Marcia's Madness (8 page)

"There!" Marcia stood back, pleased: somehow she'd managed to take every scattered item from the table and attach them all together to make one piece. Well, except for the beaker full of blue liquid. A moment later, Marcia looked up. She must have forgotten we were there until she'd sensed seven sets of eyes gazing back and forth from her to her invention.

"Oh, sorry," she said, looking embarrassed. "As I was about to say, my invention will save—"

"But aren't you going to add that blue stuff?" Petal interrupted. "It always gets me nervous when people make something from a kit and find pieces left over. Don't you think everything is there for a reason?"

"Oh." Marcia blushed. Then she shocked us by raising the beaker to her lips and taking a long slug right from it.

"You don't need that for your invention?" Zinnia asked.

"I hope you didn't just drink poison!" Petal gasped.

"Nope." Marcia wiped her blue mouth on her sleeve. "It's just my Kool-Aid for while I'm working." She passed the beaker around. "Anyone want some?"

Seven heads shook.

"Getting back to your invention and its purpose?" Annie prompted.

"Oh, right!" Marcia set down the beaker and picked up the device to demonstrate it. "Well, it's like this—you do this thing, that thing, and the other—like so. And then sound will come out of it. I found a video of Mommy and Daddy's wedding, then I took their recorded voices off that, inserted the sounds into this, and then somehow programmed the thing so we can speak into it over here but whatever we say will come out in the drawing room or the living room sounding exactly like Mommy or Daddy."

"That sounds ... involved," Rebecca said, for once too stunned to be snide. She was that in awe of Marcia's intelligence. We all were. This really did seem like rocket science to us!

"But who will talk into it?" Annie asked. "And won't the Social Services person notice if there are only seven of us in the room? Remember, that was a problem with the idea of one of us wearing the Daddy disguise."

"Oh, that." Marcia pooh-poohed her concerns. "When anyone asks, we always say that one of our parents is in the bathroom with a tummy virus and the other is in France. Well, this time we'll say they both have tummy viruses and that it might be contagious, which is why they can only talk but not be seen. Then we'll each take turns excusing ourselves, go to the other room where the device will be hidden, and impersonate Mommy and Daddy through the device. And voilà!" Marcia wiped one hand against the other. "Problem solved!"

Well, it didn't sound quite that easy, but since we didn't have anything better, or even anything else...

"Let's try it!" we cried. Seven of us raced up to the drawing room as Marcia gathered together her device and her beaker of Kool-Aid.

Once we were all in the drawing room, there was some argument over who should be the first to talk into the device. At last it was agreed that Marcia should be. She'd invented the thing, after all.

So she went to the other room and Annie impersonated a Social Services type of person grilling us with questions, but all we heard back, first in Mommy's voice and then in Daddy's, was:

"
Garble, garble, garble.
"

"Why isn't this working?" we heard Marcia cry in frustration from the other room. Then, after a heavy sigh: "I guess it's back to the drawing board."

"Oh, does that mean Marcia's invention doesn't work?" Petal wanted to know. "I thought
garble, garble, garble
was the sound of her drinking more Kool-Aid."

***

But the drawing board yielded no better results on Tuesday; nor did the results improve on Wednesday.

And then Thursday came.

Since Marcia was now in charge, after Georgia collected the mail from the mailbox, she delivered it to Marcia instead of Annie.

"What's this?" Marcia said. There was just one long envelope. "Not another bill already!"

"Why don't you use your x-ray vision and find out?" Georgia suggested.

"Or quicker yet," Rebecca said, "look at the return address."

"Oh no!" Marcia held it up so we all could see.

In the upper left-hand corner, it said
Social Services.

"They don't seem very social to me," Zinnia said.

"You'd better open it," Annie said, "so we know exactly what we're up against."

Marcia slit open the envelope and read.

Dear Blah-blah-blah,

This is to inform you that a complaint has been made against your household. Someone will be out to investigate shortly.

Signed,

Blah-blah-blah

"I wonder how shortly is shortly?" Petal asked, looking around fearfully as though we might all be abducted to another planet any second.

