The Stain on the Cafeteria Floor

“You’re such a klutz, Janet,” said Malia as the dimes she’d been holding clattered to the tile floor. She’d been feeding them to the soda machine in the cafeteria, hoping to buy a Dr. Bubb to go with her lunch, but Janet had just crashed into her, hard, for what must have been the millionth time that year, and sent the dimes scattering.

“Sorry.” Janet dropped to the floor and chased after the dimes that were scrambling away like escaped lab rats.

Malia sighed. It wasn’t easy having a klutz for a best friend. Just this week, there’d been crashes into lockers, stumbles over garbage cans, and even wild trips on sidewalk cracks.

And now… a scattering of dimes on the cafeteria floor.

One dime arced into a corner near the vending machine, and Malia went after it. She tried to stomp on it to stop its rolling. But she missed, and the dime headed toward a moldy looking stain she’d never noticed before.

Eww, Malia thought. The stain was black with green speckles, like mildew, and it was the shape and size of a peanut, with two bulgy ends. The idea of the dime — her dime — touching that stain made her stomach lurch. But the coin was too far away and moving too fast.

It rolled right onto the stain.

And then something happened that made Malia gasp.

The dime vanished.

Like a popping bubble, one second the dime was there, spinning on the cafeteria tile, and the next second it touched the stain and… poof!... it was gone.

Malia shivered. “Whoa,” she said. “Did you see that?” She moved closer to the stain.

“See what?” Janet gathered the last few scattered coins, stood up, tripped on her untied shoelace, and dropped all the dimes a second time.

Malia shook her head. “One of the dimes,” she said. “It just, like, disappeared when it touched… that.” She pointed.

“Are you sure?” Janet said. “Did it maybe roll under the machine?” She crouched and peered under the vending machine.

“No,” Malia said. “It rolled onto that.” She pointed again.

Janet scrunched her face. “Gross.”

Malia took a step toward the stain, but Janet grabbed her by the elbow.

“Don’t go near it,” she said. “It’s nasty.”

“Give me a dime,” Malia said. Janet picked one up and passed it. Slowly Malia moved into the corner. She knelt and held the dime a few inches over the stain.

“Okay,” she said. “Watch.”

Malia let go of the dime. It hit the stain and it should have plinked on the floor and spun to a stop. But it didn’t. It didn’t clink or ping at all. Instead, it fell into the moldy stain, like it had been dropped into a hole. Malia peered at the stain. In its very center, the dime spun and grew smaller, going down, down, down.

“No way,” Malia said. She listened for a plink but heard nothing. “Did you see that?”

Janet didn’t answer.

“That must be what happened to the other dime,” Malia said, excitement rising in her voice. “It fell into this… thing.”

Janet backed away from the corner. She bumped into the vending machine and stumbled. “It’s just a hole in the floor,” she said, but her voice quivered.

“No.” Malia peered closer. “It’s not a hole. It’s something else, like a puddle. If you look closely, you can see the tile-floor lines beneath it. See?”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Janet shook her head. “If we can see the floor beneath it, then how can the dime fall through?”

“I don’t know.” Malia reached out a finger.

“No!” Janet said. “Don’t touch it.”

Malia stopped.

“We don’t know what it is.” Janet backed away even farther, taking tiny awkward steps.

Malia looked from side to side. The other kids in the cafeteria were doing the usual things — eating, talking, paying them no attention.

“Fine,” Malia said. “I won’t touch it.” Still kneeling, she pulled a stick of gum from her pocket. She dangled it by one end. Its foil wrapper glistened. She lowered the gum slowly, and when it touched the stain, it hissed and fizzled like a can of soda opening. Malia startled and dropped the gum.

Just like the dime, the stick of gum fell somehow past the floor… or through the floor, and just like the dime, the gum twisted, grew smaller, and disappeared.

“It’s like a portal,” said Malia.

“Can we please just get away from it?” Janet said from behind her. “I don’t like it, Malia. Can we just get away?”

Malia turned. Janet’s hands were white.

Malia pursed her lips. She wanted to stay by the stain. She wanted to poke it again, to drop in something else — a balled-up piece of paper or a french fry. Maybe she could even lower something into the stain on a string and pull it back out.

But there was Janet. Her face had gone the color of old notebook paper.

“Yeah,” Malia said, standing up slowly. She gathered the rest of her dimes. “You’re probably right.”

She put a hand on Janet’s shoulder as they walked back to their table and nudged her to the left to keep her from walking into Adrian Wingham and his tray of spaghetti.

“You’re right,” Malia said again when they sat down. “We should leave it alone.” But as she ate her turkey sandwich, she glanced, again and again, to the corner by the vending machine.

***

The next day, when lunch started, Malia said, “I’ll meet you at the table,” and left Janet in the cafeteria line.

She headed straight for the stain.

At the soda machine, she brought her hand to her mouth.

“No way,” she whispered. She couldn’t believe it. The stain wasn’t the size of a peanut anymore. It was bigger now. Much bigger. As big as Malia’s head.

She dropped to the floor and crawled close. Not only had the stain changed size, but it had changed shape, too. It had jagged spikes coming out of it from all sides.

“Malia!” Janet’s voice hissed from behind her. “Get away from that thing.”

Malia turned.

Janet was holding a lunch tray. Her lips were pressed tight. “You said you would leave it alone,” she said.

“But it’s changed.” Malia pointed.

Janet looked, but didn’t move in closer. She shook her head slowly. “That makes it worse,” she said.

“It has spiky things.” Malia pointed again.

Janet shifted her lunch tray. Her eyes widened.

“And those spikes,” Malia said. “They look kind of like teeth… or fangs.”

