NaNoWriMo: Chapter Twelve: Taking Care of the Nuisances

[hikaness]

chapter twelve
taking care of the nuisances

Maggie was not in geography, and this was odd. It had taken Blake a while to notice - she had spent the time before the bell rang annoying Elizabeth, trying to find out from her just what she and Will had done on their Friday night date. Elizabeth, however, was being uncharacteristically secretive, and the only thing Blake was able to get out of her before she had to sit down was that Will had worn a suit - a highly hysterical idea to anyone, but especially to Blake.

“Will?” she shrieked. “In a suit? Oh, man, I wish I had been there. How’d you not die laughing?”

Elizabeth was, in a word, appalled. “Why would I laugh? He was sexy in a suit.”

This just made Blake laugh all the harder. Luckily for Elizabeth, the bell chose that moment to ring, and their geography teacher made Blake sit down so he could begin teaching them about the topic of the day, Martin Luther King. What Martin Luther King had to do with geography, Blake didn’t know. But once she had gained control of herself and began concentrating on not listening, she realized that Maggie was nowhere to be seen.

She couldn’t imagine why. Despite her hatred for school, Maggie hated missing classes, if only because it meant she was so much more behind. Then again, Maggie had been acting very odd lately. She had barely said anything at all that morning as they sat in the hallway by Blake’s locker before first hour. Blake had had to talk much more than usual - not an extremely difficult feat, but an effort nonetheless.

Blake put her worries out of her mind. More likely than not, Maggie had just gotten sick and went to the nurses office, or something of that nature. Of course, if Blake had known what Maggie was really doing, she would have been much more concerned.

“It’s called ‘Elsewhere,’” said Eva, “the world through the portal.”

“’Elsewhere?’” asked Sawyer.

“’Elsewhere.’”

“And so if you’re from Elsewhere, what are you doing here?”

“Them,” said Eva, who then made a face. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be vague, really. See… Them, They… that’s what They are called… They’re a bunch of really old men, seven of Them. And They protect the world from evil and whatnot. And I work for them.”

Sawyer raised an eyebrow. “Doing what, exactly?”

“Anything they want me to do,” said Eva, shrugging. “They were kind of vague when it came to a job description.”

“Obviously.”

“Anyway, They are extremely busy because we have not one but two evil villains in the land of Elsewhere -- both of them extremely creepy, extremely evil and extremely bent on world domination. Of course, they tend to focus on fighting each other more than they worry about doing extremely evil deeds. Most of the time. Once in a while, one of them will decide to be annoying and hold some people hostage, or muster an army and march on an important city, you know, evil stuff like that. It’s a nuisance, really. So They were actually pretty happen to learn that one of the evil villains decided to skip the universe and try to take over some other world. His name was Fergus Berwick.”

Sawyer blinked, barely able to comprehend this. “You mean… the Fergus Berwick? The principal Fergus Berwick? The one that’s sitting in an office across the school right now, signing papers and dealing with troublemakers?”

“That’s the one,” said Eva, nodding. “Can you think of anyone else with such a horrific name?”

“Well, shit.”

“Exactly. So, we’ve got this evil maniac, and They, frankly, are pretty damn happy about the fact he’s leaving. But, of course, They don’t trust him at all, naturally, so once They figured out which world Fergus Berwick went to, They sent me along after him. To keep tabs on him, or something. It never really got explained to me. They could really care less if Berwick takes over this world or not, but he’s a sneaky guy and They don’t exactly trust him to stay in one place.”

“So,” said Sawyer, “where does this portal in Maggie’s locker come into play?”

“That’s the thing right there,” Eva said. “That portal leads right back to Elsewhere, and it basically goes to the evil lair of the second evil villain - his name’s Mr. Coutler.”

“Mr. Coutler?”

“He doesn’t have a first name,” said Eva, shrugging. “He’s just Mr. Coutler. The portal’s in the forest just a hundred feet from Mr. Coutler’s giant Castle of Evil. It’s pretty well hidden, considering.”

“I thought they hated each other,” said Sawyer. He was so, so confused. “Why would Berwick want a portal so close to Mr. Coutler’s lair?”

Eva laughed, a tad cynically. “Good question. My theory is they’ve given up on the whole fighting thing and have finally gotten around to joining forces, and now Berwick’s doing the little jump between universes whenever he needs to. Of course, I can’t prove that.”

Sawyer shrugged. “Sounds pretty plausible, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, whatever those two are plotting, they haven’t actually done anything yet, which is actually more nerve-wracking than if they had started killing people or something.” Eva leaned against her desk. “The more they plot and scheme, the more organized they’re going to be when they actually get around to being evil.”

