POETRY BAD
The next morning the young monsters ate scrapple. The effects of the Sicko Sauce had largely worn off, leaving the students in mostly human form and more than a few of them with headaches. Destynee and Megan, whose transformations had been among the most dramatic, were particularly stricken, and sat at their table holding their heads in their hands. Falcon sat next to the girls, picking at his scrapple with a fork, as Jonny Frankenstein sat on his side of the table, drinking black coffee.
Ankh-hoptet stared at her breakfast despondently. “Not hungry?” said Lincoln Pugh, once more a small boy with rectangular orange glasses.
“Yesterday there was bacon and eggs,” said the mummy. “Hash browns and sausages. Today—this.”
“What is scrapple?” asked Destynee.
The others fell silent. Even though they were monsters, there were some things they didn’t like to talk about.
“Do you think anybody saw me?” she asked Megan. “At the dance last night, I mean? It was kind of dark. Wasn’t it?”
At this moment Merideath walked by with two of her sidekicks. “Hey, Destynee!” she said. “Can you please pass the SALT?”
“My life,” Destynee said, “is over.”
Lincoln Pugh, for his part, appeared to have no memory whatsoever of his time as a werebear. “I’m so glad I stayed in the dorm and went to bed early,” he said. “I was spared the sight of all you sick, sick people!”
Ankh-hoptet cursed beneath her breath.
Pearl looked around the cafeteria anxiously. “Señorita Hoptet,” she said, “is it true that you reside in the catacombs beneath the castle?”
“Yeah,” said Ankh-hoptet grumpily. “So what?”
“Perhaps I might inquire of you, if you encountered our Sasquatch comrades this morning? I note that they have not appeared for their feeding!”
“I didn’t see anybody,” grumbled Ankh-hoptet. “I sleep in the Wing of the Pharaohs, in my bejeweled sarcophagus. These bigfeet are in the Wing of Dead Flies with their bananas and their pastries.”
“I am concerned by the Sasquatches’ absence,” said Pearl. “I fear they are imperiled!”
“Imperiled?” said Mortia, placing her breakfast tray on the table. “Nah. I saw all those guys when I came up. They’re all still asleep!”
“You’re in the catacombs too?” asked Megan.
“Zombies’ Mausoleum,” said Mortia, digging into her breakfast.
From far over their heads, the bells in the Tower of Souls began to ring.
“Time for classes!” said Lincoln Pugh excitedly. “I can’t wait for school to start! I’m finally going to learn how to get better! I’m finally going to start being healthy!”
Ankh-hoptet shook her head and cursed again.
Falcon stood up. “I’m going to head down to the catacombs and get Max,” he said. “He doesn’t want to miss classes, the first day.”
“And I shall accompany you!” said Pearl.
“It’s all right,” said Falcon. “We don’t all have to be late. I’ll meet you in class.”
“So let it be done,” said Pearl, nodding gravely.
“Hey, Falcon,” said Jonny as Falcon headed off. “Be careful.”
“Of what?” said Falcon.
“Just be careful down there, okay?” Jonny gave Falcon a hard stare.
Megan looked longingly at Jonny, and briefly she emitted a gust that blew her hair around and made her features flicker in and out. “It’s good,” she said to Jonny. “The way you look out for people.”
The way he looks out for people? Falcon thought. I’m the one going down to the catacombs.
Jonny shrugged. “I’m not looking out for anybody,” he said. “Except me.”
Destynee looked self-consciously around the table. “Where’s Weems?”
“He also dwells in the catacombs,” said Ankh-hoptet. “By the Springs of Crud he gnaws on the dog-ends of his last despair!”
There was a pause as this set in.
“These catacombs would appear to be of an extraordinary size and proportion,” said Pearl.
“Oh, yeah,” said Mortia. “There’s the Wing of Dead Flies and the Zombies’ Mausoleum, the Hall of Poisoned Banquets, you name it. Goes on forever.”
“These are not places that interest the Princess of Decay!” said Ankh-hoptet. “The princess is interested only in her tomb, wherein reside the funerary masks of Amon-Re and Thoth, and the urns that contain the cryptic unguents that sanctify the life immortal, cursed though it be!”
