The Janitor's Boy Read online

  It was the PERFECT CRIME

  Unfortunately, it also led to the perfect punishment. When Jack Rankin gets busted for defacing a school desk with a huge wad of disgusting, watermelon bubble gum, the principal sentences him to three weeks of after-school gum cleanup for the chief custodian. The problem is, Jack’s anger at the chief custodian was the reason for his gum project in the first place. The chief custodian happens to be Jack’s dad.

  But doing time in the school basement after hours reveals some pretty surprising things: about the school, about Jack’s father, and about Jack himself.

  “A memorable novel.”— Publishers Weekly, starred review

  Learn more about Andrew Clements’s best-seller Frindle at frindle.com.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  Cover illustration copyright ©

  2000

  by Brian Selznick

  Cover designed by Russell

  Gordon and

  Lisa Vega

  Ages 8–12

  Also by Andrew Clements

  The Landry News

  Frindle

  First Aladdin Paperbacks edition September 2001

  Copyright © 2000 by Andrew Clements

  Aladdin Paperbacks

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster

  Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Also available in a Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers hardcover edition.

  Designed by Steve Scott

  The text for this book was set in Garth Graphic.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Clements, Andrew, 1949-

  The janitor’s boy / Andrew Clements.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Fifth grader Jack finds himself the target of ridicule at school when it becomes known that his father is one of the janitors, and he turns his anger onto his father.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-81818-9 (hc.)

  ISBN-10: 0-689-81818-1 (hc.)

  [1. Janitors—Fiction. 2. Fathers and sons—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.]

  I. Title

  PZ7.C59118 Jan 2000

  [Fic]—dc21

  99-047457

  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-83585-8 (Aladdin pbk.)

  ISBN-10: 0-689-83585-X (Aladdin pbk.)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-6898-5051-6 (eBook)

  Contents

  Chapter 1: The Perfect Crime

  Chapter 2: What Do You Want to Be?

  Chapter 3: L Is for Loser

  Chapter 4: The Sweet Smell of Victory

  Chapter 5: School Justice

  Chapter 6: Reporting for Duty

  Chapter 7: Gum Patrol

  Chapter 8: Hung Jury

  Chapter 9: Boy Territory

  Chapter 10: Rumors

  Chapter 11: Open Sesame

  Chapter 12: Chewology

  Chapter 13: Altitude

  Chapter 14: Homeward

  Chapter 15: Discoveries

  Chapter 16: Benind the Curtain

  Chapter 17: One-Way Ticket

  Chapter 18: Underground

  Chapter 19: Walk Into the Light

  Chapter 20: Two Plus Two

  Chapter 21: Something Permanent

  Chapter 1

  The PeRfect CRime

  Jack Rankin had a particularly sensitive nose. As he walked into school in the morning, sometimes he would pause in the entryway and pull in a snoot-load of air from the flow rushing out the door. Instantly he could tell what the cafeteria lunch would be, right down to whether the Jell-O was strawberry or orange. He could tell if the school secretary was wearing perfume, and whether there was an open box of doughnuts on the table in the teachers room on the second floor.

  On this particular Monday morning Jack’s nose was on high alert. He was working on a special project—a bubble gum project. Today’s activity was the result of about a week’s worth of research and planning.

  Days ago, Jack had begun the project by secretly examining the bottoms of desks and tables all over the school, trying to decide exactly which kind of discarded gum was the most unpleasant. After he conducted his first few sniff tests, he didn’t even have to look underneath a table or a chair to tell if there was gum. The scent of the stuff followed him from class to class. He had gum on the brain. He smelled gum everywhere—on the bus, in the halls, passing a locker, walking into a classroom.

  Jack finally chose watermelon Bubblicious. It had to be the smelliest gum in the universe. Even weeks after being stuck under a chair or table, that sickly sweet smell and distinctive crimson color were unmistakable. And Bubblicious, any flavor of it, was definitely the stickiest gum available. By Jack’s calculations, it was more than three times stickier than Bazooka.

  The final stage of Jack’s gum caper began in today’s third-period gym class. Mr. Sargent had them outside in the cool October air, running wind sprints to prepare for a timed mile next week. By the end of the period Jack had four pieces of gum in his mouth, chewed to maximum stickiness. The smell of it almost overpowered him.

  Carefully steering a wide path around Mr. Sargent, he went to his locker before the next class. He spat the chewed gum into a sandwich bag he had brought from home. The bag had two or three tablespoons of water in it to keep the gum from sticking to the plastic.

  Jack sealed the bag, stuffed it into his pocket, and immediately jammed another two pieces of gum into his mouth and started to chew.

  He processed those two pieces plus two more during science, managed to chew up another four pieces during lunch period, and even finished one piece during math—quite an accomplishment in Mrs. Lambert’s classroom.

  By the time he got to music, he had thirteen chewed pieces of gum in a plastic bag in the pocket of his jeans—all warm and soft and sticky.