Sawyer just nodded; he had nothing else to say - nothing of value, anyway. So he kept on nodding and said, “Well, then.”

Eva sighed. “That’s all I got.”

Sawyer was still nodding. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

The two of them were silent for an extremely long period of time, both Eva and Sawyer trying as hard as they possibly could to think of something useful to say. Neither of them could think of anything worth saying.

Sawyer, mostly, was trying to comprehend everything that had just been said to him. It was a lot to swallow, especially for Sawyer, who didn’t even believe in ghosts or aliens or even telemarketers, much less parallel universes with evil villains. Still, he found himself, much to his surprise, believing it. It was probably the fact that he had seen Berwick’s portal first hand, or else it was because he found himself desperately wanting to believe Eva.

“What’s Elsewhere like?” he asked, breaking the silence at last.

Eva just looked at him oddly. “What do you mean, what’s Elsewhere like?”

Sawyer scratched his head. He didn’t actually know what he had meant himself; he had merely wanted to keep the conversation going. “Well… is it like… our world? Er… my world. You know what I mean.”

Eva thought about this for a bit. “A lot like this world, yes. It’s smaller. People are a bit less… stupid.”

“Hey!”

“No offense, but people in your world get freaked out whenever they see a portal,” said Eva. “And most of you aren’t even aware there are other worlds to begin with.”

“We’re a skeptical bunch,” Sawyer said, with a bit of a grimace.

“Exactly.”

“Do I even want to know how Berwick managed to get himself hired as a high school principal when he isn’t even from this world?”

“There’s a decent number of people in our world who are very good at forging false documents,” said Eva.

“Which, of course, would explain how you managed to become a teacher,” Sawyer said.

“Yep. Lots of fake documents.”

Sawyer nodded for what seemed like the millionth time in the last fifteen minutes. Suddenly, he had a multitude of questions he wanted to ask, but he could barely bring himself to sort them all out well enough to phrase them in a way that would make any sense.

“I’m confused,” he announced finally. Eva grinned slightly and patted Sawyer on the back.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “Things like this never make sense to anyone.”

While Sawyer was trying to figure out everything he had just been told, Fergus Berwick was in his office, practicing his evil laughter.

“Bwuhahaha! Mwuhahaha! Oh, yes, I am so unimaginably evil!”

His self-praise was interrupted suddenly by a knock on his door. He grumbled, never liking to be caught in the middle of something, but called to the person on the other side of the door anyway. “Yes? Come in.”

It was Maggie who opened the door, an extremely serious look on her face. Berwick grinned evilly. “Ah, Ms. Garner,” he said. “So nice to see you again.”

Maggie nodded at him, and Berwick leaned forward in his desk. “You have something to tell me, Ms. Garner?”

So far, Maggie had been incredibly useful to Berwick. She had definitely been a good choice to be the first one to get brainwashed - none of the rest of the kids, few as they were, that had been called into the office that Friday to meet Mr. Squiggles had been anywhere near as helpful. Maggie had already informed Berwick about everything she had witnessed in the last few weeks, including the discovery of his portal and the incidents of Halloween night. He couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say next.

“You know the newspapers on your lawn,” said Maggie. “On Friday night?”

“Ah, yes,” said Berwick, contorting his face into a frown. “Yes, I was wondering about that.” Berwick had woken up Saturday morning and, after his shower, had gone outside to collect his daily newspaper, only to find his entire lawn full of newspapers to read during breakfast. He had not been pleased. “Please, tell me… who did it?”

“It was Jack, Blake, Russ and Miles,” said Maggie, cleverly leaving herself out of it.

Berwick smiled grimly. “I should have known.”

“They thought of the prank as a sort of revenge against you, sir,” explained Maggie. “They don’t like you very much.”

“I’ve noticed,” said Berwick, leaning back in his desk chair again. “Well, then. I do believe it’s time we take care of them, hm?”

Maggie just smiled. Berwick laughed evilly.

Geography was by far the longest class of the day. Blake was staring out the window at the falling snow, taking her eyes off the mesmerizing whiteness only to look at the clock. She could have sworn it was going backwards. It had to be. There was no way the hour could go that slow.

Mr. Smith, the geography teacher, was right in the middle of discussing just why Martin Luther King, Jr. was such an awesome guy when the phone rang. God bless the phone, Blake thought -- anything that stopped the drone of Mr. Smith’s lectures was definitely divine intervention. Whatever Martin Luther King, Jr. had to do with geography, Blake didn’t know, but she did know that she had heard all the possible information on the topic since the third grade, and it was high time the teachers gave up on the subject.

