The Amazing Wilmer Dooley

by Fowler DeWitt

  “Keep looking,” said Harriet. “It’s a remarkable discovery, and could be of immense scientific value.”

  “Except that it can also be used to turn brains into soup,” said Wilmer.

  “That is a drawback,” agreed Harriet. “But it is still impressive.”

  “What does this do?” asked Roxie. She pointed to the bright red button in the middle of the console.

  “Don’t press that!” warned Wilmer, but it was too late. A loud squeal erupted and Wilmer’s ears felt like shattering glass. His brain turned numb and he staggered back. So did Harriet. Roxie winced and turned another knob. The pitch went higher and Wilmer’s brain felt like it was swimming in quicksand. Roxie nudged another knob and the pitch of the noise changed again. Wilmer felt pressure in his skull as if his brain was blowing up like a balloon. Roxie released her finger from the button, the noise ceased, and Wilmer’s brain felt normal again.

  “Sorry,” said Roxie. “I wanted to see what would happen.”

  “Well, please don’t do that again,” Wilmer begged. “We shouldn’t tamper with these frequencies. Who knows what they’ll do?”

  “I don’t want spaghetti or soup brains,” agreed Harriett. “We need to keep looking!” They continued rifling through pages until Harriet pointed to the table drawer. “What’s in here?” She tried to slide it open but it stopped after a few inches.

  “It’s stuck,” explained Wilmer.

  Harriet dug her hand inside the drawer and felt around. “There’s something in the track. Hold on. . . .” She moved her hand around, tugging and grunting, and finally removed a crumpled piece of paper. “This was wedged inside.”

  It was a handwritten piece of paper torn from a notebook. Wilmer grabbed the page from Harriet’s grasp. It was the missing page from Mr. Sneed’s journal. He remembered reading, But soon everyone will fear the name of—

  Now he could read the rest of the sentence:

  Clarence Dillard Sneed!

  After hundreds of dead mice, we have perfected the process. Now we’re ready to move on to human brains! Our brainwashing frequency works best on kids. Twelve-year-old brains are the perfect receptors for our mind-altering procedure. They have the fewest soupy side effects.

  At last, we can create our awe-inspiring army of juvenile lackeys, and take over the world! And here’s how . . .

  With a shaky voice, Wilmer began to read aloud. Roxie and Harriet stood next to him, their jaws hanging open as they absorbed every terrible word.

  How to Erase a Brain

  And have it obey your every command!

  By CD

  Controlling the brain is simple with these three steps: the Squeal, the Trigger, and the Command!

  1. The Squeal

  My greatest discovery: a high-pitched squawk that wipes the brain of all thought. It also makes subjects angry and woozy, and then they want to gnaw on seat cushions and stuff. But you can’t have every­thing.

  Caution: a full-blast Squeal turns even adult brains into soup. And you don’t want brain soup: It stains the carpeting.

  2. The Trigger

  We follow the Squeal with a single hypnotic phrase chosen carefully for its delicate balance of syllables. It primes the brain for the Command. Otherwise, we just get a blank brain that makes our subject do nothing but stare and drool a bit.

  3. The Command

  This is the best part!

  “That’s horrible,” said Wilmer. “But that’s all the note says.”

  “Turn the page over,” said Harriet.

  “Oh, right. Thanks,” mumbled Wilmer. He continued reading.

  The Command is the part when we tell the brain exactly what to do, such as “Make me an omelet,” or “Take over the world now.” But if we go ordering kids to make omelets or take over worlds, some adults might overhear and get upset, or want their own omelets. So we use a Subliminal Message Muddler, yet another genius invention of mine.

  Oh, I love my Muddler! I give horrible, evil orders, and the machine turns the words into happy, random pieces of advice! Twelve-year-old brains primed by the Squeal and Trigger will understand and follow my orders perfectly, while everyone else will think I’m being helpful.

  Mwa-ha-ha!

  I love writing that. I’ll do it again!

  Mwa-ha-ha! And an extra mwa-ha!

  Soon our horribly sinister, heinous, repulsive, contemptible, and oh-so-wonderful army will help me take over the world. And no one will suspect a thing!

  Boy, am I smart!

