Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck (16 page)

He stooped down and removed a stack of yellow file folders from another drawer.

“As a class you will write, edit, proofread, lay out, and print the next issue of
GYP,
” Mr. Hearst said while slapping folders down on each boy’s desk. “By tomorrow.”

Colby flipped open his folder.

“The Op-Dead section?” he asked as the teacher passed out the students’ assignments.

“
GYP
’s Deaditorial page,” Mr. Hearst muttered, “where you write your opinions on the hot topics of the day, of which there are many down here. In your folder you’ll find Principal Bubb’s opinions on what your opinions should be. Mr. Cummings, you have the Spoiled Sports section beat.”

Darnell scratched beneath his stocking cap.

“An exposé on Sadia’s boys’ German dodgeball team?”

“After their crushing loss to Sadia’s
girls’
German dodgeball team, the team is suffering from some bruised egos … bruised
everything
, actually,” the teacher explained as he shuffled his old bones down the aisle. “Plus
there are those pernicious steroid rumors, that they aren’t using nearly enough.…”

He handed Zane and Stawinski their folders.

“Mr. Covington, you have Nether News and the Chronic Strips section … simply rewrite the press releases and do what you can to make Mr. Van Gogh’s
Ear Today, Gone Tomorrow
strip a little less … disturbing. And Mr. Stawinski—”

“It’s actually just
Stawinski,
” the tubby boy replied with a flip of his curly hair. “Like Cher.”

Mr. Hearst’s wrinkled face scrunched up like an old paper bag.

“I didn’t know Cher’s last name was Stawinski,” he replied. “In any case, your beats are the None of Your Business and the Weather or Not? sections.”

“Weather or Not?” Stawinski asked.

Mr. Hearst threw Marlo her folder.

“In Heck, in case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Stawinski—”

“It’s just—”

“—the weather is fixed … unless it’s broken … which is often the case with the wind. So it’s always a question of whether there will be weather or not.”

Marlo leafed through her folders.

“Crassified Ads and Inhuman Interest?” she muttered.

Mr. Hearst turned and headed back to his desk.

“Ads are the lifeblood of every newspaper, and
GYP
is
no exception,” the elderly teacher said as he settled painfully into his chair. “They are also an endless source of story ideas, often becoming Inhuman Interest stories; stories that are too inconsequential to fit in any other section … which is really saying something!”

Stawinski raised his hand. Mr. Hearst attempted to glare it back down, but the boy’s sturdy arm was a worthy opponent to the teacher’s withering gaze. Mr. Hearst sighed.

“Yes, Mr. Stawinski?”

The boy frowned.

“It’s not … never mind,” Stawinski replied, rubbing his droopy eyes with his fist. “I just want to know what you’re going to be doing while we do all of this work.”

Mr. Hearst guffawed like a crazed balloon animal full of laughing gas.

“I, like many newspapers, have circulation troubles,” he answered as he set his feet on his desk. “So while you deliver the news, I will enjoy a snooze.”

Marlo looked through her Crassified folder. Inside was a flyer for a missing pet:
Cerberus
.

Marlo smirked.
So Bubb’s creepy lapdog has gone missing
, she thought.
Good riddance. That dog is bad news … perfect for
GYP.

She looked through her second folder, Inhuman Interest. Inside was a press release:

Behind the press release was a small stack of grainy photographs, taken—according to the stamps on the back—from the Kennels’ insecurity cameras. The photographs captured towering rows of cramped cages, each occupied by a howling, miserable animal. Thousands of
them, perhaps millions. Just as Marlo was about to close the folder in disgust, her eye was caught by one particular animal caged in the upper left-hand corner of the last photograph. A thin, white ferret with burning red eyes, hissing at the camera.

“Lucky!” Marlo yelped.

Zane looked over from his work.

“I’m glad
someone
likes their assignment,” he grumbled as Marlo raised her hand.

“Mr. Hearst, I have a question!” she exclaimed.

The old man bolted awake, nearly falling off his chair.

“Mr. Fauster,” Mr. Hearst said, wiping the drool from his thin lips with the back of his hand, “how dare you ask a question in class.”

“But it’s about
GYP,
” she responded. “I want to make my Inhuman Interest story as interesting to inhumans as possible. So I thought I should go down to the Furafter and cover the REPEAT protest myself.”

“REPEAT?”

“
I said that I should go down to the Furafter and—
”

“I heard you!” Mr. Hearst spat. “It’s just that what you are proposing reeks of”—Mr. Hearst shivered—“
reporting
! And I will
not
have students make a mockery of yellow journalism by engaging in unbiased investigation and thoughtful inquiry!”

Marlo clenched her fists and fumed silently to herself.

It was worth a try
, Marlo thought as she stared at her
brother’s ferret, Lucky, gaping back at her in wide-eyed terror from the photograph.
If Mr. Hearst wants sensation, I’ll give it to him, with interest. I’ll make this protest sound like the biggest, most controversial thing to hit the Underworld since they banned not-smoking
.

Around her, typewriters began to slowly click and clack, like a flock of robotic chickens pecking listlessly at rusty worms.

Lucky
is
a sign, and he’ll be a sign for Milton, too
, Marlo thought as she turned the humble REPEAT protest into a seething hotbed of frenzied hullabaloo, something that would surely get the Nether media jumping through hooplas to cover it.
Milton and I are better together. We can meet in the Furafter to switch back our bods and rescue Lucky from nulli-whatever, figure out what Barnum’s up to, save the Surface from an outbreak of viral marketing, and find a way out of this mess
!

