Dr. Critchlore's School for Minions Page 8

  “Hi, Mom,” I said.

  “Good heavens, Runt, look at you,” she said. She got up, wiped her hands on her apron, and walked over to the broom closet. “I will not have a son of mine showing up to the dining hall looking like that.” She waved a hand in my direction.

  “What? I look fine.”

  She came out with a new third-year uniform on a hanger, shaking her head. “Sweetie, is that blood?”

  “Frankie’s,” I said.

  She lifted one of my jacket sleeves. It tore off in her grasp, having been shredded by thousands of tiny barbs. She raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Here,” she said, handing me the clothes. “You can change in the closet.”

  “Fine.” The closet was large, mostly filled with shelves of canned goods, but there was also a row of uniforms hanging along one side. “Do you keep spare uniforms for everyone in here?”

  “Just you,” she muttered. “What happened?”

  I told her about Frankie’s head, and about the Thing in Dr. Frankenhammer’s lab.

  “That man,” Cook said, shaking her head. “He’s too reckless.”

  “But, Mom?”

  “What, dear?”

  “I didn’t change.” I came out in my new uniform. Cook was back at her table. “I was under attack, and I didn’t change. You said it would happen when I needed it to, but it hasn’t.”

  “You’ve got to be patient, honey,” she said. “And it did happen, that one time, remember?”

  Of course I remembered. I was about seven. I’d been sitting on the bleachers with Pierre, who was a seventh-year at the time. We were watching the werewolves work out. They were so powerful and sleek. The way they moved and smelled reminded me of my real family. They all seemed to know what the others were going to do. I howled. They stopped what they were doing and howled back.

  That night I transformed into a werewolf and fought off a massive swamp creature that had gotten into our house.

  Cook stood up and gave me a hug. She was soft and warm and smelled like fresh-cooked bread. “Don’t worry, honey,” she said.

  “It probably didn’t happen because the Thing was crushing me,” I said.

  “That’s probably why.”

  “Mom, you’re crushing me,” I said. She released me from the hug, smiling. “If I get into the MMA tournament, I’ll change for sure.”

  “Not if you don’t eat,” she said. “Go on now.”

  I got my food and plopped down at my usual table with Frankie and Darthin. Eloni and Boris were over with the ogre-men. Eloni waved his club at me and smiled. I gave him a thumbs-up sign in reply.

  “What’s up with Eloni and Boris?” I asked.

  “This morning, Ranko forgot his lab kit,” Darthin explained. “While the other ogre-men were teasing him for having a mermaid moment, Eloni convinced Boris to let Ranko use his. Boris took the blame with Frankenhammer.”

  “I saw him in the lab,” I said. “That was nice of him.”

  Darthin shrugged. “The ogre-men were going to let only Boris sit with them because he has the same DNA, and they’re kind of picky that way. But Eloni convinced them to let him go too. He was the one who convinced Boris to give up his lab kit, and he’s almost as big as they are.”

  Eloni looked elated. He was smiling and talking, and everyone was laughing.

  The whole cafeteria was filled with excited chatter. Even the skeletons seemed happy, which was weird, since they don’t have faces.

  And look who’s sitting with them.

  “Something about that new guy really bugs me,” I told my friends.

  “Who?” Darthin said.

  “That guy, sitting with the skeletons,” I said. “His name is Pismo. And get this, he tried to steal the Top Secret Book of Minions.”

  “Mommy?” Frankie said.

  Dr. Frankenhammer had told Frankie that the Top Secret Book of Minions helped him find the solution to why his Frankenminions never made it out of infancy. Since Frankie was created by Dr. Frankenhammer and the Top Secret Book of Minions, he called them Daddy and Mommy.

  “No way,” Darthin said.

  “It’s true. He also set me up so I’d get detention with him. And he stole my exploding gum and threw it at himself so he could get out of class—but he didn’t go to the nurse, he went off to the cemetery, right before it exploded.

  “And then in detention, while I was pinned by this Thing in Dr. Frankenhammer’s lab, instead of helping me, Pismo was reading all of his files.”

  “What thing in Dr. Frankenhammer’s lab?” Darthin asked.

