22 • A CASE OF DO OR DiET

MILTON AND VIRGIL rolled their barrels to a stop at the mouth of the dark, deserted hallway behind the Lose-Your-Lunchroom. They studied the silent tin shed parked at the hallway’s abrupt dead end behind Chef Boyareyookrazee’s kitchen.

“Seems quiet enough—” Virgil whispered.

“Shhh,” Milton interrupted. “I hear something.”

Milton motioned for Virgil to approach one side of the shed, while he took the other.

They kicked off their shoes and stealthily trod toward Hambone Hank’s Heart Attack Shack. A faint yet lusty snore rumbled from the shed, broken up by the occasional incoherent mumble.

“Anput … Kebauet … I will … save …” the deep voice grunted.

Milton slunk down as much as he could in his disguise and slowly peered inside the wide front window of the red and yellow shed. In the corner, curled up on a round foam bed, was Hambone Hank, catching some serious Zs. His long arms and legs, wrapped beneath his black robe, were twitching as if he was having a bad dream. Near him was a black cast-iron cauldron, sealed off with a lid that had welded to it a stubby coiled pipe. The pipe was roughly the size of the soul jars piled at the cauldron’s base.

That must be how he mixes in the lost souls without them running amok, Milton surmised, having experienced firsthand the unpredictable buoyancy of souls, at least the good ones, when freed. Next to the cauldron was a deep fryer, another pile of jars, and a door—which, to Milton’s relief, had been left slightly open. Virgil crept alongside the shed with an armload of imaginary-friend souls.

“Switch the jars,” Milton whispered as he crouched down next to Virgil by the door. “Hand me the real soul jars through the window, and we’ll stow them in our gym lockers until we figure out what to do with them all.”

Virgil nodded and, with some difficulty, squeezed through the door and into the cramped shack. He tiptoed past the deep fryer—though, Milton noticed, not without first taking in a whiff of its contents—then knelt by the cauldron.

Hambone Hank stirred. “Hush … puppies … don’t … whimper,” the cook mumbled before returning to the land of Nod.

Virgil froze. The hair on his forearms stood on end. After half a minute, he moved—not completely thawed out but enough to resume “the ol’ switcheroo.” He handed Milton the Lost Soul jars filled with squirming, seething black globs that knocked angrily against the glass.

These were definitely some bad, bad folks, Milton pondered. No wonder we all stayed so heavy even after all those DREADmill sessions.

Virgil stopped briefly to examine one of the souls of Make-Believe Play-fellows. He touched the clouded glass. His eyes became dreamy, and a faint smile crossed his lips.

Milton stuck his head inside the take-out window. “We don’t have time for you to play with them all,” he whispered.

Virgil sighed and handed Milton the remaining jars.

“I don’t see how this is any different,” Virgil argued. “They’re still souls.”

“Souls of Make-Believe Play-fellows,” Milton countered. “They were never really alive, so they never really died. Would you rather keep eating the souls of real people? Real bad people, judging from how dark and angry the blobs are? After all, you are what you—”

“Fine, fine,” Virgil grumbled as he deposited the last of the imaginary-friend souls in the pile. “It just seems so … mean.”

Virgil crept out of the shed and, being a decent sort of boy, closed the door behind him. The action set a precarious pile of jars trembling. Milton held his breath as the pyramid of six hastily stacked jars wobbled. The imaginary soul on top drifted from one side of the jar to the other, counteracting the stack’s listing teeter. Milton sighed with relief. Unfortunately, the soul slurped back in its sea of ectoplasmic goo, and the jars toppled with a chorus of dull thuds.

Hambone Hank rustled awake.

“Woof happened?” he yelped groggily.

Milton ducked down and swaddled the Lost Soul jars while hobbling toward his metal waste bin.

“Move!” Milton hissed to Virgil, and the two of them barreled down the corridor.

“It’s official,” Dr. Kellogg chirped as he gestured for Hugo to step off the scale. “You boys are a bunch of losers … in the best possible way!”

Milton and Virgil exchanged conspiratorial smirks.

The effect had been practically instantaneous, Milton thought. After a breakfast of Hambone Hank’s new recipe and their morning session in the DREADmills, all of the boys had indeed lost a few pounds. It wasn’t a lot—which was probably good in terms of not raising suspicions—but it did mean that the boys might avoid an eternity spent running with the devil down in h-e-double-hockey-sticks.

Nurse Rutlidge strutted out across the Gymnauseum floor. She leaned in close to Dr. Kellogg with a face crinkled with worry, whispering in his ear with her thin, dull red lips. His bushy white eyebrows rose with surprise.

“Of course,” he muttered to the nurse. The doctor cleared his throat.

“Boys, I will be back in two shakes of a skinless, boiled lamb shank.”

The spry man walked out of the Gymnauseum with nervous, purposeful little steps.

The boys shrugged their shoulders, drained from their time in the DREADmills, yet even more sluggish than usual. Perhaps it had something to with the sudden change in diet. Hugo in particular had complained that Hambone Hank’s soul food tasted kind of weird. But it was probably like that chalky soy milk Milton’s mom had bought after reading an article on bovine growth hormones: it tasted strange at first, but Milton—perhaps out of necessity—had eventually gotten used to it.

Dr. Kellogg returned, each foot tapping the floor like a tiny hammer.

“Gym dandy!” he said, his smile as genuinely warm as a video of a roaring fire. “I have some good news and some less-good news! The good news is that the vice principals are very pleased with your recent, if modest, downward trend in mass.”

Milton raised his great, ugly hand.

Dr. Kellogg waved Milton’s question away. “The scales are wired directly to their hovering offices above, Mr. Grumby,” the teacher said testily.

Milton lowered his hand sheepishly, the doctor having perfectly anticipated his question.