Lincoln Pugh laughed. “Ha, ha!” he said. “Say that again!”
It was easy enough to wind up in the catacombs, Falcon learned; one simply kept following the massive stone staircases of Castle Grisleigh lower and lower, until at last they opened out into a vast, dank chamber, its vaulted ceiling upheld by hundreds of thick columns. There were torches on the walls, casting a flickering yellow light.
“Max?” he said, and his voice echoed softly. On one side of the catacombs were several small chambers; each of these was filled with coffins, some of them still housing decayed corpses.
He opened another door that led into a well-kept mausoleum. A tomb at the far end of the chamber was inscribed ZORON GRISLEIGH, 1821–. There was a small bouquet of white lilies on the floor in front of the tomb; they looked as if they had been placed there moments earlier. The chamber was full of the smell of the flowers, and another smell as well, something sweet and fetid.
“Wrong room,” whispered Falcon, turning around and following the stone columns in another direction. He opened another door to find an elaborate Egyptian tomb, complete with life-size statues of Anubis and Amon-Re. There were gold funerary masks upon an ancient wooden table, and the walls were covered with hieroglyphics. In the center of the room was a golden sarcophagus; its lid stood open, displaying its jeweled interior.
“Another wrong room,” Falcon said to himself, but as he turned he heard a faint sound of running water and a distant, muttering voice. Following the sounds, Falcon walked through another dark hallway and opened a door into a chamber filled with suits of armor. The armor was strange, though—at least one of the suits seemed to be for a warrior who had three arms.
Falcon left the armory and listened once more. Again he heard the soft, muttering voice, and the trickling waters, and this time he moved across the catacombs until he came into a huge open space with a large, circular hole in its midst. A stone staircase descended into the hole, and in the center of the hole was a fountain gurgling with a dark, viscous liquid. A stone wall surrounded the fountain, and a sluiceway at one side of it enabled the liquid to flow out through a wide tunnel built into the castle’s wall.
Beside the fountain sat Weems, staring pensively into the murk and softly talking to himself. As Falcon watched, the ghoul dropped a paper boat into the waters of the fountain. Slowly it drifted down the syrupy sluiceway and floated away through the tunnel. Weems sighed.
“Why, why, why,” he muttered.
“Hey, Weems,” said Falcon. “You seen the Sasquatches?”
The ghoul turned and faced him, and for a moment, Falcon was unnerved by Weems’s appearance. He seemed paler and more grief-stricken than ever, and his dark eyes looked as if they had only recently been wrung of tears. “Falcon Quinn,” Weems said bitterly, almost to himself. “Always Falcon Quinn.”
“I’m looking for Max and Peeler and Woody,” said Falcon. “Do you know where they are?”
“They are eating their horrible pizzas,” said Weems. “I can show you if I must.”
“You missed breakfast,” said Falcon.
“And what of that?” said Weems. “It is better to starve than to survive into the days that are coming!”
“What’s wrong with you?” said Falcon. “I thought you had an all-right time at the bash last night.”
“An all-right time!” Weems said. “Yes, the time might be remembered as—all right—by any who survive.”
“So—what’s the pr
oblem?”
“It is done, Falcon Quinn! That is the problem. It is done.”
“What do you mean, done?”
“Today,” said Weems. “They begin to destroy us. Destroy us!”
“You mean—”
“Today begin the classes. Where they teach us how not to be. How to imitate the things we despise. The humans. To fit in with them. To become them. Yes, Falcon Quinn, this is how we begin to die.”
Weems’s voice broke, and for a moment Falcon just stood there, unsure what to say. He knew that Weems’s grief was real, but it was hard for him to sympathize. If Weems’s problem was that he was a monster doomed to learn how to become something other than himself, Falcon’s dilemma seemed to be the exact opposite. Falcon seemed to be a human, destined never to quite fit in among monsters.
Actually, Falcon thought, it’s worse than that. I didn’t fit in among humans either. There didn’t seem to be a place in the world where he belonged.
Falcon looked at the opening of the tunnel on the far wall. Slowly the turgid waters flowed into it, like effluvium rippling through a sewer.
“What’s that?” said Falcon.
“It is the Tunnel of Dusk,” said Weems.
“Where does it go?”
“Away,” said Weems.
