Gabby Duran and the Unsittables (15 page)

Gabby glanced over her shoulder, pulled the gold key from her pocket, unlocked the door, then shut it behind her. The air smelled of must lightly covered by pine cleaner, and though Gabby would
have loved to peek in at the post-apocalyptically abandoned classrooms, she instead stormed up the stairs to the top floor, scanned the doors for 3A, then used the silver key to open it. It
didn’t have a twist or push-button lock on the inside; the key locked it here as well. Gabby eagerly twisted the key in the lock to seal herself safely inside.

The room was large, its carpet streaked with ancient skids and splotches, and divoted by long-gone chairs and desks. It also held fresh vacuum tracks. Clearly, Ellerbee had tried his best, but
the damage here was permanent. The walls were faded orange, with a giant rectangle of brighter orange along one, where the blackboard once hung. A row of cracked-paned windows ran along another
wall, each one so wide that Gabby understood how the suicide rumor had started. If someone did want to jump, the windows could easily accommodate them. When she peered out, the sidewalk below
looked like a child’s toy.

This was the kind of room that would have given Satchel nightmare visions of zombie teachers and vampire students, but it was tucked away and locked, and that made it perfect for Gabby. She
plopped down in the middle of the floor, shrugged off her knapsack, and opened it.

“Wutt?” the girl asked, popping her red-curled head out of the bag.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Gabby said.

She winced as an idea crossed her mind, and Wutt noticed. The little girl crawled the rest of the way out of Gabby’s knapsack and clambered into her lap. She looked up at Gabby with deep
concern in her eyes. “Wutt?”

Gabby smoothed her hand over the girl’s curls. “I don’t know…I just wonder if maybe we should stay here all day. Skip orchestra, skip the concert…sneak you out
afterward and keep you in my room until Edwina comes to get you.”

Wutt cocked her head to one side as if confused, then leaped off Gabby’s lap and twirled like a ballerina. Her long nostril-slits vibrated as she hummed the notes to Gabby’s
solo.

“I know,” Gabby agreed. “I don’t
want
to miss it, but if it’ll keep you safe…”

She pulled her phone from her knapsack. She planned to text Satchel and have him tell Maestro Jenkins she was sick and would have to miss the concert, but before she could do it, she heard a key
turning in a lock. Gooseflesh chilled Gabby’s skin. She shoved her phone in her back pocket, tossed her knapsack on her back, grabbed Wutt into her arms, and backed into a corner.
“Change, Wutt,” she whispered. “Quickly.”

When the door swung open, Gabby was holding her breath…and a giant beach ball in her hands.

“Gabby MacGregor?”

“Ellerbee!” Gabby cried with relief. She stepped out of the shadows to see the old man standing in the door. He held a large sack, heavy enough to pull him down on his left side, and
breathed heavily from the climb upstairs.

“I should’ve known it was you,” Gabby said. The beach ball in her arms was so wide that Gabby had to struggle to see the janitor around it. “I can’t thank you
enough for this place. You’re the best.”

Ellerbee smiled and his shoulders drooped humbly. “Not at the moment I’m not, lassie. But I will be. When you give me the alien child and I get my million-dollar reward.”

Gabby felt her stomach curdle. She clutched the beach ball closer. When she spoke, her voice sounded like a frightened squeak. “Wait…what?”

“Aye, you know what I’m talking about. Let’s not play games. It looks like a pink fuzzy hat, but we both know it’s more than that.”

Gabby’s breath flowed a little easier. At least Ellerbee thought Wutt was still a hat. He didn’t know she could change. That could buy her some time to figure a way out of this.

“I don’t understand,” Gabby said. “I thought Mr. Lau was the one after her.”

Ellerbee’s furry white brows shot up. “A girl child, is she? Eh, all the same.” He bent over to re-lock the door from the inside and seal in Gabby and Wutt. “As for
Mr
. Lau, I saw what he was trying to do. The rich man with the scrambled face on the phone chat told me there’d be others. But I had the inside track, didn’t I now? We’re
friends, you and I. So let’s make this easy. Hand me the child, and we can forget this ever happened. Where is she, in your backpack?”

Gabby’s mind whizzed with options. She could give him her knapsack and try to run out with the beach ball, but he’d look inside and know she’d tricked him before she could
unlock the door. She could throw Wutt at him like she did with Mr. Lau, but Ellerbee was too old to handle a smack on the head. If anything happened to him…No matter how crazy he was acting
now, Gabby couldn’t live with herself if he got hurt because of her.

