Bully-Be-Gone (10 page)

W
hen Millicent got home from school, she saw flashes of light coming from the basement windows and heard pops and bangs. Uncle Phineas was working. Curious about what he was doing, she snuck over to a window and peeked in. Her uncle was surrounded by rolls of tape, his head in the sink under a stream of water. She'd seen enough sinks for the day. She tiptoed across the porch, shivering in her drenched, icy-cold clothing, and turned her key as quietly as she could. She crept upstairs, showered, dressed in her fuzzy bathrobe, wrapped a towel around her head, and crawled into bed. She felt like such a failure.

A knock rattled the door.

“Millicent, is that you? Are you home?” asked Uncle Phineas. “I felt the water pressure drop. Were you showering?”

She didn't want to answer.

“Millicent?” he called again.

“Yes, Uncle Phineas,” she said softly. “I'm home.”

“May I enter?” he asked.

“Okay.”

The door opened and in walked Uncle Phineas, daylight from the window glinting off his bald head. He'd shaved it while Millicent was in school. A strip of tape ran across the center of his head from where his hairline would be to the base of his skull.

“What's that?” she asked, pointing at his scalp.

“An experiment,” said Uncle Phineas, sidling up to her bedside. He sat and continued. “A new product, Diffollicle Mohawk Tape. Orange. Think of the possibilities: stripes, geometrics, bull's-eyes, labyrinths. Why, an industrious person with a working knowledge of textiles could even do a plaid, yes?”

“That's nice, Uncle Phineas,” she said glumly.

“Some reaction to a product bound to shake up the cos-metological universe,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, her expression vacant.

“Will I have to tickle the source of your depression out of you?” he asked, his fingers poised, “or will you offer it freely?” She didn't reply, so he scooted her over and lay
down next to her. “It must be pretty bad, yes? You're home early and you appear healthy.” He knew her so well.

She didn't respond.

“Well, seeing that I'm conversing solo, I'll tell you a story which may be of assistance in what I assume is your hour of need.” He gave her a sidelong glance. She smiled limply. He was silent for a moment. “Where was I?” he asked.

“You were going to tell me a story,” she said. “You hadn't begun yet.”

He grinned broadly. “So, you were listening,” he said.

She nudged him with her elbow.

“The year was 1989,” he began, propping his arms behind his head, “or was it 1984? Maybe it wasn't the eighties at all. Anyway, your mother was freshly graduated from college. Oh. It had to be the eighties. That's when she graduated, yes. I'd graduated ten years before and had started my own company, Vaccu-Matic Carpets Limited.”

Millicent sat up. She'd never heard the Vaccu-Matic Carpet story before.

“I thought, and rightly so,” he continued, “that vacuum cleaners were archaic mechanisms, doomed to go wherever outmoded appliances go. So I invented the Vaccu-Matic Carpet with Autosuck Technology. Instead of using a vacuum cleaner to extract dirt from your carpet, with the VMC, you simply flipped a switch and the carpet retracted dirt, in a sense. Dust, soil, and other small debris were sucked through the carpet and into a plastic bag.”

“Neat idea,” Millicent said.

“It did moderately well. But then your mother joined the company and added her own touch. She invented a cache system that disposed of the debris by means of a hose running directly into your trash can. Inspired by your mother's enhancement, we expected a big sales increase.”

“So what happened?”

“We had instructions for the new and improved VMC professionally printed in a brochure. They were supposed to clearly state that all humans and pets should be vacated while the VMC was in use. However, as luck, or bad luck, would have it, we made the mistake of contracting the services of Mr. Cedric Cerrif, a one-eyed typesetter and printer with half a brain. Literally. Lost his right eye and half—or most of a half—of his brain in a barroom brawl.”

“Oh, no,” she said.

“Oh, yes,” said Uncle Phineas. “Poor fellow was prone to great bouts of confusion. He printed our instructions but accidentally replaced the part about vacating people and animals with a section on baking a soufflé from a cookbook he was typesetting. Astrid and I did not proofread before the instructions went to press.”

