Marlo stared dumbfounded as, expecting the blustering bulk and flared trousers of the vice principal, she instead found herself face to face with emptiness.
“Nothing?”
“These are just some of the difficult questions we must ask a brand when developing a meaningful marketing campaign,” P. T. Barnum declared through the PA speakers in the ceiling.
He sounded like he was right there behind me, Marlo thought, shivering, as her eye caught a plume of heavy, glittering vapor drifting down from the ceiling. “Liedocaine,” she muttered. It must be messing with my head.
“And when the right questions are asked, the answers rub against one another and create a shower of sparks!” the vice principal continued. “A shower of ideas! But just having an idea is not enough … it must be released into the world in the best way possible, able to leap over customer objections in a single bound! Think hard upon this today, young marketeers! Good day and good fibbing!”
Marlo slowly regained the use of her limbs as the numbing fear of being found out fled her system.
“D’you know what that nutter Barnum loves more than the sound of his own voice?” Zane asked Marlo, startling her, as he descended the ladder.
“Um … n-no … wh-what?” she stammered. Man, he’s even dreamy when he’s just woken up after a night in hair pajamas, she thought, both tormented and giddy.
“Beats me,” he said with a shrug and smile. Marlo squealed with the weird disproportionate laughter symptomatic of a girl smitten.
“That’s good,” she replied, pinching herself hard on the thigh to help stop her deranged giggling. Zane cocked his eyebrow at her before staring at Marlo’s rumpled hair pajamas and overall bleary, up-all-night appearance. How Milton’s hair managed to contract chronic bed-head without ever making contact with a pillow baffled Marlo.
“Did you get up early or something?” Zane asked with his faint British lilt.
Marlo absentmindedly tried to smooth the split ends from her hair shirt.
“Just, you know, getting a little bit of early morning exercise. There’s nothing I—but especially my sister, Marlo—like more than to be fit and healthy. But not too fit and healthy, you know? Not in that irritating obsessive gym-rat or carry-my-yoga-mat-wherever-I-go way, but—”
The class bell tolled, a mixed blessing for Marlo in that, while it brought her runaway rant to a merciful end, it also meant that she had sixty seconds to get into her uniform and to her next class.
“Flip a chip in old onion dip!” Marlo muttered through gritted teeth as she scaled the ladder, peeled off her itchy pajamas, pulled up her red, blaze-emblazoned uniform by its telephone-wire suspenders, then slid back down the ladder and dashed to her class.
Marlo broke the imaginary tape of the classroom’s doorway just as the last bell tolled. Her prize was a reeking blast of ink fumes.
“Mr.… Fauster,” the teacher croaked in an unexpectedly high voice. The man’s head was shaped like a hard-boiled egg, with wrinkled folds of speckled flesh serving as its shell. His eyes were cold and bright with dark purple circles blotched beneath as if two tiny sports cars had spent the entire night spinning doughnuts under them. “Sit down or else I’ll force you to write your own postmortem obituary for Heck’s prestigious newspaper, GYP: The news that leaves a bruise!”
Marlo found an empty seat in the back, something of a rarity in Heck, next to a row of machines, each with a large drum in the middle and a hand crank on the side. As soon as Marlo settled, she realized why she had been able to secure this primo classroom real estate: the old contraptions were the source of the horrid chemical stench. Each desk in the class held a bulky old Underwood typewriter.
The teacher rose from his seat as most old people do—slowly, painfully, and under protest—and wrote his name in yellow chalk on the yellow chalkboard. Luckily for the students, the glare on the slate made the teacher’s scratches somewhat legible: “Yellow Journalism. Mr. Hearst.”
The teacher set his chalk down, leaned over his desk, and glared at the boys with his abandoned-lighthouse eyes. Colby tucked a strand of stringy hair behind his ear and raised his hand. Mr. Hearst stared at the boy’s arm until it drooped under the weight of his stony gaze.
“Journalism is something that somebody doesn’t want printed; all else is advertising,” he declared with a shrill wheeze. “And yellow journalism is just like regular journalism, only slathered with a bright coat of paint so that it’s lively, feisty, and unencumbered by fact. Yellow journalism is information that never fills you up and leaves you hungry for more.”
