PART THREE

Steve jerked Val's arm and made them both move out of the way of the giant rubber handball. One of the boys looked, "See that!"

"Yeah, I saw them! I been trying to hit em'."

"Hey, they're worth a fortune!"

"What's a fortune to we, or should I say me, who already has."

"Let's get em!"

Val and Steve jumped up the curb but Steve pulled her to the open door. A giant man, moved past them, too intent on the four boys to notice the two little people underfoot. After he left they moved on. Steve pulled her back. Val nudged his shoulder, "Let's go Steve, they're sure to tell him..."

"I want to know exactly what they'll tell him."

The four boys were trying to tell the man but he wasn't listening. "You four belong in Math! Now I find you four out here playing handball."

"But sir, it's true, I tell ya!"

"Little people, huh. Well, maybe."

"Uh oh," Steve whispered.

"And last week, it was UFO's, and yesterday, a stray pack of dogs."

Val whispers to Steve, "They were right about the dogs though. I saw them myself..."

"Sshhhh."

"It's just another excuse to get your attention...or to get my attention off punishing all four of you. Get inside and to the main office."

Val gasped, "Steve, they're coming this way."

They race inside the hall. "He must be on duty in this hall." Val brushed her hair back, "Looks all clear."

"Looks can be deceiving---but so what." Steve lead her into another hall.

Mark and Betty came out from another door. Betty rubbed the back of her ankle, "Oh Mark, we've looked and looked. Where can Barry be?"

"I don't know. I'm tired, too. We have two more rows to check. If he's not there, he's upstairs." They rested on the door framing before moving on.

Mrs. Osem walked down a hall and looked downward for signs of the little people. A young girl, passing her, gave her a funny look. Osem moved to a door and opened it. She asked a chunky secretary, "Is Mr. Henn in?"

"Oh yes, go on in."

Osem walked by the woman and into Henn's office, leaving the door to it open, "Mr. Henn?"

"That's Dr. Henn now. I just got my doctorate in the mail."

"Oh, congratulations and all that."

"Come in, Mrs. Osem," Henn said as he sat at his desk, eyeing his new degree.

Osem sat down in a chair facing him. "This is important, doctor."

"Oh yes, Mrs. Osem," Henn raised an eyebrow, "What is it now? Mice, rats, perhaps ants again, or maybe stray dogs..."

"What is now is LITTLE PEOPLE!"

"LITTLE PEOPLE!" He jumped up from behind his desk and realized how loud he was, "Shhh! Little people? Are you sure it wasn't a mouse?"

"Sure I'm sure. Two of them were in a hall. Trying to come into my class of all the nerve--during a discussion of the reproductive system through poetry."

"Maybe they wanted to show you...never mind. Very well. I'll take care of it."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes."

"I mean what will you do?"

"Don't worry," he came from behind his desk and escorted her up and out, "You may go now. Make sure you have a pass," he kidded her.

Osem scowled and marched out. Henn picked up a phone.

Fitzhugh and Dan tired, walked past the glass showcase of the library. Inside were all types of books. Fitzhugh said, "We searched every room up here."

Dan yawned, "Maybe he has an off-period in which case he'd be in the lunch room or the library." Dan walked into the open doors of the library, Fitzhugh right behind him.

A tall, slack shouldered, black haired, witch-looking woman with a long nose and a mole on it was putting books away on a shelf. Dan walked past her, under a desk to a counter shelf. Fitzhugh watched the woman from the leg of a stool. Dan looked in the room at various reading and writing students. The lady stepped on the stool and Fitzhugh watched her other foot.

Two noisy students--a boyfriend and a girlfriend--were whispering a fight they were having. The lady turned from the stool, came off it, and went over to them, "Quiet in this library or you'll be ejected. In other words--stifle."

Dan was near a leg of the chair nearest her. He ran out to a shelf and around it but the lady saw him. She towered over the other side of the shelf. Fitzhugh yelled, "Dan! Lookout, Dan!" The woman towered over Dan, reaching down with long arms and pointy, red polished fingernails. Dan ran fast, motivated by fear. The lady pushed a stack of books off the shelf top level. They landed behind the fleeing Dan! Dan ran to Fitzhugh and they both ran into the hall. The librarian followed them out into it.

Fitzhugh gasped, "We can't get down!"

"I know!" Dan said, looking back, "Keep moving!"

The giantess was growing in size to their point of view as she lumbered at them. Fitzhugh stopped running at a long metal slot in the tiled wall--one Dan had passed up. "Dan! Dan, come here!"

Dan ran to him as the giant woman approached, "What!"

"This must be some kind of mail chute--it goes downstairs, I think!"

