School of Fear (24 page)

“Would you please stop talking?” Lulu interjected.

“Someone’s being more than a little rude,” Theo loudly whispered to Madeleine.

“I am not speaking to you, Theodore Bartholomew,” Madeleine screeched with dripping wet hair.

“Mad, I said it was an accident! I had no idea your cans would run out. At least you can rest assured that no bugs or spiders
will come within ten feet of your head.”

“But what about the rest of me? My arms, legs, and face! They’re completely open for attack! Look at me: no veil, no repellent
on the front line of the war on spiders. Everywhere I turn it’s nature, nature, and more nature, and everyone knows that spiders
and insects live in nature!”

“I’m pretty sure you have repellent built up in your bloodstream. It will be years before a mosquito even comes near you,”
Lulu said.

Madeleine said nothing but quietly considered the merit of Lulu’s statement.

“How long have we been walking? It feels like days since I’ve had any food or water.”

“It’s been two hours, Theo. Calm down,” Lulu said.

“Two hours? That’s it? That’s only 120 minutes, 7,200 seconds.”

“Thank you for the mathematical breakdown, Chubs. Definitely going to come in handy as we walk down a cobblestone road in
the middle of nowhere!”

“No reason to bite my head off; I was merely commenting on how long we’ve been out here, braving the elements.”

“You know what, Theo? It may have only been two hours, but if it makes you feel any better, your incessant whining has made
it seem much longer. More like an entire day, which in case you didn’t know is twenty-four hours, 1,440 minutes or …” Lulu
paused trying to do the math in her head. “… a whole lot of seconds!”

“I see I’m not the only one who’s feeling a little grumpy from lack of food.”

“It’s 86,400 seconds to be exact,” Madeleine quietly mumbled to Garrison.

“You think this is grumpy? By the time we get to town you’ll be smiling about the good old days before I gave you a black
eye for talking too much!”

“Are you threatening me?” Theo asked with disdain.

“Maybe.”

“I think I should tell you that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

“The Miranda rights,” Madeleine said to Garrison, as if offering play-by-play commentary. It occurred so quickly and suddenly
that it actually stopped Garrison’s breath for a second. He was absolutely enchanted by Madeleine’s bare face. In plain old
thirteen-year-old boy speak, he thought she was cute.

“I’m not under arrest!” Lulu shot back at Theo.

“That phrase can be used at other times. Anyway, I just thought you should know that I am making a
mental note
of all your threats so that I can tell my mom and my lawyer once we get back.”

“Would you stop? At the moment, you don’t even have a cell phone, let alone a lawyer!”

“I may not have a lawyer right now, but this is a country where anyone can file a lawsuit, even a twelve-year-old. So get
ready, Lulu Punchalower —”

“Wait!” Lulu interrupted Theo seriously. “Did someone just whimper?”

“You heard that, too?” Garrison responded, immediately on high alert.

Theo, Madeleine, Lulu, and Garrison froze, waiting to hear which direction the whimpering was coming from. It took a few seconds
before they heard the muffled sound again. Lulu walked toward the forest’s edge, eyes wide with a mixture of curiosity and
anticipation. The recognition was sudden and jarring, but to her credit, she didn’t scream.

“It’s him.”

“Who?” Garrison asked. “Munchauser?”

“Abernathy. I recognize him from the time I saw him peering in the dining room window,” Lulu said while staring at Abernathy’s
thick and ashen face between the trees.

“And you waited until now to tell us,” Theo admonished Lulu.

“I thought I’d imagined it … ,” Lulu mumbled. “That face …”

Madeleine stepped behind Lulu, absolutely captivated by Abernathy’s face.

Abernathy returned the children’s stunned glare, never moving from just inside the forest’s edge. The strange man knew that
he was protected. No one, let alone children, would try to brave the dangers of the forest.

“Maybe we should say something? Offer him a snack or a drink of water,” Theo said sincerely.

“Um, hello? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not at the Four Seasons,” Lulu snapped to Theo.

