The man turned to Milton, who stood, paralyzed with shock, as the stifled heart pounded in protest.
“Shall we retire to my Conversation Pit and air out our issues?” Vice Principal Poe asked in a stern voice that turned his question into an order.
Milton found it difficult to respond as the pulse in his head and the one thumping across from him fell into sync. The vice principal sidled up to a stone bust of a woman set atop the shelf. He tilted back the woman’s head to reveal a red button.
“I’ll take your silence as consent,” Vice Principal Poe said as he pressed the button. “Now stand back.”
Milton backed away as the metal floor directly in front of him seemed to break apart with a groaning chorus of gnashing squeals, coiling itself downward until it became a spiral staircase corkscrewing to a secret chamber below the tent. The vice principal urged Milton downward with his deathly cold hand.
“A vast, perhaps larger portion of the truth arises from the phantasms of the mind,” Vice Principal Poe said, the heels of his dull black shoes striking the iron stairs so that they tolled like funeral bells.
“Phantasms?”
“Figments of our imaginations. Perhaps your so-called message in a bottle is similarly phantasmagorical.”
Milton stopped suddenly on the last step and turned to the vice principal.
“I didn’t say anything about a bottle,” he replied suspiciously.
Vice Principal Poe stiffened, his face a cadaverous slab of inscrutability.
“I assumed, rightly it seems, that the message was contained within some watertight vessel, or otherwise it would have been rendered illegible. But, please, make yourself comfortable—or else you might find yourself uncomfortable.”
The man made a quick, nervous gesture with his hand toward a pit in the middle of the dim, dungeonlike room. Nestled inside was a round, lushly upholstered, red velvet cushion. Above the pit was a broken wooden sign that had been split down the middle. Sliced, by the looks of it. Lit by a patch of flickering candlelight cast from a collection of candles burning on a stone mantel were the words CONVERSATION PIT—.
A mixture of curiosity and fear helped to clear Milton’s mind of Snivel’s will-sapping gloom. Vice Principal Poe’s slip about the bottle betrayed a secret knowledge. Of what, Milton could not be sure. He shrugged, walked over to the pit, and—after a cursory inspection of the plush cushion—hopped inside and lay down, instantly lulled into a peculiar, almost silky-cool sense of relaxation.
“So let us clear up any misconceptions through a forthright chat,” the vice principal said while gazing at a portrait hanging on the stone wall of a hauntingly beautiful woman with raven-black hair and large, gazelle-like eyes.
“Okay, then, where is my sister?” Milton asked.
“Your sister is involved with a secret extracurricular program of mine,” the vice principal replied dryly. “That shall remain as such—secret—until I decide to reveal its aims and ambitions to a greater audience. Principal Bubb was quite adamant that your sister be involved, due to her exceptional sensitivity.”
Sensitivity? Milton thought. Marlo is about as sensitive as a concrete Brillo Pad.
“I assure you that before the week is through, she and the others will probably return, more than likely as sound as they were prior to their engagement.”
“Probably?! More than likely?!” Milton replied with exasperation. “Thanks for putting my mind at ease.…”
Vice Principal Poe’s lip and mustache again curled into a sly smile.
“Then perhaps this will provide some distraction,” he said as he pressed an embedded button at the base of the portrait’s gilded frame.
Suddenly, a sort of foam gushed out of nozzles set inside the rim of the pit. Instantly it conformed to Milton’s body, hardening all around his sides until he could barely move. As he struggled, Milton could see the other piece of the broken sign from his new, unfortunate vantage point: —AND PENDULUM.
As if on cue, a massive, antique pendulum emerged from a crevice in the stone ceiling and swept across the chamber in a deadly arc six feet or so above Milton’s chest.
Of course, Milton thought as he struggled anew, his head hot with fear: “The Pit and the Pendulum”: Poe’s story of a prisoner being tortured, both physically and psychologically, in a nightmarish dungeon. Poe has brought his twisted story to life … in death.
“IS THIS WHAT happened to all the missing children?” Milton cried as the sweep of the pendulum came closer, descending downward while whistling through the stale, lifeless air.
“Of course not,” the vice principal retorted with a sniff. “Those children, I fear, are merely victims of the loathsome phantasms restlessly stalking the forest.”
