“I’ve been calling him Stealy O’Stupidface, but Rainbow Specter works, too.”

  “Do you know where it went?” Bryce asked.

  “I sure do,” she said as she grabbed Bryce’s hand. “Follow me.”

  Then she led him down the hall to the gym. When she opened the doors, they were confronted by countless fish sticks piled on the gym floor. The fish sticks formed a mountain in the middle of the gym. Atop that mountain, with its colorful skin undulating, was the Rainbow Specter. It didn’t seem to notice them.

  “The monster took over the school before I got here,” Riley whispered. “And it’s been grabbing all the fish sticks it can, though I’m not sure why.”

  “Maybe it has a laser nose,” Bryce whispered back.

  Riley’s eyes narrowed “That’s a . . . possibility. The reason doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that it stole our fish sticks and if we want to get out of here, we have to get them back.”

  “But there are so many fish sticks,” Bryce said. “How will we know which ones are ours?”

  “Well, mine is already half-eaten, so that helps. What about yours?”

  “I haven’t even licked this one yet.”

  “Well, then you’re gonna have to start licking as many as possible.”

  “Licking as many as possible? Like . . . with my tongue?”

  “I know. Sounds amazing, right? But there’s a problem. If you try to touch any of them, the monster will come after you. I haven’t been able to distract it at all. Maybe you have an idea?”

  Bryce thought for a moment. He hadn’t thought about distractions since Vice Principal Meehan had accused him of being one. But back then, distractions were considered a bad thing, something to hide away in the drab plastic container at the back of his brain. But now . . .

  “I have an idea,” Bryce said. “A good one.”

  “O-kay?” Riley said, waiting for him to elaborate.

  “Okay,” Bryce replied, not elaborating.

  “Well, come on, tell me your good idea,” Riley said. But she said it so loud that the Rainbow Specter finally heard them. It turned its fiery eyes toward them.

  “Oh yeah,” Bryce whispered. “That’d be helpful, huh? It’s simple. We just have to make it fall in love.”

  “Oh . . . yeah . . . simple.”

  “Of course, we’re gonna need to sneak into the equipment room,” Bryce whispered. “Which is on the other side of Mount Fishy.”

  “The equipment room? To make it fall in love?”

  “Obviously. But how are we going to get there?”

  Riley looked up at the ceiling as she patted a hand on her Ping-Pong ball costume, and she said, “Now I have an idea.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  THE LOVE SONG OF THE RAINBOW SPECTER

  A few minutes later, Bryce and Riley were crawling through the heating ducts, climbing above the gym toward the equipment room.

  “Just so you know, this was not the best idea and I would not recommend this idea, especially to impressionable children,” Riley said. “It’s very dangerous.”

  “Agreed,” Bryce said, as he peered through a vent. “But we don’t have to do it for much longer, because I think we’re here.”

  They soon had the vent open and were climbing down into the dark equipment room. After Bryce tripped over a Hula-Hoop and Riley crashed into a pommel horse, they found the light switch and lit up the room.

  “There,” Bryce said, pointing to a rainbow-colored mound in the corner. “I’m so glad it exists in this universe, too.”

  It was the giant parachute that the gym teacher, Mr. Trundle, brought out on parachute days.

  Riley was starting to figure things out. “Oh. Okay.”

  “Remember the lyrics to ‘Weird New Place’?”

  “Of course. It’s the Screamin’ Beagles’ best song.”

  “Okay, let’s do this,” Bryce said, as he lifted the rainbow parachute over their heads, like a sheet over a ghost.

  Bryce and Riley both stayed hidden beneath the parachute when they exited the equipment room and entered the gym. The Rainbow Specter didn’t see them at first. But it certainly heard them. Because they were singing the last verse to “Weird New Place” as loud as they could.

  I don’t need to go out and roam,

  I don’t even need to leave my home,

  Right now we can end this chase

  If you join me in this weird new place.

  Upon hearing the singing, the Rainbow Specter turned, and it made a sound. Not a human sound, but it was a happy sound nonetheless. Bryce thought it sounded like a dolphin playing a didgeridoo, if you can imagine such a thing. (And if you can, please tell us what that sounds like, because we can’t imagine it.)

  The Rainbow Specter floated down from the mountain toward them, undulating and making that inhuman and happy sound. It was so loud that it caused a disturbance in Mount Fishy.

  There was a rumble.

  There was a quake.

  And Riley could sense what was happening.

  She grabbed Bryce by the wrist and pulled him to the door. The whole mountain collapsed with a thunderous boom as they rushed into the hall. But this didn’t slow the Rainbow Specter. It was still hot on their heels.

  “Just keep singing!” Bryce shouted as they sped up.

  They had poked a few holes in the parachute so they could see out, and together they ran toward the Dungeon, singing the chorus.

  Weird new place

  Weirder than outer space . . .

  Chapter Thirty

  INTERDIMENSIONAL

  “The Dungeon isn’t secure,” Riley said as they bumbled down the stairs, trying to see through the eye holes. “That’s where the Rainbow Specter first ambushed me. We can’t lock it in there.”

