Gorilla Tactics

by Sheila Grau

  “Syke,” I said, “I’m not mad at you anymore for not telling me I’m not a werewolf.”

  “Thanks, Runt.”

  “Even though it really hurt my feelings, because I felt like everyone was laughing at me, I know you just didn’t want me to be hurt.”

  “Exactly.”

  That said, I felt better. I was still hurt that she’d let me make a fool of myself for so long, but not as much since I realized I was doing the exact same thing. Keeping secrets.

  The bell rang, and we headed up one of the winding staircases that led from the foyer to the second floor.

  “What am I going to do now?” I said. “I have no idea how to find out where Sara and I come from.”

  “You go find your own CLOUD,” Syke said. “With this.” She showed me a book. It was The History of Worb.

  “Syke, are you crazy? You stole this book.”

  “Serves him right,” she said. “He’s had years to research your curse, and all he’s done is look for that stupid library. You take this illegal book on your field trip tomorrow, sneak off to the capital library and ask if anyone is interested in it. Find a CLOUD yourself. But be careful.”

  She stuffed it into my bag.

  That night, after dinner, I went to see Cook in the kitchen.

  “Hi, everybody,” I said, waving to the dishwashers, the food preparers, and Pierre, my foster brother, who was setting out lunch bags for our field trip.

  They all nodded hello. Cook sat at a table, checking a printout of her menus, still wearing her apron and hairnet, and the cat-eye glasses she loved.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said, sitting next to her.

  “Runt,” she said. “Great game yesterday.”

  “Thanks. We should have won.” I thought about telling her that I’d lost The Top Secret Book of Minions, but I shrugged that idea away. There was nothing she could say to make me feel better about that. She might be able to help me with my Uncle Ludwig problem, though. “Hey, you know what?”

  “Hmm?” She raised her eyebrows as she scratched off something on her list.

  “I went to see Uncle Ludwig after the game, to see what he’s found out about me?”

  “Yes?” She looked up at that. “What’s he found out?”

  “Nothing,” I said. My stomach got all twisty when I said that, like it only now realized the danger I was in. “He has been . . . working on something else. He has no clue where I’m from.”

  “That can’t be right,” Cook said. “He’s told me over and over that he’s getting close.”

  I shook my head. “He thought I’d been left here a few years ago. I’ve been here eight years.”

  Cook slammed her pen on the table. Anger seemed to inflate her, like bread rising. “That man promised me he would work on nothing else! I gave him everything you had with you. Except your medallion, of course, because you cried whenever I tried to take it off. I told him, ‘You find out where he’s from.’ And he told me he would make it his top priority.” Cook slapped the table, hard. “That man lied to my face, and after I gave him my family’s treasured book collection!”

  “What am I going to do?” I felt tears pool in my eyes and then burst free. In a flash, I was sobbing. All at once, my impending death seemed to be rushing at me like a flood I couldn’t dodge.

  Cook got up and squeezed me in a hug. “I’ll talk to Dr. Critchlore. He owes you.”

  I slumped. The last thing I wanted was for Cook to tattle on Uncle Ludwig for me, especially since Dr. Critchlore was already mad at me for losing the book.

  “No, don’t,” I said, wiping my face with my sleeve. “Uncle Ludwig thinks he can find the answer to my problem if he solves his own problem. Let’s give him some more time.”

  She let go of me and stood up. “Really? Because I have a mind to—”

  “Don’t say anything yet,” I said. “What exactly did you give him?”

  Cook sat back down. “You were a mess when they brought you to me. Like you’d been rolled in mud. You wore a loose dog collar around your neck, and you howled at me when I tried to take it off.” She chuckled at that. “I managed to clean you up and wash your clothes. You wore an undershirt, a silky shirt with a fluffy collar that peeked out over a jacket that was probably once a very pretty shade of blue. Your pants matched and had a gold stripe down the side. It was like you’d been playing dress-up in a medieval play.”

  “I’ll ask Uncle Ludwig if he still has them,” I said. “Hey, what are you packing in our lunch tomorrow?”

