CHAPTER 9

EVERYONE’S AFRAID OF SOMETHING:
Cacophobia is the fear of ugliness.

Summerstone’s foyer was unusually spacious with pink fleur-de-lis wallpaper peeling from the ceiling. Aside from the drooping wallpaper, the room was pristinely maintained and incredibly clean. Much to Madeleine’s relief, there wasn’t a cobweb in sight. Still, as a precaution, she sprayed a circle around her feet, causing the others to inch away. Schmidty left the children in the foyer in order to lower the sheriff off the mountain with the crane.

The foursome stood awkwardly around an oval chestnut table with a vase of pink hydrangeas. As they surveyed the room, it was hard to ignore the far wall decorated with pictures of beauty queens with beehive hairdos, crowns, sashes, and extremely shiny teeth. Shoes clacking across a wooden floor interrupted the students’ inspection of their new surroundings. At the top of the sweeping staircase, an elderly woman in a powder blue knee-length skirt and matching jacket stood femininely with her right leg slightly bent, as if posing for a photograph.

The woman’s clothes, like the interior of the house, dated from the mid-to-late 1950s. With four sets of eyes on her, she delicately and pretentiously sashayed down the staircase. Theo, Madeleine, Garrison, and Lulu had no way of knowing what to expect, since so far nothing had been what they’d thought it was going to be.

As the woman approached, her sagging paper-thin skin came into focus. She had clearly invested an enormous amount of time applying makeup to hide her age. The woman had bubblegum pink lips, thick black eyeliner, fake eyelashes, and light blue eye shadow that matched her outfit. Madeleine, grateful she hadn’t lifted her veil, stared freely at the peculiar-looking woman in a brown bob wig.

Lulu stifled laughter as she noticed tortoiseshell glasses hanging from a gold chain around the woman’s neck. Not even Lulu’s grandmother in Boca Raton wore her glasses on a chain. Trailing behind the woman as she made her grand entrance were four cats — two black and two gray. She paused in front of the students and waited for the cats. Once all the felines were down the stairs, the old woman began.

“Hello, I am Mrs. Wellington, your teacher, headmistress, and all-around center of the universe at School of Fear,” she said in a haughty tone. “I assume you have already met Schmidty, the groundskeeper slash cook slash office assistant. He’s nearly blind, so if you make a snide face at him, he’ll hardly notice. As for Mac, he’s still recovering from the death of his partner, Cheese, so be kind. I should add that only Schmidty and I are to call him Mac; he’s Macaroni to you. And the cats — Fiona, Errol, Annabelle, and Ratty — are my greatest achievement, literally living proof of my teaching abilities. I trained these cats. And if I can train a cat, I can definitely train you.”

“What have you trained them to do?” Lulu asked.

“To behave completely untrained. Quite exemplary if I may say so myself,” Mrs. Wellington said with a cackle.

“Are we being filmed? Is this a reality show? Our parents’ idea of a joke?” Garrison asked sincerely.

“I didn’t think my parents even had a sense of humor,” Lulu responded honestly.

“They don’t, dear. And the only camera in this house is a 1953 Polaroid Land Camera for which they stopped making film. So unfortunately, your dreams of national embarrassment are over. Please mourn silently,” Mrs. Wellington said while stopping in front of Lulu.

“Name?”

“Lulu Punchalower.”

Mrs. Wellington nodded and sauntered over to Garrison.

“Name?”

“Garrison Feldman.”

Mrs. Wellington again nodded and proceeded on to Madeleine.

“Name?”

“Madeleine Masterson.”

Mrs. Wellington again nodded and turned toward Theo; however, before she could ask his name, he told her.

“Hello, my name is Theo Bartholomew, and I was wondering if I could call my mom. I’m really concerned. What if she ran out of gas, got into a car accident, or picked up a deranged hitchhiker? I need to get to a phone as soon as possible.”

Mrs. Wellington locked eyes with Theo, her bright pink lips turning dark crimson.

“Wow, your lips change colors,” Theo unwisely said aloud.

“I was born with an exceptionally high number of capillaries in my lips. They are rather wide and close to the surface, allowing those around me to see them blush, if you will, when embarrassed or, more aptly, annoyed.”

“Are you embarrassed?” Theo asked sincerely.

“What in Heaven’s name do I have to be embarrassed about?”

“I don’t know, maybe your makeup,” Theo said earnestly. “All I know is, you haven’t known me long enough to be annoyed. My brothers say it takes over a year to fully comprehend how annoying I am.”

“Clearly, I am an exceptionally fast learner as I can already tell that you are annoying, with a capital A, or maybe just a capital everything. Oh forget it; I am too annoyed to even explain how annoying you are… .”

While Theo may have been annoying, the foursome was beginning to realize that Mrs. Wellington might be more than a tad batty.