by Sheila Grau
“Dr. Pravus.” I gulped. “I don’t think you should be in here.”
He stepped toward me. I wanted to run, but I’d been told over and over that a minion doesn’t run.
“You don’t think so? And since when does your opinion count, minion?” He spit out the word minion as if it tasted disgusting. It sucked the confidence right out of me.
“Wh-wh-what are you doing here?” I asked. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I just wanted to stall him until someone else arrived. Someone more adulty.
“Who do you think you are?” I noticed he wore black gloves, and the reason I noticed this was because one of his hands was reaching for my throat. “You have the audacity to speak to me, to question me? Is this how Critchlore trains his minions? Outrageous.”
He had been moving slowly, talking slowly, but all at once he lunged at me, grabbing me by the throat. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream. He yanked me forward so he could whisper in my ear. “I could kill you for that. I could kill you and the Evil Overlord Council would allow it. They do not appreciate acts of insubordination.”
I grabbed his arm, but he was so strong. His expression changed from outrage to pleasure. He was squeezing the life out of me and enjoying it. His scrutiny of me was intense, as if he was trying to record every bit of fear and pain I was experiencing.
My vision grew spotty and the room spun. But then he threw me to the ground. I grabbed my neck, gasping. Air, sweet air, filled my lungs.
“But then I’d owe Critchlore a minion in recompense,” he said. “And each of mine is worth ten of you. Get out.”
I got up and ran.
I told myself that running was smart because I could find a teacher or a security guard. But I knew I was running because I was scared out of my mind. That man was not sane. Every molecule in my body quivered frantically in complete terror.
As I ran, my brain finally showed up to the battle, telling me all the things that I could have done. I could have screamed for help. I could have lured him to the trapdoor and then activated it. I could have fought.
But I knew I wasn’t brave enough to do any of those things, and that made me feel worthless.
I found Dr. Critchlore in the dungeon, meeting with the marketing department in the conference room. I told Betsy, the dungeon administrator, what had happened, and she went in and told Dr. Critchlore. He ran past me, straight for his private elevator, looking furious.
I felt sick. I tried to convince myself that I’d done a good job. I had discovered the intruder and ran for help. That was the right thing to do. Dr. Critchlore would be happy with me, maybe even call me into his office to thank me.
He did call me into his office a few hours later, but it wasn’t to thank me.
“You left him in here? Alone? Are you an idiot?” It was Dr. Critchlore’s turn to rage at me.
“He choked me,” I said. “He said he could kill me and the Evil Overlord Council would allow it.”
“That’s true,” Dr. Critchlore said. “The EOC deals harshly with anything reeking of an uprising. Whether it’s an entire populace or a single minion.”
“Why was he here? Isn’t that against the Minion School Directives?”
“No. He’s very clever. He said he came for his minion, who wasn’t here to attack us but to return our Minion Saboteur. Minion kidnapping is strictly forbidden between minion schools and punishable with fines, imprisonment, and the loss of four teeth and a thumb. Banishment to Skelterdam, if it’s a repeated offense.”
I wondered how it was okay for Dr. Frankenhammer to send a Minion Saboteur to Pravus’s school, but Pravus’s sabotage of our school had been a violation of the code, according to Dr. Critchlore. “Isn’t using a Minion Saboteur a breach of some law?”
“Actually, no, if it’s done in accordance with the Spying Guidelines.” He waved his hand in the air. “Evil Overlords want their minions trained to detect saboteurs and spies. It’s complicated. Plus having contradictory laws allows the overlords to arrest anyone, anytime they want.”
“What happened when he couldn’t find her?” I asked.
“Who? His minion? He found her.”
“What?” Oh no. No, no, no.
“Pravus makes his minions wear tracking bracelets.” Dr. Critchlore snorted. “That’s a bit desperate, if you ask me. But in this case, helpful, because she escaped somehow. We found her in the grotto. Seems to have gotten on well with the flesh-eating fish monster. It’s a pity. Dr. Frankenhammer would’ve liked a closer look at her anatomy.”
