Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go (14 page)

28 · UNJUST DESSERTS

IT LOOKED LIKE
a perfectly ordinary living room. Rather nice, actually. Big, warm, sparsely yet tastefully decorated with an overstuffed couch and a coffee table strewn with old
Deranger Rick
and
Lowlights
magazines.

Virgil and Marlo had been taken to other rooms, apparently. Milton was alone with Bea “Elsa” Bubb. She was being quite cordial. Very personable, for a non-person. Which started to freak him out. She seemed like a grinning Venus flytrap with lipstick.

“Excuse me?” replied Milton, thinking he hadn't heard her correctly.

“I asked, dear,” she cooed, “what is your favorite food?”

Hmm,
thought Milton with distress.
This has to be some kind of trick. Surely she's not going to serve me a plate of tiramisù. She just wants me to
think
she's going to do something nice.

Principal Bubb's face crinkled with impatience.

Unless,
Milton continued in his mind,
she wants me to think it's a trick, in which case she'd expect me to ask for my
least
favorite food, therefore serving me something terrible…

“Please,” the vile demoness grunted, her sweetness souring. “Don't make eternity seem any longer than it already is.”

Milton's stomach did a somersault. He had to think quickly.

Since I don't have all the facts,
Milton mused,
then I should pick something I neither hate nor love, so the only possible answer is…

“Dry toast,” he blurted.

Bea “Elsa” Bubb raised her bristly, centipede-like eyebrow.

“So,” she stated coolly, “of all the delectable, mouthwatering foods ever created by man to dazzle the taste buds with a delicious flurry of flavor, you pick dry toast.” She shrugged her shoulders. “So be it.”

She clapped her claws together. Instantly, Milton's hands were tightly bound behind his back. Bea “Elsa” Bubb strutted toward the door.

“Bon appétit,”
she added dryly.

Milton's curiosity became too much to bear. “So you're not going to throw me to Damian, or take my soul, or something awful like that?”

Principal Bubb grinned coldly. “I'm saving those,” she said.

Just before closing the door, she clapped again. Suddenly, the entire room was crammed with dry toast. Every square inch packed tightly with lightly browned bread. Milton couldn't move. He could barely breathe.

“Forgive me for not
toasting
to your health,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb said, “but you didn't have the foresight to wish for a refreshing beverage.”

He felt the bread pressing against him. He had only one course of action: eat his way out, or be crushed into a crouton.

         

“I never,
ever
want pudding again,” moaned Virgil as he lay slumped against the wall in the hallway, sticky with chocolate. Next to him stood Marlo, trembling and mortified, covered with sticky, sickly globs of color.

A door opened and out stumbled Milton, covered with crumbs, his face scraped raw. He collapsed to the ground and gasped.

“Juice…milk…fart water…
anything
!”

The binding around his wrists disappeared. Milton slowly stood and scrutinized his friend and sister. “Be careful what you wish for, huh?”

Virgil held his gummy head in his hands.

“It's just so…
mean,
” he blubbered. “To make someone absolutely sick of their favorite food. Inhumane, I say. I haven't felt this awful since my parents took me to that all-you-can-eat dim-sum buffet in Las Vegas.”

The boys turned to Marlo, who was uncharacteristically quiet. It made them nervous.

“What did you ask for?” Virgil asked.

Marlo looked down at her dirty feet.

“Well,” she quavered, “I told the Principal of Darkness that she/it/whatever was a…”

She gagged and turned a peculiar shade of green.

“…
a fruitcake.
And then, suddenly, the room was…full of it.”

Milton winced and shook his head. He knew all too well about Marlo's
thing
with fruitcake. It represented, to her, everything that was wrong with society, baked into a cake. The stale tastelessness, the booger-like mystery fruit, the complete lack of imagination as a holiday gift…

“What's so bad about fruitcake?” Virgil asked innocently while wiping his mouth clean of chocolate.

Marlo cupped her mouth and forced back the wave of half-digested cake crawling up her throat.

Bea “Elsa” Bubb crept out of Punishment Pit #3—another “living room” like the one Milton had just eaten his way out of—smearing pudding on a toasted fruitcake sandwich.