Blake herself was interrupted from her thoughts as Mr. Smith tapped a finger on her desk. She looked up, hoping she wasn’t drooling. “Wha?”

“That was the office,” said Mr. Smith. “You’re supposed to go down there.”

“What for?” asked Blake, raising an eyebrow. She had never been called down to the office before; she wasn’t exactly a problem student.

“Mrs. Nelson didn’t say. She just said you’re supposed to go to the office.”

Blake wasn’t complaining. She had no idea what she was supposed to be visiting the office for, but whatever it was, it got her out of geography.

Mr. Smith was already droning on again by the time she collected her books and left the room. She didn’t worry as much as Maggie did on the trip down to the office; instead, she positively skipped her way there, just happy to be getting out of class.

Mrs. Nelson greeted her warmly as she entered the office - she was a neighbor of Blake’s, and had known her since she was a little girl. This was greatly to Blake’s advantage, considering that, if she had wanted to, she could have easily skipped class and gotten Mrs. Nelson to clear the unexcused absence. It was always a wonderful idea to be on the secretary’s good side.

“Hello, there, Blake!” Mrs. Nelson said, smiling. “How’s your mother?”

“Busy, as usual,” said Blake, “but she manages. How’s your granddaughter?”

“Oh, Allison’s absolutely an angel!” gushed Mrs. Nelson. “She’s just learning to talk now - did I tell you that? She can say ‘mama’ and ‘ball’ and ‘no,’ of course, and it’s all so adorable…” The secretary went on for a while, and Blake smiled and nodded politely. Finally, Mrs. Nelson finished her telling of a very amusing anecdote involving her granddaughter and her first Halloween, and turned her attention to the door of Berwick’s office.

“Anyway, Principal Berwick wanted to talk to you,” said Mrs. Nelson. “He’s in the middle of an important conversation right now, but he’ll call you in when he’s ready.”

“All right,” Blake said cheerfully, but inside, she was groaning. She should’ve known - she had to talk to Berwick. She shuddered at the thought. Oh, how she hated Berwick. She hoped he’d hurry his conversation or phone call or whatever it was that was taking up his time. The sooner she talked to him, the sooner she could get out of there and, hopefully, make a bakery run instead of going back to geography.

She took a seat near Berwick’s door and leaned against the wall, horribly bored. There was absolutely nothing of interest to look at in the high school office, so instead, she focused on sounds: Mrs. Nelson typing at her keyboard, the copier having a heart attack in the back room over, and Berwick sounding very official while having his “important” conversation in the room right through the wall. It sounded like he was talking to a man just as creepy as he was. Blake, a natural dropper of eaves, listened in.

“These kids have given you trouble before, you say?” said a voice, the second creepy man.

“Not too often, but they are very against conformity, which makes them difficult in a whole new way.” That was Berwick. Blake snorted. She figured he would say things like that.
“
How did you find out that it was they who discovered your portal?”

Blake’s heart skipped a beat at the second man’s question. There was no doubt about which portal he was referring to - but did he really say it was Berwick’s? Was this the mysterious person Eva had been referring to? And how did he find out about the whole ordeal in the first place? She listened closer.

“It was actually one of them who told me,” said Berwick, and Blake could practically hear him smiling his creepy smile. “Maggie Garner. If you had stuck around after I brainwashed her, you would have heard quite an interesting story.”

Now Blake was close to tears. Maggie had betrayed them? It was impossible! But Berwick was saying that she had been brainwashed… oh, she was confused.

The second man grunted. “I had other things to attend to, Berwick, you know that.”

“I know, I know,” said Berwick. “But it was quite a remarkable story. Apparently, they broke into the school on Halloween night using the keys from one of the teachers - Ethan Sawyer, did I tell you about him? He’s the one that isn’t really a teacher. Anyway, one of the boys, I think it was Jack O’Brien, opened the locker as part of some sort of prank and ended up getting sucked through the portal. Naturally, the rest of the students, being as stupid as they were, decided to go in after him. There they found another one of their teachers, Eva Robinson.”

“Eva?” said the second man, with a hint of glee. “I haven’t seen her in ages. That girl just doesn’t give up, does she?”

“No, she’s still trying to stop me. She refused to tell the students barely anything and got them back through the portal before anything horrible happened to them, unfortunately.”

“So, what do you plan to do about them now?”

