The Final Exam (18 page)

“Besties,” Hyacinth said softly, “I’m really sorry. You know how important it is to me to be a good friend.”

“Sometimes being a good friend is about saying no, about trying to do what’s best for your friend regardless of what they say,” Madeleine explained seriously.

“Guys, let’s get back to what matters: the bird. We have only two days left to find Toothpaste, or School of Fear’s over,” Garrison proclaimed forcefully. “And since coming out and asking the boys didn’t work, we need
another
new plan.”

“I say we covertly follow them. Eventually they’ll have to check on Toothpaste, at least to give him food and water,” Lulu suggested.

“Covert just happens to be my middle name,” Theo boasted before pausing to clarify. “Well, technically it’s Murray, but you know what I mean.”

“You can’t even follow yourself covertly, let alone those boys. Maddie and I will handle this; we’re the
most discreet and the least likely to sing,” Lulu said, looking conspicuously at Theo and Hyacinth.

“I don’t know; I’m not very keen on being outdoors because of all the spiders and such,” Madeleine said meekly.

“Maddie, you slept in the basement last night. There must have been thirty or forty spiders in there alone. If you can handle that, you can handle this,” Garrison stated assuredly. “Plus, you wouldn’t want me to think you were a pansy, would you?”

“All right, we’ll start immediately after lunch,” Madeleine acquiesced with a giddy grin.

She’d had no intention of smiling, but in truth, Madeleine simply couldn’t stop herself; she was utterly delighted to share an inside joke with Garrison.

L
unch turned out to be a rather perplexing affair, served on a handcrafted Norwegian table dating from the late 1800s. Paper plates and plastic cutlery adorned the grand table, which was stationed smack-dab in the middle of Basmati’s Japanese sand garden. Seated in tall-backed, gold-leafed chairs, Mrs. Wellington, Schmidty, Abernathy, Basmati, and the School of Fearians waited impatiently for the arrival of the Contrarians.

“You’re lucky you don’t have any cats,” Theo said absentmindedly, looking at the sand. “They’d turn this place into one big bathroom.”

“Honestly, Theo, this is hardly an appropriate conversation to have around food,” Madeleine said with exasperation.

“I disagree!” Basmati rebuked Madeleine firmly. “We shouldn’t hide the painful truth from food. It deserves to know that it will soon be eaten and discarded as waste.”

“You want us to discuss what happens to food after we eat it? And during a meal, no less?” Madeleine asked incredulously. “I realize that I’m British and perhaps a smidge stodgier than the rest of you, but you cannot be serious.”

“Serious about what?” Basmati asked, lifting his lone eyebrow.

“About discussing bodily functions at the table!” Lulu blurted out.

“How vile!” Basmati responded with a look of total abhorrence. “Honestly, Edith Wellington, I would have expected you, of all people, to impart manners to your students.”

“Speaking of manners, where are
your
students? We’ve been waiting for more than ten minutes,” Mrs. Wellington shot back with barely stifled aggravation.

“Wrong!” Basmati snapped. “It’s only been nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds, which just happens to be exactly how long I like to wait before starting without them.”

Upon hearing this, Theo lobbed half of his sandwich into his mouth. Instantly overwhelmed by the potent taste, he struggled to identify the contents. Never in all his years of extensive eating had he come across this particular flavor combination, which he soon recognized as peanut butter and asparagus on whole-wheat bread.

“You know how you can like both ketchup and ice cream individually, but hate them as a couple?” Theo whispered quietly to Lulu as she took her first bite of the sandwich.

Within half a second, Lulu wholeheartedly understood Theo’s analogy. While not as revolting as the offensive-tasting Casu Frazigu, the sandwiches were far from delicious, except to Basmati. He considered asparagus the perfect complement to peanut butter. Then
again, he also deemed chocolate the ideal sauce for spaghetti and meatballs.

“Is there any salt?” Theo asked Basmati, desperate to try to improve on the gastronomical aberration.

“Why would you want salt? Are you trying to imply my food is bland? That I’m a bad cook?”

“No, not at all! I’ve always been a fan of
innovative
cuisines,” Theo babbled nervously. “I just happen to like salt.”

“I hate salt,” Basmati responded venomously, uncomfortably holding Theo’s stare.

“Well, I certainly can’t deny that salt raises your blood pressure and causes you to retain water,” Theo said, patting his stomach.

“I’ll let your comments about salt pass this time, but be warned, if you insult pepper, I won’t stand for it. I may sit for it, but that’s only because I have arthritis in my knees,” Basmati admonished Theo before returning to his sandwich.

“I don’t know about you, but I am having a great time,” Lulu whispered sarcastically to Madeleine. “It’s almost as much fun as hanging out with Munchauser.”

