Dr. Critchlore's School for Minions Page 3

  Dr. Critchlore clenched his fists and pounded the arm of his chair. “Damn that video.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “About that—”

  He waved a hand in the air, as if he were shooing the subject matter away. I saw his other hand move toward the “boring person button,” so I quickly reached into my pocket.

  “Explosive gum, sir,” I offered.

  He took the gum, chewed it for a few seconds, and then tossed it at the TV. I plugged my ears as the TV disappeared with a bang.

  This was terrible. Dr. Critchlore didn’t look like he was doing anything about that video. I turned to tiptoe out of the office—and that’s when Miss Merrybench caught me. Literally, because she was running into the office to check on the explosion and she knocked me over.

  “Did he destroy another TV?” she asked.

  I stood up and nodded.

  Her face looked different—softer, somehow—as she gazed into the smoke.

  “He’s fine,” I said, and then regretted it, because she turned her angry stare at me full blast.

  “What do you think you are doing?” she asked, yanking me out of Dr. Critchlore’s office. “He’s a very busy man. He mustn’t be disturbed.”

  Busy watching TV, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. I’d learned long ago that it was a bad idea to cross Miss Merrybench. She could make a kid’s life miserable in many ways, and not just by assigning him to the wrong dorm. I’d heard she had a whole arsenal of tiny weapons in her hair bun.

  I wasn’t sure if that was true. I tried to check, but she was taller than me.

  Miss Merrybench let go of my arm and returned to her chair. I knew I had to make my plea before she picked up her headset, so I blurted out, “I think I’m in the wrong dorm.”

  “Mr. Higgins,” she said. “I make all the dorm assignments. Are you suggesting I made a mistake?”

  “No! It’s just, I thought that maybe, since I’ve been in the D-Hum for two years already, maybe you didn’t think about moving me now that there are vacancies in the Momido.”

  This year, some of our top monster recruits had gone to other schools, scared off by the freaky outbreak of wyvern flu we’d had last term. And I’d heard a rumor that some Cyclops recruits had just withdrawn. And then I remembered Tiffany. We usually had a whole pride of manticores each year. As far as I’d seen, she’d been the only one.

  I gasped.

  Was it because of Dr. Pravus’s commercial? Because of the video?

  “I think you are fine where you are,” Miss Merrybench said. She had a pile of file folders on her desk, and she opened one.

  “But last year I missed out on—”

  “Mr. Higgins,” she interrupted. “It’s the first day of the new term. I have hundreds of things to attend to, each one of them more important than a room assignment. Ever since that video went viral, the phones won’t stop ringing, and Dr. Critchlore won’t take any calls.”

  She took a quick glance toward Dr. Critchlore’s open office door, but then her gaze shot my way like a flaming arrow, so searing I almost ducked. “I understand you are starting in the Junior Henchman Training Program this morning?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

  “I suggest you concern yourself with that,” she said. She returned her attention to her files, muttering under her breath, “As I see it, you’ll be lucky to last a day.”

  The bell rang. I had five minutes to get to my class, which was all the way on the other side of campus, on the sports fields.

  “Tardy on the first day,” Miss Merrybench said, shaking her head.

  Be prepared, with explosives.

  —THE GIRL EXPLORERS MOTTO

  I raced out of the castle, my feet propelled by panic. Sometimes, when something bad happens, it immediately puts me on edge, because bad things always come in threes. I’m not saying this because I’m superstitious; I’m saying it because it’s true. Unless you’re cursed, in which case bad things will keep happening until you find whoever cursed you and make amends. This usually involves some groveling, a bag of gold, and maybe your firstborn child.

  So far, two solidly bad “bad things” had happened: the video and my dorm assignment. I had to think of another one, and quick, or my third bad thing would be what Miss Merrybench had predicted, and I absolutely could not be tardy on my first day as a junior henchman trainee.

  I had a lot of ground to cover: down the main road, past the dorm section of campus, and then around the infirmary to the sports fields. I thought about stubbing my toe, just to get the third bad thing over with, but I hadn’t heard the final bell yet, so I sprinted.

