Dr. Critchlore's School for Minions

by Sheila Grau

  He would have been fired, but he was married to Dr. Critchlore’s cousin, and a major stockholder in the school.

  “What do you want?” he said when he noticed me standing in the doorway.

  “Um.” What did I want? My brain always seemed to freeze when someone seemed angry with me.

  He sighed with annoyance. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Professor Vodum, I’m sorry for the interruption.” My hand grasped my medallion without me telling it to. “I was working with the first-year zombies, and they weren’t responding to my commands, so I gave them some mind control potion, and …”

  “Good grief,” he said. “Let me get the file.” He got up and opened a cabinet along the wall. Like Dr. Critchlore, he was tall, but where Dr. Critchlore was slim and precise in everything—from his perfectly trimmed goatee to his spotless shoes—Professor Vodum was kind of a slob. His greasy brown hair lay flat on his head, and he wore a white lab coat covered with spills. I hoped they were food.

  He fingered the tops of the files, muttering, “Ghosts, mummies, skeletons, vampires, wraiths … where is it?” He threw up his hands and slammed the file cabinet. “Where is it?”

  That last part sounded a bit whiny for a grown-up, which made me feel very uncomfortable, like he was about to blame me for the missing file. It got worse when he called for his secretary. “Marcia, Mar-shaaaaaaah,” he said, the “aaaaaaah” changing pitch as it rolled out of his mouth in search of its target. “Where’s the zombie file?” He threw up his hands again. “I can never find anything when I need it.”

  Marcia came in and walked straight to the professor’s desk. “It’s right here, Professor,” she said, pointing to a stack of files next to his computer.

  “Well, why didn’t you file it away?” he whined.

  “I’m sorry, I thought you were using it.” She reached for it, but he swooped it up.

  “I am now,” he said. “You’re dismissed.”

  I bet it took a lot of self-control for Marcia not to roll her eyes. I was impressed. I smiled at her and she winked back.

  “Professor,” I said, “when you raise the dead, how do you get them to respond to your commands?”

  Professor Vodum looked at me suspiciously. “I’m afraid that’s a professional secret,” he said. “I share that only with my honor students. Seventh-years.”

  Rats.

  He looked at me, tilted his head sideways a bit, and then added, “I guess I can tell you that it takes a bit of chanting, a special cocktail of potions, if you will, and it has to take place during the right phase of the moon.”

  Hmm. That didn’t really help me.

  “I raised these zombies myself,” he said, opening the file. “Even added a scent adapter so they won’t attack anyone here at school. Cook puts a little something in our food, and we’re safe from zombies. It’s brilliant, really.”

  “Didn’t Dr. Frankenhammer invent that?” We’d had zombies for years and never had a problem with them attacking the humans at school.

  “I suppose if you want to be picky, he invented the serum. But I administered it, so …”

  “But they went after Miss Merrybench.”

  “She wears too much perfume,” Professor Vodum said, closing the file and dropping it on his desk. “I’ve warned her many times. Where are my zombies now?”

  “With Professor Zaida. But haven’t they been here?” I asked. “I sent them to the necromancer after first period.”

  “Dr. Critchlore has just hired three more necromancers. There are five on staff now,” he said. “I share this office with two others. The other two have offices on the other side of the cemetery, next to the lake.” He looked out the window and pouted. “I should have gotten the office by the lake.”

  “But if you raised them, why wouldn’t they return to you?” I asked.

  He looked hurt. “Yes, why wouldn’t they? Why don’t my minions ever return to me?” His voice rose higher with each word. “It’s so unfair. Graggly’s undead return to him. They even got him a card on his birthday. Why can’t mine?”

  I slowly backed out of the room. I had my answer. There was nothing wrong with the zombies. They just only understood whine.

  This was great news: no epidemic of defective minions. Plus I could tell Professor Zaida how to control the zombies, and she’d be so grateful she’d let me out of detention. Then I could show Coach Foley, and my junior henchman status would soar.

  “Goodness, look at the time,” Professor Vodum said. “I’ve called a meeting of the necromancers to inform them of my seniority here. Mar-shaaaaaaah!”

