“You know,” remarked Mrs. Outtanames to Mrs. Tavington, “I’m getting REALLY sick of being dragged around by this guy.”

“I’m just sick of the author’s inability to make up his mind on our marital status,” replied Mrs. Tavington.

“Shut up!” snarled Jack the Ripper.

1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

Secretary Clark burst into the Oval Office.

“Mr. President,” he said. “We’re in big trouble. One of the kids is dead.”

President Keaton gracefully averted a spit-take. He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said, trying to think. “Which one?”

“Arthur McManus,” said Clark. “The crazy one that isn’t Zack.”

“Ah, yes,” said President Keaton. He thought for a few moments. “Phone his parents, pay them restitution, give Arthur a posthumous Medal of Honor, cover the funeral, the works.”

Secretary Clark was taken somewhat aback. “Sir, the Medal of Honor is the most prestigious decoration we can bestow…”

“And?”

“Well, it’s just, I don’t have a Medal of Honor. And this kid, well…”

“What are you saying, Secretary?” interrupted President Keaton. “You think this kid shouldn’t get the Medal of Honor simply because all he did was get crushed by a building while trying to save two high school teachers from a guy with a sinister mustache?”

“Well, I…”

“Listen, Secretary, if I had a dollar for every adult that happened to, I could open my own department store and then drop it on someone else. But this is a kid. And kids are our future. So I can give Arthur the Medal of Honor, or I can read a children’s book to a kindergarten class. Do you remember what happened to the last guy who tried that?”

“I…”

“He was shot in the back by his Vice President, Mr. Secretary. This conversation’s over.”

Secretary Clark dropped his voice. “Listen, Mr. President,” he said. “I’m thinking maybe we should tell the kids exactly why this is so important. I mean, if one of them is dead…”

President Keaton glared at the Secretary of Defense. “Absolutely not, Mr. Secretary. That secret does not leave this room. The kids will be briefed after they’ve returned safely.”

“And if they don’t?”

President Keaton gritted his teeth and stared out the window.

“Then God help us all.”

Meanwhile, the true purpose of their mission wasn’t the only thing our heroes were ignorant about.

“Who the horse-crapping hell is Aleister Crowley?” asked Marcus.

“An English occultist, prolific writer, mystic, hedonist, aficionado of chess and mountain climbing, and sexual revolutionary,” explained Zack.

Everyone stared at him.

“Wikipedia,” he shrugged.

“That’s right, bitches,” said Crowley, in an upper-class English accent that didn’t fit at all with the address “bitches”. “And now, you die.”

He unleashed a torrent of crimson lightning from his fingers. It struck Allison in the stomach. She fell to the ground, shrieking in pain as the lightning coursed over her body.

Zack took out his Desert Eagle and opened fire in Crowley’s face. Crowley winced and flexed his facial muscles, making the bullets pop out. He advanced on Zack, pulling an ornate dagger from his waistcoat with a hilt carved to look like a dragon.

“WAIT!” yelled Zack.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “What?” he asked irritably.

“Could you explain your philosophy to me?” asked Zack. “The description I read said it was a radical form of philosophical libertarianism that...”

“That’s bollocks,” interrupted Crowley. “My philosophy is non-stop, consequence-free coitus, with occasional witchcraft. Or is it the other way around?”

“What about ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’?” pressed Zack.

“Some Chinaman said that to me in Limehouse,” said Crowley. “Nope, it’s all about the old in-and-out, me droogy.”

“Wait…” said Logan. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing!” yelled Crowley hastily. “Bugger-all! Zilch!”

“You just called sex ‘the old in-and-out’,” said Rose.

“So?” yelled Crowley, visibly sweating.

“So,” realized Marcus, “You’re not Aleister Crowley at all! You’re Alex from ‘A Clockwork Orange’!”

“NO!” yelled Crowley/Alex, his makeup melting off and revealing the false eyelash beneath.

“Yeah!” said Christine, cottoning on. “And that means this story has entered the realm of fanfiction, and your very existence is contraband!”

Alex let loose a blood-curdling scream, ran up the stairs to the window, and launched himself out. A comical slide-whistle sound effect was heard, followed by an equally comical crunch, as of the sound of a man the approximate height and weight of Malcolm McDowell hitting the pavement so hard his spine was blown out through his neck.

