Death's Academy

by Bast, Michael

  My dad breaks the silence. “You’d better get up to your room, Night.”

  I blink in bewilderment, and notice that my jaw has been hanging open this whole time. I shut it and head for the stairs, but my eyes don’t leave my dad and the raven clutched in his hand.

  Nine

  I glance up from my desk, and morning’s light leaking through my ebony shutters takes me by surprise. I rub my eyes in disbelief and glance down at my watch. 6:45 a.m.

  “Holy cow,” I say with a yawn.

  I’ve been up all night working on my masterpiece. I lift myself off my chair and reach for the ceiling, stretching my sore legs and back. I let out a groan, do a quick King Kong pound on my chest, and then slap both cheeks a few times. I peer down at my creation.

  “Maybe not the most beautiful thing in the world, but not bad,” I say.

  Roger whimpers a few times. I look over at him. A three-inch-wide bald streak runs from the top of his head, down the length of his back to his tail. He’s giving me a disgusted look.

  “Don’t give me that look. It was for a good cause, dude,” I say.

  I needed some hair for my project last night, so I took the razor to Roger. I don’t know why he’s so upset about everything.

  “It’ll grow back. How about I pick you up four more ostrich necks? You know how you love ostrich necks.”

  I’m not technically lying. His hair will grow back, but Roger’s fur is pretty sparse as it is. He’s going to have the inverse Mohawk for probably a year or two. But I was desperate; I needed to make my decoy as lifelike as possible. So Roger took one for the team.

  My decoy is a life-size dummy of me. What? You actually thought I was going to miss the championship game? It would take an army of halos to stop me from playing in that game. It’s not my mom’s life we’re dealing with here; it’s mine. I’m never going to get into Death’s Academy without this scholarship, so I got to do what I got to do.

  To be honest with you, I’m kind of proud of my ingenuity. My idea is pretty sweet. I used some papier-mâché, troll snot, dye, and other readily available household products to make the dummy look as lifelike as I could. I also ran metal and electric wiring through it. Wait until you see what it can do.

  I heave my decoy off the desk and carry him over to my bed where I tuck him in under the covers. Only his fur-covered head shows. I glance back at Roger.

  “See, it looks great.”

  Roger turns his head in disgust and lets out a low grumbling fart.

  “Dude!”

  He gets up, trots to the door, and squeezes out through the crack.

  I yank my shirt over my mouth and nose before I get hit with the toxic vapors. I make a beeline for the window and throw it open to let in some fresh air.

  “Selfish dog,” I mutter.

  I walk back over to my desk and grab my laptop and the electrical switch box I borrowed from my dad’s tool closet. I connect the box to the computer and then take them both over to my bed. I pull the four ends of the electrical wiring out of my dummy and plug them into the electrical switch box.

  “Here goes nothing,” I say.

  I click “execute program” on my laptop, and the dummy spasms once. I pause for a moment and then speak.

  “Time to get up.”

  The dummy sits still for a second or two and then it rolls slightly in bed and my voice comes out of the computer’s speakers.

  “I don’t want to talk. I’m staying in bed today.”

  I laugh out loud and nearly drop my computer.

  “She’s a genius,” I say.

  Who’s she? Mal is the genius. Last night after my mom blew up at me and my dad did the superman dive through the air—which, by the way, I still can’t believe—I snuck out and went to Mal’s house. I told her what happened and convinced her to help me out.

  I came up with the idea for the dummy, but she came up with the idea of turning it into a voice activated, animatronic “parent duping” machine. I told you she was a genius. She wrote a computer program that sends electrical impulses to different parts of my dummy and causes them to move when there is any type of noise like someone speaking. Then it plays one of my recorded responses through the computer’s speakers so it seems like I’m lying in bed and talking back.

  “I love you, Mal,” I whisper with a grin.

  I slide the computer under the bed and walk over to the door to my room.

  “Get out of bed, you handsome devil,” I say.

  The dummy turns away.