Mr. Hearst stooped down to open his lower drawer, his brittle back popping like a tap dancer on a sheet of Bubble Wrap. He pulled out a stack of yellow legal pads and a half-dozen yellow highlighter pens.
“I was an American success story, the epitome of a self-made man,” he squeaked as he passed out the pens and paper.
“I don’t think I’d want to accept responsibility for making that,” Marlo whispered to Zane as the decrepit, broken man shambled down the aisle.
Mr. Hearst gave Marlo a stink-eye so pungent that it nearly overpowered the reek of toxic ink. The teacher returned to his desk and yanked a handkerchief from his double-breasted suit.
“Since I’ve always been an advocate of teaching by doing,” he muttered while mopping his damp brow, “I’m going to have you do all of the work. My work. As editor-in-chief of GYP—Heck’s Golden Youth Periodical.”
He stooped down and removed a stack of yellow file folders from another drawer.
“As a class you will write, edit, proofread, lay out, and print the next issue of GYP,” Mr. Hearst said while slapping folders down on each boy’s desk. “By tomorrow.”
Colby flipped open his folder.
“The Op-Dead section?” he asked as the teacher passed out the students’ assignments.
“GYP’s Deaditorial page,” Mr. Hearst muttered, “where you write your opinions on the hot topics of the day, of which there are many down here. In your folder you’ll find Principal Bubb’s opinions on what your opinions should be. Mr. Cummings, you have the Spoiled Sports section beat.”
Darnell scratched beneath his stocking cap.
“An exposé on Sadia’s boys’ German dodgeball team?”
“After their crushing loss to Sadia’s girls’ German dodgeball team, the team is suffering from some bruised egos … bruised everything, actually,” the teacher explained as he shuffled his old bones down the aisle. “Plus there are those pernicious steroid rumors, that they aren’t using nearly enough.…”
He handed Zane and Stawinski their folders.
“Mr. Covington, you have Nether News and the Chronic Strips section … simply rewrite the press releases and do what you can to make Mr. Van Gogh’s Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow strip a little less … disturbing. And Mr. Stawinski—”
“It’s actually just Stawinski,” the tubby boy replied with a flip of his curly hair. “Like Cher.”
Mr. Hearst’s wrinkled face scrunched up like an old paper bag.
“I didn’t know Cher’s last name was Stawinski,” he replied. “In any case, your beats are the None of Your Business and the Weather or Not? sections.”
“Weather or Not?” Stawinski asked.
Mr. Hearst threw Marlo her folder.
“In Heck, in case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Stawinski—”
“It’s just—”
“—the weather is fixed … unless it’s broken … which is often the case with the wind. So it’s always a question of whether there will be weather or not.”
Marlo leafed through her folders.
“Crassified Ads and Inhuman Interest?” she muttered.
Mr. Hearst turned and headed back to his desk.
“Ads are the lifeblood of every newspaper, and GYP is no exception,” the elderly teacher said as he settled painfully into his chair. “They are also an endless source of story ideas, often becoming Inhuman Interest stories; stories that are too inconsequential
to fit in any other section … which is really saying something!”
Stawinski raised his hand. Mr. Hearst attempted to glare it back down, but the boy’s sturdy arm was a worthy opponent to the teacher’s withering gaze. Mr. Hearst sighed.
“Yes, Mr. Stawinski?”
The boy frowned.
“It’s not … never mind,” Stawinski replied, rubbing his droopy eyes with his fist. “I just want to know what you’re going to be doing while we do all of this work.”
Mr. Hearst guffawed like a crazed balloon animal full of laughing gas.
“I, like many newspapers, have circulation troubles,” he answered as he set his feet on his desk. “So while you deliver the news, I will enjoy a snooze.”
Marlo looked through her Crassified folder. Inside was a flyer for a missing pet: Cerberus.
Marlo smirked. So Bubb’s creepy lapdog has gone missing, she thought. Good riddance. That dog is bad news … perfect for GYP.
