Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer. Unless your enemy is a mole person, because his body odor will make you cry.

—ANONYMOUS

We didn’t want to go to the cafeteria after our humiliating loss. But hunger won out over pride, and we snuck in, hoping nobody would notice us.

Nobody did. Everyone was watching the newsfeed on the giant screen at the end of the room. There was a story about Pravus’s giant gorillas.

“They really are unstoppable,” Pravus said to the interviewer. “It’s remarkable to see them in action. Ogres, trolls, giants—they don’t have anywhere near the strength and speed of my gorillas. When you add a few years of my special training, well . . .”

“Unstoppable,” the reporter finished for him.

Pravus smiled.

“Tell that to Syke,” I said.

The reporter went on. “Dr. Pravus is a very busy man, and it looks like he’s about to get busier. Rumor has it that Lord Vengecrypt has pledged to recruit a good portion of his graduating class. And there are rumors about a possible expansion in the works.”

“I do need more room if I’m to keep up with demand,” Pravus said.

“Dr. Critchlore’s has five times the area of the Pravus Academy,” Darthin said.

“Forget that,” Eloni said. “Lord Vengecrypt has always gotten his minions from Critchlore. Always.”

“Always,” I echoed. “You know what? Maybe that’s why Pravus was sabotaging us—so he could steal Critchlore’s best customers.”

“Probably,” Darthin said. “And now, when Dr. Critchlore should be fixing this school, he’s planning a fashion show. It’s insane.”

The newsfeed blinked out, replaced by a headshot of our leader. Dr. Critchlore’s serious expression silenced everyone. “Students, faculty, staff, and the Useless Hanger-on, yes, I mean you, Vodum. I have an announcement. I’ve just received word that the Siren Syndicate”—he shivered—“will be here a day early. I am hereby suspending all classes while we all work to prepare for their visit.

“In addition, I’ve heard rumors that I want to put to rest. I have no plans to install a gauntlet of pain. What a ridiculous notion! Please do not worry that my training methods have stooped to that level.

“That man testing one in our hedge maze works for someone who might replace me as headmaster. I’m mostly sure this won’t happen. Well, maybe forty percent sure. So, everyone, just calm down.

“That is all.”

‡‡‡

The next morning, Boris, Pismo, and I headed to the dungeon. Mole people (MP), underground creatures with scaly green skin, red eyes, and hot tempers, ran the Supply Station.

“Pismo, please remember to be respectful,” I said. The last time we were here, they gave him a leaky hazmat suit because he was rude.

“Don’t worry, Runt,” he said. “I’m pals with these guys now. They love me.”

I rolled my eyes.

With classes canceled, I thought the place would be quiet, but it was busier than ever. Mole people raced around filling orders, driving forklifts through the tall aisles, and unpacking boxes.

We stood at the counter. I rang the bell, but there was so much beeping and shouting that even I couldn’t hear it. I waved my arms in the air, trying to get someone’s attention, but they all ignored me.

Pismo put a hand on my shoulder just as I was about to hop over the counter. “I got this,” he said. “You might want to cover your ears.”

“Why?” I asked, but before I could cover my ears, my question was answered.

Pismo opened his mouth, and out came the most ear-aching screech I’d ever heard in my life, and I used to feed hungry banshees in the Aviary.

All activity ceased. The mole people turned toward us. I thought they’d be mad at that horrible sound, but one walked over and said, “Yeah, Your Royal Deepness, what do you want?”

Pismo pointed at me.

“Um, thank you, Magnificent Inventory Master,” I said. “Uh, we’re here on official fashion show business—”

“So are we all,” he said. “Get to the point.”

“We need to assemble gift bags for a couple hundred guests. That means we need bags, and—um—gifts to put into the bags.”

“Professor Murphy said you’d be coming. Conference room, over there.” He lifted a panel in the counter, and we followed him to a large room. He directed us to sit, and then disappeared into the long stacks of supplies.

We took seats and I dropped my magazines on the table.

“Pismo, what the heck was that?” I asked.

“My screech?” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Powerful, isn’t it?”

“It’s still ringing in my ears.” I had a feeling it was a mermaid thing, and I didn’t want to say anything else, because Pismo didn’t want people to know he was a mermaid.

Boris reached for a magazine. He took one look at the cover (girls in dresses) and shoved it back at me. “Maybe you’re part banshee,” he said to Pismo.

“I am,” Pismo said. “It’s clever of you to notice.”

Boris smiled. He wasn’t called “clever” very often.

