The Misses Foo & Cockerill

That Nice Woman

Julie waddled after Miss Foo, who waddled down the hallway and up the stairs (the ones not enshrouded in the Stranglervine). Julie had to crawl up them on her hands and knees, but Miss Foo never paused and hardly bothered to look back. The passed the first flight and mounted a second.

"You're a bright one, aren't you?" claimed Miss Foo.

"Peek!" she replied.

"That's right, Weevil's in the room right below the peak of the tower. How'd you know he was here?"

"Forbidden."

"Hmm...I see." Miss Foo led the girl into a small room, like she said, right below the peak of the Victorian tower. The room was dusty and bare with a small attic window.

Julie walked in and looked around.

"Eli?" she said.

Miss Foo slammed the door and shoved a dresser in front of it. "Ha!" she cried triumphantly.

"Trapped!" Miss Foo heard the girl say. She could scream, yell, thrown a tantrum, it didn't matter; she was much too far away to be heard. Nobody would ever find her there.

Miss Foo answered the doorbell when it rang.

"What?" she snarled and put her squinty eye to the keyhole.

Julie laughed delightedly when she saw it.

"Hello?" called Phil-osopher. "Who's there? Is it a lion? Is it a tiger? Is it a bear?"

"What are you?" Miss Foo snarled again.

"Woman funny," Julie giggled.

"What woman is funny?" Miss Foo growled, her eye squinting closed even further so that it was no more than a razor slit peering out through the keyhole. "Wait a second. You look familiar. You look like...hey, didn't the Weevil say he had a sister?"

"Sister," Julie agreed. "Weevil?"

"Yes," Miss Foo hissed, thinking quickly, "yes, he is here. He is just having a snack.

"Why?" Julie asked.

"Because he was hungry," said Miss Foo like it was the most obvious thing in the world."

"Oh, no," said Phil-osopher. "I think she meant 'why is he having a snack here?'"

"Look, do you want to see you brother or not?" Miss Foo replied, tapping her walking stick impatiently on the ground.

"Yes," Julie said.

Phil-osopher added, "Perhaps you should tell him to come out."

"Oh, I can't do that. It's rude to interrupt someone when they're eating. You will have to come in."

Julie thought about it, she didn't want to go in the house. It's not that she was afraid, not much scared Julie, it was that she didn't trust Miss Foo. (And she was wise not to.)

And then Phil-osopher said, "Can I have snacks too?" and that settled it.

"Go around back," Miss Foo ordered. "The front door is broken."

Miss Foo chuckled to herself as she picked her way to the rear of the house. "What a lucky girl I am," she said. "What a lucky girl."

She let the pair into the house and showed them to the kitchen. As they walked through the Manor Phil-osopher looked around in wonder and Julie spouted random things that she saw. "Spider!" she said. "Bad plant! Ooohh skeleton!"