“Mmmm,” she moaned. The principal looked up at the three miserable youngsters. “Oh, forgive my manners,” she said insincerely. “Would any of you charming children like a bite?”

Marlo almost lost it right then and there, while her brother and Virgil were so green that they could have signaled traffic onward.

“Fine, then,” Principal Bubb said with a sneer. “I guess there's no accounting for taste…”

She snapped her claws.

“Guards!”

Three wiry, rotten-meat banana creatures of varying heights charged from the adjacent demon den. They gracelessly slid into formation before the principal and stamped their pitchsporks on the ground.

“Take the young lady to the girls' classrooms,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb said. “All this gallivanting about has caused her to miss most of her second day. Tsk-tsk—Miss Borden wouldn't like that…”

Marlo cringed.

“Lucky for you,” the principal continued, “this is her day off. But tomorrow she'll be razor-sharp and ready to attack the day, I'm sure.”

She shooed them off with a flap of her claws. “Chop, chop,” she snickered.

The guards grabbed Marlo. She thrashed about like a puppet having a seizure. Virgil, disturbed, softly sang a familiar little tune under his breath to calm himself.

“Up, up and away, my beautiful, my beautiful balloon…”

That song,
thought Milton.
That annoying…

Then something struck Milton. Not physically, of course, though that was entirely possible down here and often encouraged. But an idea, or the spark of one, anyway. An idea that had yet to float up, up and away…

As Marlo was dragged down the hall—digging her heels in stubbornly so that her feet squeaked all the way—the stolen clock fell from its hiding place in her grimy towel to the floor.

Milton rushed forward, picked up the clock, and handed it to one of the demon guards in a sly attempt to get closer to his sister.

“Here,” he said, “make sure she gets this. It's a memento of her thwarted escape attempt and the terrible punishment she received as a result.”

The demon, who seemed a few fries short of a Happy Meal, looked over at Bea “Elsa” Bubb for direction.

The principal shrugged her shoulders.

“Sure, whatever,” she said. “A little extra psychological torture never hurt anyone.”

The demon nodded vaguely and snatched the clock out of Milton's hands.

“Yes,” he said sluggishly, “exactly what I was thinking. A pimento of her warted escapement!”

Milton leaned close to his sister.

“Liver,” he whispered.

Marlo squished up her face in bewilderment.

“You know,” he continued. “A liver note…”

The cloud of confusion on her face parted and a knowing smile shone through.

“Gotcha.” She winked.

Bea “Elsa” Bubb furrowed her brow and trotted over to them.

“What did he say?” the principal snarled.

The tallest guard, whose face looked like a mummy's wrapped in black electrical tape, came forward. “Something about a liver note, ma'am,” he said.

“No,” Milton blurted quickly. “I said…‘Leave her alone'…You know, LEAVE MY SISTER ALONE!”

Principal Bubb smirked. “Of course,” she said coolly. “After all, you call the shots down here. It's Milton's underworld, after all.”

She sighed and strutted back toward Virgil, who was so full of chocolate pudding that his green eyes were practically brown.

“Playtime is over…Take her away,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb ordered.

The guards dragged Marlo away, kicking, squirming, and cursing. “Oh, you want a piece of me, sock monkey?” she snarled. “Let's see if I can make you even uglier…”

Principal Bubb grabbed Virgil and Milton by the collars of their filthy shirts.

“Clean those devilishly handsome faces immediately, then report to your classes. You've missed most of them today, anyhow, but I'm sure there are degrading lessons to be learned nonetheless.”

At least his failed attempt at escape had postponed his detention with Damian.
Who knows?
Milton mused.
Maybe it has been forgotten entirely.

“And don't think we have forgotten your detention with Mr. Ruffino,” Principal Bubb said with uncanny timing. “Our promising young man is at a HADES retreat today, but he will be back just before your sleep session. So now you have something to look forward to.”

She turned to walk away.

“P-P-P-Principal?” Virgil stuttered.

Principal Bubb twisted about angrily.

