“Truth is the unshakable shake, the unquakable quake that topples all of man’s lies built atop it,” Jack added with a lopsided smirk. “We must’ve overloaded the plumbing—which, like, led straight to Fibble, by the looks of it. Makes sense: if you’re going to make lies, you gotta know what the truth is. But this place couldn’t handle the truth, not when it came, like, flooding, pure and strong.…”
Milton and the PODs reflected upon the mirrored horizon, until the sound of wheels slicing through dry mud snagged their ears. Through a fog wall, a thousand yards away, Principal Bubb’s black stagecoach came whizzing toward them. A lump of cold lead formed in Milton’s belly.
“It’s Principal Bubb,” he murmured dismally.
Jack squinted at the luxurious, horse-drawn SUV.
“Yeah, the death of the party, from what I’ve, like, heard.”
Moondog tilted his head toward the glimmering cloud cover above. “And she’s not alone,” he said as he eyed the clouds with sightless eyes.
Through the silver mantle overhead descended a luminous milk-white chariot with great, flapping wings on either side.
“A Plymouth Valiant!” Jack exclaimed, slapping his thigh. “Wow, that is one sweet ride!”
The sculpted car with its dual headlights and grinning chrome grill settled to the ground just beyond the PODs’ line of shopping carts. The door swung open and, sliding out from the chariot’s white simulated-leather interior, emerged a seasoned gentleman in a white silk suit, with majestic white wings folded behind him.
The angel stared at the space formerly occupied by Fibble. He cocked his dark, bushy eyebrow and scratched beneath the gold halo hovering just above his head.
“Ah, yes,” he said to himself in an upper-class English accent. “Truth is the ultimate mirror. When it meets itself, it makes infinity.”
Principal Bubb’s stagecoach pulled up alongside the winged Plymouth Valiant as Marlo, Zane, and Van joined the scene. The angel elegantly glided to the stagecoach in an eerie way that seemed familiar to Milton, just as Principal Bubb kicked open the doors with her gleaming hooves.
Her rancid, custard-colored eyes settled, simmering, on the Fausters.
“Principal Bubb,” the distinguished angel said cordially, offering his hand. “Always a pleasure.”
The principal tore her gaze away from the children, painfully, like ripping off a scab.
“We’ve met?” she asked as she lowered her bulk from the stagecoach to the dried mud ground.
“Yes, briefly,” the angel explained. “A corporate off-site years ago. The name is Gabriel. Archangel and representative of the Galactic Order Department.”
Principal Bubb nodded as her demon guards—snarling, bat-faced creatures with cobra-like hoods flared out on the sides of their necks—piled out of the stagecoach behind her.
“Now I remember,” she said with vague recollection. “Sorry, but with the wings, I can scarcely tell you heavenly creatures apart.”
Gabriel maintained a smile despite the slur.
“Of course,” he said, unruffled. “Well, I am here to declare Fibble—a circle of Heck under your purview, I may add—a disaster area—”
“It’s these Fauster children!” Principal Bubb hissed. “I know that they are at the heart of—”
“Please, let me continue,” Gabriel said, interrupting Principal Bubb’s interruption. “With the truth flooding this den of lies, Fibble is so irreparably permeated with pure, high-grade honesty that the Galactic Order Department is forced to proclaim this realm an official annex of Heaven.”
Principal Bubb’s jaw dropped open, revealing her yellow-brown Stonehenge of gnarled teeth.
“Heaven?!” she croaked. “My circle of Heck zoned as Heaven?!”
She grabbed Marlo, thinking her Milton, roughly by the shoulders.
“So help me, I will throw the full weight of my abused authority upon you … both of you!” she screamed.
“Please, Principal Bubb,” Gabriel urged, “this is most unseemly.”
“I will have you tried, do you hear me?!” she continued, her face as red as a mandrill’s bottom. “Tried as adults! Then I’ll send you both packing to h-e-double-hockey-sticks!”
Gabriel pulled Principal Bubb off Marlo.
“You will do no such thing,” the smooth, cultured angel commanded. “We will have no vigilante injustice here. All I’m interested in is the truth.”
