The girls began muttering to themselves. The teacher pulled out a whistle and gave it a piercing toot.
“Time is running out … for all of you!” Miss Parker barked. “We only have a few minutes to go over the finer points of Linguastics before you begin your pilgrimage to the Tower of Babble.”
The teacher took two slender tubes of what looked like sugar and slowly emptied them onto the ground as she strolled the perimeter of the Grimnaseum.
“As bats use sonar and salmon use scents, we use words as our language,” she explained. “Oftentimes, I feel that man invented language solely to satisfy his deep need to complain. Without it, though, we would not be able to say exactly what we mean to.”
The teacher wended her way through the Grimnaseum, occasionally stopping to make intricate sugar swirls on the floor.
“Language is how we carve up the world around us … how we organize it into concepts. And carving up the world keenly takes both a sharp vocabulary and a sharp tongue.”
“Tongue?” repeated Hadley from behind her hair.
“Yes, though our words have wings, they often fly not where they should. The key is a strong, agile tongue, achieved through rigorous Linguastics, or—in layman’s terms—tongue exercises.”
“Tongue exercises!” Marlo and Cookie gasped in unison. “That’s stupid!”
The two girls glared at each other, shocked and disgusted that the same words had flown off their tongues at the same time. Miss Parker blew her whistle.
“All I heard was blah blah blah … I want to do a hundred laps … blah blah blah … Now go to it, you two!” the teacher ordered.
Cookie and Marlo rose grudgingly from their foam mats and started to jog. Miss Parker tooted her whistle like a peevish teakettle.
“Not with your feet!” she exclaimed, pointing to the lines of sugar spilled onto the ground. “With your tongues!”
“You can’t possibly be—” Marlo began before being silenced by Miss Parker’s whistle.
“Without a strong tongue, your arguments will fall flat, and we’ve only got a few minutes to lick you into shape. So go! Tongues to mats!”
Marlo sighed and began following the trail of sugar with the tip of her tongue. Despite a nagging undercurrent of “sour, filthy foam rubber mat,” the sugar tasted good, as Marlo’s tongue had been tormented with tartness ever since she arrived in Wise Acres. After only a few minutes of tracing the tangled path—especially the spirals—Marlo’s tongue began to ache. Some of the other children snickered as Cookie and Marlo crawled across the floor on their hands and knees. Miss Parker blew her whistle.
“You four!” she said, swiping her accusing finger at Mungo Ulyaw, Bree Martinet, Mathis Vittorio, and Lani Zanotti. “Drop and give me fifty tongue push-ups. Now!”
The four children lay facedown on the floor and, grunting, tried desperately to raise themselves off the mats with their mouths.
Marlo’s mouth was a dried-out cave harboring pure agony. She was a few painful laps ahead of Cookie, whose complaints were both unintelligible yet loud and clear behind her. The morning bell tolled. Marlo, a few yards from the end of the winding sugar course, rolled on her back, her swollen tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. Miss Parker sighed and rubbed her baggy eyes as the children gasped and moaned on the mats.
“Yet, with the tips of your tongues in tip-top shape, you’ll always be able to dish it out, no matter what is served. Now best of lick—luck—to you all.… You’ll need it.”
Milton and the rest of his team fidgeted inside the “Talk-Back Forty” of Wise Acres, just within the dreary rear gates—lashed with sticks and stones—that creaked open in the breeze. A peculiar nervous, electrifying dread had taken up residence in Milton’s muscles, making him feel as if he had contracted the flu at his own surprise party.
Marlo and Team Two were waiting a dozen yards away. Milton and his sister cast confused sideways glances at one another. Were they allies? Were they enemies? Neither of them knew for sure.
A pulsing symphony of noise sounded from beyond the gates. It throbbed softly yet insistently like a million chirrups. The swelling tone masked an eerie scream of wind in the distance.
Lucky squirmed inside Milton’s coat, awake and restless. Milton sighed. He’d have to let his pet ferret stretch and frisk a bit. There was no stopping Lucky once he was awake, which was seldom. Milton turned his back to the other children and carefully set Lucky onto the shredded paper ground. A torn index card fell from Milton’s pocket.