“Yes, Mr. F-F-F-Farrow?”

Virgil stared down at his gloppy brown clogs, or would have if he could see past his enormous stomach.

“W-what class do we go to?”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb grinned from ear to ear. It was like a big, nasty yellow zipper had opened across her face.

“I'll give you a hint.” She chuckled while curving one of her claws into a hook. “If your next class were a movie, it would be rated ‘Arrrrrgh'!”

29 · YO-HO-HO AND A BUCKET OF SPIT

“CLIMB THE ROPE,
ya scurvy dog!” Blackbeard bellowed. “Dunna just hang there like a pair o' great big lacy bloomers!”

Virgil hung on to the rope with all his might. Though he was only a foot off the ground, it was still to be commended that a boy of his bulk could manage to support his weight at all.

A group of boys surrounded Virgil in a cackling circle. Squatting next to him was Blackbeard. Even crouching, the former pirate was an imposing sight. He was as big as an ox, had matchsticks braided into his hair and beard, and continually rubbed a nasty gash that encircled the entirety of his neck. He was also a complete and utter psycho.

“Aye, ya should be wearin' the hempen halter rather than climbin' it, ya great sack o' chum!” he roared. “If'n we were slicing across one of the seven seas like a cutlass through a puddle o' warm rum, you'd be havin' a date with Davy Jones, ya would! Cut yerself down, ya great beluga!”

Virgil had no idea what Blackbeard had just shrieked, but he inferred that he could now let go of the rope. He dropped down and collapsed on the splintering planks of the gym floor.

A tanned, curly-haired boy pointed at Virgil.

“Get a load of the beached whale!”

All of the other kids, except—of course—for Milton, roared with laughter.

“Yeah,” Virgil wheezed. “Never…heard…that…before.”

Milton broke out of the circle and stepped before Blackbeard, who had now risen to his full, towering height. Milton was about as tall as his teacher's wide leather belt. From this vantage point, he could see that the pirate's filthy vest was riddled with twenty or so jagged slits.

Wow,
Milton thought, marveling at the dozens of scars and wounds on his teacher's body,
Blackbeard sure wasn't voted most popular.

“What's on yer land-lousy mind, ya wee shred o' bait?” he asked, glowering down at Milton.

The boy gulped, straightened his glasses, and sucked in a deep breath that, unfortunately, was infused with an overwhelming dead pirate aroma.

“Yes, Mr…. Beard,” Milton managed. “I—I was wondering why we, us being dead and all, need to take physical education?”

Milton hoped that, through the posing of sweeping, multilayered questions, he could delay the next installment of Virgil's public humiliation.

Blackbeard rubbed his namesake while squinting down at Milton.

“Ya remind me o' me thirteenth wife,” the pirate ruminated. “Always with the questions. Ya even look like her, with yer porcelain complexion and crow's-nest hairdo.”

The boys behind Milton snickered.
Wonderful,
he thought.
The only thing worse than being teacher's pet was being teacher's spouse.

Blackbeard shook his head free of ancient memories.

“It's
meta
physical education, ya polyp,” the pirate groused. “Just because ya took leave of yer physical body, don't mean ya should get all lazy, like a drowsy manatee. It's like this…”

Blackbeard stomped back and forth between the hanging ropes.

Good,
Milton mused.
He's off on a tangent. This should kill some time.

“Who here amongst ya simpering scalawags felt a queer, quick ripping sensation—like lightning through a mainsail—upon yer unfortunate passage?”

The boys looked at one another awkwardly before sheepishly raising their hands. Milton
had
wondered what that painful tingle was all about. He had just chocked it up to the many things he did not know about the process of dying. But, boy, was he learning the hard way.

“Have ya miserable barnacles thought about why ya look like yerselves while yerselves are up on the Stage rotting away in a pine box?”

Again Blackbeard brought up a good question. Blackbeard crossed his arms triumphantly and sneered through thick tufts of dark facial hair.

“Lesson one: Why ya need a metaphysical regimen. Firstly, there's yer physical body, the material one ya left upstairs, consistin' of calcium, carbon, water, and so on. It's also known as ‘dinner' if ya happen to be a worm.”

