Rule the School Read online

HE SAYS IT’S BECAUSE HE LOVES ME.

  ALL RIGHT, THAT’S IT! GRAB BUCKETS AND MOPS, BOTH OF YOU! YOU ARE GOING TO STAY AFTER LUNCH AND SCRUB THIS FLOOR UNTIL IT’S CLEAN ENOUGH TO EAT OFF!

  SO, CLEANER THAN THE PLATES?

  GET MOPPING!

  I made a mental note that when I Ruled the World, I would assign Lipwartz to shark-tooth-flossing duty. So, here it was—one of the lowest and highest (and lowest again) points in my recent memory. Lowest, because I, Vordak the Incomprehensible, had been reduced to mopping up crusty nacho liqui-cheese from behind a junior high school cafeteria serving counter … alongside a kid with a fish on his head. Highest, because I happened to glance back into the kitchen and beheld …

  THE BALSOID COIL! It was right there attached to the back of a Clean-O-Matic dishwasher, just inside the entrance to the kitchen. I could almost taste it, although that might just have been tuna juice left on my fingers from earlier. Lowest again, because the doorway was blocked by an iron gate that was kept locked except during lunch period— and Lunch Lady Lipwartz had the only key.

  The excitement over my recent discovery kept me up late Friday night. But there would be no sleeping late this weekend. I had an election to plan. I had a balsoid coil to swipe. And, by a magnificent stroke of luck, the science fair was a week from this coming Thursday. I was just going to enter a death ray or a propulsion boot or something else I had lying around, but with my recent discovery of the balsoid coil, I have come up with a diabolical plan to both win first prize and retrieve the elusive coil from the clutches of Lipwartz.

  VORDAK THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE’S

  Diabolical EVIL PLAN 1794

  Seriously Sinister Science-Fair Scheme

  Step 1. Create a Magnificent Matter Transporter and enter it in the fair.

  Step 2. After winning first place, alter one of the pods to look like a refrigerator.

  Step 3. When taking down science-fair project, leave the altered pod near the door to the kitchen. Mistaking it for a real refrigerator, Lunch Lady Lipwartz will have it moved into the kitchen, next to the dishwasher.

  Step 4. Transport myself from the other pod, which is now back in my lair, to the pod in the kitchen.

  Step 5. Disconnect the balsoid coil from the dishwasher and bring it with me when I transport myself back to my lair.

  Step 6. Send Lipwartz the following letter:

  Step 7. Unleash Evil Laugh— MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

  All those wearisome water-cycle diagrams and unbearable baking-soda volcanoes would pale before the science-fair superiority of my triumphant transporter! Ah, devising this particularly pleasing Evil Plan put me in such a good mood that I decided to give my henchmen a treat and took them on a picnic.

  If I was to defeat Lurchburger and win the class presidency, I had to begin in earnest. So many Evil Plans, so little time! I was going to need some help, so I invited my four closest and most trusted classmates over on Sunday to discuss positions on my election campaign staff.

  I MUST TELL YOU, MYRON H., THAT I PREFER TO CALL PEOPLE BY THEIR LAST NAMES. THIS ALLOWS ME TO AVOID DEVELOPING ANY PERSONAL CONNECTIONS WITH IGNORAMUSES THAT I AM VASTLY SUPERIOR TO. WHAT DOES THE H STAND FOR?

  NOTHING.

  WELL, IT CAN’T STAND FOR NOTHING. YOUR LAST NAME CERTAINLY ISN’T H.

  ACTUALLY, IT’S PRONOUNCED “H-PERIOD.”

  DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOUR NAME IS MYRON H-PERIOD? WHY, THAT’S PREPOSTEROUS!

  IT USED TO BE HREBOWNIFLAPISTANEWICZ, BUT MY MOM COULDN’T FIT IT ON MY UNDERWEAR WAISTBANDS.

  YOUR MOM LEGALLY CHANGED YOUR NAME BECAUSE IT WAS TOO LONG FOR YOUR UNDERWEAR?

  I HAVE A SANDWICH BAG FILLED WITH CARROT STICKS IN MY BACKPACK.

  WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH IT?

  NOTHING. I JUST WANTED TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT.

  H-Period had already proven to excel at nametag creation, and his position as president of the Color Copier Club would be a big help with poster production. I made him my Minion in Charge of Promotion.

