Virgil’s eyes bulged from their sockets in sheer panic.
“Where…what…I’M FREAKING OUT!” Virgil flailed in vain trying to escape from the hard Not-So-Silly String coating.
“Oww!” yelped Marlo as she was squeezed awake by Virgil’s fit. She stole a look through a crack in the shell.
Next to them Bea “Elsa” Bubb sighed and stared at the elevator wall as it blinked its journey: Snivel, Fibble, Blimpo, Rapacia. She grudgingly scraped away a patch of crusty string from the children’s heads.
“Yuck!” Milton spat out a glob of green and yellow string. “What—where were we?”
“You mean Candyland, Oz, the mythical Secret Toilet?” the principal laughed.
Marlo shot Virgil an “I so told you so” look. Milton sighed and shook his head as much as he could.
“No, the tunnel, the Department of Unendurable Redundancy and…whatever… the classroom with all the chairs…the almost-Christmas house…”
Bea “Elsa” Bubb rolled her lizard eyes as she jabbed the elevator button with her claw.
“The Department of Unendurable Redundancy, Bureaucracy, and Redundancy,” she said with fatigue, “just off the Netherworld Distressway. It’s where all the paperwork in the netherworld goes to get sorted, filed, and ultimately misplaced, part of our Purgatory While-U-Wait project. Now, as we continue our descent, please return your nasty trap to its original, sealed-shut position before I shut it for you.”
“But what about—” Milton continued.
“What part of ‘shut up’ don’t you understand?” the principal snapped. “The netherworld is a vast and complicated place. Did you think that the little corner of it you saw was all there was, you self-centered little twerp?”
If Milton wanted answers, he knew he’d have to try a different approach. He thought about all those goofy spy movies where the evil villain felt compelled to tell the hero absolutely every detail of his dastardly plan out of arrogance and pride. Milton decided to play to Bea “Elsa” Bubb’s vanity.
“It’s just that I find this whole place fascinating, Principal Bubb,” Milton said sweetly. “How you can keep track of everything. I mean…wow.”
Principal Bubb considered Milton suspiciously before ultimately falling prey to the quicksand of flattery.
“Well,” she replied awkwardly, “it really…you get used to it. It’s not easy. In fact, it’s the hardest job you’ll ever loathe.”
“What about the place with the chairs?” Marlo interjected while trying vainly to wriggle out of her crunchy coating.
“And the Christmas house,” Milton chimed in.
“Time-out,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb replied, rubbing her temples as if she were trying to subdue a migraine that had been festering in her head for the last century, give or take a decade. “Where impulsive, not-too-bad, not-too-good toddlers go until they are reintroduced to the Surface. Time-out and Purgatory While-U-Wait are basically collections of moments strung together in infinite loops. States of mind more than physical places.”
“How innovative,” Milton said.
The principal’s ample chest heaved with self-satisfaction.
“Yes,” she answered with a grin, “an idea that I, if I may humbly add, conjured one morning while sitting on the…”
The beastly demoness coughed.
“Anyway,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb continued, “instead of wasting surreal estate on cells for our temporary guests, we just carve out desperately dull moments, slice them thin, and tie their ends together, seamlessly, so that they are perpetual instances: little curls of time that simply never begin or end. They just are. It’s very economical. We save a lot on overhead, not to mention enjoy some significant tax breaks.”
The elevator buzzer rang and the basket slowed to a stop.
“There’s no place like homeroom…,” she clucked.
Milton looked at his demonic headmistress nervously. “I suppose that being sent back here is punishment enough, right?” he asked hopefully.
“Of course,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb replied with a dry, disingenuous chuckle. She reached inside the sticky, multicolored shell and patted Milton on his backpack. He shivered, though her gesture was actually just a guise to slip Cerberus a succulent lump of foie gras she had tucked into her sleeve.
“In fact,” she continued, “I want to reward you three for helping to find the holes in our security system.”
Milton wanted to believe her, but his gut had trouble swallowing her words. Cerberus, though, had no trouble devouring his goose liver pâté. Little did Milton know, his digestive troubles were just beginning.