"Get in it!" Dan pushed him into the sliding door opening just as a huge hand groped down at them. Dan saw it but he hopped in, just in time, sure he felt the hand brush past his jacket, actually touching him. Dan slid down a rectangular darkness, Fitzhugh just under him. Fitzhugh piled out first--into a lumpy pile of whiteness. Dan plunged after him and the first thing he did was pull a cobweb off his face. Dusty, thank goodness, no spiders. He had flown out of the wall slot and into a sack propped against the wall. They found they found themselves in a mess of massive letters.

A short, blonde haired teacher came into the office and looked at the secretary and said, "I'll just look for my letter. I forgot to stamp it."

Dan whispered, "Look for the one without a stamp!"

The blonde reached in and searched. Fitzhugh and Dan dove under the envelopes. Fitzhugh gasped, "We'll never find it!" He ducked as her hand passed overhead. The woman took the sack and turned it toward one side--it was too heavy to completely dump it onto the main office bench--Dan thanked goodness again for that. But he and Fitzhugh were rolled over as she dumped a pile of letters to the bench. "Here!" Fitzhugh saw it and for a moment, felt as if it would elude his grasp as it threatened to sink further down into t he sack. Odd that, his freedom relying on a piece of unstamped postage. He lunged and got his grip on it. "Dan!"

Dan grabbed the letter with Fitzhugh as he swam through white corners of envelopes. "Let go, Fitz." As Alex listened, Dan hurled the letter upward.

The woman, beginning a look in, was almost hit by it as it shot up out of the sack. "How odd." She said, her nose pointing up, "It must have fallen." She picked it up. Remaining still, Fitzhugh and Dan listened.

Dan puffed, "We have to get out of this."

"Sure we do but how?"

"Open one of these," Dan grabbed a letter envelope while Fitzhugh held it. He tried to pry it open as gently as he could without letting it be obvious that it was torn open.

A giant mail carrier suddenly appeared at the opening above them, towering. He started to remove the letters and put them in his knapsack. He turned to see a flurry of letters sitting on the bench, the blonde lady passing him by. The older-looking man took some of the letters off the bench and felt them, "Some of these letters are heavy enough to have more postage and handling charges on them--I should take them all out and weigh them." He tossed it into the knapsack and it landed on top the envelope Fitzhugh and Dan were in and its weight dropped their heads a bit. They were beneath the letter in the envelope that Dan pried open. More rained in on them. Dan and Fitzhugh felt a tilting motion as the man put the knapsack over his shoulder. The mailman headed for the exit door upon leaving the main office.

A voice stopped him, "Could you take this, Joe?"

It was the blonde teacher. "Oh sure," Joe said and took off his knapsack, causing that swinging motion again. He walked to her, "I'll get it."

"Out!" Dan opened the seal he had been holding shut and the stickem glue almost kept them prisoner but it gave.

"Out?"

"Now!" Dan prodded.

Fitzhugh followed him out of the letter envelope and into the sack which opened out onto the floor.

The lady looked her nose up at Joe, "I just put a stamp on it."

"Fine, no problem," Joe smiled. He took the letter.

"Thanks," the woman, snooty, walked off. Dan and Fitzhugh fall out of the sack, whose opening didn't quite reach the floor.

Joe whistled, happy, and he walked back to his fallen sack. Around a corner, terribly close, Dan and Fitzhugh remained very still.

Phil stood up from his seat and walked up to Mr. Jerad, "Can I have a bathroom pass?"

"For?"

"For? For taking a sh...for going to the bathroom. What else?"

Barry, in the cigarette box in the pocket of the rock shirt, frowned, "Nice guy."

"Can't you wait until the end of the period."

"No, you see, I...I have this kidney thing...and..."

"Here," Jerad writes out a pass quickly and in anger, "Here. Go."

Phil walked out into the hallway and looked in at Barry, "You safe, little pal?"

"Yes but what are you going to do with me? Turn me in to the SID?"

"SID? No, I dislike them as much as you do. They're always pushing around us little guys. Uhh--sorry, no offense but we're the same really. No power against the establishment."

"Oh come on. Is that why you smoke this?"

"Well, that just sort of happened. You know heading for life without a goal isn't easy. Problems, problems."

Barry shook his head, "So this junk helps you forget them--for awhile the problems go away. Is that it?"

"At first, it was but you see, I became what Inspector Kobick would call--addicted and not just to that. I need stronger...medicine."

"Is that why you faked wanting to go to the bathroom?"

"No, we're going." Phil walked down the hall and into the bathroom.

Inside, were two younger looking boys, one with very long black hair, a denim jacket, and hole filled dungarees. "Phil, we thought you wouldn't show."

