by Sheila Grau
Once past the Column of On-Time Delivery, my DPS said, “Left turn in five meters.” Yeah, right, if you want to go past the Poison Development Center. I don’t think so. I led Pismo to the right, going down a staircase and into a tunnel with unfinished rock walls, dim lighting, and bats.
“Hey, Victor,” I said as we passed him hanging upside down from the ceiling.
“Hi, Higgins,” the bat said.
Once we were out of earshot, Pismo whispered, “Isn’t that kind of dangerous? I mean—he’s a vampire, right?”
“Nah, they’re well fed. Harmless. If you really want to be safe, just eat a batch of Cook’s garlic fries once a week, and the vampires won’t come near you.”
We plunged into the darkness, my DPS providing a dim glow that only reached about a foot in front of us, like a flashlight about to run out of juice.
“How scary is this guy Frankenhammer?” Pismo asked.
“Have you heard of the Festering Boil Spitters?” I asked.
“Of course. Catlike creatures. They spit a blackish tar that makes their victims break out in pus-oozing boils. Gross.”
“Dr. Frankenhammer invented them. Unfortunately, they were uncontrollable and had a tendency to run off and hide in dark spaces.”
Pismo shrugged. “Nobody’s perfect.”
“A few escaped down here.”
It was hard to tell in the dim light, but I think Pismo might have paled a little. I felt bad. I shouldn’t have told him about the Spitters. I knew that we wouldn’t see one, but he was just so smug, I couldn’t help myself.
We reached the Supply Station, which was like one of those giant warehouse stores, only less bright and more dungeony (think waaaaay fewer people and waaaaay more spiders).
A long counter blocked access to the shelves. Behind the counter, workers darted around the stacks, collecting goods off the shelves to fill orders. They were mole people (MPs), who enjoyed working deep underground. I’d always thought they were creepy, with their large red eyes and bumpy green skin. They had huge hands with long, thick claws.
I walked up to the counter and rang the bell, but I couldn’t hear it, the room was so noisy. Forklifts beeped, workers shouted to one another, and machinery clanked as products came in on moving conveyor belts.
I rang it again. And again. I tried to catch the eye of a worker darting by. Finally a guy printing out orders from the computer hollered, “Felix, help those kids at the counter!”
“You do it!” Felix yelled. “I just got five orders for the chemistry department.”
“Fine.” The MP walked over and put both hands on the counter, his claws pointing at us like a threat. “What?”
“Two hazmat suits, size small, for cleanup in Dr. Frankenhammer’s lab, please,” I said. These mole people weren’t much for small talk. You had to state your business and get out of there as fast as you could or they’d “accidentally” scratch you.
“Wow, this place is huge,” Pismo said. Behind the counter, row after row of two-story-high shelves stretched away as far as we could see. In addition to training minions, Dr. Critchlore ran a successful minion supply company, selling all sorts of useful products he’d invented.
The MP frowned at Pismo as he typed into his computer. We heard the whir of a motor. To the right, a long row of hazmat suits started moving on their conveyor belt, like clothes at the dry cleaner. Green, fireproof ones for dragon stable cleanup; blue for the Necromancy labs; orange for really, really toxic stuff; and, finally, yellow for basic lab spills.
“Can I get one in magenta?” Pismo said. “It highlights my eyes.”
I shook my head at him, hoping he’d get the clue that talking here was not okay.
“I’m joking,” he said.
I ran my hand across my throat, telling him to cut it.
“You’re very uptight, Higgins,” he said. “Why is everyone here so grim?”
The MP returned and handed me my suit. I honestly couldn’t tell the MPs apart, so I wasn’t sure of his name. However, I’d figured out that they all responded well to a generic title, such as “Exalted Wise One.”
“Thank you, Preeminent Efficiency Maker.”
He nodded at me. Then he handed Pismo a much older suit that had a tear in the sleeve. That looked dangerous.
“You want magenta,” he said in his raspy voice. “This one will turn you magenta.”
Then he disappeared.
Pismo took the suit, his eyes wide. I grabbed his arm and got us out of there.
“What is with that guy?” Pismo said once we were back in the hallway.
“U-MAD,” I explained.