She looked through her second folder, Inhuman Interest. Inside was a press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ruth Harrison
REPEAT (Recently Expired People for Ethical Animal Treatment)
THE FURAFTER—This morning, REPEAT dispatched a group of activists to the Furafter, the realm of the afterlife for domesticated and semidomesticated pets, to protest the beastly treatment of animals caged in the Kennels, the joyless jail reserved for pets deemed “bad” by the Galactic Order Department’s thoughtless, incomprehensible knee-jerk arbitration mechanisms.
REPEAT’s action comes in the wake of rumors that animals incarcerated in the Kennels are to be undone—energetically nullified. Caretaker Noah was not available for comment.
“We will cross the line, because the Powers That Be have crossed the line,” says REPEAT founder Brigid Brophy. “That’s why we are going down to the Furafter, to get our hands dirty and raise an unholy stink as only we animal-lovers can. It’s the only way we can realize our vision for a cruelty-free realm of eternal condemnation.”
Behind the press release was a small stack of grainy photographs, taken—according to the stamps on the back—from the Kennels’ insecurity cameras. The photographs captured towering rows of cramped cages, each occupied by a howling, miserable animal. Thousands of them, perhaps millions. Just as Marlo was about to close the folder in disgust, her eye was caught by one particular animal caged in the upper left-hand corner of the last photograph. A thin, white ferret with burning red eyes, hissing at the camera.
“Lucky!” Marlo yelped.
Zane looked over from his work.
“I’m glad someone likes their assignment,” he grumbled as Marlo raised her hand.
“Mr. Hearst, I have a question!” she exclaimed.
The old man bolted awake, nearly falling off his chair.
“Mr. Fauster,” Mr. Hearst said, wiping the drool from his thin lips with the back of his hand, “how dare you ask a question in class.”
“But it’s about GYP,” she responded. “I want to make my Inhuman Interest story as interesting to inhumans as possible. So I thought I should go down to the Furafter and cover the REPEAT protest myself.”
“REPEAT?”
“I said that I should go down to the Furafter and—”
“I heard you!” Mr. Hearst spat. “It’s just that what you are proposing reeks of”—Mr. Hearst shivered—“reporting! And I will not have students make a mockery of yellow journalism by engaging in unbiased investigation and thoughtful inquiry!”
Marlo clenched her fists and fumed silently to herself.
It was worth a try, Marlo thought as she stared at her brother’s ferret, Lucky, gaping back at her in wide-eyed terror from the photograph. If Mr. Hearst wants sensation, I’ll give it to him, with interest. I’ll make this protest sound like the biggest, most controversial thing to hit the Underworld since they banned not-smoking.
Around her, typewriters began to slowly click and clack, like a flock of robotic chickens pecking listlessly at rusty worms.
Lucky is a sign, and he’ll be a sign for Milton, too, Marlo thought as she turned the humble REPEAT protest into a seething hotbed of frenzied hullabaloo, something that would surely get the Nether media jumping through hooplas to cover it. Milton and I are better together. We can meet in the Furafter to switch back our bods and rescue Lucky from nulli-whatever, figure out what Barnum’s up to, save the Surface from an outbreak of viral marketing, and find a way out of this mess!
16 • WRITING WRONGS
DALE E. BASYE, middle-aged and muddling through the middle of his latest book, The Breath-taking, Wind-breaking Fartisimo Family, chewed the tip of the pipe he pretended to smoke as he stared at the blinking message light of his answering machine.
It’s probably that creepy kid again, he mused. The one that cornered me at that reading in Topeka during my tour of Midwestern rec centers last month. Dale shivered. All those big kids on little bikes … and the chlorine …
He pulled out a black notebook and jotted down “Big kids on little bikes … over-chlorinated pools” on a crowded page labeled “Irrational Fears.”
Dale sighed and set down his pipe. His series about the exploits of a family who, when sufficiently gassy, perform the cheekiest, most exquisite choral music ever heard—that is, when they aren’t breaking up illegal bean cartels and catching international cheese-slicer smugglers—had hit a rough patch, creatively. And after fifteen minutes of writing—or at least thoughtful staring—he was due for a break anyway.
Dale hit the playback button of his answering machine.
“Hello, Mr. Bass … Baze … Bayzee,” the young voice squawked through the speaker.
