CHAPTER 4
THE EXPEDITION
“I’M SO GLAD you decided of your own free will to accompany me on just one expedition.”
Millicent marched proudly down Main Street while her reluctant new pupils followed behind.
“I will now show you the real story of this town, and why I believe it is in danger. Come, let us perrrrrrambulate under our parrrrrrapluies!” said Millicent Quibb in a high-pitched trill.
“Why are you talking like that?” Eugenia snapped.
“To blend in, my dear! I am a master of disguise!” said Millicent. But it was hard to blend in, in the presence of Millicent Quibb, even in what she’d referred to as her “normal person disguise”: a poofy dress in the shape of a yellow cupcake and a sun hat so wide that it nearly grazed the eyeballs of onlookers as they passed.
“Now: We begin our expedition here on Main Street!” she warbled. “A bustling thoroughfare, home to regular old candy shops and shoe stores and ice cream cones. Rrrrrright? Wrrrrrrrong!” Then she turned to the children and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did you know that our fair town of Antiquarium used to be the Capital of Mad Science of the Northern Hemisphere?”
The children looked quizzically at the cobblestone street underfoot. They were surrounded by the flapping of doves, the quiet fluttering of butterflies, and the passing of parasols. There was nothing particularly, shall we say, mad science-y about it.
“Not to patronize, ma’am, but I think you may be confused,” Eugenia said.
“About most things, yes, but about this, no! You see, one hundred fifty years ago, this town was crawling with mad scientists. Yes, the hamlet that we call Antiquarium was a beacon, a vanguard, a touchstone. As New York is to finance and Paris is to cheese, so Antiquarium was to the magnificent art of mad science! Why, in the Heyday of Mad Science (1671–1761) you couldn’t walk two feet without stepping into a laboratory or a repository or a tunnel or a trapdoor!”
There was a sudden gust of unseasonably icy wind, to which Dee-Dee tipped her cowboy hat.
“Then why haven’t we seen any of these things?” Eugenia demanded.
“They are all buried, of course. After the Great Fire of 1761, they simply built another town on top of the old one, a new town where mad science was outlawed. Come, I shall prove it to you.”
As they marched on, the children whispered nervously amongst themselves.
“I can’t believe you volunteered us for this eight-course tasting menu of delusions,” Eugenia said, elbowing Gertrude in the ribs. “Mad science is a fiction. She is just an animal hoarder with a florid imagination and some good party tricks.”
Gertrude had to admit that Eugenia might be correct. The only truly inexplicable thing she’d seen thus far was the incredible length of Antonio the Hermit Crab, who was now asleep in Millicent’s pocket—but who was to say that he wasn’t just an exotic species with a particularly long tail?
“Maybe,” Gertrude said, “but what if she’s right, and the town is in trouble? Dee-Dee, what do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Dee-Dee said, “but I do know that I did not appreciate what some of the lamps in her living room were telling me. They were saying that my destiny is to be a sea captain. I don’t know how I feel about that. I do NOT like the feeling of sand underneath my toenails.”
Gertrude and Eugenia just nodded. As strange as Dee-Dee was, the things she said were usually, in some manner, true.
“Now: These shops may look regular,” Millicent continued, pointing to the window of a candy shop. “But did you know that this store used to be a boutique called Budget Corpses, which sold body parts for Viological experiments? ‘Buy an arm and a leg without paying an arm and a leg’ was their slogan.”
“Fascinating,” Eugenia said, rolling her eyes.
The farther they marched, the more outlandish Millicent’s claims grew. In front of the furniture store: “This used to be a school for Unnaturalist zookeepers.” The pickle shop: “This was a Gemistry lab where they turned split peas into emeralds.” The toy store: “A Fryzzics emporium that sold vacuum cleaners powered by black holes.” The town swimming pool: “Used to be a pond for Beanburp Birds. I wouldn’t swim in there if you paid me.”
Still, none of them were convinced.
Suddenly, Millicent stopped in front of the bank, where a chip about the size of a piece of pie was missing from the marble steps that led up to the main entrance. “And at last we have arrived at the Danger portion of the expedition. Exhibit A: the broken steps. This appeared several days ago.” She bent down to investigate the minor damage with a magnifying glass and jotted something in her notebook.
