Milrose Munce’s hopes recoiled in horror. These dead students had no more ability to withstand the concentrated will of Massimo Natica than did he or Arabella. Harry and his soldiers were also going to find themselves perpetrating exercises in trust. This scenario tested even the highly elastic imagination of Milrose Munce. This was going to prove, at the very least, weird.
“Right. Now, you are to place your index fingers upon the closed eyelids of your partner. Good. And with subtle pressure …”
But the dreaded exercise was never announced. For a small, pretentious voice began to recite:
“The stomach is the place of ill-content. For in the fluids that are gathered there You find the decomposing stomach sludge …”
“Where is that ridiculous voice coming from?” asked Massimo Natica, sounding both indignant and fearful.
“And in that sludge will barely make a dent The kidney’s fetid arrows, sleek with hair …”
“And who wrote that vile poem?”
Milrose Munce, who would never have imagined himself actually joyful to hear Poisoned Percy recite from The Flavour of Indigestion, was not simply joyed but overjoyed. This in fact was the secret weapon he had in mind: when all else failed, he intended to wheel out the dreadful poet, for nothing is a blow to the sanity like truly execrable verse. And doubly terrifying is execrable verse emerging, apparently, from nowhere. For Massimo Natica had never seen a ghost, and could not see any now—Percy the Poseur had simply made it possible for Massimo to hear him. The common ability to make oneself heard, while invisible, is useful to a ghost—when howling in a darkened house, for instance. Or when proudly declaiming ambitious poetry from beyond the grave.
“And though between the organs you do trudge …”
Yes, Poisoned Percy, though utterly without taste, was gifted with a large and tasteless imagination, and it is this that permitted him to think his way out of the spell woven by Massimo Natica. For in the mind of Poisoned Percy, nothing was more powerful than his own poetry. And he knew that reciting that poetry would break whatever chain was wrapped around his pretentious soul.
It was remarkably effective. Massimo pressed his hands to his ears and looked as if he might throw up. This released the spell upon the finger-to-eyelid couples, and they immediately drew apart. Those ghosts who did not in fact have eyelids were relieved to have the fingers removed from what was left of their eyeballs.
Percival, always pleased to have an audience, rose to new heights of abysmal depth. His voice grew in confidence and volume.
“And flabby though your ventricle is bent Your peach will ne’er be sweet meat to her pear …”
“What is this garbage?” howled Massimo.
Everyone else in the room, although fully in agreement with that critical assessment, was truly enjoying the poem.
Freed, now, to continue their assault upon the wits of Massimo Natica, they flew into action.
“No, never will zucchinis match that food Which of the gods we eat and yet are greased …”
Harry met the glittering eye of Milrose Munce and nodded with soldierly appreciation. Yes, said Harry’s nod, I now recognize your peculiar genius. True, it was more peculiar than genius, yet who but Milrose Munce—perfected in sarcasm and tutored in pretense by the very best—could possibly imagine the necessity of bringing this puissant, ineluctable force to the battlefield: Rancid Poetry.
CHAPTER
TEN
SO POTENT WAS PERCY THAT HE COULD EASILY HAVE DOWNED THE PROFESSIONAL HELPER ON HIS OWN. HURLED HARRY, HOWEVER, HAD ORCHESTRATED A MAGNIFICENT PLAN, AND IT SEEMED UNFAIR NOT TO ALLOW HIS FOOT SOLDIERS TO FOLLOW THROUGH.
Thor whispered something into Arabella’s ear. She happily obliged, removing her ballet slippers and passing them to the flambéed star of the gridiron. Massimo did not see this transaction, but he was soon very much aware of Arabella’s footgear. For Third Degree Thor had put the slippers on his hands, with Arabella helping to fasten the silken straps around his wrists. And Massimo was about to experience a ballet unlike anything ever choreographed by man.
As the rest of the brave soldiers set about preparing to play their part, Thor began to dance.
To be more precise: Thor’s hands began to dance. He got down on all fours, and made his hands walk, with light and easy steps, towards Massimo Natica. Massimo, when he finally noticed this, of course saw nothing more than a pair of ballet slippers, sans ballerina, tippy-toeing his way.