The pirate smiled and scanned the small group of boys around him, as if expecting hearty laughter. But, judging by the grave faces staring back at him, the humor of the situation was lost upon them. He clapped his dusty hands together.

“Movin' right along, there's yer etheric body, the energetic shadow of yer physical body. That's what ya are now…etheric bodies. Without 'em, yer physical body just dissolves back into the elements from which it came.”

This was a lot of information, even for Milton. He could tell by the concerned expressions of his classmates that they were still hung up on the worm part. Milton raised his hand.

“Yes, dear,” Blackbeard said. “I mean, ya pathetic minnow.”

“Um, right,” replied Milton. “If this etheric body is so important, how come the scientists on the Surface haven't found it?”

Blackbeard tilted his head back and laughed until the gash in his neck opened wide. His mirth abruptly ceased, though its trail seeped out a bit from his exposed throat. He set his head straight and continued.

“Yer physical body is made up of trillions of wee atoms, but most of those atoms is nothin' but empty space…or at least that's what those pasty-faced, land-lubbing smarty-britches upstairs think! In those trillions o' teensy pockets is where yer etheric body lives, or lived, anyway. That's why ya still look like ya did, because yer arranged the same way, only it's just yer energy, not yer flesh suit.”

A bucktoothed boy tentatively raised his hand.

“About the worms…,” he squeaked.

Exasperated, Blackbeard rolled his eyes.

“Aye, enough already of the worms…I'm sorry I ever brought up the worms! The point is, yer still mostly who ya were. And while that's comfortin' and all, it doesn't mean ya can loaf belowdecks all day. Ya got to keep yer etheric body in shape, or else it'll stretch apart.”

“Stretch?” Milton said.

“Looks like we've got a parrot in the audience!” Blackbeard bellowed heartily. “Wake up before I hang ya lot from the yardarm!!”

The boys looked fearfully around the gym for anything resembling either a yard or an arm.

“Yer all energy now, ya vermin. And energy can dissipate. And what happens when ya dissipate…?”

Milton began to answer, but the pirate had meant the question rhetorically.

“Ya fade away, that's what ya do! So keep yerselves together, ya rottin' cackle fruits…lit'rally! Hence me trimmin' yer jibs 'bout a comprehensive metaphysical education routine!”

“So,” a boy with feathered blond hair asked, “when our…
etheric
bodies came down here, that's why it hurt and stuff?”

“Good question, buccaneer.” Blackbeard grinned. “If I had a piece of eight, I'd fling it at yer girly mop! That searin' tingle ya all felt was yer sentient body comin' apart.”

How many bodies can one person have?
thought Milton.

“Yer sentient body is the glue that keeps yer physical and etheric bodies hitched together tighter than a sailor's knot. When ya die, the energy's absorbed into the Transdimensional Power Grid as a kind o' tax to help cover the expense of sortin' ya lot out.”

Milton raised his hand again.

“Yes, ya candidate for a keelhaul!”

“Right…yes…I felt a weird, I don't know,
feeling.
Like a bug being stared at through a big magnifying glass, only I was the bug, and the magnifying glass could see deep inside of me, in places I didn't even know I had. It happened right after my sentient body fell apart. I saw bright lights and clouds, even heard some pretty music. Then, all of a sudden, I came down here.”

Blackbeard screwed up his already screwed-up face.

“That's a load of bilgewater, son,” he replied in a breathy tone that caused the skin around his neck scar to wiggle. “Yer judged in an instant. Boom, done. No hitch about it. Certainly no heavenly glimpses as yer spinnin'. No knots on the rope o' judgment. Ya must be imaginin' things to ease yer guilt-logged conscience.”

“No, sir,” Milton replied. “I really…”

The pirate stormed off. Milton decided to keep his hatch closed about the weird conversation he heard in his head on the way down to Heck. He didn't need to give Blackbeard another reason to hang him from the yardarm.

“Follow me, ya worthless chests of fool's gold,” Blackbeard said quickly.

