Chapter Three

The Apocalypse Is Put Temporarily on Hold

TUESDAY, 12:51 AM

With a massive thrust, Ernestine flung both herself and Mrs. MacGillicuddie out of the way. The chandelier crashed to the ground, smashing apart the marble floor. Broken stone and shattered crystal exploded across the crowd as they all fell down, covering their heads with their hands.

“Ernestine!” The silver platter Charleston had been holding clattered down and skidded right over to Ernestine’s nose as her stepbrother raced over to help her up. All around them, partygoers sat among the wreckage of the chandelier—along with water-stained books, broken musical instruments, and several dozen moldering photo albums. All of which had, until recently, been stored in the attic above.

“Goodness, darling!” Rolling over, Mrs. MacGillicuddie blinked in amazement at the mess now filling her lovely foyer. Standing up, Eduardo flicked a single crystal shard off his red Roman general’s cape, tucked the purple silk handkerchief behind his breastplate, and gave her a hand getting to her feet.

“Is anyone injured?” he asked, in his Spanish accent.

“My meat cleaver has seen better days.” Mr. Talmadge sadly held up the wooden handle in one hand and the enormous blade in the other.

Mr. Theda was trying to tug his silk-lined cape free of one of the chandelier’s silver arms, but he wasn’t having much luck until Mr. Bara came to his aid. Mr. Ellington dumped broken crystal out of the mouth of his saxophone, while Mr. Sangfroid ranted, “This is what comes of letting hippies into the place! No-good beatniks!”

“Could someone help us?!” wailed one of the Swanson twins. They were both dangling from the third-floor balcony railings. They’d lost their glittery white shoes in the crash, their elderly bare toes digging into the wall for support.

“Ten to one odds that they fall before someone can!” Lyndon waved about some money but everyone ignored him.

“Are our swans all right?” Libby asked anxiously. A flutter of feathers and some irritable honking confirmed that the swans were, in fact, just fine and quite ready to go home. In fact, one of them had snatched Aurora Borealis’s phone away from her, possibly in an attempt to call a ride.

“Ooo! Animals always get extra likes!” Grabbing her phone back from the swan, Aurora Borealis took a selfie with it, though neither of them quite looked their best, as the swan had lost quite a few of its feathers, which now stuck out of Aurora Borealis’s hair instead.

The other partygoers got unsteadily to their feet as well. Surprisingly, no one had broken a hip.

“Thank goodness for titanium!” Mrs. MacGillicuddie beamed, knocking her fist against her hip and then holding up her arms. “The elbows, too!”

“Mother! This really is the last straw!” Rodney staggered to his feet from beneath a pile of old people. His pharaoh’s headdress was askew on his head, while his toupee had slunk down into the safety of his collar. “I am having my personal doctor evaluate your mental fitness! Your lifestyle at your age and your insistence on throwing all of these wild parties—in the middle of the week, no less—is alarming to say the least! I don’t think you should manage the family’s money any longer!”

“Oh, put a sock in it, Junior.” Mrs. MacGillicuddie shoved his overcoat at him. Behind them, Aurora Borealis had finished posting to Instagram but still hadn’t gotten up, apparently too busy eyeing a pair of the Swanson twins’ shoes glittering amidst the debris. “And it isn’t ‘the family’s money.’ It’s my money. What happened to all of the millions your father left you? And you think I’m not fit to handle money? Now take that vapid creature you spawned and go home before I have the swans attack you.”

“But my car isn’t here! I told my driver not to return until two. What am I supposed to do? Take a taxi?” Rodney looked ill at the thought. Eduardo moved discreetly behind him in case he was called upon to catch his employer’s son. As a result, Ernestine was the only one to notice Aurora Borealis snatching up the twin’s shoes and trying them on her feet. She seemed pleased with the results, though one of the swans nipped at her disapprovingly. Lyndon should have noticed, too, as he was standing right next to her, but he seemed to be in a state of shock that he hadn’t been able to make any money off the evening. He still clutched a couple of limp bills in his hands.

“You can take my limo. It’s, er, parked out front.” Waving her hand airily, Mrs. MacGillicuddie turned her attention to removing the Swanson twins from where they were decorating her balcony. Meanwhile, Mr. Sangfroid jabbed at one of the photo albums that had fallen down from the attic above as though trying to prod it into getting up and going back upstairs.