Milton stepped forward.
“Mr. Gabriel,” Milton said. “I can explain.”
Principal Bubb scowled.
“Wonderful,” she fumed, “another dramatic work of fiction from one Marlo Fauster.…”
“Shhh!” Gabriel scolded. “Please, young lady, continue.”
Milton quickly exchanged glances with Marlo, who was smirking at her brother for being addressed as “young lady.”
“It began when I was working with Mr. Welles on T.H.E.E.N.D.,” Milton summarized swiftly. “The Televised Hereafter Evangelistic Entertainment Network Division. I started to realize that all the shows seemed to have these apocalyptic finales.”
Gabriel snapped his fingers.
“That’s where I recognize you from,” the angel said, pointing to Van. “Teenage Jesus! I have to say, your portrayal is positively riveting!”
“Thank you, sir,” Van said with an uncharacteristic trace of embarrassment.
“Anyway, young lady,” Gabriel said, “I am aware of the unrest and fervor those shows have stoked upon the Surface.”
“So I figured that Satan was up to something awful—”
“That’s only his job,” Principal Bubb mumbled under her sour breath.
“—but then I began to suspect the Man Who Soldeth the World, this mysterious creature who had a weird show that no one watched. He was right here in Fibble, but he must have gotten away—”
“Convenient,” Principal Bubb interjected.
“He was working with Vice Principal Barnum, apparently, trying to bring about the end of the world.”
“The end of the world?” Gabriel gasped. “Do I look like a cherub? I wasn’t reborn yesterday.…”
Marlo stepped up.
“No, it’s true … I had been hearing all of these crazy songs in Fibble through the PA,” Marlo blurted breathlessly. “These songs about the Apocalypse and how Satan or someone was plotting to trick mankind into thinking it was the end of the world and then shuttling everybody off to another planet—”
“Songs?” Gabriel said with a look of divine bafflement across his face. “By who?”
“Some guy named the Truthador,” Marlo explained.
Just then, through the north fog wall in the distance, sped a pirate sloop on mag wheels, masts furled tight and a satellite dish lashed to the bow. Painted on the side of its varnished wood hull in red letters were the words:
THE TRUTH OR BUST!
The sloop rolled to a stop in front of Gabriel’s chariot. A rope ladder was cast out to the cracked mud ground by unseen hands. Then suddenly, popping out of the forehatch, was a slim, dark-haired angel with bright gray-green eyes and an electric harp slung across his chest.
“Sariel?” Gabriel said, thunderstruck—an unusual reaction for him, as angels tend to spend the majority of their time above cloud cover.
Sariel, aka the Truthador, leapt off the sloop and onto the cracked mud plates of the Broken Promised Land. He swung his harp onto his back, stretched his wings, and popped his chewing gum.
Gabriel stepped up to the four-wheeled pirate ship.
“I thought you were … up there?” the distinguished archangel said, pointing to the sky.
Sariel gazed past Gabriel at the splendid, silver showers of truth springing forth like hope eternal.
“Heavah cool,” he replied, with a pop of gum for punctuation. “Like Vegas, only more real … anyway, nice to see you too, Gabe. So, like, right after our last quarterly meeting of archangels—remember, when you and Uriel ducked out early?”
Gabriel g
ave a quick, nervous nod.
“Yes … go on …,” he replied evasively.
“So Michael called an emergency meeting, saying that Satan was up to no good … or down to yes bad … something like that. And that it was time for drastic measures, which meant working on an undercover assignment so secret we couldn’t even discuss it with the Big Guy Upstairs.…”
“Or me, apparently,” Gabriel interjected testily.
“Yeah, Michael said that you and Uriel were too close to Him, and it would compromise the operation.”
“But keeping something like this from the Big Guy Upstairs is, to put it lightly, really bad—”
“That’s what Michael said … but he also said it was for the greater good.…”
Michael, Milton thought. There’s that name again. The angel from Revelation.
“Michael said, Michael said,” Gabriel replied with a nettled shiver of his wings. “Did you and the other archangels have anything to say about all of this?!”
Sariel uncapped a water bottle tucked into a holster on his side.
