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  Two beady eyes glanced up at him, a set of whiskers trembling.

  The mouse was alive. It was chewing on its own foot, but it was alive. A little brain damaged, perhaps, but that was all right. He could deal with that.

  He picked the bucket up by its handle and limped back toward the door, his butt cheeks still sore from sitting on the broom. He stooped to pick up the two pieces of the Staff of Sweeping Justice, holding them in one hand, the trapped mouse in the other.

  The door to the boiler room was open, but Mr. McKellen was nowhere to be seen. Bryan left the remnants of the staff with the other mops and brooms, thinking he would have to find the man and apologize at some point. Then he readjusted his grip on the handle of the bucket and stepped out into the hall cautiously, scanning in all directions. The coast was clear.

  Beware the Eye of Krug.

  The Eye of Krug sees everything. But maybe Bryan’s falling on top of her had knocked Amy out of commission for the afternoon. Bryan started past the door that led out to the track and the football field, heading back toward Mr. Tomlins’s room in B Hall, ready to collect on his bounty. How many experience points do you earn for capturing an escaped rodent? he wondered. Surely as much as saving the world. He smiled at his small victory, his step shifting from mope to saunter, when something in the back-door window caught his eye.

  Someone was out there. Standing outside in the rain. Jess.

  Standing under the eaves, just out of the downpour, in fact, leaning against the brick wall. Her hands were stuffed deep into her jeans. Head hung, hair in her eyes. She looked to be alone, framed by the dark gray clouds.

  Bryan never saw Jess alone. She wasn’t like Missy, always swarmed by a gaggle of fawning groupies, but she wasn’t like Myra, either, tucked into a corner with her sketchbook or her iPod, looking at everyone else as if they were bugs trapped behind glass. She was always with someone. People attached themselves to her as she walked down the hall, magnetically it seemed. And yet there she was, standing outside in the rain, all by herself.

  Bryan set the bucket down, forgetting the mouse and his mission for the moment. He took a step toward the door, when someone else passed by the window.

  He could just make out the back of the jacket, the blue and gold of the Mount Comfort Lions. The gilded hair and perfect smile. Landon Prince turned so that he was looking right at her and said something. Bryan couldn’t hear a word through the heavy door, but he could see enough. Jess shrugged and Landon threw his arms up in the air, then pointed to himself. Jess shook her head. Then mouthed one word.

  “Bryan!”

  Bryan turned, jolted back by Mr. Tomlins’s voice, the science teacher shuffling down the hall, lips pursed, eyes glancing nervously from Bryan to the bucket by his feet.

  “Did you . . . ? Please say you didn’t . . . Is he . . . ?” The science teacher couldn’t bear to say it. Bryan bent over and tipped the bucket just enough that the science teacher could see the mouse scrabbling around inside. Tomlins’s face broke into a smile. He clapped his hands. “You found him. You found Mr. Mouskerson.” Mr. Tomlins grabbed the bucket and stuck his hand in, stroking the top of the mouse’s head. Bryan watched as the science teacher scooped the rodent up and held him close to his face. The two just rubbed noses and squeaked at each other, then Mr. Tomlins hastily set the mouse back in the bucket.

  “You did an excellent job, my boy. Excellent job. I’m not sure how I can repay you.”

  Bryan looked at the letters already forming above Mr. Tomlins’s head.

  +100 XP.

  LEVEL UP.

  “We’ll call it even,” Bryan said.

  Mr. Tomlins looked down at the mouse, still circling the bottom of the bucket, now trying to eat its tail. The science teacher nodded. “If you say so. But if you ever forget your homework, just let me know and we can work something out.” The science teacher stuffed his face back into the bucket. “We should get you back to class, Mr. Mouskerson. Your brothers and sisters are worried sick.”

  Bryan watched Mr. Tomlins go, knowing he should follow, that he should go back to the science room and finish what was left of sixth period; instead he turned back to the door, hoping to find her still standing there, but alone this time. For-real alone. Hoping, maybe, that Landon Prince had stormed off in disappointment. That she had vanquished him. Then Bryan would stick his head out the door and ask if she was okay. If she was cold. If she wanted to talk. And he would walk out there, a hero, and offer to put his arm around her and keep her warm.