“Ernestine!” Ernestine’s mother, Maya, swept her into a paint-spattered hug. Her skin was a richer brown than her daughter’s, with deeper golden undertones. Freckles speckled her cheeks, and she had lovely hazel eyes. Unlike Ernestine’s indecisive hair, Maya’s hair was wonderfully thick and springy, cut short and worn naturally around her face.

Ernestine hadn’t felt afraid until she felt her mother’s arms around her. It wasn’t until she snuggled against her warm skin and smelled the faint turpentine scent of her mother’s fingers in her hair that she realized she could have died before she’d ever had the chance to witness the apocalypse.

“My baby! I’m so proud of you! You saved Mrs. MacGillicuddie’s life!” Maya exclaimed.

Ernestine immediately stiffened at the mention of her mother’s pride. Her mother shouldn’t be proud. She should be terrified. Absolutely sick with worry.

“I almost died, Mom.” Ernestine wriggled out of her mother’s grasp and crossed her arms. “You’re proud that I almost died?”

“I’m proud of the way you can take care of yourself in any situation, Nestea.” Her mother smiled and laid her hand on Ernestine’s shoulder. “It makes me glad to know that you can take care of yourself even when I can’t be there. Just like you did before.”

“Before when?” Charleston asked as his father, Frank, released him from a hug.

The smile slid from Maya’s face. It was like a cloud had passed across the sun that normally lit up her personality. She glanced at Ernestine and began, “Back when Ernestine was five—”

“Nothing happened.” Ernestine snatched her backpack up from the ground, her gaze daring anyone to contradict her. No one did.

Together, they all trouped up the stairs to the attic loft where they lived. Though MacGillicuddie House was a retired artist colony, it needed some less-retired people to take care of it. Technically, those people were Ernestine’s mom and stepdad, though they spent most of their time painting and making weird sculptures instead of repairing things. Still, as they were—again, technically—the building’s maintenance people, they got to live in the half of the attic that wasn’t full of junk. Fortunately, it was also the half of the attic that hadn’t been attached to the now-fallen chandelier.

As they reached the balcony, Ernestine looked at the gaping hole in the ceiling above. Wires dangled uselessly in the air. Through the cracked plaster, she could see into the rafters above. The wheel of an ancient baby carriage jutted out through this new opening, threatening to take a wild ride down into the foyer below.

“You need to check all of the light fixtures tomorrow,” Ernestine warned her mother and stepfather severely as they pushed open the door to their home. “I know you have a gallery opening this Saturday, but there are more important things than a gallery opening. People could have died, you know.”

“Not with you here to save them.” Maya’s voice wavered a bit as she said it, but she gave Ernestine another squeeze. “And besides, we could hardly have known that chandelier was loose. It looked fine.”

“I hope the vibrations from my metal cutter didn’t jiggle those bolts loose.” Frank looked worriedly towards the work space where he created his sculptures. It was separated from the living room and kitchen by curtains made out of old bedspreads and quilts. “I had it running for most of the day. Mr. Talmadge asked me to make a sculpture out of old refrigerators and ovens for the new restaurant he’s opening after he overheard Mora say that Dill was planning something similar for his new place.”

Ernestine knew from many weekends spent trying to find a quiet place to study just how noisy that metal cutter could be. You could hear it all the way down on the second floor. Everyone else just took out their hearing aids, but Ernestine didn’t have the luxury of just yanking her ears off. Well, at least not yet. That might be one upside to the apocalypse that hadn’t occurred to her before.

Still, she didn’t think it was powerful enough to shake the chandelier loose. Unless it had flung itself off the ceiling in protest, sick of listening to all of that noise.

“You guys have to do your job. You can’t always rely on me to take care of things,” Ernestine pointed out. “When the zombie apocalypse comes, you’re going to have to fight to keep me from getting eaten.”

“The zombie apocalypse is going to be righteous, man.” Frank raised his clenched fist in a salute and beamed at her.

With a sigh, Ernestine gave up and went to bed. Charleston tagged along behind her. They shared a bedroom inside the cavernous attic at the very top of MacGillicuddie House. The rest of their home was mostly taken up by their parents’ art studio, with a small space left over for boring things like a kitchen, a bathroom, and a couch, coffee table, and TV that served as a living room. Colorful quilts and blankets marked off the various spaces, including Frank and Maya’s bedroom on the other side of the attic, leaving Ernestine and Charleston with the one room separated off by actual walls (well, the bathroom also had walls).

Charleston peeled off his boots, plunked his glasses onto the nightstand, and was snoring in the bottom bunk before Ernestine had even finished climbing the ladder up to the top bunk. Typical. He’d probably sleep right through the apocalypse when it finally happened and wake up in the morning to wonder where all of the bones had come from.

The night hadn’t exactly gone the way Ernestine had planned. She tried not to feel too down about it as she plumped her pillow and pulled the blankets up to her chin. If she had raised a zombie, she’d raised the wrong one and then lost it. Humiliating. On the other hand, if she hadn’t raised a zombie, she was still incompetent and plus she’d have to figure out who had been trying to break in. Humiliating and tiresome.

Either way, she’d have to beef up security around here, and push back ending the world.

Oh, well. Tomorrow was another day, Ernestine supposed, her optimism returning as she drifted off to sleep. There’d always be time to start the apocalypse after school.

In the morning, she went through her usual before-school routine. After brushing her teeth, shoving her hair up into a messy bun, and putting on her uniform in the bathroom, Ernestine went back to the room she shared with Charleston and yanked him out of bed. It seemed mean, but he slept like the dead so there was just no nice way to wake him up. Charleston’s face flopped onto the floor, his cheek smeared against the wooden boards, his legs still propped up on the mattress. He snorted, drooled a bit, and went on sleeping.

“Get up.” Ernestine nudged his cheek with her toe. More drool slid out of his mouth and onto her shoe. Ernestine sighed. “If you don’t get up, I’m putting rats down your pajamas.”

“You don’t have any rats,” Charleston muttered, squishing his face into the floor.

“Oh, I’ll find some,” Ernestine said darkly and then went off to make them both scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Eventually, Charleston stumbled into the kitchen, more or less dressed. Well, mostly less. His pants were inside out, his shirt untucked, and he kept trying to tie his sock around his neck. Meanwhile he’d used the tie for a belt. It was anyone’s guess where the belt had ended up. Charleston slumped into a chair, drooped his chin onto the table, and opened his mouth to push his eggs directly into it from the plate. Ernestine sat down next to him and flipped open her notebook to go through her Morning Checklist.

“Do you have everything you need for school?” she asked Charleston, who mumbled some sort of indistinct response. Ernestine narrowed her eyes at him and decided to be more specific. “Homework?”

“Yup.”

“Textbooks?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Student ID?”

“Yeah.”

“Zombie survival guide?”

“Of course.”

Ernestine had put Charleston’s zombie survival guide together herself. It was a duplicate of one she always kept on hand for the day she’d need it. On the front cover, in thick black permanent marker, she’d written, “PANIC!!!” Usually, those sorts of guides told you not to panic, but Ernestine figured that in the case of the zombie apocalypse, if you weren’t panicking then you probably hadn’t grasped the full scope of the situation.

Inside, she’d written all sorts of helpful hints, starting with “Barricade all doors and windows,” followed by, “But first make sure there aren’t any zombies inside.” Maybe that second one should have gone first, but honestly, if you couldn’t figure that out on your own, it was probably your destiny to be snack food.

Maya wandered into the kitchen, a paintbrush tucked behind either ear, and paint drying in her curls.

“Morning, guys.” She kissed Ernestine on the head and ruffled Charleston’s hair. “Oooh, did you make me coffee, Nestea? Thank you.”

“Don’t call me Nestea. I hate nicknames. Future presidents don’t have nicknames. Well, except for maybe ‘Future President.’” Ernestine paused, thinking that one over. She’d be quite pleased if everyone got into the habit of calling her “Future President.” Or better still, just “President.” “I’ve also made you a list of things that need to be done today. Including checking all the light fixtures in the house.”

As Maya yawned and poured herself a cup of coffee, Ernestine pushed a neatly written list across the table. She’d even drawn little boxes next to the items so her mom could X them out as she completed each one, something Ernestine personally found very satisfying. “In addition to cleaning up the mess in the foyer, there’s a leak in one of the pipes in the basement, which is interfering with Mr. Sangfroid’s water pressure. Mr. and Mrs. Talmadge need their kitchen sink unclogged, there’s litter in the front lawn, graffiti spray-painted on the garden wall, and Mrs. MacGillicuddie has a loose floorboard that sent her cat flying yesterday. Oh, and the lock on the window in the laundry room is broken, which I’d swear it wasn’t two days ago when I cleaned out the dryer filters.”

“Mm-hmm,” her mom agreed vaguely, clearly not ready to start the day just yet. Ernestine always sprang right to work as soon as she got up in the morning, and therefore didn’t understand why so many people seemed to need to ease their way into the day.

Heaving a sigh, Ernestine laid the list on top of her mom’s coffee cup so she couldn’t possibly miss it. Maya was an amazing artist and all, but she wasn’t very practical. She spent all her time thinking about things like contours and contrast and pigments and the meaninglessness of modern existence. Which was fine, but it didn’t pay the bills very well. If modern existence had any meaning at all, it was probably that you had to pay the bills until the zombies came and ate you. Mrs. MacGillicuddie was a big fan of Maya’s paintings and Frank’s sculptures, so she’d hired them to be the maintenance people for her apartment building/elderly artist colony. But if they didn’t do the work, she’d fire them eventually. Possibly. Maybe.

Honestly, probably not, but Ernestine still didn’t want to risk it.

She liked it here. The people were nice and weird and it was a great place to spend their last days on earth before zombies ate almost everyone, leaving behind only a plucky band of humans to fight them off. With Ernestine as their leader, of course.

“Mom, you’ve got responsibilities,” Ernestine pressed.

“And you sound just like my mother.” Maya took an irritable sip of her coffee. Ernestine’s grandmother was a civil rights activist and college professor. She never, ever forgot to fix anything in her house and spent most of their time on FaceTime chastising Maya for being lackadaisical and disorganized. “Stop worrying about things around here, Nestea! We’ll take care of everything while you’re at school. Though I wish they didn’t make you wear those dreary uniforms. It’s fascist.”

“Right on, man,” Frank agreed as the smell of coffee drew him to the kitchen from the other side of the attic. He was incredibly tall, incredibly skinny, and like Charleston, had rumpled blond hair and glasses. Unlike Charleston, he also had a rather scraggly beard. “Like, who are they to tell you how to dress? How you look should be an expression of your inner spirit, you know?”

“Uh-huh,” Charleston agreed, and then started snoring into his eggs.

“It’s a very good school, and we’re lucky to go there.” Ernestine gritted her teeth as her mom started to doodle a sketch of Ernestine’s profile on her neat list of chores. When the zombie apocalypse came, she was totally going to have to lock her mom and Frank in a closet to keep them from getting eaten.

Personally, she quite liked her uniform because it looked an awful lot like a suit. Which made it very unlike Maya’s flowy dresses and very much like the suits her grandmother always wore, even on Saturdays and Sundays. That was exactly how Ernestine would dress once she was President of the United Post-Apocalyptic States.

If Ernestine liked her uniform, she liked the school even more. A friend of Mrs. MacGillicuddie ran a top-notch private school and had agreed to let Ernestine and Charleston go there as charity cases so long as they passed the entrance exam. Ernestine had received perfect marks, of course, but Charleston had flunked miserably. Fortunately, Mrs. MacGillicuddie really liked Maya and Frank’s artwork and had more money than she knew what to do with. So she gave an amazingly generous donation to the school to build a new auditorium. After that, the friend didn’t mind what a terrible student Charleston was and let him go there, anyhow.

Oh, well. Fighting an army of the undead would instill some discipline in him. Nothing like almost getting torn apart by a mob of ravenous zombies to teach you to pay attention to things.

That was why Ernestine always paid very close attention to everything in school. You never knew when you might pick up something that could come in handy in the apocalypse. For example, in science class she’d learned about the importance of purified water, which could be crucial when fighting zombies. You didn’t want to get your intestines torn out because you drank bacteria-filled river water and got so distracted with running to the bathroom that you didn’t notice the zombie horde hiding in the next stall. And all because you hadn’t paid attention in science class. You’d never forgive yourself.

Grabbing her backpack and a still-snoring Charleston, Ernestine dragged them both downstairs to catch the city bus. They had to edge their way around all the broken crystal in the foyer to get to the exit.

While they did so, Mr. Theda stood at Mrs. MacGillicuddie’s door, trying to get in. Their landlady wore an elegant silk nightgown, furry stiletto heels, a diamond necklace big enough to qualify as a medieval knight’s breastplate, and sunglasses. She kept one hand pressed against her forehead and winced each time Mr. Theda raised his voice, but she still kept her other arm stretched out to block him from getting in.

“By rights, they should be mine!” Mr. Theda insisted, pulling his Dracula cape around his shoulders with a flourish. Why he was still wearing it, Ernestine didn’t know, but combined with the way he had styled his hair into two horn-like peaks, he looked like he had arrived in a puff of brimstone. “You know they should be!”

“They’re mine, they’ve been mine for years, and they’ll stay mine!” Mrs. MacGillicuddie responded tartly.

