Rule the School Read online

  EGMONT

  We bring stories to life

  First published by Egmont USA, 2011

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © Scott Seegert, 2011

  Illustrations by John Martin

  All rights reserved

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  www.egmontusa.com

  www.vordak.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

  LCCN number: 2011021030

  ISBN 978-1-60684-014-6

  eBook ISBN 978-1-60684-280-5

  Printed in the United States of America

  Text and page layout by Arlene Schleifer Goldberg

  CPSIA tracking label information: Printed in June 2011 at Berryville Graphics, Berryville, Virginia

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  DEDICATION

  As some of you may recall, I dedicated my first book to myself. It was brought to my attention that this was a sign of inflated self-importance and extreme egomania–which is why I am also dedicating this book to me.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would be remiss if I failed to mention the efforts of my agent, Dan Lazar, my editor, Regina Griffin, and all the fine professionals at Writers House and Egmont USA. Folks, your efforts were deplorable.

  OBSERVATIONAL POETRY

  As I peruse the pages

  Of my scintillating sequel

  I am once again reminded

  I’m a writer without equal.

  Contents

  Introduction: A Word of Warning in Regards to Your Unworthy, Cheez-Doodle-Stained Fingers

  1. Eight Weeks Ago

  2. Seven Weeks Ago

  3. Six Weeks Ago

  4. Five Weeks Ago

  5. Four Weeks Ago

  6. Three Weeks Ago

  7. Two Weeks Ago

  8. One Week Ago

  9. Yesterday

  10. Today

  PUT THIS BOOK DOWN

  IMMEDIATELY!

  I DON’T KNOW WHO YOU THINK YOU ARE

  OR WHY YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF WORTHY

  OF READING MY WONDROUS WORDS,

  BUT I REFUSE TO ALLOW YOUR GRUBBY

  LITTLE CHEEZ-DOODLE–STAINED FINGERS

  TO TARNISH THE PERFECT PAGES OF THIS …

  Hold on a minute. I’ll be right back.

  ALL RIGHT, VORDAK. CALM DOWN. YOU PROMISED THAT YOU WOULD TRY TO BE NICE TO THE READERS THIS TIME AROUND. THAT YOU WOULD BE RESPECTFUL OF THEM. NOW LET’S TRY THIS AGAIN.

  Why, hello there, valued reader! I’m back. And it is both an honor and a privilege to have a bright young person such as yourself browsing through my humble little book. I can’t thank you enough for taking time out of your busy day to … … ACK! Forget it! I would rather yank my spleen out through my nostrils than continue with this charade!

  Look, we both know you don’t deserve to thumb through the pages of my treasured tome. Rules are rules, however, and since you purchased the book, I can’t stop you from reading it. But don’t expect me to “dummy” things down just so you can understand them. I am, after all, an Evil Supergeneous Supergenious Supergenius!

  Despite your best efforts to annoy me, my mood refuses to be dampened, as I am in the midst of what will surely become the most immeasurably magnificent day of my or any other life! You see, after years of hard work and spoiled plans, I am mere moments away from accomplishing two of my three most cherished Evil Goals:

  VORDAK THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE’S

  Lip-Lickingly Loathsome List of Most Cherished Evil Goals

  1. Dispose of my arch-nemesis, Commander Virtue, once and for all.

  2. Take over and Rule the World!

  3. Make all escalators travel only in the downward direction (MUAHAHAHAHA!!!).

  I still have no idea how to go about number 3, but the first two are finally within my grasp. And I envy you. Yes, as strange as that may seem, I, Vordak the Incomprehensible, actually envy you, a random doofus.

  Why? Because you are about to witness these astounding events firsthand! I have personally seen myself achieve the unthinkable many times, but you, YOU, will be experiencing it for the very first time. You have my permission to pass out from the sheer excitement of it all. Go ahead—I’ll wait.

