Beulah’s knees knocked together like two woodpeckers kissing.
“No, ma’am … madame!” Beulah sputtered. “It isn’t. I mean, yes, he relieved me, and, no, it isn’t a worthwhile return on your investment. I … I don’t know what I did wrong. He was just so … so …”
Beulah wept into her hands.
“Horrible!”
Madame Pompadour batted a small ball of pink yarn back and forth on her desk.
“That’s pretty much his job. Being horrible. In fact, he holds the patent on ‘horrible.’ He just mixed ‘horrid’ with ‘terrible’ and voila! It’s nothing to take personally. I, on the other hand, take everything personally. Especially my reputation as a cultivator of first-rate Inferns.”
“But I did everything I was trained to do! He said that I lacked spunk and fire … that I was blank, uninteresting, and dim. As if! Then he compared me to a couple of weird animals I’d never heard of—a toady and a sycophant!”
Madame Pompadour made a sound that was the exact opposite of a purr. More of a rrup. “Did he tell you what he was looking for?” she grumbled.
Beulah wiped away a streak of mascara running down her cheek. “He said he wanted an assistant with sass … with vim and vinegar.”
“You mean ‘vigor.’”
“No, he specifically said ‘vinegar.’ And that he wanted someone to take under his wing.”
Madame Pompadour snorted. “That’s ridiculous,” she chided. “He hasn’t had wings for thousands of years.”
She leaned back in her chair and contemplated the tiny glass sparrows that hung from her chandelier.
“So the Big Guy Downstairs wants an assistant that reminds him of … him? Difficult … opinionated … exuding a distinct sense of style. But someone like that would be hard to mold, hard to control. It would be a delicate balancing act to get someone brash and bold enough for him to feel a connection with while still maintaining complete control so that I can pull the little poppet’s strings….”
Madame Pompadour looked down her delicate nose at Beulah.
“You still here? You’re yesterday’s catnip. Now hand me back your compact.”
Beulah, blubbering, placed her tortoiseshell compact case on Madame Pompadour’s desk. The madame snatched it up and flicked it open.
“You girls are my eyes down there,” she muttered. “How can I keep tabbies on the Big Guy Downstairs if he keeps removing my moles?”
Madame Pompadour rubbed a beauty mark on her chin before jabbing a series of eye-shadow palettes in a particular sequence. The mirror flickered with images: a dreary marble lobby; a burnished bronze desk; and the occasional flash of a hulking, horned beast in a dapper, pin-striped suit. Mostly, though, the compact’s mirror was filled with images of Beulah either crying, wringing her hands, or drinking Beauty Cream.
Madame Pompadour was distracted by a doleful sniff. Beulah hovered between the desk and the door like a forlorn fly caught in a draft. Madame Pompadour tossed the compact in her bottom drawer, where it joined a colony of similar tortoiseshell surveillance devices.
“Another shuttle bus should be leaving my office for the door in fifteen seconds,” Madame Pompadour said crisply, as if each word had been starched and creased. “Make sure that you’re on it, back to Lipptor or Precocia, or wherever I made the mistake of recruiting you from.”
“SNIVEL!” Beulah sobbed as she ran for the door. “It was Snivel!”
Marlo bolted back to her desk just as Beulah fled the office.
The phone rang, a weird line that had never rung before—not on Marlo’s shift, anyhow—a line labeled VTV. Marlo slipped on her headpiece and punched the line.
“Hello, Madame Pompadour’s office. How may I deflect your … of course.”
“Screepy,” Marlo mumbled as she put the call through, some frostbitten biddy wanting to be transferred to Madame Pompadour’s “vanity,” of all places. Marlo glanced at Madame’s door: still open just a smidge, thanks to Beulah’s fallen grenade-pin earring.
I just hope her ear doesn’t explode, Marlo pondered as she crept back to Madame Pompadour’s door. I know that something’s going down in Kitty Town. It’s just a matter of figuring out what.
The spade-shaped mirror behind Madame Pompadour’s desk had unfolded into a reflective confessional booth of sorts. The woman’s perfect oval face was split into three—just more to loathe, Marlo thought to herself—before her reflection dissolved, joined by another, similarly self-absorbed face.
