Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help Read Online Free

a superb experiment. The results were almost as interesting as the interaction of potassium and water. The Popular fell into a confused silence, distressed to think that something thrilling wasbeing said on the wrong side of the room. The Tolerated, who of course were dying to be Popular, followed suit. Very soon Milrose was the loudest person in the lunchroom. The Unwanted, heartened by this reversal, began to speak with more confidence. And so began something like a revolution: by the end of the lunch period, great peals of wild conversation consumed the Unwanted side, and completely eclipsed the uncomfortable whispering amongst the Tolerated and the Popular.
    If only the rest of the day had been as amusing.

CHAPTER
TWO
    M ILROSE SAW HIS MOOD TURN INCREASINGLY SOUR AS THE DAY WOUND TO A CLOSE . H E HAD BEEN SADDLED WITH A DETENTION AFTER SCHOOL, WHICH MEANT THAT HE WOULD HAVE TO SPEND AN ENTIRE HOUR IN ROOM 117, ON THE FIRST FLOOR . M ILROSE AVOIDED THIS FLOOR—A BRIGHTLY LIT PLACE OF SUBTLE HORROR—UNLESS HE WAS FORCED TO BE THERE FOR A CLASS OR DETENTION, AND ON THOSE OCCASIONS HE WOULD VISIT WITH TREPIDATION AND FOREBODING.
    He had nightmares about this floor, and they were not easy nightmares.
    For the first floor had no ghosts.
    The detention was imposed for the normal reasons: Milrose had responded to a teacher’s question witha remark that was just a notch too clever. This teacher in particular tended to ask cloddish questions, and was not pleased when a student proved too quick in his response. Even worse was a student like Milrose, who was not simply quick but entertaining, and sometimes obliquely sardonic. The ape-shaped Mr. Borborygmus could never be
sure
that Milrose was being obliquely sardonic, but there always remained that possibility.
    “Detention, Munce.”
    “But why, sir?”
    “It should be obvious.”
    “But it’s not!”
    “Then you can spend the detention pondering that question. I hope that you figure it out.”
    This was the closest thing to actual wit that Mr. Borborygmus had ever displayed, and Milrose was impressed.
    “I like that, sir. I do. It’s sharp.”
    “Thank you, Munce.”
    “I mean it, sir! Witty. Pointed. Quick.”
    “Good.”
    “You’ve been studying!”
    “Two detentions, Munce.”
    This afternoon Milrose would be enduring the second of these.
    When you are accustomed to being surrounded by your friends—even friends who looked likedeath warmed over (of course, they had not been warmed over)—it can be very lonely to sit without them. Milrose associated classrooms with comforting thoughts, like violent and messy extinction. He did not enjoy classrooms like this one, where detentions were always held: an airy, sunlit space, with large windows, lovely wooden desks, and no ghouls. Room 117 was an eerie and threatening place.
    Milrose was ornery as he made his way down the first-floor hall. He was, however, cheered considerably when he discovered who would be presiding over his punishment. Waiting for Milrose in room 117 was Caroline Corduroy. Ten years before, she had been Cryogenic Kelvin’s heartless girlfriend—she was still, to be perfectly honest, quite hot—and she was now a teacher. He was the only student sentenced to a detention today, which meant that he could spend an entire hour subtly irritating Ms. Corduroy, with whom he was a little bit in love.
    Ms. Corduroy sat, an almost benevolent tyrant, at the front of the room. Generally, during a detention, Milrose was given a sentence, which he was made to write out five hundred times. The last detention had required: “I will not be sarcastic and superior.” And the one before: “I will not be so intelligent in class.” Milrose would have to writeout these lies five hundred times before he was permitted to go home. This detention, being conducted by the magnificent Caroline Corduroy, was likely to prove a bit less mundane.
    “Now let’s see. What shall we have Milrose Munce produce, as punishment for