  He pressed his face up against the window and looked out across the wet pavement and into the angry gray sky. Jess was already gone.

  2:24 p.m.

  Band Hero

  By the time all the rodents had been accounted for, the furniture had been turned upright, and everyone calmed down, sixth period was nearly over. Mr. Tomlins gave the class ten minutes of free time, though most people used it to talk about the Great Mouse Escape. Kaitlin Spencer sat with her head on her knees, complaining about how she was going to sue the entire school district for negligence and emotional trauma. Micah Parker just stared at the cage, talking to the mice.

  Bryan sat by himself and thought about last night and the game and the choice he had made. All the choices he had made. He tried to piece it all together. But no matter how hard he puzzled, he couldn’t help but come back to Tank and their imminent confrontation. None of the rest of it seemed to matter, or if it did, it was all obviously just building to that moment. Bryan looked up at the clock. He had less than two hours now.

  The bell signifying the end of sixth period rang, and Bryan watched everyone mindlessly gather their things and head off to their last class of the day, just as Mr. Tomlins had predicted. Most of them were smiling, chatting, carefree. They could feel the freedom of the weekend already. Two days of rock concerts and basement get-togethers and hours spent sucked into their phones. As they passed, some of them looked at Bryan. Some of the looks were sympathetic, but most of them said, simply, So glad I’m not you.

  They all knew.

  Bryan grabbed his pack. He needed to get to band in time to talk to Oz and Myra. On the way to C Hall he tried to stay inconspicuous. It wasn’t just Wattly he wanted to avoid. Krug was on the list now. And Mr. McKellen, who might say something about his broom. And Reese Hawthorne, who might give Bryan a shove just because he caught that ball in gym class. And Mrs. Baylor-Tore, because she was just plain scary and he’d taken one of her Twinkies. He melted into the crowd and made it to the practice room to find Myra and Oz already waiting for him.

  “Heard about the mouse,” Myra said.

  Bryan shook his head in disbelief. “That’s impossible. That happened, like, ten minutes ago!”

  “Chris P. texted Rachel, who texted me,” Oz explained. “I texted Myra.”

  “I didn’t text anybody,” Myra said. “I don’t like people that much.”

  Bryan wondered what kind of slack-off classes his friends were in that they could get away with texting each other. The one time this year he’d tried to take his phone out during class just to read a message, Tennenbaum had confiscated it for the whole day.

  “So. What happened? Did you level up again?”

  “For all the good it did,” Bryan replied. “Do you guys know what happened between Jess and Landon Prince? I saw them standing outside last period. She didn’t look happy.” Or maybe he had just imagined her looking unhappy. He was having a hard enough time with reality as it was.

  Oz’s eyebrows clinched. “Seriously? You’ve got a fight with a fart-eating Neanderthal scheduled in less than two hours, and you’re worried about what Jess Alcorn and Landon Prince are doing?”

  “I never said he ate farts. That’s not even physically possible.” Bryan looked at Myra for confirmation. She shook her head.

  “I just think we need to focus on the problem at hand, namely your insanity and impending death,” Oz said. “I sent an e-mail to the creators of Sovereign of Darkness.”

 
; “You did what?” Bryan said too loudly, though so many people were tuning their instruments in the practice room it was hard to hear much of anything.

  “Well. You said the game freaked out on you and deep-fried your computer and you woke up this morning and all this crazy stuff started happening, right? So I thought I’d ask them about it. See if they knew anything. Maybe they are the ones responsible.”

  Bryan shook his head. “Wait. So you asked them if they wrote a computer program designed to hack into my life?”

  Oz shook his head. “I didn’t put it like that. I just said something about a secret level at the end and asked them if they had any advice for beating it.”

  Bryan shrugged. He would never have thought of that. It didn’t make any sense, but neither did most of what had happened today. “And did you get a response?”

  “Just an automated reply saying that they care so much about me and will get to me in the next twenty-four hours.”