He drew back in horror. And, forgetting himself, let his hands fall from his ears.
“And rotting gourds will take the place of meat …”
The slippers whirled and tapped and hovered in mid-air. And stood and jumped and slapped Massimo Natica playfully across the face.
Thor was enjoying this act. For at the heart of every football player resides a ballerina. He himself was now unnecessarily on his tiptoes, pirouetting and assuming what he imagined were professional ballet poses. While occasionally deigning to chuck Massimo playfully beneath the chin.
“And though we munch and belch and bleat and brood …”
Were Massimo concentrating elsewhere but upon the invisible ballerina that was tormenting him, he might have cause for alarm. Yes, he already had some cause for alarm, but this would have been cause for alarm. For the cattle prod was rising out of its case, as if on invisible wings.
Stuck Stu hovered close to the ceiling, bearing this electrical device. He examined it with a frown. How do you start up an antique cattle prod? Luckily, Stu had been a budding engineer back in the carefree days when he was healthy and whole, and he was soon able to figure out the mechanism. It was quite simple, really: there was a switch.
Stu made a dramatic show of throwing the switch, and the cattle prod hummed to life.
What proved particularly useful, and unexpected, was the prod’s high-pitched whine, which sounded very much like a mosquito. It became immediately clear to Stuck Stu that he need not actually assault Massimo with the prod; he need not electrocute him; it might prove even more amusing to simply annoy him.
And so great Stu descended with the prod held in front of him, and flew around the Professional Helper’s head. This was no ordinary irritation: Massimo soon realized that the noise was being produced not by anything so merely annoying as a mosquito, but by a capricious, floating cattle prod—an entirely different order of annoyance.
The ballet slipper tickled his ear.
“And though the foul lung flesh is our feast And cells of dribbling liver suck that teat …”
Harry stood in the middle of the room, like an orchestra conductor, and flamboyantly gestured to Stu that now, indeed, was the time to indicate to Massimo that there was no way out.
This was impeccably timed. Massimo had just begun to frantically search his pockets, seeking his appallingly modern key.
The key was, in fact, hovering in front of his nose. Massimo snatched at it in desperation, but it was now hanging playfully over his head. He slapped at it, hoping to trap it between his hand and his scalp, but he only succeeded in hitting himself rather hard, as the key fluttered off to dangle beside his left ear.
“Another pink and gaseous song will squat …”
Milrose Munce and Arabella briefly wondered what further part they were to play in this theatrical extravaganza. But it was soon obvious to them that anything this entertaining would require an audience. And so they sat side by side on the comfy sofa and watched with delight the unravelling of Massimo Natica’s mind.
“It shall arise from nodules yet unpricked …”
Desiccated Douglas, who had been waiting impatiently in the wings, was now set into motion by maestro Harold. Douglas had a subtle role, involving a very unsubtle object. He placed the mace on the floor in front of him and began to move it slowly towards Massimo Natica. It was a very un-mace-like motion. The weapon slithered. It rolled. It meandered. And yet it approached.
This was the most brutal assault yet (apart from the poetry, of course, with whi
ch nothing could remotely compete), for the mace, which would have been pretty frightening were it swinging properly, was utterly terrifying because it was not. What is it going to do? wondered Massimo in desperation. Why is it slithering?
And yet all the mace really did was slither. It snaked and circled about his feet; it withdrew, coyly, then made another surreal pass.
“It shall excuse the glandular guitar …”
Massimo Natica ducked and wove, fear alternating with madness in his eyes, as the cattle prod whined and soared, the key dangled and darted, the slippers slipped, and the mace meandered, slithersome.
Hurled Harry stood gesticulating majestically: he was indeed conducting all of this as if it were a symphony.
At one point these various activities came together in such a powerfully dramatic fashion that Milrose Munce and Arabella were moved to a spontaneous standing ovation.
And to punctuate that glorious crescendo, Desiccated Douglas swung the great mace, shattering the almost invulnerable window set high into the steel door.