"Me, Cohen, not show?"

The other boy, a stout red head, spouted, "The money? Do you have the money?"

"I have something better than money." He took out the box and dumped Barry out into his other hand. Cohen and Farley stared at him.

"This changes things, Phil, man."

"Yeah, we can't get mixed up with little people."

Barry, filled with anger at all three, sat down in Phil's hand. It's hard to look dignified that way but it was safest. "This changes nothing!"

"I don't know."

"Just give me what I need."

"We...we have to consult him."

"Why? Look, you can turn him in, get a big reward---more money than you could charge."

"But Kobick's cracking down on us. Just last period he took in some our customers."

"Don't be afraid of him. Why, you could even blame the drugs on the little people. SID will fall for that."

"You just want the new drugs."

"After gym class we'll let you know."

"Fair enough," Phil smiled.

The two boys strutted out. Barry stood up, "How can you do that? You're a heel, you know that!"

Phil dropped him into the box, "I don't want to, Barry, but I have to think of me first."

"Yeah, well, my friends don't think of themselves first. I bet they're trying to find me right now."

"More of you?"

Barry winced. He blew it.

Betty and Mark met Dan and Fitzhugh. Betty touched Dan's arm, "Any luck with Barry?"

Dan shook his head, "No, how bout you two?"

"Same," she answered in a defeated voice. Mark snorted.

"Well, let us sincerely hope Steve and Valerie are having better luck than we," Fitzhugh said.

Walking with Steve from a door, Valerie said, "We're not having any luck at all."

"I know," Steve said lowly. He lead her to a series of four open doors and they hid behind a small, lite-colored tan frame. Students came in and out of the doors.

Val smelled what must have been the cafeteria, "Reminds me of the food when I was in high school."

"You were in high school?"

"Even in the rich neighborhoods, school food really stunk." Val looked around, "Busy area." She peeked into the lunch room and saw teens eating.

"See him?"

"No, not from here. Do we go in?"

"No way," Steve winced as a boy passed, "Like you said--too busy."

"What then?"

"Hide!"

"That's what we do to find Barry?" Val looked at him. He pulled her to a small partition divider between the doors as a gang of teens came too close to the place they were at. This gang was of girl and guys who thought of themselves as cool. They walked in a slow moving fashion, strutting and moving their shoulders. Steve looked up, "They're too...too cool for me." He motioned to Val, "I wish we could find the others. Among us we could find and rescue Barry."

"But by now, between us, we should have found him already." She rested her back on the divider.

"You're forgetting, the classes change every forty five minutes."

"We'll never find him then. It's like a constantly changing jigsaw puzzle--the giant who has Barry may even have cut class."

"And risk getting caught with a little person? I doubt it."

"Well, let's pick a hallway then," she removed herself from the short rest. A giant girl walked by. "We can't stay here, Steve." Steve took Val's hand and they both ran.

Dan, Fitzhugh, Betty, and Mark stopped at a row of giant lockers. "We'd better take cover--maybe in one of these lockers."

"The bell's going to ring soon," Betty looked at her watch.

Dan smiled, "That's what I mean. Come on." They started to climb the vents in the lockers but the bell rang out. "No time! Drain!" Dan jumped down as the sounds of people filled the hallway. The four of them ran. Doors opened up from both sides of the hall, depositing Giants from every direction. Dan ran to the drain and turned to Mark and Betty, "Fitzhugh? Where's Fitzhugh?"

"Oh, he's right..." Betty looked over her shoulder, "...behind..." He was gone.

"Fitz!" Dan yelled. A crowd of giants came down the hall.

Mark pulled Dan back, "No good, Dan!" He pulled Dan and a panicked Betty into the drain as huge feet stomped at them. Dan looked out. No one had seen them so he was safe. But another wasn't. "Fitzhugh?"

Steve and Valerie ran past a step. Unaware giants passed them, stomping feet up and down. Steve pointed, shrugging to Valerie. They ran to an empty popcorn box which was lying on the floor. A giant girl walked by as they run to its interior. She accidently kicked it. "Ohhh!" She had braids, braces, and glasses. "Litterbugs! Locker cleanup means hall dirtying!"

She picked up the box, which launched Valerie toward the opening! Steve pulled Val's arm and grabbed her back to him. The giant girl tossed the box through the air. The pair of them fall. The pop-corn box landed in a large round pail-a drum shaped one. Here, teens had emptied out their locker garbage. Some were still throwing garbage in it. Steve and Val were sent up as the popcorn box landed on a pile of paper garbage. The giant girl walked away, content she had done her part. Steve motioned for Val to help him push on the box and together they tilted it on its side so they could look out the ridged opening.