“Well, at least he didn’t die as melodramatically as the countless other villains we’ve faced,” commented Marcus.

“We’re especially lucky that these villains have decided to attack us one by one,” added Allison.

The Green Man stretched out his fingers at the kids, vines shooting from them and wrapping around them.

“Not that bad,” commented Logan foolishly.

As if in answer (actually, almost certainly in answer), sharp thorns began to sprout from the vines. They grew very slowly, and slowly worked their way into the high schoolers’ skin. Several people screamed, as blood began to drip down onto the stone floor. This was it… this was the end.

Marcus had one last desperate gambit. Lifting something, despite the immense pain moving his arms caused him, he hurled it through the air. It was the deus-ex-the-box. It hit the stone floor and shattered. The black whatever inside it rushed out and into the air.

Suddenly, a large chunk of stone fell from the wall, directly between the students and the Green Man. It was pure white, distinguishing it from the slate-gray of the rest of the stone. Suddenly, the thorns receded, and the vines collapsed to the floor around the kids in a coil.

“Hold on…” said Marcus. “Is that…”

“I think it is,” said Zack. “Look.”

He pointed at the Green Man, whose skin was turning from a rich, emerald green to a sickly Mountain Dew green to an expired-Mountain Dew-induced dysentery green.

“And back we go to the needlessly dramatic deaths,” said Allison, rolling her eyes as the Green Man fell to the floor, an empty-eyed husk.

“What was that?” asked Rose.

“White kryptonite,” said Zack. “Invented during the Silver Age of comics. It kills all plant life in the area.”

“But Superman’s not real,” protested Christine.

Zack looked indignant. He tapped his chest. “Superman is within all of us. So, logically, so is an obscure, retconned element from his crappy ‘60s comics.”

Now only Baron Samedi was left. He didn’t seem intimidated in the slightest.

“You shouldn’t’ve used de deus-in-the-box,” he commented, grinning adverbily. “I’m a freakin’ god. Dat guy was just an elemental. Dat’s like, if the divine order is Hollywood, he’s David Wenham.”

Zack cracked up. Everyone stared at him. “What?” he said. “I can respect my foe. Especially if I get his jokes.”

Turning back around, everyone pointed their Desert Eagles at Samedi. Samedi gave them another grin. “Dem tings haven’t worked on anyone your entire trip,” he sneered. “What makes ya tink dey’ll work on me?” He stared at Allison, who did not have her gun drawn. He laughed. “Little girl gon’ take me on without a weapon?”

“Oh, I have a weapon,” said Allison. Without a word, she drew a salt packet from her pocket. She ripped it open and, before Samedi could stop her, threw it in his face. He shrieked, staggered backwards and fell dead.

“Salt?” asked Logan incredulously, as Rose furtively pocketed Samedi’s dark glasses.

“Salt is to zombie as garlic is to vampire,” said Allison. “Arthur told me once when I was accidentally listening.”

This answer inexplicably satisfied everyone, who stepped over Samedi’s body and towards the stairwell.

Zack fumbled a clip into his Desert Eagle. “Hey, Johnny Mustache!” he yelled up the stairs. “I hope you didn’t invest too heavily in your bodyguards!”

Silence.

“We’re coming up!” Zack called. They started slowly up the stairs. After climbing for a while, they heard a noise come from inside a small room. They yanked open the oddly unlocked, barred door. Mrs. Tavington and Mrs. Outtanames were sitting against the far wall. Rose rashly rushed towards them.

“DON’T!” the two yelled together, but in vain. The Ripper stepped from behind the open door and plunged a stiletto to the hilt into Rose’s stomach. Rose gasped and fell to the floor, still alive but bleeding profusely.

“YOU BASTARD!” yelled Zack, going for his gun. The Ripper swooped over to him, grabbing him with powerful, gloved hands and slamming him against the wall. Zack felt his humerus pop out of place. Screaming in pain, he fell to the floor.

The Ripper drew two daggers and flung one at Marcus and one at Logan, pinning them to the wall by their collars. As Christine went for her flute, the Ripper kneed her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her, then turning and doing the same to Allison and Lucy.

“Now,” he said. “Don’t you want to hear why you’re really here?”

“We’re (agh!) here to rescue our teachers, dicktard,” Zack choked out.