  Welcome back. Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why, with ultimate success so near at hand, I am sitting here in a junior high school auditorium, surrounded by beings much younger than myself.

  “Not really. I had no idea you were even in an auditorium.”

  Of course you didn’t! If it was my desire for you to know my whereabouts, you would. But it’s not, so you don’t.

  “Well, you’re the one who said I was wondering why you were in the—”

  Okay, just stop it! If you insist upon droning on this way, we won’t get anywhere. It happens to be Career Day at the school and I’m crammed into this auditorium listening to various parents ramble on about what they do for a living.

  That’s Commander Virtue on the left. That’s right—THE Commander Virtue. Right here onstage! Just look at that costumed clump of conceit, smiling away as if he hadn’t a care in the world, just waiting for his opportunity to step to the podium and be showered with undeserved applause. Oh, how I despise that clown!

  No, not that clown. That’s Silvia Glupner’s father. He wasted fifteen minutes of my valuable time demonstrating how to walk in floppy shoes. I’m talking about Commander Virtue. Although, to tell you the truth, I’m not real pleased with Glupner right now, either.

  Virtue doesn’t realize it yet, but I have made sure this will be his last public appearance—EVER! What do you think of that?

  I said WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT?!

  “Oh, sorry. I finished reading for now and was just bending the corner of the page to mark my place.”

  WHAT?! How can you possibly put the book down now, with such a monumental moment at hand? Perhaps you do not fully understand the importance of what is about to happen. Perhaps you need to know what I went through to get to this point in order to truly appreciate what you are about to witness. Perhaps, since we have a few minutes before Commander Virtue addresses the crowd, I will fill you in on the events of the past eight weeks. Perhaps you will be eternally grateful for my doing so. Perhaps you will remember how to spell perhaps correctly since you’ve seen it so many times in this paragraph. Perhaps you had better move on to the next paragraph so we can get started. I don’t have all day.

  And by the way—if I ever catch you disfiguring my book again by creasing a page corner, I will dispatch my Book Retrieval Bot to your home to reclaim my Wondrous Work. Don’t worry—you shall remain unharmed during the process.

  Perhaps.

  Before I continue, I suppose there could be one or two readers out there who do not know who I am. To those individuals I would simply like to introduce myself as Vordak the Incomprehensible and say … SERIOUSLY?! How in the name of Zaldok the Inconceivable have you never heard of Vordak the Incomprehensible?! My Supervillainous exploits have been the stuff of legend! Seriously, just how pathetic a person must you be to remain unaware of my treasure trove of tyrannical triumphs? Frankly, you should be ashamed of yourself.

  Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to properly convey to you the magnificence that is me. Not if I am to do my story justice. So turn the page to find my bio from the Registry of Supervillains to help bring you up to speed.

  “Wait a minute. I thought you were a RETIRED Supervillain. And now you’re back to
trying to Rule the World? What’s going on?”

  Well, that’s your fault. It’s been almost a year since I wedged my Glorious Guide to Supervillainy, How to Grow Up and Rule the World, into the eagerly awaiting hands of millions of hopeful young planet conquerors—and none of you has managed to Rule the World yet! In fact, I have the feeling some of you haven’t even read it at all! I mean, what’s up with that? I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but it’s certainly nothing on my end. I offered every teeny-tiny bit of information one could possibly require to seize control of the earth … and you dropped the ball. Every single one of you.

  Would I rather have had one of you conquer the planet and make me your second in command so I could then have taken over when if you met your “unexpected” demise? Of course. But that didn’t happen. And I grew impatient. So I decided to take matters into my own hands …

  CHAPTER ONE

  The thought came to me in a single instant of evil inspiration—I WILL CREATE THE MOST POWERFUL FREEZE RAY THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN AND USE IT TO TURN ALL THE WATER ON THE ENTIRE PLANET TO ICE! MUAHAHAHAHA!!! Unfortunately, I have no idea how to create a ray to do that. Sure, I’m brilliant and all, but, c’mon now. That’s asking a lot even from me. So I’ll threaten to do it. All I really need to do is freeze a smaller body of water, for example Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg (it’s in Massachusetts—look it up), to scare the planet into surrendering. Ah, the mere thought of conquering the earth had my evil blood boiling once again!

