"On account of guys like you and me," Frank told him.

"Go back to the comer and keep your eyes peeled." He attacked the latch with his knife.

"Okay." Jim went to the passageway intersection and kept lookout. Five minutes later Frank hissed at him; he went back

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter. Come on." Frank had the outer door open.

They tiptoed through the outer office, past recording desks and high stacked spool files to an inner door marked: Marquis Howe-HEADMASTER-Private.

The lettering on the door was new-and so was the lock. The lock was no mere gesture, capable of being picked or sprung with a knife; it was a combination type, of titanium steel, and would have looked more at home on a safe.

"Think you can open it?" Jim asked anxiously.

Frank whistled softly. "Don't be silly. The party is over, Jim. Let's see if we can get back to bed without getting caught."

"Maybe we can get the door off its hinges."

"It swings the wrong way. I'd rather try to cut a hole through the partition." He moved aside, knelt down, and tried the point of his knife on the wall.

Jim looked things over. There was an air-conditioning duct running from the corridor through the room they were in and to the wall of the headmaster's office. The hole for the duct was almost as wide as his shoulders; if he could unscrew the holding flanges and let the duct sag out of the way

No, he could not even get up to it; there was nothing to use as a ladder. The file cabinets were fastened to the floor, he found.

There was a small grille set in the bottom of the door, to permit the exhaust air to escape from the inner office. It could not be removed, nor would the hole left be large enough to be of use, but he lay down and tried to peer through it. He could see nothing; the room beyond was dark.

He cupped his hands over it and called out, "Willis! Oh, Willis! Willis boy-"

Frank came over and said urgently, "Cut that out. Are you trying to get us caught?"

"Sh!" Jim put his ear to the grille.

They both heard a muffled reply: "Jim boy! Jim!"

Jim replied, "Willis! Come here, Willis!" and listened. "He's in there," he said to Frank. "Shut up in something."

"Obviously," agreed Frank. "Now will you quiet down before somebody comes?"

"We've got to get him out. How are you making out with the wall?"

"No good. There's heavy wire mesh set in the plastic."

"Well, we've got to get him out. What do we do?"

"We don't do a dam thing," asserted Frank. "We're stymied. We go back to bed."

"You can go back to bed if you want to. I'm going to stay here and get him out."

"The trouble with you, Jim, is that you don't know when you are licked. Come on!"

"No. Sh!" He added, "Hear anything?"

Frank listened, "I hear something. What is it?"

It was a scraping noise from inside the inner office. "It's Willis, trying to get out," Jim stated.

"Well, he can't. Let's go."

"No." Jim continued to listen at the grille. Frank waited impatiently, his spirit of adventure by now more than satisfied. He was stretched between a reluctance to run out on Jim and an anxiety to get back to his room before they were caught. The scraping noise continued.

After a while it stopped. There was a soft plop! as if something soft but moderately heavy had fallen a foot or so, then there was a slight scurrying sound, almost beyond hearing.

"Jim? Jim boy?"

"Willis!" yelped Jim. The bouncer's voice had come to him from just beyond the grille.

"Jim boy take Willis home."

"Yes, yes! Stay there, Willis; Jim has to find a way to get Willis out."

"Willis get out." The bouncer stated it positively.

"Frank," Jim said urgently, "if we could just find something to use as a crowbar, I could bust that grille out of its frame. I think maybe Willis could squeeze through."

"We've got nothing like that. We've got nothing but our knives."

"Think, fellow, think! Is there anything in our room, anything at all?"

"Not that I know of." The scraping noise had resumed;

Frank added, "What's Willis up to?"

"I guess he's trying to get the door open. We've got to find some way to open it for him. Look, I'll boost you up on my shoulders and you try to take the collar off that air duct."

Frank looked the situation over. "No good. Even if we get the duct down, there'll be a grille set in the other side of the wall."

"How do you know?"

"There always is."

Jim shut up. Frank was certainly correct and he knew it. The scraping sound had continued, still continued. Frank dropped on one knee and put his head close to the grille. He listened.

'Take it easy," he advised Jim after a moment. "I think maybe Willis is making out all right by himself."

"What do you mean?"

"That's a cutting sound if I ever heard one."

"Huh? Willie can't get through a door. Many's the time I've locked him up, back home."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe he just didn't want to get out bad enough." The scraping sound was more distinct now.

A few minutes later a fine circular line began to show around the grille, then the portion of the door enclosed by the line fell toward them. For an instant Willis could be seen through the hole. Sticking out from his tubby body was a clawed pseudohmb eight inches long and an inch thick.

"What's that?" demanded Frank.

"Darned if I know. He never did anything like that before." The strange limb withdrew, disappeared inside his body, and the fur closed over the spot, leaving no sign that it had ever existed. Willis proceeded to change his shape, until he was more nearly watermelon-shaped than globular. He oozed through the hole. "Willis out," he announced proudly.

Jim snatched him up and cradled him in his arms. "Willis! Willis, old fellow."

The bouncer cuddled in his arms. "Jim boy lost," he said accusingly. "Jim went away."

"Yes, but not ever again. Willis stay with Jim."

"Willis stay. Good."

Jim rubbed his cheek against the little fellow's fur. Frank cleared his throat. "If you two love birds are through necking, it might be a good idea to pop back into our hole."

"Yeah, sure." The trip back to their room was made quickly and, so far as they could detect, without arousing attention. Jim dumped Willis on his bed and looked around. "I wonder just what I should try to take? I'll have to get hold of Smitty and get my gun."

"Hold on," said Frank. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You don't really have to go, you know."

"Huh?"

"I didn't hurt the outer lock; we never touched Stinky's private lock. All there is to show for Willis' escape is a hole that we obviously couldn't get through-and another one like it, probably, in Stinky's desk. He can't prove a thing. You can arrange to ship Willis back and we can just sit tight."

Jim shook his head. "I'm leaving. Willis is just part of it. I wouldn't stay in a school run by Howe if you paid me to."

"Why be hasty, Jim?"

"I'm not being hasty. I don't blame you for staying; in another year you can take the rocket pilot candidate exams and get out. But if you should happen to bust the exams, I'll bet you don't stick here until graduation."

"No, I probably won't. Have you figured out how you are going to get away without Howe stopping you? You don't dare leave until daylight; it is too cold until then."

"I'll wait until daylight and just walk out. If Howe tries to stop me, so help me, I'll blast him."

"The idea," Frank said dryly, "is to get away, -not to stir up a gun battle. What you want to do is to pull a sneak. I think we had a better find a way to keep you under cover until that can be arranged. The chances ought to be good after noon."

Jim was about to ask Frank why he thought the chances would be good after noon when Willis repeated the last three words. First he repeated them in Frank's voice, then he said them again in rich, fruity accents of an older man. "Good afternoon!" he intoned.