“Goodness,” she said.

“That came of it, too,” he said. “But badness came prior. Our first sale was to Bitter Pill Pharmaceuticals, purveyors of less-than-tasty medicinals and tonics. You can imagine how ecstatic we were at landing such an important account. Carpeting their six-story office complex in
Pinnimuk City would put us in Prosperityville for a good while.”

“I'd say so.” Millicent mentally estimated the total square footage of a six-story office building and multiplied that by her best guess of the square yardage price of VMC. “That was a lot of money,” she added.

“Yes,” he said. “If it were not for the lawsuit that ensued. We installed the VMC, adhering to our own strict guidelines, accepted a whopping check from our client, and went back to our offices and waited for word of mouth to bring us our next account. That evening, the night-shift janitor in charge of buffing and shining the Bitter Pill offices flipped the VMC switch. He didn't bother checking to see if anyone was still working because he didn't know he was supposed to. In a matter of seconds, he heard horrible screams coming from an executive's office.”

“What happened?” asked Millicent, clutching her blankets to her chin.

“Your mother met your father,” said Uncle Phineas.

“Wh—huh?” she asked.

“Oh, it wasn't love at first sight,” he said. “Love at first sight resides in the dominion of writers, painters, and psychics. The rest of us must learn love as one must learn to operate a table saw, carefully and under supervision.”

Millicent's face puckered. “I'm lost,” she said.

“Yes, sorry,” he said. “The janitor called us immediately. We told him to shut off the VMC, but he already had and it was still sucking. Your mother and I rushed over to Bitter
Pill's offices. This wasn't as easy as you might assume. First, my car wouldn't start. Second, we couldn't take a cab because of the taxi driver's strike. Our sole mode of transportation was a rusty old tandem bicycle that carried us about five blocks before the wheels fell off.”

“What did you do?”

“We ran the rest of the way, fueled by adrenaline and an overwhelming sense of responsibility,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Oh.”

“When we got there, I dismantled the VMC while your mother got as close to the office in question as she could without stepping on the carpet. Fortunately, the office had a glass wall and she could see into it quite clearly. There was a man, handsomer than plain but not especially striking, wearing a white lab coat. He was stuck to the floor, hollering at the top of his lungs.”

“Dad,” said Millicent wistfully.

“Doctor Adair Madding, yes,” said Uncle Phineas. “Long story edited for consumption, he sued us for excessive suction—which put us out of business; Adair and Astrid dated and eventually got married. End of narrative.”

Millicent found that listening to Uncle Phineas's stories was very much like water-skiing: you could be going along at a decent clip for quite some time, then abruptly wipe out.

“That's it?” she asked.

“Point A to point B, yes,” he answered.

“Is there a moral to this story?” she asked.

“Hmmm,” he murmured, “I did say it would be helpful, didn't I?”

“You did,” she said.

“Well, if I were to derive a lesson from this tale,” he said, stroking his beard, “I'd say it would be that you must do everything within your power to correct your own mistakes. Your happy ending, if you are indeed entitled to one, will come of its own accord.”

“Uncle Phineas,” she said quietly, “I just don't know how to fix my problems—by myself.” She hoped he'd offer to help, but she knew he wouldn't. It wasn't that he didn't care or didn't love her or didn't want the best outcomes for her. He was just so staunch a believer in self-reliance that he was likely to remind her she could manage without him.

Uncle Phineas sat up and inched himself to the edge of the bed.

“You're a resourceful young lady,” he said, standing. “I have faith in you, yes.”

He ambled to her bedroom door and exited. She thought he was well on his way to the basement lab when he popped his head back in.

“You don't even have to have a solution straight away,” he said. “But you do have to try your darndest to find one.” With that, he disappeared.

Millicent thought about her parents. She imagined they were cheering her on, expressing a confidence in her she didn't yet have in herself.

Madame Curie jumped onto the bed, nestled close to Millicent's face, and licked it with her rough tongue.

“Is all this fixable, M.C.?” she asked.

The feline tilted her head as if to say, Could be, could be not.