“Yeah, but by offering him something at least we’re being polite. Maybe he’ll warm up to us?”

Before anyone else could weigh in on the matter, Theo, making sure to speak loudly, launched the welcome wagon: “Hello! Hi,
I’m Theo and this is Madeleine, Garrison, and Lulu. We’re from the school on the hill; although, I think you may already know
that since you’ve been spying on us, Mr. Abernathy. And by spying, I mean politely looking in the windows. Nothing wrong with
that. We’d love to offer you some beverages or appetizers but we don’t have any,” Theo babbled on as Abernathy slowly moved
his finger across his throat. Fortunately Theo was far too preoccupied by a strange noise to notice the intimidating gesture.

Now inches from the forest, Theo heard the whimper again and realized that it was far too close to be coming from Abernathy.

“Wait a minute,” Theo said as he turned to his left, “you evil genius!”

Munchauser and Macaroni, covered head to toe in Greenland Fungus, were perfectly camouflaged against the forest’s lush backdrop.
Before anyone could mobilize, Munchauser tossed a mass of small yellow particles at the students. The smell was paralyzing,
knocking all four students off their feet and to the ground. So rank and putrid was the stench that the foursome actually
passed out. The last thing they remembered was the green silhouette of Munchauser and Mac taking off in the distance.

Madeleine was first to come to after the great tonsil stone battle. The smell was ripe, rancid, and overwhelmingly strong.
She touched her face and realized that she had two stones glommed onto her cheek. Without hesitation, she ran to the forest’s
edge and began madly wiping her face with a leaf. So vile was the smell that she didn’t even worry that insect eggs could
be on the leaf.

“I think I’m going to die,” Lulu moaned from the ground.

“Wipe your face!” Madeleine hollered, while remembering what Lulu said about having repellent in her blood. She prayed that
it was true as she cleaned her face with a possible spider’s home.

“Abernathy’s gone,” Garrison said as he surveyed the forest.

“Can you blame him? The smell. We need to move,” Lulu said. “Garrison, drag Theo. He was hit the hardest. It may be days before
he wakes up.”

Garrison wiped Theo’s face clean of tonsil stones while holding his breath. Luckily, Theo woke, overwhelmed by the olfactory
purgatory.

“Help! The smell … the smell …”

“Come on, we gotta move,” Garrison said firmly while pulling Theo to his feet.

The foursome jogged as fast as their sour stomachs would allow, keeping one eye open for suspicious green masses and the other
for Abernathy.

T
he end of the forest came faster than Madeleine, Theo, Lulu, and Garrison had expected, releasing them into the powerful morning
sunshine. The cobblestone road continued, surrounded by fields of tall grass with only the occasional tree. However lovely
the sunshine felt on the foursome’s faces, it also represented defeat to them.

In the dim light of the forest, retrieving Macaroni still felt possible, even highly plausible. However, now as they carried
on toward Farmington they felt the gap had grown too wide. By the time they reached town, Munchauser would probably have officially
registered himself as Macaroni’s guardian, leaving Schmidty in the cold. Garrison more than the others felt a particularly
heavy burden, having been singled out by Schmidty to help him protect Macaroni.

Garrison led the moping brigade through curves, twists, and turns as they continued toward Farmington. While they were sure
they had to be getting close to the small town, they hadn’t seen any signs. So when Theo spotted a small brick house a few
yards off the road, the group erupted in relief. Perhaps someone could drive them to town, giving them more than enough time
to catch up with Munchauser.

Theo was thrilled at the concept of not only saving Macaroni but also eating something. He was beyond famished. In truth,
he almost didn’t say that he saw the brick house for fear that it was a hunger hallucination.

“I bet they have repellent!” Madeleine screamed with delight as she ran behind Theo.

“And sandwiches!”

“What joy, repellent and sandwiches,” Lulu replied in her usual tone.