  Wilmer looked up, his hands quivering. The plot was even more terrible than he had imagined.

  Harriet leaned over and pointed to the page. “There’s a note here in the margin.” They squinted to read it:

  The order must be precise, and the frequency exact. Soupy brains can’t carry out our orders, but if all goes according to plan, we can keep brains from being soupy for days, even weeks. Maybe. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

  “Simply awful,” muttered Harriet. She looked at Wilmer, her eyes misty.

  Wilmer scanned the page again, looking for a clue on how to stop the twisted scheme, but found none.

  “A Subliminal Message Muddler,” Harriet mumbled. “I should have known. A subliminal message is a phrase that sounds like one thing, but your brain hears something different. It’s sometimes used in music or advertising. It’s very controversial science.”

  “Well, nothing can be much more controversial than building a machine to brainwash kids and take over the world,” said Wilmer. Harriet and Roxie nodded in agreement.

  Roxie pointed to a small orange button at the top of the console that flashed erratically and read SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE MUDDLER. “I was wondering what that did.” She walked over to the board. “So if I tell the kids to do horrible things, the machine will spit out the opposite, right?” She spoke into the microphone. “Students, join my army and destroy the world.” Then she pressed the orange button.

  Her voice boomed back at them, screechy and echoey and metallic, so that it sounded nothing like Roxie’s voice. Instead, it resembled the unrecognizable electronic distortions they had heard all weekend. “Kids, eat lots of grapefruit and love prancing ponies,” sang the loudspeaker.

  “I love ponies,” said Wilmer. “And grapefruit is a great source of Vitamin C.”

  “So that explains why we’ve been hearing those weird messages,” said Roxie with a shiver. “But we don’t need to scramble our message. I’ll just order kids to stop being brain-dead zombies, right?” She lowered her hand to press the console button and transmit a message to the entire hotel.

  “Wait. It’s not that simple,” cautioned Harriet. “Remember, there are three steps. The Command is just the final one. We have the Squeal, the Trigger, and then the Command. The Squeal empties their minds. Then the Trigger primes the brains for orders. Then, lastly, the Command tells them what to do.”

  “So we still need the frequency for the Squeal and the right words for the Trigger,” said Roxie.

  “Exactly,” said Harriet.

  Wilmer picked up a handful of papers and groaned. “But there are hundreds of frequencies on these pages and I can’t make heads or tails out of any of them!” He flung the pages down on the table with frustration. One sheet teetered off the edge and floated to the ground. Wilmer picked the paper up. “Never mind. Here it is.”

  He held a sheet with spiky patterns that resembled cascading ocean waves, or maybe splashing soup. The page was titled, Perfected brain-erasing frequency. Use with caution. There were a number of settings for the radio console. On the very top of the page was a recipe for an egg-salad sandwich.

  “Look!” exclaimed Wilmer, showing the page to Harriet.

  “This is not the time to make egg salad,” she said.

  “No—below it!”

  Harriet gasped. “ ‘Perfected brain-erasing fre­quency’! That’s it!” She gave Wilmer a kiss on the cheek, which Wilmer quickly wiped away. He thought he heard Roxie growl.


  Harriet handed the paper to Roxie, who examined it and then fiddled with some knobs.

  “We should record the sound,” suggested Wilmer. “It might be of scientific value later. But first, cover your ears,” he warned. “A full-blast Squeal is dangerous.” He and Harriet put in their earplugs.

  Roxie put on her headphones, rotated more knobs, and then pressed the red console button. A screechy distorted pitch shook the room . . . just as the door behind them swung open.

  Roxie turned around, releasing the button in surprise. Elvira Padgett towered threateningly in the doorway, her mouth twisted into a sour scowl. Next to her stood Dr. Dill.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Elvira rasped. “No one is allowed to touch this machine except Mr. Sneed. Oh, it hurts me so to see kids misbehaving. I think we need to pay Mr. Sneed a visit. Who knows what he’ll do when he finds out about this?”

  Wilmer gulped. He couldn’t imagine what Mr. Sneed was capable of doing.

  “You kids are in big trouble,” warned Elvira.