“Juanita isn't speaking to me, Pollock is mad at me, Tonisha is a space case, and Roderick…never mind him. I need a friend.”

The cat pressed her wet nose to Millicent's cheek.

“Yechhhh, your nose is runny. Runny nose…runny nose!” Millicent said. “Leon! Leon is home sick. He'll talk to me.” She shot out of bed, got dressed, and made a beeline to Leon's house a block away.

M
illicent pounded on Leon's front door until Mrs. Finklebaum answered.

“Millicent, come in. What can I do for you?” Mrs. Finklebaum asked.

“I have to talk to Leon,” Millicent said, stepping inside.

“He's sleeping. What's new, right? He has the flu. Vicious bug going around. Aches, fever, stuffed-up nose—”

“I'm sorry to bother him,” Millicent interrupted, “but this is urgent.”

“Oh. I see,” Mrs. Finklebaum said. “Upstairs and to the left. Knock first. Brace yourself. He's covered in mentholated rub.”

Millicent charged up the stairs, leaving Mrs. Finklebaum scratching her head. Millicent rapped on
Leon's door so hard it hurt.

“Four seventy-five!” Leon shouted in a raspy voice.

“Leon, it's me, Millicent,” she said through the door.

“Come in.”

Millicent entered to see Leon in bed, surrounded by wadded tissues, as if he were resting in a cloud. The smell of mentholated rub made her eyes tear.

“Pull up a chair,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Millicent grabbed his desk chair and sat. “I need advice, or I need to talk,” she said. “I don't know which.” She told him about the events of that morning, starting with Juanita and Pollock in the drainage hole, occasionally fanning away the smell of mentholated rub. Leon nodded, blew his nose, coughed, nodded, blew his nose, and coughed as she told her story. He ran out of tissues and asked her to get him another box from his desk, which she did. She finished by saying, “I admit it, Leon, I'm responsible for another failed invention. Bully-Be-Gone is a disaster.” On the verge of tears, she took a tissue for herself in case she started crying.

“Gee, I wish I could help you, but, as you can see, I'm sick.”

Millicent fanned her face. “Don't you at least have any advice for me?”

Leon propped himself up on one elbow. “I always find that when I'm in trouble, telling the truth helps a lot.”

“The truth is scary,” Millicent said. “Maybe I can find a way around it.” She fanned her face again.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Leon asked. “Do I stink?”

“Uh, yes,” Millicent said. “Of mentholated rub.”

“My mom must have put some on me while I was sleeping.”

“You can't smell it?”

“No. My nose is plugged.”

“I'm sorry, Leon.” She handed him another tissue, which he brought to his bright red snout. Millicent yelped. “That's it! Your nose. That's it!” She sprung from the chair.

“My nose is it?” Leon asked.

“Yes!” Millicent nearly hollered. “Your nose is going to get me out of this mess. Thank you, Leon. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She moved forward to his bedroom door. “Thank you for your nose! Feel better!” she called out as she ran down the stairs.

M
illicent ran home from Leon's house, inspired by his clogged sinuses. She stopped before the basement lab door to catch her breath. She knew what had to be done. She had to find a way to keep Nina, Pollywog, Fletch, and Roderick from smelling Bully-Be-Gone.

“All I have to do is find a way to plug their noses. I could put foam earplugs in their nostrils. No, too gross. I couldn't even get close enough to them to—never mind. Unless I made a pair of extending tongs that…no.” She tapped her lips with her forefinger, concentrating. “Wait a second…” She thought once more about Leon, lying in bed, unable to
smell the mentholated rub his mother had put on him, his sinuses clogged. “Yes! That's it!” As she unlocked the lab door, Madame Curie appeared from a flower bed and followed Millicent into the lab.

Millicent found a handwritten note on a lab table. Uncle Phineas had left it there. It said he would be at an inventor's meeting until well after dinner. Millicent set it aside, somewhat relieved he wouldn't be home for a while. She knew he'd disapprove of an invention that plugged noses. Inventors were supposed to improve people's lives. But wouldn't she make her friends' lives better if she could get the bullies to leave them alone?
Yes
, she reasoned. She had work to do. She snapped on a pair of rubber gloves.

