Enough About Me

by S. G. Wilson

  As the goblin moved on, one of the stones fell off his cart. It looked like a huge hunk of coal, with a knife just as dark sticking out of it. Having been forced by Mom and Dad to watch every King Arthur movie and TV show ever, I couldn’t resist giving the hilt a hard pull. The last thing I expected was for it to slide right out. I gazed at the knife in my hand, marveling at how the dark blade seemed to suck up all the light around it. It was like a shadow that wouldn’t go away.

  “This is not a good deed,” said the MeMinder X.

  “What a weird knife,” I said, running my finger along the dull edge. It needed a good sharpening.

  Meticulous shrugged. “Keep it. Could come in handy. Now come on.”

  Like Meticulous figured, the final exams kept the students and teachers so focused that nobody noticed Meticulous or me and the fact that we weren’t wearing denim wizard robes like everybody else.

  We kept mum as we passed classroom after classroom, looking for Motor in each. We saw plenty of humans, elves, dwarves, talking forest creatures, bird people, and even a talking candelabra. But no Motor.

  For a magic school, this place wasn’t so magical. These students weren’t training to become wizards. They were settling for making and repairing the things that wizards used. They whittled staffs, welded cauldrons, wove flying carpets, and sewed invisibility cloaks with unseen needles and thread.

  Meticulous grimaced at the sight of a wand-polishing test in progress as we walked along. “This place may as well just be a glorified shop class for role-playing-game enthusiasts.”

  “Would you shut up already?” I said as we ran into a stretch of hallway blocked off by a Do Not Cross tape barrier. An indoor blizzard raged on the other side.

  “That’s magic for you,” said Meticulous. “Guess we’ll have to backtrack.”

  Just as we turned around, a pair of hands shoved me against a wall. Eardrum held me in place, and Slime stood at his side. They both wore denim wizard robes, which meant they must have been the local version of my least favorite kids on any Earth.

  Meticulous lurked behind them, too busy chuckling to himself to actually lift a finger and help.

  “Look at Macon, getting around on his own two feet,” said Eardrum. “Why aren’t you at Magical Cleaning right now for the exam?”

  “Yeah, and what happened to your uniform?” asked Slime.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Eardrum aimed a fist at my face, like the other two versions of him had done on every other Earth I’d visited. “You’re about to get a failing grade anyway.”

  I guess Meticulous figured he’d left me hanging long enough. He stepped behind Eardrum and clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Oh please, couldn’t you have come up with a better line?!” And with that, he squeezed.

  Nothing happened.

  Meticulous looked from his hand to Eardrum. Then the awareness sank in—he might have practiced Acupuncture’s nerve pinch over and over, but without the fizz, he couldn’t pull it off. All this time, he’d been relying on superpowers more than he’d known.

  I might have enjoyed the sight of Meticulous actually failing for once, but this wasn’t the time to be petty. With Eardrum and Slime occupied, I pulled the black knife from my belt and waved it in the air, hoping to scare them. The dull and dinky little blade shook in my hands, and a creepy chorus of chanting monks blasted from the hilt. Everybody watched as the weapon grew into a full-length sword, thick and sharp and covered in nasty-looking runes.

  Eardrum and Slime backed away.

  “The Shadow Blade!” Slime cried.

  “ ‘Only the darkest of hearts shall wield the darkest of blades,’ ” said Eardrum. I imagined he was quoting some sort of sinister poem, but I’d only ever heard him quote especially stupid memes, so I couldn’t be sure.

  The sword lit up with black flames running from its hilt to its tip like some sort of negative torch. I would have thrown the thing to the floor, but the dancing shadows mesmerized me. The sword had an even stronger effect on everybody else. Eardrum and Slime passed out cold, and Meticulous got so woozy, he had to lean against the wall.

  Then, with no warning, the Shadow Blade puffed into a cloud of ash that hung in the air like smog before drifting away.

  I shuddered. “What just happened?”

  Meticulous wiped his hands together like he’d taken out the goons by himself. “Oh, it’s just some magical silliness. Don’t get all whingey about it.” He eyed Eardrum’s uniform. “Who thought up these outfits? No fashion sense! But they’ll help us fit in.”