“Do you think Garrison was right about all those
spiders living in the basement? Is it possible that being outdoors is safer than inside?” Madeleine asked Lulu seriously, clearly preoccupied with the notion of human/creepy-crawly cohabitation.

Lulu began mentally preparing a spider pep talk, which was to center around a single fact: less than one percent of spiders are poisonous. This information, along with a plethora of other useless tidbits, came courtesy of Theo. Lulu often wondered if he moonlighted as an employee for Wikipedia. There was simply no other explanation for his vast knowledge of random facts.

“Heeeelllloooo,” a familiar voice wafted faintly through the air.

“Did you hear that?” Theo asked the others as his stomach turned, most likely a result of eating an asparagus-and-peanut butter sandwich.

“Of course! Who could miss the sound of you masticating your food?” Mrs. Wellington snapped. “It’s like a cow chewing a hundred pieces of gum at once!”

“Well, excuse me for not having a pair of soundproof dentures, unlike someone I know!”

“Are you implying I wear dentures?”

“Please,” Theo said, performing a Lulu-worthy roll of
the eyes, “don’t even try to deny it; I can smell the Poligrip from here!”

“I’ll find my way in there soon enough,” the voice continued breathlessly from beyond the fortress wall, prompting all but Mrs. Wellington to turn their heads with alarm.

“Oh, dear,” Schmidty said as he pushed away his asparagus-and-peanut butter sandwich.

“Don’t tell me you can smell the Poligrip, too?” Mrs. Wellington huffed.

“Madame, didn’t you hear her voice?” Schmidty asked, perplexed that his hearing was superior to the old woman’s.

“Whose voice?” Mrs. Wellington asked as Abernathy looked directly at her and snarled.

“Oh, stop acting like such an animal!”

“You’re the one who treated me like an animal, making me wear a collar!”

“You were a child, and I was afraid you’d get lost!”

A strange amalgamation of sniffing, grunting, and squealing outside the wall quickly grabbed everyone’s attention.

“That pig is worse than a cold sore; absolutely impossible to shake!” Mrs. Wellington snapped as she angrily banged her fist down on her sandwich.

“This place will only make my story all the more likely to win the Snoopulitzer! I’ll find a way in there, just you wait and see! I’m not afraid of a little moat or barbed wire!”

Sylvie’s comment crawled uncomfortably beneath Basmati’s fair skin, irritating the man to his very core. He pulled at his half-mustache aggressively as he stared directly at Mrs. Wellington.

“As is the case with you, privacy is a necessity to do my job well. So it should hardly come as a surprise that I don’t take kindly to reporters lurking around my school. You better make sure that woman stays outside the wall, or you’ll have more than Abernathy to contend with,” Basmati whispered harshly to Mrs. Wellington before standing and skipping back to the house.

It was a most abnormal manner in which to exit considering his sour mood and advanced age, but Basmati wasn’t normal.

“I can smell your secrets from here, and soon I’m
going to share them with the whole world,” Sylvie called out with the kind of mouthwatering excitement usually reserved for Theo in a bakery.

“She really does have some nose,” Lulu said with equal parts disdain and awe.

“I agree. If she was smart she’d work airport security, although I’d hate to see any German shepherds out of a job in this economy,” Theo added sincerely.

“How close is the pig? We mustn’t let her get over the wall. Our situation is precarious enough,” Mrs. Wellington worried aloud.

“By the sound of it, I don’t think she’s crossed the moat yet,” Garrison assessed, his upper lip growing sweaty at the thought of water nearby.

“Why don’t we ask the boys if they can see Sylvie? They have a better view than anyone from way up there,” Hyacinth said as she pointed to Bard, Herman, and Fitzy, who were standing on the highest point of the Contrary Conservatory’s roof.

“What are you doing up there?” Theo howled as he jumped to his feet, alarmed by the boys’ proximity to the edge.

“We’re going to fly!” Fitzy screamed excitedly.

“People cannot fly! At least not without paying a few hundred dollars to an airline, which, as an aside, doesn’t even include checking a bag anymore,” Theo yelled in response.

“Don’t worry; we built jet packs,” Fitzy explained before high-fiving both Bard and Herman.

“I love a good high five,” Hyacinth mumbled to Celery as a large rock flew over the fortress wall, landing mere inches from Schmidty.

“Was that an asteroid?” Mrs. Wellington asked seriously.

“No, Madame. It most certainly was not.”

“You can’t escape me or my story!” Sylvie hollered disturbingly before being drowned out by chanting.

“Jet packs! Jet packs!” Bard and Herman repeated animatedly.

“Wait! Please! Just wait!” Theo screamed at the Contrarians before turning to his lunch mates. “As a hall monitor I cannot sit by and allow this to happen. I have a duty—a duty to safety.”