  My legs were burning as I burst out onto the field. I skidded to a stop next to Coach Foley just as the bell rang. Phew.

  Every junior henchman trainee was assigned to a professor for one class period. By helping train the minions in that class, we would learn not only how to be an excellent assistant, but also how to lead a group of minions, two essential traits in a junior henchman.

  My mentor was Coach Gunner Foley, a former lineman in the NFL, the Nefarious Forces League, a ruthless band of mercenary fighters. He was six and a half feet of solid muscle, with the disposition of a snapping turtle. As PE teacher he wore tight polyester coach’s shorts and a polo shirt with the Critchlore logo on the pocket. A whistle dangled from a chain around his neck. The ragged bunch of first-years stood in a huddle while Coach Foley checked his clipboard. I heard him muttering to himself as I caught my breath.

  “He questions my training methods? I’ve trained champion maulers. I trained the Monster Death Squad! I’ve trained more outstanding minions than anyone in Stull. And he questions me? Because of one little incident with Girl Explorers?”

  He was talking about the video. Dr. Critchlore must have blamed him for the disaster.

  He gave me a once-over, noting the bloodstains that still covered my jacket. He nodded approvingly and then blew his whistle to get the first-years’ attention.

  “Line up, over there!”

  I listened as he gave the students his usual spiel, the same one I’d heard when I was a first-year. It felt so good to be standing there in front of the other students as a junior henchman trainee. I felt ten feet tall, which would make me a short giant.

  “All right,” he said. “I don’t like to talk, I like to get to work, so I’ll be brief. You are here to learn how to be an effective minion. That means maximizing your physical fitness and strength. That means learning to work together as a team. That means training your brain to think quickly when in danger. Dr. Critchlore’s School for Minions has a tradition of training the best, and that’s what we expect from you. Your best effort.

  “Our first order of business is to place you in the proper level for PE. So let’s get started.” He held out the clipboard for me without taking his eyes off the prospects. “Attack the Cyclops on my whistle!”

  Coach Foley blew his whistle and started his stopwatch. The first-years started toward the giant stuffed Cyclops at the end of the field.

  “Lift your knees!” Coach yelled. “For goodness’ sake, lift your knees for speed! You pathetically slow worms!”

  I watched the sixteen first-year minions make their way down the field. It was true, they were slow, but I didn’t think calling them names was going to make them any faster.

  “Pump your arms! You’ll move faster if you swing them, like this.” He waved his arms back and forth. The minions looked at him, mouths agape.

  “Go on, try it. Go!”

  They moved forward again, same as before, with their arms outstretched.

  Coach Foley knocked his head with his palm. “They’re useless, Higgins, useless.”

  “Well, Coach,” I said, “they are zombies.”

  “Tactical zombies,” Coach Foley corrected me, pointing at the clipboard I held. “They’re supposed to listen to orders.”

  I scanned the page. Tactical zombies were engineered to obey simple orders given by the instructors, and to respond to a
whistle.

  We watched as one of the zombies veered away from the target at the sight of Miss Merrybench. The school secretary had driven up in a golf cart containing two big orange Critchlorade™ coolers. Soon the other trainees noticed her too and followed the first one, all of them moaning and not one of them lifting his knees for speed.

  “Brains … brains … brains,” they moaned.

  “Why are they going after Miss Merrybench?” I asked.

  “She wears too much perfume,” Coach said, like that explained things. He shook his head at the sight. “Aw, Higgins, we used to get good minions here. Minions with strength and speed. Trolls and ogres and werewolves, like yourself.” He looked at me and chuckled. Then he got serious again. “I’d have killed for more Sasquatches, but we only had the one.”

  “Bigfoot.” I nodded.

  “These zombies are worse than the golems!”

  “Well, times change, Coach. I guess you gotta make do with what you have.” I watched Miss Merrybench swing her ruler at the zombies. She seemed to realize that it wasn’t much of a weapon, so she calmly turned around, got into the cart, and sped away at five miles per hour. The zombies followed, stumbling into one another.

  “Do you think you could show them a thing or two?” Coach Foley asked.