What does it mean? he thought as he picked up the card. The writing, he now realized after intercepting the vice principal’s crazy cat-conveyed notes, was unmistakably Lewis Carroll’s. The Y at the end is capitalized, meaning that the word itself is a name, only written in reverse, which would make it … Yahweh. That name is kind of familiar.… Milton tucked the note back into his pocket. Maybe I can figure it out on the way to the Tower of Babble.…
Milton’s mind kept going fuzzy. The ceaseless chirping seemed to worry apart his thoughts just as they threatened to congeal into something meaningful. The effect wasn’t sedating, exactly, more like … mesmerizing: flowing across Milton’s consciousness like the tide.
A white Volkswagen Rabbit convertible pulled up just outside the gates and came to an abrupt stop. The car had hood-mounted loudspeakers, a satellite dish in the back, and a large aluminum trailer hitched to the rear. There were even what looked like tiny screens, surveilling murky landscapes from dozens of angles, flickering across his windshield. The driver’s-side door—emblazoned with WAR OF THE WORDS WELCOME WAGEN in bright purple letters—flung open and out tumbled Vice Principal Carroll. His Victorian waistcoat ruffled in the wind as he checked his pocket watch with haste.
“Oh my ears and whiskers! How late it’s getting!” he grumbled.
The trailer rattled and shook like a tremendous rat-trap housing an enormous and enraged rodent of unusual size. A muffled roar—like a maddened bull, spitting and yowling in hideous confusion—issued forth.
“Snnnaaahhhhrrrrrrk!!”
“That … sound,” Milton said to the small group of teachers assembled to supervise the children. “What was it?”
“That sound was the snark!” Vice Principal Carroll called out as he strode purposefully across the grounds to his Absurditory. “And today you children will be engaging in a snark hunt!”
“You want us to go hunt something called a snark?” Ursula Lambarst asked, pretending to chew gum so that she appeared more confident than she felt.
“Oh, goodness no,” the vice principal replied, securing a large top hat to his head with an elastic band tucked beneath his chin. “The snark will be hunting you.…”
The creature within the trailer let loose a growl, sounding like a clap of incarcerated thunder. Milton gulped. Vice Principal Carroll carried two leather briefcases. He set them down before the children.
They look so familiar, Milton thought as the man dawdled over to his Cheshire cat cottage.
“I knew I forgot something,” the vice principal muttered as he darted inside his Absurditory. “I fear I’d forget my very head if it weren’t resting comfortably on m-my shoulders!”
As Vice Principal Carroll disappeared through his surreal shed’s two front teeth, Lucky sniffed around Milton’s feet before slowly following an invisible trail of scent to the nearest briefcase.
“Lucky!” Milton yell-whispered, but his command was lost in the unnerving howl of the whistling wind. Lucky snuffled at the open leather satchel.
“Got them!” the vice principal exclaimed as he emerged from the Cheshire cat’s grinning mouth, holding two pairs of handcuffs. Milton eyed his pet nervously.
Lucky … c’mon!
Lucky, smelling something in the briefcase, spilled inside.
“Vice Principal Carroll,” Moses Babcock said, his eyes darting from Milton to Lucky to the vice principal. “Milton has a—”
Clem Weenum elbowed Moses in the ribs, silencing him.
<
br /> “B-big responsibility as team captain,” the vice principal said, stopping in front of the briefcases and snapping them shut.
“No, he has a pet,” Moses continued.
“Tattletale!” Clem shouted.
“Vice Principal Carroll,” Cookie exclaimed. “Clem just called Moses a tattletale!”
“Moses means a pet peeve,” Milton said. “About tattletales.”
Milton looked over at his sister. She smiled briefly, but then a terrible grimace overtook her face.
It’s like she can’t even stand the sight of me, Milton thought, frowning.
Owww … my tongue, Marlo thought, her mouth a throbbing traffic jam of aches and pains. And Milton … it’s like he’s disgusted by the very sight of me!
Vice Principal Carroll shook his head as he gave Milton one of the briefcases, then handcuffed it to his wrist.
“You imaginative ch-children!” he declared. “You will make for such diverting radio!”