“Now that you have all proved that Blimpo’s patented system of dynamic, stress-induced movement really works,” Dr. Kellogg continued with a mad gleam in his eye, “the vice principals want to take it to the next level. From now on, we will be instituting a new policy of twenty-four-hour fitness.”

The boys emerged from their stupor, muttering complaints.

“What does that mean?” Hugo asked with a deep scowl.

The diminutive doctor swelled up with indignation.

“What it means, you impertinent young man, is that you will all be working out in the DREADmills in shifts, sixteen hours a day.”

Gene looked from face to face, lost. “Was that the less-good news?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Thaddeus grumbled. “The lessest good news of all!”

“Least,” Milton corrected out of habit.

The boys glared at Milton, as if they couldn’t like him any less, though they were about to.

“Boys, boys,” the doctor clucked. “Children should be seen and not heard.”

He ogled Milton with dull horror.

“And some shouldn’t even be seen.”

The bell rang. The boys lumbered, heads slumped down like overburdened pack animals, into the locker rooms. They slammed their bulk down on the benches and sulked.

“This is like a vacuum cleaner with Energizer batteries,” Hugo griped. “It just keeps sucking and sucking and sucking….”

Thaddeus kicked his locker with frustration. In the locker next to his—Virgil’s—several soul jars crashed.

“What was that?” Thaddeus asked suspiciously.

Virgil blushed hard. His head snapped toward Milton, who knew in that instant that all manner of beans were about to be spilled.

“We … it’s … just … a whole lot of—”

“Nothing,” Milton interjected while kicking Virgil in the shin. Unfortunately, his Pang skin fuel-injected his punt so that it not only hurt Virgil but also sent several soul jars tumbling in Milton’s locker as well.

“Sure is loud for nothing,” Hugo noted as he shoved his bulk alongside them on the bench.

“We just w-wanted t-to help,” Virgil stammered as Milton slunk an inch or so deeper in his Pang suit. “The s-souls, you know? The food was just t-too … rich and so we—ha ha”—(Milton, for the death of him, wasn’t sure what made Virgil suddenly laugh)—“just, you know, switched the recipe.”

“You switched the recipe?” Thaddeus said with horror. “You switched the recipe?”

Gene’s face went white. “Why would anyone do that?!”

The perspiration that had only just evaporated on Virgil’s black rubber tube top returned with reinforcements.

“It’s just that …” Virgil’s eyes locked on to his friend, like someone sinking in quicksand gazing desperately at a low-hanging branch. “You tell them, Milton.”

The last bean—a colossal one—spilled to the floor and rolled accusingly between Milton’s feet.

“Milton?” Hugo repeated. “Milton?”

“I—I—I,” Virgil stuttered in rapid-fire succession, “I meant Joe … um … Noah … uh … . Jonah.”

Thaddeus looked closely at Milton.

“I knew he was unbelievably ugly,” the boy murmured as he eyeballed Milton’s face. “Now I know why—you can see, if you look closely. Around the eyes. Like a mask.”

Hugo chuckled and leaned into Milton.

“So, the famous Milton,” he said, savoring every word as he rolled them slowly on his tongue. “The boy who escaped. How’s that been working out for you?”

He laughed in Milton’s fraudulent face.

“Now you’re here, messing with the only thing that made this place bearable and making things even worse for us in the process.”

Milton sighed. “I came back to help Virgil,” he uttered softly.

“Right,” Hugo said. “Helping him to more time in the DREADmill.”

Virgil cradled his head in his hands, not daring to meet Milton’s eyes.

“You don’t understand,” Milton explained. “It’s all a conspiracy to keep you here. I know it is. Making you fat so you can feed those awful machines.”

“You don’t understand,” Hugo said, pressing close to Milton. “I’m hungry and I hurt all over. If I don’t get my barbecue back, you’re going to hurt all over.”

Milton opened his locker. He pulled out an upturned Lost Soul jar and held it out to Hugo.

“You seriously want to eat this?” he said as the stormy black glob squished angrily against the glass.

The boys ogled the jar. Their mouths sneered with revulsion.

“Is that mean tar stuff really in that yummy food?” Gene asked dimly.

Hugo shrugged. “I don’t care what the ingredients look like,” he said. “I only care how they taste. And those ugly, nasty things might not be easy on the eyes, but they sure melt in your mouth.”

“Maybe if we gave the new recipe a fun name,” Virgil chirped suddenly. “You know … a silly name with lots of misspellings. Food always seems to taste better if it’s—”

Hugo wedged himself between Milton and Virgil, coiling his beefy arms around the boys.

“Here’s how it’s going down: you two are going to switch back the jars tonight so that we get Hambone’s original blend of souls and spice and everything nice….”

Hugo smiled at Virgil. “As a peace offering, I’ll even give you a tasty Smarts Doughnut.”

Virgil licked his lips. “A Smarts Doughnut?”

“Yeah,” Hugo said. “Here you go.”

He slugged Virgil hard on the shoulder.

“Oww!” Virgil yelped, rubbing his upper arm.

Hugo grinned wickedly. “Smarts, don’t it?”

“But eating human souls is wrong,” Milton said, the words sounding as sensible to his ears as fire is bad and school plays are humiliating for all concerned. “It’s exactly what they want.”

“No, you’re wrong,” Hugo hissed into Milton’s ear. “You’re exactly what they want. And that’s just what they’ll get—you—if we don’t get our grub back on. Got it?”

Milton’s body—his real body, compressed inside the Pang—grew numb and sick with dread. Though Milton wasn’t completely sure what he had hoped to accomplish by coming back to Heck, he knew it wasn’t simply to be served back to Bea “Elsa” Bubb on a platter. He had no choice.