28 · UNJUST DESSERTS
IT LOOKED LIKE a perfectly ordinary living room. Rather nice, actually. Big, warm, sparsely yet tastefully decorated with an overstuffed couch and a coffee table strewn with old Deranger Rick and Lowlights magazines.
Virgil and Marlo had been taken to other rooms, apparently. Milton was alone with Bea “Elsa” Bubb. She was being quite cordial. Very personable, for a non-person. Which started to freak him out. She seemed like a grinning Venus flytrap with lipstick.
“Excuse me?” replied Milton, thinking he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“I asked, dear,” she cooed, “what is your favorite food?”
Hmm, thought Milton with distress. This has to be some kind of trick. Surely she’s not going to serve me a plate of tiramisù. She just wants me to think she’s going to do something nice.
Principal Bubb’s face crinkled with impatience.
Unless, Milton continued in his mind, she wants me to think it’s a trick, in which case she’d expect me to ask for my least favorite food, therefore serving me something terrible…
“Please,” the vile demoness grunted, her sweetness souring. “Don’t make eternity seem any longer than it already is.”
Milton’s stomach did a somersault. He had to think quickly.
Since I don’t have all the facts, Milton mused, then I should pick something I neither hate nor love, so the only possible answer is…
“Dry toast,” he blurted.
Bea “Elsa” Bubb raised her bristly, centipede-like eyebrow.
“So,” she stated coolly, “of all the delectable, mouthwatering foods ever created by man to dazzle the taste buds with a delicious flurry of flavor, you pick dry toast.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So be it.”
She clapped her claws together. Instantly, Milton’s hands were tightly bound behind his back. Bea “Elsa” Bubb strutted toward the door.
“Bon appétit,” she added dryly.
Milton’s curiosity became too much to bear. “So you’re not going to throw me to Damian, or take my soul, or something awful like that?”
Principal Bubb grinned coldly. “I’m saving those,” she said.
Just before closing the door, she clapped again. Suddenly, the entire room was crammed with dry toast. Every square inch packed tightly with lightly browned bread. Milton couldn’t move. He could barely breathe.
“Forgive me for not toasting to your health,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb said, “but you didn’t have the foresight to wish for a refreshing beverage.”
He felt the bread pressing against him. He had only one course of action: eat his way out, or be crushed into a crouton.
“I never, ever want pudding again,” moaned Virgil as he lay slumped against the wall in the hallway, sticky with chocolate. Next to him stood Marlo, trembling and mortified, covered with sticky, sickly globs of color.
A door opened and out stumbled Milton, covered with crumbs, his face scraped raw. He collapsed to the ground and gasped.
“Juice…milk…fart water…anything!”
The binding around his wrists disappeared. Milton slowly stood and scrutinized his friend and sister. “Be careful what you wish for, huh?”
Virgil held his gummy head in his hands.
“It’s just so…mean,” he blubbered. “To make someone absolutely sick of their favorite food. Inhumane, I say. I haven’t felt this awfu
l since my parents took me to that all-you-can-eat dim-sum buffet in Las Vegas.”
The boys turned to Marlo, who was uncharacteristically quiet. It made them nervous.
“What did you ask for?” Virgil asked.
Marlo looked down at her dirty feet.
“Well,” she quavered, “I told the Principal of Darkness that she/it/whatever was a…”
She gagged and turned a peculiar shade of green.
“…a fruitcake. And then, suddenly, the room was…full of it.”
Milton winced and shook his head. He knew all too well about Marlo’s thing with fruitcake. It represented, to her, everything that was wrong with society, baked into a cake. The stale tastelessness, the booger-like mystery fruit, the complete lack of imagination as a holiday gift…
“What’s so bad about fruitcake?” Virgil asked innocently while wiping his mouth clean of chocolate.
Marlo cupped her mouth and forced back the wave of half-digested cake crawling up her throat.
Bea “Elsa” Bubb crept out of Punishment Pit #3—another “living room” like the one Milton had just eaten his way out of—smearing pudding on a toasted fruitcake sandwich.