“A little. This suit looks dangerous.”
“No, U-M-A-D: Underground Mole-person Affective Disorder. Have you ever heard of seasonal affective disorder?”
“No.”
“SAD—people get depressed in winter, from a lack of sun. Mole people get a version of that, but instead of depressed, they become extremely rude and impatient. Plus they love to find excuses to hurt people—that’s just their nature.”
Pismo shrugged. “I don’t think this suit will fit me. Wanna trade?”
I looked at my suit, which was shiny and new. I looked at his—the plastic was wrinkled, the viewing port was cracked and cloudy with age, and there was that cut in the sleeve.
“Sorry, no.” I said.
“C’mon, Higgs. I’m a first-year. Help me out here.” He pouted. “I won’t know what to stay away from. You’ve been here forever; you probably don’t even need the suit.”
“I can’t get sick,” I said. “I have my junior henchman test in the morning.”
“You’ll ace it,” he said. “I know you will. Please?”
“No. You earned that suit.”
“I didn’t know about the mole people! This is so unfair.” He started crying. “I hate this stupid school. I can’t wait to get thrown out of here so I can get sent to a decent school where they don’t try to kill their students.”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “This is a great school. Here, I’ll take it.” I took the broken suit, telling myself it was just a precaution anyway. We probably wouldn’t even need them.
Pismo immediately stopped crying and grabbed my suit. “Sweet,” he said, smiling.
Pismo is a nice kid, I thought to myself while trying to unclench my teeth. Then I pulled out my medallion and kissed it. I was going to need all the luck I could get.
I opened the door to Dr. Frankenhammer’s lab and we entered. The room was lit by a flickering overhead light. Dark shadows cowered in the corners, as if they were afraid of Dr. Frankenhammer too. A crackling electric buzz filled the air, and it smelled like chemicals.
Behind the table, Dr. Frankenhammer stood beneath the light, his face in shadow. He held a very large syringe filled with blood. Strapped to the table was my ogre-man friend, Boris.
Take six hairs of werewolf, extract of valerian root, tooth of sloth. A sloth’s tooth? Do they even have teeth? This one looks like a four, or it could be the moon.
—DR. CRITCHLORE, TRYING TO DECIPHER THE TOP SECRET BOOK OF MINIONS
I cleared my throat, and Dr. Frankenhammer’s head jerked up.
“Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Frankenhammer,” I said. “I … um … we … the two of us … are here for detention … and … Is Boris okay?”
“Borisss forgot his lab kit,” Dr. Frankenhammer said, lowering his surgical mask. “He graciously offered to supply a few … ssssamples for class.” He unstrapped the pale-looking Boris, who now sported a buzz cut.
“Cookie?” Dr. Frankenhammer said. Boris took the cookie and stumbled for the exit. I grabbed him as he passed.
“You okay?” I whispered.
He nodded, swayed on his feet, and then left. I looked over at Dr. Frankenhammer, who was putting Boris’s blood and hair into sample dishes. He turned and looked at me, then down at a pile of surgical instruments on the counter. He picked up his scalpel and smiled.
I reflexively backed up a
nd bumped into Pismo. He felt rubbery. I glanced back and saw he was already in his suit.
“Mr. Higginssss,” Dr. Frankenhammer said. I hated the way he said my name, like he was drawing it out on his lab table, preparing it for dissection. I tried not to shiver, I really did, but I couldn’t help it. Dr. Frankenhammer walked over to me and put a hand on my shoulder. He was either trying to make me feel comfortable or keeping a tight grip on me so I couldn’t escape, I wasn’t sure which.
“Um, Mr. Griphold sent us to help clean up.”
“Ssssuper.” Dr. Frankenhammer ushered us out of his lab with outstretched arms, as if he were afraid we would try to duck around him to see his research. “The messsss is in the testing lab next door.” When we exited his lab, he turned and locked it behind us. “Follow.”
We walked down the hall to another door. I would have passed right by without seeing it, because the door was perfectly camouflaged into the rough wall. Even the PIN pad seemed to blend right in. Dr. Frankenhammer entered the code and turned to me. “Better put on your suit, Higginssss.”