Blake was frozen to her chair. She looked over at Mrs. Nelson, but she was typing away happily, completely oblivious as to what was going on to the next room and what awful things awaited Blake.

“Brainwash them, of course!” said Berwick. “What else? Once they’re under my power, they’ll be no trouble. I’m starting with the Dennell girl, she’s the most annoying one of the bunch. Better get her out of the way before she catches on to anything.”

“Sounds like a plan,” agreed the second man.

“She should be down here by now. Let’s ask her in, shall we?”

The door swung open, and Blake finally found herself able to move. She jumped out of the chair, screaming bloody murder. Berwick had to duck as she threw her books at him and ran out of the office, still screaming as loud as she could.

“YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME, YOU SLUT-WENCH-WHORE-BITCH-FUCKER.”

Berwick didn’t bother chasing her. He wasn’t a runner; back in Elsewhere, he had henchmen to do his running for him. He stood at the door instead, and Mr. Coutler joined him, watching Blake running down the hall through the large window in the office.

“That went well,” Mr. Coutler commented.

Berwick, however, wasn’t worried. “There’s plenty of time.”

Blake ran back towards the geography room. She had to warn the others, and she wasn’t going to sit around and let her friends get brainwashed, especially not after she let it happen to Maggie.

Maggie, however, had other plans for their group of friends. She stopped Blake just as she was running around up the stairs. She stood in the middle of the stairwell, arms spanning the distance and blocking Blake’s way.

“Maggie, oh, my God, Maggie!” said Blake, gasping for breath.

“You’re not getting up this stairwell,” said Maggie, glaring at Blake evilly. “You’re just going to warn the others, and I can’t have that, can I?”

“Look, Maggie, I know you’re brainwashed and all, but I have to get through.” Blake tried to push against Maggie’s right arm and get through, but Maggie held her back.

“Give it up, Blake,” Maggie said in mock-cheerfulness. “You’re not getting through. You might as well just go back to Principal Berwick’s office right now and let yourself get brainwashed.”

“Berwick isn’t getting anywhere near my brain!” Blake shouted, and pushed once again against Maggie. But she fought back just as hard as Blake, and Blake wasn’t able to get up even one stair.

“It’s inevitable, Blake!” yelled Maggie. “You can’t get away!”

“The hell I can’t!” Blake hated herself for it, but friend or not, Maggie was brainwashed, and she kicked her in the shin. Hard. Maggie screamed and temporarily lost her balance; Blake seized the opportunity and pushed passed her, rushing up the stairs. Maggie tried to limp up after her, but Blake was already up the next set of stairs, still screaming and rushing towards the geography room.

She stumbled in, and the entire room was already staring at her, having heard her scream all the way down the hallway. “Elizabeth!” she gasped, once again having to catch her breath. “You… need… to… come with… me… right… now.”

Elizabeth stood up, despite the protests coming from Mr. Smith.

“You’re going to get an unexcused absence if you leave, Ms. Quinn!” he said, but Elizabeth ignored him and went to Blake, who pulled her out into the hallway and started to drag her down the hallway.

“Berwick… he’s evil. We got to find the others. Maggie got brainwashed; she told him everything, got to find Ms. Robinson…”

“Blake, slow down!” said Elizabeth, but Blake pulled her along.

“No time!” she said. “Got to find the others!” She pushed Elizabeth towards the computer lab. “Go get Will and Russ!” Blake shouted. “And come back to Ms. Robinson’s room!”

“But…” Elizabeth stuttered.

“Just go!” Blake was nearly screaming herself hoarse, but she didn’t notice. “And watch out for Maggie! Kick her in the shin if you need to.” With that, she took off down the hallway towards the math room. Elizabeth hesitated for a split second then ran to the computer lab.

In barely any time at all, Blake had made it to the math room, where Miles and Jack were struggling through trigonometry. She ran right into the classroom and pulled at Jack’s arm, ignoring the teacher and shouting out him. “Jack, you have to come with me! No time to explain! Miles, you too!”

Miles and Jack both sputtered questions at her, but Blake ignored those as well and pulled at their shirts.

Jack looked apologetically at his math teacher. “Sorry, but we should go.”

The teacher merely stared at him.

Blake grabbed both of the boys by the arms, still yelling, trying to explain everything. “Berwick is evil! And he’s brainwashing people, students or something, and he brainwashed Maggie, and now he’s going to brainwash us because he knows what we did to his lawn and we have to get to Ms. Robinson!”

This was the bit that confused Jack. “Why is it so necessary to get to Ms. Robinson?” he asked her.