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  “Class! Attention!” He blew his whistle.

  The zombies stopped and turned to look at him. “Watch Higgins here. Higgins will take down that Cyclops. Shark-attack style!”

  “Sir, that works best with a team. It’s hard to have a feeding frenzy by yourself.”

  “Just go!”

  Channeling my inner werewolf, I bounded over to the Cyclops and knocked him down. I pulled at its limbs, trying to rip them off. The minions watched for a minute before turning back to Miss Merrybench, who had just made it to the end of the bleachers in her cart. They lifted their arms and moaned. I returned to Coach Foley.

  “Mindless eating machines, ha!” he said, disgusted. “It sounds good on paper, but look at them.”

  I shrugged. They were pretty pathetic.

  “Who do I have next period?” Coach asked, pointing to the clipboard I’d dropped on the ground.

  I flipped through the pages for the schedule. “The intermediate mummies, sir.”

  Coach Foley threw down his stopwatch and stormed off. “The board of directors will hear about this.”

  One termite can be squashed, but thousands of termites can raze a toolshed, or maybe a small cottage!

  —DR. CRITCHLORE, IN A COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

  I didn’t know what to do with the class after Coach left. I felt like I’d been given a test on a subject I’d never studied. I had to do something, but what?

  I noticed that one of the zombies hadn’t chased after Miss Merrybench; he’d stayed on the grass. On closer inspection, he didn’t look like a zombie at all. He was tan, his long blond hair was clean, and there were no flaps of skin dangling from his body. Rather than wearing tattered clothes like the other zombies, he was dressed like me, only in a first-year jacket (purple with black sides).

  As I neared him, he half smiled at me. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi … um … who are you?”

  “Pismo,” he said.

  “You’re not a zombie.”

  “Sharp as a knife, aren’t you?” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “What are you?” I asked. He looked human, but then so did I.

  He shrugged. I could tell this kid had attitude, which was a big no-no in a minion.

  “Looks like you lost your master,” he said. “What’cha gonna do now?”

  “I was hoping to get the zombies to work together.” Miss Merrybench had disappeared, and the zombies were now stumbling around the track like blindfolded kids trying to pin the tail on the centaur.

  “These mindless mutts?” Pismo said, standing up and brushing grass off his cargo pants. “Good luck.”

  “Zombies are mindless for a reason,” I said, remembering what I’d learned from my first-year Introduction to Minion Species class. “It’s so they can be controlled by the person who raised them from the dead. They’re usually under a spell of enchantment. That, or they were created by an infection, or an apocalyptic event.” I looked up. Nothing but blue sky and a few birds. Not really apocalypse weather.

  “I can’t do anything if they were created by infection,” I went on. “But if they are sorcerer-controllable zombies, all I need to do is give them a potion for mind control.”

  Pismo looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Do you have a potion for mind control?”

  “I might.” I began emptying my pockets, handing things to Pismo as I went. “Let’s see, here’s my class list, my rubber ball (for fetching), my school-issued DPS—”

  “DPS?”

  “Dungeon Positioning System—it’s a labyrinth down there. A pack of explosive gum—”

  “Wait,” Pismo said. “Did you say ‘explosive gum’?”

  “Sure, unwrap-chew-spit-kaboom!” I pulled a piece of paper out. “Boris’s locker combination—he always forgets it. My gargoyle action figure, a cool rock I found in the catacombs. A key, a whistle, some change. No potions.”

  “Check the other pocket,” Pismo suggested.

  “Right. A pack of wolf treats, the tooth I lost last week, my Critchlore Pocket Tool™. A package of Firstline flea medicine.” I looked at Pismo, my face hot. “It’s, ah, required for all minions with fur.”

  Pismo eyed me up and down with his eyebrows raised, probably because I didn’t seem to have any fur.

  “I’m a werewolf,” I explained. I tried not to smile, because I hated to brag.

  “Ah,” he said.

  I reached back into my pocket. “And my manticore antivenom,” I finished. I’d grabbed that from my locker after almost getting jabbed earlier. “No potion,” I said, taking my stuff back. Everything was snugly in place, but I felt a gap. I held my hand out to Pismo. “Hand it over,” I said.

