Beware the Fisj Read Online Free Page B

Jim … Thank you. Good-bye.”
    He replaced the receiver with a look of satisfaction on his face. It had taken Bruno Walton and Melvin O’Neal to get him back into harness, but at least now he was fighting back.
    * * *
    In room 201 the Pacific salmon smiled down on industrious activity. Elmer Drimsdale’s head was buried deep inside the black box containing his PIT system. He was tinkering happily while humming a Bach fugue.
    Bruno and Boots sat cross-legged on the floor. Between them was Boots’s duffle bag, filled to overflowing with small pieces of paper.
    “Here’s something,” said Boots. “
Let them close the place up so we can all go home and get a square meal
. It’s signed Anonymous.”
    “You know, I’m a little disappointed in all this,” said Bruno. “A lot of the guys don’t seem to have understood what we wanted. Look at these suggestions —
rob a bank, get caught and get your name in the paper; commit a murder
, same notation. What’s the matter with these idiots?”
    Boots laughed. “Here’s one from Sidney Rampulsky. It says,
Discover gold on the campus
.”
    “Ha!” said Bruno. “I wish we could. Here’s two more
rob a bank
, for goodness’ sake!” He shuffled through several others. “Hey! Now here’s something! Marvin Trimble says we should fake an ancient Indian burial ground. Then the government will declare the site a national monument and they’ll never allow anything to be built here, so the school will stay.”
    “Bruno, are you crazy?” Boots exclaimed. “We can’t do that. Where would we get ancient relics?”
    “An arrow is an arrow,” shrugged Bruno.
    “Not when it’s plastic and says
Made in Japan
!”
    “So we’ll make a few in shop,” argued Bruno, “and we’ll stomp on them a bit so they’ll look old.”
    “They won’t be ancient enough,” insisted Boots. “Those archeologist guys have ways of finding out how old things like that are. They’re not just going to take a quick look and say, ‘Great heavens! Arrows!’ and then put up a national monument. They’re going to check to see if the stuff is real — which it won’t be. And then we’ll be in trouble again.”
    “I guess you’re right,” conceded Bruno. “What a stupid guy that Marvin Trimble is! Do you see anything else in this mess?”
    Boots nodded. “Rob Adams says someone should make a great discovery, like a cure for a terrible disease. Just like that!”
    “That’s Elmer’s department,” laughed Bruno. “Hey, Elm, as soon as you’re finished with that TV thing would you mind discovering a cure for some dread disease?”
    Elmer’s head emerged from the black box. “Oh,” he said seriously, “as a matter of fact I’m working on a cure for the common cold right now.”
    “I thought you were working on that broadcasting thing,” said Boots.
    “I am,” replied Elmer. “I am currently involved in seventeen different projects — or is it eighteen? I don’t remember.” His head disappeared again.
    Boots cast Bruno a look of pure wonder. “Does he ever finish anything? Is he ever successful?”
    Bruno shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “At last!” cried Elmer. “It’s completed!” He leapt to his feet and gazed earnestly at Bruno and Boots. “Would you mind helping me set it up to test it?”
    “Sure,” said Bruno.
    He and Boots picked themselves up off the floor and watched in amazement as Elmer began gathering equipment from every corner of the room, under the beds and in the closet. They spent the next hour fetching, carrying and holding electronic gear for the eccentric genius as he set up his new invention.
    When it was all done, several yards of wire and cable snaked across the walls and under the furniture to Elmer’s PIT system. On top of the box sat an enormous jumble of circuits, tubes and resistors, and a condenser microphone, all attached to a camera turret. The lens was pointed directly at Elmer’s Pacific salmon poster. On the back of the