Okay, maybe her going back with Pravus was a good thing. Except I still needed answers. There had to be some way to free her.
“That scoundrel,” Dr. Critchlore went on. “I’m sure he was up to something, but nothing seems out of place. My bug-detectors have detected no listening devices. No explosives, no poisons, no obscene graffiti. What was he up to?”
“He said ‘Knowledge is power, but wisdom is knowing what you don’t know.’ He was standing by The Top Secret Book of Minions when I came in.” We both looked at the book, sealed in its locked glass container.
Dr. Critchlore went over to his bookshelves, moved some books aside to reveal a safe, and opened it. He removed a key and unlocked the glass case. Carefully, he lifted the book from its perch and set it on his desk. When he opened the book, we saw what Dr. Pravus had been up to.
The pages were blank. Dr. Pravus had stolen The Top Secret Book of Minions and replaced it with a phony.
Dr. Critchlore didn’t scream. He didn’t throw anything, or yell, or hit me. He just looked at me and pushed a button on his desk, and I was sucked out of the room by gravity as the trapdoor I was standing on was activated.
Tackle three-ball: a ball-and-bat sport played by two teams of eleven on a hexagon-shaped field. Teams take turns trying to score by touching five bases and crossing a goalpost without being tackled by the opposing team. Bonus points are awarded for beaning a runner while he’s off base.
—OFFICIAL GUIDE TO SPORTS
I had never been trapdoored before, and it was the worst. The fall wasn’t bad. I landed on a soft pile of straw. It was what the journey did to my insides that hurt the most. I had done something terrible. My gut was so screwed up with worry and humiliation that I felt shaky and weak.
The Top Secret Book of Minions was gone because of me. If only I’d stood up to Dr. Pravus. If only I hadn’t run away. If only, if only, if only.
I left the trapdoor pit, climbed the stairs, and ran out of the castle. I kept running, heading down the main road toward the entrance. I ran and ran; trying to distance myself from the queasy feeling in my stomach that told me I was in so much trouble.
The gravel crunched beneath my feet. I wanted to howl, to scream.
At the entrance, the gates were closed, so I leaned against them, resting my head between two bars, and looked out. Outside was scary. The thought of being on the other side of the gate, alone, terrified me. I belonged inside.
I turned around. Every time I saw the castle, sitting majestically at the end of the long, tree-lined drive, I felt amazed that I was here, that I’d lived here most of my life. I’d always felt so lucky. Maybe that was my problem. Maybe I’d been given too much good luck, and now the powers that be were balancing it out with some bad luck.
A lot of bad luck.
I pushed off the gate and walked back up the main road. I could see the tips of buildings peeking out among the trees. So many trees. Sara would have liked it here. Poor Sara.
I took the first road on the right and headed for the dorms. Stevie, a second-year giant, sat between two oaks, practicing “sitting still so nobody notices you until it’s too late.” The giants took a class called Stealth Techniques and Strategies for Minions of Impressive Size and had to practice on the rest of the student body. Poor Stevie wasn’t very good at sitting still. I felt bad for the guy, so I tried not to notice him. As I got closer, he shook with silent giggles. I kept my gaze forward and braced myself for wha
t was coming.
“GOTCHA!” he said as he scooped me up. He squeezed me hard around the middle, crushing my ribs.
“Stevie!” I yelled. “Not so tight.”
“Oops, sorry.” He pulled me up to his face. “I got you.”
“Yes, you did,” I said. “Good job.”
He placed me on a branch at his eye level, about two stories above the ground. “You look sad,” he said. “What’s the matter?”
I sighed. “Stevie, did you ever run away from something because you were scared?”
He thought about it for less than a second. “No.”
“I think I might get expelled,” I said. I felt a new wave of despair when I said those words out loud.
“Why?” he asked.
I shook my head because I didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t want to leave this place.”
