The Amazing Wilmer Dooley

by Fowler DeWitt

  “Did you feel that, Ernie?” asked Wilmer, dazed. “That must have been nearly the full-level frequency. But at least our brains aren’t soup. I think.” Wilmer rocked his head back and forth. “See? No splashing.”

  Two hands curled around Wilmer’s neck.

  “Must pulp fiction,” grumbled Ernie, his fingers stiffening as they slowly closed around Wilmer’s windpipe.

  “Can’t breathe . . . ,” rasped Wilmer. “Don’t . . . ,” he croaked, trying to suck in air. He staggered back. Ernie bared his teeth. His fingers tightened. Wilmer pushed his hands back to keep himself from falling, and his palm accidentally grazed the big red console button again. “Ernie, stop!” he screamed as another loud squawk blared through the room.

  Then, just as suddenly as his attack began, Ernie released Wilmer and stood like a statue.

  Wilmer coughed and rubbed his raw neck. Ernie no longer seemed violent. He didn’t seem much of anything, actually.

  “Ernie?” probed Wilmer, waving his hand in front of his friend’s face. “Are you going to try to kill me again?” Apparently he wasn’t.

  Wilmer needed to get back to his investigation. There were secrets to be solved! Brain puzzles to put together! But he needed to get Ernie back up to their hotel room before he went crazy again. Ernie was his best friend. They had exchanged thumbshakes. Ernie had gone deep into the woods to find him. Sure, Ernie wasn’t acting like himself, but it wasn’t his fault. Ernie needed Wilmer, and Ernie needed to come first.

  “We’re going upstairs,” said Wilmer.

  “Must lame ducks,” murmured Ernie, but he followed Wilmer obediently. “I’ll be back,” Wilmer said to himself, looking one last time at the room. “I’ll solve this mystery. I must!” Then he growled, “Must whack moles.”

  He gasped. Why had he said that? He closed the door behind them and led Ernie down the hall, struggling to hold down the anger that wanted to burst out.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Brain soup recipe

  By CD

  Serves 4

  Ingredients:

  Brain broth

  1/4 tsp salt

  1 leek

  2 carrots

  2 celery ribs

  4 oz. noodles

  Emit repeated high-dose frequencies, and put jar near ear to catch brain broth drippings. Add broth to soup pan, along with salt, leek, celery, and carrots. Bring to a boil and simmer for three hours. Add cooked noodles before serving.

  In the lobby, kids milled about aimlessly. A flat-faced girl thumped into a wall over and over while yapping like an angry dog. Another kid—a short, stocky boy with a buzz cut—kept batting his own head with a sneaker. Two blond girls ate carpet fuzz.

  Wilmer spied Roxie and Harriet. Neither seemed dazed or crazed. Good. Roxie must have worn her headphones during the last few announcements, and Harriet had her earplugs, which meant they had been protected from the evil loudspeaker squawks. Wilmer hurried over to them, waving his arms. “Hey! I need your help! Claudius and Vlad are planning on doing something bad with brain soup and mouse control and I’m not sure what else!”

  Harriet folded her arms and turned her back to Wilmer. “You’re just going to yell at me again.”

  He had forgotten about his behavior in the woods; that seemed so long ago! He had been mean and full of himself. But that was the old Wilmer. Well, no, not the old Wilmer. It had been the temporary new and horrible Wilmer. Actually, Wilmer still felt mean and combustible, but he was controlling it better now. So maybe he wasn’t yet the old Wilmer. He was part old, part new. He became so confused that he just stared forward for a moment until he regained his thoughts. “Sorry. I’m back. No. Please. I need you guys to help me. That wasn’t me in the woods.”

  “It wasn’t you? It was a fake Wilmer? I suppose Claudius and Vlad created a robot Wilmer?” scoffed Harriet. “I’m not listening to you anymore.”

  “But the loudspeakers are turning everybody into mindless drones! Can’t you see that? Don’t you feel a ball of anger inside you, ready to explode?”

  “Sure,” said Harriet. “But I’m angry at you!”

  “It’s the loudspeakers,” insisted Wilmer.

  “The loudspeakers yelled at me in the woods?” asked Harriet, her hands on her hips.

