The Misses Foo & Cockerill

Snarlier

Miss Foo smacked the sacks with her walking stick until she found the one that moaned. She grinned. "Why hello, my little cherub," she said as she untied it and dumped Julie out onto the terrace. A ripple of agony ripped through the girl's body. Miss Foo smacked Julie again, just for good measure. Julie didn't scream but tears sprang to her already-drowned eyes. She had been tussled, tossed, and tousled in the back of the mail truck, up the stairs, and out onto the terrace, her over-sensitive nerves screaming at every bump, every pinch, every jolt until she almost forgot what it felt like not to be in pain. She watched Miss Foo through fogged eyes, knowing for the first time in her life what hatred was. 

Miss Foo smacked Julie again. "Listen up! You won't want to miss this. This is a moment that will go down in the history books!" she cried. "Not that there will ever be any history books after today," she added as an after thought.

She flashed a particularly Foo-ish and terrible grin at Julie and began to pull pieces of Snarl from the bulging sacks that covered the terrace. One by one, slowly and methodically, she fit them together. It didn't take long before a horrible framework sprawled across the terrace.

"You see, girl," Miss Foo explained as she worked, "the Snarl worked perfectly; it was flawless, yes." She tightened a screw on the arm that held the scythe. "But I have bigger plans. Chaos on Balagan Street is all well and good, but it's a big world and that calls for big Chaos. And big Chaos calls for a bigger machine." She fastened down a tangle of pipes. "So I made improvements! Just wait 'till you see. This new machine is much bigger, stronger, nastier, and altogether more Snarlier. That other one was merely a prototype, an embryo, a seedling. This," she cried as she bolted together the final pieces, "is the Snarl, new and improved–a Snarl for our modern world!"

She stood back and admired her work, grinning Foo-ishly. "This is it!" she cried. "The Weevil was Igor. I am the doctor, and you, dearie, will be the monster!" she cackled.

The machine hardly resembled itself. The new Snarl was nearly twice as big and it was easy to see that it would be twice as powerful and potent.

"Only one thing left to do," Miss Foo said and craned her neck to look up into the cupola. She grabbed the exhaust pipe from the Snarl and pulled a red sash from a pile of detritus, tucked them into her belt, and began to climb. She arrived at the very top of the turret panting and huffing. She hung there for a moment, next to the town bell, looking out across the countryside and sighed. "It's just so perfect," she said, wiping a tear from her eye, "so ready for Chaos." Next she bowed her head to the bell and said mockingly, "Thank you for your sacrifice. Be sure it will not go to waste," before ripping its tongue out.

She put her shoulder to the bell, grunting and straining, and finally managing to swing the bell up on its side.

"You see, girl," Miss Foo huffed, "we want the Chaos to pour out into the world. Not down onto me." She chuckled. "No, no, that wouldn't do at all."

She pulled the red sash from her belt and used it to tie the bell up, snickering to herself, thinking it was poetic that Miss Cockerill had finally helped her in this last, essential, touch of the machine. She fastened the exhaust tube to the back of the bell and slid down from the cupola.

The sun was setting and the sky was a blaze of colors, as if it were warning the world of its impending doom, or simply giving it one final show. Crisp evening air crept in along the floor of the terrace and swirled amid the sacks and amid Miss Foo's boots, giving her goosebumps where her skin was exposed above her socks.

No, it wasn't the night air at all that gave her goosebumps: it was her excitement.

Overhead the night's first stars twinkled on and off into infinity. If Miss Foo had been a more romantic woman she would have considered it quite a beautiful evening.