“Okay,” I said, getting to business. I opened the magazine to the gift bag article. “It says here that gift bags are usually filled with things like lipstick and perfume. I wonder if they have any of that down here?”

“Doubtful,” Pismo said. “Judging by the mole people. Unless the lipstick is brown and lumpy, and the perfume smells like a garbage dump.”

The mole person returned with an armful of bags. “Pick one,” he said, dropping them onto the table.

We sorted through the pile. There were simple paper bags, colored bags, ones with handles, others without, and all kinds of materials.

“I like this velvety one with the drawstring,” Pismo said. He turned it upside down to empty it, and out fell a plastic bag filled with eyeballs. “Ooh, but not that, I would think.”

“We have lots of those bags,” the MP said. “In the empty version.”

“Great,” I said. “They look elegant. Do you have any with the school’s logo stitched on them?”

“Can be done,” he said.

Two more MPs came in carrying boxes as the first one swept the bags back in his box.

“Pick out the items you want for the bag,” the first MP said. “And we got another box from your father, Prince Pismodor. Do you want it?”

He was looking at Pismo.

“No. But I’ll take it,” Pismo said. The MP nodded and left.

“Prince Pismodor?” I asked.

Pismo closed his eyes and shook his head. “My ridiculous father has been sending me photophore stuff. It’s one of the things we—uh—banshees . . . manufacture—er—in our nests. He wants me to get Dr. Critchlore to sell them as part of his minion supply business. But who wants photophore stuff, unless you’re going underwater?”

“What’s a photophore?” I asked. Boris wasn’t really paying attention. He was searching through the other box. The remaining MPs left with the box of bags, and took their body odor with them, thank goodness, because I felt like I’d been holding my breath for five minutes.

Pismo reached into his box and handed me a black dress. “In the depths of the ocean, it’s very dark. A lot of animals make their own light with light-producing organs called photophores. This material mimics that kind of bioluminescence. It senses when you need light and it lights up. Here, watch.”

He pulled the long-sleeved dress on over his head. It fell to midthigh on him.

“Nice dress,” Boris said.

“It’s not a dress. It’s a tunic. All the men in my family wear them, since we don’t have . . .”

He wanted to say “legs,” I was sure. I decided to help him out. “Dignity?”

He scowled at me. “We make gloves too,” he said, throwing us each a pair. Then he turned off the lights.

His tunic lit up with bright ocean-blue dots. The light was powerful and beautiful.

I put on the gloves. The black material felt light and silky, like I was wearing water. “Wow,” Boris said. “My hand is like the sky. It has stars!” He turned his hand over. “Oooh, look at my fingers!” Each fingertip blasted out light like a flashlight.

“That’s so cool,” I said. “Why haven’t you shown them to Critchlore?”

“Everyone knows these are made by . . . banshees, so nobody will buy them. Nobody wants to go against the Siren Syndicate. The sirens hate us and they’re much too powerful. So why bother? I’ve got about twenty boxes of these things.”

He closed the box and stuffed it under the table.

“Sirens hate banshees?” Boris asked.

“Sirens hate everyone,” Pismo said.

We got back to work, searching through boxes for appropriate things to put in the gift bags. We rejected anything that looked like it belonged in Dr. Frankenhammer’s lab—eyeballs, tongues, feet with claws, those sorts of things. It took a while, but we managed to fill our example bag with stuff we thought was cool. I pulled the gold drawstring shut, and it looked great.

Boris ran off, late for his emergency ogre-man seminar on personal hygiene. The sirens were coming, and Dr. Critchlore wanted to see some improvement in this area.

“I’ll give this to Professor Murphy and see what he thinks. Thanks for your help, Prince Pismodor.”

“Shut up.”

“Will you be king someday?” I asked as I pushed my chair in.

“Not likely. I’m the youngest of fourteen. Besides, who wants to be king of the mermaids? That’s like the punch line for a joke about being stupid.”

That was true. “It’s not fair,” I said.

Pismo shrugged. “Things are changing. Lord Vengecrypt just recruited a bunch of mermaids for his coastal attacks. People will see we’re not stupid. It’s just not happening fast enough for me.”

We packed up our stuff to leave. “Can I keep these gloves?”

“Sure,” he said. “Just don’t tell anyone where you got them, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

We walked out of the conference room. Just as we were about to lift the section of the counter that would let us leave, a mole person’s clawed hand grabbed Pismo. When Pismo looked at him, the mole person just shook his head.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” Pismo said as he emptied his pockets of all the stuff he’d tried to steal.