  Monday-afternoon music class was the ideal crime scene. The room had four levels, stair-stepping down toward the front. The seats were never assigned, and Mr. Pike always made kids fill the class from the front of the room backward. By walking in the door just as the echo of the bell was fading, Jack was guaranteed a seat in the back row. He sat directly behind Jed Ellis, also known as Giant Jed. With no effort at all he was completely hidden from Mr. Pike.

  The only other person in the back row was Kerry Loomis, sitting six seats away. She was hiding too, hunched over a notebook, trying to finish some homework. Jack had half a crush on Kerry. On a normal day he would have tried to get her attention, make her laugh, show off a little. But today was anything but normal.

  Mr. Pike was at the front of the room. Standing behind the upright piano, he pounded out a melody with one hand and flailed the air with his other one, trying to get fidgety fifth graders to sing their hearts out.

  Jack Rankin was supposed to be singing along with the rest of the chorus. He was supposed to be learning a new song for the fall concert. The song was something about eagles soaring and being free and happy—not how Jack was feeling at this moment.

  Bending down, Jack brought the baggie up to his mouth and stuffed in all thirteen pieces of gum for a last softening chew. The lump was bigger than a golf ball, and he nearly gagged as he worked it into final readiness, keeping one eye on the clock.

  With one minute of class left, Mr. Pike was singing along now, his head bobbing like a madman, urging the kids to open their mouths wider. As the class hit a high note singing the word “sky,” Jack leaned over and let the huge wad of gum drop from his mouth into his moistened hand. Then he began applying the gum to the underside of the folding desktop, just as he’d
planned.

  He stuck it first to the front outside edge and then pulled a heavy smear toward the opposite corner. Then he stretched the mass to the other corner and repeated the action, making a big, sticky X. Round and round Jack dragged the gum, working inward toward the center like a spider spinning a gooey, scented web.

  As the bell rang Jack stood up and pulled the last gob of gum downward, pasting it onto the middle of the metal seat. A strand of sagging goo led upward, still attached to the underside of the desk.

  It was the perfect crime.

  The whole back of the music room reeked of artificial watermelon. And that gob on the seat? Sheer genius. Jack allowed himself a grim little smile as he shouldered his way into the hall.

  There were two more class periods, so a kid would have to notice the mess today—this very afternoon. Mr. Pike would have to pull the desk aside so no one would get tangled in the gunk. Mr. Pike would need to get someone to clean it up before tomorrow.

  So after someone had swept the rooms and emptied the trash cans and washed the chalkboards and dusted the stairs and mopped the halls and cleaned the entryway rugs, someone would also have to find a putty knife and a can of solvent and try to get a very sticky, very smelly desk ready for Tuesday morning. It would be a messy job, but someone would have to do it.

  And Jack knew exactly who that someone would be. It would be the man almost everyone called John—John the janitor.

  Of all the kids in the school, Jack was the only one who didn’t call him John. Jack called him a different name.

  Jack called him Dad.

  Chapter 2

  WhAt Do You WAnt to Be?

  Ordinarily, no one would have imagined that Jack Rankin would vandalize a desk. But this was not an ordinary school year for Jack—or for any of his classmates, either.

  The town of Huntington was growing, and more families with kids were moving in all the time. The town seemed to be playing a game of musical chairs—too many kids and not enough schoolrooms.

  The kids in grades nine through twelve were all set. They had already made the move to a brand-new high school out on the west edge of town. The elementary school was still in good shape, but it was only big enough now for the kids in kindergarten through grade three.

  It was Jack and the other kids caught in the middle grades who had the problem. The old junior high would work fine for grades four and five—that is, after about ten months of repair work. And the kids in grades six, seven, and eight would have a shiny, new junior high school—in about another year.

  So where do you park Jack and about seven hundred other kids and all their teachers and textbooks and computers and printers and copiers and TVs and VCRs and art supplies, plus their library, for a whole school year?

  Simple. You put them in the old high school.

  Not simple. Not simple at all.

  The old high school was . . . well, it was old.

  The four-story brick building had been part of Huntington’s town center for more than seventy-five years. The broad front lawn was split by a wide sidewalk leading up to the front steps. High above the front steps, a square bell tower rose another thirty feet beyond the roofline. The bell tower was capped by a green copper dome with a weather vane on top—made in the shape of an open book.

  The old high school had been built back when fewer kids went on to college. It was Huntington’s monument to higher education. For generations graduation from Huntington High had been the goal line.

  But not for Jack and the other middle graders. For them it was going to be an educational stopover—sort of like a long field trip. It would be nothing more than a strange world they would pass through on their way to somewhere else.

  And from the second Jack heard about the move, he wished he could make the whole place just disappear.

  The news of the school changes had been mailed to every home in Huntington just before spring break during Jack’s fourth-grade year. His mom had read the letter aloud at supper one night.

  Someone at the school superintendent’s office thought it would be fun to give the transition process a cute name. The letter began like this:

  Dear Student:

  Are you and your friends and family ready for Huntington’s newest adventure in learning? Next year will be the year of

  THE BIG SWITCHEROO!

  Jack was not amused.

  After she finished the letter, his mom said, “Don’t you think it’s exciting, Jack? Those special tours in June should be fun. They want all the kids to feel comfortable, especially the fourth- and fifth-grade kids. . . . Of course, that’s not a problem for you, I mean with your dad working there and all.”

