Rook: Snowman Read Free Page B

emergency crisis.”
    “That’s right. That’s exactly precisely what it is. So what’s going down here?”
    “I don’t know yet. I thought I had a rat in my desk but it wasn’t, but Ray went to the mensroom and there seems to be some kind of a problem there.”
    “You had a rat? Why are you walking so fast?”
    “I always walk fast. It wasn’t a rat, it was a cheese sandwich.”
    “Easy mistake to make, I guess.”
    “When they rot, Clarence, it isn’t easy to tell the difference between a human being and a pig.”
    “I thought you said it was a rat.”
    “It wasn’t. It was a cheese sandwich.”
    They arrived outside the door to the mensroom and stopped. Ray, who had been following close behind them, pointed to the small circular window in the middle of it.The glass had always been frosted; but now it was covered in sparkling ice-crystals, too. Jim reached up and touched it, and his fingertip made a small melting dimple in them.
    He laid his hand flat against the door. It was so cold that there was a patina of fog over it. When he took his hand away, he left a palm and fingerprints on it.
    “You went inside?” he asked Ray.
    Dean nodded his head wildly up and down. “You can’t believe it, Mr Rook! It’s like a goddamned ice-cave in there!”
    Jim said, “Second time this morning.”
    “For what?” asked Clarence.
    “Unnatural cold. The water-fountain outside Geography Four was frozen solid.”
    “That’s impossible.”
    “I don’t care. I saw it. And what about this? You feel this door. That’s impossible, too. This is the second-hottest day of the year so far.”
    “What do you think it is, Mr Rook?” asked Ray. “Second Ice Age, maybe?”
    “I don’t have any idea,” said Jim. Whatever it was, he felt so hungover that he wished it weren’t happening. It was going to be enough of a struggle getting through a normal college day without an ‘emergency crisis’. He pushed the mensroom door, and it opened up with a squeaking, cracking sound. Inside, there was a dense frozen fog, so that it was almost impossible to see, but he cautiously stepped forward, waving his arms from side to side to clear it. Clarence came up behind him, but Ray stayed in the doorway, reluctant to come any further.
    “There’s something wrong in there, Mr Rook. Like, there’s a real bad smell, and it aint the usual.”
    With the door open, and warmer air flowing into the mensroom, the fog began to eddy away. The sight thatmet Jim’s eyes was extraordinary. The whole room was thick with ice. The washbasins were encased in it, so that they were twice their normal size, with icicles hanging down from them like sharks’ teeth. The mirrors were all frozen over; and the toilets looked like nothing but huge white mushrooms. Everything glittered. Jim looked around for a moment, his breath smoking, and then he sniffed.
    “Ray’s right. There is a smell. Like dead fish.”
    “The drains are probably froze up,” said Clarence. “Let’s hope they aint burst.”
    Jim took two or three more awkward steps across the nubbly, ice-covered floor. “But how do you think this happened, Clarence? There isn’t a refrigeration unit within five hundred feet of this room. And even if there were – well, it couldn’t do this, could it?”
    Clarence blew out his cheeks so that he looked like Louis Armstrong. “No, sir, it couldn’t. I absolutely don’t know what in heaven or earth could have done this.”
    Jim broke a lump of ice off the side of one of the basins. He lifted it close to his nose and smelled it. “Fish, no doubt about it. Maybe we’re dealing with a disgruntled former pupil who now runs his own fish-packing business.”
    “Maybe we are. But how’s he going to tip a truckload of ice into the mensroom without nobody seeing him do it? And how’s he going to get it in here? The windows are much too small.”
    “Apart from that,” said Jim, “what kind of revenge do you call this anyway? Freezing a