hurt them!" cried Mrs. Baker, who was now halfway across the room. So I pulled apart the two cages just a little bit, and Sycorax whirled, hissed, threw herself on top of Caliban, and pushed through. Then she leaped at my thumb, her yellow jaws open.
    "Oh!" I said, and jumped back from the cages.
    "
Hiss,
" said Caliban, and jumped out from the cages.
    "
Screech,
" said Sycorax, and jumped down from the counter.
    "
Hiss,
" said Caliban again, and jumped down from the counter over the cupboard after her.
    "Oh!" said Mrs. Baker, and jumped onto Danny Hupfer's desk.
    "Oh!" I said again, as Sycorax and Caliban ran over my foot—over my foot!—and headed into the Coat Room, where they threw themselves into the pile of fungused lunch remnants.
    Mrs. Baker and I were both breathing pretty hard by this time, so what she said next came out in a sort of strangled whisper. "Go get Mr. Vendleri. Quickly."
    I did, jumping from desk to desk, since I wasn't going to take any chances—Over My Foot!
    I didn't tell Mr. Vendleri what we needed him for until we got to the classroom, because I wasn't certain he would come if I did. He looked at us with wide eyes while we told him. (I was back up on a desk.) Then he nodded, went down the hall to the supply closet, and came back with a shovel and two brooms. "You two flush them out from that side," he said. "I'll be waiting with the shovel."
    "Flush them out?" I said.
    "Don't hurt them," said Mrs. Baker.
    "Flush them out?" I said again. I guess they hadn't heard me.
    "I won't hurt them unless they're going to hurt me," said Mr. Vendleri—which is exactly what they tried to do.
    Mrs. Baker and I climbed down from the desks.
    "Flush them out?" I said a third time.
    "Mr. Hoodhood, be bold," said Mrs. Baker.
    Let me tell you, we probably did not look bold as we crept toward the Coat Room with our brooms. Or when we poked at the moldering lunch remnants. Or when we peered behind the coats still hanging there. And I know we didn't look bold when the rats erupted from Doug Swieteck's coat with a full scale of screeches. They howled and roared and slobbered toward Mr. Vendleri, Sycorax with a decaying cream puff still in her yellow jaws. We heard Mr. Vendleri holler "Oh!" and by the time we got to the other side of the Coat Room, Mr. Vendleri was up on Danny Hupfer's desk.
    "Climbed into the radiators," he said, pointing.
    But they weren't there long.
    We heard hissing. We heard scrambling up the walls. We heard heavy pattering across the asbestos ceiling tiles. Then all was silence. The only thing that remained of their passing was the cream puff, abandoned before Sycorax had climbed into the radiator.
    "I'd better tell Mr. Guareschi," said Mr. Vendleri.
    Mrs. Baker, who had somehow gotten up onto her desk, looked at me, then at the cream puff, and then back at me. "Perhaps you had better hurry," she said.
    And that was all. Nothing about the cream puff.
    Whatever this new strategy was, it was good.
    So Mr. Vendleri went to report, and soon Mr. Guareschi arrived at the scene of the escape. He was breathing heavily, since principals and dictators of small countries aren't used to running. He looked over the two cages, peered into the Coat Room, and then put his ear to the walls. "I don't hear a thing," he said. None of us did, either.
    "They might be gone," said Mr. Vendleri hopefully.
    "How did they get out in the first place?" Mr. Guareschi asked, as if that made a whole lot of difference now.
    "I was cleaning their cage," I said.
    "It was my fault," said Mrs. Baker. "I shouldn't have had him do it."
    "Indeed not," said Mr. Guareschi. He rubbed his chin, considering. "But they're out now, and we can't let anyone