She labored late into the night, measuring fluids, sifting powders, and mixing them together. She added them to a green bottle and shook it hard. The contents bubbled, then settled.

Then she supplemented the concoction with her secret ingredient: Tickle Tonic. To make Tickle Tonic, she'd modified the Propulsion Lotion she used in Bully-Be-Gone by blending in every allergen she could get her hands on: dust, pollen, pepper, and dander from Madame Curie. According to her theory, once molecules of Tickle Tonic were lodged in someone's nose, they would jiggle until only one response was possible.

I'll call it Hooky Spray
, she thought. After all, it would be perfect for kids who want their parents to think they're sick so they can stay home from school. Not that Millicent
would ever try such a thing.

She smiled at the bottle, satisfied. Hooky Spray would make its target sneeze, propelling Bully-Be-Gone out of both nostrils, then it would plug his or her nose. In effect, Hooky Spray would give the symptoms of the flu without the discomfort.

“How will I know if this is effective?” she pondered.

Madame Curie prodded Millicent's shirt with her nose as if to tell Millicent she wanted to play.

“Not now, M.C.,” Millicent said as she uncapped the spray bottle.

The cat jumped at the bottle, batting it out of Millicent's hand. It fell and rolled across the lab table.

“No, M.C.!”

Madame Curie chased the bottle, swatting at it as if it were a mouse. It tumbled off the table and into a wastepaper basket, where it landed top down. Madame Curie lunged into the garbage—into a cloud of Millicent's new invention.

“Oh, no!” Millicent yelled. She reached for a filtration mask and clapped it onto her face. “M.C., are you okay?”

By then, Madame Curie had already scrambled out of the trash can, knocking it over in the process, and had wedged herself into a corner under the table.

Millicent had never tested any product on Madame Curie. Animal testing just wasn't nice. Besides, recently, on the television news program,
40 Minutes Plus Commercial Breaks,
she saw a segment about LAMA, League Against
Meanness to Animals. LAMA was an organization of activists. They went to great lengths to seek out people who wore fur coats or tested cosmetic products on animals. They did horrible things to those people. A month ago, LAMA broke into a cosmetics lab and freed all the test rabbits, but not before tying up the lab technicians and gluing cotton balls to the ends of their noses.

LAMA had spies everywhere, so Millicent peered out of the lab blinds. She saw nothing, the street outside stood dark and empty.
Good
, she thought. She didn't need a cotton ball glued to her nose.

She turned her attention back to Madame Curie. “What a stroke of luck,” she said. She felt bad feeling good about the cat getting squirted, but now she didn't have to find a way to try out her invention. The cat had become her guinea pig.

She crouched under the table. “M.C., let me see you,” she pleaded.

Madame Curie cowered on her haunches, a faint thread of mucus seeping from her nose. She let out three, tiny cat sneezes—
pyew, pyew, pyew.

Millicent got an idea. The Robotic Chef had a microphone in the lab. She ordered a scoop of tuna. “Scooooop of tuuuuunaaaa,” she said, enunciating as clearly as she could. Seconds later, a scoop of tuna on a saucer appeared in the chute through which meals were delivered.

“How about that?” Millicent asked no one in particular. She'd expected any food except tuna.

She placed the tuna on her desk and waited. If her potion worked, then Madame Curie wouldn't smell the tuna and would stay hidden. The cat eventually fell asleep under the table.

T
he next morning, Millicent showed up a few minutes early to first period with Hooky Spray in her pocket and only one plan in her head: getting within firing range of Nina, Pollywog, and Fletch. She didn't know yet how she'd pull it off.

She eased into her chair, deep in thought. Mr. Templeton, her English teacher, stopped writing on the chalkboard.

“Millicent, you're early,” Mr. Templeton said, fluffing his skirt. “I can always depend on your hunger for knowledge.” He gave a spin, his dress mushrooming big and black. “Guess who I am today.”

