[Janitors 04] Strike of the Sweepers (20 page)

“Great,” Spencer said. “So you can trash-hop over to California in twenty minutes. But if your body has to change every time, how will you carry the book we need you to take?”

Bookworm pointed at his head. Spencer noticed that, despite the body change, it was the same dented lunchbox atop that moldy, pencil-studded textbook.

“Your head always stays the same?” Spencer said.

Bookworm nodded.

“I still don’t see how you can carry anything.”

Bookworm reached up a hand and grabbed his lunchbox skull. Flipping aside the clasps, he opened the box, showing an open container that smelled faintly of tuna fish.

“I can’t look!” Daisy said, shielding her eyes. “He’s showing us his brains!”

“It’s okay, Daisy,” said Spencer. “His head’s empty.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Daisy said.

Spencer leaned over and looked into the open cavity. It would definitely be big enough to hold the
Manualis.
He returned once more to the garbage truck, this time to grab the old book. It would be safer to transport it sealed, but if something bad happened to the Rebels, Min would be stuck with a closed book. They needed to open it for transportation, no matter the risk.

The Dark Aurans had said that any of the bronze nails would work as a key to open the latch around the old book. “Someone else will have to open it,” Spencer said. Touching the bronze would send him right into a vision.

Daisy stepped up to the task, digging Holga’s nail out of the glove compartment. They knelt on the grass, the
Manualis Custodem
lying before them.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Daisy said. “What would Walter want us to do with the
Manualis?
”

“He would want us to keep it safe,” Spencer said. “The BEM doesn’t know about Min, and if something bad happens to us, he’ll be able to translate the
Manualis
and finish the task. It’ll be okay. Bookworm’s the perfect messenger. He’s impossible to track when he hops from trash to trash.”

She turned to Bookworm. “Do you feel okay about it?” He gave her a clear thumbs-up and a solid nod. “What are the chances of you getting caught?” she asked.

He stepped over to the scrap of Kleenex box that he’d used earlier. He ripped off the number
2
and held out the remainder for Daisy to see.

0%

Spencer grinned at the Thingamajunk’s confidence. It seemed to settle some of Daisy’s fears also. Dez looked on impassively, only aware that the
Manualis Custodem
was important because Spencer had said so.

Daisy pinched the bronze nail between her fingers and lowered it down to the small hole in the latch. “Like this?” she said.

“You’re doing great,” Spencer encouraged.

Daisy pressed the nail down. There was a soft click, and the latch fell open. Daisy jerked her hand away, as though fearing that something might happen. But the book just rested there in the grass, doing nothing extraordinary at all.

Spencer picked up the
Manualis Custodem.
He couldn’t resist opening the leather covers and glancing over a few pages. The Gloppish writing was strange, and Spencer remembered that Professor DeFleur had described it as a combination of Latin and hieroglyphics.

“What’s it say?” Dez asked.

Spencer shut the book. He couldn’t read the writing. And even if he could have, he certainly wouldn’t have told Dez the translation.

Spencer stepped over to Bookworm, who took a knee. Almost ceremoniously, Spencer lowered the unlatched
Manualis Custodem
into Bookworm’s lunchbox head.

“One more thing,” Spencer said. He reached down to his janitorial belt and unclipped a pair of Glopified walkie-talkie radios that he’d picked up in the Rebel closet. Spencer twisted the knob at the top of the device. “I’m setting these to channel 27,” he said to Bookworm. “That should be a secure, private channel. Have Min radio over once you find him.”

The Thingamajunk nodded to show his understanding. Spencer dropped one of the walkie-talkies into Bookworm’s head and closed the lunchbox.

“California’s a big place,” Dez said. “How’s your trash pet going to find someone he’s never met before?”

“Well,” Spencer reasoned, “if he can eat trash and know where it came from, then we need something that could lead him to Min.”

“I have a letter in the house,” Daisy said.

“From Min?” Spencer was surprised she hadn’t mentioned it before. “Why did he send you a letter?”

“I don’t have email,” she said. “He just wanted to give me an update about the Monitors.”

“But I always give you updates about the Monitors,” Spencer said.

“Oooohhh,” Dez butted in. “Someone’s getting jealous!”

“I am
not
jealous!” Spencer said. Then he turned to Daisy before anything else could be said. “Go grab the letter.”