“Well,” he said hesitantly, pausing to take a swig of water, “you know how righteously persistent Michael can be.”
Gabriel smoothed back a wayward tuft of silver hair.
“Yes, indeed I do … but what else would we expect from someone whose name, in Hebrew, means ‘who is like God’? So near-perfect in his near-perfection.”
Near-perfection. The phrase clung to Milton’s mind like Velcro as the crowd of bedraggled, displaced teachers and students converged around him.
“So the other archangels and I were sent to the far corners of creation to keep our heavenly peepers open for … something,” Sariel continued. “We just weren’t sure what. And, as I wandered the dreary Wastelands, I, like, realized I totally couldn’t contact anyone on my halo,” he added, pointing to the dim bronze ring atop his head. “Luckily that’s when I hooked up with me mates.…”
Two pirates poked their scarred, matted heads out from the sloop hatch to listen.
“The broadcasting buccaneers of ARGH—Ahoy Rogues, Guerillas, and Hearties!—radio,” Sariel explained with a grin. “They’d been picking up all sorts of odd transmissions on freaky transdimensional frequencies about some shady surreal estate deal. After sifting through the intel, all grubby fingers pointed to some powerful creature, most likely Satan, selling out the human race. But, disconnected from my heavenly counterparts, and bound by the ANGEL Act—”
“Angelic Nonintervention with the Galaxy’s Evolving Lifeforms,” Gabriel interjected.
“I thought, while I can’t just blunder into this with shaky accusations, I could subtly influence things—let the corruption take its course while cryptically commenting on it through song—hoping that someone embedded in the underworld would take action and expose this plot. And, since I was in the area, I thought I’d aim my whole Truthador shtick at Heck. In particular …”
Sariel leveled his blue-green gaze at Marlo.
“Milton Fauster.”
“Me?” Milton chirped, before remembering whose body he was currently in. “I mean … my geeky brother?”
Gabriel swallowed nervously as his deep brown eyes quickly darted to Marlo—now Milton.
“What do you know of Milton Fauster and why he’s here?!” the refined angel exclaimed, unsettled.
Sariel shrugged.
“Chill, Gaby baby. Simply that he’s different. Not defined by the label of who he supposedly is. Not like the other kids down here. Plus, after what he did in Limbo, I thought maybe he’d be smart enough to figure out what was going on—”
Milton and Marlo clutched onto each other through a shared, sideways glance.
“—and do something about it from the inside,” Sariel continued. “And apparently I was right. Though—wow—I never thought the kid would hook up with the Phantoms of the Dispossessed and wash away the wickedness with truth, or join forces with his sis. I thought she was too far gone down the River Styx, according to my intel.”
Marlo smiled sadly.
“Me too,” she said softly.
Gabriel rubbed his chin in contemplation.
“This is all very interesting, Sariel,” the archangel said, “but what I’m concerned about is this surreal estate deal: selling the Earth to … aliens?”
“Yeah,” the young—scarcely older than twenty-one millennia—angel replied. “Even though it seems like the Fauster kids helped to prevent a phony Armageddon up on the Surface, we still might have shiploads of ETs coming, expecting to move in. And they won’t be too happy with all the humans squatting in their new home—”
“Squatters,” Milton muttered. “Squatter’s rights … adverse possession.”
Gabriel absentmindedly polished the triangular G.O.D. badge pinned to his lapel.
“What was that, young lady?” the archangel inquired.
“Something I keep hearing about … squatter’s rights and adverse possession …”
Gabriel rubbed his temples, keeping his heavenly headache at bay.
“I’m afraid I have no clue what you’re on about—”
“It’s a HECKUVA problem,” Principal Bubb interjected, unthinkingly thinking aloud.
“It certainly is, Principal Bubb,” Gabriel replied with irritation. “Now if you don’t mind, we need to figure out a way to solve this mess—”
“No, HECKUVA,” she clarified. “The elements of adverse possession: Hostile, Exclusive, Continuous, Known, Uninterrupted, Visible, and Actual. “See, the H stands for ‘hostile,’ as in trespassing. The E is for—”
“Excellent!” Gabriel exclaimed. “I see what you’re getting at—”
“It actually stands for ‘Exclusive,’ ” the Principal of Darkness muttered.