  Bryan put a hand on Oz’s shoulder. “It was a thought.” Not a great one, but with Oz you really had to count the thoughts or you often didn’t have anything.

  “So what are you going to do about Tank?” Myra asked. She looked really concerned. As if she genuinely feared for Bryan’s life, which didn’t make him feel any better.

  “I don’t know yet,” Bryan said. “Though I’m not sure what choice I have.”

  “Well, there’s no shame in running from a fight that you didn’t start and can’t possibly win,” she said.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  He followed the other two into the band locker room and pulled his saxophone from its case. He had been playing for only two months, but in that time he had progressed from what his father called “cat beaten with cactus” to “cat kicked with steel-toed boot.” His mother thought he played beautifully. Personally, he thought the whole band sounded like animals being tortured. Except Myra. She was a drummer and was actually pretty good. Oz played trombone. He was awful.

  They joined the other forty or so members of the school band and waited for Mr. Thorntonberry to arrive. He was running late today. Class was supposed to have started five minutes ago.

  Mikey Gerard, one of the two other saxophonists, leaned over and whispered to Bryan.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “Why does everybody keep asking me that?” Bryan growled.

  “Just wondering. I’ve got two bucks says you’ll show up.”

  Terrific. Now his classmates were taking bets. “Two whole bucks?” Bryan said.

  “At ten-to-one odds,” Mikey added enthusiastically.

  “He’s not going to show,” Oz whispered from the row behind them.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Bryan said again.

  “Yes you do,” Oz insisted. “What is there to think about? Tank will crush you.”

  “Between you and Myra it’s a wonder I bother having friends at all.”

  “We only say it because we care,” Oz insisted.

  “You don’t have to win,” Mikey informed him. “Just show up. I’ll split the money with you. It only seems fair.”

  “Great,” Bryan said, wondering if ten bucks would be enough to buy a new face after Chris Wattly smeared his across the cement.

  Finally Mr. Thorntonberry rushed into the practice room in his pressed slacks and sparkling vest, a sheaf of papers in hand. “Sorry, Charlies,” he said, huffing. “The copier was giving me fits. Apparently, Ms. Wang is on a diet again, which always puts her in a bad mood, so she tried to put her foot through it.” Mr. Thorntonberry had a fondness for drama. And sequins.

  “Guess she didn’t get the Twinkie after all,” Oz whispered to Bryan’s back.

  Mr. Thorntonberry moved around the room, handing out sheet music. “We are starting a new piece today. It’s fabulous, but a little beyond our level. It has a couple of short solos in it, so some of you will get the chance to shine.” Mr. Thorntonberry made shimmery movements with his fingers, something he’d carried over from his brief, six-month stint on Broadway. Bryan took his sheet music and handed the rest down the row. The new piece was called Overture to a Dream. It looked really long and complicated.

  “Of course, there’s bets on everything,” Mikey continued. “If there will be blood. If he stuffs you in the Dumpster. If they have to call an ambulance.”

  “An ambulance? Are you serious?” Bryan asked.

  “Three-to-one odds,” Mikey added.

  Suddenly all faces turned frontward as Mr. Thorntonberry mounted the podium, tapping on it with his baton. “All right, people. This is our first time through, so just try to keep up. You’re going to miss a few notes, but I just want to see how we do, all right? Remember: The band plays on.”

  “Fifty-fifty,” Mikey whispered out the side of his mouth. “That’s ten bucks just for showing.”

  “I can do the math,” Bryan said, giving Mikey the meanest look he could muster, then he brought his saxophone to his lips.

  Mr. Thorntonberry stood at the podium and adjusted his vest. There was a hush, a hesitation, then the music teacher snapped his fingers above his head.

  Suddenly all the overhead lights went out save for a single row across the middle and a solitary lamp that beamed up from the podium, giving the bandleader an otherworldly aura, his face half illuminated, the sequins on his vest making patterns on the wall. Bryan moaned softly to himself. The band started to whisper, putting their instruments down and wondering if they had just experienced a power outage, when three sharp taps rang against the podium.