  “We’re not locking it in there,” Bryce said. “If the Dungeon is like the Dungeon in my universe, then it’s interdimensional.”

  “How so?”

  “You’ll see. I hope.”

  When they broke through the door, she did see. The answer was written in graffiti on one of the toilet stalls.

  “Oh, right!” she exclaimed. “Okay, let’s get in the stall. It’ll be here soon.”

  They scrambled into a toilet stall and climbed up the back, pressing their bodies against the wall. They started singing again to coax the lovesick Rainbow Specter inside.

  Weird new place!

  Makin’ my bloodstream race!

  Almost immediately, the Rainbow Specter appeared in the doorway of the stall, emitting that strange sound. It inched closer to them.

  Bryce slipped a hand out from under the parachute and grabbed the top edge of the toilet stall. Riley did the same thing.

  Weird new place!

  Puts me in a state of grace!

  The Rainbow Specter started to climb onto the toilet bowl, and the strange sound became faster and more excited. Bryce and Riley pressed their bodies flat against the wall, so that it couldn’t touch them. And Bryce eased his foot toward the toilet handle, as they sang the last line of the song.

  Ain’t nowhere else I’d rather be

  than a . . .

  He pushed down on the handle with his foot, and as the toilet started to flush, they shouted the final words.

  Weird! New! Place!

  The flushing got more intense. The toilet roared and the Rainbow Specter screamed, which sounded like a hyena playing the bagpipes.

  It had a good reason to scream. Because it was being sucked into the toilet!

  So too was the rainbow parachute. And Bryce and Riley would’ve been sucked in as well, if they hadn’t been holding so tightly onto the stall. The suction was even more powerful than the tuxedoed tornadoes.

  But after a few seconds, the flushing stopped.

  Everything was quiet and still.

  And the Rainbow Specter and the rainbow parachute were both gone.

  Bryce and Riley didn’t say a word. They simply climbed down off the toilet tank, stepped out and stood next to the sinks. They turned to the stall and both marveled at the graffiti.

  Flush The Toilet + U Will B Sucked into the Burrito Dimension!

  “Hope the Rainbow Specter likes wearing tortilla underpants as much as it likes stealing fish sticks,” Bryce said.

  “And I hope you like licking fish sticks as much as I do,” Riley said. “Because it’s time to start licking fish sticks, my friend.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  THE GREAT FISH STICK LICK

  And that’s exactly what happened. Fish stick licking.

  Bryce and Riley returned to the cafetorium, opened the door, confronted a solid wall of fish sticks and devised a plan.

  Bryce would lick a fish stick and when it didn’t send him to another universe, he would hand it to Riley. If Riley was hungry, she would eat it. If not, she would place it in a cooler so she could eat it later.

  Gross? Yes. Wasteful? No.

  Lick, Pass, Chomp. Lick, Pass, Chomp. Lick, Pass, Save.

  You get the idea.

  If Bryce found a half-eaten fish stick in the mix (there were only a few of those), Riley would lick it and see if it was her fish stick.

  This kept them busy for over three weeks. Bryce spent twelve hours a day licking fish sticks, at an average rate of one fish stick every two seconds. At night they slept on gym mats in the equipment closet.

  Of course, they had plenty of time to talk. And both of them liked to talk. Riley told Bryce about her universe and her adventures beyond it. He told her about his universe and how he ended up in this particular universe.

  “It’s strange,” Riley commented at one point. “Why were you wearing the Skittle costume again?”

  “Because it was Halloween in my universe, and I wanted to express myself,” Bryce said.

  “But gummy bears are your favorite candy, right? Skittles, on the other hand, are Keisha’s favorite candy. I wonder what that means?”

  “Huh,” Bryce said, because he hadn’t thought that through entirely.

  “Are you friends with Keisha in your universe?”

  “Sorta. Or not really. I mean, I know her. I . . . want to be her friend. But the only things she talks to me about are homework . . . and Locker 37.”

  “I see. Do you think that’s why you dressed as a Skittle? For her attention?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “And do you think her attention is worth you getting in trouble with your vice principal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And what about wearing costumes on Halloween? Is that something that’s still important to you?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Well, then I guess you have a lot to think about until you find your fish stick,” Riley told him.

  “I guess so,” Bryce replied.

  And so Bryce thought. And licked. And thought. He did this for a while, in silence, as Riley either ate or stored the non-interdimensional fish sticks in her cooler.

  Bryce considered his original list of conditions for an ideal universe. It had grown to six conditions, but he eventually revised it and settled on that single last condition: Must Feel Right. It was starting to become clear that it was the only thing that mattered.

  Bryce thought about costumes. And vice principals. And himself. He thought about friends and school and music. He thought about Keisha, and the different versions of her he had met, and how they were all familiar, but none of them felt like the true Keisha. He went through his basket of weird thoughts, and his basket of nice thoughts, and even that drab plastic container full of thoughts he preferred not to think about.

  Surprisingly, there were some thoughts about Keisha in that container, too. They weren’t bad thoughts. They were about how Bryce liked her more than anyone else at school, in a way he was never fully comfortable with. Until now.

  Now he was ready to think about those thoughts. And he thought about them and thought and thought and then . . .