  “I really don’t want to talk. Please leave me alone,” my recorded voice says.

  “But, Night, I was totally wrong. I’m an idiot, you were right,” I say to the dummy.

  The dummy shifts again. “I’m serious. I don’t want to talk,” it says.

  I laugh, but quickly cover my mouth. I don’t want my dad to hear. My mom has already left for work, but my dad is probably downstairs puttering away at something.

  “This is totally gonna work,” I whisper.

  My game starts in two hours, but I told Mal I would head over to her house first to pick her up. I grab my cleats, and stuff them into my backpack, then I slide out the window onto the rose trellis below. Fifteen seconds later, I’m jogging down the sidewalk and turning the corner onto another street.

  Mal lives only a couple of blocks away, so I reach her house in a few minutes. I know she’s probably not up yet, so I hop her fence and head for the swing set in the backyard. Mal and I have had quite a few long talks on these swings. I plop myself down on one and glance at my watch.

  “I’ll give her thirty minutes.”

  Sitting down reminds me how tired I am. The excitement and adrenaline of coming up with my decoy has kept my mind occupied enough that my body is only just realizing that I have been awake for over thirty-six hours.

  I sigh and lay my head up against the cold chain of the swing. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of a bright red object tucked next to Mal’s family shed. The sun reflects off its chrome trim, and my curiosity is piqued. I push myself out of the swing and walk over to it.

  It’s lying on its side up against the shed. I pull it out from the weeds and lay it on the ground. The board is shaped like an arrowhead and painted bright red. It reminds me of a shorty skateboard, but it only has three silver wheels. The wheels aren’t fixed either, so they don’t only go forward or backward, but are able to rotate. Around the edge of the board there’s a lip that curves up like the underside of a Frisbee. The lip is lined with chrome.

  I gingerly place one foot onto it and then another.

  “Huh … Must be a homemade skateboard or something like that,” I mutter to myself. “Pretty boring, Mal.”

  Compared to her other inventions, this one is something a shorty kid could have put together in an afternoon. What can I say? I’m not impressed.

  I look down at my feet, and I notice for the first time the small circular hole through the board near the point of the arrowhead. I glance around for the attachment that must stick in the hole when all of a sudden, whoosh! The board shoots out from underneath my feet. I smack face-first into the dew-covered grass, and then I hear a deafening clang! The board slams into the tin shed. I’m sure I’ve awoken the entire neighborhood.

  I scurry to my feet and hustle back over to the swing. I plop down and try to act as innocent and natural as possible. I peer up at Mal’s house, half expecting one of her parents to be glaring back at me, but nothing. Not a peep.

  I watch the house for a few minutes longer, but I haven’t awoken anyone. Pretty soon I’m bored again. I start kicking at a stone that is stuck in the earth at my feet. As I’m trying to pry it free, the image of my dad flying through the air to catch the porcelain raven replays in slow motion. Before last night, the most athletic thing I ever saw my dad do was walk out to the mailbox to get the mail. That leap reminded me of highlight videos I’ve seen of “Black Magic” Murphy, the famous skull ball defender. She could make catches like that. No
t my pudgy dad, who has a hard time tying his shoes.

  I had always assumed that my extraordinary skull ball skills had come from my mom’s side, but I don’t know anymore. To be honest, I don’t know much about my dad’s past. My dad doesn’t talk about it, and my mom won’t talk about it. Like I said before, all I know is that he is known for one of the greatest screw-ups in hoodie history.

  I glance up at the back of Mal’s house, and I see her bedroom curtain move.

  “Finally, she’s awake.”

  Ever since Mal told me about this new halo girl moving into the neighborhood, I’ve been anxious about practicing my new roll on an actual person a couple of times before the game. If she’s as good as Mal says she is, then I’d better be sure it actually works.

  Mal’s back door opens, and she stumbles out with a blanket wrapped around her.

  “What are you doing here so early?” she mumbles while wiping sleep from her eyes.

  “I need to practice something with you before the game,” I say.

