School of Fear (18 page)

“Madame, I’m not sure dogs know how to cough. Perhaps this is as close as he can get.”

“That is absolutely ludicrous. If a dog can sneeze — and I’ve heard him sneeze — then he can cough.”

“If you say so, Madame.”

Just as Schmidty finished speaking, the plates, candelabras, and glasses on the table began to rattle.

“I thought you said there weren’t earthquakes in Massachusetts!” Theo hollered at Mrs. Wellington.

The rattle morphed into a thud, a loud and repetitive pounding noise from beneath the table.

Mrs. Wellington turned paler than usual; why, even her lips were blanching. Schmidty held tight to his comb-over as his face
twisted with uncertainty.

“It couldn’t be … ,” Mrs. Wellington muttered in shock.

“It’s the big one,” Theo warbled hysterically, “drop and cover,” he added as he dove beneath the table.

“Madame, you promised me that you would warn me before he came!” Schmidty screamed at Mrs. Wellington.

“I’m sorry, Schmidty, honestly, I am. But I didn’t know. This must be an emergency. There is no other reason he’d use the
chute!”

“Yes, Madame, perhaps you’re right. This could be an emergency. Perhaps the wretched beast wagered his children on one of
his ‘sure things’ and lost!”

“That only happened once, twice at most. And may I remind you, he didn’t use the chute on either of those occasions! This
must be something … terrible!” Mrs. Wellington snapped to Schmidty.

“It’s a sad day when losing one’s children at the track doesn’t constitute terrible!”

“Oh, stop that! This is hardly the time for moral superiority!”

“Tell my family I loved them,” Theo called out from beneath the table.

“Theo,” Madeleine said sweetly as she leaned over his quivering body, “it’s not an earthquake.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, earthquakes aren’t localized to such small areas. If this were an actual quake the entire room would be affected, not
just the table.”

As Madeleine finished explaining the situation to Theo, the pounding became more intense. Between thuds, a muffled voice hollered
and groaned.

“Schmidty, he’s climbed hundreds of feet up a rope ladder! This is an emergency!”

“Up, children! Up!” Schmidty roared at the foursome in a decidedly un-Schmidty-like tone of voice. “Mr. Garrison, grab the
left side of the table.”

Garrison, surprised by Schmidty’s take-charge manner, decided it best not to question the order.

The two pushed the table and all of its contents to the left side of the dining room. Lulu and Madeleine stood near the door
to the hall, with Theo cowering awkwardly behind them. He still wasn’t absolutely sure that this wasn’t some strange earthquake
mutation and thought it wise to stand in the door frame, on the off chance the rumbling spread.

Schmidty hurriedly threw the green shag carpet to the side, igniting a dust storm years in the making. When the layer of filth
cleared, Mrs. Wellington, Schmidty, the students, and Macaroni stared intently at a trapdoor. Scrawled in messy red lettering
was a note, “For Dire Disasters Only.” It was only the sound of yet more banging and muffled screaming that pushed Schmidty
to actually unlock and open the trap door.

A large swatch of tangled and unnaturally dyed brown hair came into view first. Even from a few feet away one could tell that
the hair was thick and coarse, much like the bristles of an old broom. Beneath the wildly unkempt brown mess were a full two
inches of white roots. As odd looking as it was to see a man desperately in need of a touch-up, it was nothing compared to
what came next.

The face was gruesome, very much in line with a dermatological science experiment gone awry. The man’s pale skin was knotted
into knobs of flesh that dotted his face like bushels on a field. Long white hairs sprung from the protrusions, some hanging
long and straight while others curled tightly. In great contrast to his pale skin and wild white facial hair was the yellow
of his eyes and teeth. So small and yellow were his teeth that on the rare occasion he tried to smile, they recalled corn
on the cob. Of course, he didn’t actually smile; he only frowned less.

Theo screeched at the sight of the man before turning away.

“How ghastly,” Madeleine inadvertently muttered aloud before quickly covering her mouth in shame.