  He picked up a fish stick that looked a little different from the rest.

  It was a little battered (pun intended). It had what appeared to be monkey fur on it. Also cartoon rabbit fur. It was, quite frankly, disgusting. But Bryce had the impulse to eat the whole darn thing in one bite. So that’s what he did.

  Gulp.

  The world went blurry. But this time it was a different, interdimensional blurry, where all the universes Bryce had visited folded in on themselves and flashed before his eyes in an instant.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  AN UNNECESSARILY LONG CHAPTER ABOUT GEOMETRY . . . AND FISH STICKS

  You probably have a lot of questions. Perhaps many of them are related to the burrito dimension. Now is neither the time nor the place to answer them, mainly because the publisher said this book can’t exceed a certain page count or else it will cost too much. That’s a real bummer, because there’s a very good story we’d love to share about a young Sammy Rao, an interdimensional Riley, and a Sharpie.

  Oh well. At least we can answer a far more important question. And that question is this: Exactly how many fish sticks did Bryce have to lick?

  The answer: About one out of every eleven fish sticks in the cafetorium.

  And how many fish sticks is that?

  To figure that out, it helps to know how to calculate the volume of three-dimensional objects.

  And how would someone know that?

  Well, by going to school and paying attention, and—

  You know what? Just listen.

  In most universes, a calculation like this wouldn’t be exact. Because in most universes fish sticks do not stack perfectly like a series of bricks lined end-to-end. But the universe of the Rainbow Specter was not most universes. The fish sticks did stack perfectly there. When Mount Fishy crumbled, all the fish sticks lined up, side-to-side, end-to-end, and top-to-bottom. There were no cracks or open spaces between them. It was as if the cafetorium became instantly paved with a solid layer of fish sticks.

  That’s helpful for us, because we can figure out exactly how many fish sticks were in the cafetorium, using the formula for volume of a rectangular prism. Volume is a fancy way of saying how much stuff fits inside other stuff. And a rectangular prism is a fancy way of saying a cube or box with rectangular sides.

  Okay, let’s start with the cafetorium. If you’ve ever looked at the blueprints of Hopewell Elementary (we have), then you know the cafetorium was 50 feet long and 40 feet wide. Multiply those two numbers to get the area of the floor, which is 2,000 square feet.

  What is a square foot?

  Well, simply picture a floor tile that is 1 foot long and 1 foot wide. Or better yet, picture the sleeve for an album. You know, the cover for a record? An LP? The vinyl discs you spin on a turntable for analog music at its scratchy best?

  1 foot length x 1 foot width

  Before your time, huh? Okay, fine. Go back to the floor tile.

  Now picture 2,000 of those tiles covering the floor.

  Of course, measuring area and square feet only helps for two-dimensional things. We need to take this equation all the way to the . . . third dimension! That’s right. We must add height to figure out the volume. Because volume equals LENGTH times WIDTH times HEIGHT.

  Length x Width x Height

  The stack of fish sticks reached 3 feet from the ground. So if we multiply those 3 feet by the 2,000 square feet, we get 6,000 cubic feet. Cubic feet are like square feet, but they’re measured in cubes that are 1 foot long, 1 foot high, and 1 foot wide.

  Think of a cardboard box with 12-inch sides (after all, there are 12 inches in 1 foot). Or maybe think of a milk crate. You know, the type that milkmen use when they deliver milk to your doorstep? You know, the milk in the glass bottles with cream on top and . . .

  Each side is 12 inches

  Not ringing a bell? Jeez. We get it. You’re young and cool and don’t care about the history of the mid-twentieth-century dairy industry. It’s quite alright. We’re not offended. We’ll just stick with the boring old cardboard box and inform you that 6,000 of those boring old boxes is the volume we need to completely fill the bottom three feet of the cafetorium.

  Now, to figure out how many fish sticks will fit in 6,000 cubic feet, we next have to figure out the volume of the fish sticks, or how many cubic feet each fish stick takes up. So we will multiply their length (4 inches), their width (1 inch), and their height/thickness (1/2 inch). That gives us 2 cubic . . .

  length x width x height = volume

  4" x 1" x ½" = 2 in3

  Inches. Not surprisingly, a cubic inch is a lot smaller than a cubic foot. In fact, there are 1,728 cubic inches (or 12 inches LONG times 12 inches WIDE times 12 inches HIGH) in just 1 cubic foot!

  So if we divide 1,728 cubic inches by 2 cubic inches, we get 864. That’s the number of fish sticks that would fit in a cubic foot (or a milk crate). Multiply those 864 fish sticks by the 6,000 cubic feet we need to fill the bottom 3 feet of the cafetorium and we get . . .

  5,184,000 fish sticks!

  Of course, that number represents the maximum number of fish sticks Bryce would’ve had to lick if we assumed that the last fish stick he licked was the one he was looking for. (Say that ten times fast.)

  But, Bryce didn’t have to lick that many. As we mentioned earlier, he only had to lick one out of every eleven fish sticks in the cafetorium. And if you remember the previous chapter, you’ll remember he was licking a fish stick every two seconds, for twelve hours a day, for over three weeks. That means, if we use the following formula: