Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help (9 page)

But Massimo Natica did not leave the room. He opened the door, and was passed a tray of food by someone that neither Arabella nor Milrose could see. Milrose did glimpse the hands and forearms of the person delivering the tray, however, and it did not hearten him. The hands were huge and barely human—they might have looked appropriate attached to the end of Sledge’s thick arms. And the white medical shirt the man was wearing seemed about four inches too short, which suggested that his arms were about four inches too long.

Despair occurred to Milrose Munce.

Lunch was, like dinner and breakfast, not too bad. The sandwiches were fresh. Milrose sniffed them for the characteristic almond smell of cyanide, but he could detect nothing.

They lunched in silence. Neither Milrose nor Arabella smiled, although Massimo Natica smiled enough for all three of them. He managed to smile while eating, which was an astonishing feat, and not admirable.

Was yesterday’s dinner the very last chance they would have to subdue and conquer their host? Milrose Munce wanted to kick himself. Even now Massimo Natica might be hogtied on the couch, and they might be happily dancing in the sunshine, dining on jungerberries and cream, and delicately approaching the topic of Arabella’s birthmark.

Arabella glanced at the door in the ceiling and pondered whether some special combination of words might cause it to swing on its hinges. “Open sesame,” perhaps? No, that did not seem probable. This was not the sort of room where exotic commands were likely to have any effect. Perhaps she could just say, “knock knock.” And somebody behind the door would answer, “who’s there?” But this would require a punchline, and Arabella could not think of one.

Arabella’s flower was having an increasingly difficult time in this den. It wheezed asthmatically during lunch, and occasionally coughed. Arabella stroked it with concern.

Massimo looked with suspicion at Arabella’s flower. “Do you think that your flower is a
normal
flower?”

“You leave my flower out of it.”

Massimo smiled even more broadly, to reveal a distressing number of superb teeth. “Now, Arabella. It was an innocent question. We are not concerned about your flower.”

“Well,
I
am concerned about my flower.”

Massimo narrowed his eyes, cleverly. “And do you think that’s
normal
?”

Arabella narrowed her eyes, murderously. Massimo did not seem to notice.

“This is what I want you to consider as we progress through Help. I want you to think about
what you are doing, and whether it is what you would expect of a normal, well-adjusted young person.”

That afternoon, and over the next days, they laboured to give their Helper the false impression that they were being Helped. The therapy consisted mostly of silly exercises aimed at silencing voices and enhancing normalcy.

The exercises were so excruciatingly moronic that Milrose would have refused to engage in them on principle, but—for reasons neither he nor Arabella could determine—disobedience was simply not an option. It was a talent the Professional Helper had: when he was set on them doing a certain thing, they had no choice but to meekly obey. Perhaps he was a magician? Had he put something in their food? Milrose wondered.

They made no progress in their plans to overcome Massimo Natica, to punish him and escape. Far from it. Every day reinforced the difficulty of the task: while Natica might have lacked concentration when it came to noting their relentless efforts to insult him, he was clearly aware of their conspiracy, and left them no room whatsoever to manoeuvre.

Every night they sat on the top bunk and embellished their plans for revenge and escape, and nothing the least bit practical emerged.

“I wonder if we shall grow old here,” wondered Arabella. “Perhaps that is how we shall escape. We’ll be here for so many years that Massimo Natica will grow ancient and die, and then we can take our chairs and wheel out into the sunshine.”

“Now that’s a joyful thought,” said Milrose.

“Well, it’s the only plan I can come up with this evening.”

“We’re getting pathetic. Come on—where’s our famed ingenuity?”

Both of them knew that they were not yet widely famous for their ingenuity. But surely they would be, were they to figure out a way to extricate themselves from this Helpful situation.

“Milrose, one thing I’ve been pondering: Massimo Natica seems keen on preventing us from hearing voices, but he doesn’t seem to have any idea where those voices come from. Don’t you think it’s odd that he is, apparently, completely unaware of ghosts? I mean, if that’s his
job
—to make students stop seeing them—surely you’d think he would
know
about them.”

“Not knowing about anything hasn’t stood in his way thus far.”

“True.”

“He’s probably like a professional hit man. You know, you just hire him to go off and whack a bunch of guys, but you don’t tell him
why
he’s doing it.”

“I’m not thrilled with that analogy, Milrose.”

Nor was Milrose himself. This terrible possibility had in fact occurred to both of them. How else would you prevent students from seeing ghosts? Or, more to the point, from
talking
about what they could see? Perhaps Massimo Natica was truly a Professional, but not the kind of Professional that he advertised. In fact, Milrose noted to himself, hit men in movies were often immaculately dressed.

“Well, let’s hope we manage to escape before we get whacked.”

“I must confess, I’m not fond of that expression, Milrose.”

“Okay, then. ‘Cured.’ I hope we get out of here before we get good and cured for good.”

“That’s a sensible hope,” said Arabella.

“Anyway, remember: what we’ve been told is that we’re being Helped because we hear non-existent voices. There’s still no reason to assume that anyone knows we’re hearing actual voices, much less ghosts. So, no reason, really, to do us in. And even that would be no reason to do us in. Would it?”

He considered putting his arm around Arabella to comfort her, but he had an attack of cowardice, which caused his arm to freeze and cleave to his ribs. So instead he changed the topic. “You know, I’ve been thinking. What’s everybody on the outside
doing while we’re locked in here? I mean, your parents are probably pretty happy …”

This was also clearly not the right thing to say. As she stared up at the ceiling, Arabella had produced a single tear, which emerged from the corner of her eye, wended its way down the side of her face and lodged uncomfortably in her ear.

“I’m sorry, Arabella. That was insensitive. It’s an old family trait, insensitivity …” But this did not seem the right time for an “old family trait” joke, so Milrose did not complete the remark. “Anyway, you’d think that my parents would be, I don’t know, at least complaining to the Parent-Teacher Association. I mean, yeah, Dad signed the documents and whatever, but there has to be
something
they can do.”

“It is a terrible thought,” sniffed Arabella, “that nobody is thinking of us at all.”

And at that moment, a very faint and pretentious voice filtered through the ceiling above.

“Arabella? Is that Arabella?”

“Milrose, actually.”

“Oh, Munce,” said the voice, with palpable disappointment. “Are you wearing Arabella’s flower? I am inhaling the distinct scent of almonds.”

“Percival!” said Arabella, with what approached excitement, but remained of course a few feet away.

“Ah. Arabella. I so hoped it was you. Although the presence of Munce diminishes the experience somewhat. Are you all right?”

“In a manner of speaking. It’s been a pretty disquieting time.”

“We have been worried. They’re not … harming you, are they?”

“Well, they’re certainly doing damage to my blithe equanimity. Can you help us get out of here?”

“I am not sure. We shall certainly try. As you know, we have … trouble with the first floor. It may not even be possible to descend. Nobody knows, really.”

“But maybe we can climb up.”

“Stunning idea, Arabella! You have always evinced superior imagination.”

“Um, like, when all this blather is complete,” Milrose said, “can we maybe concentrate on
how
we’re going to accomplish this floor-hopping?”

Percy sniffed. “One man’s blather is another man’s poetry.”

“Exactly.”

“There is a door,” said Arabella. “It’s not the kind of door that we generally use. We the living.”

“A door! That’s certainly a hopeful sign.”

“Yes, but it’s the kind of door that would probably be more useful for you. To … descend.”

The silence that followed spoke of cowardice.

“Well then. Any other ideas?”

“Come on, Percy. I thought you poets were all about experiencing extreme emotions. Like rank terror.”

“Munce, you will never understand the way of the artist.”

“Percival,” said Arabella, “where precisely
are
you?”

“That is a fine question. I don’t really know. I inhaled the scent of almonds, as I say, and somehow found myself turning left where I’ve never been able to turn left before.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of where we’re at. To the left of possibility.”

“Do you think we’ll all have trouble returning?” mused Arabella.

This unwelcome thought had almost occurred to Milrose Munce a number of times, but he had always shoved it back into his unconscious, where it was less intrusive.

“Let us pierce that wall when we come to it,” said Poisoned Percy, pleased with his metaphor.