  Jack looked quickly at his dad across the dinner table. “Won’t you be going to work at the new high school, Dad? I mean, you’re the high school janitor, right?”

  Wiping his mouth, John Rankin smiled and said, “Nope. It doesn’t work that way. What I am is the janitor for a building. The high school and all the high school kids are moving, but the building stays—so I stay too. No one knows that building like I do. Unless the town decides to tear it down, that’ll be where I work.”

  Jack’s mom said, “I loved going to school in that old place. It’s got character, you know? And Jackie, if you don’t want to take the bus some mornings, you could ride to school in the pickup with your dad.”

  Looking down at the pile of peas on his plate, Jack thought, Yeah, right. Like I’m going to ride to school with the janitor.

  Jack knew he’d be on that bus every day, no matter what.

  Jack remembered the first time he had been asked about his future. It was second grade, and Miss Patton had a let’s-get-acquainted session on the first day of school. Jack liked Miss Patton. She wore the same kind of perfume that his grandmother wore, only a lot less. She was conducting a little public interview with each student. She asked questions like, Do you have any brothers or sisters? Do you have any pets? What’s your favorite food? Do you like sports? If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?

  The last question she asked was always, And what do you want to be when you grow up?

  The answers to that question had been all over the place.

  “I’m going to be a policeman.”

  “I want to be a doctor.”

  “I want to own a ranch and raise cows and chickens.”

  “I want to be a lawyer when I grow up.”

  “I’m going to be an astronaut and fly to Jupiter.”

  “I’m going to make computers.”

  Then it was Jack’s turn.

  Favorite color? Blue.

  Brothers or sisters? One little sister.

  Favorite food? Pizza.

  “And what do you want to be when you grow up, Jack?”

  There was no hesitation. Jack smiled with perfect second-grade certainty and he said, “I want to be a janitor, like my dad.”

  Before Miss Patton could say something like, “That’s great, Jack,” some kids in the class began to giggle. Raymond Hollis blurted out, “A janitor? That’s a job for dum-dums! Hey, Jack wants to grow up to be a dum-dum like his dum-dum daddy!”

  That got the whole class laughing. Miss Patton shushed them and said, “Raymond, that was not nice, and you owe Jack an apology. Being a janitor is a perfectly good job, and I’m sure Jack is very proud of his dad.”

  Jack was proud of his dad, and he loved him very much. But laughter from kids is more powerful than words from teachers. Raymond had to stand up and say, “I’m sorry, Jack,” but Jack could tell he didn’t mean it.

  Ever since that day in second grade, whenever the conversation turned toward parents and jobs, Jack clammed up.

  But as fifth grade approached, the topic was going to be unavoidable. All summer long, whenever Jack thought about school, he felt like he was trapped in a bad dream.

  Chapter 3

  L Is foR LoseR

  On his first day of fifth grade Jack had kept a lookout for his dad. He only saw him once,
across the crowded cafeteria, leaning on a push broom by the main doorway. He was wearing his usual work clothes—dark green pants and a matching shirt with his name stitched in red letters on a white patch above the pocket. His dad smiled and waved. Jack barely nodded, and then looked away. He ate his lunch in a hurry and left through the side hallway door.

  During the rest of September, Jack saw his dad once or twice a day. Usually they were both busy, both going somewhere in a hurry. It was like they lived in parallel universes. They passed through the same time and space without ever actually meeting. The arrangement suited Jack just fine.

  Then on Monday afternoon, the fifth of October, disaster struck.

  Jack was sitting in math class. Mrs. Lambert was reviewing how to add fractions with different denominators. Two seats away, in the front row, Lenny Trumbull’s stomach had a disagreement with the cafeteria ravioli. The ravioli won. Without warning, Lenny spread his lunch all over the green linoleum floor.

  Mrs. Lambert hurried Lenny down to the nurse’s office, and she sent Rick Arneson to get the janitor.

  To escape the smell and avoid the vomit-o-domino effect, the whole math class was crowded into the back of the room by the open windows. Jack had gotten there first and practically had his whole head out the farthest window. Fortunately for his sensitive nose, the airflow was coming into the room instead of out of it. The breeze was from the direction of downtown, and Jack could smell the fries and hamburgers cooking at the diner seven blocks away.

  Keeping his place by the window, Jack turned slightly and watched the doorway. There were always one or two other janitors in the building besides his dad. It didn’t have to be John. Rick could find someone else. It didn’t have to be John.

  But it was. Jack’s dad showed up with a bucket, a mop, a plastic bag of red sawdust, and a dustpan and brush. Jack cringed. He quickly ducked behind a knot of girls and turned to look out the window.

  The rest of the class watched the janitor with horrified fascination. First, John shook out a few cups of sawdust to soak up the liquid. After a minute he swept the whole soggy mess into the dustpan and took it right out into the hallway. Then he shot some ammonia over the damp spot from a sprayer he pulled from his belt, and then swabbed the entire area down with the fresh mop. The smell was completely gone.