Lowering his voice, he cocked one eyebrow into the signature V all his villains used right before they unleashed evil mayhem on the world. “You’ll regret this.”

“Not as much as you will if you keep this up, Frankie Nelson.”

Mr. Theda gasped, and if he didn’t quite vanish in a cloud of smoke, he did at least manage to make his cloak swirl about him as he fled back upstairs.

“What do you think that was all about?” Charleston muttered as they stepped outside. Ernestine was surprised to discover that he’d been awake enough to hear any of it.

“That Mr. Theda doesn’t like to be called Frankie Nelson, I guess.”

“I thought Mr. Theda’s first name was Theodore, not Frankie.”

Ernestine shrugged. Whatever his first name was, it didn’t seem to concern either zombies or world domination, so she wasn’t very interested.

In spite of their near-deadly fall the night before, the Swanson twins were out in the front garden, practicing their routine.

Their act would have been pretty impressive even if the twins weren’t sixty years old. They stood facing each other, each movement a mirror image of the other’s. As one lifted her left foot up with toes pointing to the sky, the other did the same with her right foot. Then they both spread their arms out like the wings of a swan and turned carefully around on one foot. Each gesture occurred so exactly in time with the other that Ernestine would swear they had computer chips implanted in their brains to control them.

“Wow!” Charleston clapped furiously, now fully awake. “That was amazing!”

“Thank you.” Bringing their feet back down, they took identical, graceful bows.

“Hey, when you were up on that tightrope last night, did you see any zombies?” Ernestine asked curiously.

“Zombies!” One twin clutched a hand to her throat. Ernestine thought it was the one named Libby, but it was hard to tell for sure. “Are there zombies about? Mora, do we have any organic pest spray that might keep zombies away?”

Ernestine said, “No, there’s just the one, and if you find any pest spray that works, please let me know. I’m putting together a zombie survival guide so we don’t all get our guts torn out during the apocalypse. I’d like to keep the cleanup to a minimum.”

“Goodness!” Libby opened her eyes wide.

“If you see it, try not to let it eat anyone, and I’ll take care of it after school.” With a wave good-bye, Ernestine and Charleston headed on their way.

They got there early, which was just as well since Ernestine needed to go to the library to print off a list of suggestions she’d made for Principal Langenderfer on how to keep the school safe and free of zombies. Ernestine summarized them for her during a meeting she’d requested in the principal’s office. She hadn’t planned on giving it to her until next week, but with a possible zombie on the loose, Ernestine figured she’d better step things up a bit.

“First, why do we have to practice fire drills?” Ernestine asked, handing over her proposal in its plastic sheeting. She made sure to sit upright, speak clearly, and maintain eye contact, all important skills for getting someone to listen to you. She’d also worn her blazer and skirt rather than a jumper and a cardigan so she’d be sure to look more businesslike. “I mean, seriously? If there’s a fire and you don’t know to run out of the building rather than staying in it, I don’t think practice is going to improve your odds of survival. Our time would be much better spent practicing what to do in case of a zombie attack. There are nuances there that could make the difference between life and death. Will you be safer staying inside the building and barricading the entrances or fleeing to wide open spaces where you can at least see the zombies coming? Making the right choices could make all the difference on where you end up on the food chain.”

“Wow. This is quite a… thorough analysis of the, uh, situation.” Principal Langenderfer appeared to be struggling to find the right words as she flipped through the first twenty pages or so of the report.

Ernestine glowed with pride.

“You even made charts. Goodness…”

“Yes, as you can see, I outlined a few scenarios. For example, I don’t think it’s a good idea for everyone to eat together in the same location. It gives the zombies one target. All they have to do is break into the cafeteria, and it’s lunchtime for everyone, living and dead. On the other hand, if you separate the lunch groups out into individual classrooms, you’re guaranteed a much higher likelihood that at least some of the students will survive. Rather than losing a whole school of kids, you’ll just lose one small group of them. I mean, that’s got to impact your insurance rates, right?”

Principal Langenderfer sent her to see the school psychologist. Again.

Which Ernestine didn’t mind at all. Mr. Price always made her a cup of hot chocolate and never forced her to talk about bad stuff that had happened in the past. That scored a lot of points with Ernestine. The past was over and done. Why get all obsessed with it when there were plenty of future disasters that needed worrying about right this second?