  An overlord without a minion is like a toothless shark.

  —DR. CRITCHLORE, IN AN ADVERTISEMENT

  I raced back to the Memorial Courtyard, hoping to catch Professor Zaida before class ended. As I passed the organic vegetable garden (“A Healthy Minion Lasts Longer in Battle”), I heard a yelp. I looked over at the strawberry patch and heard it again. Someone had gotten trapped in the Strawberry Snare, one of the most successful plant traps in the school.

  “Hello?” I called.

  “Help!”

  “Where are you? Did the Strawberry Snare catch you?”

  “Yes. I just wanted a few strawberries. Help me.”

  I looked down the path to the Memorial Courtyard. I didn’t have much time before third period was over.

  “Please hurry,” the voice said. “It’s getting tighter.”

  “I’m coming.”

  The plant only awakened when someone touched a berry, so I carefully sidestepped my way toward the voice. If I hurried, I could free whoever was caught and still catch Professor Zaida.

  “Raise a hand or something,” I said. “I can’t see you.” The plants grew atop tall mounds, set off in rows, their vines dripping down the sides.

  I saw a little hand pop up just a few meters ahead. An imp, probably. We had a lot of them the year below mine. The textbooks said they were energetic, resourceful, and imaginative. In reality they liked to steal things and play pranks on everyone.

  “I think I can pull you out,” I said, reaching for him. Most imps don’t grow taller than two and a half feet, but they have long, very strong fingers. They are greenish in color, with pointy ears that stick up or out, depending on the imp. Our hands clasped and his head popped up, a wicked grin on his face, the tips of his fangs peeking out over his lower lip.

  “Gotcha!” he said. Four more imps rose from behind the mound, wearing the light green jacket that all second-year students wear. Before I knew it, I’d been wrapped tightly in vines. I struggled, but it was no use. They had me good. The imps jumped up and scampered off, laughing. “We trapped a third-year! Bonus points for us!”

  Great. Just great. I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book—the “I’m trapped” trap. I gnawed on the vines, but they were tough and rubbery. I heard the bell sound for the end of third period, and I felt like crying. Not only was I not getting out of detention, I was going to be tardy for my next class. Or worse: If I didn’t get free, I’d get an “unexcused absence” mark, and that meant another detention.

  I didn’t know what to do, so I sat back and howled. I howled at the sky, at the stupid imps, at the Strawberry Snare. I put all my frustration into that howl.

  When I paused to take in another breath, I heard a voice say, “Lighten up, will you? Some of them are still sleeping.”

  I looked over and saw Syke (pronounced “sigh-key”) and smiled with relief. I was saved! Strands of the Strawberry Snare circled her legs in a gentle embrace. Syke had a way with plants; it was in her nature. Her mother was a hamadryad, a tree nymph.

  Syke’s skin was the color of mahogany wood, and in the right light her black hair turned an iridescent green, like a hummingbird’s feathers. We had grown up at the school together. She was like a sister to me.

  “Higgins, you idiot, what are you doing?” she asked. When I said she was like a sister to me, I meant the kind that calls you a moron and st
eals your clothes. She was wearing my nicely worn-in combat boots.

  “Syke,” I said, “thank goodness it’s you. I was trapped by imps.”

  “The ‘I’m trapped’ trap?”

  I nodded.

  She rolled her eyes. “You are so lame.” She knelt down and stroked the vines. They practically purred as they released me and stretched toward her touch. “There, now, my little darlings,” she said to them. “Let Higgins go.”

  I stood up. “Thanks,” I said. “But aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Syke wasn’t a minion; she was Dr. Critchlore’s ward. Her parents had been killed in a fire when she was a baby. What was now our boulderball field used to be a lush, dense forest. Dr. Critchlore had saved Syke, but try as he might, he couldn’t find a relative for Syke to live with who wasn’t a hamadryad. Tree nymphs live in trees. Literally, inside the trees. Syke, being only part hamadryad, can’t do that.

