Free Fibble: The Fourth Circle of Heck by Dale E. Basye Page B

Are these options that you and your specific age group would be interested in?”
    Colby bobbed his head.
    “Yeah!” he replied enthusiastically. “I’d probably trade them with my friends at school or collect them. That’s sort of what I was thinking when I invented Pokémon cards—”
    “Thank you, Mr. Hayden,” the teacher interrupted. “Now, are there any potential taglines that spring to your young minds?”
    “Bite me,” Marlo offered, her arms crossed, leaning against the mirror.
    Mr. Nostradamus fumed at Marlo.
    “I will not tolerate your insolence!” he roared.
    “Insolence?” Marlo replied. “Isn’t that for diabetics? I meant ‘Bite Me’ as in a tagline.”
    The teacher straightened his poofy velvet beret.
    “Of course,” he replied stiffly. “Any others?”
    “A Taste to Die For?” Zane offered.
    “That’s good,” Marlo whispered, trying desperately to train her puppy love to not yap and make a mess everywhere.
    “Doomsdanish, for when you’re
filling
bad?” Darnell said. “See, danishes have fillings, and ‘filling’ sounds like—”
    “Let’s move along,” Mr. Nostradamus said as he put the odd pastry back in the case and removed another faintly glimmering product: a tube glazed in a weird, swirling paint that actually moved like smoke and fire. Printed on the side of the tube, in flaming letters, was the word APOCALYPSTICK ® .
    “Now, even though you are boys,” Mr. Nostradamus continued, “perhaps you could share your impressions—”
    “Let me see!” Marlo blurted before the stares of her fellow classmates dampened her overenthusiasm. “Imean, it looks cool. Is it, um, a game controller or USB drive or something?”
    The teacher rubbed his smoky gray beard.
    “It’s a tube of lipstick, Mr. Fauster,”
he said slowly. “Apocalypstick, to be precise.” Mr. Nostradamus tapped the bottom of the tube with his finger. The lipstick uncoiled, revealing not just one color, but a churning collage of complementary colors in progressively incendiary shades of neon.
    “Cosmetics in Explosive Colors?” Colby interjected.
    “Look Great and Devastate?” Marlo suggested. “Stop, Drop, and Roll It On? Apocalypse Wow?”
    Mr. Nostradamus snickered, a creepy laugh that sounded like a baby hyena in a vacuum cleaner bag.
    “You certainly are in touch with your feminine side, Mr. Fauster,” he said.
    Marlo’s face grew hot.
    “Well, my sister and I are … close,” Marlo murmured. “She’s really cool,” she added, her eyes darting toward Zane. “Like one of the guys, but, you know, totally a girl.
Totally
.”
    “Right,” the teacher said, distracted, as he put the lipstick away—much to Marlo’s disappointment—and removed a gray tombstone-shaped tin marked FINAL JUDGMINTS ® . “Now, this product is in a very experimental stage, and the staff of Fibble are not responsible for any ill effects incurred.… I’ll consider your silence as implied consent. Now give me your hands.…”
    The boys held out their palms as Mr. Nostradamus sprinkled tiny, sparkling mints into their waiting mitts.
    “Final Judgmints,” Colby said before popping the mint in his mouth, “Make Your Last Breath Your Best … oww!”
    The mint felt like a drop of stinging electricity on Marlo’s tongue. Smokey, sharp, shocking, and totally without substance. Then, after the initial wave of tingly pinpricks, she was gripped with the sensation of burning spearmint, hot peppermint, and nuclear winter mint. They weren’t flavors, exactly, but swarms of impressions that buzzed in her brain like locusts before abruptly flitting away.
    “Twern Yer Mowf into a Toxic Twaste Doomp?” Darnell attempted to say despite his electrocuted tongue.
    “What?” Mr. Nostradamus asked.
    “Gwound Zewo fo Yer Twaste Buds?” Colby managed through his short-circuited mouth as the class bell tolled.
    Mr. Nostradamus sighed as he put the tin of Final Judgmints back in the humming briefcase. “We’ll try