So it’s true! Milton thought as he struggled vainly in the hardened restraining foam. There is something terrible lurking in the woods, and maybe that something is what’s preying on the Unhappy Campers.
The blade above was a crescent of glittering steel as keen as a razor. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass. The deadly device hissed as it swung through the air, dropping closer.
“I’m severely vexed, Mr. Fauster. I don’t mind telling you,” Vice Principal Poe continued as the whoosh of the pendulum snuffed out the candles on the shelf. “You burst into my office, hot with accusation, disturbing the quietude of my chamber … my innermost thoughts. You question my motives, my character, and rave of nocturnal lakeside imaginings. I will not stand for it,” he added as he sat down on a stool next to an oddly glowing phone inset in the wall.
“You’re insane,” Milton spat as the pendulum swept so closely over him that it fanned him with its metallic breath.
“Perhaps you’re right,” the man muttered as he stared longingly at the portrait on the wall. “Losing a soul mate can do that to a man. But let me make this point clear: There will be no more mention of Arcadia. And don’t even think of trying to escape there.”
Milton panicked and struggled to force himself upward against the sweep of the fearful scythe. Down, steadily down it crept, until it threatened to fray the front of Milton’s threadbare overalls.
Arcadia? Milton thought, the word bobbing to the surface of his rushing fear. Did I mention Arcadia to Poe?
“To help keep you mindful of my rules, I will leave you with a little reminder slashed across your chest—”
The glowing phone on the wall rang. Vice Principal Poe sighed and pressed the button in the picture frame with his thumb. The pendulum’s deadly, arcing sweep slowed.
“Hello?” the vice principal said as his bony fingers scratched beneath his vest. Milton noticed that the man’s hand seemed to reach inside his chest, his shirt and vest puckering into a small, fist-sized cavity. “Yes. Hello. I know it’s you. You’re the only one who’s ever on the other end of this line.… Please, take a breath and slow down, Nikola.…”
The phone, Milton now realized, was upside down, with a pulsating cord of golden light running up from the floor into the base behind its cradle.
“I trust you’ve concocted a way of distracting Bubb?”
Vice Principal Poe covered the receiver with his gaunt hand.
“You may leave now, Mr. Fauster,” the vice principal said as the foam imprisoning Milton liquefied into a chunky, melting stew. “And mark well my words.”
Milton clambered out of the pit and ducked his head to avoid the pendulum as it drew itself back into the ceiling. After rushing up the spiral staircase, Milton hung in the doorway of Vice Principal Poe’s office to eavesdrop.
“Yes, another recruit who I’m nearly positive you should be expecting momentarily,” Poe whispered into the phone. “A perfect balance of feisty and fearful. I believe this recruit will not arrive alone, as he has the faint whiff of ‘leader’ about him, as well as a lingering blend of roasted s’mores and burnt popcorn. He should be an excellent addition to your little ‘club.’ ”
Be gone! Be gone! Be gone! the tattling heart in the jar beat from beneath
its knit cozy.
“And nosy, by the sound of it. Excuse me …”
Milton squeezed his way through the iron door and out into the drenching rain.
I don’t get it, Milton thought as he trotted across the soggy campground. Poe doesn’t want me talking about Arcadia, which means it probably has something to do with Marlo or the other missing kids, but he was talking to someone on the weird glowing phone about me being a recruit—for what? For Arcadia? And what was all that about distracting Principal Bubb?
He saw a light on in the Mess Hall.
I need to talk this through with somebody, Milton thought as he creaked across the stoop and stepped inside the cabin.
Inside, Sam/Sara, Caterwaul, Howler Monkey, and the Sunshine Sneezer sat miserably at a table sipping from glasses as a timeworn copy of Old Yeller was projected on the wall.
“Milton!” Sara chirped as Milton wrung out his sopping wet cap in the doorway.
“You mean the Dork Knight,” Sam mumbled sleepily before yawning so widely that his face seemed at risk of splitting in two.
Milton pulled up alongside his friends. All of their faces were gray from monochrosquito bites, and their droopy eyelids were crisscrossed with purple veins.
Mine probably are, too, he thought.
“What’s going on?” Milton asked.
His friends slurped a collection of beverages with broken paper umbrellas bobbing at the top.
