“It’s like a f-fairy tale, isn’t it?” the vice principal murmured with a far-off gaze. “A fairy tale full of monsters, conflict, and children who must Grimm and bear it to survive.”
Milton noticed words embroidered on the back of the vice principal’s fancy hat.
MAD HATTER SLAPDASH HABERDASHERIES (UN)LTD.
I still think he’s keeping something under his hat, Milton thought with a sense of dark, foreboding curiosity as applause spilled in from the ring. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled a rabbit out of it. A big white rabbit …
32 · MEETING THEIR
MATCHES
“SHE’S MALIGNANT, INDIGNANT, and strapped tight to equipment … it’s Moxie Wortschmerz!”
The crowd roared at the furious, quivering little girl lashed to a dolly.
“Your topic, boy and gargoyle, is ‘Are Video Games Too Violent?’ ” Howard Cosell announced. “Mr. Hoover, you’ll be taking the Pro ‘yes, they are bad’ stance while you, Miss Worcestershire Sauce, will be arguing against.”
Mack Hoover took a confident swig of water, swished it around in his mouth, and set the bottle back on the podium with a mighty thump.
“Are video games too violent?” he asked as his Alter-Cater swaggered to the center of the ring. “If we have to ask, the answer is a resounding yes. There is tons of research proving that video games damage young minds and cause aggression. And as the games become more realistic, the brain has a harder time distinguishing reality from fantasy.”
Mack passed the topic over to Moxie. The little girl—her dark green eyes bulging with fury, her silver-sheathed tongue flapping viciously in her mouth like a beached piranha—looked daggers at Mack. Her Alter-Cater stood motionless by her side, muscled arms folded, its digital Moxie-face glaring.
Mack swallowed. “I … um … the sole purpose of these games is to heartlessly k-kill others,” he faltered. “D-doing so for hours on end is bound to … to lead to a more violent s-society.…”
Mack’s Alter-Cater strutted back and forth at the center of the ring, attempting to goad its opponent to battle. Meanwhile, Mack, who had started out so confidently, was sweating bullets.
“V-video games are an outlet … helping kids to blow off steam,” he said, casting wary glances at Moxie, who was grinning like a jack-o’-lantern. “It’s important to … to release these n-natural instincts. If we didn’t and … k-kept it all stuffed inside, we’d all just … b-blow up.”
Mack’s hulking Alter-Cater looked back at Mack for guidance. The boy hung his head and pounded the podium with his fist. “I can’t take it anymore!” he shrieked. “She’s freaking me out!”
Moxie and her Alter-Cater smiled, quivering like twin rattlesnakes about to strike.
“You win!” Mack yelled as he stormed out of the ring.
Howard Cosell shook his head with disbelief.
“Just when I think I’ve seen everything, ‘everything’ gets one weird thing bigger,” he said as Charity wheeled Moxie across the mat on her dolly. The angelic supermodel smiled and waved as she teetered out of the ring in her seven-inch-heeled boots.
“Now on to Round Five: Annabelle Graham versus Roberta Atrebor! Annabelle Graham was a latchkey kid from Burnsville, Minnesota. With little money for books and no neighborhood library, Annabelle learned how to switch letters around in her head and made dozens of new stories from her worn copy of Bridge to Terabithia. Cause of death? Chronic TMJ from an industrial-strength jawbreaker. Let’s hear it for Annabelle Graham!”
Annabelle and Roberta dragged themselves out to the stage, where only one would return a winner.
“Born in Milano, Italy, Roberta Atrebor can out-argue anybody, anytime! In fact, when she visited the Grand Canyon, her own echo conceded in a debate. Miss Atrebor died in the Thai-Tanic: a theme restaurant that crashes into an ice-cream-berg every hour. Unfortunately for Roberta and forty-seven other diners, the last meal was entirely too realistic for their tastes. Wave your hands in the air as if you cared for Roberta Atrebor!”
As the audience cheered—Heck-bent for linguistic leather—two burly badger demons trudged into the dressing room: one carrying a small steamer trunk, the other pushing a lavish throne on a dolly.
