Janitors by Tyler Whitesides

Author:Tyler Whitesides
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: YA bn, General / General
ISBN: 9781609070656
Publisher: Deseret Book Company
Published: 2011-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

“Take a look, but don’t get too close.”

The room behind the hidden door was as large as the storage/office and had a low ceiling with exposed pipes and naked lightbulbs. The huge concealed closet smelled of sulfur and chili powder.

There were several long tables littered with pieces of janitorial equipment. Mops and brooms hung on one wall. The opposite wall was lined with vacuums: some upright, others little canister vacuums with long hoses. There were racks of spray bottles organized in rows of colors: pink, blue, green, yellow. And there was much more, but Spencer was distracted by a steaming vat in the center of the room.

Spencer took a step toward it, but suddenly, Marv’s bearlike body moved to intercept.

“Get back,” he grunted.

“Marv’s right, Spencer,” Walter said. “That container holds a small amount of raw magic. We call it Glop. Take a look, but don’t get too close.”

Spencer and Daisy peered over the rim of the vat and saw gray goo, swirling and bubbling as though it were alive. The closet’s unique smell definitely came from the Glop.

“That’s the stuff?” Spencer said. It looked like someone had mixed pancake batter and concrete and then tried to carbonate it with dry ice.

“With the bronze nail in the wall, this entire school was my domain. Within the walls of Welcher Elementary, I was free to handle and experiment with the raw Glop. Since the nail was pulled, my domain has crumbled.”

“What would happen if you touched the Glop now?”

“No one but an established warlock can handle the Glop. If any of us touched the raw magic now, we’d likely mutate into a Toxite.”

“There is one exception,” Marv said, shutting the closet door. “If Glop is diluted enough—one part Glop to five hundred parts of something else—it can be used to expose newcomers to the world of Toxites.”

“So the pink soap was just super-diluted Glop?” Spencer asked. Walter nodded. “It sure made my face tingle.”

“You’re lucky it was a proper batch. A small error can be fatal when diluting Glop.”

“I’m glad you did a good job,” Spencer said.

The janitors looked at each other. Finally, Walter spoke. “The pink soap didn’t come from us, Spencer. Someone else put it in the boy’s bathroom that day. Who? We’re not sure yet.”

“Dez,” Spencer suddenly whispered. “He was in the bathroom before me. Maybe he put it there.”

“That’s a possibility,” Walter answered. “But he wouldn’t have done it on his own. There must have been outside influence.”

“Garth Hadley gave it to him,” Spencer mused.

“If that’s true,” Marv said, “then we’d better get this Dez down here right now. Is he in your class?”

Spencer shook his head. “He just got suspended for the week.”

“We’ll check into it when he returns,” Walter said. “Thanks for helping us figure that one out. We regret not contacting you two sooner, but things were hectic as we prepared for the BEM inspections. I was out of town for a few days. When I returned, Marv told me of his suspicions about you.

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