  “Well, no. But it’s their fault!”

  “Yesterday, whoever makes those announcements also suggested we give air fresheners to people with smelly feet. Why would an evil person say that?”

  “Okay, you got me there. That would be useful. But I’m telling the truth! Just look at Ernie!”

  “Must cuff links,” mumbled Ernie.

  “I’m not sure what Claudius and Vlad are planning,” said Wilmer. “Not exactly. But it’s bad.”

  Harriet stood, arms crossed, frowning. “I thought it was the loudspeakers’ fault. Now it’s Claudius’s fault? Really, Wilmy. I’m so disappointed in you.” She popped in her earplugs.

  “Roxie! You can help!” pleaded Wilmer, turning to his one true love. Surely she would listen. She had to.

  “I can’t help. I’m not a scientist, remember?” Roxie crossed her arms and turned her back on Wilmer.

  Wilmer grimaced. Had he really said that, to Roxie of all people? “Look. I was wrong. But don’t you see that everyone here is acting like a brainwashed zombie . . . ?”

  Next to them, a girl in a sparkly tank top licked a coffee table.

  But Roxie wasn’t listening. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pointed across the lobby. “Oh, look. There’s Vlad! He cares about what I think.” And she made a beeline to him and Claudius.

  Wilmer’s eyes narrowed. His enemies stood across the lobby, smirking as usual. The two cousins weren’t acting brain-dead. They weren’t staring blankly. That was more proof that they were behind all this! Vlad said something and Roxie laughed. Wilmer steamed. He should go over there right now and expose Vlad and Claudius for the evil monsters they were!

  “We need to stop them!” screamed Wilmer, but no one paid him any attention.

  Wilmer glanced at the walls, with their deep crevices and peeling paint. The ceiling was slightly slanted, and the floors felt uneven, as if the entire hotel was threatening to fall apart. Wilmer felt as ignored and helpless as the fractured plaster.

  “Must snap dragons,” murmured Ernie.

  “We need—” Wilmer began again, before halting his words. What was the use? “Come on, Ernie,” he said, leading his friend past four kids in matching Stephen Hawking baseball hats, who were snarling at an end table.

  “Must fire flies,” growled Ernie.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Dear Journal,

  I’ve stayed in the room with Ernie all night. He’s stopped drooling and is now peacefully playing with his iNoise. Hopefully there won’t be any of those awful announcements for a while.

  But I need to put an end to this. Tomorrow is the science fair. I bet that’s when Claudius and Vlad will make their final move, whatever that is.

  I’ll need to be ready.

  But what can I do—I’m in over my head! And who knows how long I’ll still have a head, at least one that’s not soupy. According to Claudius’s journal, brains need to be controlled slowly, with low-level frequencies. Which means that every time there’s an announcement, everybody’s brains become more twisted.

  Last night a hotel broadcast suggested we write letters to homesick penguins. That is a good idea. But what does it have to do with brain soup?

  All I know for sure is that every time I hear a screech, I feel my arms weaken. Even with my earplugs, the noises are clouding my head. I won’t be able to hold out forever. No one will.

  The situation is getting more urgent by the minute. But how can I stop it alone? Ernie isn’t in any condition to help. And Roxie and Harriet won’t talk to me.

  I’ll have to expose Vlad and Claudius in the morning. Just one glance at the hotel’s cracking walls reminds me that I need to crack this case. If it’s the last thi
ng I ever do.

  But hopefully it won’t be.

  Signing off,

  Wilmer Dooley

  The next morning at breakfast kids ate quietly, with only a few signs of zombielike menace. No one seemed to remember the terror from the night before. One stocky boy wearing a shirt that said HERE’S LOOKING AT EUCLID kept asking if anyone knew why part of his sneaker was eaten. A girl wearing a pink lab coat wondered why her tongue had carpet burn. Ernie kept picking seat cushion foam from his teeth.

  The kids were still on edge, though. They grumbled at one another. They yelled mean things. Lizzy hurled a muffin at Tizzy.

  Ernie had recovered a little from the previous night, but he was far from being himself. He gnawed on his sprinkled glazed doughnut slowly, in very un-Ernie-like fashion.