“And this fountain?” Falcon looked into the water and saw that there were things floating in it.
“The Fountain of Yuck. The source of the River of Crud, in which float the things that are forgotten. Old socks. Collars of dogs that are dead. Names of those who are unloved.” Weems’s eyes flickered, and a sad, hopeful look came over his face. It was almost worse, Falcon thought, to see the ghoul’s features stretching into this unaccustomed shape than to see them full of their usual bereavement and bile. “I don’t suppose she said anything about me today? Did she—mention my name?”
“Destynee, you mean?”
“Yes, of course, Destynee—of course, of course, Destynee!” said the ghoul, writhing in what appeared to be equal parts agony and passion. “The beloved!”
“Well,” said Falcon, “she seemed a little worried about whether people had seen her—when she was a slug.”
“Worried!” said Weems. “Worried how?”
“Well, you know, Weems. She doesn’t like it. Being a slug. It depresses her.”
“This, this, this is what I cannot understand,” wailed Weems. “Tell me this, Falcon Quinn. Why is it only to others that we can be beautiful? But to ourselves we are only things of horror? Why can we not see ourselves in the way that we ourselves are seen?”
Falcon didn’t answer Weems. He was looking at the River of Crud with a lost expression, watching its slow-moving waters ripple down the Tunnel of Dusk. From somewhere nearby came the sound of feckless Sasquatch voices, raised in carelessness and joy.
The classroom wing of Castle Grisleigh, a two-story structure of cinder blocks and translucent glass tiles, was an eye-jarring addition to the original structure. The floors were covered with shiny waxed tiles, and on the walls of the long corridors were bulletin boards with colorful presentations on them with themes such as OUR EARTH! SO IMPORTANT! There were science classrooms with the periodic table of elements on the wall, literature classrooms with busts of Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, and a dark library filled with old leather volumes and a globe of the moon.
Falcon, Weems, and the Sasquatches opened a door marked GUIDANCE—MR. SHALE to find the other first-year students sitting silently at old-fashioned wooden desks. At the front of the room sat a grumpy-looking, red-complexioned troll in a rumpled three-piece suit. Mr. Shale rested his face on one hand as if he was already exhausted by the prospect of the class before him.
“Sit,” he said, pointing to the empty desks. Falcon and Weems and the bigfeet sat down.
Falcon thought, This doesn’t seem like a counselor’s office.
“Sir?” said Max.
Mr. Shale didn’t move. “Shaddap,” he said.
Max wasn’t discouraged. “Okay, dude,” he said. “I’ll—”
“Shaddap,” said Mr. Shale again.
“Dude.”
“SHADDAP.”
The students stared at Mr. Shale, and Mr. Shale stared back. There was a large clock in one corner of the classroom. A minute went by, then five. As time passed, the clock seemed to tick louder and louder.
Mr. Shale didn’t move. The clock ticked.
Falcon glanced around to see who else was in the class with him. In addition to Max, Jonny, Megan, Weems, Pearl, Destynee, Lincoln Pugh, and Ankh-hoptet, he recognized Sparkbolt, Mortia, and Turpin. The two werewolves—or weredogs, or whatever they were—Scout and Ranger sat at desks in the front row. There were the leprechaun brothers, Sean and Shamus Fitzhugh, and their friend Owen Kearney, the abominable snowman. In the front row, all in black, were Merideath and a half dozen other vampire girls. As Falcon watched, Scout and Ranger turned toward him, bared their teeth, and growled.
Lincoln Pugh raised his hand.
Mr. Shale’s eyes narrowed. “Whaaat?” he said.
“Sir,” he said, “I was just wondering what we’re supposed to be doing.”
“Whaaaat?” shouted the old, crumpled creature.
“Is there—an agenda? My stomach aches!”
“Shaddap,” said Mr. Shale. He looked over at the clock. “This is Guidance class. Anybody have a problem?”
No one said anything.
“Good.” He heaved a weary sigh. “You want, you can put your heads down on the desks.”
“Mr. Shale?” said a voice. This was Mortia, the vegan zombie.
“Whaat?” said the troll. “Whaaaat?”
“Can I ask a question?”
“No,” shouted Mr. Shale. “Shaddap.”
