Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck Read Online Free

Welles flicked cigar ash to the ground.
    “And the play’s the thing, after all,” he added, before pointing to a cast-iron hatch at the far end of the room with the tip of his cigar.
    “… and
that
, young lady, will be your playpen for the next month or so.…”
    Milton swallowed as he eyed the windowless metal door edged with steel bolts.
    Just when we thought TV couldn’t get any worse
, Milton reflected,
along comes the devil to lower the bar … all the way down to h-e-double-hockey-sticks
.

3 • TOUR DE FARCE
    MARLO AND THE half-dozen boys that had been waiting in the grandstands squeezed into a red-and-yellow clown car. A pasty-faced, shifty-eyed kid with brown stringy hair that hung in his face like a shredded curtain accidentally put his hand on Marlo’s knee.
    “Watch it, Grabby,” she spat. “Keep those hands where I can see them.”
    The boy’s pupils darted toward Marlo.
    “What?” he said, puzzled.
    Marlo realized that she was Milton—a lanky, grubby boy—and not a girl surrounded by lanky, grubby boys.
    “Um … just joking,” she replied carefully. “The name is Milton Fauster.”
    The boy held his hand out at his side like a little flipper, being that personal space was nonexistent in this stuffy, smelly clown car.
    “Colby Hayden,” the boy said. “Youngest American astronaut. Ever. Died upon reentry after delivering puppies from a Soviet canine cosmonaut trapped aboard a Russian spy satellite as its orbit decayed. Luckily I’m also a veterinarian paramedic.”
    “Right.”
Marlo nodded. “I think I read about that in
Deluded Dork
magazine.”
    P. T. Barnum, pants still ablaze, hopped up on the hood of the clown car. Seconds later, a stooped, shrimp-like demon—a foot and a half tall in its rainbow-colored fright wig—dove into the car, scrambling atop a pile of broken toys, dismembered Barbie parts, and already-colored coloring books to reach the tiny steering wheel.
    The vice principal swelled to dangerous life, a hot-air balloon buoyed by flammable gas in a lightning storm. “Okay, Scampi, now that all of our new guests have
finally
arrived,” he said, arching his bushy eyebrow Marlo’s way, “let us begin our spectacular tour!”
    He signaled for Scampi to turn the key in the ignition.
    “Welcome to Fibble, Heck’s very own Three-Ring Media Circus!” he barked through his tiny blue megaphone. “No bottles, cameras, or pictures of bottles or cameras, or tiny cameras in bottles,
please.
”
    The car rumbled to life. Marlo could feel Milton’s body getting tight with claustrophobia, while the ache in her brother’s gut throbbed and thrummed like a big zit full of bees.
    Thanks a lot, bro
, Marlo thought as the car lurchedforward.
At least
I
left my body in decent working order before you switched us
.
    The car sped around the bright orange floor of the Big Top in tight circles, spinning faster and faster until it was balancing up on its two right-hand tires. With a sudden swerve and a puff of upturned sawdust, the car careened away, racing toward a solid brick wall.
    An African American boy with a burgundy ski beanie sputtered in fear. “Mr. B-Barnum! What are we …? Where are we—?”
    The portly vice principal dismissed the child with a wave.
    “Please save your questions for after the tour, when they will have more than likely been forgotten,” he said, his chins jiggling with every bump.
    “But we’re going to hit a wall!”
    P. T. Barnum sneered. “
Hit a wall
? Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve only just started!”
    The boy pulled his beanie down over his eyes as the clown car slammed into the brick barricade. Luckily for all concerned, the wall was simply another piece of expertly painted paper, just like the one at the center of the Big Top floor.
    “Here in Fibble, you will be tutored in the fine art of advertising—the massaging of perception for fun and profit,” the vice principal shouted through his mini-megaphone. “That brick wall was your