“Mmmm,” she moaned. The principal looked up at the three miserable youngsters. “Oh, forgive my manners,” she said insincerely. “Would any of you charming children like a bite?”
Marlo almost lost it right then and there, while her brother and Virgil were so green that they could have signaled traffic onward.
“Fine, then,” Principal Bubb said with a sneer. “I guess there’s no accounting for taste…”
She snapped her claws.
“Guards!”
Three wiry, rotten-meat banana creatures of varying heights charged from the adjacent demon den. They gracelessly slid into formation before the principal and stamped their pitchsporks on the ground.
“Take the young lady to the girls’ classrooms,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb said. “All this gallivanting about has caused her to miss most of her second day. Tsk-tsk—Miss Borden wouldn’t like that…”
Marlo cringed.
“Lucky for you,” the principal continued, “this is her day off. But tomorrow she’ll be razor-sharp and ready to attack the day, I’m sure.”
She shooed them off with a flap of her claws. “Chop, chop,” she snickered.
The guards grabbed Marlo. She thrashed about like a puppet having a seizure. Virgil, disturbed, softly sang a familiar little tune under his breath to calm himself.
“Up, up and away, my beautiful, my beautiful balloon…”
That song, thought Milton. That annoying…
Then something struck Milton. Not physically, of course, though that was entirely possible down here and often encouraged. But an idea, or the spark of one, anyway. An idea that had yet to float up, up and away…
As Marlo was dragged down the hall—digging her heels in stubbornly so that her feet squeaked all the way—the stolen clock fell from its hiding place in her grimy towel to the floor.
Milton rushed forward, picked up the clock, and handed it to one of the demon guards in a sly attempt to get closer to his sister.
“Here,” he said, “make sure she gets this. It’s a memento of her thwarted escape attempt and the terrible punishment she received as a result.”
The demon, who seemed a few fries short of a Happy Meal, looked over at Bea “Elsa” Bubb for direction.
The principal shrugged her shoulders.
“Sure, whatever,” she said. “A little extra psychological torture never hurt anyone.”
The demon nodded vaguely and snatched the clock out of Milton’s hands.
“Yes,” he said sluggishly, “exactly what I was thinking. A pimento of her warted escapement!”
Milton leaned close to his sister.
“Liver,” he whispered.
Marlo squished up her face in bewilderment.
“You know,” he continued. “A liver note…”
The cloud of confusion on her face parted and a knowing smile shone through.
“Gotcha.” She winked.
Bea “Elsa” Bubb furrowed her brow and trotted over to them.
“What did he say?” the principal snarled.
The tallest guard, whose face looked like a mummy’s wrapped in black electrical tape, came forward. “Something about a liver note, ma’am,” he said.
“No,” Milton blurted quickly. “I said…‘Leave her alone’…You know, LEAVE MY SISTER ALONE!”
Principal Bubb smirked. “Of course,” she said coolly. “After all, you call the shots down here. It’s Milton’s underworld, after all.”
She sighed and strutted back toward Virgil, who was so full of chocolate pudding that his green eyes were practically brown.
“Playtime is over…Take her away,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb ordered.
The guards dragged Marlo away, kicking, squirming, and cursing. “Oh, you want a piece of me, sock monkey?” she snarled. “Let’s see if I can make you even uglier…”
Principal Bubb grabbed Virgil and Milton by the collars of their filthy shirts.
“Clean those devilishly handsome faces immediately, then report to your classes. You’ve missed most of them today, anyhow, but I’m sure there are degrading lessons to be learned nonetheless.”
At least his failed attempt at escape had postponed his detention with Damian. Who knows? Milton mused. Maybe it has been forgotten entirely.
“And don’t think we have forgotten your detention with Mr. Ruffino,” Principal Bubb said with uncanny timing. “Our promising young man is at a HADES retreat today, but he will be back just before your sleep session. So now you have something to look forward to.”
She turned to walk away.
“P-P-P-Principal?” Virgil stuttered.
