1. A Touch of Vandalism
#1 of Punishment to Fit the Criminal
Rachel Longtail was throwing the biggest tantrum the 14-year-old could manage. "But I don't wanna move to Pinkville! It's tiny, there won't be anything to do!"
Her father was unmoved. "Rachel, we've been over this again and again. Yes, it's smaller, but there are still a million residents, so it's hardly the middle of nowhere. And you know how hard I've had to look to find this job. We're going, and that's that. We've already sold the house, for crying out loud! Now are you going to help me load the car, or am I going to have to muzzle you like some uncivilized fox?"
Rachel started to snap a reply, but bit it off when her father mentioned the muzzle. He was being serious; she'd spent one car trip muzzled and caged like some wild animal, and had no desire to repeat the experience. The young fox grimaced and spat out, "Fine."
* * *
That was almost three weeks ago, and Rachel had to admit--albeit grudgingly--that he was right about Pinkville. For one thing, she'd been worried about not having any friends, but there were two other furs her age on the same block, and Pinkville High was actually a little larger than her old school.
But, she thought acidly, that still doesn't mean I have to like it. She glared up at the lettering above the school's front door and reflected yet again that the place was badly named. You'd expect a place called Pinkville to have lots of humans, but as far as she could tell, there wasn't a single one in the entire city. Pity, that would at least have added a little variety. As is, the place would be-- A wicked grin grew on Rachel's face. It'd be tricky, but it sounded like a challenge. She'd need some help, though.
* * *
At lunchtime, Rachel whispered her plan to her two new friends. "So the next day, everyone would be walking into _Fur_ville High." She sat back, grinning, to bask in the amusement of her friends.
It didn't come. The two furs stared at her in shock for a minute before Sara, the Persian, forcefully whispered, "Are you nuts?"
"Huh? Isn't it a better name?"
The squirrel, Hannah, said, "Yeah, sort of, but that's defacing school property! You'll get in big trouble for that!"
The vixen snorted. "Is that what's got you two looking like deer in the headlights all of a sudden? A little punishment? Come off it, we're not going to get caught. And even if we did, it'd be worth it."
Far from calming her friends, this seemed to panic them even more. Sara said, "You are nuts. Haven't you heard how Pinkville High punishes people?"
The vixen raised an eyebrow. "What, do they use a cane?" she asked, teasingly.
The squirrel shuddered. "You wish. They say it's different for everyone, but I've seen what people look like when they're done. They look like their worst nightmare just came to life and chased them for an hour. And I'll tell you what else; the people who get punished like that? They never set a claw out of line again. I don't need to know what they do to know that I want no part of it. You're on your own." Sara nodded agreement.
"Fine," Rachel spat. "And fine friends you are, too. I'll do it myself, then, just promise me that you won't tell anyone."
Sara said, "Deal."
The vixen turned to Hannah, who looked more dubious. "Hannah?" she prompted, accusingly.
"All right, I won't tell anyone. But you'd better not say you told us if you get caught! I told you, I want no part of the school's punishments."
Rachel snorted again. "Oh, I won't be telling them about this. I wouldn't want to be associated with two cowards like you." She stood up and turned to leave, then glanced back. "If you're lucky, you'll still be my friends afterwards. No guarantees, though."
As she stormed out of the cafeteria, Rachel completely missed noticing the adult bear quietly slipping out another exit.
* * *
That evening, Rachel asked her dad if she could go over to a friend's house for a while. He smiled, happy to see her finally fitting in. "Of course you can. Have fun!"
"Oh, I will." Her father frowned slightly at the devious undertone in her voice, then shrugged it off. Mischief was, after all, quite healthy in a girl her age.
He might have been less amused if he'd seen her walking not towards a friend's house, but towards the hardware store.
* * *
Rachel walked up to the school with a grin on her face. The hardware store had bought her excuse about getting painting supplies for her dad. They'd happily sold her two cans of paint, a metal thingy to open them with (they called it a key, though it didn't look like one at all), and a pair of paintbrushes. Things were looking up.
... and so was she. Somehow, in all her planning, she'd managed to miss the fact that the lettering was a good ten feet above her head. She frowned and looked around for something to help her reach it.
A couple minutes of searching finally proved successful when she looked behind the maintenance shed. There, hiding amongst the bushes, was a ladder. Some poor groundskeeper had probably lost it back here years ago.
Not that Rachel particularly cared how it got there. It was tall enough for her needs, so she carried it back to the front of the school and carefully set it up. She might be willing to risk punishment from the school, but having the ladder fall out from under her before she even finished would be a disaster.
