“Yeah, I can tell that this is really preparing me for some big debate or whatever,” Cookie sneered, her sarcasm set to “kill.”
Miss Parker crossed the room to a tall structure covered with a tarp, her heels clacking against the floor. The teacher clutched the corner of the large gray sheet.
“I can assure you, Cookie,” Miss Parker said, stretching out the name until it practically creaked, “that you haven’t played Hangman quite like this.…”
She tugged the tarp from the structure. The children gasped. There stood a tall wooden gallows: a long horizontal crossbeam supported at both ends by twin wooden beams on which dangled a noose.
Miss Parker’s thin lips curled into a mischievous smile that seemed to burn away the years etched across her face.
“So you’re going to strangle us?” Hadley Upfling asked from behind her curtain of hair. “That’s pretty extreme even by Heck standards.”
Miss Parker stepped up onto the wooden platform. “Whether or not you’re strangled is entirely up to you,” she explained. “Can you decipher and spell common phrases before you run out of guesses? The state of your neck hangs in the balance!”
Ahmed Crump unfolded his arms so that he could make a show of refolding them again.
“This is dumb,” he said, glowering from beneath the brim of his brown knit cap. “Why should we do this?”
“You children have an abundance of quips and zingers,” Miss Parker replied with a chill, “yet a debate requires something with more substance. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. This game will make your words feel real to you so that you wield them with more authority. Hopefully creating a ‘win or noose’ situation will give you the incentive you need to truly think about language.… So, who would like to go first?”
Miss Parker scanned the small sea of wary faces for at least one island of interest.
Marlo fidgeted on her foam mat. She didn’t know the first thing about leading a bunch of mouthy kids in some debate. Then she noticed Cookie’s arm twitch at her side. If Cookie raised her hand and did something that no one else wanted to do, she would be special, maybe even a leader. And if she did that, there would be no way that Marlo could ever convince anyone—including herself—that she could be their captain.
“I’ll go first,” Marlo said as she quickly rose from the mat before she could think better of it. Cookie glared at Marlo from beneath her fringe of red-and-blond streaked bangs.
“Ha!” the girl snorted as Marlo walked up to the gallows. “How dumb. It’s cooler to wait and make sure it’s safe … right?”
Marlo stood atop the wooden platform next to Miss Parker and a small whiteboard.
“Now, don’t worry—yet don’t not worry, either—it’s all really simple,” the teacher said, smiling with surprising warmth considering that she was slipping a noose over Marlo’s head. “I’ll write a phrase on the whiteboard and you try to guess it in six tries. With every wrong guess, the gallows will click.” Miss Parker gestured toward a wooden crank next to the gallows’ trapdoor. “And when it gets to six … gllehhkkkkhhh!” she added, with her tongue hanging out and her head resting on her shoulder. “That’s all she wrote. Got it?”
Marlo nodded glumly, the red noose strangely cool against her neck.
“Great. I like your enthusiasm,” Miss Parker said as she scrawled two sets of dashes—one set with five, the other with eight—onto the board with a marker. “Now go ahead and guess.”
“Um … ‘M,’ ” Marlo said. “No! Wait … okay, yeah ‘M.’ For Marlo.”
Miss Parker shook her head. The teacher walked over to the wooden crank and gave it a tug. The crank clicked down one notch and the platform reverberated with a deep shudder.
“That was an ‘N’ for ‘No’ … or maybe ‘Noose,’ ” Miss Parker said with a grave expression. “Try again.”
“N!”
Miss Parker dragged the whiteboard next to the crank and marked an “N” with three terse squeaks of her marker.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ N _ _ _ _ _ _
“Um … ‘F’?”
The teacher shook her head and gave the crank another tug.
Click!
“May I suggest a vowel?” Miss Parker said.
“Oh, right. ‘A’!”
Click!
“I meant another vowel besides ‘A,’ ” Miss Parker clarified.
“Oh …,” Marlo said.
“ ‘O’ it is!” Miss Parker said as she marked the board.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _N _ _ O _ _ _
“I meant … never mind,” Marlo muttered. “Um … ‘E’!”