The vice principal walked over to Marlo.
“Now here are your n-note cards for the debate,” he said as he quickly handcuffed the second briefcase to her wrist. “Take good care of them.…”
Vice Principal Carroll ambled down the overgrown slope to the back gates of Wise Acres. He pushed the gates open wide with a screaming squeal of iron. Marlo twitched at the sight of open land. Her body yearned for escape, for making a run for it, but the squads of badger and aardvark demons eyed the children with steely purpose. There would be no unsanctioned field trips today.
“B-behold the Outer Terristories,” Vice Principal Carroll said with a haunted awe. “A place where language comes alive.”
The Outer Terristories, Marlo thought with a shiver as the wind whipped into a chorus of screeching whistles and chirping swells. From the map in the vice principal’s Absurditory. That must mean that everything—all of that crazy stuff about a sonic disease and reshaping Creation—is true, including that part about—Marlo swallowed—Here There Be Grammonsters!
The vice principal grinned mysteriously, his lips a pale pink caterpillar crawling above his chin.
“The War of the Words effectively b-begins n-now,” he said. “Finding the venue—the Tower of Babble—will be half the b-battle.”
Milton raised his hand. “Then what’s the other half?” he asked nervously.
Vice Principal Carroll stared off into the horizon.
“The real battle …”
MIDDLEWORD
Language is like a rickety bridge stretched out between what we think and what we actually say. Whether our thoughts cross successfully depends less upon a sturdy vocabulary (or how many weighty words the bridge of our mouth can support), but how, exactly, the person waiting for us on the other side interprets those words. Speaking your mind doesn’t guarantee that your words will fall on deft ears.
The problem lies (or is it lays?) with words themselves. Words are to “precision” as Dr. Seuss is to “qualified medical care” (unless, of course, you’ve pulled your green eggs and hamstrings). At first blush, you might think that words convey meaning, but perhaps it’s meaning that conveys words. Unlike numbers, words seldom add up. Take 2 + 4 = 6. Simple, straightforward, and irrefutable. But now try two plus four. Two what, exactly? Two submarines full of weasels? Four hornets’ nests? The only thing that could add up to is trouble.
Even blue plus yellow is a sticky scenario. If you’re talking paint on a painting, they could very well make green. If you’re talking bluebirds and yellow canaries in a blender, then you’ll probably end up with red … not to mention five to ten years in prison. In that way, words are rather like colors, where one person’s green is another person’s chartreuse, lime, olive drab, or even (gasp) teal.
Words themselves are merely signposts pointing toward meaning. Words can mean many things: especially mean words. Do we really mean the mean things we say, or do our mean words really mean more than we meant to mean? Sometimes inflection and intent are the only things separating Praise-a-dise from Diss-topia.
Sure, actions may speak louder than words, but if your “action” is the surgical chewing out of the principal during the school assembly while accepting the office of class president, then those words can explode louder than any bomb.
The tongue is a most fascinating weapon in that it slays without drawing blood, leaving behind a wound that festers and pesters and never truly heals.…
20 · THE BEAST OF TIMES,
THE WORST OF TIMES
“WAIT!” MR. WILDE called out as the children staggered from the gate to begin their pilgrimage through the Outer Terristories. The teacher was joined by Mr. Dickens, Miss Parker, and a middle-aged man the children had never seen before.
“Vice Principal Carroll has agreed to allow you escorts,” the foppish man said as he buttoned up his waistcoat in the chilling breeze. “Namely, us.”
Marlo squinted at the uneasy middle-aged man at Mr. Wilde’s side. “Who’s that guy?”
Mr. Wilde eyed the man with a sideways glance, as if the new adult wasn’t worth the full weight of his gaze.
“A new teacher … a Mr. Dale E. Basye,” the playwright and novelist said, mangling the freshly dead writer’s last name.
“It’s Basye … like ‘bay’ and ‘sea’ squished together.”
“Are you sure?” Miss Parker said with a smirk. “It’s certainly not spelled that way.”
“Yes, I’m sure!”
“Mr. Bay-sea is a … ‘writer,’ ” Mr. Wilde said, using the most sarcastic air quotes that Marlo had ever seen. “Still warm.”
