FOR MY PARENTS, JOAN AND BOB JACK
There can be no dominion without a minion.
—DR. CRITCHLORE, SPEAKING AT THE EVIL OVERLORDS OF TOMORROW CONFERENCE
Terror arrived that afternoon dressed as a Girl Explorer pulling a wagon filled with cookie boxes. I watched her stride up the long, cypress tree–lined drive as if it were a suburban road and not the grounds of a highly secured minion school. Well, it was supposed to be highly secured. We'd just suffered multiple acts of sabotage and hadn't completely recovered.
She wore a beret over her pigtails, and her vest was covered with colorful badges. When the sunlight snuck through the trees to spotlight her face, I could see the freckles on her nose.
"I hope she has Monster Clump Sugar Bombs," my friend Frankie said. He stood next to me with his creator, Dr. Frankenhammer, and Dr. Frankenhammer's new dragon. They'd been about to take off on a father-son dragon ride, now that Dr. Critchlore's post-assembly reception was winding down.
"That issss no Girl Explorer," Dr. Frankenhammer said, and the look on his face made my heart rate jump to "it's time to flee" speed. Dr. Frankenhammer, with his sunken dark eyes and his wild white hair, was probably the scariest teacher in the school. If a little Girl Explorer made him nervous, that meant something was very wrong.
"How do you know?" I asked. What had his highly trained scientific eye noticed?
"Nobody that young could have earned so many badgesss. I was sssixteen before I earned my Excellence in Explosivesss badge."
"You were a Girl Explorer?"
He didn't answer. He stroked his dragon, who had started fidgeting and seemed anxious to get away from the little girl. Frankie reached for his neck and started twisting one of the bolts there, his nervous habit.
As the girl approached, I noticed that the shadow she cast wasn't right. It looked like the shadow of a wolf or some other beast. The cypress trees, normally filled with chirping birds, became eerily quiet as she walked past. I reached for my medallion, resting on the outside of my shirt.
As soon as I touched my necklace, her appearance changed dramatically. The pigtails morphed into horns that curved down around her face. Gray fur covered her body, and her bottom jaw stretched forward, revealing a row of sharp teeth. Claws as big as a velociraptor's scraped the ground at the end of unnaturally long arms. Her hind legs were huge, like a kangaroo's.
"She's a beast," I gasped. "And those aren't cookies." Her wagon was filled with a squirming mass of worms, each the size of a swimming-pool noodle. "They're … they're … they're spewing!" They coughed up little blobs of phlegm that landed on the ground and smoked.
Dr. Frankenhammer reached into his lab coat and pulled out a pair of glasses with blue lenses. "Those wormsss are the Minion Saboteurs I sent to the Pravusss Academy last week," he said. "Someone hasss put a glamour on them. But how can you see through it?"
"I don't know," I said. "It just happened."
"Dr. Pravus is playing gamesss," Dr. Frankenhammer said. "Returning my failed Minion Saboteurs with one of the Girl Explorers he used to embarrass usss."
"Pravus," I said. Of course this monster was one of Dr. Pravus's minions. He and Miss Merrybench had been behind all the catastrophes that had plagued our school recently. Dr. Frankenhammer had sent the Minion Saboteurs as revenge, but apparently they'd been found out.
"Frankie, I need the MonsssterTrapper," Dr. Frankenhammer said. "Then go alert Dr. Critchlore." Frankie sped off in a blur, ten times faster than a normal human. Dr. Frankenhammer squeezed his dragon's flank, and a ball of fire shot straight at the Girl Explorer. I winced, expecting her to be severely singed, but she opened her mouth and swallowed the fireball.
"Interesssting," Dr. Frankenhammer said. "Higginssss, get everyone to safety."
I would have obeyed immediately, but the monster lunged forward like a missile. I let go of my medallion, and the beast immediately looked like a little girl again. I froze; it was just so bizarre watching a little girl bound forward with leaps that spanned ten meters. Before I could move, she had me pinned to the ground.
Dr. Frankenhammer's dragon took to the sky, nearly ripping off his master's arm in the process. The good doctor looked down at me and then slowly backed away.
I couldn't move. The girl leaned over me, her face inches from my own. Her girl face. I closed my eyes, waiting for the worst while trying not to imagine it. But trying not to imagine the worst just made me imagine it. She was going to eat my face.
"Hey, look! Higgins has a girlfriend." Rufus Spaniel's voice drifted over from the grassy area where everybody was enjoying an outdoor buffet after the assembly. Rufus was the alpha werewolf of my grade, and when he talked, people listened. Or, more accurately, when he taunted, people laughed. The laughter didn't bother me; I was relieved that they'd noticed me.
I could barely breathe. This tiny girl was as heavy as a full-grown troll. Where had Dr. Frankenhammer gone? He was supposed to help me. Wasn't that a Girl Explorer motto? "Never leave a girl behind"?
"C'mon, Higgs," a raspy voice said. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a pack of imps coming closer, Spanky in front. "Throw her off, ya scrawny wimp."
"Can't. She's too strong."
"She's a child!" Rufus said. "Hey, everybody! Look at Higgins, pinned by a little girl."
Judging by the laughter that filled the air, everyone was watching me now. The girl didn't care. A line of saliva leaked from her mouth and burned my cheek. I twisted my head from side to side, trying to fling it off.
"Help me!" I screamed.
More laughter.
But then the laughter turned to gasps. I opened my eyes and saw the monster, not the girl. She squinted and turned her head to the side, as if someone was shining a bright light in her face. A safe distance behind me, Dr. Frankenhammer held something that looked like a flashlight behind his blue glasses. The beast growled, and I heard the rumble of footsteps as my classmates deserted me.
The monster moved off me and roared at my fleeing classmates, keeping a hand (paw?) on my chest. I tried to push the arm off, but it was like trying to move a tree trunk.
A high-pitched scream tore through the air, much higher than the monster's roar. It was the kind made by girls, or my friend Darthin. A blur of movement swooshed toward my attacker.
Syke!
I'd never seen her look so determined. She crashed into the monster like it was the finals of tackle three-ball and the beast was about to score. But Syke's most powerful tackle didn't budge my attacker. She bounced off the monster, looking dazed.
Claws ripped through my shirt, catching on my medallion. The monster's hand looked so powerful, and those claws could shred my chest with nothing more than a twitch.
"Please," I whispered.
She looked down at me, then back at the wall of my minion friends, now watching from the castle steps. She did a double take back to me, staring at my chest. Her mouth approached my head. I closed my eyes, my heart pounding with panic. She sniffed my hair.
In a flash, she released me.
"You are fameely," she said, her deep voice sounding throaty and hoarse. "Forgeeve me."
I sat up, shaking my head. Did she just call me family?