I jumped into my suit, closing it up as best I could. The inside smelled like sour milk mixed with puke, and I could feel a draft on my arm. Pismo smiled at me through his clean view port. His probably still had that “New Hazmat Suit” smell: fresh and plasticky, like a new rubber ball.
“This way,” Dr. Frankenhammer held the door open. Pismo again let me go in first.
Dr. Frankenhammer grabbed a filter mask that was hanging just inside the door and covered his mouth and nose. The room looked like a duplicate of his regular lab—an impeccably clean space with lab tables and equipment, lots of stainless steel cabinets, and shelves filled with neatly lined-up specimen jars. One held a small being with a line of horny bumps on his skull. His small, razor-toothed mouth was frozen in a silent scream, like he was terrified of the fate awaiting him. You and me both, little buddy.
“This is my testing lab,” he said. “I use it for my prototypes, and ssssometimes, when I’m feeling ssssilly, I do a bit of, shall we say, genetic brewing to ssssee what I can come up with. Just for fun.” He held a finger to his lips, like it was a ssssecret.
The room was dim, only safety lighting was on, so of course I noticed our target: a glowing greenish goop dripping off the table on the right.
“What is that?” I asked.
“I spilled my ssssoup,” he said. “I’ll clean that up myself. You boys need to focus on the ssssupply closet.” He pointed to the left.
“The closet with the sign that says, ‘Danger: Infectious Disease Storage’?”
Dr. Frankenhammer waved a hand. “Not to worry, I only put the sign up to scare off nosy looky-loosss.” Phew. “The infectious diseases are stored in that cabinet next to you.”
I jumped away from the cabinet and hustled over to the closet. It was closed, but something brown was leaking out the bottom. It looked like it was sprouting hair.
“Better hurry,” he said. “I gave it a shot of evolution acceleration, which means it will grow and mutate very quickly. If it reaches full stasis, it’s likely to sprout very sharp barbs.”
“What is it?” Pismo asked.
“I haven’t named it. It’s a rapidly growing organism that has no bonessss. My mistake.” He shrugged. “It’s like a muscle-blob, with quills. Sometimessss, the best creations come out of simply letting yourself go and not thinking about what you are doing,” he went on. “But that method leads to a lot of garbage as well.”
I walked over to the closet door and rested my hand on the handle. “It doesn’t spew anything, does it?” I asked, remembering Dr. Frankenhammer’s fondness for creatures that spew.
“Why, yes, Higginssss, it does,” he said. “It spews toxic bile that blinds its victim. You know, I think there may be a use for this … this Thing yet.”
I pulled my hand off the handle.
“Don’t worry,” Dr. Frankenhammer said. “It only becomes bile-spewing in its final evolutionary stage. This one is harmlessss. Just scoop it up and put it in that bin.” He pointed to a large, metallic garbage can. “Make sure to put the lid on tight.”
Pismo grabbed a broom that was propped next to the closet door. It was a pretty feeble tool for this job, but we didn’t have anything else. Dr. Frankenhammer turned and very quickly left the room.
“Ready?” I asked. A smoky fog emanated from the part of the blob escaping beneath the door. It smelled like gym socks. And the reason I could smell it was because my hazmat suit was completely ineffective.
Pismo nodded. I took a deep breath, held it, and opened the door.
The Thing plopped out. It looked soft, like brown jelly with hair, but when I touched it with my rubber-gloved hand, it hardened, like a muscle tensing.
And then it lunged at me, knocking me onto my back and sliding on my legs, pinning them down.
“Pismo!” I screamed. “Hit it now!”
No matter how hard I pushed, I couldn’t budge it. The Thing was a gigantic muscle, as big as a beanbag chair, so of course it was incredibly strong. And it was oozing up my body.
“Pismo!”
Where was he? I looked back and saw the broom on the floor next to my head. Pismo was across the room, sitting at Dr. Frankenhammer’s workstation, staring at the computer screen while his fingers typed frantically.
“Pismo! Get over here!”
“Just … a … sec,” he said calmly.
Are you kidding me? The Thing pressed on my hips. I tried to hold it back, but it was too strong. And heavy. My toes had gone numb. I stretched my fingers for the broom, but it was just out of reach.
