But there was one thing he thoroughly enjoyed about being locked up in the loony bin: arts and crafts class. Twice a week the patients were herded into the art room and encouraged to explore their feelings using clay, paint, papier-mâché, and ribbons. On this day, Screwball was working with glue, dried corn, peas, and other vegetables. It was then that he discovered a new passion. If the whole “taking over the world” thing didn’t pan out, he might have a lucrative career as a street artist.
“OK, everyone,” Dr. Sontag said. “I’m happy to see so many of you working on your projects with so much focus. It’s time to share what you have created. Why don’t we start with Bob?”
Heathcliff sneered. Bob was a serial kidnapper. He also had no eye for color or line. When the stumbling fool raised his canvas, it took all of Screwball’s self-control not to rip it into shreds and laugh in the stupid man’s face. A rowboat on a little river? That’s what Bob called art?
“A lovely day on the water,” Dr. Sontag said. “Why don’t you tell us how this makes you feel?”
“My dad used to take me to this river when I was little—before I started to hear the voices,” Bob blubbered.
Screwball rolled his eyes.
“It looks like it meant a lot to you, Bob. Let’s move on to Chucky,” the doctor said. “Let’s see your masterpiece.”
Chucky Swiller was a slack-jawed idiot with a face like an orangutan. He also had the artistic talent of one. Paint was everywhere—and mostly on his dopey freckled face.
“I made a house,” Chucky said.
“And it’s on fire,” Dr. Sontag said with a little worried frown on her face. Chucky was in the hospital because he liked to play with matches and gasoline.
“Oh, is that what you made?” Screwball said. “’Cause what it looks like is you drank your paints then barfed them all over the canvas!”
Dr. Sontag frowned. “Heathcliff! This is not a place of judgment. However Chucky chooses to create his art is valid. Apologize to him!”
Screwball sighed. “Chucky, I’m sorry. Sorry that you are clearly colorblind and don’t know the first thing about perspective or three-dimensional drafting. I’m sorry your work is bad, but mostly I feel sorry for me, as I’m the only one who cares enough about you to tell you that you are terrible and should stop painting. You should go back to being a pyromaniac and stop victimizing the world with your art.”
Dr. Sontag’s face puckered with impatience. She took a deep breath and appeared to be mouthing numbers to calm herself. When she finished, she turned to Screwball.
“OK, Heathcliff. Show us what you have made.”
“Dr. Sontag, I have asked you to call me Screwball.”
Sontag sighed with exhaustion. “Screwball, show us what you created.”
Screwball held his work out proudly. It was a triptych—a three-paneled painting—featuring images of great destruction made from dried vegetables. The panel on the left showed little snow-pea people running and screaming as a giant turnip robot stomped down the street after them. The panel on the right featured a sea of green-bean prisoners marching across a field of flames with armed guards eyeing their every step. In the center panel there was a baby carrot and pearl onion depiction of Heathcliff himself, sitting upon a gigantic throne that was crushing planet Earth.
Dr. Sontag sighed again. “Everyone, how does this make you feel?”
Dr. Trouble slowly raised his hand and Dr. Sontag called on him. “Yes, Dr. Trouble? Does Heathcliff … I mean, Screwball’s work make you feel anything?”
“Sad … scared.”
“It made me wet my pants,” Chucky said.
Screwball smiled proudly. “See, Chucky, good art creates emotional responses in the audience. I wanted you to wet yourself and you did! And now I’d like to tell you how it makes me feel. This work is important because it is more than a piece made from dried produce; it’s a glimpse of your unavoidable future. You’ll notice I used lentils to indicate despair on the faces of my victims. And my self-portrait looks good enough to eat. Bow before my artistic genius!”
“Everyone, I think we can call it a day,” Dr. Sontag said. “I need to talk to my boss about being reassigned, anyway.”
The doors to the room opened and several huge guards entered. Screwball ignored them and carefully set aside his masterpiece. Peas and carrots were very delicate and he wanted to preserve the triptych. Someday, when he was running things, the masses would want to see his early work as an artist.
“Pssss,” he heard. Screwball turned to one of the guards and snarled. Then he realized the man was not another one of the muscle-bound fools that tormented him daily but, instead, his very own goon!
“Old friend! How did you get in here?” he whispered back.
“I knocked out the guard and took his uniform. He’s sleeping in the Dumpster, safe and sound. I wanted to give you an update. Mathlete has built her machine. She’s opening rifts everywhere she goes.”
“Are there side effects?” Heathcliff said.
The goon nodded. “The government is trying to keep it quiet, but an alligator as big as a dump truck was captured in Topeka, Kansas. Plus they’re missing a few cement mixers in Minneapolis and an entire library disappeared in St. Louis.”
“That’s excellent news,” Screwball said.
“Even better news,” the goon said. “I can get you out of here.”
“No need, my friend,” Screwball said.
The goon was visibly surprised. “Have they finally made you lose your mind? Why do you want to stay?”
“Because it will be so much more satisfying when my bitterest enemies come and release me! They will have no choice but to unlock the doors and let me out.”
“Your enemies?”
Screwball nodded, then practiced his evil laugh. “Yes, NERDS will be pounding on the door of this hospital to free me before you know it.”
Matilda hefted her duffel bag and climbed aboard the bus to cheerleading camp. Inside, she faced a gang of dazzlingly pretty girls with the most sour, pouty looks she had ever seen. They eyed her up and down the way someone might look at a public toilet.
“Hold it right there,” one girl said. She was blonde and blue-eyed and would have been pretty if not for her expression of disgust. “Don’t think that just ’cause you’re on Team Strikeforce that you are on Team Strikeforce. You’re not actually one of us until I say you are, and right now I’m saying you’re not.”
“Yeah,” the others chimed.
Matilda laughed. She knew these girls, or at least their type. They were bullies. Nathan Hale Elementary was full of them. Luckily, after putting up with their torment for years, she knew exactly how to handle bullies.
“What’s your name?”
“Tiffany,” the blonde girl said, scowling.
“So, you’re in charge, huh? I can tell by the way these brainless morons worship you.”
The other girls bristled.
“That’s not true at all!” a pretty redhead snapped as she texted furiously on her phone. “I’m so posting how rude you are!”