“Ermengarde Rhimehoggen,” Millicent said, barely looking up. “Masonville's renowned poetess—born 1879, died 1932.”

“Can't pull the taffeta over your eyes,” Mr. Templeton said.

It was the first Greats of Literature day of the school year, which occurred once a month and for which Mr. Templeton dressed as famous authors. Today, his outfit consisted of an expansive hat decorated with stuffed birds, much like the hats Ermengarde wore in her day, along with an authentic, puffy-sleeved, turn-of-the-century dress
dotted with matching fabric rosettes. Millicent glanced at his back and saw he was too big for the costume. An eye-shaped opening where the buttons were unable to close revealed his white T-shirt. She smiled, then got back to scheming.

Tonisha's seat was in the next row to Millicent's right. Beyond that, another row over and back one seat, was Fletch Farnsworth's desk—perhaps near enough for Millicent to squirt him with Hooky Spray.

Students began to file into class. As soon as most of them caught sight of Mr. Templeton, they laughed.

Tonisha walked in and exclaimed, “Ermengarde Rhimehoggen! My favorite.” She sat at her desk, clasping her hands. “Oh,” she said, noticing Millicent, “I didn't see you. Today is going to be spectacular, isn't it?” Millicent looked into her eyes and saw a stranger.

Fletch walked into the classroom and howled at Mr. Templeton. Tonisha grinned as Fletch shuffled past her. He paused, took a deep breath, and blushed. “Hi, Tonisha,” he said. Tonisha mumbled something back, then whispered to Millicent, “Today is going to be better than spectacular now that my Fletchie is here.”

Millicent's stomach churned. She thought she might barf.
Fletchie? The same person who used to reach across the aisle and unravel your headwrap?

“Settle down, everyone,” Mr. Templeton said.

“Tonisha, I have to talk to you after class,” Millicent said.

Tonisha waved at Fletch.

“Pssst, Tonisha,” Millicent said.

Tonisha giggled at Fletch, who swooned at her, his nose poked high.

“Hey, Tonisha,” Millicent said, louder.

“Order!” Mr. Templeton boomed. He stared Millicent down over the top of his glasses. “Millicent, I'm surprised at you.” Millicent faced front. Mr. Templeton pursed his lips and continued. “This morning I will read Ermengarde Rhimehoggen's poignant poem ‘My Heart Is a Delta and You Are a Boulder Blocking Its Left Ventricle.'” He hoisted himself onto a high stool. “Discussion to follow.” He began reading in a soft, lilting voice.

Millicent had been looking forward to Mr. Templeton's impersonations. While other students laughed at him, Millicent understood he was creating an illusion—a sense of being in the presence of a literary giant. Today, she had a more important agenda. She glanced at Tonisha in time to see Fletch pass her a note. Tonisha reached back and took it. Millicent imagined it said something nauseating like “You're cute” or “I like you” or “You smell good.”

Tonisha unfolded the note, read it, sighed, and fanned herself with it.

Millicent gulped. She had to put a stop to this. She reached in her pocket and pried the cap off the bottle of Hooky Spray with her thumb. How could she get near enough to Fletch to mist him? She spied the pencil sharpener mounted to the wall near his desk. Impulsively, she
raised her hand. “Mr. Templeton?” she asked.

“Yes, Millicent?” Mr. Templeton replied in his Ermengarde Rhimehoggen voice.

“Um, may I sharpen my pencil?”

“Whatever for?” Mr. Templeton asked, dropping his impersonation. “I'm right in the middle of a poem.”

“It's—it's so rich with meaning, I feel like—uh—like I have to take notes,” Millicent lied.

“In that case, sharpen away,” Mr. Templeton said, beaming.

Millicent got up and walked toward the pencil sharpener, her palms sweating. She circled around Fletch's desk. Her plan was to sharpen her pencil with one hand while aiming her Hooky Spray at Fletch with the other. She stuck her pencil in the sharpener.
Whrrrrshhh.
She extracted the green bottle from her pocket.
Whrrrrshhhh
. She pointed the bottle at Fletch.
Whrrrrshhh.
She bit her lip.
Whrrrshhh.
She squinted.
Whrrrshhh.
Her forefinger tensed.
Whrrrshhh.