“Act Two,” announced Harry in the silence that followed.
Whatever Hurled Harry had planned for his second act was immediately upstaged by a drama so utterly convincing that you could never imagine such a thing being scripted or rehearsed. Or tolerated by a responsible stage manager.
The repulsively modern lock suddenly whirred and clicked—accompanied by the sound of leprechauns gagging—and flew open to admit the almost airborne person of Archibald Loosten.
“Aiee!” cried the poor guidance counsellor as he dove behind a comfy chair.
“Professional Help,” growled Sledge as he barrelled into the room in pursuit. Barrelling equally ferociously, since Sledge had him in a headlock, was the brute who had all this time been delivering their meals.
“Mr. Borborygmus!” said Milrose Munce with genuine surprise. “I never before noticed what large and brutish arms you have.”
The poor trapped teacher had no time to reply, as Sledge continued to barrel, marvellous in momentum, straight into the wall opposite the door. He probably would have broken (or re-broken) that appalling nose, had not the head of Borborygmus barrelled into the wall first.
The room crunched. Not just the wall—which did not in fact splinter—but the room itself crunched. And creaked. And groaned horribly, as it tipped, slowly but with ineluctable motion, until it settled on its side.
Nobody had ever seen a room roll over before. The wall was now the floor. The ceiling was now the wall. And—marvel of marvels—the door in the ceiling was now a perfectly placed exit.
“I have a headache,” said Borborygmus, who had not been otherwise damaged.
“Professional Help,” growled Sledge, and immediately continued in his barrelling, dragging unfortunate Mr. Borborygmus at great speed through the newly accessible door.
Nothing happened for a moment or so. What does one do when the room in which one has been standing is suddenly tipped on its side? Obviously, the first thing to do is pick yourself up from the brand-new floor, onto which you have been tipped along with all the room’s furniture, knickknacks, and weaponry. Nobody was horribly hurt, but everyone was copiously confused.
And into the midst of this confusion wandered Cryogenic Kelvin, with a beaming smile on his cadaverous face.
“Milrose, old pal!” said Kelvin, pleased to see his friend alive and merely bruised. “So this is it, huh? The famed Den of Professional Help. Just came down to see what all the racket was. Place sure is a mess …”
Creeping slowly towards the door, trying hard not to be noticed, was half-mad Massimo Natica, whose hair was mussed and suit slightly wrinkled. “Massimo the Mediocre!” cried Kelvin, immediately recognizing the Professional Helper. Cryogenic Kelvin made himself fully visible, fully hideous and standing between the Helper and the doorway, just to make sure that Massimo would be dissuaded from exiting that way.
Hysterical with terror—and worse, insulted—Massimo scampered, still on all fours, into a complex mess formed by a group of thrown chairs. He disappeared like a lizard beneath a rock.
“You know this guy?” asked Milrose in wonder.
“Just by reputation. Seen his picture a few times. He was on a poster, you know.”
“A what?”
“A poster. Circus poster! Famously bad act.”
“Massimo Natica is a clown?”
“Well, he is a clown, but that was not his official position in the circus. The not-quite-famous Rotting Apple Circus.”
Cryogenic Kelvin was clearly about to launch into an anecdote. Nobody was in the mood to stop him. In fact, nobody was in the mood to do much of anything. And so they listened.
“Yes, I have friends from the Rotting Apple. Briefly dated a dead contortionist, in fact. But I treated her bad, and she got a little bent out of shape.”
Kelvin stopped, as always, to gather the response to his punchline. Milrose chuckled weakly.
“And she told me all about Massimo the Mediocre. Billed as the greatest hypnotist ever to swing a watch. Used to hypnotize the whole audience. Problem is, all he ever managed to do was put them half asleep. And so, no matter how good the rest of the show, the audience would just sit there yawning, bored to distraction. It took hours before they properly emerged from this hypnotic state, by which time they were usually at home telling their friends what an incredibly dull circus they had just witnessed. Didn’t do much for the Rotting Apple’s reputation.”