  Meticulous yanked the robe off Eardrum, leaving him on the floor in nothing but boxers decorated with cute little baby dragons. He gestured for me to do the same with Slime.

  “Eardrum made it sound like that knife-sword thing was evil,” I said, crouching beside Slime and tugging at his outfit. “And that it could only be used by evil people.”

  “They were being superstitious. Remember: it’s just silly magic.” Meticulous spotted something in one of Eardrum’s pockets and reached inside to pull out a cloth bag of glowing dust. Poof Powder, it read on the side. He scooped a pinch, gave it a closer look, and then flicked the specks off his fingers. They erupted into a miniature mushroom cloud of multicolored smoke.

  When the smoke had cleared and we’d finished coughing, Meticulous cinched the drawstrings of the bag and put it in his pocket. “Clearly, they were up to no good, roaming the halls with this stuff. I’ll be doing the school a favor by confiscating it.”

  I tugged Slime’s robe over my head. “They said something about Magical Cleaning?”

  “Sounds like we can find Motor there. Let’s go.”

  After shoving Eardrum and Slime into a supply closet full of cursed jewelry and Cyclops skulls, we headed down the hall in our liberated robes. The whole time, the words Eardrum had recited to me wouldn’t leave my brain: Only the darkest of hearts shall wield the darkest of blades.

  Did that make me evil somehow? I’d always thought people who drew swords out of stones were supposed to be the good guys.

  In this case, maybe not so much.

  A chalkboard floated over the stage in the auditorium: Magical Cleaning Finals. Students squatted on the floor, cleaning pentacles smudged with blood, candle wax, fur, bits of horns, and brown and yellow stains I didn’t want to think about.

  We spotted Motor in the back, floating on a magic carpet.

  The rug was gray and shaggy, just like the one in Dad’s home lab in the basement. I almost got a little choked up at the sight of it—Motor’s version of Dad had died, so he must have picked this carpet as some kind of tribute.

  Motor whistled a tune as he scrubbed away at his mess. He looked far behind the rest of the class, but at the same time, the least stressed. He hardly seemed to have a care in the world.

  “Looks like he’s lost a little weight,” said Meticulous.

  Motor had slimmed down for sure, and he wasn’t stress eating either. He didn’t even touch the bag of Kraken Crackers in the cup holder attached to the side of his carpet.

  From a table at the edge of the stage, wizard versions of Lunt, O’Fartly, and Pooplaski eyed the class like they were desperate for somebody to mess up.

  “You have twenty minutes,” Lunt told the class. “That should be adequate time to finish the test. Except for Flying Carpet in the back. He’s so far behind, there’s no hope for him!”

  Everyone laughed, and Motor’s peppy mood disappeared, replaced by the more familiar crushed and defeated look I remembered him wearing.

  “How dare Lunt say that!” said Meticulous. “And Motor just took it like a mummy’s boy!”

  “Since when are you concerned about Motor?” I said.

  “It’s not about him,” said Meticulous. “It’s about anybody thinking they can walk all over a Me. Any Me.”

  “You’re jus
t looking for a fight because you’re still angry over getting shown up by Prez. You don’t like meeting a Me who’s better than you.”

  Meticulous straightened the sleeves of his uniform. “Better than me? Hardly! Now, we’ve got to help Motor. Maybe you can find another evil magic sword to wave at them.”

  Over in his corner, Motor looked so flustered he couldn’t even keep a grip on his cleaning brush.

  “Nah,” I said. “I’ve got a better idea.”

  * * *

  —

  Lunt had just announced fifteen minutes until the end of the test, when a multicolored mushroom cloud appeared on the stage. By the time the screaming died down and the smoke mostly cleared, Meticulous and I had taken spots on either side of Motor.

  My friend looked so surprised to see us that he almost fell off his carpet.

  “What’s the meaning of this!” spluttered Lunt, pointing a spray bottle full of bubbling blue potion at my face. O’Fartly and Pooplaski shook mops at us that glowed with mystical power.