"The Wicket just wrote her letter on Sunday," Jackie said.

"And this is only Thursday," Durinda said. "Yet already," Georgia said, "we're hearing from Social Services."

"Who knew," Marcia said, "that the postal service could be so efficient?"

EIGHT

"I'll tell you one thing," Annie said.

We all turned to her.

"
Shortly
means shortly," Annie said, "even if we don't exactly know what
shortly
means to Social Services. We have to think quickly and come up with a new plan. We can no longer afford to wait for new inventions to decide to work properly. Why, look how long it's taken with robot Betty—and she's
still
not right!"

"So what should our plan be?" Georgia asked.

Six heads swung toward Marcia.

After all, she
had
wanted to be in charge.

Marcia looked at the device she'd invented. At various times since Monday, she'd taken half the gears and things out of it and reinserted them in different orders, but it still wasn't working. All she could get out of it was
garble, garble, garble.

She shrugged, looking as sorry as a person could. "I got nothing."

As if watching a tennis game, six heads swung back toward Annie.

"I think," Annie said, "that what we need to do is call on Old Reliable."

"Old Reliable!" Rebecca snorted. "That sounds like the name of a horse!"

"No," Annie said. "Old Reliable is our mechanic."

***

Some people when faced with trouble call in an expert. Other people when faced with trouble call in the Marines. But whenever we'd been faced with trouble, at least since our parents' disappearance back on New Year's Eve, we'd called in Pete the mechanic, from Pete's Repairs and Auto Wrecking.

Well, it worked for us.

"Hullo, Eights!" Pete said when we opened the front door that night.

For once, he wasn't arriving alone. At his side was Mrs. Pete. Nor was he arriving empty-handed, or armed only with his mechanic tools, although he had those, just in case. Rather, he and Mrs. Pete stood between two suitcases.

We invited Pete and Mrs. Pete in.

"Pete's told me about this place," Mrs. Pete said, her eyes wide with wonder as she looked around the front room, taking in the furniture, plus Daddy Sparky and Mommy Sally. "But mere words don't do it justice," she added as the flying watering can swooped down low, causing her to duck.

"I'll show you around," Durinda offered.

"I wish you would," Mrs. Pete said, going off with her and Jackie.

"Thank you for coming right away when we called," Annie said to Pete.

"Don't I always?" he said. It was the kind of thing that could have sounded smug or put-upon coming from anyone else, but from him it was merely a happy observation of fact.

"We wish we could tell you how long we'll need you," Georgia said.

"We hate to inconvenience you in any way," Rebecca added.

When it came to Pete, even Georgia and Rebecca didn't like to risk offending him. He was our golden goose, although we'd never seen him lay any eggs.

"Not to worry," Pete said in his easygoing way. "Emergencies take however long they take. You can't set a clock by them. So don't you worry, because I'm not worried."

"Lucky you," Petal said. "I'm worrying enough for all of us."

"What about Old Felix?" Zinnia asked, referring to Pete's cat. "You didn't leave him home alone, did you?"

"I could have," Pete said. "He's very self-sufficient. But no—whoops!—I forgot I brought him along."

Pete pulled his navy T-shirt away from his body and out popped the cat from underneath it.

Funny, you'd think a person would remember having brought a cat with him if that cat was under his shirt. Even funnier, we hadn't noticed Pete had a cat under there!

He really was an amazing man.

"Now, off with you." Pete gave Old Felix a gentle shove in the direction of the cat room, which was like our drawing room, only for cats. "Don't flirt too much with all the girl cats."

Just then Mrs. Pete returned with Durinda and Jackie.

"Oh!" she said to Pete as she clapped her hands together. "You should see the room they have for us to sleep in!"

"It's our parents' room," Annie said.

"You're too important to put in just a guest room," Zinnia said.

"But we did put fresh guest towels in the bathroom for you," Durinda said. "And pretty little soaps in the shape of seashells." Durinda reddened under Rebecca's glare. "I read somewhere that that's a nice thing to do for guests."

"I don't mean to rush anybody," Petal said, "but I am getting really worried here. Isn't it time we came up with a specific plan?"

