The Misses Foo & Cockerill

Muggerbuggers

Miss Foo growled.

Three days!

She threw an axe against the wall.

Three days!

The cap sat innocently on Miss Foo workbench.

Why didn't it work?!

She was so close now, so close, if she could just get this last piece right....

After promising that the afternoon would be even more exciting than the morning, Miss Cockerill locked Eli up while she ate her luncheon. She had, of course, forgotten to give Eli anything to eat so he sat unhappily trying to ignore the rumblings of his stomach and the clinking of silverware from the kitchen.

To take his mind off his hunger, Eli thought about the morning. He shuddered when he thought about Miss Foo. But he shuddered more when he thought about Miss Cockerill. She was wild, unpredictable, and had a furious temper. It was almost as though she transformed into an entirely different person when she saw something that she didn't like. Eli thought about that laugh, that tee-hee. Miss Cockerill had laughed like that the day before when they were scrapbooking and right after she screamed at him for drawing her in the whipper-snapper. And she had laughed when she couldn't find her red silk sash, just before tearing her black dress to shreds. And when the iron had... Eli shuddered. That had been the worst. He had thought that she would burn his fingers for sure. Eli was lucky that she had been so excited about the ball that she forgot everything else. He would have to watch out for that laugh. He was sure that laugh meant that the dark side, the evil side, of Miss Cockerill was about to emerge.

And then Eli thought about Julie again. He was supposed to protect her, watch out for her, be the man of the house while his parents were away. And now she was stuck with that old coot Phil-osopher who probably didn't even realize that Eli hadn't been home in two days. Eli took the bomber hat and the goggles from his head and looked at them. "I don't deserve you," he said. "Dad was right: I'm just not ready yet."

The bell from town hall rang noon. It surprised Eli that he could hear it so far away, and deep inside the foul Manor.

The clatter from the kitchen stopped and Miss Cockerill's thin silhouette appeared in the doorway. As she clasped the shackle around his ankle, Eli suddenly realized why Miss Foo wanted to go to the ball. He quickly stuffed his hat and goggles back over his head.

"Where is Miss Foo?" he asked Miss Cockerill.

"Oh, puttering around somewhere."

"But where?"

"I think down in the basement."

And then Eli knew he was right. If Miss Foo was down in the basement it could only mean one thing: she was working on the Snarl. And the ball...

Miss Foo was right, of course: a costume ball would be a perfect place to cause chaos. But what was her plan? How was she going to do it?

And as Miss Cockerill dragged him down the hallway, Eli resolved that whatever Miss Foo's evil scheme was, Eli would stop her.

Miss Cockerill was humming to herself. "Time to clean the phones!" she tittered and handed Eli a pink contraption of what appeared to be fuzzy earmuffs.

"This is a phone?" Eli asked.

"Why of course! What else would it be? Though it has been ever-so-long since anyone has called me on it." Miss Cockerill frowned and Eli almost, almost felt sorry for her. "That's why we have to clean it! Nobody wants to call a dirty phone."