Principal Bubb twisted about angrily.
“Yes, Mr. F-F-F-Farrow?”
Virgil stared down at his gloppy brown clogs, or would have if he could see past his enormous stomach.
“W-what class do we go to?”
Bea “Elsa” Bubb grinned from ear to ear. It was like a big, nasty yellow zipper had opened across her face.
“I’ll give you a hint.” She chuckled while curving one of her claws into a hook. “If your next class were a movie, it would be rated ‘Arrrrrgh’!”
29 · YO-HO-HO AND A BUCKET OF SPIT
“CLIMB THE ROPE, ya scurvy dog!” Blackbeard bellowed. “Dunna just hang there like a pair o’ great big lacy bloomers!”
Virgil hung on to the rope with all his might. Though he was only a foot off the ground, it was still to be commended that a boy of his bulk could manage to support his weight at all.
A group of boys surrounded Virgil in a cackling circle. Squatting next to him was Blackbeard. Even crouching, the former pirate was an imposing sight. He was as big as an ox, had matchsticks braided into his hair and beard, and continually rubbed a nasty gash that encircled the entirety of his neck. He was also a complete and utter psycho.
“Aye, ya should be wearin’ the hempen halter rather than climbin’ it, ya great sack o’ chum!” he roared. “If’n we were slicing across one of the seven seas like a cutlass through a puddle o’ warm rum, you’d be havin’ a date with Davy Jones, ya would! Cut yerself down, ya great beluga!”
Virgil had no idea what Blackbeard had just shrieked, but he inferred that he could now let go of the rope. He dropped down and collapsed on the splintering planks of the gym floor.
A tanned, curly-haired boy pointed at Virgil.
“Get a load of the beached whale!”
All of the other kids, except—of course—for Milton, roared with laughter.
“Yeah,” Virgil wheezed. “Never…heard…that…before.”
Milton broke out of the circle and stepped before Blackbeard, who had now risen to his full, towering height. Milton was about as tall as his teacher’s wide leather belt. From this vantage point, he could see that the pirate’s filthy vest was riddled with twenty or so jagged slits.
Wow, Milton thought, marveling at the dozens of scars and wounds on his teacher’s body, Blackbeard sure wasn’t voted most popular.
“What’s on yer land-lousy mind, ya wee shred o’ bait?” he asked, glowering down at Milton.
The boy gulped, straightened his glasses, and sucked in a deep breath that, unfortunately, was infused with an overwhelming dead pirate aroma.
“Yes, Mr…. Beard,” Milton managed. “I—I was wondering why we, us being dead and all, need to take physical education?”
Milton hoped that, through the posing of sweeping, multilayered questions, he could delay the next installment of Virgil’s public humiliation.
Blackbeard rubbed his namesake while squinting down at Milton.
“Ya remind me o’ me thirteenth wife,” the pirate ruminated. “Always with the questions. Ya even look like her, with yer porcelain complexion and crow’s-nest hairdo.”
The boys behind Milton snickered. Wonderful, he thought. The only thing worse than being teacher’s pet was being teacher’s spouse.
Blackbeard shook his head free of ancient memories.
“It’s metaphysical education, ya polyp,” the pirate groused. “Just because ya took leave of yer physical body, don’t mean ya should get all lazy, like a drowsy manatee. It’s like this…”
Blackbeard stomped back and forth between the hanging ropes.
Good, Milton mused. He’s off on a tangent. This should kill some time.
“Who here amongst ya simpering scalawags felt a queer, quick ripping sensation—like lightning through a mainsail—upon yer unfortunate passage?”
The boys looked at one another awkwardly before sheepishly raising their hands. Milton had wondered what that painful tingle was all about. He had just chocked it up to the many things he did not know about the process of dying. But, boy, was he learning the hard way.
“Have ya miserable barnacles thought about why ya look like yerselves while yerselves are up on the Stage rotting away in a pine box?”
Again Blackbeard brought up a good question. Blackbeard crossed his arms triumphantly and sneered through thick tufts of dark facial hair.
Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go Page 12