  “Some sort of giant hairy muscle,” I said. “But that’s not important. I just don’t think Pismo is minion material.”

  “By hairy, do you mean ‘shaggy dog’ hairy, or ‘Otto’s back’ hairy?” Darthin persisted. The guy was obsessed with Dr. Frankenhammer’s work.

  “Otto’s back,” I said. Otto was a human groundskeeper who went shirtless in hot weather. It wasn’t pretty.

  “Did it spew?” Darthin asked.

  “He said it would spew in its final evolutionary form. And he’d given it some sort of accelerator to speed up its growth. It seemed to grow right over me.”

  “Fascinating,” Darthin said. He had a dreamy, far-off look on his face.

  “Darthin, you be careful down there,” I said. “That Thing could have killed me. And Dr. Frankenhammer just left us there with it.”

  “He tried to paint me green once,” Frankie said, stirring his mashed potatoes in an absentminded way. “He told me he didn’t like how my color came out. I don’t look gruesome enough.”

  “Sorry, Frankie,” I said. He looked miserable. I needed to distract him from thinking about Dr. Frankenhammer. “But listen, this thing sprouted quills right before Pismo shot it. Ripped my suit to shreds!”

  “Pismo shot it? With a gun?” Darthin asked.

  “No, he gave it a shot of muscle relaxant.”

  “That’s brilliant.”

  “No, he’s rude and selfish,” I said. “And he seems older than eleven. He makes me feel like I’m the little kid. I tell you, there’s something not right about him.”

  “Why would he want me to be green?” Frankie said. His face was screwing up in that way we all knew meant trouble. What made it worse was that Frankie was absolutely petrified of having his head come off in front of other people. So it became one of those self-fulfilling-prophecy type of things. He worried about his head coming off in the cafeteria, and that worry caused his head to come off in the cafeteria.

  I stood up, pretending to stretch, while signaling Boris and Eloni at the ogre-men’s table. It had worked once before, in the library. But there was too much going on in the cafeteria, so they didn’t notice me. I really didn’t want to turn off Frankie’s blood flow again. That wouldn’t be good for his brain.

  I stretched again, this time adding a loud yawn. Still nothing. Their attention was completely focused on the ogre-men.

  Frankie’s hands pressed down on the top of his head. He bit his lower lip.

  I was desperate. I didn’t want to call attention to Frankie by running over there and dragging the guys back. But if Frankie’s head blew, we would need Boris and Eloni. I thought about yelling, but that would be as bad as running over there. So instead, I threw a dinner roll across the room at Eloni.

  That was a mistake.

  I was thinking that I could get Eloni’s attention and they’d come over and assume their positions for re-heading Frankie, should he blow, which looked likely at that point. Unfortunately, everyone else in the cafeteria interpreted my actions in a different way. They thought I was starting a food fight, and as everyone knew, as long as you weren’t the one to start the food fight, you could join in without repercussions. For some reason, only the person who started it got into trouble.

  On the plus side, Eloni looked up and saw me, so he grabbed Boris and they raced over, ducking under flying cheeseburger macaroni as they ran. Cook made a mean cheeseburger macaroni, and
I mean that literally. The stuff would punch you in the gut and then insult your mother.

  “I did everything right today,” Frankie went on, oblivious to the mounting food war taking place around him. An overcooked corn on the cob flew right by his head and squished off the wall, leaving a mushy yellow splotch. “And at the end of class he said, ‘Why can’t you be more like Darthin?’ ” He gulped, barely able to swallow. “ ‘Darthin will create a fully functional homunculus by his sixth year.’ I don’t even know what a homunculus is!”

  “It’s a small human,” Darthin said. He couldn’t help smiling at the compliment. “About a foot tall. Dr. Frankenhammer really said that?”

  Frankie moaned. I admired how brave he was. It was obvious he wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t let himself.

  We were getting pelted by flying food: baked potatoes and cheese-filled pizza sticks covered in tomato sauce, mashed peas and Salisbury steaks. I dumped my food and used my tray as a shield.

  “What do I have to dooooo?” Frankie whined.

  He slammed his fists on the table, and his head went pop.

  “Positions!” I screamed, dropping my tray. Frankie was still sitting, so I bear-hugged him from behind. His legs kicked and it was tough keeping him still.