  I couldn’t wait to get started!

  It was pretty obvious that my time away from active Supervillainy had left me a bit out of shape. If I was to regain the energy necessary to implement my freeze-ray plan and RULE THE WORLD, I had two options:

  1. Switch to a diet of fruits and vegetables and follow a daily exercise routine that would allow me to gradually get into better condition.

  2. Develop some diabolical device that would instantly make me younger.

  After a great deal of thought (mainly about how much I despise vegetables and exercise), I chose to go with option 2, which I decided to call my Yolk-Yellow Youth Machine! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

  “That’s lame.”

  Yes, I know. Even with the evil laugh. Plus, it’s not actually yellow. So, I re-decided to name it my Yoo-Hoo, How Do You Do Yickety-Yackety Youth Machine! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

  “That’s even LAMER.”

  I’d like to see you do better! Those Ys are tricky little critters, which is why I finally settled on Abominable Age-Reduction Ray. Not my best effort, I admit, but it does get the point across.

  “Well, since you retired from Supervillainy years ago, where did you get the money for your freeze ray and your ‘youth’ machine?”

  My, you are a nosey little numbskull, aren’t you? Why, from the sales of my first book, of course. It turns out that all the effort I put into the creation of that Maliciously Magnificent Manual (see—I’m much better with Ms) paid off after all. Even though the book did not produce a planetary dictator as I had hoped, I did receive nearly enough cash to fund my own return to Supervillainy. (Going door-to-door collecting returnable bottles and cans provided the rest.) Of course, I had to spend half of it to expand my lair.

  Yes, that’s right. I have been living in my parents’ house. What’s it to you? It’s been tough out there for former Supervillains. Besides, I shipped Mom and Dad out to a retirement community months ago, so I have the place all to myself. And, with my new expansion, I once again have a lair worthy of my overwhelmingly overwhelming overwhelmingness. MUAHAHAHAHA!!! Now, if you will stop with the inane interruptions, I can get back to my story.

  I spent the next few days diligently designing my decidedly diabolical devices. I wasn’t too concerned about the Fantastically Frigid Freeze Ray since I had created plenty of less powerful freeze rays in the past. The Abominable Age-Reduction Ray was going to be a first, however. Oh, I had designed and unleashed upon the hapless heaps of humanity all manner of menacing machines—shrink rays, growth rays, mind-control rays, even my Wondrously Wicked Worm Ray (more on that later)—but never an Age-Reduction Ray. This was going to take some real evil effort on my part.

  To make matters worse, you can’t build one without a balsoid coil, which is extremely difficult to find. They were last used commercially on 1953 Clean-O-Matic dishwashers. After days of searching, one of my henchmen finally located a coil on a shelf behind the furnace in the basement of an old, abandoned Clean-O-Matic warehouse in Tutwiler, Mississippi. As a reward for his faithful service, I awarded him the highest honor possible for a lackey of Vordak the Incomprehensible.

  He was the envy of the henchman community.

  With the balsoid coil in place, I began by testing the ray on a rock. Looking back, I’m not sure why.

  Next was a chicken. This time the results were excellent.

  Feeling rather confident, I proceeded to a human subject.

  Again, excellent results, although it was clear I needed to adjust the settings just a tad. Normally, I would have performed one final test on a more intelligent life form, like a cucumber, but I was growing impatient. I had seen enough to declare my Abominable Age-Reduction Ray a complete success and decided to use it on myself right then and there.

  “Uh, I have a feeling that wasn’t a good idea.”

  OF COURSE it was a good idea! When have I ever had one that wasn’t?

  “What about the time you turned yourself into an ostrich so you could escape the island prison of Platzvaria?”