Gabby placed the beach ball on the floor behind her and moved closer to Ellerbee, trying to reason with him. “Ellerbee, you’re a really good man. If you understood what
Houghton—the scrambled face guy—if you knew what he’d do to her, I don’t think you’d want to hand her over. He’ll hurt her. Or worse. And she’s an innocent
kid.”

Ellerbee laughed so hard he started to cough. He doubled over, and Gabby wondered if she should help him or try to sneak past while he struggled for breath. The choice was made for her when he
stood tall again and pointed something at her that he’d pulled off his belt.

“Is that a gun?” Gabby gasped.

“Easy there, lassie. Just a stun gun. I don’t want to use it, but I will if I have to. As for the girl, I’ve spent forty years cleaning up after innocent kids and got not a
lick of respect, nor a lining of my pockets. If one little alien girl has to have a tough time for me to get my due, I can live with that.”

Gabby considered her options. The stun gun could knock her out, but only if Ellerbee touched her with it. Gabby could easily outrun him. If she had to let him chase her around the room until he
got tired enough that she had a second to unlock the door and escape, that was fine with her. She crossed her arms and made her face stony. “I’m sorry, Ellerbee. I can’t let that
happen.”

Ellerbee sighed, then pulled two large items from the bag at his side. Gabby recognized them immediately. They were the Shoombas—the two robot vacuum cleaners Zee had rigged with foot
clamps and jet power for him. As he slipped his feet into the clips on top of each machine, he said, “I’m sorry, too, Gabby MacGregor, but I’m done cleaning up after other
people.”

“But…aren’t those vacuum cleaners?”

“They are, lassie,” Ellerbee agreed. “And they’re also how I’m going to shut you down and get what I need.” He kicked his vacuum-clad heels together, and the
twin engines roared to life. Holding the stun gun in front of him, he zoomed toward Gabby. Panic froze her for just a second, which was all it took for Ellerbee to lunge at her with the sizzling
mouth of the gun.

“Here!” Gabby shouted. She shrugged off her purple knapsack and hurled it across the room. It landed near the door, and Ellerbee quickly swerved to get it. With his attention on the
bag, Gabby ran to the nearest window. Her breath rasped in her throat as she pushed up on the ancient edging to try to open it, and she cried out when it stuck. Grunting with effort, she leaned in
and pushed once more. The window flew upward, and Gabby drank in the cold fall breeze.

“It’s not in here!” roared Ellerbee, tossing aside the knapsack. His jet engines zoomed to life again, and Gabby knew she had no time. She grabbed the beach ball and shoved it
out the window, but it was too big around. It stuck halfway through.

“I’ve got you now, lassie!” Ellerbee growled right behind her, and as Gabby pushed on the ball with all her might she cried, “Change, Wutt! Change to something
smaller!”

Wutt did as she was told. She turned from a giant beach ball to a tennis ball…just as Gabby thrust all her weight into a final shove. With nothing to push against, Gabby’s momentum
spilled her out of the window.

Gabby’s stomach climbed into her throat, and she had no idea if she was pointed up or down. She scrambled and clawed for something to hold, but there was nothing. She was falling. If she
were lucky, she’d break every bone in her body. If she weren’t lucky…

Gabby shut her eyes tight. She remembered the tennis ball falling out of the window first. At least Wutt would be okay. If the girl was smart, she’d roll into some tall grass and stay
there until Edwina found her.

The wind flapping against her hurt Gabby’s ears. She clapped her hands over them and waited for it all to be over. She tried not to imagine the final thump. How much it would hurt. How
long she’d lie there until someone called an ambulance. Or what Ellerbee would do if he found her first.

THUMP!

The shock of landing knocked out Gabby’s breath…but she didn’t feel any pain. She lay still, waiting for it to kick in, an agonizing torture so overwhelming she’d beg to
lose consciousness.

It didn’t happen.

In fact, she felt comfortable. Cozy, even. She rolled onto her stomach and opened her eyes.

She was lying on a five-foot-thick air mattress that had cushioned her fall.

“Wutt?” Gabby cried delightedly.

The little girl gently deflated, easing Gabby to the ground before turning back into her own shape and raising her arms with a ta-da shout, “Wutt-WUTT!”

“You are
amazing
!”

Gabby hugged the alien girl, then a faraway gasp of “Hollerin’ haggis!” made her look up.