“Good afternoon, Lady Lactose,” Madame Pompadour said with a wink as the reflection before her finished its preening. “Might I say that we both look marvelous?”
A woman with a milky complexion curled her cherry-red lips into a smile. Who’s the ice-cream cone? Marlo thought.
“How sweet,” cooed Lady Lactose, smoothing her creamy, soft serve–styled bouffant.
Marlo wasn’t sure what the stuck-up lady’s story was exactly, but she assumed it was a trashy read with a wicked ending. Marlo scratched her forearm. Even watching someone as milky as Lady Lactose gave Marlo an allergic reaction.
“Thanks to the miracle of VaniTV, we can discuss our little endeavor: perfect face to perfect face,” Madame Pompadour purred. “Firstly, the latest issue of Statusphere has proved to be our biggest seller to date, and this success has put a long-cherished dream of mine on the fast track—that is, to turn Statusphere into its own VaniTV network.”
Lady Lactose’s smile was a banana split of delight. “You’ve outdone yourself!” she cooed. “But how, exactly, would this all work?”
Madame Pompadour’s dainty paws worried apart the ball of yarn on her desk. She weaved the string into a cat’s cradle.
“It’s revolutionary, actually. Every second of our twenty-four-hour, seven-days-a-week programming will be piped through every mirror in the underworld.”
Lady Lactose gasped. Madame Pompadour chuckled.
“Yes, everything from compacts to oversized wall mirrors. It’s a way for everyone, everywhere, to get even … closer … to their favorite magazine.”
“This sounds like it would require a lot of energy,” Lady Lactose said coolly. “The whole point of the DREADmill experiment is to stockpile energy, not squander it. We need to hoard enough power so that when DREADmills are installed in every Circle of Heck, we can—when the time is right—wrest power away from the Big Guy Down—”
“Yes, yes,” Madame Pompadour said nervously.
“No need to fret yourself into a froth. The Statusphere VaniTV network wouldn’t take away from the DREADmills. Quite the opposite. See, much like the magazine version, VaniTV would feed off the longing, envy, and insecurity of its audience. And this power will not only make us rich, but will also keep us eternally beautiful, keeping that vexing demonization process forever at bay.”
Madame Pompadour tinkled the charms on her bracelet.
“It’s something I’ve been perfecting for quite some time,” she added. “But now it’s ready for prime time.”
Lady Lactose stirred her tea with her little finger, causing it to lighten.
“Forgive me for losing my cool,” she replied. “I’m just under a lot of pressure.”
Madame Pompadour licked her thin pink lips.
“Like a can of condensed milk.” She smiled. “Not to worry. It’s all cream under the bridge. We’ll both be having the last lap—I mean, laugh—when all this is over. At least I know I will …”
“What was that?”
“Nothing … just saying that I know I will be … delighted with how you spread VaniTV through your ever-expanding-and-in-want-of-an-elastic-waistband circle. See, I think Blimpo would be the perfect test audience for VaniTV. A place where self-loathing runs rampant—literally, in this case—just waiting to be tapped and—”
“Marlo!” Farzana shouted. “What are you d-d-doing?”
Marlo jumped and shut the door reflexively, though the gold grenade-pin earring kept it open a crack.
The fa
intest of breezes ruffled the small stack of papers sticking out of Marlo’s file, which was splayed open atop Madame Pompadour’s desk. Madame Pompadour’s faultless face clouded with suspicion. Her keen cat ears pricked at the sound of her Inferns squabbling just outside her door.
“You n-never interrupt one of M-Madame P-Pompadour’s calls!” Farzana scolded as Marlo made her way back to her desk.
“I thought I heard her choking on a hair ball,” Marlo said as she grabbed a pad of paper and a pen.
Madame Pompadour … Lady Lactose … Statusphere … VaniTV … DREADmills … Blimpo … Marlo jotted down.
What does that no-feeling feline have cooking in her Meow Mix? Marlo wondered. Whatever it is, she’s probably keeping the lowdown on the down low … as secret as a girl’s specially pH-balanced antiperspirant. In any case, Marlo felt that—for the first time since her Infernship began—she might have the upper hand. Marlo knew something, even if she wasn’t exactly sure what it was she knew. And knowledge was power. Like electricity. She didn’t have to understand how it worked, as long as it did.