  “What?” He gave me that innocent look that just screams “I’m guilty.”

  “The gum,” I said. “I could get in big trouble if Coach found out I gave explosive gum to a first-year.”

  He shrugged and gave it to me.

  “Let’s check those Critchlorade™ coolers,” I said. We walked over to the sideline bench where Miss Merrybench had left the coolers. There, nestled between them, was a flask labeled “Zombie Mind Control Drops.” Perfect!

  I put a couple of drops of the potion in each cup and asked Pismo to swirl in a little Critchlorade™ while I rounded up the zombies. We passed out the potion, and I raised my hands for attention. “Okay, my name is Higgins.” I pointed to myself. “Since Coach Foley isn’t back, I guess I’m in charge. So … um … I’m ordering you to take your potion.” I tried to sound commanding.

  They stood there holding the cups, but they wouldn’t drink the potion.

  “Drink!” I ordered. I drank my own cup of Critchlorade™, to show them what to do, but they just stared at me mindlessly. I felt like I was teaching a cat to fetch.

  “This stuff smells terrible,” Pismo said, sniffing a cup of the Critchlorade™. It was supposed to taste like orange juice, but the protein powder and vitamin enhancers added a chalky, medicine-y flavor. It was pretty bad. “Maybe try water?” Pismo pointed to the other cooler.

  “Okay.” We gathered up the cups, dumped the contents, and refilled them with potion. I held the first cup under the spigot, but nothing came out. I shook the cooler, and it felt full.

  I opened the top and saw why nothing came out. It wasn’t filled with water. It was filled with brains. That Miss Merrybench, I thought, smiling. She thinks of everything.

  “I should have known,” I said. “A fresh brain provides the electrical impulses a zombie needs to be controlled by the potion.” Pismo looked at me funny. “Or something. It’s science.”

  I scooped some brains
into each cup. We swirled in the potion again and passed out the cups—but they still wouldn’t eat.

  “It’s brains,” I said. “Higgins”—I pointed to me—“brought you zombies”—I pointed to them—“brains”—I pointed to my head. “Zombies eat!”

  Their expressions changed from mouth-agape confusion to mouth-agape “aha!” and they gobbled up the brains.

  “What now?” Pismo asked.

  “It says to wait ten minutes to take effect,” I said, reading the bottle. “And then I guess I have to figure out what to do with them.” We sat down on the bench. “One thing I learned in my Minion Species class is that you have to know the strengths and weaknesses of each type of minion. So, for the zombies—”

  “Weaknesses: They’re slow,” Pismo interrupted. “And easy to kill.”

  “I wouldn’t say ‘easy,’ ” I said.

  “Why not? Who doesn’t know how to kill a zombie? Bullet between the eyes, decapitation, fire. Bam, slice, sizzle—dead zombie.”

  “Okay, how about strengths?” I asked. “They lack initiative.”

  Pismo laughed.

  “What? That’s a plus in a minion. As it says above the gymnasium: ‘Yours Is Not to Question Why, Yours Is but to Do and Die.’ Plus,” I continued, “they’re really scary looking, and I mean gruesome. And they’re not afraid of anything, being already dead.”

  “They are somewhat determined,” Pismo agreed. The zombies were swiping their fingers along the edges of the cups, getting out every last bit of brain.

  “Come to think of it,” I said, “what are you doing with the Class 5 minions?”

  “Class 5?”

  “Also known as ‘Bodies, No Brains,’ ” I explained. “Unlike Class 4 minions, ‘Brains, No Bodies’—you know, ghosts, wraiths, skeletons. ‘Bodies, No Brains’ are zombies, mummies, reanimated animals. The mindless types.”

  “Definitely not me—I’m all brains,” he said. “Why would they put me with these guys?”

  “Don’t worry. It’s just a mistake. They happen.” Like my dorm assignment. “Someone’ll fix it.”

  I turned my attention to the zombies, who were looking at me so intently that it was like they were challenging me to a staring contest. “Higginsbrains,” one muttered.