Ellerbee leaned out of the top Tower classroom window. Even from this distance, Gabby could see his mouth gaped open and his eyes wide. Ellerbee knew Wutt could change now, and he’d seen
her in her true form. That was bad. At least he was all the way up in the Tower. By the time he got down here, Gabby would have Wutt far away from the school.

Then twin jets roared, and Gabby watched in horrified awe as Ellerbee lifted first one Shoomba-clad foot and then the other out the Tower window. He stepped out into sheer nothingness, the
jet-powered vacuum cleaner robots supporting him as he lowered slowly to the ground. He still wielded the stun gun, and Gabby knew once he landed he could use the jets to outpace them almost
instantly.

“We have to get out of here, Wutt,” Gabby murmured. “Fast.”

She was answered by another engine roar, this one much closer than Ellerbee’s. She wheeled around. Where Wutt had been a second ago sat a large motorcycle, the same blue as the
girl’s skin, with painted flames the color of her fiery curls.

“I don’t know how to drive a motorcycle, Wutt!” Gabby yelled.

The motorcycle revved.

“I don’t have a helmet!”

The motorcycle scooted forward a few feet.

“I’m only twelve! I don’t have a license!”

The next roar was from Ellerbee’s Shoombas, and when Gabby spun she could see the sizzle of the stun gun, ready to bite into her skin.

Gabby screamed and climbed onto the motorcycle, which shot away so quickly Gabby was nearly thrown off. She forced herself to lean forward over the handlebars and grip until her knuckles went
white. Her curls smacked across her face and blindfolded her eyes. She peeked over her shoulder. Ellerbee was following them on the Shoombas. He wasn’t as fast as Wutt, but his teeth gripped
in determination as he leaned into the chase and tried to put on speed.

a-
WOO-ga!

It was the same hideous noise she’d heard earlier in the day, when she was on her way down to the music room. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and pressed the button on the bottom.
Edwina’s face filled the screen, calm and efficient as always.

“Gabby?” she began.

“Edwina!” Gabby shouted. The wind blew curls into her mouth as she spoke and she spit them away. “I really need your help!”

“Excuse me?” Edwina asked, raising an eyebrow. “I can’t hear you. We seem to have a bad connection.”

“Can you
see
me?” Gabby wailed as Wutt zoomed them beneath some low-hanging branches that slapped leaves into her face. They were racing through the woods that separated the
school from a residential area, and the walking paths weren’t made to accommodate motorbikes. “I’m having a little trouble here!”

“Things are going well, you say?” Edwina said. “So glad to hear it. I just wanted to check in with you because there’s been a change of plans. I’ll be picking up
Wutt at your school right after your concert. I’ll meet you both in the auditorium.”

“No, Edwina, I won’t be at the concert!” Gabby said as several bugs smacked against her cheeks. “We’re being chased by G.E.T. O.U.T.! I need backup! Come get us
now—I need you!”

“Hmm…Still crackling in and out, but I assume you understand and we’re all settled. I’ll see you in a bit, then.” The screen clicked to black.

“NO!” Gabby screamed to the now-blank phone. A ball of disappointment swelled in her throat and she thought she might cry. “What are we going to do, Wutt?”

Then Gabby looked up and screamed. They had left the woods and were on a street…in the wrong lane…with a car zooming right toward them. “Wutt!” Gabby wailed as the
car’s horn honked. “Look out!”

Wutt swerved to miss the car, but her wheels skidded out from under her, and the motorcycle careened to a steep grassy embankment at the side of the road. Gabby could picture her legs being
crushed by the motorbike as it fell on top of her. She winced, but Wutt changed just as they lost balance and toppled. She became a rag doll version of herself and tumbled into Gabby’s arms
as they rolled down the hill. The ground and the sky kept changing places as Gabby tumbled. When she stopped, she jumped to her feet.

The world was still spinning, but she wasn’t hurt. She even knew where they were. She and Wutt had landed not far from a huge sprawling playground—the same one she came to all the
time while babysitting. It was full of kids right now, all of them squealing with glee as they scrambled around jumping, swinging, and playing. Gabby recognized a lot of them, and was so happy to
see
them
happy she almost forgot the terrible danger she was in…

…until she heard a twin-jet roar and wheeled around to see Ellerbee, his stun gun poised as his Shoombas zoomed him swiftly down the hill and right toward Wutt and Gabby.