Rapacia: The Second Circle of Heck (12 page)

18 · WE iNTERRUPT
THiS PROGRAM …

LILITH COUTURE HANDED
Principal Bubb a large empty milk crate.

“Try to fit in as many files as possible,” she said. “Organize them by infraction,
not
by judgment. I’ll go through them myself when you’re done.”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb groaned as she took the crate in her quaking claws.

Lilith snickered as she walked away.

“I’ll be in the little demoness’s room. I’ve got to powder my snout.”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb set the crate on her desk and frowned at the bottomless stacks of folders strewn about her lair.

“Ugh!” Lilith yelped from Principal Bubb’s facilities.
“This is a pit of despair if ever I’ve seen one. Remind me to get up-to-date on all my shots when I get back to uncivilization.”

Principal Bubb made a rude gesture with her claw in Lilith’s general direction and sat down in her chair.

“I’m going to reach right through this TV screen, caller, and choke the death right out of you if you don’t sell that stock now!” barked Otto Seight from Principal Bubb’s plasma screen.

Bea “Elsa” Bubb grimaced. “Where is that remote?” she mumbled, searching beneath the layers of reports on her desk.

The image on the screen winked and wrinkled. Now, instead of the host of
Laughing Stock
jumping up and down like a jack-in-the box, there was a man and a boy in a dark, red chamber.

Algernon Cole stood up and brushed smooth his slacks. “I don’t have time to watch TV,” he said snappishly.

“Wait!” Milton yelped. “Don’t leave. Please. Just one more minute.”

Algernon Cole smirked knowingly. “We writers are all the same,” he said. “Always wanting to know what each other is working on. Fine. You dragged it out of me. Here’s my book idea…”

Algernon Cole grinned widely at Milton, his face a blank screen anticipating the feature presentation to
come. “It’s called …
Chicken Pants,”
he said finally, positively brimming with pride. He paused to let his words sink in.

“Chicken Pants,”
repeated Milton flatly unable to think of any other way to respond.

“Chicken Pants!”
said Algernon Cole triumphantly. “It’s about a boy who finds a magic pair of … guess.”

“Um … chicken pants?” Milton answered tentatively while looking over Algernon Cole’s shoulder at the energetic demon in the mirrors.

“You got it!” cried Algernon Cole with a clap.

Meanwhile, the image of Otto Seight scowled out from the mirrors. “What’s going on?” he screeched. “Who’s been messing with the monitors again?”

“And when the boy puts on the pants,” Algernon continued, oblivious, “it gives him all sorts of strange,
chickeny
powers. And, boy can he ever dance!”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb gaped at the plasma screen. A balding man with a ponytail pressed his fists into his underarms and began to flap and strut to a raucous beat, pummeling a tuneless tune. In the background, sitting in a bean-bag chair, was a gawky boy with glasses.

Principal Bubb’s pus-yellow eyes burned with recognition and rage.

Milton Fauster
.

“Marlo!” Milton called as he pressed his palms against the mirror. “Get me Marlo Fauster!”

The veins on Otto Seight’s stocky neck bulged.

“Carl!” he shouted off camera. “We’re getting some interference, a nerdy kid playing with a camera. And a guy who thinks he’s a chicken. Must be some EwwTube video.”

Milton pounded his fists on the chamber walls.

“My name is Milton. My sister … she’s in Heck. I’m trying to get ahold of her…”

Bea “Elsa” Bubb screamed.

“Lilith! Get out here! It’s him!”

After a flush and some grumbling, Lilith came hobbling out of Principal Bubb’s Unrestroom.

“What is it?!” she said irritably while securing her sleek Gucci belt around her waist.

Bea “Elsa” Bubb thrust her remote toward the main plasma screen. “Look!”

The screen’s image billowed and shimmered until it settled on Otto Seight, grimacing at the camera.

“Oh,” he said, startled. “Looks like we’re back in action.” He spit into his hand, then polished his horn nubs. “Can’t keep a demon like me off the air! Let’s hit the phones. Caller, you’re on
Laughing Stock
!”

Lilith glowered at Principal Bubb. The tap-tap-tap of her shiny red hooves sounded like the ticking of a chic, designer bomb.