  Her hamadryad relatives told Dr. Critchlore that he was responsible for the life he had saved, so he took Syke in as his ward. If he promised to raise and educate her, but not train her as a minion, then they would not curse him with chestnut blight.

  “I have Literature,” she said.

  “Me too. Let’s go.”

  I raced out of the field, Syke following slowly. “Syke, we’re gonna be late.”

  She shrugged. “So what? We’ll miss Professor Zaida animate a scene from the Odyssey of Yarnik. She does it every year. Yawn.”

  I was really looking forward to it, but I didn’t feel like I could abandon Syke and go on without her. That would have been rude after she’d just saved me. So we walked slowly and were fifteen minutes late for class.

  I sighed. Framed by Pismo, trapped by imps, and late for class. Three more bad things. There was no doubt about it.

  I was cursed.

  After fourth period ended, everyone raced to the cafeteria, located on the first floor of the castle.

  “With my luck,” I said to Syke, “they’ll be serving vegetarian goulash, or seafood tetrazzini.” Even so, I felt some drool leak out the sides of my mouth (we canines don’t have much control in that department).

  We got in line behind the ogre-men. I tried to look around them to get a peek at the meal, but they are just too large.

  I shook with hunger, silently willing the ogre-men to move faster. We finally reached the front and I saw that Cook was serving my favorite lunch: hot dogs, fries, corn on the cob, and pizza rolls.

  Just as I was thinking that my luck meter had finally swiveled from bad to good, a loud explosion thundered in the distance. The building shook, pizza rolls flew off trays, and my luck meter plummeted back past “bad” and landed firmly on “horrendous.”

  To lead uninstructed minions into battle is to throw them away.

  —WISDOM FROM EASTERN PHILOSOPHERS

  In seconds, the whole room flew into a panic. Imps and gremlins and brownies zipped in and out of people’s legs, while the humanish minions tripped over them and screamed. Monkey-men screeched, lizard-boys clung to the wall, and werewolves and other shape-shifters transformed into their animal forms. A siren wailed—the pretty girl kind, not the alarm kind.

  Syke grabbed a handful of pizza rolls and slid under a table. I joined her, wondering if the table could protect us from ten tons of stone falling on top of it. My guess was no.

  The room was complete mayhem, except for the undead section of the cafeteria. Mummies, skeletons, and ghosts don’t need to eat, but they came to the cafeteria during meals so they wouldn’t feel left out. The explosion didn’t faze them at all.

  On second glance, I noticed that the zombie table was empty. Where were they?

  The sound of an alarm bell pierced the air and I covered my ears (I have very sensitive hearing, especially at the upper registers). I felt claustrophobic, trapped in the cafeteria. Werewolves are made for action, not for hiding, but there was a big jam-up at the cafeteria door as the minions trying to get outside crashed into others trying to get in.

  I stood up.

  Syke grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. “What are you doing?” she asked. “There might be more explosions.”

  “I have to find the zombies.” I pointed to the empty table. Next to it, Rufus had corralled his mummy first-years into a safe, calm little horde.

  Syke let go of my arm and followed me as I ran behind the counter, through the kitchen, and out the back entrance. A huge plume of smoke rose in the distance, near the cemetery.

  “Oh no! The last place I saw the zombies, my zombies, was over there.” I pointed to the smoke.

  “Let’s go,” Syke said. That’s what I liked best about Syke: She never shied away from danger. She’d make a great minion, but her hamadryad relatives wanted her to study horticultural science at one of the non-minion universities after she graduated. They’d told Dr. Critchlore to keep her out of any battle classes.

  We took off, passing humans and creatures running for the safety of the castle. When we got to the Memorial Courtyard, it was empty, but we heard Professor Zaida’s whistle coming from the cemetery.

  We followed the sound until we found her at the edge of the smoke-filled graveyard. I couldn’t see any zombies through the dust and smoke. It looked like something was on fire—maybe a toolshed or mausoleum.

  “Higgins! Syke!” Professor Zaida said. “Get back to the castle. Report to your safe zone.”