She darted across the lawn and through the back door of her house, giving her black dog a pat on the head as she passed.

“What?” Spencer said defensively, noticing the lingering smirk on Dez’s face. He turned to the Thingamajunk. “Bookworm,” Spencer said, “why don’t you give Dez a hug while we wait?”

“Huh?” Dez said, the grin melting off his face. “I don’t want a hug!”

Bookworm lurched forward, snatched Dez in his thick garbage arms, and squeezed the kid tightly. Dez grunted and wriggled as Bookworm’s hug appeared to be more of a headlock and less of a sign of affection. Now it was Spencer’s turn to smirk.

When Daisy returned, both hands were occupied as she worked to clasp a piece of cheap jewelry around her neck. A white envelope was clamped tightly between her lips. She secured her necklace just as she reached Spencer and Dez.

“This is from Min,” Daisy said once she’d removed the envelope from between her lips. When Bookworm heard her voice, he smiled and dropped Dez in a heap on the ground.

“That necklace?” Spencer asked.

“Huh?” Daisy looked at him, confused.

“Min gave you that necklace?” He pointed to the pendant on a chain around her neck.

Daisy giggled. “No, silly. Why would Min give me a necklace?” Daisy rubbed the shiny pendant around her neck. “It’s from my grandma. I’ve had it forever.”

“I’ve just never seen you wear it before,” Spencer said, trying to recover before Dez pointed out his jealousy again.

“Yes you have,” said Daisy. “I used to wear it all the time, but Leslie Sharmelle broke it when we were fighting in the air vent at the school. My dad finally got around to fixing it.”

“That would be cool, if I cared,” Dez cut in. “Now hurry up and feed your garbage some garbage.”

Daisy turned to her faithful Thingamajunk. “This is a letter from the boy you need to find,” she explained. “If you eat it, will you be able to find his house?”

Bookworm nodded, and Daisy held it out for him.

“But,” Spencer said, “shouldn’t we read it first?” He really was curious to see what Min would say in a personal letter to Daisy.

Daisy’s cheeks seemed to flush a bit and she reached out, nearly shoving the letter in Bookworm’s face. He gobbled it up without hesitation.

“Know where to go?” Daisy asked.

The Thingamajunk paused for just a second as he seemed to simultaneously ponder and digest. Then he collapsed into a lifeless mound of garbage. He was on his way to Min, holding the future of education in his lunchbox head.

Chapter 32

“That’s a lame power.”

Spencer turned to his companions. He felt a huge weight off his shoulders, knowing he’d done all he could to get the
Manualis Custodem
safely away.

“What now?” Daisy asked.

“Now we rescue the others,” Spencer said.

Daisy glanced nervously at Spencer and Dez. “I don’t mean to be negative,” she said. “But there are only three of us.”

“Don’t be such a wimp,” Dez said. “We can handle it.”

Spencer shook his head. “Daisy’s right. We need help.”

“But who?” she asked. “All our best fighters are already captured.”

“Mr. Clean missed one,” Spencer said, finally slipping the backpack from his shoulders. “The best fighter I know is right in here.”

Daisy raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You’ve got a tiny person in your backpack?”

“Sort of.” Spencer pulled on the zippers, and the bag fell open to reveal its contents.

The Vortex.

Spencer carefully lifted the Vortex vacuum bag from the open backpack. Almost seven months had passed since Spencer had first punctured the Vortex. The vacuum bag had unleashed a tremendous power, sucking everything inside. Several BEM workers, including a man named Garth Hadley, had disappeared. And one Rebel had been a casualty of the Vortex.

“You’re going to rescue Marv?” Daisy whispered.

Marv, the Rebel janitor, had been lost to them for months now. He was alive, or had been back in November when they’d captured an audio recording of his voice. The message was simple and completely nonsensical. Marv had merely shouted, “Haha! Gutter ball!”

Spencer held the vacuum bag aloft. There was a folded note secured to the edge of the Vortex with a little paper clip. The note was from Olin, one of the Dark Aurans, who had written instructions for Spencer to rescue Marv from the bag. In the last two months, Spencer must have read the note a hundred times, studiously poring over the message with Walter.

“But Walter said we couldn’t risk a rescue,” Daisy quietly reminded. “He said it was too dangerous.”