“Ah,” said the Ripper. “And you never wondered WHY the government decided to intervene in the kidnapping of two teachers?”

No one spoke.

“Let me tell you a little story,” said the Ripper, pulling up a stool and sitting down. “I know that program of yours teaches history innovatively, but even they gloss over some things.”

“Yeah?” challenged Marcus. “Like what?”

“Haven’t you ever wondered,” said the Ripper, “why American history mentions the English as burning the capital to the ground in the War of 1812, and they’re scarcely mentioned again until they become your allies in World War I and every international war after? Shouldn’t there still be some bad blood between you two?”

Everyone continued staring at him, not sure of what to expect.

“You see, continued the Ripper, “in 1902, William McKinley and the Marquess of Salisbury…”

“That’s not correct,” interrupted Logan. “McKinley was assassinated in 1901.”

“Told you they didn’t tell you anything,” grinned the Ripper. “Anyway, the President and the Prime Minister agreed on a truce: each would have exclusive rights to a valuable cultural commodity in exchange for a ceasefire. The United States chose food, and Britain chose comedy.”

“What are you saying?” asked Zack.

“I’m saying that there’s a reason British food and American comedy suck so bad,” explained the Ripper. I’m surprised you didn’t grow suspicious. Any government that doesn’t neutralize Dane Cook has some alternate agenda.”

“But there are funny Americans,” protested Zack.

“Yes, they slipped under the radar for quite some time. You see, while the British have honored the bargain by not producing anything remotely palatable since the truce and entertaining us with Monty Python, Sacha Baron Cohen and Stephen Fry, the Americans have been trying to cheat for years. Fortunately, the British government always stopped them. Name someone genuinely funny who’s still alive. Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, Mitch Hedberg…”

“That’s just impossible,” wheezed Christine. “I don’t believe it.”

“Look at the evidence!” thundered the murderer. “Even when they didn’t kill the comedians, they still prevented them from remaining funny. Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Chevy Chase… it never ends. But then something happened.”

“What?” asked Marcus.

“America, rather than being covert in their violation of the agreement, went public,” said the Ripper. “They gave a big middle finger to the British government. The popularity of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert brought things to a boil, but ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ getting Oscar nominations was the final straw. The government decided to send a spy, to find out what the target demographic of American teenagers found amusing and bomb the snot out of every part of America it was found in.”

“So who was the spy?” asked Lucy.

The Ripper smiled. He pulled back his cape and gestured to Mrs. Tavington.

“NO!” said Zack. “You’re a spy for the Englishtanian government?”

“Zack, stop calling it that,” sighed Mrs. Tavington, forgetting her circumstances momentarily.

“I don’t believe it,” said Allison disgustedly. “The director of the Center is a freaking Judas.”

“Oh, on the contrary, Miss Martin,” said the Ripper. “Mrs. Tavington took the job with every intention of making regular reports back to her superiors, but decided shortly before the first day of school that she didn’t have the heart to betray you. She was going to not only go rogue, but tell the entire level the real story.”

“So… you’re a government agent?” said Allison.

“Indeed,” grinned the Ripper. “The Prime Minister didn’t want to use me; said I was a danger to everyone. But, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“What’s the point of killing us, too?” asked Logan. “If your plan really doesn’t have anything to do with us, why bother?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” said the Ripper. “To the public of America, it will look like a lone, independently-operating lunatic killed some teenagers and teachers. The United States government will see it for what it really is: a warning that when a deal is broken, we will retaliate, and we aren’t afraid to do so with a pile of dead minors.”

“You fiend,” commented Rose.

“Yeah, you…” said Marcus. He did a double-take. “ROSE!” he yelled. “You were on the floor with a knife in your gut a second ago!”

Rose shrugged. “I didn’t want to tell you guys this, but I broke off a piece of the Green Man after we killed him. For a souvenir. And I just now put in my mouth, on some weird whim, and, well, I feel a lot better.”

“Cool,” said Logan. “Get some for Zack’s shoulder will you?” Christine, meanwhile, noticed that the Ripper had gone rather pale. She realized what had happened. “Wait…” she said. “The Green Man was British, right?”

“Uh, yes,” said the Ripper, shuffling to the left a little.

“And his flesh heals people,” Christine continued.

“I don’t see where you’re going with this,” the Ripper said nervously.