  “Night, I was up until 3:00 a.m. writing that computer program for your decoy. I’m tired.”

  “It works like a champ too. You should have seen it! Just go get your kicking boot on and grab a couple of skulls. It won’t take long.”

  She makes a long noise that sounds like a mix between a sigh, cry, and curse word. She trudges back inside. A few minutes later she walks out, still in her pajamas, with her iron kicking boot over her shoulder and a couple of skulls tucked under her arm.

  She tosses the skulls at my feet.

  “So what are we doing?” she asks.

  “I’ve been practicing a new roll. I want to see how well it works,” I say.

  “This couldn’t have waited until we got to the game?”

  “No, it’s got to be a surprise. Now stop wasting time and hustle over there so I can roll you a couple.”

  She scowls and puts her iron boot over her right foot. What’s with the iron boot you ask? Would you kick a fossilized human skull when the only thing between your toes and intense pain is a few millimeters of tennis shoe? Of course not. The boot protects the striker, and it also makes the skull fly a lot farther, which makes the game more exciting.

  There you go again making that disgusted face. It’s not like the person needs his skull anymore. He’s moved on; he’s playing harps, floating on clouds, and all of that other angel stuff. For big games like today, they usually pull out some special skulls. At last year’s junior championship—which we lost twenty-one to five, if you must know—we used this Italian dude’s skull. His name was Mike Angel or Marvin Angelo … No, that’s not right … Michelangelo. That’s it.

  Supposedly he was some famous shorty that sculpted another dude name David and painted some nice pictures on a ceiling somewhere. I’m not too sure, though, because I don’t keep up with whole shorty history thing too much. But I do have to say he had a very lopsided skull. That thing wouldn’t roll straight to save my life, and I had to do some major in-game adjustments to get it to roll the way I wanted.

  Mal buckles the last strap on her foot and stomps over to the middle of the yard. I trot to the other side and eye the distance between us.

  “Is that about forty feet?” I ask.

  “More or less. Come on. Let’s see this new roll so I can go back inside and lie down,” Mal barks.

  “Pushy, pushy,” I say.

  I get in my stance. My heels together, my knees bowed away from each other. I spit on my hands and rub them together. I clasp the skull by sticking one finger in the nose hole, another in the ear hole and two in the mouth. This is called the Lou-cow-ski hold, a little unorthodox but an essential ingredient for my new roll.

  “You ready?” I ask.

  She spits and gets into position. “Roll it.”

  I flex my wrist, bringing the skull to my forearm. I twist my hips to the side and swing my arm forward. I flick my wrist counterclockwise, giving the ear hole a jab with my finger at the same time.

  The skull springs from my hand, hits the ground, and speeds toward Mal like a tumbleweed caught in a tornado, whirling one way and then another. Mal swings her foot at the skull, but misjudges it, and it darts just out of her reach. The momentum of her kick sends her sprawling onto the earth with a thud.

  “Holy cow!” Mal exclaims from the seat of her pants.

  I do three exuberant scissor kicks into the air in celebration.

  “Did you see that?” I yell.

  “How did you do that? I’ve never seen a skull do that before,” Mal says and jumps up.

  I give her one of my million-dollar smiles. “Not telling.”

  “Do it again! That was probably just a fluke,” she says.

  I pick up the other skull and get in position.

  “Ready?” I ask.

  “I’m gonna knock this one over the fence,” she growls.

  I smile, do my windup, and roll the skull toward her. This time she mistimes it completely, and the skull passes her before she even tries to make contact. She watches as it zips by and then peers up at me.

  “That’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen,” she says. “Who did you learn it from?”

  “I came up with it,” I lie.

  “You did?”

  “More or less,” I say.

  Mal’s eyebrows shoot up and she locks her hands onto her hips. The sight reminds me uncomfortably of my mom.

  I sigh. “All right, all right. I found it in this ancient book at the library.”

  “You’ve been to the library?” she says, her eyebrows still arched.

