The Misses Foo & Cockerill

Foo on the Loose

Up on the rooftop terrace Miss Foo painstakingly reassembled the Snarl, piece by terrible piece.

Eli sprinted out of the basement. He dashed out of the Manor and down the street, weaving through the asparagus-colored clouds swirling everywhere over the lawn. It was Chaos. Look, I know grown-ups say that all the time, but this time it really was. Chaos. Everywhere. Pure, undiluted Chaos. More than Eli could have ever imagined. He raced through it all, ignoring the large orb hanging over the grass that seemed to be a small planet. He leapt across a puddle of conclusions and ducked under a cloud of suspicion. This is what the world would become if Miss Foo had her way. He ran as fast as he could, panting, knees wobbling, chest heaving.

He had to get the ball. Miss Foo didn't care about dancing at all. She didn't care about socializing or making contacts or whatever it was that grown-ups did at parties.

The Snarl was gone from the Manor. So was the pile of, Eli realized what it actually was, chaotic feed for it. And so was Julie. Phil-osopher was unconscious, or worse, which meant that Miss Foo had run the machine until he could no longer stand it. Obviously pleased with the results, she then packed it up and moved it to what could only be the ball at town hall.

The bell. The bell that rung at midday hung in a cupola at the top of town hall: it would be the perfect Chaos-projector for the Snarl.

Eli ran faster.

Miss Foo was going to hook the Snarl up to the bell and amplify the Chaos. It would pour out on everyone below at the costume ball. And everyone from town would be there. The mayor, the police, Ed from the hardware store... No one would be safe. It was a perfect plan; no one would notice anything unusual among all the costumes and festivities until it was already too late.

And Miss Foo was going to use Julie as her filter.

#

In the grand room at town hall Miss Cockerill had been attracting a bit of attention to herself. She was surrounded by admirers–the greengrocer dressed like a tomato, the hair stylist pretending to have a bad hair day, and the mayor in a monkey suit all applauded her costume and beauty. Miss Cockerill replied to their compliments in what she thought was a very gracious manner, but which you or I would have recognized it immediately as hogwash and gullysnipe. The men, however, were too captivated by her beauty to pay any attention at all to what she was saying. She could have been talking about a colony of ferrets on the moon for all they knew. Actually, what she was really saying wasn't far off. But the men just nodded stupidly and said, "Uh huh. Yea. Uh huh."

Miss Cockerill was very pleased with the attention, though every once in a while she would peer over her shoulder, as if looking for something or somebody.

#

When Eli finally arrived at town hall he was too winded to speak so he grabbed his knees and remained there, huffing.

"Hey, aren't you Julie's brother?" asked Officer Steve, who was acting as a doorman for the ball. "What are you doing here?"

"Foo," Eli puffed, "sister. Chaos!" Eli was too much in a hurry to explain, so he just rushed past him.

"Now, now," Officer Steve said, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him away from the door. "None of that nonsense. You just run along home now, I'm sure your parents are worried about you."

Eli ripped his arm free. He had recovered his breath sufficiently to say, "Miss Foo has kidnapped my sister and she's going to do something terrible!"

"Poppycock," Officer Steve said. "Your sister would never do anything terrible, she's too sweet.

"Not my sister, Miss Foo!"

"Nonsense, Miss Foo wasn't invited to the ball. She would never be invited to a nice affair like this, ho no, can you imagine what might happen?"

"That's exactly it! She snuck in!" Eli shouted in frustration. Officer Steve, Phil-osopher... nobody believed him. "Why won't anyone listen to me? She's going to do something really awful!"

"What could she do? The police are here; the mayor is here. Besides, I assure you, she was not invited." And Officer Steve showed Eli the guestless on his clipboard. "See? And I would never let anyone in who is not on this list. Now, since you are not on this list, I must ask you to run along."

Eli was so mad that he wanted to kick Officer Steve in the shins.

"Let me in!" he shouted. But Officer Steve would not. So Eli raced around the building, shaking door handles and testing locks on windows: there was no other way in.

He heard a thunk from above him and he looked up. Shadows danced around the cupola-someone was up there. He tugged and banged on a door, yelling in frustration. "I," crash, "am," crash, "not," crash, "giving up!" he cried and threw himself at the door.

Then he collapsed on a stoop, rubbing his shoulder, on the point of tears.

"What can I do?" he wailed.

The road was quiet. The sun had just set and a few dim streetlights burned in the haze of twilight. Nothing stirred.

And in the darkness over Eli's head a foul bellow rang out. Eli looked up–a flying saber-toothed tiger erupted from the cupola on top of town hall.

And Eli knew that it was too late; it was all over.