  Darthin caught Frankie’s head right out of the air and held it over his blood-spewing neck. Eloni peeled down the neck skin, and then he and Boris reattached the head while I held Frankie still. In all, it took about fifteen seconds, and there’d been very little blood spurting. It sort of mixed in with the tomato sauce we were already wearing.

  “Great job, guys,” I said. Frankie collapsed in my arms. “You okay?”

  Frankie nodded, so I let him go. He fell to the floor.

  “Frankie, I’m taking you to the infirmary for a blood boost,” I said. “Two times in twenty-four hours. That’s not good.”

  “Okay,” he said from the floor. “Just give me a second.”

  “Eloni? Can you give me a hand?” I asked. Eloni pulled Frankie up, draping one of Frankie’s arms over his shoulder. I did the same on Frankie’s other side. We headed for the door, stepping over huge piles of mashed food and whatever it was the monkey-men were throwing.

  Oh, ew.

  We hadn’t gotten far when the bell sounded. The dean of students walked in and blew his whistle. The combination of noises sent the entire student body scurrying back to their seats. Mr. Everest scanned the room, which looked like a herd of trolls had just projectile-vomited up their last five meals. He raised his eyebrows and put his hands on his hips. He didn’t have to say anything. All the kids were pointing at me.

  To Live Is to Conquer.

  —ENGRAVED ABOVE THE MONSTER MINION DORMITORY

  Curse, 9; Higgins, 0.

  The curse was kicking my butt.

  Eloni and Boris took Frankie to the infirmary. Darthin wanted to stay and help me, but I knew he had to study for a test that would allow him to skip regular Biology and get into Advanced Monster Biology, so I told him to go. I wasn’t allowed to leave until the cafeteria was clean.

  It was too much. I sat at my table and pulled out my curse brochure.

  Another successful way to break a curse is to not believe in it, I read. The power of a positive attitude has been well documented.

  All right, I’d give that a try. I put on my cafeteria helper outfit of rubber boots, gloves, and an apron, and got to work. I am not cursed, I am not cursed, I am not cursed, I chanted in my head. Then I slipped on some tomato sauce and landed in monkey-man dookie.

  I tossed food scraps into a giant compost bin on wheels, and when it filled up I took it out to the compost heap by the vegetable garden. Back and forth I went, pushing the bin over the cobblestone road. My arms rattled as I tried to keep it steady. I was alone with my thoughts, which weren’t helping my positive attitude. I couldn’t help replaying everything that had happened that day.

  What could I have done differently? If I hadn’t tried to train the zombies, they wouldn’t have embarrassed me in class. If I hadn’t listened to that cry for help, then I wouldn’t have gotten trapped by imps and gotten a tardy. And if I’d kept a closer eye on Pismo, he wouldn’t have stolen my gum.

  I emptied the bin into the compost pile. A couple of two-headed swamp cats watched me from the bushes, waiting to feast on the scraps. I had to reach in and scoop out all the mushy stuff that stuck to the sides and the bottom. Yuck.

  I told myself that it was stupid to wonder what I could have done differently, because it wasn’t like I could go back in time and change anything. So on the way back to the cafeteria, I worried about the future instead.

  What was happening to my school? It had started with the outbreak of wyvern flu last year. The whole school was quarantined for a month, and most of our recruits opted to go to other minion schools. Then came the video. Even if the video had been faked, the image of Dr. Critchlore’s ogre-men cowering in fear would remain in people’s heads.

  And now the cemetery explosion. Without the recruits, our first-year class was almost entirely cemetery-created—the zombies, mummies, and skeletons. And Pismo, the delinquent. There were a few other humanish, non-undead first-years, but not as many as in years past. My dorm room could hold eight kids and it only had three.

  And all this was happening while Dr. Critchlore was depressed. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

  I entered the cafeteria and saw that I’d barely made a dent in the job. Load and dump, load and dump. I was on my third bin when I realized I was going to be there all night. And I had my junior henchman test the next morning. This was a disaster.