Val peered out, "Where are we now?" They moved closer toward the opening of the box which was now on its side.

"Looks like a...ahh...a garbage drum. See any way down?" "Nope."

The bell rang again as the kids slowly finished. They began to empty the hall, none in too much of a hurry. As they left, a giant in dirty overalls came up to the can and picked it up. He put it on a wheeled cart. Steve and Val fell back into the box as it turned right side up again, tilting so that the hole was above them. Steve managed to climb up the side which slanted a bit. "Janitor."

"Where's he taking us?"

"I don't know. Just hold on." Steve waved at her. The custodian stopped at two more drums and put them on the cart also. He wheeled the cart down a hallway. The man passed Phil, who walked to a locker. At another locker, Fitzhugh stared up at Phil.

Cohen came up to Phil, "You going to gym?"

"Yeah, what's the word on the little people?"

"I'll tell ya in gym. C'mon, you're making us late."

"Go on, then. I'll meet you there." Cohen started to walk off as Phil rummaged through his locker. "What a mess. I should've cleaned this."

Another boy came up to Phil, "You're late, you know, Phil."

"I know, I know."

"Just telling you," the boy hurried past.

Phil calls, "Oh, Edar, wait!" He took out a pair of purple shorts, "Your gym shorts I borrowed. Here." He walked down the hall to catch up to Edar. Fitzhugh, waiting on the other side of the lockers saw his chance. He dashed under the open locker door and jumped up into it. As Phil returned, Fitzhugh opened a lunch bag and climbed in. "Now I am going to be late."

Phil grabbed his lunch bag and shut the door. Fitzhugh began to rock inside. He sat down on a wrapped up sandwich. He thought how much this reminded him of the time he was trapped in another lunch bag--one taken by two boys and later by a giant monkey.

Phil ran to a green double doors and in. He hurried to his gym locker and opened it. It was a small square locker not too far from the floor. Fitzhugh fought back nausea as the swinging motion came to an end. He figured all this time in the land of the giants, he'd be used to it by now. He sat in the dark of the locker for some time until he recalled his flashlight was still attached to his belt. It would come in handy.

The custodian wheeled the cart into a boiler room. Val looked over the side of the can, "What's he doing?"

"I can't see him," Steve joined her. They had climbed out of the popcorn box.

The man opened two wall doors to a furnace. Fire started to build up inside. He took a can off the cart and started to dump its contents into the fire.

Val whispered, "Sounds like fire."

"Or... a furnace!" Steve guessed.

Something took hold of the can. They both fall onto the papers. Val yelled, "He's got us!"

The giant took their can to the furnace and tipped it. Val and Steve could see the fire at the brim of the opening. Their faces began to sweat and the wondered if it was from the intense heat or the fact that they were facing their death. "Down!" Steve pulled her. Trash fell out into the fire. The giant picked it up some more. Steve and Val climbed down through paper--which was falling out the other end as the can tipped. The janitor emptied the can. All the garbage was out and in the fire. On the bottom of the can was a rusty hole. The giant needed rest and he tipped the can back down toward the floor. As he did, Val crawled out of it, followed by Steve. They ran to a giant mop, which leaned against a wall.

Val gasped, "How did you know there was a hole at the bottom of the can?"

"I didn't."

"You..." she gulped.

Steve shrugged, passing off her accusing face, "There was no where else to go."

"He didn't even see us," Val said bravely.

"Well, he has now!" Steve looked up as the giant towered over them.

"Two of you! That will enable me to retire right now!"

"Retire? I think you should!" Steve grabbed the wooden handle on the mop and leaned his whole body on it. The top of the stick bumped the janitor on the head as he bent over to grab them. "Come on! Run! Run!" Val needed no pushing. They both ran out as the man regained his senses.

Fitzhugh finished eating some bread and a piece of apple he had cut out with a pocket knife. He swallowed, "Oh boy, that was good." He was enjoying this immensely. He started to put the knife away in his pocket when he realized who owned the knife. "Barry." He suddenly remembered why he was here. He opened the lunch bag and climbed out inside a dark locker, which was stuffed with Phil's baggy clothes. A dim light snuck into the locker and Fitzhugh shut his flashlight. He knew this natural light was a way out. He put his pudgy body through a small vent from which the light was coming in. He put his feet in first but he soon became caught around the stomach area. Fitzhugh pushed his hands against the vent and shoved with all his might. This made him come loose and he fell--and fell. It was a larger drop than he anticipated. He fell on his shoulder and rolled over in pain. Fitzhugh felt he was about to pass out.