“Don’t you lie to us,” said Zack, his shoulder relocated. “If the flesh of the Green Man has healing properties, that makes it good British food, so you’re in violation of the agreement too!”

“Yeah!” said Logan. “So it’s a stalemate. The government has no jurisdiction anymore. Hand over our teachers.”

The Ripper didn’t speak for a long time. “You children really are clever,” he said. “But it will do you no good. You see, since nobody but you knows about the mutual violation, what’s to stop me killing you all and destroying the evidence?”

“I am,” said a slightly familiar English-accented voice. A bang filled the room as a bloody cloud of buckshot ripped through the Ripper’s back and out of his chest. A—n M—re stood over the killer, a smoking shotgun in his hands. “You ruined everything,” he said to the Ripper. “I made your identity Dr. William Gull, but no, you had to pay attention to ‘historical evidence’. Well, where’s your ‘evidence’ now, ya wanker?” He shot the Ripper in the kneecaps. “HUH?! WHERE IS IT?!” He took aim at the Ripper’s head and finished the job. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and walked off, whistling “In the Hall of the Mountain King”.

Everyone in the room was hoping someone else would be the first to speak.

“We get to keep the suits, right?” asked Lucy.

“I don’t think they’re going to want them back,” commented Logan, wiping the Ripper’s medulla oblongata off of his sleeve.

Zack turned to the teachers. “Are you two all right?” he asked. They both responded in the affirmative.

“Are you sure?” asked Marcus. “You don’t even have, like, a hangnail or anything?”

“We’re FINE,” insisted Mrs. Outtanames. “Why so concerned?”

“Well, we’ve been through a lot,” said Zack. “Least you could do is give us a day off.”

The teachers rolled their eyes and started down the stairs. Zack exhaled sharply as the footsteps gradually faded… then, all of a sudden, stopped altogether. Everyone froze. The students all picked up their guns and slowly started toward the stairwell. As they descended, “Stars and Stripes Forever” struck up from one side while “God Save the Queen” began from the other. Weirdly enough, the latter was the Sex Pistols version. President Keaton and the Prime Minister stood at the bottom of the stairs.

“Nicely done, everyone,” said Keaton, clapping.

“You didn’t tell us the truth, Mr. President,” Logan said accusingly.

Mr. Keaton sighed. “I know,” he said. “That was a mistake. I thought if you knew you were handling that kind of responsibility, you’d be too worried to complete the mission. But I see now that you’re more than equal to the task, and you’ll be given the highest honors we can bestow without actually revealing your status to anyone.”

“What’s more,” announced the Prime Minister, “after careful deliberation, President Keaton and I have elected to repeal the Spotted Dick-Rob Schneider Accords. I mean, we don’t need a bargain like that to keep us united; all we need is the jingoistic imperialism that has made each the other’s only friend in the global community! Effective immediately, it is perfectly acceptable for us to make edible foodstuffs, and your American comedians who are actually funny can resume their television schedules!”

This was obviously meant to be met with cheers, but instead received derisive titters from the young heroes, due mainly to his pronunciation of “acceptable” as “ass-eptable” and “schedule” as “shed-jewel”. President Keaton gave them a dirty look, causing them to shut up instantly.

“Now,” said President Keaton. “We need to properly honor the dead.”

ONE FLIGHT TO ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY LATER…

The row of soldiers saluted as bagpipers played “Danny Boy”. Tears streamed down the faces of our heroes, gathered next to the grave, except for Christine, who stood with the bagpipers. As the bagpipers reached a high note, Lucy stepped forward, flute in hand. As she began a solo, Arthur’s casket was hurled skyward by the pallbearers. It exploded in the air in a shower of red, white and blue fireworks, all of them eventually touching down in the freshly-dug grave.

Allison leaned over to Zack. “Does this scene strike you as in REALLY poor taste?” she asked.

Zack shrugged. “We are laying to rest the guy who implied that all Englishmen are eunuchs.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point, Allison,” Zack said solemnly, “is that poor taste is the way he would have wanted it.”

Allison nodded, not looking at him. “I guess you’re right. May he rest in peace.”

Another cluster of fireworks erupted from the grave.

“Not bloody likely,” said Mrs. Tavington.

IN MEMORY OF THE BRAVE COMEDIANS WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES AND/OR TALENT TO FURTHER MY INANE CONSPIRACY THEORIES.