_ _ E _ _ EN _ _ O _ E _
“Good!” Miss Parker said.
“ ‘I.’ ”
Click!
“Ai-yi-yi! Maybe we should move on to consonantsssss …,” Miss Parker said, trailing off into a hiss.
“ ‘S’!” Marlo blurted.
_ _ E _ _ EN _ _ OSE _
“You’re doing well, Miss Fauster. But let me give you a hint: it’s the two most beautiful words in the English language for a writer.”
Movie rights? Marlo thought, biting her lower lip in desperation.
“V’?”
Click!
“Can you see the board, Miss Fauster?” Miss Parker asked.
“Yes, I can see—”
“You can what?” the teacher asked with her hand to her ear.
“See!” Marlo yelled.
C _ EC _ ENC _ OSE_
“Are you okay, Miss Fauster?”
“Yes, I’m okay!”
“O-what?”
“K!”
C _ ECK ENC _ OSE _
“Good!” Miss Parker said with a mischievous grin. “But remember: you have to focus, or else—after the War of the Words, you’ll find yourself going straight to—”
“ ‘L’!” Marlo yelped.
C_ECK ENCLOSE_
Writers are always complaining about not having enough money, Marlo thought, a cold sweat dripping down her spine as she stood on the gallows. Like, what, they need a second butler for their summer homes? They must make so much money.… I mean, you always see their books at the library or on those illegal download sites. Every day they’re probably getting some nice fat check.…
“ ‘H’!” Marlo said.
CHECK ENCLOSE_
Miss Parker glanced nervously at the clock.
“It’s almost morning,” the teacher said. “Now don’t leave us hanging. Indecision and extended pauses at a debate are even worse than saying the wrong thing.”
The teacher sighed, shrugging as she prepared to heave the crank for one final tug. Marlo swallowed hard. Her mind was racing like mice on a hot plate.
“Um … wait. Uh, Check Enclose …” She smacked her forehead. “Duh! ‘D’!”
The morning bell tolled. Miss Parker smiled.
—Smissed!
The tired children filed out of the Grimnaseum, yawning and stretching.
The baggy-eyed teacher loosened the cool red noose from Marlo’s neck, slipping it over her head like a necklace. All of the fear that had filled Marlo as she stood up on the platform, waiting to be dunked like a lead tea bag on the end of a rope, turned to rage.
“You were going to let me break my neck!” Marlo spat.
Miss Parker gave a mysterious, smudgy smile as she coiled the noose in her hands. The teacher took a big bite of the rope.
“Huh?” Marlo gasped with confusion.
“Yum … red licorice,” Miss Parker muttered. “Miss Fauster, when you’re at a debate, you have to feel like every word could be your last. Hopefully, at the War of the Words, you’ll remember what it felt like up here on the gallows. Playing to win means playing as if your afterlife depends on it … which, for you, it will.…”
Marlo self-consciously rubbed her neck, still feeling the itch and burn of her noose necklace, as she walked out into the hallway. She headed to the Audaci-Tea House with the aim of shoveling something into her g
rowling stomach to shut it up.
It was so early that barely anyone was in the café. There was only a teacher—an old guy with a scraggly half-beard and thinning hair—and a little olive-skinned girl with wide shoulders, slurping up something from a bowl.
The teacher approached the counter, where a badger demon—wearing a full-body hair net—stood at attention brandishing a rusty ladle.
“Please, sir, can I have some more?” the man asked.
“We’re all out of gruel, Mr. Dickens,” the badger demon replied with a smirk. “Guess we’re just serving irony today, huh?”
Marlo glanced down at the little girl’s bowl.
“Hey … what are you eating?” she asked.
The girl’s face turned a queasy green. She dropped her spoon to the table.
“Ugh … I think I’m going to have an explosive vowel movement!” the girl said as she ran out of the Audaci-Tea House.
“Vowel movement?” Marlo mumbled as she checked the girl’s abandoned bowl. It was some kind of foul-smelling broth with letters bobbing at the surface.
“Figures … alphabet soup,” Marlo muttered.
This gave her an idea.