Meanwhile, Madame Pompadour flicked a switch beneath her desk.
“I’ll be in touch, Lady Lactose,” she hissed softly as her mirror folded back to its original full, uptight position.
Nothing is going to short-circuit my little power play, she mused as she padded across her office for the door. And power takes power. That’s exactly what they’ll all be begging me for after I pull the plug on the underworld.
Madame Pompadour followed the crack between her door and the jamb until her eyes settled on a shiny gold earring. She knelt down—a surprisingly difficult task in her tight, snakeskin A-line skirt—and examined the grenade pin, then glared at Marlo, scribbling away, through the crack in the door. Marlo looked up and locked eyes with the madame.
Marlo gulped. Madame Pompadour held the pin in her hand, and, judging from her suspicious scowl, the grenade had just been lobbed.
11 • FRiENDS iN WiDE
PLACES
MILTON SLID OPEN the curtain of the Blimpo boys’ dressing room. Gaping at himself in the mirror, he realized that his appearance had been instantly upgraded from Merely Hideous to Thoroughly Ghastly with a Slight Chance of Projectile Vomit. From his plaid beret with safety orange pom-pom, black-and-white horizontally striped Lycra T-shirt, and neon-green suspenders (which suspended nothing, not even disbelief) down to his triple-corduroy Capri pants, Milton—now Jonah—was so ugly that circus folk would probably pay to see him.
The escort demon took off its helmet. Its eyes were dull and coppery, like an old penny at the bottom of the well that had failed to deliver on its promise. The demon regarded Milton with amusement.
“A face that only a blind mother wombat could love. But you’re in luck,” the demon said unconvincingly. “Just in time for afternoon tea. The Lose-Your-Lunchroom is down the hall.”
“The what?”
“The Blimpo Cafeteríum,” the demon clarified. “It has earned itself a little nickname. You’ll soon learn why.”
The demon walked away in its slick tofu suit down a fluorescent-lit hallway. Milton stepped out into the hall to follow it but was momentarily stunned as the floor wobbled and “sprang” beneath his newly immense feet. It was like walking across a long trampoline made of old creaking wood. As Milton stepped tentatively across the undulating floor, he was broadsided by his own reflection cast in the gleaming walls. His image was warped like a fun-house mirror: hold the fun. Milton’s Jonah disguise—a barely recognizable blob—was distorted into a wider, lumpier, and now-completely-unrecognizable blob.
The demon looked back at Milton over its curdled soybean shoulder.
“Just follow the sound of bellyaching,” it chortled wickedly. “There’s plenty of that around here.”
* * *
The Cafeterium, or Lose-Your-Lunchroom as the locals called it, was not what Milton expected. It actually looked kind of nice. The tastefully lit room was monopolized by a large oval waterway shuttling little buoyant plates of food. The plates, elegant boats upon closer inspection, were laden with delicious cargo—jumbo grilled hamburgers, towering ice-cream sundaes, apple pie, pizza slices with layers of succulent toppings—leaving port from the kitchen, visible through a small opening in the wall, before embarking on their circuit around the room.
Milton’s Pang suit rippled with hunger. He strode toward one of the boats—the SS BLBTB (bacon, lettuce, bacon, tomato, and bacon sandwich)—and ham-handedly grabbed the plate before it floated away. Just before he cast the sandwich, boat and all, into his ever-widening mouth, he noticed the sandwich’s dull shine, flat coloring, and faint smears of glue around the seams.
“A plastic model,” Milton moaned with disappointment as he capsized the sandwich and flung it back into the faux-food regatta. He noticed a small grate in the ceiling, where tufts of flavorful smoke drifted out. Someone snickered from the kitchen.
“That never gets old,” muttered an enormous man with a red face like a landslide and a white sagging chef’s hat on his head.
Milton, irritable not only from being hungry but also from wearing an uncomfortable disguise that was, in itself, starving, stomped over to the kitchen window. The cramped kitchen was a mess of pots, pans, and large familiar-looking jars. He thought he could detect the faintest whiff of barbecue.
“Ha-ha,” Milton said sarcastically. “You’re a riot. Is there any real food here?”