  “The usual: sandwich, fruit, cookie for most of you. Something disgusting and crunchy for Frieda.” She smiled at me. “Your first trip to the capital, Runt. It’s going to be so exciting!”

  I smiled back. It was exciting. I wasn’t just going to see the capital for the first time; I was going to take Uncle Ludwig’s book and find a CLOUD. Tomorrow was the day I took matters into my own hands.

  The purpose of the United Nations of Overlords is to allow for a consensus in resolving disputes between countries. Also, we like to gang up on the weak and bully them.

  —CERA BACCULUS ON THE UNO

  I could barely sleep; I was so excited about visiting the United Nations of Overlords. The UNO! Plus I was on a secret mission. If I could find a CLOUD (currently number one on my to-do list), I could find the Great Library, which would have a complete set of encyclopedias. They probably had another copy of The Top Secret Book of Minions too.

  I was on my way to solving all my problems.

  There were thirteen junior henchmen trainees on the trip—the six of us third-years, three fourth-years, one fifth-year, one sixth-year giant, and two seventh-years. We had to take the jumbo van, because Frieda and the giant didn’t fit comfortably in the normal van. I loved the jumbo van. It fit twelve minions of impressive size, or forty-eight normal-sized minions. I had a jumbo seat to myself, which meant I could stretch across a seat as big as a king-sized bed.

  I leaned across the aisle to ask the new guy, Meztli, a question. “Hey, Meztli?”

  “¿Sí?”

  “Have you ever heard of the ‘Broken Place’?”

  “¿El Lugar Roto?”

  “Okay, sure.”

  He thought for a second. “Amigo,” he said, “nadie va al Lugar Roto.”

  “¿Nadie va? Nobody goes there?”

  He shook his head. “No. It is across the sea, on the Continente Currial. In a place where there are many shakes of the ground. ¿Cómo se dice?” He wobbled in his seat.

  “Earthquakes?”

  “Sí, earths quake. Everything breaks. It is the broken place.”

  That didn’t sound like what Sara had meant. She’d said it was broken by war.

  “And the peoples there? They are loco,” Meztli went on. “Crazy. Like for instance, they no eat their meats on the bone. No. They slice the meats off the bone, and then hide the meats between two slices of bread.” He threw up his hands in disgust.

  “Like a sandwich?” I asked.

  “No sé. I don’t know. But this thing they do? It’s loco. Sometimes they put a red sauce on the meats, and the red sauce—it is not blood. It is called after a baby cat . . . cats’ pup, or something. I am not even lying.”

  “Ketchup?”

  “Sí, it is a cat’s pup. What kind of cat has a pup? Loco.”

  Okay, so Meztli was no help. I sat back to think about what I was going to do in the capital.

  “ ‘Look at me,’ ” Meztli said in a high voice. He held an invisible sandwich in his hands, and he took a pretend bite. “‘I no eating meats. I only eating bread. You cannot see the meats.’ ” He shook his head. “Who does that?”

  Meztli was going to be in for a surprise when he opened the lunch bag that Cook had prepared for each of us.

  It was a long drive, but at last we made it. Once in the capital, we drove down wide, perfectly paved roads lined with trees. Huge buildings flanked the road, each one looking like a castle or a palace of some kind. Every Evil Overlord kept a
residence in the capital for when they traveled here on business. I got goose bumps when I realized that we were driving by the palaces of Lord Vengecrypt, Fraze Coldheart, maybe even Maya Tupo.

  At the end of the road, we could see the main Evil Overlord Council Building, a long, modern building fronted by flagpoles hoisting the flags of the seven Greater Realms, the thirteen Lesser Realms, the Island Realms, and the ripped flag of the Dismantled Realm. One flagpole was empty, as if they had forgotten a realm.

  The road split in two as it hit the expansive park in front, the right side passing by the Stull National Government buildings. On the left side of the park I saw the Stull National Library, the Stull Museum, and the Stull Performing Arts Center.

  Professor Murphy suggested that we eat lunch in the park before entering the EO Council building, so we grabbed our bags and sat at benches to eat. We were near the library, so I ate in a hurry and then asked Professor Murphy if I could go inside to use the bathroom.