“But Mr. Shale,” said Mortia. “How are we supposed to learn if we don’t ask questions?”
“You learn,” said Mr. Shale, “when you—shaddap!”
“Mr. Shale?” said Merideath.
“I said shaddap!” said Mr. Shale.
“Yes, I understand that. It’s just that you aren’t teaching us anything.”
Mr. Shale sighed. “What do you want to know?” he asked. “What’s so important that you won’t shaddap?”
Now there was silence. Mr. Shale seemed to have frightened their questions right out of them.
“Could you tell us about our classes, sir?” asked Mortia. “What are we studying? Please?”
Mr. Shale sighed. “The day starts here. With Guidance. Then Human Behaviors, with Dr. Ziegfield-Gruff. Then Language and Fabrications. Teacher’s Willow Wordswaste-Phinney. Numberology, with Mr. Pupae. Then Mad Science. Monster Ed. And lunch. After lunch, Shame. Then Band. And Mutant Sports. Any questions? Good.”
“I have a question,” said a minotaur.
“Whaat?”
“Where are we, anyway? How did we get here?”
“You’re in the Academy for Monsters. In Guidance class.”
“I know, sir, but—where’s the Academy? It feels like we’re on some kind of island or something—”
“Shadow Island,” said Mr. Shale. “Bermuda Triangle. Sea of Dragons. Islands of enemies all around us. Full of islands, full of things that are hidden, that must remain hidden. Other things on other islands. The Island of Nightmares. The Island of the Watcher. The Island of Guardians.”
“How did we get here?”
“Bus comes for you on spring equinox,” said Mr. Shale. “Thirteenth year. Enough answers now? Enough?”
For a moment it seemed as if it might, indeed, be enough. Then Merideath raised her hand.
“How long do we stay here?” asked Merideath.
“Six years,” said Mr. Shale. “Until your training is complete. When you graduate, we send you back, to the world. With all that you’ve learned here, you may still blend in with the human population, and they’ll never be the wiser. Look at the monsters we trained, and returned. Teddy Roosevelt. Beethoven. No one ever suspected that they were—otherwis
e.”
Falcon felt his heart sink. Six years of this? The problem wasn’t going to be fitting in with humans when he left. The problem was going to be fitting in with monsters in the meantime.
“Who are these—guardians?” asked Megan.
“The enemy,” said Mr. Shale, and sighed. He rubbed a rough, red hand across his face. “Monster destroyers. On the Island of Guardians. Once we waged war upon them. Endless. Many dead. Now there is truce, at least here in the Triangle. We remain in our place, and they in theirs. But back in the world, the war continues. When you leave here, you must be on your guard. They will seek you, back in the world. Seek you and destroy. That is why you must learn to disguise yourself. To hide.”
“Hey, Mr. Shale, my turn!” said Max. “I got a question.”
“Now whaat?” He rubbed the palm of his hand across his face. “Buncha chatterboxes.”
“What’s the point of everything if we just have to hide our whole lives? I mean, like—is it really so bad to be a monster? Why are you teaching us to disguise ourselves? Wouldn’t it make more sense to teach us how to fight these guardians, with, like, grenades and bazookas and junk?”
To the students it sounded like a pretty good question. But Mr. Shale was tired of the class, tired of talking, tired of everything.
“Shaddap,” he said.
The second class of the day was Human Behaviors. The teacher was a Dr. Ziegfield-Gruff, whom they found standing at the front of a lecture hall with its seats mounted on risers. Dr. Ziegfield-Gruff had a gray goatee, two curving horns, and a long, white lab coat. Of additional interest were the man’s legs, which were covered with a coarse, gray fur. He had cloven hooves.
“Gute mornink,” said Dr. Ziegfield-Gruff, pacing back and forth before them. “Zees is zee class in vich ve examine ze behaviors of ze humans you soon shall be amonk. Zome of you, I zee, have spent some time amonk ze humans; others have never been exposed, never! To zee vays and votnots of zee human beenk.”
There was some laughter toward the back of the class.
“Vat so fonny?” said Dr. Ziegfield-Gruff, pacing up the risers to the place where the laughter had come from—a group that included Merideath and the other vampire girls. “Vot? Vot?”
Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror Page 11