DALE E. BASYE
, middle-aged and muddling through the middle of his latest book,
The Breath-taking, Wind-breaking Fartisimo Family
, chewed the tip of the pipe he pretended to smoke as he stared at the blinking message light of his answering machine.

It’s probably that creepy kid again
, he mused.
The one that cornered me at that reading in Topeka during my tour of Midwestern rec centers last month
. Dale shivered.
All those big kids on little bikes … and the chlorine …

He pulled out a black notebook and jotted down “Big kids on little bikes … over-chlorinated pools” on a crowded page labeled “Irrational Fears.”

Dale sighed and set down his pipe. His series about the exploits of a family who, when sufficiently gassy, perform the cheekiest, most exquisite choral music ever heard—that is, when they aren’t breaking up illegal
bean cartels and catching international cheese-slicer smugglers—had hit a rough patch, creatively. And after fifteen minutes of writing—or at least thoughtful staring—he was due for a break anyway.

Dale hit the playback button of his answering machine.

“Hello, Mr. Bass … 
Baze … Bayzee,
” the young voice squawked through the speaker.

No one ever gets my name right
, Dale reflected as he drained his tea cup and set it on the coaster just like his wife had asked him to.

“This is Damian Ruffino … 
again,
” the voice continued. “We met at the Topeka Community Rec Center, Play Pool, and Assisted Living Facility last month. You must think I’m stalking you, which is ridiculous, because if I was, you’d be really, really scared right now.
Believe
me. Anyway, I have a business proposition to make to you. A collaboration. A ghostwriting project.”

Ooh, I’ve always wanted to write about ghosts
, Dale mused.

“Not writing about ghosts,” Damian continued, “but
you writing something for me
. Only it’s sort of the opposite of ghostwriting, I guess, because it would be
your
book. I have the concept and basic story worked out, I just need someone to write it down. I tried, but my, um, editor wasn’t happy with it. Said it focused too much on the ant agonist or whatever. I can’t help that he is totally
awesome
. The character sort of wrote himself.…”

The boy snickered, a dark, secret laugh, like that of a maniac who knows
exactly
where someone is buried.

Dale stared at the twin red lights of his answering machine, the ones that always reminded him of a demon’s eyes.
I need to make some
real
money if I’m ever going to quit my JiffyAds job—

“And you would make some
real
money with this,” Damian added. “So give me a call. I’m at 555-727-6765 … that’s 555-PAR-NRML. Don’t ask.…”

A click and the swarming wasp buzz of a dial tone filled Dale’s small home office. He snatched up the phone before the usual chorus of doubt and apprehension could clog his head.

“What?” Damian said brusquely as he picked up the phone. Dale could hear the sounds of struggle, and a man protesting in the background.

“It’s my phone, man!” the voice wheezed. “This is totally uncool … like,
Altamont
uncool!”

“Whatever, Cherry Garcia,” Damian barked. “I’m the one holding the phone now, and that’s all that matters. I paid your rent, so just peace out somewhere else … 
who is it
?” Damian barked.

Dale swallowed.

“I … this is Dale E. Basye.
The author
. You called me just—”

“Yeah, I know I called you,” Damian interrupted. “Thanks for
finally
getting back to me. Those Fartisimo Family books can’t take
that
much time to write!”

“Um, you see, I have to do them on weekends,” Dale explained, flustered. “I have a day job as a copywriter, to pay the bills and—”

“Well, tell your boss to take a hike,” Damian blustered. “
I’m
your new boss now.”

Dale shivered uncontrollably as if someone had poured a scoop of crushed ice down the back of his boxers, which his son hadn’t done for months.

“We still haven’t even discussed—”

“You have no idea how hard it’s been to track down someone to write my story,” Damian interrupted. “I called a bunch of other people first, then I saw your book in the Books This Library Shouldn’t Carry section of the Generica Central Library. You’re a hard guy to get ahold of, since no one knows who you are … and your weird name. Are you sure it’s spelled B-A-S-Y …?”

“Yes, I’m sure. So what’s the book you want me to write?” Dale blurted out, shoving as many words as he could through the slight breach in Damian’s one-sided conversation. He could hear a shuffle and crash through the receiver.

“Watch out for Bigfoot … you almost smashed his big toe!” the wheezing man shouted in the background. “Move all your boxes to
your
side of the Paranor Mall … you’re not paying me enough to break all of my exhibits!”

Damian sighed.

“Never mind our landlord,” he explained, “he’s so crazy that even the voices in his
head
think he’s crazy. But
we won’t be here for long, especially when my … 
our
book becomes a big hit.”

“Yes,
the book,
” Dale asserted as he chewed the tip of his pipe with frustration. “And it’s called …?”

“Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go,”
Damian offered.

Dale smiled to himself—literally, as there was a framed picture of himself on his desk.

“That’s clever … kind of corny, but clever,” he replied. “Plus there’s a lot of interest in the afterlife lately, with those new shows
Teenage Jesus, Allah in the Family
, and
Queen of the Shebrews
being such big hits on TV—”

“With my connections, we can turn this into one
hot
property,” Damian interrupted, before adding a deep, unsettling snicker to his comment: the cherry bomb on the cake. “So I’m guessing you’re on board. I’ll send you a plane ticket for Kansas. Be sure that
you’re
on board and we can seal the deal.”