“You don’t have to!” Stevie said, looking excited. “I’ll keep you in my room, with my pet alligator, Teethy. I hardly ever forget to feed him.” His eyes went wide for a second, which made me think he probably had a hungry alligator in his room.
“Thanks, Stevie,” I said. “It’s a really great offer, but I think I’ll wait and see what happens with Dr. Critchlore.”
“Okay.”
I noticed movement in the distance and saw the school gates open. A large bus entered the campus, “Vilnix Academy” written on its side. Giant breath! I’d forgotten about our tackle three-ball game.
“Stevie, let me down. I’ve got a game to get to.”
This was perfect timing. Playing a sport where you get to tackle people is the cure for when life gets you down. I think a famous philosopher said that.
Professor Zaida, the Literature teacher, was our faculty coach. She didn’t really know much about tackle three-ball. She never came to practice and often read a book during the games, only looking up every once in a while to make sure everyone got a chance to play. But every team needed a faculty coach, and she was ours.
“Runt Higgins,” she said, marching up to me. She wore a Critchlore hat with a brim, but other than that, she didn’t look very coachy. “What is the meaning of this?” She pointed at the imps, who were decked out in their brand-new tackle three-ball uniforms.
“I promised them they could play. They helped me escape from Miss Merrybench.”
“Runt, I admit I don’t understand the rules or pay much attention to the games. I still don’t know what the blazes it means when you all yell ‘Flipit!’—”
“I’ve explained this to you five times,” I said, using my patient voice. “When there are three runners on base, and it’s third down, the batter can switch-hit and if the runners yell ‘Flipit!’ they can run in the opposite direction to score.”
“Regardless”—she shook her head like that was nonsense—“this is a very violent sport. Those imps are smaller than me!” Professor Zaida was a little person and very protective of the smaller minions in general. “I really don’t think they should be out here.”
“We’ve been practicing, Professor Zaida. They’re tougher than they look.” We watched as Uhoh and Fingers ran at Eloni, who was playing catch with Boris. Eloni caught the ball with one hand and swatted the imps away without even looking at them. They went flying, but they bounced up laughing.
“Make sure they don’t get hurt,” she said.
“I’ll put them in one at a time. As right-field linebacker or something.”
She nodded and patted me on the arm, because she’s nice like that. “Good luck.”
I started at first bag, Eloni pitched, Boris caught, and Syke played left field. Other students took the remaining positions. Frankie wasn’t allowed to play in league games because of his enhancements, and Darthin didn’t like sports, so he read a book while watching from the stands.
It felt good to lose myself in the game. The hitting, the beaning, and the craziness that followed shouts of “Flipit!” The imps played with so much enthusiasm it was hard not to smile, especially when two of them tried to take down Vilnix’s biggest player, Huge Alfred.
We lost, 5–4, but it was fun. After the game, the players who hadn’t gone to the infirmary enjoyed Cook’s postgame lunch in the shade of an oak tree.
I always enjoyed hanging out with the Vilnix players. Vilnix Academy’s motto was “Arts and Warcraft.” They trained humans in painting, sculpture, music, and literature, because EOs love to be celebrated in the arts. They also trained monsters for war, like everyone else.
I stood in line for cheeseburgers behind a Vilnix player named Lance. “We almost didn’t make it here today,” he said.
“Really, why?”
“Last night someone released battle termites in our practice siege area—they ate up the walls and everything.” He pointed to the table of condiments. “That isn’t ogre jelly, is it?”
“No, chunky peanut butter. Eloni likes it on his burger. That’s terrible about the termites.”
Lance nodded. “Coach wanted to cancel the game, so we could help rebuild the practice area before the recruiters come to see our graduating monsters in action.”
Everyone in line started talking about the random acts of sabotage that both schools had experienced lately.
“We thought it might be Critchlore, because you guys need the business,” Lance went on. “But we heard he was out of it last week.”
“Yeah, we were dealing with our own sabotage,” I said. “Thanks to Dr. Pravus.”