The cook looked Milton up and down. His chins jiggled like bowls of Mexican jumping bean Jell-O.
“You must be new,” the cook replied. “I always remember a face. And if I had seen yours before, I would remember trying to forget it.”
Milton was tempted to lob the classic “I’m rubber, you’re glue” comeback at the rude, revolting man, but his Pang tongue was more interested in eating than in arguing. The cook grinned, his cheeks a pair of round, shiny, rotten apples.
“Of course there’s food,” he said. “Wouldn’t be much of a Cafeterium without food, now, would it?”
“Great! What do you have?” Milton replied with a glee that surprised himself. “Something sure smells good….”
“You have your choice,” the cook replied, shoving a plate through the window. “Bacon and eczema …”
Milton gawked sadly at the plate piled high with unappetizing lumps and flakes.
“And my other choice?”
The cook held out a mound of deep-fried carbuncles atop a stale, moldy biscuit in his grimy hands. Underneath his fingernails was enough dirt to support a small organic vegetable garden.
“Kentucky fried chicken pox on a biscuit.”
“What’s the biscuit?” Milton asked with trepidation.
“One of Dr. Kellogg’s ‘Off the Eaten Path Dusted Double Lentil Trail Mix Biscuits,’” the cook replied. “With all the mold, it also acts as its own penicillin, which would come in handy, considering where this biscuit’s been—”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Milton muttered with disgust.
“Suit yourself,” the cook said as he pulled down the blinds of the kitchen window.
Milton turned and ran straight into a pudgy, freckle-faced boy.
“Excuse m—Virgil!” Milton exclaimed with joy as he gripped the boy’s shoulders.
Milton’s best friend backed away suddenly.
“Hey, I like hugs as much as the next guy, maybe more so,” Virgil said as he regarded the beast of a boy in front of him, “but usually I reserve them for friends.”
Milton recalled he was draped in another creature—one that had been liberally smeared with makeup. He leaned into Virgil and opened his mouth as wide as he could, which was far wider than expected. Virgil gulped and backed away.
“Look, I know we all have big appetites here,” Virgil said, stepping back with his palms facing out. “But let’s not do anything we’ll both regret….”
“It’s me,” Milton said as he pressed his face between the Pang’s gaping jaws. “Milton.”
Virgil peered inside the creature’s mouth. A grin of recognition spread across his face, until it was suddenly clouded with alarm.
“We got to get you out of there!” Virgil yelped. “I’ll try to find some Ipecac or ex-lax—”
Milton put his hand across Virgil’s mouth. The chef peered through the kitchen blinds suspiciously.
“I’m in disguise,” Milton assured his friend. “The name is Jonah.”
Milton tried to wink but wasn’t sure if his Pang face had the subtlety for sly gestures.
“I came back to rescue you,” he added.
“And you thought you’d get a snack first?” Virgil replied. “Not that I’d blame you or anything. That’s what I’d do. You know, to keep my strength up.”
Milton’s real face blushed, but his hungry Pang mask was unabashed.
“It’s just that, I wanted to … you know, fit in.”
“Well, no one eats here anymore,” Virgil said. “Chef Boyareyookrazee was just messing with you. I only came for more napkins. The real meal deal is outside. In the hall.”
A bell rang, like one of those old triangular dinner bells they used to use back in cowboy times.
“It’s time for gym,” Virgil said desperately. “If we’re late, they’ll force us to spend extra time on the DREADmill….”
“Gym?” Milton whined. Gym was his least favorite class even when alive. “But I’m starving!”
Virgil wiped a smear of sauce from his cheek. He eyed the cook behind Milton warily.
“I’ll set you up with something dee-licious after class,” he said with a grin, his lips flecked with saliva and his pupils dilated. “Promise. Let’s go!”
So Virgil and Milton tromped down the hallway, their footfalls exaggerated by the hollow, bouncing wood floor. They sounded like a thundering two-boy stampede.
I’m in, Milton reflected as he manipulated his abundant, barely controllable body down the hall. Now it’s just a matter of getting out.
Milton watched their enormous reflections—stretched out, gruesome, and distorted—and felt both of his stomachs sink.
Blimpo: The Third Circle of Heck Page 8