“Pismo! Now!”
He held up his pointer finger without taking his gaze off the screen. I didn’t think I had one more minute, or even one more second. The Thing was mashing me. No amount of effort did the slightest bit of harm or slowed it down. It covered my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. “Pismo,” I managed to yelp.
It plopped up my neck, then my chin.
“Yelp,” I yelped. This was it. I was going to suffocate underneath a gigantic hairy muscle that smelled like armpit while Pismo read Dr. Frankenhammer’s files. At least it hadn’t sprouted quills, I thought, trying to find a bright side. Then I felt my hazmat suit shred as thousands of tiny barbs scraped my skin. Tears leaked out of the sides of my eyes and were quickly covered by blob.
Good-bye, world.
And then, suddenly, the Thing turned back into jelly.
I heaved with all my might, and the heavy muscle just plopped right off me. I collapsed on my back and breathed in deeply. Pismo stood above me with a syringe in his hand.
“Extra-strength muscle relaxant,” he said.
I closed my eyes. “Great Danes, that was close.”
We got the Thing into the bin and shut the lid tightly just as Dr. Frankenhammer returned with a mop and a bucket to clean up his soup. He put them down and picked up a couple of metal helmets with lots of wires and pokey things running in and out of them.
“Well done, boyssss,” he said. “Now, if you would help me with an experiment—”
“We’ve gotta go,” I said. I grabbed Pismo and we ran out of there as fast as we could.
Returning to the Supply Station, I asked Pismo what he was doing on Dr. Frankenhammer’s computer when he should have been rescuing me.
“I was rescuing you,” he said, eating one of the snickerdoodles he’d snatched from Dr. Frankenhammer’s lab. “Had to find his supply list to see if he had the muscle relaxant. Found it in a file labeled ‘Inventory and Where It’s Stored.’ ”
We turned in our hazmat suits. The MP scowled at me as I handed him the shredded remains of mine.
“Sorry, Most Esteemed Realm Master,” I said.
He grunted at me.
“Here you go, um, Super Amazing Guy,” Pismo said. I think the MP actually smiled at him.
In the tunnels I contemplated ditching Pismo. Let him find his own way out, the little pest.
“You want t
o ditch me, don’t you?” Pismo said.
I sighed. I wanted to say, “Nothing went the way it was supposed to today. I was so excited this morning, but then I found out there are five times as many junior henchman trainees as there are spots in the program, the zombie minions I’m supposed to help train are impossible, a bomb exploded in the cemetery, some imps trapped me in the garden, I got a tardy and then detention, and I was attacked by a hairy muscle Thing.”
But instead of saying all that, I punched him on the shoulder.
“Bad day?” he asked, laughing. “C’mon, it could have been worse.” I scowled at him. I wasn’t in the mood to talk. “No, you’re right, that was pretty gross.”
We reached the final hallway before the dungeon exit. Everyone was heading home for the day, or to the cafeteria for dinner, and we joined the exodus.
“I know what you did,” I said.
“What?” Pismo asked. “The book?”
“Yes, the book. What were you thinking?”
“That it was pretty, and mysterious, and I wanted to see what was inside.”
I pictured the book, sitting in its display case with the gentle overhead lighting that made its gears shine like gold. “That book is always locked up in Dr. Critchlore’s office. How’d you get your hands on it?”
“It was just sitting on his sour-faced secretary’s desk,” he said, and then he took off without saying good-bye, joining the first-year skeletons on their way to dinner.
I had only taken two steps into the cafeteria when a hand grabbed me from behind.
Have a problem with encroaching neighbors? We have the minion for you!
—ADVERTISEMENT FOR CRITCHLORE’S MINIONS
I spun around and looked up at the face of my foster brother, Pierre. He wore an apron and held a ladle in the hand that wasn’t holding me.
“Hey, squirt. Mom wants you.” He nodded to the kitchen.
We walked over together. He took his spot behind the serving counter, and I went through the swinging door into the kitchen.
This was Cook’s resting time. She ate while the meal was being served. Once it was over she’d get to work cleaning up and preparing for the next meal. I found her sitting at a table in the nook, eating a salad.