“Pravus,” he said. “It was probably him. Did you hear he just bagged a sweet recruiting deal from Cera Bacculus? She’d been set to go with the Minion Preparatory’s graduating Troll Mob, but then they got lost in the Caves of Doom on a field trip.”
“It happens,” I said. “It took us three hours to get out of there once.”
“They were lost for five days. They claim they were given a false map at the site, and—get this—the school that was there before them was the Pravus Academy.”
Interesting. We’d all thought that Dr. Pravus had sabotaged us because he hated Dr. Critchlore. But if he was sabotaging other schools, maybe he was up to something bigger. And how was he getting away with it? The Minion School Directives said that sabotage was punishable with the loss of license and banishment to Skelterdam.
We ate and talked about the great and not-so-great plays of the game, and how much we hated the team from the Pravus Academy. I lost myself in the camaraderie until clouds rolled in and extinguished the warmth of the sun, which reminded me that I was doomed and had better do something about it.
There are two kinds of artists:
those who make their overlords look more noble and attractive than they are, and those who are in prison for being accurate.
—FIRST THING TAUGHT AT THE VILNIX ACADEMY
I pulled out my to-do list and wrote “1. Redeem myself for losing the TSBM” on the bottom. I circled it and drew an arrow that pointed it to first place, ahead of “Save the Monster,” which had been crossed out, erased, and then rewritten. I had no idea how I was going to do those two. In the meantime, there were the other items: finding out where I came from and who cursed me.
Fortunately, I wasn’t the only person working on this problem. Now that I had some free time, I decided to go see what Uncle Ludwig had found out.
Uncle Ludwig was the school librarian. He wasn’t really my uncle; he was Dr. Critchlore’s uncle. He also wasn’t much of a librarian, because he rarely opened the library. Having kids around tended to interfere with his research, which, I’d just learned, was focused on finding out where I came from and who had cursed me. I felt special, knowing that someone would sacrifice all his time and talent for me.
The library was located on the first floor of the castle. I tapped on one of the glass inserts of the library doors, which were locked, as usual.
“Go away. I’m working,” he yelled. “Go outside and play!”
“It’s me, Runt,” I said.
I heard footsteps, and then the door burst open.
“Fantastic!” he said.
I smiled and followed him inside. Uncle Ludwig was a mess, as musty and tattered as an old book. His clothes were yellowed and worn, and he hadn’t shaved. A pair of glasses sat on his scraggly hair, and another pair hung from a necklace. He mumbled to himself as he headed back to his desk.
I couldn’t wait for him to share his research with me. He was probably excited too, after having to keep it a secret from me. Cook hadn’t wanted me to know I was cursed.
We reached his desk, which was piled with books. Four library carts jammed with more books blocked the front.
“You can start reshelving these”—he pointed to the carts—“and then I have some carts in the back you can get to.”
“Um, Uncle Ludwig, I’m not here to reshelve books.”
“What?”
“No. I’m here to talk about my curse.”
“What curse?”
My heart did that flippy thing, where it speeds up and then seems to collapse all at once. “Haven’t you been researching my curse? I’m going to die on my sixteenth birthday unless I find out who cursed me and get him or her to take it back. Cook told me you were researching where I came from.”
“Right!” he said. “Of course. The curse. Cook. Where you came from. It’s all related, you know.”
“Huh?”
He rummaged through piles on his desk. “Your medallion,” he said, motioning with his hand. I took it off and handed it to him. He squinted through his glasses, turning the medallion as he tried to read the strange writing along the edges. “Yes, just as I suspected.”
“What? You know where it comes from?”
“No. I have no idea,” he said. “See, that’s how it all ties together.”
I tried not to look exasperated, but it was difficult.
“Your medallion,” he explained, “that strange beast who attacked us yesterday, where Evil Overlord Dungbeetle gets his minions.”
“They all have something in common?”
“I don’t know!” he shouted. “They’re mysteries. How do you make caffeinated moon biscuits? I don’t know. Where do giant sloth beasts hibernate? I don’t know. Why would anybody curse you? I don’t know!”