No, Mr. Price always listened to her when she explained how to survive zombie attacks and asked good questions. He also took lots and lots of notes about what she said. So Ernestine was pretty sure she’d managed to teach him a thing or two, which he’d definitely appreciate when the apocalypse finally got underway.

Of course, she didn’t mention to him that she might have raised a zombie last night. First, she didn’t want to admit that she’d misplaced it. And second, she still wasn’t entirely sure it had been a zombie sneaking around the back of the building. She’d hate to tell everyone to be on the lookout for a ravenous zombie when what they should be looking for was a bloodthirsty, psychotic murderer instead. You just didn’t want to get the two confused. It could lead to all sorts of misunderstandings.

“Maybe we should put up missing posters around the neighborhood for the zombie,” Charleston suggested after school as they stood by Herbert’s gravestone. “You know, like they do for missing dogs and cats.”

A light snow fell from the leaden sky, decorating the grass around his stone marker with lovely white flakes. What the grave wasn’t decorated with was a hole. The hole of the ravenous undead clambering out of the ground to wreak havoc on the city.

There weren’t even any teeny tiny holes, like maybe he’d been poking his fingers up out of his casket. Ernestine had hoped she’d awoken Herbert just a little bit. Enough to make him at least climb halfway out the grave to see who was trying to raise him.

“I don’t know, Charleston. I think it would have crawled out by us if we’d actually raised one,” Ernestine sighed as they lugged their backpacks across the street to the mansion.

“Oh, yeah? Then who tried to break in last night?”

“Well, it might have been a zombie,” Ernestine admitted reluctantly, “but it might also have been just your normal, average, run-of-the-mill homicidal maniac.”

“Huh.” Charleston thought that one over. “That could be interesting, too.”

“I think so, yes. So let’s keep a look out for one of those, too.”

A chunk of missing bricks marked the spot in the wall where Mrs. MacGillicuddie had almost turned Ernestine and Charleston into windshield smears. Coincidentally, as they reached the sidewalk, one of the bricks flew out of the gate and whizzed right past Charleston’s nose.

Just as Ernestine had reached the most logical conclusion that a poltergeist must have invaded the garden, Dill the vegan grocer shot out of the gate with a yelp, clutching his delivery basket and running with a high-kicking step that made his legs look like spokes on a wheel.

“AND STAY OUT!” Mr. Talmadge roared, bursting out of the gate after him with a brick raised in one hand. He screeched to a halt when he saw a disapproving Ernestine and shocked Charleston. He lowered the brick and looked sheepish. “Oh. Er. Hullo, you two.”

“Mr. Talmadge,” Ernestine said sternly, “while it’s always a good idea to practice your skull-bashing skills for when the apocalypse begins, you almost whacked Charleston in the face with a brick!”

“Oh,” Mr. Talmadge said again, looking even more chastened. Aged around seventy, he had flames tattooed all around his neck and wrists. Ernestine assumed this was some sort of chef’s joke. “Sorry ’bout that. But ruddy Mrs. MacGillicuddie won’t do anything about the… the… travesty that culinary quack has planned over on Delaware Street! It’s a sign of the end of times, it is!”

Ernestine perked up at this. She didn’t really know Dill very well, but if he was planning on ending the world, too, perhaps she should get to know the competition.

“Do you mean the vegan restaurant Dill would like to open?” Charleston asked, carefully prying the brick out of Mr. Talmadge’s fingers and stacking it with the rest of the pile just inside the gate. “But how could she stop that?”

Mr. Talmadge blushed so deeply that it looked as though his tattoos had set his face on fire. He muttered something about never minding and that it didn’t matter, anyhow, but just because he was old that didn’t mean he couldn’t still cook as well as he could when he was younger and if anybody should understand that, it was Mrs. MacGillicuddie, so he just couldn’t believe…

The rest of his grumblings trailed off as he marched back into the house. Ernestine and Charleston exchanged bewildered looks.

“Wow. It seems like everyone’s angry at Mrs. MacGillicuddie all of a sudden,” Charleston said as they trudged through the garden. “Her son. Mr. Theda. Mr. Talmadge.”

“That’s hardly everyone, Charleston,” Ernestine pointed out.

Still, he had a point. Ernestine had always thought that everyone loved Mrs. MacGillicuddie. Well, everyone except for her son. Clearly, that wasn’t the case.

How many other people held mysterious grudges against her? Just Mr. Theda and Mr. Talmadge? Or were there more?

How many of them would have been just as happy if the chandelier last night hadn’t missed?

And what if last night’s accident hadn’t been an accident at all?