If they won’t let me see Milton before this big battle, Marlo thought as she grabbed a stale grammar cracker from the table, at least I can leave him a little note.
She took a spoon and scooped up a handful of letters from the alphabet soup, then arranged them carefully on the cracker.
Marlo blew on her dripping creation.
“It’s like an edible ransom note,” she said, admiring her handiwork as she trotted down the hall toward the Boys’ Totally Bunks.
Marlo padded softly down the hall. The sound of strained mewling oozed from around the bend. Marlo hugged the wall and saw a clowder of cats struggling to transport a long, heavy package strapped to their backs. They inched and slunk away toward the rear exit leading out to the Absurditory. The coast now clear, Marlo trotted to the Boys’ Totally Bunks and slid inside the empty room.
She paced the abandoned sleep shelves until she found J810.4f Fauster, M.
Marlo lifted Milton’s pillow and hid the grammar cracker note underneath. Lucky, curled up in a wad of filthy sheets, poked his twitchy nose out from the bedding. Marlo gave the ferret a quick yet spirited scritch between the ears and bounded away.
Lucky stretched and yawned. He coiled around and around, like fuzzy white water going down an invisible drain, before stopping suddenly—a whiff of something vaguely redolent of food snagged his sensitive nose. He followed the trail of scent to Milton’s lumpy pillow and burrowed beneath, munching on a selection of consonants and vowels. His belly full of A-B-Cs, Lucky tunneled back under the covers to catch some Zs.
17 · CUTTING REMARKS
MILTON JUST COULDN’T let go of the odd note Marlo had left for him underneath his pillow yesterday. Even after another night spent arguing in the Disputation Dome, and the long, tedious days of lessons sandwiched on either side like tasteless nutrition-free bread, Milton couldn’t believe that his own blunt, self-serving sister could be so blunt and self-serving.
“Whatever happens, we’ve got to stay together,” she had told him just before they arrived in Wise Acres.
Right, Milton thought bitterly, sitting on a stack of foam mats in the Grimnaseum, waiting for his last Spite Club session to end. That was before the War of the Words. Before Marlo had a chance to graduate upstairs while I take the flaming Slip ’n Slide all the way down.
Milton sighed as he stared, lost in thought, at the dangling chains and hooks decorating the room.
Marlo is right. We should both do our best to win. Maybe she left that note to goad me into trying my hardest, knowing I might have second thoughts about battling my sister at some big debate broadcast throughout the afterlife. The good news is that one of us could get out of this place, to a better place, above the clouds. Perhaps the winner could even, somehow, help the loser. But Marlo’s note was so harsh.… Wise Acres must have gotten to her.…
Two boys—Sareek Plimpton and Jesus Descardo—sparred in the corner, trading insults and slaps with one another.
“Go, Jeezuss!” mocked Concordia Kolassa, her contemptuous face stretched long as if she were sucking a pogo stick. “You can do it! You’re the original comeback kid!”
“It’s pronounced Hay-Seuss,” the Latin American boy replied with the robotic fatigue of someone who has responded to the same tiresome taunt too many times to remember.
Sareek bobbed and weaved around the boy. “You couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were on the sole!” he said, following his taunt with a slap across the cheek.
Mr. Wilde strutted toward a large wooden crate full of sporting goods so old and decrepit that they were practically sporting bads. He rummaged through the crate, pulling out two mesh-metal face protectors and two white padded vests.
“Now that our dander is sufficiently ‘up,’ let us move on,” Mr. Wilde said. “We only have a few moments left before Team Two arrives, thus concluding our final meeting of Spite Club.”
The teacher walked over to a whiteboard, detailing twelve children’s rankings. The names were arranged in a bracket diagram, with the winners of various bouts spreading from either side of the board, until only two names met in the center: Moses and Milton.
“How come Moxie’s name isn’t up there?” Ursula Lambarst asked, her jaw squared with suspicion.
Mr. Wilde eyed Moxie Wortschmerz, vibrating in the corner on her dolly, with a trace of apprehension.
“I’m afraid that if I unsheathed her tongue, it would be like uncorking the bottle of a violently verbose genie,” he explained. “Plus, I find her presence extremely unnerving, as will Team Two. So, for the time being, Moxie shall serve as our—”
The wild-eyed girl clacked her silver-sheathed tongue in fury.