“It was him,” Bea “Elsa” Bubb grumbled. “Milton Fauster. I saw him.”

The devil’s assistant flipped back her head and laughed uproariously.

“Milton Fauster! Of course! I’m sure you see him everywhere—the television, the mirror … you probably see his name spelled out in your afternoon bowl of alphabet soup!”

Lilith plucked her monkey-fur shrug from the back of a chair and wriggled it over her shoulders.

“This unpleasantness has upset us all,” she pronounced on her way to the door. “Let’s say we take a little break. Do whatever you do to relax: nibble a bone, go for a roll in some mud … anything. We’ll meet back here in an hour. Hugs!”

Lilith sashayed out the door and into the hallway.

If Milton Fauster is trying to contact his sister
, Principal Bubb thought,
I need to find out why. And who better to help me than the boy who sent them both here to begin with?

The long, sludgy rock song that Lester had been listening to on the radio finally ended.

“They don’t write ’em like that anymore,” Lester said from outside the chamber.

In the mirror, Otto Seight slapped his bald pate with frustration.

“Again?! Well, then, Carl, just turn everything off and on. That usually works. Do I have to do
everything
here?”

The demon disappeared, and warmth crept back into the still chamber.

Algernon Cole lowered his imaginary tail feathers and straightened his tie.

“Well, I don’t expect
everyone
to get it,” he said, affronted. He looked at his watch. “Besides, I’ve got to boogie. I have another client—a
paying
client—who wants to sue a hospital that accidentally unplugged his stepson.”

Algernon Cole stepped out of the Elvis Abduction Chamber, with Milton close behind.

“Unplugged?!” Milton shouted. “Was it Damian Ruffino?”

Algernon Cole stopped suddenly and glared at Milton.

“A
lawyer can’t divulge the interests of his client,” he said haughtily. “But, seeing as that I’m not a real lawyer—
yet
—then, yes, Damian Ruffino. Friend of yours?”

“No,” Milton said while staring at the ground. “I don’t think he was a friend of anyone, actually. Damian was in the explosion … at the mall … he caused it.”

Algernon Cole grabbed his briefcase by the door.

“Be that as it may, his family—and I, for that matter—still deserve
something
for the hospital screwing up like that.”

“Can I come with you?” Milton asked eagerly. “Maybe I can help you find some, um,
evidence
. A clue or something.”

Algernon Cole smiled sadly and knelt down to address Milton eye to eye.

“Look,” he said, putting his hand on Milton’s shoulder, “I know you’re all hung up about almost dying and all that, but you’re a kid: You’ll get through it. Years from now, you’ll look back on all this and laugh!”

Milton was furious. The hundreds of mosquitoes in his nervous system wanted to suck all the blood from Algernon Cole’s body.

The nearly-lawyer looked at his briefcase.

“Hey, I almost forgot.”

He rummaged through it and pulled out a small tub of coleslaw, with
COLE’S LAW
printed on it.

“Here you go! Get it? Cole’s Law.
Coleslaw.”

Milton stared at the tub and crossed his arms defiantly.

“Fine, then,” Algernon Cole said as he opened the door.

Lester Lobe walked toward them. “Hey, I’ll take that,” he said, grabbing the coleslaw from Algernon Cole’s hands.

“Sure thing, Ben and Jerry,” Algernon Cole said as
he stepped onto the sidewalk. “And don’t you worry, Milton. I’m sure Damian will get exactly what he deserves. Who knows? Maybe he’s in Heck right now!”

He walked down the street, cackling, bobbing his head subtly, as if he were about to cock-a-doodle-do another dance.

Milton shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” he murmured.

19 · A SAViNG GRACE

THE CLASSROOM TOSSED
from side to side, subtly, as if the room itself were a barge floating on a mildly perturbed sea. The effect was unsettling, because nothing in the class seemed to be physically moving (Marlo’s somersaulting stomach notwithstanding). Though judging from the shade of queasy green cast across the other girls’ faces, she wasn’t the only student who hadn’t developed her sea legs yet. The only person in the room who seemed unfazed by the sickening sway was the vivacious teacher at the front of the class.