  I whispered into Motor’s ear: “Tell them we’re magical cleaning assistants you’ve summoned.”

  It took a few moments, but the words finally sank into Motor’s brain.

  “Uh,” said Motor. “I’ve summoned some, uh, cleaning clones to assist me.”

  “Cleaning clones?!” said Lunt.

  “That’s powerful magic!” said O’Fartly.

  “Way beyond your level!” said Pooplaski.

  “But is it against the rules?” asked Meticulous. He held up a scroll we’d found in the pocket of Slime’s robes. “There’s nothing in the school guidebook forbidding magical assistants on exams.”

  Lunt pulled reams of scrolls out of a bag too small to fit them all. “Get back to work, everybody! We’ll sort out this mess!”

  The teachers dug through the scrolls as the students returned to the test. Once things settled down, Motor, Meticulous, and I huddled together over the dirty pentacle.

  Before we could say anything, Motor reached for an animated broom in the corner and swung it at Meticulous, missing him by several inches. The broom person wiggled their arms and legs like a captured bug.

  Meticulous and I burst out laughing. Motor looked confused and hurt. I would have felt the same if my best friend had been laughing at me with everybody’s least favorite Me. This was starting to feel like that time Mom accidentally invited a bunch of kids from school who hated each other to my birthday party.

  “I don’t know what kind of mind control you’re using on Average,” Motor told Meticulous. “But you’d better stop now!”

  Meticulous and I shared a look. “This is going to take some explaining,” we said at the same time.

  After assuring Motor that we weren’t laughing at him, just at the magical broom person, I gave him a quick rundown of the past few hours. I skimmed through my time in juvie, the visit from Meticulous, the dangerous growth of the Rip, Prez and his plans, our escape here, and our hope that None of Me might have some answers. I would have gone on, but Meticulous butted in. “Excuse me, but can I borrow that brush?” he asked Motor. “This mess is a travesty!”

  Motor scowled at Meticulous. “Why’re you so concerned about my final?”

  Meticulous snatched the brush from him and started rubbing it on the floor. “You’ve been doing it wrong. You need to wipe with the grain. Like this.”

  Some magic in the brush made the bristles spin like miniature tornadoes. As a big swath of gunk came off the floor, Meticulous smiled to himself. Then he saw us staring.

  “What?” he said. “I hate magic. But you know what I hate more? A messy floor.” He got back to his cleaning.

  Of all the Mes, I knew Motor the best, and we could say a lot to each other without words. That’s how, just by trading a couple of eye rolls and a meh face, we agreed that while we couldn’t trust Meticulous, we had to work with him for the chance to fix the Rip once and for all.

  With a nod to seal the deal, Motor switched back to verbal mode. “So how did you know to find me here, anyway?”

  “The commercial,” I said. “We saw it on one of those crystal ball thingies.”

  Motor made a barf face. “I’m still trying to live that down. Hard enough being the worst student at this place. Now I’m the mascot!”

  “Worst student?” said Meticulous, still scrubbing away. “Why’d they pick you for the commercial, then?”

  “I’m just about the only kid here who doesn’t have some injury from a magical accident,” said Motor. “Extra eyes, talons for hands, perpetual-flame hair. Don’t get me wrong: I’ve bungled plenty of magic. I just can’t do anything strong enough to cause major damage like that.”

  “Well, why should you worry?” said Meticulous, watching the kid two pentacles down summon a cloud of hyperactive bubbles with eyes and mouths that sang jingles about cleaning. “I mean, you’re just cooling your heels here, right? Hiding out? Keeping an eye on None of Me’s tower?”

  Motor’s face went pink. “Well, the thing is, I’ve always wanted to be a wizard.”

  “Who hasn’t?” I said.

  Meticulous raised his hand. “No interest. Never.”

  “Okay, not counting Mr. Was-Never-a-Kid,” I said.

  “No, for real,” said Motor. “Remember that experiment I told you about? The one where Dad, uh, died? The thing we were experimenting on was magic. You know, to see if it really existed. And, well, we discovered it all right. Dad died in the accident, so I swore off magic from that point on. That is, until the elevator exploded and dumped us on this Earth. I figure learning magic is kind of like a way to honor him, you know?”