No one ever gets my name right, Dale reflected as he drained his tea cup and set it on the coaster just like his wife had asked him to.
“This is Damian Ruffino … again,” the voice continued. “We met at the Topeka Community Rec Center, Play Pool, and Assisted Living Facility last month. You must think I’m stalking you, which is ridiculous, because if I was, you’d be really, really scared right now. Believe me. Anyway, I have a business proposition to make to you. A collaboration. A ghostwriting project.”
Ooh, I’ve always wanted to write about ghosts, Dale mused.
“Not writing about ghosts,” Damian continued, “but you writing something for me. Only it’s sort of the opposite of ghostwriting, I guess, because it would be your book. I have the concept and basic story worked out, I just need someone to write it down. I tried, but my, um, editor wasn’t happy with it. Said it focused too much on the ant agonist or whatever. I can’t help that he is totally awesome. The character sort of wrote himself.…”
The boy snickered, a dark, secret laugh, like that of a maniac who knows exactly where someone is buried.
Dale stared at the twin red lights of his answering machine, the ones that always reminded him of a demon’s eyes. I need to make some real money if I’m ever going to quit my JiffyAds job—
“And you would make some real money with this,” Damian added. “So give me a call. I’m at 555-727-6765 … that’s 555-PAR-NRML. Don’t ask.…”
A click and the swarming wasp buzz of a dial tone filled Dale’s small home office. He snatched up the phone before the usual chorus of doubt and apprehension could clog his head.
“What?” Damian said brusquely as he picked up the phone. Dale could hear the sounds of struggle, and a man protesting in the background.
“It’s my phone, man!” the voice wheezed. “This is totally uncool … like, Altamont uncool!”
“Whatever, Cherry Garcia,” Damian barked. “I’m the one holding the phone now, and that’s all that matters. I paid your rent, so just peace out somewhere else … who is it?” Damian barked.
Dale swallowed.
“I … this is Dale E. Basye. The author. You called me just—”
“Yeah, I know I called you,” Damian interrupted. “Thanks for finally getting back to me. Those Fartisimo Family books can�
�t take that much time to write!”
“Um, you see, I have to do them on weekends,” Dale explained, flustered. “I have a day job as a copywriter, to pay the bills and—”
“Well, tell your boss to take a hike,” Damian blustered. “I’m your new boss now.”
Dale shivered uncontrollably as if someone had poured a scoop of crushed ice down the back of his boxers, which his son hadn’t done for months.
“We still haven’t even discussed—”
“You have no idea how hard it’s been to track down someone to write my story,” Damian interrupted. “I called a bunch of other people first, then I saw your book in the Books This Library Shouldn’t Carry section of the Generica Central Library. You’re a hard guy to get ahold of, since no one knows who you are … and your weird name. Are you sure it’s spelled B-A-S-Y …?”
“Yes, I’m sure. So what’s the book you want me to write?” Dale blurted out, shoving as many words as he could through the slight breach in Damian’s one-sided conversation. He could hear a shuffle and crash through the receiver.
“Watch out for Bigfoot … you almost smashed his big toe!” the wheezing man shouted in the background. “Move all your boxes to your side of the Paranor Mall … you’re not paying me enough to break all of my exhibits!”
Damian sighed.
“Never mind our landlord,” he explained, “he’s so crazy that even the voices in his head think he’s crazy. But we won’t be here for long, especially when my … our book becomes a big hit.”
“Yes, the book,” Dale asserted as he chewed the tip of his pipe with frustration. “And it’s called …?”
“Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go,” Damian offered.
Dale smiled to himself—literally, as there was a framed picture of himself on his desk.
“That’s clever … kind of corny, but clever,” he replied. “Plus there’s a lot of interest in the afterlife lately, with those new shows Teenage Jesus, Allah in the Family, and Queen of the Shebrews being such big hits on TV—”
“With my connections, we can turn this into one hot property,” Damian interrupted, before adding a deep, unsettling snicker to his comment: the cherry bomb on the cake. “So I’m guessing you’re on board. I’ll send you a plane ticket for Kansas. Be sure that you’re on board and we can seal the deal.”
Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck Page 11