The teacher took off her woolen cap, releasing an avalanche of red curls that cascaded down her shoulders like molten lava.

“There, thass mooch better,” she said in a comfortable Irish brogue.

Marlo sighed with longing. The teacher’s hair was like a maple tree in autumn.

If I had hair like that
, Marlo pined,
I wouldn’t
have
to dye it
.

But the teacher’s appeal was more than hair-deep. Norm had said that their new Corporate Strategy teacher used to be a pirate queen back in the sixteenth century. How cool was that: a
pirate queen?
Though, judging from the long, slender scar slashed across the teacher’s neck, not everyone shared Marlo’s glowing opinion of her teacher.

In any case, she was
definitely
cooler than that nasty old hag Poker Alice, who was currently on the mend in Rapacia’s infirmary.

After Poker Alice’s accident, some peeved demonesses sent from Rapacia had rounded up the girls. Their booty was promptly confiscated and brought back to the Grabbit’s warren.

The lights dimmed and a screen descended from the ceiling at the front of the class. The teacher shook her red hair disapprovingly.

The lights came up, and the girls shivered as the icy fingers of want strummed up and down their spines.
This is excruciating
, Marlo thought,
which is the point, I’m sure, of having all of Mallvana’s spendy splendor rubbed in a greedy girl’s face
. The girls chewed their lips, fidgeted in their chairs, and shivered from the cold sweat of appropriation withdrawal. It was a punishment that was cruel but hardly unusual in this underage underworld.

The teacher straightened her belt—which holstered both an antique pistol and a cutlass—and tossed a piece of chalk playfully in her hand.

“Me name is Grace O’Malley” she said while surveying the class full of girls. “And I’ll be teachin’ ya the finer points of corporate strategy.”

Jordie raised her hand. It swayed like a bobbing brown mast.

“Aye, me ferst question,” Ms. O’Malley said with a smile.

“Why is the … whole barmy room … rockin back ’n forth?” she asked in nauseated fits and starts. “It’s makin me so dicky I’m near honking.”

The teacher smiled. “If yer wantin’ to be corporate pirates, then ya got to be learnin’ to hold yer own while everythin’  round ya is as wobbly as closin’ time at the local pub.”

Lyon’s arm shot up like a tan cobra ready to strike. “I just want to know,” she said snidely “what an old pirate from Leprechaun Land knows about corporate strategy?”

“That’s rather the point, isn’t it?” Ms. O’Malley said, her eyes a pair of blazing emeralds. “To see what an old leprechaun like me knows.”

The teacher paced in front of the chalkboard. Her green cape billowed behind her.

“As I see it,” she pondered aloud, “thars scarce little diff’rence between bein’ a pirate and runnin’ yer own corporation. Fer one, there’s hostile takeovers—”

Bordeaux raised her hand.

“I’m glad to see me talk is stirrin’ up all sorts of questions,” Ms. O’Malley said with a grin. “What’s on yer wee mind, luv?”

“Do you know Johnny Depp?”

The girls giggled.

“No, lass,” Ms. O’Malley replied. “Just the bonny deep … now, enough with the interruptions, ya bony gulls.”

The teacher rubbed her chin and inspected her desk.

“Ah,”
she said as an idea struck her, “here’s a way to explain it.”

She grabbed a stapler and held it out to the class.

“Let’s say this here is the S.S.
Junk Bond
. And this,” Ms. O’Malley continued, holding a Scotch tape dispenser in her other hand, “is the
Raging Equity
, which gets an ambitious gust in ’er sails and decides to take over the
Junk Bond
by any means necess’ry”

Ms. O’Malley set the stapler and tape dispenser on the edge of her desk, side by side, then tied her hair back with a velvet scrunchy.

“First, she pulls alongside the
Junk Bond
, and the captain bellows, Attention, crew! Overthrow yer captain and end his reign of error! Join our merry, thievin’ family, where ever’one gets their fair share!’”

The stapler and tape dispenser pitched and yawed in the agitated, imaginary sea.

“But the market was angry, me friends,” Ms. O’Malley continued. “The captain of the
Raging Equity
has to act fast and wages a fierce raid before the
Junk Bond
loses all its perceived worth. He preys upon the other crew’s vanity, greed, and weakness and wins it all without spilling a drop o’ blood.”