  I decide to overlook her rude question. “The roll was made up by this foreign guy named something Mikhail. He was a famous roller a few hundred years ago. I found the instructions in the back of the book and I have been practicing it for quite a while.”

  “Hmm … Mikhail? Where is that name from?” Mal asks, rubbing her chin.

  “Dunno. Sounds Canadian. Now go get dressed. We gotta go,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes and makes her way toward the back door.

  “Hey, Mal!”

  “What?” she says over her shoulder.

  “What’s that red skateboard thing over by your shed?” I ask.

  “Is that what that noise was earlier?” she responds.

  “Stupid thing shot out from underneath me,” I say.

  She laughs. “I wish I could have seen that.” She walks over to the shed and picks it up. She brushes some mud off it and then lays it back onto the ground where I had my spill.

  “What is it?” I ask again.

  “I’ll show you.” She opens the shed door and pulls out a matching red rod. It is shaped like a T with two hoops coming off the handles. She pushes it into the hole and it locks into place.

  “I get it. It’s like a scooter,” I say. “You hold on to the handles and kick the ground to get going.”

  She smiles and shakes her head. “Not even close. I call it the ‘Hound-ariot.’ ”

  I scrunch my brow. “The what?”

  “The Hound-ariot. It’s like a chariot but for our hellhounds. Watch,” she says and then uses her fingernail to tug open a secret compartment on the handle. She pulls out a whistle and brings it to her lips. She blows, but there isn’t a sound. She blows again.

  “I guess it’s broken,” I say.

  She shakes her head. “Nope.”

  Suddenly a wiener dog leaps over the six-foot-tall fence into Mal’s yard. The wiener dog is shortly followed by a poodle that whips around the side of the house into the yard. They both gallop to Mal’s feet. Now, remember, hellhounds appear as cute little doggies to you shorties. But to us, they are quite a bit more—dare I say—gruesome.

  “You two will do,” Mal says. She then tugs on the end of the Hound-ariot’s handle and yanks off one of the hoops. A thin chain is attached to it, and she walks it over to the wiener dog. The chain extends from the handle to the hoop. She takes the hoop and carefully places it over the wiener dog’s head unt
il it is securely fastened around his neck. She then takes the other hoop off and does the same thing with the poodle.

  “This doesn’t actually work, does it?” I say with a bit of a chuckle.

  She makes a face at me. “Watch and see, buddy.” She steps onto the board, puts one hand on the handle, and then calls out in a loud, clear voice. “Once around the house.” She then blows on her whistle.

  In an instant the poodle and wiener dog leap into action and rocket from their spot. Mal is jerked forward, and she and the Hound-ariot take off in a cloud of dust. She has whipped around the house and is back to where I am standing within a few seconds.

  My jaw drops open.

  “That’s amazing! Let me try!” I yell, jumping up and down like a toddler at Christmas.

  “Later. We’ve gotta go.”

  “Oh come on! One time!” I plead.

  “Nope, my dad doesn’t want anyone else riding it until we get it cleared with the Ethical Treatment of Hellhounds Office.”

  My shoulders drop and I feel like throwing a tantrum, but I contain my disappointment. “Fine, but as soon as you do, I want to ride it,” I say.

  She smiles and puts the Hound-ariot back into the shed. I watch longingly as the wiener dog and poodle take off back to their homes.

  About fifteen minutes later, we’re heading down the street for the playing field. The contents of Mal’s backpack jingle and clank with every step she takes.

  “Why the backpack today, Mal?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “It goes where I go. You never know when you might need something,” Mal says, throwing it over her other shoulder. “So you feeling pretty sure that decoy is going to fool your parents?”

  “Oh yeah, you should’ve seen it. Not a chance they’ll figure it out,” I say, tossing a skull up into the air and catching it. “So you really like the new roll?”

  Mal makes an exasperated noise. “Yes. For the hundredth time, it’s great.”

  I try to control it, but I can feel my smile spreading across my face. I toss the skull into the air again.

  “But you’ve never faced someone as good as this halo girl before,” Mal says.