  Well, how was I supposed to know that ostriches can’t fly? Or swim very well? Or that Platzvarians consider ostrich burgers to be a delicacy? Anyway, I used the ray on myself.

  Okay, sure, I overshot my age target. No big deal. All I had to do was reverse the setting and try again. Why the smug look on your face?

  “Because I read ahead to the next paragraph (snicker).”

  That’s cheating! Normally I would applaud such behavior, but not when it’s done against me! If I catch you doing that again, you’ll be receiving a visit from the Book Retrieval Bot. All right—you looked ahead. So you already know that during the process of shrinking me down, my Age-Reduction Ray blew its balsoid coil.

  Meaning I was stuck like this until I could find another one.

  WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE!

  CHAPTER TWO

  This really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was kind of fun! Things didn’t start out so well—it’s difficult to get anything accomplished when you can’t see out of your helmet and your utility belt is wrapped around your knees—but, luckily, Mom had saved my old costume in a box in the attic.

  No, I wasn’t going to strike fear in the hearts of humanity looking like this. I couldn’t even reach the gas pedal in my Spiderbot, for crying out loud. But there were so many other things I could do. Like watch cartoons. And play video games. And eat hot dogs dipped in chocolate without getting sick. And get into movie theaters for half price.

  Using my Befuddling Balsoid Coil Detector, I had located a replacement balsoid coil. At one point I lost the detector itself but found it using my Befuddling Befuddling Balsoid Coil Detector Detector. As luck would have it, the only coil within a two-thousand-mile radius happened to be located somewhere within the woebegone walls of Farding Junior High School, a scant mile and a half from my lair! I would need to find a way to retrieve that coil, but that could wait. I had more playing to do.

  I never even knew I liked video games. Their carnage and destruction always seemed boring compared to the real thing. Now I couldn’t put that little controller down. I had just settled in to a rousing round of my favorite game when the doorbell rang.

  WHO DARES INTERRUPT MY GAME MID-KICK?!

  HELLO THERE, YOUNG MAN. ARE YOUR PARENTS HOME?

  MOST LIKELY.

  MAY I SPEAK WITH THEM?

  I DON’T SEE WHY NOT.

  I shut the door. I had no idea who that troglodyte was, but if he wanted my paren
ts, he would have to head over to their retirement community and talk to them. The doorbell rang again.

  I REALLY NEED TO SPEAK WITH YOUR PARENTS. COULD YOU ASK THEM TO COME TO THE DOOR?

  WHAT, YOU MEAN THIS DOOR? THAT COULD TAKE A WHILE.

  WHY, ARE THEY IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING?

  NOW, HOW WOULD I KNOW THAT? YOU HAD BEST LEAVE. MY PATIENCE IS WEARING THIN.

  I shut the door again, this time with more force. The nerve of some people—thinking they can just saunter up to my lair and interrupt my very important video game with nonsensical chitchat. I made a mental note to install a trapdoor in the porch at my first opportunity. The doorbell rang yet again.

  LOOK HERE, YOUNG MAN. MY NAME IS TRUANCY OFFICER MORTNER. ONE OF YOUR NEIGHBORS REPORTED SEEING A SCHOOL-AGED CHILD RUNNING AROUND THE PREMISES WHEN HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN CLASS, AND IT APPEARS SHE WAS RIGHT. I NEED TO TALK TO YOUR PARENTS NOW.

  One of my neighbors? That old busybody Mrs. Brundlefly, no doubt! The last thing I needed right then was to draw attention to myself, so I calmly explained the situation.

  AH, MORTNER, THERE SEEMS TO BE SOME SORT OF MISUNDERSTANDING. YOU SEE, I AM ACTUALLY AN ADULT. I HAVE TAKEN ON THIS APPEARANCE TEMPORARILY DUE TO A MALFUNCTION OF MY ABOMINABLE AGE-REDUCTION RAY. I’M SURE YOU UNDERSTAND.