“Hm,” said Milrose. “His skills have improved.”
“Well, yes. They were already getting better at the time of the disaster. He had progressed from being Massimo the Massively Awful to Massimo the Merely Mediocre. He was to the point where he could now put a group of people fully to sleep. And this, my friends, was the problem.”
“You don’t have to tell this anecdote!” cried Massimo Natica from his hiding place between the chairs.
“Of course not,” said Kelvin. “You never have to tell any particular anecdote, do you. You just do it, purely for the entertainment value.”
“This is not entertaining!”
“Not for you, clearly. How about you, Milrose? You entertained?”
“Wildly,” said Milrose. Which was not far from the truth.
“Me too,” said Thor.
“Got me hooked,” said Harry.
“I am enjoying this, yes,” said Arabella.
“You might use a more luscious vocabulary,” said Percy.
“Right, then,” said Kelvin. “To continue. Oh, and shut up, Percy. Yes, Massimo had mastered the art of the collective snooze. Didn’t matter who you were, or what you were doing—Massimo could send you straight to slumberville.
“The disaster occurred during a rehearsal. Everyone was practising their act for the big day ahead, when they were to open in front of their largest audience ever. They had never been more than a two-ring circus, and at last the Michelin Guide had granted them a third ring. It was the final rehearsal, and for this they never used safety nets or padding.
“The trapeze artists flung and the acrobats flipped. The clowns clowned. The lion tamer tamed. And Massimo rehearsed his routine.”
Cryogenic Kelvin paused for effect. It was not a punchline, true, but it was equally deserving of a moment’s dramatic silence, for clearly something very bad was about to happen. Kelvin made sure that everyone’s breath was properly bated before he continued.
“Yes, Massimo the Newly Semi-Competent went through his tedious act, to be sure that he was in shape for the next day’s show. And he was good. Best ever. Every single person in the tent fell asleep.
“The trapeze artists began to snore mid-air, and fell with great squashing noises to the floor below. The acrobats, who thought they could do triple flips in their sleep, in fact could not. Also breaking their necks were the contortionists—including my darling ex—since they were tied into the sort of knot in which you really aren’t supposed to relax, much less fall into a hypnotic coma. The lion tamer
fell asleep, but the lion itself did not, which was regrettable. Even the clowns, who were walking on their hands, sustained concussions, and died the next morning of brain fever while telling confused jokes.
“The ringleader, who alone survived, had no choice but to fire Massimo the Mediocre.”
“He didn’t fire me,” piped up Massimo Natica. “He accepted my resignation.”
“That’s not how my girlfriend told the story. At any rate, fascinating to bump into you. Always wondered where they’d put a has-been hypnotist out to pasture.”
“Well, this explains a lot,” said Milrose Munce. “We kind of questioned why we were doing all the mindless and murderous things this fraud suggested.”
“I am not a fraud,” wheedled Massimo. “I am a Professional.”
“Diploma?” asked Arabella, diplomatically.
“It’s in my drawer,” said Massimo Natica, with even less credibility than usual.
“I have searched your drawers,” said Deeply Damaged Dave, who had been until now uninvolved in the general merriment, “and they are free of any form of accreditation.”
Milrose was excited to see his mentor at last join in the ritual humiliation: he expected great things.
“And you,” said Dave with great authority, pointing at a sofa, “are hereby stripped of your licence to cause misery.”
Mr. Loosten’s head slowly rose from behind the sofa. He had the look of a cornered weasel: terrified, but cruelly determined. The flabby mouth opened, and an incomprehensible incantation began to emerge.
“Put a cork in it, Loosten,” said Dave, who then suddenly launched into a fearful incantation of his own, also incomprehensible, but much more impressive than Loosten’s diminished efforts. A giant cork appeared in the air, conjured up from nothing, and hovered in front of the Dread Exorcist’s face. As Dave’s incantation rose to a pitch of fearful incomprehensibility, the cork whirled and flew at the guidance counsellor, lodging solidly in his mouth and effectively bottling him up. His own incantation was reduced to a muffled grunt of distress.
Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help Page 14