“Millicent!” Mr. Templeton boomed. “It must be a nub by now.”

Millicent was so startled by Mr. Templeton, she inhaled sharply as her finger clamped down on the atomizer top, not realizing she had it facing the wrong way. A pouf of Hooky Spray assaulted her nose and open mouth. “Oh, no! Oh, no!” She gagged. She stomped in place, waving her hands in front of her face.

“It's only a pencil,” Mr. Templeton said.

Millicent let out three huge sneezes. “AAAH-CHOO! AAAH-CHOO! AAAH-CHOO!” She felt her sinuses fill until she could hardly breathe. “AAAH-CHOO,” she blasted again.
Oh, dear,
she thought.

“GROSS!” shrieked a girl sitting nearby.

“NASTY!” screamed another.

Millicent put her sleeve to her nose. Tonisha stared at her, aghast.

Mr. Templeton shot out of his chair. “Millicent,” he said, “you are to go home immediately before you make everyone sick.”

“No,” Millicent said, her voice muffled by her sleeve. “I'm fine.”

“Get your things and go home. Now,” Mr. Templeton demanded.

Millicent returned to her desk and clumsily gathered her books, papers, and backpack, trying to keep her sleeve over her nose the whole time. “Meet me by the fountain,” she managed to whisper to Tonisha before leaving English class red-faced.

T
onisha arrived at the Winifred T. Langley Memorial Fountain within fifteen minutes, brandishing a wooden hall pass.

“I had to wait until the hubbub died down before I got permission to leave,” Tonisha huffed. “That was mortifying.”

“Do you have a tissue?” Millicent asked.

“You almost got me in trouble,” said Tonisha rolling her eyes.

“I had to talk to you,” Millicent said, which was partly true.

“About?”

Millicent swallowed hard against the truth coming out. “Fletch,” she blurted.

“What about Fletch?” asked Tonisha, looking concerned.

“He—it—” Millicent stuttered. She didn't know how to approach the subject. How could she tell Tonisha that Fletch's affection wasn't genuine? If she told Tonisha the truth, she ran the risk of breaking Tonisha's heart. After all, Tonisha believed Fletch liked her and, for some unknown reason, Tonisha liked him back. If Millicent didn't tell her the truth, Bully-Be-Gone would sooner or later wear off and Tonisha's heart would be broken anyway. Then there was Hooky Spray. Millicent could wait for another chance to use it on Fletch. She decided Tonisha deserved the truth. “It's not real. Fletch doesn't really—”

Just then, Fletch appeared, a hall pass in his hand.

“Hi, Tonisha,” he said shyly.

Tonisha suddenly became coy, batting her eyelashes, her hands clasped behind her back. Millicent frowned. What was Tonisha trying to do? Make her ill?

“Hi, Fletch.”

Fletch and Tonisha locked eyes, oblivious to Millicent's presence. A full minute went by before Fletch saw Millicent
sitting there. “Oh, hi, Millicent,” Fletch said.

Fletch never said hi to Millicent unless it was attached to the word “freak.” She was immediately suspicious. “Hi, Fletch,” Millicent said reluctantly, fondling the green bottle in her sweatshirt pocket. If she could only get him to lean closer.

Fletch smiled at Tonisha, turned toward Millicent, and said, “That was pretty funny, what you did in class.”

“Humor was not my intention,” mumbled Millicent, as she wiped her nose. She couldn't help but notice he was staring at her in the most peculiar fashion. He glanced at Tonisha, then her, as if he were confused.

“Did I say funny?” asked Fletch. “I think I meant to say ‘cute.' You're cute when you sneeze.”

Tonisha glowered.

Cute?
thought Millcent.
Gross.
The last person she wanted calling her cute was Fletch Farnsworth. The truth dawned on her. He was responding to the Bully-Be-Gone on her. She eased the green bottle out of her pocket with one hand, covering it with the other.
Closer
, she thought.