Spencer didn’t need the reminder. Walter had decided that they should wait until the Founding Witches were back. They couldn’t risk valuable time, and potentially lives, in rescuing Marv while the
Manualis Custodem
remained unsolved.

“Walter’s not here now,” Spencer pointed out. “We need help, and Marv is our best chance. If we get him out of the Vortex, he can help us rescue the others from Mr. Clean’s lab.” Spencer sounded more positive than he felt. Olin’s note didn’t make Marv’s rescue out to be an easy task. It would be a risk. But at this point, what wasn’t?

“I need a leaf blower,” Spencer said.

“Why?” Daisy looked at her lawn. “There aren’t even any leaves.”

“It’s for the Vortex,” Spencer said.

Daisy looked puzzled. “I thought we tried a leaf blower on the Vortex.”

“Walter did,” answered Spencer. “But it wasn’t right.” He unclipped Olin’s note from the edge of the vacuum bag.

Daisy had read it once, but she must have forgotten the message. Spencer supposed that thoughts of Marv trapped in the vacuum bag didn’t weigh constantly on her mind as they did on his. It was Spencer’s fault that the big janitor had spent the last seven months trapped. He had put Marv there.

“No more love notes!” Dez grabbed the paper from Spencer’s hand. “Let me see that.” Dez glanced over it. “Boring,” he said, and dropped it to the ground.

“It’s not boring,” Spencer said, snatching it before the wind could blow it away. “This letter tells us exactly how to rescue Marv.”

“I don’t think I want to rescue him,” Dez said. “He’s the big hairy guy that used to work at Welcher, right? He made me clean toilets once.”

“You probably deserved it,” Spencer said. “Now, listen up. If we’re going to survive this, we’ll need to be united.”

“Blah blah blah,” Dez said. “Just tell me who to attack.”

Spencer rolled his eyes and lifted the note. “Olin said that our earlier attempts with the leaf blower failed for two reasons,” Spencer summarized. “First, Olin created the Vortex. That means it’s powerful and it won’t max out.” He began reading Olin’s carefully written words. “
Your leaf blower will need to be far stronger than anything your warlock can Glopify. Only
you
have the strength to create something that will match the Vortex. When charged with the Aura, your right hand has the power to Glopify. Don’t hold back.”

“Wait,” Dez interrupted, pointing at Spencer. “He wrote this about
you?
”

Spencer nodded and Dez burst out in laughter. “What’s so funny?” Spencer asked.

“What kind of powers does he think you have, Doofus?” asked Dez.

“Spencer’s an Auran, Dez.” Daisy pointed it out straight, just in case the bully had missed something along the way.

Dez shrugged. “Big deal. What does that even mean?”

“It means that I could Glopify or de-Glopify you with a single touch of my hand,” Spencer said. “It means that I can live forever. It means that my inner eye can locate the exact location of the warlocks.”

“Psh.” Dez waved him away. “Being a Sweeper is so much cooler.”

Spencer turned to Daisy. “Do you know if your dad has a leaf blower we could borrow?” He used the term
borrow
very loosely, since he probably wouldn’t be giving it back.

“There’s one in the garage,” Daisy said.

Once again, Spencer and Dez were momentarily left alone as Daisy went to find her dad’s leaf blower. A second later she emerged, holding the device above her head like a trophy. She handed it to Spencer, who set it on the ground and knelt before it.

“Now what, Mr. Auran?” asked Dez.

Spencer didn’t want to admit that he’d never actually done this before. Walter had been very hesitant in letting him experiment. Spencer had de-Glopified the pump house at the landfill, but something told him that Glopifying would be different.

Olin’s letter said not to hold back. Spencer only hoped he would do it right. If he messed this up, he’d have to wait a day or two for the Glop to recharge in his bloodstream before he could make a second attempt.

“You’re just going to stare at it?” Dez said. “That’s a lame power.”

“No,” Spencer said. “I’m going to spit on it.”

Dez laughed. “Good one, Doofus. You actually told a funny joke!”

Spencer glared at him. “I wasn’t joking.”

He looked down at his hands and took a deep breath. This was the grossest part about being an Auran. It didn’t matter that the spit was his own. Spit was spit.

Spencer worked up some saliva in his mouth and spat onto his palm. The spit was stringy as he drew back his head. Spencer gagged.

“You spit like a girl,” Dez said.