  Fara Farkesh, as it turns out, is the smartest student in the entire school. Aside from me. She doesn’t get the best grades, but that’s mostly because her dental apparatus tends to ruin her schoolwork.

  ITSH SHO NISHE TO SHEE YOU AGAIN, VORDAK! I’M SHUPER SHTOKED TO ASHISHT YOU. I CAN SHINK OF SHIX OR SHEVEN SHINGSH TO—

  ALL RIGHT, JUST STOP, ALREADY!

  SHTOP?

  YESH! I MEAN YES! I HAVE NEED OF YOUR TALENTS, BUT YOUR SPITTLE-SPEWING SPEECH IS BEGINNING TO RUST MY HELMET. FROM NOW ON, YOU MUST AVOID USING THE LETTER S WHEN SPEAKING TO ME.

  LET ME SHINK THAT SHROUGH. I’M OK WISH IT IF YOU SHINK IT WILL HELP.

  ACK! NO TH’S, EITHER!

  VERY WELL. I’LL TRY. WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP? I’M A REALLY GOOD WRITER AND I LOVE TO READ AND I CAN DRAW A LITTLE BIT AND I BAKE A MEAN OATMEAL COOKIE AND I PLAY WONDERFUL TROMBONE AND I’M A DEBATE CLUB MEMBER AND I PLAY VOLLEYBALL AND I—

  STOP! I THOUGHT YOU COULD HELP WRITE MY SPEECH.

  OKAY. YEAH. UH-HUH. I’D BE DELIGHTED TO. IT WOULD BE AN HONOR. CAN’T WAIT TO GET GOING. I’LL GET RIGHT ON IT. I WANT TO—

  GREAT GASSY GOBLINS …

  It appeared as though I had stemmed the flow of Farkesh’s saliva, if not her words. That left the Sminion brothers, Big Vince and Little Vince. I didn’t get the feeling the Vinces’ parents were the sharpest needles in the laboratory, if you catch my drift.

  BIG VINCE, I AM ALLOWING YOU AND YOUR BROTHER THE GREAT PRIVILEGE TO SERVE AS MY SECURITY WHEN I’M AT SCHOOL.

  I’M LITTLE VINCE.

  BUT YOU’RE BIGGER THAN YOUR BROTHER.

  OLDER, TOO.

  ACK! THEN WHY IS BIG VINCE YOUR BROTHER?

  BECAUSE WE HAVE THE SAME PARENTS. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW THAT WORKS?

  OF COURSE I KNOW HOW IT WORKS! WHY DID YOUR PARENTS NAME YOU BOTH VINCE?!

  IT WAS THEIR FAVORITE NAME. CAN WE GO NOW? I HAVE TO GET HOME AND FEED VINCE.

  HE CAN’T FEED HIMSELF?

  OF COURSE NOT. HE’S A TURTLE.

  BIG VINCE IS A … TURTLE?

  AND I THOUGHT I WASN’T VERY BRIGHT. BIG VINCE IS A PERSON, VODRAK. VINCE IS A TURTLE.

  IT’S VORDAK! AND WHY BY THE FROZEN MOONS OF HARVAT DID YOU NAME YOUR TURTLE VINCE?

  BECAUSE IF WE DIDN’T, WE WOULDN’T KNOW WHAT TO CALL HIM.

  WELL, WHAT ABOUT FRED?

  WHO’S FRED?

  YOUR TURTLE!

  I THINK YOU’RE CONFUSED, VODRAK. MY TURTLE IS VINCE.

  IT’S VORDAK!!

  NO, I’M POSITIVE IT’S VINCE. YOU’RE VORDAK.

  I sent them all home and took out my frustration with a little exercise.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I put together a three-pronged attack campaign strategy for winning the Farding Junior High presidential election, which I decided to call:

  VORDAK THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE’S

  Three-Pronged Attack Campaign Strategy

  for Winning the Farding Junior High

  Presidential Election

  Prong 1. Make Marlena Lurchburger look bad.

  Prong 2. Make Vordak the Incomprehensible look good.

  Prong 3. Cheat.

  I usually prefer six or seven prongs in my strategies, but this would have to do. Besides, I still had prong three, which is a staple of any Vordak the Incomprehensible strategy. Zounds, I love saying “prong”!