“Unhappy hour,” Caterwaul replied with a catch in her throat. “We were all forced here at spork-point to watch movies—you just missed The Yearling—and drink these terrible sodas.”
The bubbles in Caterwaul’s soft drink floated down to the bottom of her glass, where they collected in a sad, grumbling throng. Milton glanced over at the soda-fountain dispenser, which featured a number of cheerless offerings, including 7-Down, Mountain Don’t, Phanta, Spite, Barf’s Root-of-All-Evil Beer, and Tab.
“I just came back from Vice Principal Poe’s torture chamber, otherwise known as his Conversation Pit and Pendulum,” Milton said. “I went there to confront him about the note I found—”
“You mean … achoo,” the Sunshine Sneezer said/sneezed, “the note you think you found.”
“No, he really did, like … find a note,” Howler Monkey added between breaths as his mouth multi-tasked as both an airway and a language center, “but the note had nothing written on it.”
“But it did!” Milton exclaimed. “And I have proof … kind of.”
Just then, Mr. van Gogh walked in, looking at the children with his eyebrow suspiciously arched just below his dirty gauze head dressing. He curved his left palm outward, training his severed ear on their conversation. Milton leaned in to his friends.
“Something is fishy with Poe,” Milton whispered. “But we can’t talk here.”
Lucky wriggled restlessly in Milton’s backpack like a load of laundry with a sneaker in it. He poked his twitching nose out from under the flap, sniffing in Mr. van Gogh’s direction.
“Your—achoo—ferret,” the Sunshine Sneezer said as he scratched his red, protruding ears. “His dander is making me sneeze.”
“What doesn’t make you sneeze?” Sam snorted with a scowl.
“Lucky has an ear thing,” Milton replied as he cinched his backpack tight until it was escape-proof. “He likes to nibble on them like chew toys. Anyway, we need to talk about this, but Poe has spies everywhere.”
“What if we had a code?” Caterwaul asked as she slurped down the last of her soft drink.
“Like Morse code?” the Sunshine Sneezer replied. “That’s too easy to break.”
“How about Remorse code?” Sara said with a smile so contagious that instantly Milton was grinning from ear to ear.
“Yeah,” he replied, scooching his chair in as close as he could. “Where, instead of dots and dashes, we could use … sniffs and sobs.”
“Perfect!” Caterwaul said, her face actually not looking as if it were on the verge of collapsing into a state of blubbering despair.
Mr. van Gogh and two sloth demons sat at a nearby table, pretending to cry as Travis, up on the screen, got his rifle. The teacher surreptitiously dangled his palm underneath the table and aimed straight at the children. Milton cleared his throat.
“Snort-sob-snort-snort, snort, sob, snort-snort-snort. Sob-sob-snort, sob-sob-sob.”
The other children traded quick glances with one another before nodding in understanding. Howler Monkey lingered, confused.
“Let’s go,” Sara whispered to him as they pushed away their chairs and made their way to the door.
The up-pour outside had let up until it was simply a thick, sulking fog.
“It’s seven forty-seven, and it’s time to uncork the whine,” the Town Cryer moaned after tolling his bell. “And let it breathe … its last breath.”
The children stepped off the creaky wooden stoop of the Mess Hall cabin and headed toward Lake Rymose. Mr. van Gogh and his sloth demon henchmen were close behind, working too hard at appearing nonchalant. Milton coughed.
“Sob, sob-sob-sob. Sob, snort-snort-snort-snort, snort. Snort-sob-snort-snort, snort-sob, sob-snort-sob, snort.” (To the lake.)
Sara looked quickly back over her shoulder at Mr. van Gogh.
“They follow,” she warned in sobs and snorts.
The Sunshine Sneezer cleared his throat. “Diversion,” he suggested in Remorse code.
Caterwaul tucked a sopping wet strand of mousy-brown hair behind her ear and nodded toward Milton and Sam/Sara.
“You two go,” she sniffed and blubbered.
“Three,” Sara snort-sobbed with a hint of irritation.
“Sorry. Three.”
The Sunshine Sneezer sneezed, then coughed. “We run,” he advised. “Now!”
Suddenly, the Sunshine Sneezer, Caterwaul, and—lagging behind—Howler Monkey bolted across the muddy campground to the Totally Bunks.