  My breathing came in short gasps as I started to panic. What if I didn’t get enough sleep? What if I woke up exhausted? I had to be a junior henchman. How else was I going to find my family? It was my dream that I’d become a junior henchman to a powerful evil overlord. I’d save his life or something, and he’d be so grateful he’d do anything to pay me back. I’d tell him, “I don’t want riches, I just want to find my family.” And then he’d send out his best minions to track them down for me.

  My hands shook as I scooped up food, and I bit my lower lip to keep from crying. I was about to lose it when the swinging double doors burst open and Frankie strode in with his arms in the air.

  “I … feel … great!”

  I smiled at him. Blood boosts always lifted his mood. He looked good too—his skin tone was back to his normal beige, his brown eyes were sparkling with happiness, and it looked like the nurses in the infirmary had cleaned up the jagged mess of his neck, where the skin had ripped apart. He pirouetted around the cafeteria, jumping on tables and dancing around chairs.

  Eloni and Boris came in behind him. “We thought you might need some help,” Eloni said.

  “That’s awesome,” I said. “Thanks, guys.”

  “Woo-hoo!” Frankie came over and hugged me, lifting me in the air like I was a baby imp. Frankie was incredibly strong. I’d once heard Dr. Frankenhammer say that Frankie could lift ten times the amount of a normal human. Then he’d shaken his head and mumbled, “I was going for twenty timessss as strong.”

  “I’ll take this bin to the compost heap,” I said. “You sweep up the rest into a neat pile, okay? I’m guessing twenty more trips and we’ll be done.”

  “Sure thing!” Frankie grabbed a table, the big rectangular kind that seats six humans, turned it on its side, and pushed it across the floor like a giant broom, sweeping up the scraps. “Woo-hoo!”

  I was unloading the bin in the garden when I heard Frankie’s “Woo-hoo!”s coming closer. I turned and saw him carrying the table over his head. It was piled high with food. Boris hung from the front end, Eloni from the back. They were swinging their legs, but Frankie held the table steady and didn’t spill a drop. As he walked up next to me, Eloni and Boris dropped off and Frankie dumped the food.

  “We’re done!” he said.

  “Woo-hoo!” I yelled.

  Frankie picked me up and threw me in the air
. Fortunately, he caught me this time. (I still have a scar under my eyebrow from the time that he didn’t.) Then he bounded off toward the lake. “I’m going for a before-bed jog. Twenty or thirty miles. See you!”

  Thanks to the guys (mostly Frankie), the job I had thought would take me all night took only an hour. The sun had just disappeared, and the school lights had come on, holding back the dusky darkness. Pushing the garbage bin down the road back to the castle, I had to steer around potholes. I looked up and saw a broken window in the gymnasium that still hadn’t been fixed.

  “This place is falling apart,” I said.

  “Are you kidding me?” Eloni said. “Back home, as soon as anything is built, someone blows it up. This place has a few broken windows, big deal. Only in Stull would someone complain about that.”

  Boris picked up a rock and threw it at the broken window. He just missed the last jagged piece of glass.

  “You throw like a mermaid,” Eloni said. He threw a rock and knocked out the piece. Boris slugged him on the shoulder, which only made Eloni laugh. He lifted Boris up and pretended to throw him into my empty trash bin. I laughed. Eloni always cheered me up.

  As we approached the back door of the cafeteria, I saw Cook waiting for me outside. She was holding another new uniform and shaking her head.

  Boris and Eloni went back to the dorm. I returned the garbage bin, cleaned myself up, and headed for Dr. Critchlore’s office. I’d noticed that his light was on, and I really wanted to know if he’d gotten himself together. The school needed him.

  I found Miss Merrybench in her anteroom, staring at the portrait of Dr. Critchlore that hung behind her desk. It was a nice portrait; he seemed to smile with his eyes, like he knew something you didn’t. Miss Merrybench held a tissue. “Oh, Derek,” she sighed.

  I’d never seen Miss Merrybench cry. Or laugh, or smile, or show fear. She was like a robot that had been programmed to be angry and annoyed at all times.

  “Miss Merrybench?” I said. “Are you okay?”

  She spun around, sniffed, and busied herself with the papers on her desk. “Mr. Higgins.” She said that like I was a piece of gum under her shoe. “What do you want?”