  “Take a buddy,” he said.

  “Meztli?” I asked. He was sitting next to me on a bench, holding his ham sandwich like it was something disgusting. He pulled the ham out and tried to wrap it around the bread.

  “Want to go to the library?” I asked.

  He shook his head, pointing to his sandwich. “At least put the meats on the outside.” He added in a deep voice, “ ‘Look at me! I eat huge slab of meats. I tremendously hungry beast!’ That’s better, no?”

  “I’ll go,” Janet said. This earned me a hard stare from Rufus when he saw us leaving together. He was playing catch with Frieda and Jud.

  We climbed up marble steps to enter the arched doorway. Inside the lobby, a series of archways led to different sections for each realm. The sections were large, mostly empty spaces. Rooms that used to hold bookshelves now held displays that proclaimed each realm’s greatest achievements. Apparently, Maya Tupo invented trees. Sure she did, and I was a swamp monster.

  No sign of an encyclopedia anywhere.

  “I’m going to the ladies’ room,” Janet said. “Be right back.”

  “Okay.” I stepped up to the information desk.

  I looked to the left and then the right, making sure nobody was within hearing distance. The librarian, a woman with graying hair and a friendly face, waited patiently for me to ask my question.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I have this book—um—that I found. It seems odd to me, and I wondered if you were interested in it?”

  I carefully eased the book out of my pack and showed it to her.

  She leaned over to look and then gasped. “Put it back. Put it back,” she whispered, waving her hands at me. “That’s an illegal book. You could be—” She stopped talking as an elderly woman walked by behind us. Wrapped in a torn and dirty shawl, the old lady stumbled and reached for the counter next to me. She peeked down at my bag, so I quickly covered up the book.

  “Xena, are you okay?” the librarian asked.

  “Dizzy,” she said. “Lately I’ve been feeling dizzy. And numb.” She took a deep breath and then walked away, out the front door.

  The librarian looked sympathetic. “Poor, old homeless lady,” she said. She returned her attention to me. “Don’t let anyone see that book. Destroy it. And get out of here. Please. This is not a place to ask questions.”

  It was a library. What else did you do there?

  Janet came back wearing a black scarf around her head, dark glasses, and a fake mole on her cheek.

  “What’s with the getup?” I asked. “You look shifty.”

  “Shifty is in,” she said. “I don’t want to look like a dorky little kid on a field trip.” She looked me up and down. “No offense.”

  I tried another librarian in the Upper Worb section and got the same horrified response to the banned book. Janet slapped my shoulder and said, “You’re going to get us arrested. I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”

  I tried two more librarians before thinking I had better get back to Professor Murphy. Dejected, I went to find Janet and saw her talking to a very tall man in a corner of the entryway. The man stood hunched over, like a crane, so that their heads were close enough to whisper in each other’s ear.

  “Who was that?” I asked when she walked over to me.

  “Nobody,” she said, heading for the front door. I didn’t follow, which made her turn around and look at me. “Okay, here’s the deal. You don’t mention that man, and I won’t say anything about the book you’re flashing around that could get our school shut down.”

  “Deal.”

  Going down the steps in front, we passed the disheveled woman from earlier. “Spare change for food?” she asked.

  I pulled out an apple from my backpack. She took it with stiff hands, as if she couldn’t bend her fingers. “My thanks,” she said. She put a hand on my shoulder, and then let it fall to the Critchlore patch on my jacket. She gasped when she saw my medallion. “Your coin.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry, I feel so weak.” She nodded to the library. “If books were food, I’d eat a feast.”

  “And savor every taste,” I replied, recognizing the opening line of the poem Uncle Ludwig loved.

  She smiled and continued:

  “The tangy tales

  and pepp’ry myths,

  not one would go to waste.

  A story soup,

  a side of plays,

  the sweet, sweet songs of yore.

  I’d eat them all.

  I’d never fill,

  and then I’d ask for more.”

  She took a bite of the apple, so I finished the poem:

  “Alas, my friend,

  there’ll be no taste,

  no wordy banquet waits.