"But shouldn't we all eat dinner first?" Mrs. Pete suggested gently. "I know I always think better with something in my tummy. Durinda, you didn't show me where the kitchen is. If you show me now, I can start supper."

***

"What an
amazing
house this is!" Mrs. Pete said a half-hour later, laying aside her napkin on the dining room table. "When I asked you to show me where the kitchen is so I could start supper, I didn't mean start to
eat
supper—I meant start to
make
it."

"But it wouldn't be right," Annie said, "to expect guests to cook for us."

"Besides," Georgia said, "Durinda rarely gets to cook for anyone other than just us."

"She probably considered it a treat," Rebecca said. "What cook doesn't want to just keep doing it and doing it?"

"Well, it was very good," Pete said.

"It was only spaghetti and meatballs," Durinda said modestly.

"Well, I would love your meatball recipe," Mrs. Pete said. "Simply marvelous—and those shapes!"

"Um, that was a mistake," Durinda said. "They were supposed to be round. I honestly don't know how they turned into squares and triangles and rectangles."

Jackie leaned in close to Mrs. Pete and winked. "You should see what Durinda can do with a chicken."

We all laughed at that.

In fact, Durinda had never made us chicken, and we had no idea what she'd do with one.

We thought maybe she didn't like the idea of eating birds since she was so fond of the carrier pigeons-friends of Daddy—who occasionally brought us notes.

Funny, we hadn't seen a carrier pigeon in a long time, not since the day back in April when a flock of them all delivered the same message:
Beware the otherEights!

But we didn't want to think about that. We didn't want to think about anything bad or dangerous in that moment, because for once we had adult company other than Daddy Sparky and Mommy Sally at dinner, and it felt good.

"I hate to say it..." Pete said in a leading sort of way.

"You're right, of course." Annie sighed. "It's time we talk turkey."

Pete looked over at Marcia. "Well?" She continued gazing at her plate for the longest time before looking up and casting her eyes on Annie.

"Oh. I see." Pete gave out a low whistle. "So that's the way it is again. And that explains why Annie and not Marcia called me."

"Dessert in the drawing room?" Durinda said, breaking the tension. "Tonight I can offer you blue Kool-Aid and a choice of chocolate layer cake or pink frosting in the can."

***

We were in the drawing room, each enjoying his or her dessert of choice.

Pete knocked back a slug of blue Kool-Aid before addressing Annie. "On the phone, you said you needed us both to come to your house to stay for an unspecified amount of time. It's not that the reason matters, but we are curious: why?"

"Our neighbor the Wicket notified Social Services about us," Annie said simply.

Both of the Petes looked horrified.

"My, my," Pete said. "She really is an evil toadstool, isn't she?"

"Yes," Petal agreed with a vehement nod of the head, "she really is."

"So we need you to pretend to be our parents," Annie said.

"I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, lamb," Pete said softly. "But I don't think we can do that."

"Why ever not?" Rebecca asked in a harsher tone than she usually used around Pete.

"Because we don't look a thing like you," Mrs. Pete answered with a sad smile.

"Fine," Annie said. "Then we'll say our parents are
both
in France this time, and that you're our aunt and uncle who are taking care of us."

"That could work," Pete said thoughtfully. "After all, I've pretended to be your uncle many a time. Pete Huit."

"That's right," Durinda said.

"We'll have to train ourselves to always call you Uncle Pete," Zinnia said.

"I think I'd like that," Petal said.

"So would I," Pete said with a wink.

"And what shall we call you?" Annie asked Mrs. Pete. "We don't even know your first name."

"It's Jill," Mrs. Pete said. "So I guess now I'm Aunt Jill."

"Aunt Jill." Annie tried it out. "That's good."

"And that makes you Jill Huit," Rebecca said, and then she laughed. "You know, it sounds funny if you run it together like that: Jillwheat."

None of the rest of us laughed. We didn't like to laugh at the people who were saving us.

"I guess the only thing left, then," Annie said, "is for us to tell you all about ourselves so that you can answer any questions the Social Services person asks you—you know, the sorts of things a regular uncle and aunt would know. And then quiz you on all of it."