“Hey!” shouted Mr. van Gogh. “After them!”
The teacher, with the demon guards trotting sluggishly in his soggy steps, took off past the Unrest Rooms and into a swollen tuft of drifting fog.
“Hurry!” Sara said, taking Milton’s hand as they ran to the sickly shores of Lake Rymose. They walked tentatively across the rotten planks and out to the end of the pier.
“Look!” Sara yelped as she pointed to the foamy rim of the lake. “A bottle!”
Milton fell onto his stomach and strained to clutch the neck of the bobbing bottle.
“There!” he said as he grabbed the bottle and fished out another rolled-up piece of paper.
Sara knelt down beside him as her brother, passed out from the excitement, snored fitfully against her neck.
Enclosed is your FREE ARCADIA CLUB ENTRY EXAM!
Earn badges! Gain points! Play the latest games until your fingers [and possibly other extremities] fall off! Carry your OFFICIAL MEMBERSHIP CARD! Wear your OFFICIAL Arcadia beret and sash! And don’t forget your secret handshake—or your secret hand! JOIN the OFFICIAL Arcadia Gr8 G4m3rz Club TODAY! NOW! DO IT! C’MON!
Rush me my Arcadia Gr8 G4m3rz Club Entry Exam! I understand that, if accepted, I will be required to exhibit exceptional gamesmanship: 24/7! After successfully filling out my OFFICIAL FAN CLUB ENTRY EXAM, I will not attempt to make contact with Arcadia, as traditional means of communication are not to be trusted. Instead, I will wait for further instructions.
Check here if you are:
• Prone to seizures
• Acousticophobic [unable to tolerate extremely fun sounds]
• Photoaugliaphobic [unable to tolerate superawesome strobing lights]
• Olfactophobic [unable to tolerate hecka-bold, all-that-and-a-bag-of-sniffs odors]
• Geumaphobic [unable to tolerate a full range of intensely radical flavors]
• Haphephobic [unable to feel ridiculously kickin’–sometimes scratchin’ and bitin’– sensations]
• Phobophobic [possess an irrational fear of irrational fears]
>
• Related to any employee of Heck and its subsidiaries
• Inclined to check things
Do not bungle, botch, or otherwise fail to take advantage of this most exciting opportunity! Just imagine: you, a small person with a big responsibility, an honored part of the most exclusive club currently in existence! FUN, ADVENTURE, SECRETS, CAMARADERIE, and the ADMIRATION OF ALL await! JOIN the OFFICIAL Arcadia Gr8 G4m3rz Club TODAY!
Question 1 — Are you Milton Fauster?
Then—just as with Milton’s last nighttime excursion—a piercing whistle tore through the stillness of Snivel.
The weeping willows fringing the patch of forest nearest Lake Rymose rippled as unseen creatures charged past them. Sara grabbed Milton by the shoulder.
“C’mon,” she said with trepidation as she turned back toward the camp. “We’d better bolt.”
Milton nodded as he ran alongside Sam/Sara through the patchy mist and drizzle.
“At least you know you’re not crazy!” Sara chuckled, an exhausted grin smeared across her face.
Yes, Milton was apparently uncrazy—at least in terms of bottles bearing mysterious messages. And though he was no closer to solving his sister’s disappearance or locating Arcadia, his feeling of vindication—and running alongside Sara—was enough to beat back the creeping hopelessness of Snivel.
At least for now.
MARLO’S ETHERIC BODY and soul were stretched so thin that she felt as if the blazing sunlight of Generica, Kansas, could shine straight through her, giving her once-beating heart a case of serious sunburn. She viewed her hometown as if through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars duct-taped to her head. Everything around her seemed both far away and so close. Marlo was here … but she wasn’t. Not quite. Not enough to matter.
She moved her legs and arms slowly and sluggishly as if she were walking across the bottom of a swimming pool. Marlo winced at the glaring light that washed out Wooster Way and Arbuckle Avenue. Like a vampire working the day shift, Marlo sought out the comfort of shadows, finding a soothing clot of darkness beneath a WHOOPING COFFEE shop awning and a mailbox.
Snivel: The Fifth Circle of Heck Page 7