Before them was a sweaty, out-of-breath monster of a man, hanging perilously from a rope ladder in a dark chute.

“Munchauser,” Schmidty announced with disdain as he stared mercilessly at the repugnant man.

“Who’d you think it was?” Munchauser said in a gravelly voice that sounded like the last stages of laryngitis. “Wait, don’t
tell me. I’ll bet you one hundred dollars I can guess who you thought it was.”

“You vile …” Schmidty started to react venomously, only to be interrupted by a frantic Mrs. Wellington.

“Oh stop it,” Mrs. Wellington snapped, “Schmidty, help him!”

“I’m sorry, Madame, but this man …” Schmidty trailed off as he begrudgingly pulled Munchauser from the chute.

It was only when the abnormally tall man stood fully erect before the foursome that they were able to garner the full grotesqueness
of Munchauser’s appearance. At six feet he was tall, but his thin and lanky limbs created the illusion that he was much closer
to seven feet. Dressed in a hand-tailored garish purple suit, with racing forms protruding from his breast pocket, Munchauser
was striking, but not in a good way.

With ragged and dirty fingernails, Munchauser brusquely pushed Schmidty out of the way, determined to be as close to Mrs.
Wellington as possible.

“Welly, I’ve missed you,” Munchauser said to Mrs. Wellington before turning to the students nearby. “I see you have germs
here as usual.”

“Munchauser! What are you doing here?” Mrs. Wellington interrupted harshly.

“Welly, we have a problem,” Munchauser announced in his crackly voice.

“Well of course we do! You just used the Dire Disaster Door. However, I still don’t know what the problem is!”

“You want to guess? I’ll give you twenty dollars if you get it right, but if you don’t you owe me your sapphire ring.”

“Munchauser! Would you stop with the bets! What is happening?”

“Welly, it’s a serious situation. I’ve got a lot to tell you,” Munchauser said while approaching Lulu. “Five bucks says I
can guess your name.”

“I don’t have five dollars,” Lulu responded calmly.

“What? Your parents didn’t give you any spending cash?” Munchauser asked with frustration. “Fine, what do you have on you?
Fifty cents? Seventy-five? Come on, I’ll work with you.”

“Munchauser!” Mrs. Wellington screamed.

“What? It’s just a little friendly wager.”

“Why did you just climb two hundred feet up a dark hole? Is there or is there not an emergency?”

“And bankruptcy doesn’t count,” Schmidty said snidely.

“Why don’t you pull your pants a little higher, old man?”

“Munchauser, for Heaven’s sake, what is happening?”

“Welly, before I tell you, do you even want to try to guess? It could be easy money on your part. Of course, should you win,
I’ll have to write you an IOU ’cause I left my checkbook in the bunker. But you know I’m good for it.”

“Tell me this instant or I will cut you out of my will!”

“Abernathy is back,” Munchauser spit out instantaneously.

S
hrill, hysterical, and bananas were the only words to describe Mrs. Wellington after the news came. Utterly incapable of conversing
or standing still, Mrs. Wellington stormed through the house saying the name Abernathy over and over again. She would start
low, almost at a whisper, and build up until she was screaming at a piercing level. All the while, she clacked through the
Great Hall, passing through the airplane, around the jumbled mess of stairs, across the polo field, through the Fearnasium,
upstairs, back downstairs, into the kitchen, the dining room, the classroom, and so on. Behind the frazzled and frantic woman
were the arguing men, Schmidty and Munchauser, each elbowing the other to get closer to Mrs. Wellington.

“Welly! What were you going to guess? Please tell me. I need to know. Do you want me to guess what you were going to guess?”

“Madame, please stop! All this storming around can’t be good for your knees or my arthritis!”

However, Mrs. Wellington paid them no mind and continued storming hysterically through the house.

Trailing vigilantly behind Schmidty and Munchauser were Madeleine, Theo, Garrison, Lulu, and Macaroni. It was an odd sort
of parade.