  “Don’t you want to cram that whole thing in your mouth and make a giant mess with the crumbs, and then eat four slices of extra-greasy bacon?” asked Wilmer.

  Ernie shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”

  Yes, things were looking grim. Ernie wiped his mouth after eating a small bite of carrot cake.

  And Ernie didn’t like carrots.

  Elvira and Mr. Sneed, on the other hand, seemed quite happy. They smiled. Mr. Sneed whistled a jaunty tune. They high-fived each other. Didn’t the two adults see what was going on? They were proba­bly just too excited for the science fair competition to pay attention. Wilmer should march over there right now and tell them all about Claudius’s evil plan.

  But they probably wouldn’t listen either. They would just dismiss it as competition anxiety. Today was the big day, after all.

  And Wilmer had left the proof back in the radio room.

  Wilmer wished he could finish setting up his science project. He had spent so many hours on it, and he really wanted to win a new microscope. But stopping Claudius and Vlad was far more important. Wilmer was the students’ only hope. He needed to get back to that room.

  The loudspeaker squeaked, but this time Wilmer was extra-ready. He had created a second pair of earplugs using a torn bit of pillowcase and some rubber bands. He shoved his own pair into his ears, and then the second pair into Ernie’s just before the announcement began. He wished he could have made enough for every ear in the hotel, but he didn’t have enough time, or pillowcases.

  “Attention, dear, dear students. Please set up your science projects. Judging will begin in forty-five minutes,” said the announcer in its odd, electronically distorted voice. “And build a tree fort for a monkey because monkeys love tree forts.”

  Wilmer scratched his head. Why were monkeys important? Or maybe they weren’t. Did Claudius and Vlad love monkeys? It didn’t make any sense.

  As the sound cut off, Ernie yanked the pillow stuffing from his ears. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Saving you from turning into a violent jellyfish,” said Wilmer. “Like last night.”

  Ernie scratched his forehead. “I don’t remember anything about last night. But I was wondering why a tree branch was tied to my foot.”

  “Sorry, I forgot to remove it. But let me recap. Claudius and Vlad have built an elaborate loudspeaker system that wipes away brains. I think they’ve rigged that tall radio tower in the woods to broadcast their messages. They’re going to blow up the hotel. And other things, too. Any of that ring a bell?”

  Ernie looked unconvinced. “How could they possibly have done all those things?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Wilmer. “That is a flaw in my theory.” Wilmer knew scientific facts did not have unexplained flaws. They were always accurate, proven time and time again. Consistent. The law of gravity didn’t mean some apples fell from trees and others floated by. The law of planetary motion didn’t mean some planets orbited the sun, and others went leaping around as they pleased.

  But it had to be the two conniving cousins! The papers in the audio room were covered with the initials CD! Claudius Dill! A rose by any other name is still a rose! Not that Claudius Dill was a rose. No, he was a stinkbird, scientific name: Opisthocomus hoazin.

  The stinkbird, an awkward chicken-size bird found in South America, is best known for its horrid, manurelike smell.

  Yes, that’s exactly what Claudius was: a stinky pile of cow poop.

  Not that name-calling would help Wilmer save the day. Still, it made him feel a little better.

  But he couldn’t sit around thinking of stinkbirds, even if he wanted to. Wilmer needed to stop the cousins, and he needed to get back into the control room. He would find more evidence. He would show everyone that CD was guilty!

  That’ll show everyone I’m amazing. And I’ll do it all by myself!

  Stop. No. Where was that coming from? Was it the loudspeakers creeping into his head and turning him into someone he hated again? Or was it just his stupid ego bubbling up? Whatever it was, he needed to stop thinking like that. He needed help. He needed someone who understood sound.

  And he knew two experts on that very subject: Harriet, Grand Newtonian winner for her project on sound waves, and Roxie, radio morning-show star.

  They were still angry with him. He couldn’t blame them, not after the way he had been acting. He had told Harriet his very best joke that morning, and she hadn’t even smiled.

  “What did the apple say to Sir Isaac Newton?” Wilmer had asked. “I’m falling for your law of gravity!”