“Outstanding, underlings!” the vice principal exclaimed. “Take those out to the ring just before Mr. and Miss Fauster are due for their epic argument!”
Milton nudged his sister with his elbow.
“Let’s grab a bite before the debate,” he said, staring at Vice Principal Carroll, just a few feet away.
Marlo rubbed her queasy belly. “Yuck … just the thought of food is making a chunder-storm in my stomach.”
“C’mon,” Milton urged, leading his sister to the snack table in the far corner of the room. He leaned into Marlo.
“Remember those weird mechanical crickets and tuning forks out in the Outer Terristories?”
Marlo nodded. “Yeah … their noise made me sort of woozy all over. Like I disappeared a bit. And everything seemed to get more real around me.”
“Exactly! Maybe that’s what he’s trying to do, except everywhere. The tone must be the same pitch as the Music of the Spheres—like in that old encyclopedia page I found. Perhaps Vice Principal Carroll needs God’s true name as the password to jimmy the lock of Creation and reshape everything in his image.”
Marlo shook her head.
“But the whole ‘Yahweh’ thing … I don’t buy that as God’s password. It’s too obvious. It’s like Grandma Fauster’s Generica Online account password: Fauster123. I mean, c’mon. It took me two seconds to crack that and send out that fake holiday newsletter.”
“Well, what do you think it is, then?”
Marlo rubbed her chin and glanced up at the monitor, where Annabelle and Roberta were duking it out, debating over the topic of school uniforms.
“Uniforms help to create a sense of camaraderie, a sense of belonging, a sense of community,” Roberta suggested from behind her podium.
Her Alter-Cater stretched itself out on the ropes, limbering up for its assault.
“Uniforms suppress individualism,” Annabelle countered, “and requiring them in school encourages teachers and staff to treat all students the same: not recognizing them for who they really are.”
Annabelle’s Alter-Cater stood before its opponent chewing gum with quiet menace. It blew a bubble that, with a few surly puffs, blew up in Annabelle’s Alter-Cater’s face.
“But they make everyone equal,” Roberta interjected. “That way, if a kid can’t afford the trendiest clothes or the latest sneakers, she won’t be made fun of.”
Roberta’s Alter-Cater responded with a powerful right hook that left its opponent hunched over, clutching its side.
Annabelle snorted.
“Hey, both you and I know, Roberta,” she said, throwing the girl’s name back at her like it was a wad of dirty gym clothes, “as well as every kid in Heck, I might add, that no matter what you wear, kids will always find some way of making fun of you. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”
Marlo furrowed her brow. “As plain as the nose on my face,” she muttered. “It was right there all along.…”
She turned to Milton. “That first draft of the Bible we found. God said it right there … In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was … whoops!”
“Whoops?” Milton replied.
“Yeah! Just think: right after you say the word ‘whoops,’ something surprising happens that usually changes everything! And Chief Crazy Pants—”
“Crazy Pants?”
“Vice Principal Carroll doesn’t have that page … he doesn’t know the real password!”
Roberta and Annabelle returned from their bout: Roberta strutting just a little taller, the apparent winner, with Annabelle sulking in behind her.
“It’s brutal out there,” Annabelle murmured as she grabbed a bottle of water from an ice bucket on the snack table. Her black No-Flak jacket was so damp that it practically dripped wit
h desperation and perspiration. “Just seeing how many votes you’re getting or not getting—in real-time—it’s totally unnerving. Made me feel like a total loser.”
Marlo patted the girl’s slouching back but stopped suddenly when she felt how damp it was.
“Um … it’s okay,” Marlo said, wiping her palm on her black padded pants. “Hey, ‘total loser’ is an anagram for ‘stellar too,’ you know … just going out there and doing your best, showing all those stupid people that you can talk smart and hold your own is amazing.”
Annabelle smiled and wiped the sweat from her upper lip.
“Stellar too … yeah, you’re right!”
Vice Principal Carroll waddled toward Milton and Marlo. “Before you t-two go on, here is a little something to ingratiate you both to various audiences: a guaranteed vote booster!”