“Because… because…” Blake tried to think, which was hard to do when she was running and panicking at the same time. “Because she’ll know what to do!” she yelled finally, and then added, “I think.”

Neither Jack nor Miles could argue with that logic, and let her drag them along. They managed to get themselves to Eva’s room without running into any obstacles. Maggie was nowhere to be seen.

Elizabeth, Will and Russ were already there, talking to a very confused looking Eva and Sawyer. “Something about brainwashing…” Blake heard Elizabeth say. “Oh, there she is, thank God.”

Blake stopped abruptly just before running into Eva. She had never been so happy to see a teacher before. She started talking at the speed of light, barely able to understand herself. “I got called down to the office. Berwick wanted to talk to me or something, but he was busy and he couldn’t see me right away… so Mrs. Nelson just told me to sit down, and I did, right outside of Berwick’s office. And I heard him talking to someone… I don’t know who, but they were talking… they were talking about us! Berwick found out about how we threw newspapers on the lawn. Maggie told him - he said he had brainwashed her, which is probably why she was acting so weird, and she must have told him everything, even about the portal, because he was talking about that, too! And the other guy asked him what he was planning to do since we were being such a nuisance and Berwick said he was going to brainwash us too, and he was starting with me and then the door opened and I threw my books at him and ran away and oh, my God, Ms. Robinson, you have to help us!”

She took a deep breath, having said most of her spiel without taking any.

Eva said nothing at first. She went to her desk and took out her keys, and then moved silently to the classroom door, locking it. Then, she went over to the tall bookcase on the north side of the room, took a large book and returned to the group, paging through it.

The book was old, there was no doubt about that. It was dark green, leather bound and heavy, and the others marveled at how Eva could manage to hold it with one hand. It must have been a thousand pages thick at one point, or even more, but it seemed that several pages had been lost throughout its lifetime.

“What is that?” Sawyer asked.

“We need to get these kids out of here,” said Eva. “If Berwick’s after them, he’s going to try his damndest to get them. There’s only one place where they’re going to be safe.”

“And where exactly is that?” asked Will nervously.

Eva found the page she was looking for and set the book down on a desk. “Here,” she said, pointing to the page. Everyone gathered around the book, trying to read it and figure out just what Eva meant, but the page was chock-full of words in a very small type and before they could make anything out, Eva took the page in her hand and ripped it out.

“What…” Sawyer started to ask, but Eva shushed him.

“Just shut up for a second and watch, okay?” She crumpled the paper into a ball and stuffed it into the nearest corner of the room. She stepped away quickly, and in a few seconds, the little ball of paper began glowing white. Except for the color, the light was exactly like that of the portal in Maggie’s locker. And, like the portal in Maggie’s locker, it grew - very, very quickly.

“That was fucking awesome,” said Jack, but no one acknowledged him. They were all staring at the newly-formed portal.

“Well,” said Eva. “Let’s go.”

“You actually want us to go through a portal?” said Miles, eyebrows raised. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“That,” said Eva, pointing, “is a good portal. It leads to a good place. And unless you want to stick around for Berwick to catch you and brainwash you and probably do a whole lot of other horrible, nasty things to you, I’d get through that portal as fast as you possibly can.”

The students got the point, and one by one, stepped through the portal without complaint, and even possibly with a bit of excitement. Soon, it was only Eva and Sawyer left.

“After you,” said Eva, motioning towards the portal. She saw Sawyer’s expression and grinned. He looked like someone who had absolutely no intention of ever going through that portal.

“I’ll stay here, thanks,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

“You think I’m going to let you stay here so you can let yourself get brainwashed by Berwick and tell him where we all went?” said Eva.

Sawyer made a face. “Considering I don’t even know where this portal goes, I don’t think that’s much of a problem.”

“It goes somewhere safe, I told you,” Eva said. “And I’ll be right behind you. Just trust me, all right?”

Sawyer looked at her, and she smiled at him. “Damn you,” he said to her. “I can’t say no to that.”

With that said, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes and stepped through. Eva wasted no time in following him, and then, the room was empty.

The portal stayed in the corner for several minutes, glowing happily until it realized that in all likelihood, no one else was coming through. It shrunk back down to nothing, and the glow went out. Then, there was nothing left except for a locked door and a small piece of crumpled paper lying in the corner.

Word count thus far: 30,849

Oh, yeah, I rock.

Sorry for the insanely long chapter (it's about twice as long as the others). There just really wasn't a good place to stop. Ah, well. Long chapters never killed anyone.

So, any title reccommendations now that everyone knows the plot?