The boys dragged themselves toward a crude wooden structure: basically two ladders—side by side—with long planks nailed to the top, with most of each plank jutting out like twin diving boards. Below the boards were deep buckets of what looked like chewing tobacco spit.

Blackbeard's chest swelled with pride.

“Welcome aboard
Queen Anne's Revenge,
” he said with a grand sweep of his arm. “It's a partial model of the forty-gun warship I, um…
borrowed…
from a French privateer.”

“Partial is right,” Virgil whispered to Milton.

“Sorry,” Blackbeard said, cupping his ear with his hand, “did ya say that ya wanna go first? Well, shiver me timbers, come on up, yer the next contestant on Walk the Plank!”

Virgil shuffled forward glumly to a chorus of wicked laughter.

“And don't ferget yer parrot, ya tub o' blubber!”

Milton sighed and joined his friend as he marched toward the planks. Virgil and Milton climbed their respective ladders.

“Now, crew,” Blackbeard continued, “walkin' the plank is that rarest of exercises: one that is both toning and fun to watch! It helps tighten the etheric muscle shadows on yer legs and stern, and helps yer sense of balance, which is no pleasure cruise when yer body is cracklin' with restless energy!”

Virgil and Milton stood atop their ladders, Virgil's creaking under the strain.

“Step lively, lads. Up to the edge, now. Good, good.”

Milton toed the wooden precipice and looked down into the frothy brown maw of the bucket below.

“Now, ya bloated carcasses, hop up and down on the plank and wave yer arms like a mother gull protectin' her squabs.”

Milton hopped and waved his arms, but under protest.

“Why do we have to wave our arms?” Milton asked, desperately attempting to maintain his balance.

“Why ya ask, Cap'n Question Mark? Well…mainly because it's a right good laugh!”

The class exploded in contemptuous laughter. Virgil's platform shook and wobbled as if under siege by an invisible storm.

“Now, I want ya to jump yerselves in the briny brink on the count o' three…”

Milton gagged.

“One…two…”

The class bell tolled. Blackbeard's face drooped down to his billowing once-white shirt.

Milton and Virgil stopped jumping and smiled at each other with relief.

“Aye, well I'll be measured for me chains. Ya all have permission to go ashore…”

As Virgil tried to maneuver himself back down his ladder, he lost his balance. The rickety platform, with its twin planks and ladders, wobbled past the point of no return. The wooden structure toppled to the ground, knocking over the enormous buckets of lumpy, tarlike drool.

Milton and Virgil lay paralyzed in the warm, expanding puddle.

Their classmates got one last laugh before heading out into the hallway for the cafeterium and their afternoon snack.

Blackbeard stood over the miserable boys, who twitched in the pool of backwash.

“Well, blow me down!” he snickered. “Looks like the fates have run a rig on ya two!”

He did a merry little jig toward a closet in the corner, emerging with two mops and buckets. He skipped back, whistling, and then dropped the bundle in front of the two boys, still stunned on their backs.

“Once you've swabbed this sick off of me floor, then ya two can…
swab the deck
!”

The pirate's eyes glittered with delight. Milton rose cautiously, hoping to avoid contact with the remains of Blackbeard's tobacco binge as much as possible.

“What deck?” Milton asked.

Blackbeard's expression sagged like a sail in a sudden calm. “Er, I mean…” He straightened and coughed. “Ya two can swab the hallway. And swab it good! No lollygagging or hornswoggling, either! I want a floor as bright as the sunrise over the Caribbean, aye?”

“Yes, sir,” Virgil mumbled as he stood up, then quivered and quaked before slipping back down into the revolting spew.

Blackbeard stepped out for a nip of Nelson's Folly, whatever that was. Milton just hoped it wasn't a brand of chewing tobacco.

As Milton and Virgil finally emerged from the sludge, Virgil picked up a mop and, like a natural born deckhand, began swabbing.

“And to think,” he muttered, “I used to love playing pirates.”

The two boys swabbed in silence, until Virgil began to hum a familiar tune, occasionally breaking into song. “Up, up and away, my beautiful, my beautiful balloon…”