  With the election less than three weeks away, I would have to kick my scheming into high gear. But I would have to do it with the stench of failure hanging over my handsome head because, in what was surely one of the rarest events in the history of mankind, I, Vordak the Incomprehensible, was forced to admit defeat. I have commanded vast armies of minions. I have created giant, orbiting space lairs. I have caused world leaders to openly sob while listening to my unthinkable ultimatums! But I could not find a good way to get to and from school—even though, as is always the case, it was through absolutely no fault of my own.

  I had been riding the Roscoenator, which had been w
orking out pretty well. However, as I approached the bicycle rack after school that Monday, I discovered that some pint-size plunderer had tried to steal it! Luckily, the scooter’s security system foiled the attempted theft.

  But who knows if I would be as fortunate the next time? The mere thought of the ravishing Roscoenator in the hands of some scooter-snatching scoundrel made me sick to my stomach … although that could just have been the thirteen chocolate Pop-Tarts I had for breakfast—or the chocolate milk shake I washed them down with.

  So Tuesday I decided to walk to school. And I calculated that I could knock fifteen minutes off my travel time by cutting through Mrs. Brundlefly’s yard. There’s a short fence separating our properties, but I was able to negotiate that with little problem.

  Of course, the next morning I stepped into my backyard to find this:

  Sure, I may have trampled her roses and knocked over her garbage cans, but it’s not like I did those things on purpose. Well, all right, the garbage cans were on purpose. I’ve just never been able to walk past one of those reeking rubbish receptacles without tipping it over and spewing its contents all over the place. That’s just how I roll. And it’s possible the rose trampling might also have been somewhat intentional. I mean, they were sitting right there in front of me, for Kromnar’s sake—I hardly even had to veer.

  No matter. I solved this new problem, as well.

  I arrived at school ready to launch the first prong of my election campaign: make Marlena Lurchburger look bad in the eyes of the voters. The easiest way to do that would be to blast her with a few rounds of my handheld ugly ray, but I wasn’t able to get it past the school’s security checkpoint.

  So, what other options did I have to make her popularity take a nosedive? One of my old favorites— lying! Making up stories that leave the victim looking like an ignoramus of the highest degree. Like when I placed an ad in the Chronicle that claimed Commander Virtue stuck rolled-up gym socks in his costume sleeves to make his muscles appear larger. Well, that actually turned out to be true, but I didn’t know it at the time. The important thing was that my comment made him look like a legendary lamebrain, at least for a little while.

  I decided to let my campaign minions handle the lies. It was best if none of this could be traced directly back to me—at least until after the election. The problem was they’re terrible liars, especially Myron H., and I didn’t have time to follow them around all day long telling them what ridiculous rumors to spread. I needed to create some sort of mind-bogglingly bold bald-faced-lie generator that they could carry around with them. So I did.

  VORDAK THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE’S

  Mind-Bogglingly Bold Bald-Faced-Lie Generator

  Instructions: 1. Choose the name of the imbecile you wish to lie about.

  2. Select a three-digit number.

  3. Fill in the blanks using the columns below.

  Did you hear about _______(name)__________________ ?

  He/She _________(1)________________ a(n) _______(2)____________ for _________(3)________________ !

  Example: Marlena Lurchburger, 251

  “Did you hear about Marlena Lurchburger? She licked a janitor’s mop for a dollar!”

  Digit (1) Digit (2) Digit (3)

  0 spit on 0 science-lab frog 0 a good twenty minutes

  1 sniffed 1 scab 1 a dollar

  2 licked 2 armpit stain 2 kicks

  3 sat on 3 lunchroom hot dog 3 no good reason

  4 stared at 4 exchange student 4 looking at him/her funny

  5 kissed 5 janitor’s mop 5 Leif Eriksson Day

  6 screamed at 6 wet gym shoe 6 the third time this week

  7 sang to 7 volleyball 7 a chance to win a toaster

  8 snuggled 8 pimple 8 making him/her angry

  9 slapped 9 naked mole rat 9 good luck

  And there you go! Sometimes I even amaze myself. Like right now. And now. And again … … now! I can only imagine how often I must amaze you. Feel free to use the Lie Generator yourself—it’s included with the price of the book.

  “Did you hear about Vordak the Incomprehensible? He—”

  GIVE ME THAT!!!

  After a brief tutoring session, I unleashed Farkesh and the Sminions to spread their fiendish falsehoods throughout the school. Meanwhile, Myron H. and I began work on campaign posters.

  Of course, we also had to take care of the posters Marlena was putting up all over the school.