“—mascot.”
Mr. Wilde walked over to the middle of the Grimnaseum floor. He dropped the vests and face protectors onto a rectangle of mats.
“Mr. Fauster and Mr. Babcock, please put on your protection,” Mr. Wilde said as he went back to the crate and rifled further.
It had to be Moses, Milton thought with soft dread as he buckled on his padded vest. I’m so tired of fighting him all the time. His hatred of me is so … exhausting.
Milton slipped on the mesh metal face protector.
It’s like a fencing mask, Milton thought, his breath hot and strangely comforting inside the helmet.
Mr. Wilde returned with two weapons underneath his arms.
“Now, this final exercise will aim to settle a classic dispute,” the teacher said. “And that is: which is mightier, the sword”—he tossed Moses a sleek, slender rapier—“or the pen.” He tossed Milton an extra-long ballpoint pen.
Milton rolled it in his hands, temporarily immobilized with disbelief, hoping to find some secret attribute that somehow made the pen a weapon. But other than the pen’s ability to make lines with ink, it seemed perfectly ordinary and utterly unfair.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Milton groused. He looked over at Moses, who was swiping the air around him, making it scream in wounded anguish.
Mr. Wilde smirked. “I should have introduced your weapon first, Mr. Fauster, to better match the saying,” the teacher said as he dusted off his dark velvet waistcoat. “But that would have dampened the moment’s dramatic thrust.…”
Milton could feel Moses gloating from behind his mask.
“The two of you will duel while making a convincing argument on a subject of my choosing,” Mr. Wilde said. “Once your position is made, you will be allowed to swipe your opponent: Mr. Babcock with his sword and Mr. Fauster with his pen.”
Great, Milton thought, wilting inside like a corsage the day after prom.
“If Mr. Fauster can sign his first name on Mr. Babcock’s chest, he is the victor. If Mr. Babcock runs Mr. Fauster through with his sword, he is the victor. The topic is ‘cats versus dogs.’ Mr. Fauster, you
will take the ‘Pro dog’ position. Now … go!”
Milton nodded with grim resolve. He held his left arm gracefully behind him for balance and aimed his pen at his opponent’s chest.
“Um … dogs are often called ‘man’s best friend’ because they exhibit a profound loyalty to their owners.”
Milton thrust his pen forward in quick frantic spirals and managed to mark an “M” onto Moses before the boy backed away.
“Cats can be loyal, too,” Moses responded. “If offered love, they will respond—”
Moses thrust forward lithe and swift. Milton dodged the attack and parried with his pen, yet Moses was able to connect with a swipe just below Milton’s mask.
“Oww!” Milton yelped, touching his bleeding neck.
“Good work, Mr. Babcock,” Mr. Wilde commented. “Next time, less parry and more feint.”
“There have been many studies showing that people who own dogs lead healthier lives,” Milton said. “Dogs require exercise, which benefits both dog and master.”
Milton lunged, yet only managed a quick swipe, earning himself an “I.”
“Sure, dogs can help with your health or whatever,” Moses retorted. “But there are no records of cats killing or severely injuring people. I mean, two words: pit bull … en garde!”
Moses shuffled toward his foe, knees bent, with the skittering alacrity of an angry crab, slashing Milton’s chest.
“Dogs can be taught commands,” Milton said, gritting his teeth through the pain. “Can you say the same for cats?”
Milton charged, yet Moses parried with precision. After a flurry of jabbing thrusts, Milton marked Moses with a sloppy “L.”
“Cats wash and take care of themselves,” Moses said. “They don’t get all dirty like dogs.”
Moses faked a lunge, then caught Milton off guard, jabbing him in the stomach.
“Cat box!” Milton yelled, marking Moses with a quick and furious “T” before the boy could defend himself. Moses swiped his foil wildly with blind rage.
“Research finds that cat owners have lower cholesterol and a reduced risk of heart attacks!”
Moses and Milton were locked together, pen to sword.
“Sources!” Milton spat back.
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