  The books are gone,

  the tables bare,

  the tales of yore erased.”

  I knew that poem by heart because I’d heard Uncle Ludwig recite it many times while I reshelved books.

  The old lady nodded. “What a clever boy,” she said. “You know the poem.” She struggled for breath. “You . . . have the coin.” She patted my Critchlore patch. “The Archivist sent you. You must warn . . . something’s happened. Warn the Archivist.” She sat down.

  “I’m sorry, do you need a doctor?”

  “No.” She waved a hand to dismiss that suggestion. “A doctor cannot help. I was tricked. I’m so ashamed. Tell the Archivist. The chameleon is coming.”

  “I don’t know who the Archivist is.” I pointed to the building. “Is the Archivist in the library?”

  “Z is an A, Y is a B, X is a C,” she said. “You have to know your ABCs.”

  “Runt Higgins!” Professor Murphy was gathering everyone up from lunch.

  “I have to go,” I told the lady. “I’m sorry. I hope you feel better soon.”

  She didn’t answer.

  Janet pulled my sleeve, and we jogged back toward the grassy area where the rest of the class waited.

  “Did you see that, Janet?” I said. “She recognized my medallion.”

  “She called it a coin,” Janet said. “And I wouldn’t put too much faith in her recognizing it. Did you see her eyes? They looked bleary.”

  “But what if she did?”

  “Then I guess you’ve solved your mystery,” she said. “You’re not a werewolf; you come from a family of crazy homeless beggars with bad teeth.”

  We entered the United Nations of Overlords building. The atrium was enormous, with a high ceiling and giant lettering on the far wall that read, “The Evil Overlord Council . . . In Us We Trust.” Balconies ran along the walls at the sides and across the facing wall of the room.

  Janet rejoined Rufus as his field trip buddy. Everyone had a buddy except me. I was on my way to stand with Professor Murphy, who was getting our visitor badges, when a hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. I looked up and up and up into the face of a vicious-looking ogre-man who must have weighed eight hundred pounds. “Come with me,” he said, the words rolling out of his mouth l
ike an avalanche, crushing the air around me.

  “Uh . . . I’m here with my school group . . .”

  He picked me up around my middle (again, a crush-proof jacket would’ve come in handy here) and carried me like a briefcase through the atrium. I passed Rufus, who has holding his gut, laughing. In a flash, he turned serious, pointed to Janet, pointed to me, and then slit his throat with his hand. Oh, dung beetles, what had he told this guy?

  “Sir, there’s been a mistake,” I said. Then I remembered the book. What if they found that book in my possession? I’d be arrested. Uncle Ludwig would be arrested. Dr. Critchlore’s School for Minions would be shut down, all because of me and my stupid, selfish quest.

  The guard opened the door to a ground-floor office, threw me into a chair, and left the room.

  Great. And me with no buddy to tell Professor Murphy where I’d been taken.

  Irma Trackno came to power thirty years ago, promising to reunite the Worbs under her rule. Wexmir Smarvy told her to stay in her frozen wasteland and stop pretending to be an overlord.

  —ADDENDUM TO THE HISTORY OF WORB, BY ANONYMOUS

  At first I thought I was shaking with fear, but I was actually shivering because the temperature in the room was several notches below freezing. I could see my breath, which was weird because it had been very pleasant in the atrium. I felt like I was in a freezer decorated as an office, with a large desk, some chairs facing it, and file cabinets along a wall. Above them hung a picture of an iceberg.

  The longer I sat, the more worried I got. Why had I brought the illegal book? Why did I think I could just wave it around and find a CLOUD, when Uncle Ludwig had been looking for years and hadn’t found one? If Dr. Critchlore hated me for losing The Top Secret Book of Minions, imagine what he’d do if I brought the Evil Overlord Council down on us for illegal book possession.

  As I looked for a place to hide the book, the back door burst open and a man—no, a creature—stepped inside. He was unlike anything I’d ever seen. He stood like a man but looked like a seal—bald, with dark eyebrow-less eyes and rubbery gray skin. A long nose jutted out from his face, topped with jowly cheeks speckled with whiskers.