  As it turns out, the Sminion brothers were not as effective as I had hoped at using my Bald-Faced-Lie Generator. Big Vince reads at a second-grade level and Little Vince couldn’t come up with any three-digit numbers. And holding a piece of paper upside down while mumbling and scratching your head isn’t a very effective way to drum up voter support. Working to their strengths, though, I found other ways for the gargantuan galoots to “sway” voters.

  Mrs. Brundlefly had been keeping herself quite busy while I was in school. When I returned home Wednesday, I found:

  Did this woeful woman not realize who she was dealing with? Was she really attempting to match wits with one of the truly extraordinary, not to mention handsome, Evil Masterminds of all time? Needless to say, the next morning I took the shortcut as usual because, thanks to my criminal craftiness, I had once again proven myself superior to Mrs. Brundlefly!

  Even so, she was becoming a royal pain in my backside. I have battled many a Superhero with far less resolve than this grizzled old gal. Nevertheless, this latest display of my unimaginable power would surely leave her thinking twice about thwarting the will of Vordak the Incomprehensible!

  Then again, maybe not.

  So, now it was taking me half an hour to walk to school thanks to Mrs. Brundlefly’s impenetrable barrier, which put me in a foul mood before I even arrived at school that Friday. And then Benny Yoshida’s desk collapsed during science class, probably due to the added weight of all the snot smeared on it. Anyway, Waxclog said it would take a week or so to dig another desk out of the basement. He also made a suggestion to Shinetop about what to do in the meantime.

  Any doubt was now erased—this was definitely the same Burfus Waxclog whose apartment I flooded with earthworms.

  That afternoon in gym class, Coach Whistlespit announced that we would be playing hockey. Fantastic! A chance to take out my frustrations with the carefree clobbering of my classmates! I could hardly contain myself. And then he brought out the “equipment.”

  Foam? Boy, have things changed. It used to be an evil kid could count on gym class as an opportunity to harass and bully the smaller, weaker, less intimidating students. And not even get in trouble for it! Why, dodgeball alone would keep the school nurse busy all afternoon. But with this equipment? I spent the entire forty-five minutes whacking away at the back of Melvin Tinkler’s knees. And what did I get for all my effort? Nothing. Not so much as a sniffle. And Melvin cries if his gloves are too tight. I had a better chance of witnessing an injury in my English class.

  The weekend arrived and, sadly, so did another failed test for Professor Cranium and his famously faulty freeze ray. You know, when you come up with your EVIL PLAN for world domination, you naturally assume that the bloat-headed super-intellectual brainy genious genius guy you hired will be able to create whatever type of ray you call for. That is their main purpose, after all. I certainly didn’t bring Professor Cranium aboard because he’s good at checkers— which, by the way, he isn’t.

  I don’t even know what he tried to freeze this time around, but the minute I entered his laboratory, I knew he had botched it again.

  Yes, that is correct. I said “his” laboratory. I built a state-of-the-art, fully equipped Evil Laboratory for a brilliant Evil “Scientist” whose freeze ray melts Popsicles. Who knew? Clearly, it was time for another note.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I was having a hard time concentrating in my classes. The teachers droned on day after day about pronouns or hypotenuses or photosynthesis. And do you think they could hold my attention? Of course not! What is some run-o
f-the-mill science instructor going to teach me, Vordak the Incomprehensible, about the reproductive system of a frog that I don’t already know from my experiments to create an army of giant octotoads? I found it increasingly difficult to keep my mind from wandering.

  What’s worse, the teachers were all jealous of me. How else to explain the mediocre grades I was receiving? You remember Mrs. Tuvier, my English teacher? Well, she is one of those annoyingly positive, optimistic, smiley people who wouldn’t know a piece of creative writing if it jumped up and bit her on the nose. (And, yes, I have Cranium working on a type of paper that would do exactly that.)

  A few days ago, I was handed back my first graded essay. Here was the assignment:

  Describe the person sitting next to you.

  What is it about that person that makes them unique and special?

  You see what I’m talking about? A C-minus? Preposterous! So, instead of basking in the praise this essay so richly deserved, I spent that night rewriting an already perfect paper and handed it back in the following day.

  This latest effort should have received, at the very least, a standing ovation. From the entire school district. Tuvier obviously thought she could defeat me, but I vowed not to stop until I received the grade I so richly deserved! I spent yet another evening revising, with breathtaking results!

  A C-plus! YES! Once again I have achieved the impossible! MUAHAHAHAHA!!!