The Misses Foo & Cockerill

Initiative

Miss Foo schemed and brewed and scribbled and scribbled and schemed and brewed and before long she had created the plans for her wickedly evil machine. Then she began collecting all the bits and pieces she needed–pipes and wrenches and anvils and even a scythe–and heaping them in corners of the basement.

Once Miss Cockerill descended into the basement to gather some cellar dust (an essential ingredient in her recipe for Sheep's-head Soup) and she saw Miss Foo's large backside poking out from under a confusing mess of rubble. Miss Cockerill carefully tip-toed across the basement, but Miss Foo heard her and chased her up the stairs with a liberal dose of smacks from her walking stick.

But what Miss Cockerill had seen confused her. What did Miss Foo want with a pile of car horns, tubas, and old squeaky dog toys? But then she remembered Miss Foo's walking stick and decided it was better not to think about it at all.

Miss Foo hardly left the basement after that. She was constantly hammering or sawing or blowtorching something, tinkering with the machine, modifying, improving, enhancing.

And the machine grew.

Eli stood at the top of Balagan Street and peered down it. He stretched himself up on his tiptoes and leaned forward but he couldn't see any reason why his father wouldn't let him go down there.

His bomber hat fell into his face and he pushed it back out of his eyes.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," he said to himself, lowered his goggles, and began to step gingerly down the street.

He bobbed and weaved, using all the techniques he had read heroes used to keep themselves hidden. He ducked behind bushes, moving sporadically or, for long intervals, not at all. He saw nothing to make him think that Balagan Street was dangerous. Not a dog barked. Not a car moved down the street. The houses were still and quiet, though once Eli thought he saw a face in a window that quickly drew away behind a swish of curtains.

"There's nothing here to worry about," Eli said to himself, and stepped out from behind a bush into the middle of the road. "It's just a normal street."

Eli had been concentrating so hard on being sneaky, that he hadn't paid any attention at all to his surroundings. But as he looked around himself now, he noticed that where once, at the top of the street, the houses were painted bright, happy pastels, they were now dark brown, gray, or not painted at all. Shutters hung limply from windows and tire swings swung vacantly from dead tree limbs. The houses grew farther and farther apart and then vanished completely. And just off in the distance Eli could see the dark line that was the beginning of the forest. But before the forest, one monolith of a building stood imposingly alone.

Eli shivered when he looked at it and hugged his shirt into himself. It was some kind of house, or mansion, or... He wasn't sure why, but it gave Eli a very peculiar feeling. It suddenly struck him that the reason his father had forbidden the end of Balagan Street might not have been the forest at all. But the Nepenthes giuliana was in there, he was sure of it.

"For Julie," he said.

Eli was more cautious than ever as he passed the house, just in case. He returned to the bushes, ducking and hiding, and approached the house from the opposite side of the street.

He could almost hear it creaking and moaning, though there was no wind. It looked deserted. The front door had no knob. There was a radiator sitting on the front lawn.

Eli crouched in the bushes and watched, but nothing happened. Not a bird chirped. Not a leaf shook. Eli shivered again, not sure why.

Nothing continued to happen.