“What is going on?” Garrison screamed at no one in particular.

“Personally, I’m relieved. I prefer her lawyer to an earthquake, even with all the bets,” Theo said in an oddly calm voice.

“Hello? Schmidty? We’re talking to you!” Lulu hollered.

“This is absolute mayhem! Bedlam! Pandemonium!” Madeleine said to Theo. “What is happening here? I never thought it possible,
but this school has actually become crazier than before!”

“Did you see his fingernails?” Theo responded, totally ignoring Madeleine’s comments. “A year’s worth of bacteria under there.
There is no way I’m shaking his hand or touching anything he touches. That kind of dirt, well, it can put you in the hospital
for weeks. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if there were rare viruses under there. On second thought, an earthquake would
have been safer.”

“Theo, did you even hear a word I said?” Madeleine retorted.

“Madeleine, we are in the presence of a Center for Disease Control offender, someone who balks at basic hygiene. I don’t have
time to keep track of every little thing you say!”

And with that the frenzied parade meandered through the house, the participants muttering to themselves.

One by one, people peeled off. First was Lulu, who decided she would rather do just about anything other than follow a bunch
of lunatics around the manse, especially since everyone was ignoring her questions. The next defector was Theo, who took Macaroni
with him, as the dog had begun panting rather loudly. In truth, Theo had been winded as well; neither dog nor boy was prepared
for such a workout. Theo and Macaroni ducked into the kitchen, where they scoured cupboards and drawers for the best of the
Casu Frazigu–free food. Theo also took it upon himself to close the Dire Disaster Door, after worrying that one of his classmates
or even Macaroni might fall in.

Madeleine departed the tour when it ventured outdoors. She had no intention of entering the spider and bug kingdom. Moreover,
this reminded her that Munchauser had climbed through a dark cavern, where heaven knows what may have attached to the putrid
man. Sickened by the thought, she knew it was time to wash her hair with the hard stuff: boric acid shampoo.

Garrison stayed the longest, mostly out of curiosity. He simply had no idea what was happening or how it would turn out.

“Welly, you were just joking when you said you’d cut me out of the will, right?”

“I’m not ready for Abernathy!” Mrs. Wellington cried.

“Would you stop about the will!” Schmidty roared at Munchauser.

“Bet you a hundred dollars I’m getting more than you, fat fool.”

“You don’t even have one dollar, let alone one hundred, you ugly beast!”

“Take that back or I’ll sue you for slander!”

“Abernathy!” Mrs. Wellington continued.

“Please, Madame, please, calm down.”

By this point Garrison had completely stopped asking who Abernathy was, because, quite frankly, he realized no one had any
intention of telling him. So instead of questioning, he simply listened and lent a hand to Schmidty when the old man began
hobbling. This was more exercise than Schmidty had done in twenty years, as evidenced by his messy façade. Schmidty’s slacks
had fallen below his massive gut; his white dress shirt was partially unbuttoned and covered in perspiration circles; but
worst of all, his hair had fallen. The elaborate comb-over turban was in the process of unfolding, and it wasn’t pretty.

By the tenth lap around the classroom, Schmidty heeded Garrison’s advice and agreed to sit down.

“Madame needs me… .”

“Schmidty, you can barely walk, and your hair, well, it’s not good. You need to rest.”

“Well, maybe for a minute. Madame can handle Munchauser alone for a bit, I suppose.”

“Schmidty, I’ve just spent the last few hours chasing you around the house. You need to tell me who this Abernathy guy is.”

“Dear Mr. Garrison, it’s a rather depressing story. I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell it without a few tears.”

“Okay,” Garrison said uncomfortably, confused why a grown man needed to cry while telling a story. On second thought, Garrison
wasn’t sure he could handle seeing Schmidty cry, especially with his hair in such ruins. The man looked downright wretched,
and he hadn’t even started crying yet. “Maybe you should try and keep it together, you know, in case Mrs. Wellington needs
something.”

“You are quite right, Mr. Garrison.”