The Misses Foo & Cockerill

Pandemonium's Cage

Miss Foo was frustrated. The kind of frustrated that no amount of axes could fix. The kind of frustrated that can only be fixed by causing chaos. Besides, causing chaos calmed her and helped her think. So she dragged Miss Cockerill down to Danny's Diner.

"What are we doing?" Miss Cockerill asked as they wandered from table to table, unscrewing the tops of the saltshakers.

"Causing chaos," Miss Foo grinned.

"I can see that, but how?"

"When people shake salt onto their food they only expect a little to come out. See there are only a few holes in the top," Miss Foo held up a top and looked through it, "only letting a few grains of salt out. So when the top falls off and all the salt comes out, they won't expect it, and their food will be too salty."

"Oh," said Miss Cockerill, "that's funny," and she set to work unscrewing the tops.

Miss Foo however was still looking at that saltshaker top. "Only lets a few grains out," she muttered to herself.

Miss Foo was having an epiphany. An epiphany, in this case, means a really good idea for her, but a really evil idea for everyone else.

"Cockerill!" she bellowed, scaring the customers and causing a diner to leave his food and run for the door muttering "Not again, not again."

"By the witches of Salem, I've got it!"

 "Where are the cookies? And the Snarling Snap-pea?" Eli asked, looking around. Darkness gathered in the corners of the hall and he shivered when he saw a big spider watching him from the center of its web.

"To the kitchen, this way!"

Eli followed the Misses deeper into the house where it became darker and mustier. They passed a room full of bizarre skeletons (Eli didn't recognize a single one), a bathroom with two bathtubs, and a room with nothing but a large cage hanging from the ceiling.

"Ah, yes," said Miss Cockerill, when Eli paused to study the cage. "That's where old Pandemonium used to live. He was a good boy. Poor Pan."

"What happened to him?"

But before Miss Cockerill could answer, Miss Foo yelled from the kitchen and they hurried to meet her. The kitchen was even more astounding than anything Eli had seen yet. Like the bathroom, there were two of everything: two sinks, two refrigerators, two knife racks–one holding heinous-looking, rusty butcher cleavers and cimeters, and the other with dainty paring knives with flowers painted on the handles–, two loaves of bread–one fresh, one growing green sprouts from the top of it–, really two of everything. It made Eli dizzy looking back and forth between the two sides and he was grateful when Miss Foo put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him into a seat growling, "Sit down."

Miss Cockerill was bustling through the cabinets humming to herself, "I know I've got some here somewhere!"

Miss Foo tried to lift herself up and sit on the table so that she could glare down at Eli from above him. She couldn't get both butt cheeks high enough at once, however, so she settled for leaning against it. She leaned against it and leered at Eli. She leered with one of the nastiest leers imaginable, and you just knew that there was something rotten inside. Her one gaping eye stared and stared and the scrunched-up one peered at Eli so hard that his hat fell down over his eyes and he was too nervous to push it back up.

"Oh, yes," she sneered. "Oh, yes. Yes, I think we have one indeed."

"FOUND THEM!" shrieked Miss Cockerill, who was now standing on the counter in a pile of cookies. "I knew I had some here somewhere."

Eli, squirmed and pushed his hat out of his eyes. "Actually I've changed my mind; I don't really want any cookies after all. Besides, I should be getting home. My sister is going to be worried sick."

"Don't forget your cookies!" cried Miss Cockerill, leaping lightly from the counter.

"You fathead!" said Miss Foo, "don't give him the cookies."

"I don't have a fat head," she frowned.

"Cockerill, do you realize what we have here? We have finally caught a husband!" cackled Miss Foo in malicious glee (she said husband like the word was a snake slithering out of a hole).

"Oh!" said Miss Cockerill.

"What?!" cried Eli.

"Yes, he's a bit weevily, but he will do nicely, especially once he fattens up a bit."

Miss Cockerill began snickering gleefully like she had just caught on to some evil joke. "Yes, he's the perfect size to carry my purse!"

"Quick, Weevil," demanded Miss Foo, "what's the difference between a corn and a mole? And how would you treat each?"

Eli had leapt out of his chair and was backing slowly from the room, like a cornered animal. "Um, well corn is a plant and I guess I would boil it..."

"WRONG!" cried Miss Foo as Eli turned and sprinted from the room. He sprinted down the hallway–his knobbly knees knocking into each other–past the bathroom with two bathtubs and around a corner and then he found himself in front of a staircase. He knew he hadn't come in that way so he turned around and sprinted the other direction. All the while, Miss Foo's voice echoed through the corridors.

"You have to massage a corn! You massage it! We'll learn you, boy, don't you worry: we'll learn you!"

Eli ran as though his life depended on it, and it very well might have. He cursed his spindly legs and wished he had learned to play sports. But he ran anyway. He ran past pink rooms with lace curtains and he ran past an evil-looking staircase that led down into a dark basement. Once he ran past Miss Foo, who just cackled at him, her rolls of fat jiggling. He ran past Miss Cockerill who snatched at him and he didn't stop to wonder when he ran past a giant plant growing up through the house. As he ran he tried to remember what any of the heroes from his books had done when they were trapped like he was, but he couldn't think of any. At last he spotted the front door. He glanced over his shoulder–the Misses were nowhere in sight–and he sighed deeply. Freedom. He wouldn't be anyone's husband. He wouldn't massage anyone's corns or carry anyone's purse. He would be a regular boy again and skin his knees and take apart toy cars to see what they were made of and throw firecrackers at people's feet. And read more books. Yes, he must read more books. And he would keep looking for the Nepenthes giuliana.

Eli reached for the door handle and for the fresh evening air and for freedom...but it wasn't there; there was no handle in the door.

Miss Foo's phlegmy laughter came closer.

Why was there no knob?! Eli pushed the door with all his might, but it wouldn't budge.

Then, terribly, the cold, flabby arms of Miss Foo circled around him like a python.

"Got you now, Weevil," she whispered maliciously in his ear. Her rotten breath and the flecks of spittle that landed on his cheek made Eli's knees tremble.

Behind Miss Foo, Miss Cockerill leapt up and down clapping her hands. "You got him, you got him! Oh, we're going to have so much fun!"

The Misses dragged Eli down the hall and past the room full of skeletons, which Eli didn't pay any attention to now. He knew where they were taking him. And they dragged him in, stuffed him inside, and locked the cage. Then Miss Cockerill gave it a light twist; it began to spin and the Misses watched it go round and round, Miss Foo with one great eye absorbing every little detail and her one shriveled up examining, and Miss Cockerill beaming malevolently and thinking of all the things she would do with her new husband.

Eli shrunk back as far as could in the cage, but every turn brought him back closer to the staring, evil faces.

Eli, like it or not, had become the property of Misses Foo and Cockerill.