  “The biggest,” agreed Dr. Dill.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  How to Build an Exploding Volcano

  By Dr. A. P. Swaghorn, the Internet’s Ultimate Authority on Everything Science

  Place a soda bottle straight up, preferably on a piece of wood.

  Use clay to shape a volcano base around the bottle.

  Fill the bottle most of the way with warm water, red food coloring, and a few drops of dishwashing detergent.

  Add 2 tablespoons baking soda.

  Slowly pour in vinegar.

  Stand back and watch your volcano explode!

  Tips:

  • Don’t aim your volcano at anyone.

  • Don’t use Mentos and diet soda, or your volcano may cover the room with slime.

  • And you don’t want to cover the entire room with slime, right?

  • Right?

  Standing in the exhibit hall, Claudius Dill stared in dismay at his broken volcano. All that work! He’d had visions of exploding green goop coating Wilmer Dooley. The volcano would spew fake lava high up in the air and directly down on his enemy.

  But now? Now it would do nothing.

  Claudius wasn’t going to win first place in the science fair with a broken volcano on the floor. Of course, Wilmer Dooley couldn’t win either, which meant it wasn’t a total disaster.

  But pretty much everything else was a total disaster, what with broken glass and puddles of chemicals covering the floor. Some strawberry-haired girl with thick glasses was starting to rise from the floor when a mouse ran over her shoe. She screamed and then fainted. Was that a leech on her arm?

  Claudius was speechless. Who destroyed the exhibits? He hadn’t done it. Neither had Vlad—they had been together all weekend, except for some quick bathroom breaks.

  But who, then? Not Wilmer—the boy was a goody two-shoes through and through. That didn’t stop Claudius from spreading lies about him, though. “Dooley destroyed this room!” he yelled to no one in particular. It made him feel good when he said bad things about Wilmer Dooley.

  Claudius was surprised by the reactions from the other kids. They weren’t just upset—they were violently upset. One kid, who had his foot in a cast, jumped up and down on his exhibit, kicking and screaming. A group of girls with matching yellow tank tops were yanking each other’s hair. Other kids were hollering and punching the ground.

  “Something isn’t right,” said Claudius to Vlad. “No one is acting very scientistlike.”

  Vlad scanned the room with a concerned frown. “Maybe. Yes. You’re right. I hadn’t noticed.” He pointed to two girls who were nibbling on a chair. “That’s something you don’t see every day.” He scratched his chin. “But if I didn’t destroy the exhibits, and you didn’t . . . then someone else here is as conniving as us. Maybe even more so!”

  Claudius gulped. He didn’t like to think anyone could be more conniving than him. He scanned the room for suspicious-looking characters. But with all the students breaking things or yanking things or eating things, everyone seemed suspicious. A shiver crawled up Claudius’s back.

  “We should find Dooley,” said Vlad. “He might know what’s happening.”

  Claudius gave an annoyed grunt. “We can handle this ourselves.”

  A thin mouse of a boy ran past them, growled, and dove headfirst into the wall. Then he stood up, picked up a broken wooden beam, and gnawed at it while yelling, “Must mince meats!”

  “Well, okay, I guess we can ask Dooley,” said Claudius. “But we’re not helping him become a hero again.”

  “Of course not,” agreed Vlad. “But if you can’t use a goody two-shoes to your own advantage, what’s the point of having a goody two-shoes around at all?”

  Claudius didn’t think there was a point to having a goody two-shoes around at all, but he nodded and they walked out to find his sworn enemy.

  In the radio control room, Elvira Padgett folded her arms. She looked stern and threatening and unhappy and vexed. Especially vexed.

  “We’ve uncovered a horrible plot to create an army of evil middle-school scientists to take over the world!” shouted Roxie.

  “Led by Mr. Sneed,” added Wilmer.

  Elvira stared at them, her eyes bulging. She crossed her arms even higher, so that they loomed over the kids and cast a shadow over their heads. “That’s ridiculous. I’ve known Mr. Sneed for years. Why, he’s always ending his PA announcements by telling everyone to be kind to rabbits and that sort of thing. He wouldn’t create an army of middle-schoolers.”

  “Those are all subliminal messages,” said Harriet. “He’s really telling kids to do evil things. It’s just that he uses a machine to disguise the orders.”