“You’re saying that a squatter—or the human race, in this case—can acquire title by remaining on the property,” Gabriel said. “The Earth. Which is exactly what they’ve done for more than twenty centuries, making the planet legally theirs!”
Gabriel patted Bea “Elsa” Bubb on the small hump on her back, before abruptly removing his hand with thinly veiled disgust.
“I must go to the Surface, immediately, and broker a meeting with these aliens when they land!” the archangel pronounced as he discreetly wiped his hand off on his luminous white suit. “I never thought, Principal Bubb, that the key to thwarting an evil plot would be found in your despicable claws. No offense.”
“None taken,” the principal replied, baffled at the sudden rush of events.
“And, considering that Satan is obviously behind this, there might be an … opportunity for you,” Gabriel said as he hopped onto the hood of his Plymouth Valiant.
“People and assorted creatures!” the archangel shouted to the crowd in his lilting British accent. “A transport will be along shortly to take you somewhere fitting.”
Jack wandered over to the archangel as the divine creature climbed off the hood and opened the door to his chariot.
“What about us?” the lanky leader of the PODs asked. “I mean, neigho pops on us being taken anywhere. We’ve been lampin’ to find somewhere fitting on our lonesomes for, like, ages.”
Gabriel furrowed his immaculate brow, not understanding Jack’s words but divining his meaning nonetheless.
“Your people, the PODs, are always searching for truth, is that right?” Gabriel posed.
Jack nodded.
“You got it, pops.”
Gabriel smiled and extended his arms and wings majestically to either side.
“Then I can think of no better place for you restless phantoms to rest than … right here!” he said, his golden halo bobbing atop his impeccably trimmed, salt-and-pepper hair.
The Phantoms of the Dispossessed gazed at each other with shock and wonder.
“Solid!” Jack whooped. “This can be, like, our Margins! Where nomads and know-mads make their rightful home at the very edge of wrong, and puzzling jigsaw spirits become one glorious whole!”
Mi
lton and Marlo went to join the throng of children and teachers milling about the edge of the immaculate sea of truth.
“Not so fast,” Principal Bubb growled as she seized each Fauster by the arm. “We’ve got some unfinished business.”
30 • THE MOMENT OF TRUTH
THE GROTESQUE HEADMISTRESS of Heck dragged Milton and Marlo to her waiting stagecoach.
“You did it … you really did it!” Milton called out to Jack through his sister’s crooked grin as Principal Bubb’s claws pinched into his shoulders. “You made it to the Margins!”
Jack waved. “Stay cool, Popsicle!” he shouted. “Whatever you do, don’t get caught up in this scene, dig? It’s just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end!”
Zane bobbed up from the teeming mass of children as the teachers led them away. Marlo elbowed her brother.
“Wave at him and smile my prettiest smile,” she whispered.
Milton rolled his eyes, sighed, and waved at Zane, beaming a feigned, toothy smile that—judging from Zane’s dimpled return grin—was convincingly warm, at least from a distance.
Principal Bubb threw the Fausters to the ground with a ferocious disdain. “Get those terrible children into the stagecoach!” she shrieked. The bat-faced demon guards prodded Milton and Marlo inside with their pitchsporks.
Breaking free of the other students, Colby brushed his stringy hair from his face and peered into the stagecoach.
“Wolf!” the boy cried, his trembling arm pointing.
Mr. Nixon pulled the boy back into the mob.
“Like anyone is going to believe you,” the ex-president said, shaking his doughy head. Milton tumbled into the coach.
“Annubis?” he asked as he was prodded into his seat. “What are you doing here?”
Principal Bubb smiled as she, with great difficulty, hoisted her bulk into the stagecoach.
“How do you think I found my way here?” she sneered. “To the scene of your latest crime-against-all-that-is-indecent.”
Milton’s jaw dropped with the shock of betrayal.
“How could you?” he gasped.
Annubis shrugged his sleek shoulders.
Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck Page 24