It took a little juggling, but she finally got all the stuff she needed up to the top of the ladder and started painting. Thirty minutes later, she carefully stepped back down the ladder and looked at her handiwork. The writing could have been better, and the engraved lettering still showed through, but the time she spent going back over "ville High" was worth it, because the lettering clearly read "Furville High" now.
Satisfied, Rachel hid the ladder back where it had been, and the painting supplies with it. As she walked home, Rachel scoffed at her so-called friends. What was it Hannah had said? Oh, yeah, "like their worst nightmare just came to life" Nonsense.
Even if she'd known where to look, Rachel would never have seen the cameras that had captured her every move. With their red "Recording" light taped over, they were almost invisible in the dwindling sunlight.
Of course, if she'd been paying that much attention, she might have noticed that the ladder was brand new.
* * *
Rachel's first clue that something had gone wrong came the next day, as she walked up to Pinkville--no, Fur_ville, she reminded herself with a smile--High. She had envisioned a horde of people staring up at the new name, but nobody seemed to have noticed, and when she got closer, she realized why. The lettering above the door was wet, but it read _Pinkville High!
Panic raced through her head. Somebody had found it, obviously, but she'd been careful to get waterproof paint! How did they get it off so quickly? A moment later, the answer came to her. They must keep a solvent around in case something like this happens. They still wouldn't know who'd done it, though. If she hadn't already gaped too much, she might still get away with it and come up with a better plan for next time, one that couldn't just be washed off.
It was all the vixen could do to avoid shaking like a leaf as she went to her first class.
* * *
By lunchtime, the panic had subsided, and Rachel was already plotting her next attempt. They'd be watching the main lettering now, so she'd have to be more creative this time.
As she sat down, Hannah furtively whispered, "The lettering was wet this morning. Did you do that?"
Rachel frowned. "No, somebody must have found it. And they must keep cleaning supplies around for that sort of thing, because I know I used waterproof paint."
Sara's eyes widened. "Remember, if they catch you, we didn't know anything!"
Rachel nodded. "They won't, though. They would have already called me in."
"Called you in for what, precisely?" The loud, deep voice made all three girls jump. As one, they turned to look, only to see three adults looking at them inquisitively: a bear, an eagle, and a horse.
The horse said, "Have you suddenly gone deaf? I asked a question. What would you have been called in for?"
The three were still too stunned to reply.
The horse smiled. "Come, now. Tell me why you would be called in by 'them'. Would it, perhaps, be due to your mediocre handwriting skills? Or your tendency to lie to your father and the staff at the hardware store?"
After a moment, Rachel found her voice. "N-no. Of course not. W-what are you talking about?"
An even deeper voice, the bear's, said, "It just so happens that my brother works at that store. After I overheard your planning yesterday, I told him to fill a couple cans with water-soluble paint, in case you stopped by." He smiled. "It's always nice to see that my hunches are correct."
The eagle spoke up then, her voice high and clear after the bear's rumble. "I think I've seen enough, Howard. Take them to your office, I'll have the paperwork on your desk in five minutes."
The horse, Howard, said, "Thank you, ma'am. You three, on your feet and follow me. Dave, I'd appreciate it if you would bring up the rear, just in case one of them decides running would be a good idea." He turned and walked out the cafeteria door.
The bear's deep growl of satisfaction was enough to scare the three girls to their feet and send them scurrying after Howard.
* * *
Any doubt as to who Howard was was easily dispelled by the sign on his office door. "Vice-principal Howard Thoreau, Disciplinarian." Once inside his office, he pointed to a sofa on one wall. "Sit." They sat.
Dave said, "I'll wait outside the door, just in case." Vice-principal Thoreau nodded to him as the door closed, then began working on some paperwork on his desk.
The next few minutes passed in almost complete silence, as the three girls exchanged worried looks. All that could be heard was the scratching of the vice-principal's pen and the occasional rustling of paper.
Rachel was just about to say something, if only to hear her own voice, when the door opened again. A male robin walked in and held out a few sheets of paper. "The punishment paperwork from Principal Hamilton, sir."
The vice-principal took it from him. "Hang on a minute, Gary, I'll have her copy ready in just a moment. Might as well save you a trip."
Gary nodded. "Yes, sir."
Howard scanned through all three sheets quickly. "Yeah, that's about what I expected." With a flourish, he quickly signed the three pieces of paperwork, then tore off the top layer of each, revealing the yellow layer beneath. "White for the principal's records," he said, handing the top sheets to Gary.
Gary nodded again and left.