“Piercing
floors
is what we should be thinking about now, poetry boy. Any bright ideas?”

“I’ll have to give this some thought.”

“Well then, we don’t have much hope, do we.”

“Please curb your ironic tendencies, Munce.”

“Percival,” said Arabella, “perhaps it’s best if you return to consult with the rest of the dear departed. I imagine a plan will emerge.”

“You always did have the most magnificent imagination, Arabella.”

“Stow it, Percy. If I throw up, I’m going to be annoyed. Now, something you might do, if you’re in the mood to be useful, is contact people more useful than yourself. The guys we want here are my friends on the third floor.”

“I do not have … social contact with that floor,” said Percy with disdain.

“Yeah, well, have no fear: I doubt they’re gonna want to socialize with you either. A quick message will do. Something along the lines of, ‘Milrose and Arabella are in trouble; I’m a useless poet; can you guys help?’”

“Poetry is not supposed to be useful.”

“Right. In particular, I want you to get in touch with Deeply Damaged Dave. He’s an expert at … well, things. And Kelvin. Talk to Kelvin. He can maybe lead the assault.”

“Do you mind, Percival?” asked Arabella.

“If you think it would help, I shall have … a brief word with these ‘people.’” Percy sighed. “And now, I shall attempt to make the arduous journey back to my compatriots.”

“Alternately, you could just, like, walk there. And lie about it later in a rancid poem.”

“I shall imagine that I did not hear that, Munce.”

“You always did have the most splendiferous imagination.”

M
ILROSE
M
UNCE AND
A
RABELLA SAT TOGETHER ON THE TOPMOST MATTRESS AND SPOKE NERVOUSLY.

“Do you think he’ll make it back?” said Arabella, implying, amongst other things, that it mattered to her whether something happened to Poisoned Percy. Milrose heard this implication with a sense of evil hope combined with tortured acknowledgement that Arabella actually cared whether this ponce were to meet some punishing fate.

“That would be a good sign. Sort of. Except that ghosts find it a lot easier to go through, you know, walls. If he can make it back, it doesn’t mean that we can.”

“Still, it is very exciting that we have been contacted,” said Arabella, with cool detachment.

“It would be more exciting if it had been anyone else. I hope that silly ghoul does contact my friends on the third floor.”

“I do think you are displaying a very uncharacteristic sign of jealousy, Milrose Munce.”

“Yeah, well, now that you’ve had that hallucination twice, it should strike you as characteristic, shouldn’t it.”

Arabella smiled a mysterious and lovely and annoying smile.

“You know, we really should be thinking about ways of getting to that door in the ceiling,” said Milrose.

“Or, since that’s impossible, we should be thinking of something else.”

“Fine. Go ahead. You always did have the most humongodelicious imagination.”

Arabella took this as the compliment that it was not intended to be.

And, miraculously, Milrose did think of something else. “I think I’ve got it. We’re looking the wrong way. There are ghosts above us, yes, but there are also ghosts below!”

“You mean those grunting athletes in the basement? The ones who make, well, grunting noises whenever I walk by?”

“They’re not exactly my fave species of lower primate either. And they’re not hugely keen on me.

But I think there must be at least a couple of them with good hearts. Good, you know, aerobically swollen hearts. It’s worth a try, perhaps.”

“Except that the door is in the ceiling.”

“True … Okay, so what about this,” said Milrose Munce. “Jocks are generally a bit more courageous than poets.”

“There is such a thing as intellectual courage, Milrose.”

“Okay, they’re not huge on that li’l attribute. But physical courage. That’s kind of their forte. Right? So … maybe these guys don’t have the same kind of cowardice when it comes to invading the first floor. Maybe they can swallow their fear and just do it.”

“It would be nice, wouldn’t it. To have all those large athletes whistling at me and snapping at me with wet towels.”

“And saving you from Professional Help. Don’t be such a snob.”

“Well, I suppose I could suffer those indignities. Briefly.”

“And maybe we could get them to hit Massimo Natica with a flying tackle, then toss him playfully in the air, so that he came down gently and gracefully upon the sharp end of the pitchfork, where he’d then sit for all eternity.”