  Meticulous stopped brushing and stared at Motor, speechless.

  “What’s the snarky thing you have to say this time?” said Motor.

  Meticulous looked hurt. “Why, nothing. It’s just—losing a parent isn’t easy.”

  A little stunned, Motor nodded. His eyes got wet.

  I felt like a jerk. All those weeks I’d been obsessing about Mom and Dad divorcing while I was locked up, thinking I had it worse than any other Me. I’d completely forgotten that some Mes out there, Mes I knew well, had lost their version of Mom or Dad for good. Divorced parents were better than dead parents any day.

  “So where are Hollywood and Resist?” I needed to change the subject before we all started bawling. “Are they taking a different class right now?”

  Motor snapped out of his daze. “What are you talking about? They’ve never enrolled here.”

  Meticulous shook a cramp out of his scrubbing hand. “Of course. Hollywood would sooner die than go to school. Even a fake school like this. And Resist would find magic a waste of time.”

  “When did he get so good at reading Mes?” said Motor.

  “Tell me about it,” I grumbled.

  “I haven’t seen Resist in months,” said Motor. “She’s disappeared. I figure she’s trying to stir up some kind of big protest movement, unionize the delivery fairies or something. As for Hollywood, everybody in the United Republic of Xanadu has been keeping up with him. All you need is a crystal ball.”

  I put two and two together. “The Chosen One show?! That’s Hollywood?! They said he was None of Me’s twin!”

  “Nah, they just made up the brother-against-brother thing for ratings,” said Motor.

  “I knew it was a fake,” said Meticulous, finishing the top point of the pentacle. It looked a lot cleaner than the rest.

  “It’s real enough,” said Motor. “It may be a phony reality show, but Hollywood really has to confront this Dark Lord. It’s in his contract. And he’s out of options for putting it off.”

  “What do you mean, putting it off?” I asked.

  “He’s avoided going to None of Me’s tower for weeks,” said Motor. “He spent multiple episodes shopping for just the right we
apons and armor and interviewing potential sidekicks to bring along. There was a whole arc of episodes called ‘Makeover Quest,’ where he tried out different hairstyles.”

  Meticulous groaned. “Sounds like Hollywood all right.”

  I felt bummed all of a sudden, and before I could even sort out why, Motor asked me, “Are you okay?” Even by Me standards we were super in tune with each other.

  I tried to smile, but couldn’t fake it. “I don’t know. I guess I was hoping a Me out there might really be an honest-to-goodness Chosen One.”

  Meticulous flung extra suds off the brush. “Chosen One, Dark Lord, good, bad, it’s all the same. All that matters is whether or not None of Me can get us to Earth One, so I can get the Stitch up and running.”

  Motor shivered. “So you think None of Me could help us?”

  “We need to get into his tower and find out,” I said. “Any ideas how to get in?”

  “Well, I found a clue,” said Motor. “I just don’t understand it yet.”

  “I’m sure that won’t be a problem for me,” said Meticulous, moving on to a new arm of the pentacle. “Just hand it over and I’ll figure it out.”

  Motor glanced at Lunt, Pooplaski, and O’Fartly, who snapped their eyes back to their scrolls, like they hadn’t been spying on us. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “It’s something None of Me wrote, when he went to school here.”

  “He went to school here?!” said Meticulous.

  “You don’t remind anybody of him?” I asked Motor.

  “Oh, hardly anybody’s seen him with his hood off,” said Motor. “And I told the administrators I’m a distant cousin named Macadamia Macon. Don’t look at me like that, guys. It was the first name that popped into my head!”

  “So why’d he go to this dump?” asked Meticulous.

  “Ignore him—” I started.

  “Actually, that’s fair,” said Motor. “The truth is, this used to be the premier magic school of the land, and None of Me was the top student. So good, in fact, that he taught some of the classes. But after he left to start his own company, the other talented students left too, including the Twig and Nash of this Earth. Then there were budget cuts, and pretty soon the place had to give up on cool magic and stick with all this boring practical magic.”