Vice-principal Thoreau turned to the three young furs sitting on his couch. "White, as I said, is for the principal. Yellow," he tore off the next layer, "is for me." He set the yellow sheets in a drawer. "Blue and red are both for your parents." He pulled the two remaining layers of one sheet apart slightly so that the students could see them. "They sign the blue and return it to us, and the red they keep for themselves."
He folded the three sheets carefully and sealed each into an envelope marked with the name of one of the students. "There's another envelope inside for your parents to return the blue sheet in. You will bring that back tomorrow. If you break either seal or fail to bring the blue sheet back to us tomorrow--signed!--your punishment will automatically get worse. Do I make myself clear?"
All three nodded.
"Good. After you bring the blue back, your punishment will happen sometime in the next week." He smiled coldly. "I won't tell you when, or what will happen. We find that the surprise intensifies the punishment."
* * *
The next three days were miserable for Rachel. When her dad opened the note, he'd just said, "Hmm. I see that Pinkville High lives up to its reputation."
In some ways, the worst part of it was that Rachel's father didn't even punish her. She knew he was angry--possibly angrier than she'd ever seen him before--and yet he hadn't even raised her voice. If he was that angry and still didn't see a need to add to the school's punishment... Rachel tried not to think about what that meant.
She also tried to avoid thinking about what Hannah had said, but it proved impossible. "They look like their worst nightmare just came to life and chased them for an hour." What could that mean? It dawned on her that the vice-principal was right. Not knowing what was about to happen made things much worse.
* * *
It was Friday at 10 when the bear stepped into Rachel's English class. "Excuse me, ma'am, but the vice-principal wants to see Rachel in his office right away."
In the space of five seconds, Rachel went from boredom to panic. She'd been dreading this moment for days, and yet it hadn't quite been real until just now.
The teacher nodded. "Yes, it is that time, isn't it?" She looked at Rachel, and for a moment, Rachel had the unnerving sensation that her teacher was actually looking through her. "You heard him, Rachel. Off you go."
It was, perhaps, a testament to the school's reputation that the room was dead silent as she walked up to the front of the room, her shoes pounding on the floor like cracks of thunder. Most kids her age would jeer at the fur being called in for punishment, but whether out of fear or sympathy, the entire class was quiet.
* * *
Back in the vice-principal's office, Rachel was once again told to sit on the couch. After a few minutes watching him fill in paperwork, Rachel began to think that maybe, just maybe, it was all a bluff. Maybe they just meant to scare her, then let her off, trusting the fear itself to be enough. After all--
The door opened, and Sara and Hannah came in.
The vice-principal set down his pen as the door closed. "Good. Now that you're all here, we can get started." He pulled out his keys and turned to one wall of the office, casually removing the painting to reveal a safe behind it. He inserted the key and turned it once, then began spinning the dial. "You have, I am sure, heard the rumors about the FIA developing a mind-control device."
The three looked at each other, confused by the apparent non-sequitor. "Yeeees," offered Sara, tentatively.
The safe popped open, and the vice-principal pulled out a football helmet, confusing the girls even more. "It so happens that the project failed. In the end, it was just too expensive to develop, and it wasn't progressing fast enough. One of the researchers, though, was convinced it could be done. He worked alone for years, and when he died, there was almost nothing to show for it."
Vice-principal Thoreau set the helmet on the desk. "Almost nothing. He left this to Pinkville High, with explicit instructions on how to use it. We turned it over to the government, but they sent it back. Too small, they said, to use on an adult, and they couldn't figure out how he'd made it work. So we shrugged, and started using it the way we'd been told." He looked at the them. "Would you like to know what it does, Rachel?"
Rachel started slightly at being addressed by name. "Uh... yeah, I guess."
Thoreau walked over and placed the helmet on Rachel's head, then began fastening it on. "He didn't quite get the mind control working, but he did come up with a limited mind reader. That's what this is. It looks deep into your mind, in search of one thing. Your deepest fear. As it turns out, most people don't even know what theirs is, but this device, it finds it."
Thoreau pressed a button on the top of the helmet. "And when it does, we'll know how best to punish you." He looked to Sara and Hannah. "You two will be glad to hear that I won't use it on you. The vandalism wasn't your idea, and you didn't help her with it. You did, however, agree to keep quiet, and so you deserve to be punished."
Disciplinarian Thoreau smiled coldly. "So you'll share her fate. Quite appropriate, don't you think? It won't be nearly as bad for you two as for her, but I daresay it will be enough."
The helmet beeped and printed out a small strip of paper. Thoreau pulled it off and read it. "Hmm, that should be quite interesting."
As the vice-principal/disciplinarian put the helmet back in its safe, only one thought went through Rachel's mind. "What did that paper say?"