“This is precisely the kind of thing we’re looking for,” Millicent said. “Keep your eyes peeled for more signs of trouble.”
Eugenia’s eyeballs were sore from rolling.
Millicent noted other aberrations as they passed. A missing brick from the facade of a building: “See?!” A hairline fracture in the sidewalk: “Aha! Danger afoot!” A streetlamp bent slightly to the side: “Ooooooh, mama, this is bad!”
And indeed, the Porches had never seen even such minor blemishes on the normally perfect and pristine face of the town of Antiquarium—but none of the blemishes seemed cause for alarm.
“Miss, um, Quibb?” Gertrude said. “Can I ask what you think this, um, danger may be? The danger you keep talking about?”
“Well, I do not know for certain, Gertrude my dear,” she said. “But I do harbor a sneaking suspicion that a certain ancient evil has been stirring and… AHHHH!”
Millicent screamed as though someone had torn off both her legs, though it was unclear just why.
The group was standing at the foot of a grand circular fountain in the town square, a fountain with a looming marble statue in the center. The statue depicted Antiquarium’s first mayor, Jacobus DeWeen, and his bichon frise, Amanda, venerated throughout history for her brilliant mind, kind nature, and stylish ponytail. But today, the ponytail that usually plumed from the top of Amanda’s head was somehow cruelly and inexplicably… missing.
“Horrors! I was right! My Tinglies™ were trying to warn me! I should always listen to my Tinglies™! I thought I might be overreacting, but I was right!”
“What are you right about?” Gertrude cried.
“They’ve returned!”
“Who’ve returned?”
Millicent sank to her knees and cried to the heavens,
“THE KRENETICS RESEARCH ASSOCIATION!”
Passersby stared at the woman in the neon Taffetteen.
Gertrude tapped Millicent on the shoulder and whispered, trying to get her to quiet down on the busy street: “Um… Madam, er, Teacher Quibb, what actually is the Karmetics Rehearse Proclamation, or… what did you just say?”
Millicent gasped incredulously.
“I said, the Krenetics Research Association!” The children stared back blankly, having never heard of such a thing. “The KRA! Have they taught you nothing in school?”
“Honestly, no,” said Gertrude.
“Well then, I must start at zero,” Millicent said, yanking the children into an alleyway behind a dumpster. “Listen closely, young ones. In the Heyday of Mad Science, before the Great Fire of 1761, a sinister cohort of evil mad scientists went about their foul work, a cohort known only as the Krenetics Research Association, aka the KRA. They stopped at nothing in their quest for power, money, and eternal life! They stole, they maimed, they killed! They were monsters making monsters, terrorists making terror, rubes making ruses, and now… THEY HAVE RETURNED!”
Eugenia put her head in her hands. “I’m sorry, so just to clarify, you think we are at the mercy of an ancient cult because… a dog’s ponytail has gone missing?”
“Exactly,” Millicent said. “On Sunday I saw the trouble—the cracks in the concrete, the broken stairs, the missing bricks—and I knew in my bones that something was wrong—and this missing dog ponytail proves it! That is why I chose this moment to start my school. I cannot fight them by myself! I must pass on my knowledge to a new generation, in the event of my death, so that the KRA does not win!”
“So you want us, a group of children with no skills at all, to help you protect the town against a hidden organization of evil mad scientists?”
“Yes. You’re finally getting it.”
“Well, then, you’ll have to trap a different group of children,” Eugenia said. “We’re busy.”
“But… please!” pleaded Millicent. “It must be you! You are special. All of you!”
Gertrude was interested to know in what way she might be special, because no one had ever called her that—at least, not in a good way—but Millicent was probably just trying to ensnare them in some sort of brain-candying operation… right?
“I know this missing dog ponytail doesn’t seem like a big deal,” Millicent said, “but trust me: The Squevil is in the details.1 Come. Let us find out what happened to this statue. If we find no evidence of foul play, I’ll let you go back to your lives as before, and I shan’t call upon you agayne.”
Suddenly, Millicent and the Porch Sisters found themselves in the center of a swirling crowd of reporters and photographers and bystanders, all anxiously awaiting the approach of a shining figure in the distance. The photographers’ flashbulbs crackled as the figure approached the statue. Millicent and the Porches ducked and crawled to the other side of the fountain. Gertrude peered over the lip of the fountain at the commotion on the other side and saw, much to her shock, that the shining figure was none other than…
… the resplendent…
… the amazing…
… the legendary…
MAYOR MAJESTINA DEWEEN.