“Listen, guys, let me do the talking. We need to get to town as fast as possible, and I don’t want us com-peting to tell a
thousand different versions of the story.”

Lulu, Madeleine, and Theo nodded as they approached the small brick house with blue shutters on it. Garrison leaped up the
stairs to ring the doorbell next to the hand-painted sign that said
THE KNAPPS
. Theo and Madeleine busied themselves looking in the front window while Lulu joined Garrison on the porch.

A minute passed and no one came to the door. Garrison rang the bell again, praying for someone to answer. Another minute passed
and still no one came to the door.

“I don’t think anyone’s home,” Garrison called out to Theo and Madeleine.

At that moment, Madeleine did a very un-Madeleine-like thing. She stepped onto the flowerbed, crushing yellow tulips, and
began banging on the glass window.

“We see you! We see you! Open this door right now! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, hiding from small children in need
of help! Absolutely shameful!”

Theo, who couldn’t actually see anything from his position on the ground, joined in enthusiastically. He was never one to
pass on theatrics.

“You people are rotten! We are sweet children in need of help! And sandwiches!”

On the floor of the living room, attempting to hide from the children, were a man and a woman in their early thirties. Dressed
in similar preppy yellow sweaters, the smiling couple finally stood up and answered the door. By now Madeleine had pushed
past Garrison, who was unsuccessfully trying to pick the lock on the front door, to tackle the role of group spokesperson.

“What kind of evil people hide from children?” Madeleine said while shoving the couple aside and stepping into the living
room.

“Sorry about that, little lady; we thought you were orphans looking to find parents, and you see we really don’t want any
children,” Mr. Knapp said awkwardly.

“Since when do orphans sell themselves door to door like Girl Scout cookies?” Madeleine huffed.

“Maddie, we don’t have time for this. We need to get to town,” Garrison explained calmly. “Look, we don’t care why you didn’t
want to open the door. Can you drive us to town? It’s sort of an emergency.”

“We would love to help,” Mrs. Knapp said cheerily.

“Thank you,” Garrison said while breathing a sigh of relief.

“But we can’t,” she continued. “Our car has no gas in it.”

“Thank heavens you don’t have any children. What kind of irresponsible people let their car run out of gas?” Theo asked.

“Then let us use your phone,” Garrison said with a desperate expression.

“Sorry, little lad,” Mr. Knapp said, “can’t do that either.”

“I don’t believe you,” Garrison quickly retorted.

“Take a look for yourself,” the man continued, pointing to the severed phone cords.

The cords were sliced neatly but were covered in grimy fingerprints. Almost immediately, Garrison knew Munchauser had been
to the house. Rational people wouldn’t sever their own phone lines.

“Did an ugly man and a large dog covered in green moss stop by here?” Garrison said seriously, completely ignoring the outrageous
content of his statement.

“This is Massachusetts, not Mars,” Mrs. Knapp said with an annoyingly chipper smile. “There aren’t any green people here.”

“Then who cut the phone cords?” Garrison prodded.

“I did,” Mr. Knapp explained. “I felt we were becoming too dependent on talking to other people, so I cut the phone lines.
Now if that’s all, we really need to get back to talking to each other.”

“You swear you haven’t seen a man and a dog?” Garrison asked.

“Yes, we swear,” Mrs. Knapp said with her default gregarious expression.

“Fine,” Garrison said, defeated.

As the foursome turned to leave the strange couple’s living room, Madeleine spotted something that simply was not right. A
green cat.

“Why, you evil, despicable, lying people!” Madeleine railed into them. “I have half a mind to wash your mouths out with soap!”

“Maddie, what are you doing?” Garrison screamed at her.

“If they haven’t seen Munchauser or Macaroni, why is their cat green?” Madeleine screamed, instantly sending Mrs. Knapp into
waterworks.

“I’m sorry, that man threatened to kidnap our poodle Jeffrey if we didn’t lie to you,” Mr. Knapp explained. “He’s in the bathroom
with a really chunky bulldog and Jeffrey.”