“You don’t think this is… ” Janet trailed off.

“A mouth,” Malia finished. “It’s not a hole or a portal. It’s a mouth.”

Janet turned and started to walk away, but Malia jumped up and grabbed her arm.

“If this is a mouth,” Malia said, turning Janet back, “that means this… thing… is alive.”

Janet didn’t speak.

“And the dimes and the stick of gum from yesterday,” Malia went on. They didn’t fall into a hole. They got eaten.” She couldn’t believe it. The stain on the cafeteria floor was alive.

It was amazing.

No, not just amazing, Malia realized. It was impossible.

“We need to tell someone,” Janet finally said.

“No,” said Malia. She liked that the spot sat just thirty feet away from dozens of sixth graders, and somehow only she and Janet had found it. It was a secret discovery — their secret discovery. And it could stay that way.

Besides, the stain had grown. It had actually grown. It could eat and change, and maybe it could even breathe and move and feel.

But how could she explain all this to Janet?

“We can’t tell anyone,” Malia said. “If we tell, they’ll get rid of it.”

Janet’s eyes widened. “That’s what we want,” she said. “It needs to go.”

“No it doesn’t,” Malia said.

Janet’s body seemed to go slightly limp. Her lunch tray drooped. Her milk carton slid off and landed on the floor with a thwack.

Malia pursed her lips and thought. She had to convince Janet to stay quiet. But Janet kept looking at the stain and sagging.

“Whatever this thing is,” Malia said in a low whisper, “it’s ours, Janet. It belongs to us.”

“It’s not ours. It’s — ”

“It is ours,” Malia said quickly. “It’s ours because… ” She thought very hard. It took her a few seconds, but she found what she wanted to say. “It’s ours because we found it and we fed it.” She nodded and moved close to Janet, close enough to smell the cafeteria meat loaf on her lunch tray. “We fed it two dimes and a stick of gum. And it grew, and that’s because of us.”

Janet didn’t say anything.

Malia pointed at the stain. “This thing is ours Janet,” she said. “We can’t have it removed or wiped out. We have to take care of it.”

“But we don’t know anything about it,” Janet whispered. “We don’t know what it is. We don’t know where it came from. We don’t even know if it’s safe. If that thing really is a mouth, then where is the rest of it, Malia? Where?”

That was a good point. Where was the rest of the stain? The rest of its body? And where had the dimes and stick of gum gone? A hint of worry, like a slow-rising moon, crept up in Malia’s chest.

But she swallowed it down.

“That doesn’t matter,” Malia said. “It’s safe. I can prove it.”

Malia reached into her lunch bag and pulled out her turkey sandwich. She knelt, holding her sandwich out. After a second, she let go. The sandwich hit the stain with a hiss. Then it tumbled down, down, down.

Malia waited, but nothing happened.

“See,” she said. “No problem.”

Without answering and without even picking up her dropped milk, Janet walked away. Malia grabbed the milk and followed, barely noticing when Janet bumped into Reggie Perkins on her way to the lunch table.

***

Whoa, Malia thought when she saw the stain the next day. That thing must have loved my turkey sandwich.

Because it was no longer the size of Malia’s head.

It had grown to the size of a small table, filling the cafeteria corner. Its spikes had become jagged and sharp.

Twenty feet from the stain, Malia put a hand on Janet’s shoulder. Other kids had begun to notice the spot too.

“What’s that?” Malia heard Reggie Perkings say.

“Totally weird,” said Marissa Clyde.

“I’m not going anywhere near that thing,” said Adrian Windham, and the other kids in the gathering crowd must have agreed because they were standing far back.

Malia pushed past them and walked closer.

“I’m getting a teacher,” Janet said. Before Malia could answer, Janet turned and ran, her feet making hard slaps on the tile floor.

“Janet, no,” Malia called. But it was no use. Janet was off, bumping into kids like a pinball in a chute, her clumsy arms flailing.

Malia moved closer to the stain. It wasn’t, she realized, a stain anymore. Now it was more of a… Thing. A giant, spiky Thing.

“Gross,” said Mikayla Wood back with the gawking kids.

Malia hunched down. She could feel the other kids watching her, wondering.

Sure, this Thing — whatever it was — looked strange. But what had it done wrong? Eaten a few dimes, a stick of gum, and a turkey sandwich? Should they really punish it for that? Get rid of it?

Still, Malia knew that since other kids had not discovered it, there was nothing she could do. Soon Janet would return with Principal Khan or Janitor Jake or somebody, and that would be that. They’d call important people, men in black suits and women in pencil skirts, probably, and they’d close the school and find some way to kill it.

Yes, Malia realized. That was what they would do to the Thing.

They’d kill it.

“I’m sorry,” Malia said to it. It was the first time she’d spoken to the Thing. “I think something bad is about to happen.” The kids behind her fell quiet.

She scooted closer to the Thing, right to its edge, and she leaned forward. She peered deep into it, wondering whether the sandwich, the stick of gum, and the dimes were still in there somewhere, falling down, down, down.

“It’s over here,” Janet cried behind her. “It’s been growing, and it’s got teeth, and Malia’s been feeding it. It’s getting bigger every day.”

“Slow down,” someone called, and Malia thought she recognized the voice of Mr. Perez, the Biology teacher.

Then she felt something familiar — a hard bump, a crash against her back — her eternally klutzy best friend banging into her like she had a million times that year. Hunching over the spiky mouth, Malia started to tip forward. She reached back for help. But next to her, Janet stumbled and wobbled at the Thing’s edge. Both girls waved their arms in tiny circles. Malia tried to right herself, to get her balance. But it was no use.

She fell.

Next to her, so did Janet.

And they went down, down, down.