Gertrude felt compelled to curtsey. Majestina DeWeen stood six feet tall. The dramatic arches of her black eyebrows seemed to move independently of the rest of her face. She was a part-time jazz singer and full-time politician. Her hair was of obsidian. Her voice was brassy, her manner dulcet; she could sing like an angel and belt like the devil. She was, in a word, fabulous.
Gertrude poked her sisters and said in a scream-whisper: “THAT IS MAJESTINA DEWEEN!”
Gertrude wanted to call out to the mayor. “Hello, I am Gertrude Porch!” she would say. “I want to be in your cabinet so I can help people and animals, like you!” But instead she just waited behind the statue and tried not to breathe too loudly.
The cameras and reporters huddled insistently around the mayor as she began her impromptu address. “This morning, tragedy has struck our quaint town of Antiquarium. Last night, someone defaced the statue of my beloved ancestor Jacobus DeWeen, removing the ponytail of his beloved bichon, Amanda. Of course we all know that Amanda DeWeen was a remarkable creature. She was a genius and a saint. She could do math with her paws, she barked full sonnets, and she once cured a man of typhoid after he combed her beatific ponytail. Only a villain would mar her memory in such a disturbing fashion.”
Majestina’s secretary of finance, the lawyer Ashley Cookie, Esq., handed her a tissue from his side bag. “I don’t need that, male Ashley. Now: I encourage all citizens to remain cautious until we can apprehend the vandal who destroyed this hallowed symbol of civic pride. Thank you.”
The crowd applauded wildly as Majestina and Ashley Cookie, Esq., marched away in a solemn procession.
Gertrude wished she could follow the mayor all the way back to the Town Hall of Antiquarium to share her ideas about insects’ rights, water conservation, and rabbit health—but Millicent had other plans.
“Come!” she whispered to the children. “We must search for clues!”
Millicent and the Porches followed a hairline crack in the pavement as it splintered over the sidewalk, across the street, around the corner and down Cobblestone Alley, which was, as you can probably guess, a cobblestone alley.
Their pace quickened as they followed the mysterious crack. Dee-Dee ran like a gazelle, Eugenia felt that this was all a horrible waste of time, and Gertrude—well, in between worrying about what would happen if the Parquettes were to spot them, Gertrude allowed herself to feel a small sense of what could only be described as ZINUS.
Just then, Gertrude came to a sudden halt. She noticed something out of the ordinary lurking in a shadowy corner of Cobblestone Alley.
A hole.
But it wasn’t just any hole: Its circumference bore a distinctive pattern, a pattern that looked almost like… teeth.
“Um, Madam Quibb?” Gertrude asked. “I might have found something?”
Millicent beheld the curious hole in the cobblestones, gasped in agony, then sank to her knees. Frantically she leafed through a book in the shape of a small cube—tiny but thick—that she had pulled from a pocket in the folds of her aggressively yellow skirt. The cover was embossed with a bright blue rose, similar to the stained glass inlay in Millicent’s living room window. Gertrude peered at the title: The Encyclopedia of Monstrous Bites.
Bites? Gertrude pondered. This is a cobblestone street! What kind of animal takes bites out of cobblestone streets?
Millicent’s eyes were wild as she stared back and forth between the book and the circle, book and circle, book and circle.
“I can’t believe it,” she said finally. “All these years I’ve been searching, waiting, standing vigil. And here it is. My Tinglies™ were right, as was my sense of Zinus, and this proves it. This is… this is…
THIS IS A KYRGALOPS HOLE!”
Footnote
1 A Squevil is a type of ant that buries itself inside the details of lace curtains. The Squevils themselves are harmless, but you must ask yourself why they are there, for if you do, you’ll find that the Squevil’s natural predator, the Frith Rat, is sick. And when a Frith Rat is sick, you need to get out of your house, because they happen to fart carbon monoxide. The point is, everything is interconnected, and when some small thing is out of balance, typically there is a bigger problem somewhere else. A problem that may prove… deadly.