The Pod

Turning the corner into the main hallway, I notice Mrs. Goodall stalking my way and calling out, “Donny get over here right now.”

I instantly begin to worry, because if she has uncovered Operation Exposé then six months of hard scheming is about to go down the drain. Mrs. Goodall is one of those teachers who is tough but fair, and always treats you good unless you go and do something silly like try and mess with her yearbook. Which Operation Exposé would easily over qualify for.

“Where is your buddy Grimey at this period,” she asks, “and don’t tell me in class because I know all about you two’s ‘alternate’ schedule.”

Now, I begin to worry, while the yearbook plot may still be classified, there is something even bigger that may be at stake. You see, at our middle school, the last two periods of the day are called Selective Time and are used for students to take a band class, sing in the choir, be a member of East Lab, or have study hall in your homeroom. Grimey and I figured that this schedule didn’t really work for the talents we wanted to develop.

Grimey’s future lies somewhere as the lead guitarist of a rock band and that requires as much jam time as possible. He figured those two periods would be, as he called it, “…a colossal waste of time doing anything but rifting out some licks.” So, after a little creative paperwork from the Office of Band Direction (Grimey’s invented organization) to the middle school office, and my offer to give up part of my workshop, Grimey was now “Climbing the Stairway to Heaven” every school day.

My pursuits during these last two free periods would be characterized as either uncovering vast conspiracies (teachers are trying to control our minds through intricate subconscious patterns on bubble answer sheets) or trying to replicate awesome gadgets from all of the books I have read. So far I have managed to make Alex Rider’s Nintendo DS game that turns into a smoke bomb, but Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility is still eluding my creative prowess.

How did I manage this sweet setup you may wonder? It is amazing the power of creative paperwork. Mine involved a little note from the Assistant Deputy Vice Transportation Manager to my homeroom teacher explaining that I was selected as an intern at the middle school old abandoned bus shop. In hindsight, including the word abandoned in the note wasn’t a good idea, because it made for some necessary excuse-fabrication.

The old bus shop had fallen out of use years ago when our school built a new transportation center on the other side of campus. Since that time the building was used for primarily storage of old furniture, unused classroom items, and end-of-year unclaimed lost and found items. It suits our purposes, and makes the perfect studio and laboratory where we won’t be disturbed. Grimey soundproofed the walls with three years worth of left-behind winter coats. An interesting side fact is that an average of 176 coats are left unclaimed each year (I have a conspiracy theory about this). Also, the sign we put on the door is a good deterrent- DANGER: FREE-FLOWING ASBESTOS HAZARD / ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL. The written consent part was Grimey’s idea, he thought it was funny and said people would quit reading the sign anyway when they saw the word asbestos.

“Well?” Mrs. Goodall said, tapping her fingers on a piece of paper rolled in her hand.

“Umm, I believe he is taking a math test,” I fumbled.

Mrs. Goodall smirked and winked and said, “Why don’t you run out to your little clubhouse, and both of you meet me in my room in about five minutes, I have a job uniquely qualified for you two.”

Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds later, long enough to work on possible scenarios and contingencies for them, we casually strolled into Mrs. Goodall’s empty science classroom.

“Boys, let me cut to the chase,” she started, “as with most things around this place, when you want something done you have to do it yourself or in this case find students to do it for you.”

We were worried as to where this was heading, but knowing Mrs. Goodall somehow knew of our selective time activities, we knew we had to listen and bide our time. If what she needed us to do was too bad, we would enact “Plan Q” as our ace in the hole. “Plan Q” was our measure of last resort. Grimey got nervous anytime I mentioned “Q” because he said he was certain that it broke at least 6 school rules, a federal statute, and was possibly a violation of one of Newton’s Laws.

Mrs. Goodall continued, “As you may or may not know, I am running the school’s cereal drive again this year, and I have a problem.”

We were well aware of the cereal drive because the teacher whose homeroom brought in the most cereal boxes would be the unfortunate recipient of a pie in the face. We had been working an angle to ensure that Mr. Jewell, aka Mr. Jowls, would be the winner of the aforementioned prize.

“I had the Pod that holds the cereal stockpile for me delivered, and when I opened it…” she shivered as she spoke. “There are at least five enormous red wasp nests inside of it. If there is one thing that I hate more than someone messing with my yearbook, it is a wasp.”

Mrs. Goodall then proceeded with a ten minute story of how, as a young girl, she was chased for two miles by a group of wasps and had to jump into a pond to escape- except that the pond wasn’t a normal pond… it was a sewer pond. After telling this part of the story, her eyes glazed over until Grimey snapped his fingers to bring her back to us.

She went on to say she had submitted something called a work order in order to have the problem taken care of, but since it wasn’t an energy saving issue, the estimated date to fix it was about two weeks away. That didn’t work for her, because she had to get 389 boxes out of her room. We were her only hope.

At the same time we both told her, “Challenge accepted.”

Step one, we decided, was to reconnoiter the situation. Mrs. Goodall wrote us a pass to keep any teachers off our backs as we carried out what we dubbed as “Operation Pod Strike”. I wanted to somehow work in Death Star into the operation name, but Grimey said he couldn’t take any more Star Wars references this week, maybe this month.

After cranking up the door, we estimated the enemy strength to be about 450 with six nests instead of the five Mrs. Goodall thought. Heading into the workshop to devise a plan, I told Grimey we would probably only get one shot at this without facing a retaliation strike by the reds. Grimey grabbed his guitar and broke into a little Ozzy’s “Crazy Train”. His playing always helped us focus on some ideas. Some ideas in our brainstorming session invariably seem a little off the chart, but we like to get everything down.

Wasp spray- none on hand

Play Celine Dion music to make them drop dead- who owns anything like that

Burn down the Pod- maybe a little extreme

Ice machine to freeze everything inside the Pod- machine is still about sixteen years down the road in development

Electromagnetic pulse- may not be applicable

“Plan Q”- just wanted to see Grimey squirm

Send in Mr. Jowls- he was an Army Master Chief, he must have trained for this

Smoke- this may work on bees only

Flamethrower- the coolest but may lead back to number 3

Peanut butter- trap them and then dispose

We decided to go with the peanut butter since we had four cases of it sitting around in the back. We had thirty minutes before school was out for the day. After rolling up the door, and spending the next 28 minutes smearing peanut butter all over the floor (in slow motion so as not to rile up the reds), we locked the Pod back up.

I could hardly concentrate in class the next day, so Grimey had the brilliant idea to go check it out during our lunch period. We still had the note from Mrs. Goodall to cover for us if we got stopped.

Approaching the Pod it seemed quiet, too quiet. Grimey slid the lock over, I grabbed the handle, flung the door up, and we both jumped back. Casting a glance into the Pod, our jaws dropped and the high fives flew. Sitting trapped inside the peanut butter was our enemy. Not only had the extra fortified peanut butter trapped the wasps, but it had somehow killed them all. Grimey thinks they ate themselves to death. Without milk to wash down the peanut butter, it lodged itself in their throats and cut off their airways. Grimey is pretty smart about things like this. I tell him if wasn’t going to be a rocker, he has great potential as a scientist. He could go by a cool name like Dr. G.

We shoveled out the peanut butter and reported our success to Mrs. Goodall. She was very pleased with the outcome. So pleased in fact, that she said she might let Operation Exposé slide.

Where she gets her info I don’t know, but one day if we have a reckoning with her, it will be “Plan Q” for sure.