The vice principal handed Milton and Marlo two index cards. “I initially put them in your briefcases, but your briefcases seem to have suffered some wear and tear.…”
Milton’s card read Yahweh.
“It’s a good-luck word in Heaven,” the vice principal said.
“How come mine says Hewhay, then?” Marlo said with a smirk. “Is it because you’re planning to—”
Milton elbowed his sister silent.
“Hewhay is an expression of exuberance in the underworld,” Vice Principal Carroll replied, not meeting Marlo’s eyes. “It’s rather like ‘boy howdy’! Now, when I hit the gong—signaling the end of the tournament—you both say the words at the same time, to acknowledge both of our audiences. Now g-good luck!”
The vice principal extended his hand out to Milton. Milton shook it warily and noticed that the vice principal had the word “bazillion” written on his palm with black Sharpie.
“Remember, just b-begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then s-stop. That always worked for me. And, above all, be yourselves.…”
Mr. Wilde snickered to Mr. Dickens, both loitering nearby.
“And this coming from a man whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.”
The vice principal gave Marlo’s hand a quick, slack shake.
“Hmm … clammy,” he commented as he wiped his hands off on his gray corduroys. “No need to be nervous, dear. Sylvie, Bruno, and I will be in the front row, cheering you on! You’d be amazed at how far our voices can carry!”
Vice Principal Carroll shuffled away as Faith, Hope, and Charity entered the dressing room.
“You’re both on now,” Hope said to Milton and Marlo with a wide, genuine smile that spread across her face like honey on bread.
Miss Parker softly gripped Marlo’s hand as the Fausters made their way to the door.
“Just trust yourself,” she said. “And be a kid. Try to have fun.”
Marlo snickered bitterly as cold dread filled her insides.
“But we’re not kids. Not here. Kids can lose sometimes and nobody cares. But some kid today is going to lose everything.”
Mr. Wilde whispered in Milton’s ear.
“Your sister will attempt to fluster you. Be sure to listen carefully to what she means, rather than what she says. And, above all, don’t take anything she says personally. Out there, there are no enemies, only war.…”
33 · BRAWL IN THE FAMILY
“NOW THE MOMENT you’ve all been waiting for,” Howard Cosell announced, “our final bout, where you’ll hear discourse and datcourse, delivered by Team Captains Marlo Fauster and Milton Fauster … a catty Cain and more-than-Abel sibling rivalry, playing out before your very ears—dead and well said. Don’t even think of moving that radio dial.…”
Milton and Marlo parted the ropes and entered the ring. Wild applause washed over them like a tidal wave of sound. At the center, on the mat, was a plush, wing-backed throne, the vice principal’s silver hammer, the steamer trunk, and a gong. Milton looked up at the tower. The gong and hammer were at the very center, right beneath the middle prong of the tower, with the left and right prongs jutting out to the side, just like a gigantic …
“Tuning fork!” he gasped.
“Same to you, Rumpel-Milt-Skin,” Marlo said as terror seized her by the throat and stomach.
“No, this whole place. The Tower of Babble. It’s a humongous tuning fork! At least that’s how Vice Principal Carroll is going to use it: like a huge transmitter! That’s why everything went blank when the snark’s hammer smashed into the tower. It sent out a reverberating tone—the Music of the Spheres. Now all the vice principal needs is the password to Creation to remake everything. Not just a shared illusion this time, like in the Outer Terristories, but to actually change the code behind reality!”
Howard Cosell leaned into his bank of microphones.
“And though we can’t contain the excitement here at the Tower of Babble,” he said with his brash, nasal yammer, “we can contain our caustic combatants.…”
A team of demons erected four walls of steel mesh, enclosing the ring on all sides. The effect was like a wicked metal flower blossoming in reverse, turning the ring into a steel cage.
Marlo stared anxiously at the silver bars around her. Despite a life (and afterlife) of flirting with crime, she had always been uneasy with the notion of “being behind bars.” Perhaps this was what made her such a good thief: she had to be, to keep from getting caught.
Milton noticed the steamer trunk beside the throne. It was unlatched. Poking from beneath the lid was the tiny porcelain hand of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Sylvie and Bruno, Milton thought, as the Alter-Caters crouched beside the podiums, waiting.