“How do you mean?” Winifred Scathelli asked.
Mr. Dickens leaned into the smug, jowly girl. “Still warm with the Surface,” he muttered. “Hasn’t fully accepted his present circumstances. In a moment, he will more than likely comment on all of this being some crazy, crazy dream.…”
“What a crazy, crazy dream.” Mr. Basye snickered to himself as he massaged his throbbing wrist. “I must have passed out from the writer’s cramp. I dreamt I was in someplace called Hack: Where the Bad Writers Go, but they turned me away.”
“Because you were too good a writer?” Pansy Cornett asked.
“Heavens no! Because of the grisly drop-deadlines. Anyway, so after Hack, I was sent here to Heck as a substitute teacher.…”
A riot of chirps washed over a long stone fence in the distance, like waves breaking over a reef. The surge of sound was the audio equivalent of a night sky crowded with twinkling stars. The chirping sent Milton into a mild trance. He stole a glance at his sister, hoping to latch on to something real, like a visual lifesaver to prevent his muddled mind from washing away. Marlo’s dark violet eyes were impenetrable as she stared up at the sky.
Milton sighed.
This is ridiculous. Marlo may be evil incarnate, but she’s still my sister.
Milton walked over to Marlo while the usually unflappable Mr. Wilde seemed to flap slightly around the edges.
“We’d best be going,” the teacher said warily, grabbing Milton by the shoulder.
“But—”
“We’ll be approaching the Tower of Babble in two teams—our Spite Club teams,” Mr. Wilde said as he corralled his thirteen charges together. “Mr. Dickens will join our group, while Mr. Bazzie—”
“Basye. Like ‘bay’ and ‘sea’—”
“—will join Miss Parker’s group.”
Miss Parker glared at the insufferable substitute teacher before leveling her gaze at Mr. Wilde. “Really, Oscar: you shouldn’t have.…”
“Oscar?” Mr. Basye said as he walked next to Miss Parker. “As in Oscar Wilde? Ha! This dream keeps getting better and better! Imagine me, Dale E. Basye, alongside such literary greats as Oscar Wilde, Charles Dickens, and whoever you are.…”
Miss Parker clenched her jaw. “Yes,” she seethed. “Imagine that.…”
Milton looked over his shoulder at his sister. Marlo was nearly indiscernible amid the purple-orange haze. But Milton had this weird
feeling that whenever he wasn’t looking at her, she was looking at him and that they were just out of sync with one another.
What else is new? he thought as Marlo disappeared over a rolling hill of windswept paper.
“What’s that?” Sareek Plimpton asked.
“What’s that?” Clem Weenum parroted back.
A stone barrier became visible in the thinning haze. It gained clarity with every step that Milton took and seemed to stretch out for miles on either side of him and his team.
“Welcome to the War of the Words!” Vice Principal Carroll announced from his roving white Rabbit beyond the barrier. “In a grammarena they bravely go, at the tippy-toppy of our show! Team One is at the very brink … of exactly what, I shudder to think! Let them wake from their little nap before they meet what’s in the gap!”
Milton pointed to a small breach in the fence. “There’s a gap in the wall,” he said.
“I guess we’re supposed to pass through,” Mordacia Caustilo said.
Concordia Kolassa shot the heavy-set girl a wounding glance. “Some of us with more difficulty than others.”
As the teachers and children approached the gap, they could see something moving inside it. But it wasn’t merely one creature. It was a morphing succession of creatures.
“Oh my!” Vice Principal Carroll declared. “A hawk, a tarantula, a snake, a boar, a scorpion, a—”
“What—” Milton started before a sight rendered him instantly mute.
“Wolf!”
It was just like the creature that he and Marlo had seen outside the gates of Wise Acres: that fearsome, brutish beast of matted fur and slavering jaws.
“How are we supposed to get past it?” Pansy Cornett said in a tiny, ragged voice.
Milton noticed that the stationary parade of disagreeable creatures was always in the same order: from hawk, to tarantula, to cobra, to boar, to scorpion, to massive wolf. The only thing that the creatures had in common is that they were all chained to a post, trapping them in the gap in the fence.
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