  “Hellllooooo, Mount Comfort Middle School!” Mr. Thorntonberry shouted.

  Silence. Everyone stared at their crazy band teacher’s glowing face. Finally one of the drummers said, “Um. Hey there, Mr. T.” There was a smattering of giggles.

  “Are you ready to rock?” the music teacher asked.

  Everyone looked at one another, though it was kind of hard to see faces in the near darkness. Not that you needed to. This was middle school band. They mostly played Sousa. Rocking was never part of the equation, though today, it seemed, Mr. Thorntonberry had other ideas.

  Then Bryan realized what was happening. He was doing this. This was all his fault again. Just like gym class. Just like Shakespeare. Just like everything.

  “I said, are you ready to rock?” Thorntonberry cried out again.

  “I am so ready,” Naveen Ranjin said, putting his clarinet to his lips, clearly pumped.

  “Then let’s blow the roof offa this place!”

  Mr. Thorntonberry thrust both hands up into the air as all the lights suddenly came back up again, burning Bryan’s eyes.

  “One, two, three, four . . .”

  Thorntonberry brought his hands down and the band suddenly launched into a flurry of notes. It was an explosion of sound, discordant and shrieking, like opening the doors to a cat-kicking convention, and Bryan felt a chill work its way all along his spine. He would have plugged his ears except he was too busy fingering wrong notes. They hadn’t bothered to warm up, so nobody was on pitch, and half the instruments didn’t produce more than a shrill squeak, but Mr. Thorntonberry didn’t seem to care. He continued to pump his hands as every instrument blurted out some wretched noise or another, pointing to various sections of the band, begging for crescendos to music that was already loud enough to wake the dead and horrid enough to kill them all over again.

  Bryan stared at the page, unblinking, his fingers working frantically. He wasn’t even sure the other two saxophones sitting next to him were playing in the same key, and he was certain they weren’t in the same spot. Above Bryan the lights began to flicker, maybe in rhythm to the music, if there actually was one.

  “Yes. Fantastic!” Mr. Thorntonberry growled. “Keep it up! Music is the language of the soul!”

  If that’s the case, there’s not a soul alive who would understand what we’re saying, Bryan thought. Still, he tried to follow along. The tempo was insane, and Thorntonberry was gesti
culating like he was being electrocuted, thrusting his hands this way and that, shaking and trembling and calling out commands like Moses on the mountain. “Trombones! Now clarinets! Timpani! Bring it up! Louder! Louder!”

  Then he pointed to Bryan with his baton.

  “Saxophone solo!” he cried.

  Bryan pointed to himself, tried to find his place on the page. He was completely lost.

  “Stand up!” the music teacher shouted.

  “What?”

  “Stand up, Bryan! This is your moment. Seize it. SEIZE IT!” Mr. Thorntonberry was beckoning to him with both hands now. Bryan looked over at the drum section, where Myra, frantically working the snare, somehow managed to look at him and shrug.

  He stood up and looked back down at his music.

  And all of a sudden he could see them, the notes he was supposed to play, falling down along the page. Ds and Gs and As and F-sharps and all the ones in between, marching toward the bottom, much the same as his math problems had this morning. Except this time they were all color-coded. The Cs were blue, the Gs green, and so on. Bryan looked at Mr. Thorntonberry uncertainly, then back down at his dancing music.

  Then he brought his sax to his lips and blurted out the note at the bottom of the page.

  MISS.

  He didn’t get it. He’d screwed up the fingering. The word flashed red across the sheet music at the top, and Bryan could actually hear a boo come from somewhere—the trumpet section, maybe? He tried for the next note and then the next, doing better with each. OKAY, it told him, and, GOOD. Then he hit a string of three in a row.

  PERFECT. GREAT. PERFECT.

  And suddenly he was on a roll, hitting each note in stride, tapping his foot to the rhythm in his head, blocking out the cacophony of bleating horns and piping winds around him, just concentrating on hitting every color-coded note as it fell off the page. On the podium, Mr. Thorntonberry continued to flail like a hooked fish, stabbing in Bryan’s direction with the point of his baton at practically every beat.