  “Is it true?” gasped Dr. Dill. His face turned red with shock and anger. “That’s dreadful! We need to take immediate action! Elvira, call the police! We must act now!” His Beethoven tone rang and he answered his phone. “Dr. Dill, here. I’m very busy and . . . What? A severe case of Herring Bone? . . . Yes, I see a pattern. . . .” He turned and walked out the door.

  Elvira turned slowly back to the kids, her eyes narrowing. “That’s a pretty incredible accusation.”

  “The proof is in all those pages,” said Wilmer, pointing to the pile of papers spread over the table. “They even have Mr. Sneed’s initials on them. I thought they stood for Claudius Dill, but I was wrong.” He held up a piece of paper. “See? CD!”

  “CD? That could stand for anything! Carnivo­rous Dinosaurs! Conniving Diapers! Congealed Doghouses!” Elvira straightened her back. She glowered at Wilmer. He took a step back, suddenly nervous.

  But his worries quickly vanished when Elvira said, “If what you say is true, no one is safe. Follow me to my office.” She looked at her watch. “The judging is about to start for the contest. But this is far more important. And there isn’t much to judge anyway, I’m afraid.”

  “Does anyone know what happened to the exhibits?” asked Roxie.

  “I’m afraid not. There are rumors of sabotage, of course.” Elvira glanced at Wilmer. “We have suspects.”

  The kids followed her out of the room and down the hallway. They passed three boys in matching science goggles. One punched his hand against the wall, one rammed his head into a table, and one jabbed his nose at a lamp. Each act of violence sent shivers up Wilmer’s spine, but it also filled his head with the urge to join in.

  Wilmer bit his lip as they walked into Elvira’s office. It was located right off the main lobby and behind the check-in counter. The floor of her office was piled high with stacks of books. Wilmer glanced at the titles. They were science textbooks. They seemed to be about sound waves and physics. But Elvira wasn’t a scientist.

  Seated behind her large wooden desk, his feet up, was Mr. Sneed. He whistled.

  “It’s him!” cried Wilmer. “Get him! Stop him! Tie him up!”

  “The kids seem to think you’re hatching some sort of horrible plan to take over the world,�
�� said Elvira grimly.

  “Oh, it’s not me who hatched that plan,” said Mr. Sneed with a short cackle.

  Elvira closed her office door and locked it behind her. “No, quite right. It was me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Ms. Elvira Padgett,

  Our records show that the following books are overdue from the library. Please return them to avoid continued fines.

  - Sound Frequencies for Dummies

  - Structural Vibrations, Electromagnetic Wave Radiation, and other Scientific Sound Thingies

  - Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Conquering the World but Were Afraid to Ask

  - My Life in Mah-Jongg by Valveeta Padgett

  - A Physical Exploration of the Attenuation of Sound Waves and Their Effect on Gray Matter and . . . Oh, Who Would Read This? I’m Bored Even Writing the Title

  - Alexander the Great: The Toddler Years

  - How to Build a Thousand-Foot Radio Tower by Yourself

  - 500 Recipes for Soup

  Harriet, Roxie, and Wilmer huddled together, knees quaking, as the two scheming adults snarled at them. “But you seemed so nice!” screamed Harriet to Elvira. “I mean, when you weren’t pulling wings off flies and stuff. You can’t be the one behind all of this.”

  “Of course it was me!” Elvira barked. She stepped closer. “World domination has been my lifelong dream.”

  “Mine too,” said Mr. Sneed, rising from his chair. He smiled warmly at Elvira. “We have so much in common. Two peas in a pod. Two scoops on a cone. Two maggots eating a carcass.”

  “You’re sweet,” Elvira said, blushing. “When we stumbled upon evil sound frequencies, our plans were modest. We would turn brains into sloppy joes! Or a garden salad! But then we found a pitch that could control human brains and turn them into soup. The perfect way to raise an army! And serve lunch in a pinch. We just needed some kids to test it on. The state science fair was perfect. So many brains, big and juicy.” She cackled three times, with Mr. Sneed joining her on the last one. “The last piece of the puzzle was to build a radio tower so we could project our announcements even louder.”