“He’s going to wait until there are a bazillion viewers watching,” Milton whispered to his sister, “and then throw his voice farther than anyone ever has before. To tell the story that tells Creation …”
Milton and Marlo simultaneously realized that they were still holding hands. They dropped them with a swift urgency usually reserved for snake handlers.
“Do what you have to do to keep the argument going,” Milton said.
Marlo snorted, though her violet eyes were damp, twinkling with all of the lights around her.
“I’ve never, ever had a problem with that,” she said with a smile.
“What was I thinking?” Milton replied, grinning through tears. He dried his eyes, wiped his nose, and pulled himself together as the eyes of the afterlife scrutinized his every move.
“We’ll be as boring as possible, to keep the votes way under a bazillion,” Milton whispered as they walked toward their podiums. “That seems to be—”
“No,” Marlo said with a shake of her head. “The opposite of that. We’re going to give them blood. Get our votes way high, if not higher. Then, at the end, we both go ‘whoops.’ Actually, you go ‘whoops,’ and I’ll go, um … ‘spoohw’ …”
“I don’t understand,” Milton replied.
“That’s a first,” Marlo said as the crowd hooted and hollered. “If it’s the right password, then we’ll be the ones telling the story, and if it’s wrong—if it really is Yahweh or whatever—then the vice principal will have to be the one to say it, and we’ll just try to hold him off as long as we can.”
Milton had to admit, his sister actually made sense.
“Okay … um … will do, mildew,” he said while awkwardly fist-bumping her.
“That’s not how you … never mind,” Marlo said with a smirk.
Milton started to walk away but instead gave Marlo a quick, tight embrace before assuming his podium. The crowd cheered, waving HOW MARLO CAN YOU GO?! ONE IN A MILTON! and BETTER ARTICULATE THAN ARTICU-EARLY! signs.
“Two sharp siblings, each Faustering grudges against the other,” Howard Cosell said dryly. “Milton, the youngest—a socially awkward straight-Α student who never threw caution to the wind, preferring to place it gently at the bottom of his sock drawer, and Marlo—the bluebird of sassiness—a sticky-fingered, impulse-challenged felon with a gift card for gab. Cause of death? They were both killed in an exploding mars
hmallow bear accident.”
Milton gripped the edges of his podium tightly, his white knuckles blanching even whiter.
“Now on to our topic,” Howard Cosell continued. “Are you ready?”
Marlo cleared her throat. “Being ready is a personal choice, and one that—”
“No, that’s not the topic. Your topic is”—the announcer shook his head as he read the words—“ ‘Is There an Afterlife?’ ”
The crowd gasped.
“Miss Fauster, you’ll be taking the ‘Pro’ stance while, Mr. Fauster, you have the ‘Con’ position, as well as my sincerest condolences.”
Milton’s and Marlo’s faces went sour, like astronauts who had broken wind in their spacesuits.
“There must be some mistake,” Milton said into his microphone.
“That’s what Mom said the day you were born,” Marlo replied, much to the wicked delight of the audience.
Milton glanced at the scoreboard. Milton and Marlo were both nearly a billion votes away from a bazillion, with Marlo—somehow, due to her unaccountable popularity—ahead by several hundred million.
“I’ll begin by laying out three essential Pro-Afterlife arguments,” Marlo asserted. “One, we’re all here now. Two, I mean, duh. And three, please refer to points one and two.”
Her Alter-Cater—the hissing-and-spitting image of Marlo—rushed at its opponent, grabbed Milton’s Alter-Cater by the waist, then flipped it onto its back.
“Oooh … a Running Powerslam!” Howard Cosell exclaimed.
The audience applauded as all eyes and various sensory organs trained upon Milton for his response. Milton reached for the one thing that always gave him a sense of security in an uncertain world: the emotionless certitude of science.
“Adopting a … strictly scientific viewpoint,” Milton said, his words falling away from him in a clumsy tumble. “There is no hard evidence that a soul even exists. And by soul I mean some form of consciousness that survives after death. And without a soul, you can’t have an afterlife. You can’t have … this.”
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