Ms. O’Malley pulled up her plaid wool trews and sat down behind her desk.

“Any questions, lasses?” she said, winded, wiping
beads of perspiration from her brow. “Or are ya gonna just stare at me like a herd of seals that’ve been in the sun fer too long?”

The girls traded uneasy looks. Takara raised her hand.

“Yes, lass … a copper for what rests on yer mind,” Ms. O’Malley said.

“I like pirate story very much!” Takara gushed.

Ms. O’Malley sighed.

“Aye, yer welcome, miss. Perhaps I’ll strike the colors and scuttle this particular lesson for today. Besides—”

The teacher clapped her hands together and pushed herself away from the desk.

“—it’s time to play a little game!”

Ms. O’Malley stood up.

“I want ya all to shove yer desks to the sides of the room.”

Marlo and Norm heaved their bulky desks to the wall in squeaky bursts. Lyon and Bordeaux tried vainly to budge their respective desks but, considering that their combined weights barely crossed the triple-digit barrier, managed only a few scrapes. Jordie, her desk the first to hit the wall, grinned as she watched the two skinny girls struggle.

Lyon blew a frosted bang out of her face. “Can someone move this for me?” she whined.

Jordie walked over to her. “I’ll move it for yeh,” she said, “if I can punch yeh hard in the arm for afters.”

“Whatever,” Lyon said with resignation.

Jordie smirked and shoved both of the girls’ desks to the wall in three heaves. Then, true to her word, she walked back to Lyon and slugged her hard in the shoulder.

“Oww!” Lyon yelped. “Teacher! Jordie just hit me!”

Ms. O’Malley’s green eyes twinkled with amusement.

“Ye struck a bargain, lass,” she replied. “Then ye had ta make good.”

Lyon rubbed her arm and fumed.

“Look!” Takara chirped while pointing down at the floor. “Class big game board!”

Marlo looked down. Sure enough, the floor was striped with electrical tape to simulate—judging by the inclusion of spaces such as Boardwalk and St. Charles Place labeled with Magic Marker—a large Monopoly board.

“Monopoly?” Lyon yawned. “How boring. My father owns half of these places for real, anyway.”

“I think it’s cool!” said Marlo. “I get to be the car!”

“The dog would be more appropriate,” Lyon mocked with a sneer.

“I want to be that cool three-wheeled European convertible!” Bordeaux exclaimed.

The other girls passed the same look of confusion back and forth with one another.

“You mean the wheelbarrow?” asked Norm finally.

Ms. O’Malley stepped from behind her desk and out to the middle of the classroom.

“Would you girls stop yer harpin’?” she said with her hands on her hips.

None of the girls knew exactly what their teacher was asking of them but assumed it had something to do with them being quiet.

“That’s better,” Ms. O’Malley remarked. “A good word never broke anyone’s teeth, ye know. Besides, ye lasses won’t be needin’ any game pieces, as you
yourselves
will be the pieces.”

The teacher handed each of the girls $1,500 in funny money.

“Now, if all of ya will stand over there in tha corner that says ‘Go.’”

The class congregated in the corner, lurching across the gently rolling floor. They crowded and fussed to fit in the same tape-outlined square.

“Good,” Ms. O’Malley said while seating herself cross-legged. “Now, ya may be wonderin’ why we’re playin’ a game in class. If ya hadn’t already a’been told by poor dear Poker Alice—which I sincerely doubt, judgin’ from her track record—yer all being trained ta join the ranks of the Netherworld Soul Exchange, when ya grubs turn ta butterflies, that is. That’s basically what Rapacia is, a prep school to pump out new blood to feed the NSE.”

The girls stared at their teacher with faces blanker than a hobo’s bank statement.

Ms. O’Malley smirked. “There’s plenty of time fer all that later on,” she said, scooping up a pair of dice. “We’ve got ourselves a game ta play. We’ll be doin’ things alphabetically, so, Bordeaux, ya ken go furst.”

The teacher cast the dice between her sandaled feet. “Eight! Good start, lass. Off ya go.”