  That was what minions were supposed to do when the alarm sounded. But we hadn’t had an alarm drill yet.

  “I was worried about the zombies,” I said. “They don’t know where their safe zone is.”

  Tootles, the groundskeeper, jogged over. He brushed a strand of white hair out of his face. Most of his hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

  “Syke, honey, you can’t be out here,” he said. “Go home. Riga will be so worried.” Even though she was Dr. Critchlore’s ward, Syke lived with Tootles and his wife, Riga, in their expansive tree house. It was an arrangement that worked for everyone: Syke got to live in the trees, Tootles and Riga got the child they never thought they’d have, and Dr. Critchlore was spared having to raise her himself. He’s not really the nurturing type.

  “As soon as I help Runt with the zombies,” she said.

  “If I don’t have any first-years to help train,” I said, “Coach Foley won’t need me as a mentee, and I won’t be able to prove I’d be a good junior henchman.”

  Tootles pointed to the cemetery. “They’re probably attracted to the freshly unearthed bodies,” he said. “The explosion happened right in the middle.”

  “But they’re supposed to respond to my command when I use the whistle,” Professor Zaida said.

  “Try again,” I said. Professor Zaida blew the whistle.

  I yelled, in the whiniest voice I could, “Zom-beeeeees! You haaaave to return to the cassssstle. Nowwwwww.”

  Professor Zaida and Tootles looked at me like I was nuts. Then Professor Zaida’s face lit up with understanding. “Did Professor Vodum raise these zombies?”

  I nodded. And then I smiled, because the zombies were emerging from the smoke. “Well done, Mr. Higgins,” Professor Zaida said.

  “Thanks. Now, about that detention …”

  “Four o’clock. In the dungeon,” she answered.

  Rats.

  Syke and I headed back to the castle. Students, professors, and support staff stood in groups, waiting for the okay to go back inside. We sidestepped around Professor Vodum and the other necromancers, who were huddled around a tablet computer watching Channel 2’s news feed. Professor Vodum was lecturing them on the possible cause of the explosion.

  “Of course, an uneducated person might suggest this was an underground gas leak that ignited,” he said. “But the disbursement of debris would contraindicate that supposition. Furthermore—”

  The other necromancers were ignoring him, and I couldn’t blame them. Professor Vodum obviously enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Everyone else? Not so much.

 
“ ‘Disbursement of debris?’ ” I asked Syke. “Does he mean how far stuff was blown away?”

  She shrugged. “Sounds like he’s disbursing his own debris.”

  The necromancers looked worried, and I could guess why. With the cemetery destroyed, they’d just lost their raw materials, and most likely their jobs. Even worse, that meant no more undead minions for the school.

  Syke grabbed my arm, stopping me in my tracks. She nodded toward the castle. Working his way through the crowd was Dr. Frankenhammer. I held my breath, but couldn’t look away. He was the most frightening teacher in the school. People stepped out of his path as he strode in our direction.

  He looked like a pale phantom, but he was pure human. Frizzy white hair framed a narrow face. His eyebrows wisped straight up, as if something had just exploded in his face. Dark circles cradled eyes that barely opened past “squint.” Wearing a white lab coat, he looked like he’d be perfectly camouflaged in a glass of milk.

  And in his hand, as always, was a bloody scalpel.

  His gaze stopped at Professor Vodum, and half his face twisted into a smile, which did nothing to change his creepy, scary vibe. “Bad luck, Vodum,” he called. “Now you’ll have to get a real job. Ha!” He strode off without waiting for a reply. Professor Vodum gave Dr. Frankenhammer’s back a serious death stare.

  “We’re lucky, I guess,” one of the new necromancers said. “If Vodum hadn’t called that ridiculous meeting, we would have become our own raw materials.”

  Professor Vodum looked ready to explode himself.

  Back in the cafeteria, things had calmed down and most kids had returned to more important work: eating. The teachers were back in their private room. It had a glass partition separating it from the rest of us, so they could see us but eat in peace. They’d pulled the shades down, which didn’t help lessen the worry that filled the room.