  Well, okay. Maybe it wasn’t his very best joke, but the day before she would have been rolling in the aisles with laughter instead of rolling her eyes.

  There she was now, heading to the exhibit hall. Wilmer jumped out of his chair. “Harriet! Wait!”

  Harriet snarled at him. “I’m not talking to you, remember?”

  “Technically, you are talking to me if you’re telling me you’re not talking to me,” Wilmer pointed out. “I was a jerk. I’m sorry. I wish I could take it back. But kids are getting angrier than a bee with hives. Or something like that. I need to stop them before it becomes permanent. No. We need to stop them! Together. I can’t do it without you.”

  Harriet folded her arms and glared at Wilmer. Then she looked around. Next to her, a girl punched the wall. Another girl stabbed the sofa with a pencil. “I admit people aren’t exactly acting like themselves, but pressure will do that to you, like Elvira said. We all want to win.”

  And with that, she marched into the exhibit hall.

  “Harriet—” cried Wilmer as he scrambled after her.

  But as he stepped into the large hall behind her, his mouth dropped open.

  The exhibits in the room were completely destroyed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  EXHIBIT HALL SAFETY RULES:

  No running

  No jumping

  No ball playing

  No poisonous gases, toxins, or mists

  No deadly fungi

  No peeking at other people’s exhibits

  No destroying anyone’s exhibits

  No blowing up the room

  No peanuts

  (some of our scientists have allergies)

  Shattered glass layered the ground like crumbled ice. All the overhead light fixtures had fallen onto the exhibits, which now lay in broken heaps. It was hard to tell what had once been a science project and what had once been a light fixture. A terrarium had exploded and a large snake slithered about. Sculptures and models had fractured, splintered, and fallen. Jars had burst. It was like a tornado had spent the night.

  A tornado named Claudius and Vlad!

  They were probably in the radio room that very moment, preparing to carry out their sick, wretched plan that didn’t entirely make sense. Why destroy the exhibits if they’re just going to erase everyone’s brains, anyway?

  But no, there they were, over at their table. Claudius and Vlad hadn’t even opened their box yet. Their project was probably in perfect condition and they were waiting for just the right moment to unveil it. They’d win by default!

  “Ruined! All ruined!” sobbed a red-cheeked girl in the corner.
>
  “Why? Why? Why?” cried a short boy with big, bushy eyebrows.

  Harriet’s exhibit was in a thousand pieces, having caught the tail end of a fallen light fixture. Bacteria samples lay in bubbling pools on the floor, sizzling like acid.

  But Wilmer’s project was in even worse shape. His projector lay in pieces among shattered glass slides. His tall fiberglass displays had cracked. His jar of leeches had shattered, and a swarm of them oozed among the broken equipment.

  “Help!” cried Lizzy, standing behind Wilmer. “Get it off! Get it off!” A leech was on her arm.

  “No worries,” said Wilmer. “It’s only sucking your blood. It’ll fall right off after it has gorged itself.”

  She fainted.

  Enough was enough! Wilmer needed to put a stop to this once and for all. He pointed to Claudius and Vlad. He raised his voice to a scream. “They did this! They’ve been plotting all weekend to blow up the hotel and brainwash everyone! Claudius and Vlad. The twin terrors! The diabolical duo! They must be stopped!”

  A hush filled the room. All eyes locked on Wilmer, and then on Claudius and Vlad. They had to believe Wilmer now! It was the only way to stop the scheme that Wilmer was still confused about.

  “But if they’re brainwashing us, why would they destroy the exhibits?” asked a boy in the back of the room.

  “Well, I haven’t figured that out,” admitted Wilmer.

  “We haven’t done a thing!” yelled Vlad.

  “Oh yeah?” Wilmer’s voice, which was already loud, grew even louder and angrier. He balled his hands into fists. His brain, which he had been trying to control all morning, bubbled with fury. But he didn’t care anymore. He marched past his table to the cousins’ exhibit, avoiding shards of glass, a pile of dissected frogs, six cracked eggs, a fractured model of the solar system, and other assorted rubble. “If you are innocent, then why are all of our exhibits destroyed, and not yours!” He grabbed the box that covered their project, hoisted it up, and slammed it to the ground.