The Final Exam (14 page)

G
O AWAY TOMORROW, COME BACK YESTERDAY
was the motto carved ornately into the front door of the Contrary Conservatory. Paying the message no mind, Mrs. Wellington vigorously clanged the copper bell to announce her arrival. As they waited for an answer, a tremendous and unexpected sense of failure took hold of her. For all her success as a teacher, she had failed the student who mattered most: her stepson. Suddenly teary-eyed, the old woman distracted herself by
smoothing imaginary wrinkles on her periwinkle skirt. There simply wasn’t time for such emotional indulgence. Basmati was the last line of defense, and Mrs. Wellington needed to be as strong as possible to deal with him.

After banishing all tear-inducing thoughts from her mind, Mrs. Wellington assumed her customary pageant pose. With her back arched, her right knee bent, and her left hand on her hip, Mrs. Wellington reminded herself that once a beauty queen, always a beauty queen. Tough times and a butchered wig were no excuse for abandoning the basic tenets of pageantry. And so, as the door swung open, she greeted Basmati with a friendly Vaseline-coated smile and a mechanical wave.

Mrs. Wellington and Schmidty had known Basmati for years and as such were fully prepared for the vision that greeted them. The same could not be said for Abernathy and the students, who stood awestruck at the sight of him. The middle-aged man of average weight and average height was anything but average. Much like the Contrary Conservatory itself, Basmati’s blond hair was a mishmash of styles. Long curly locks descended from the left side of his scalp, while the right remained inexplicably bald. His coarse handlebar mustache solely
inhabited the right facial sphere, while his lone eyebrow took the left. The entire look was topped off with a tee shirt that read
I MARRIED A LIMA BEAN
on the front and
I DIVORCED A LIMA BEAN
on the back.

“Edith Wellington, I’d know you
anywhere
! Well, maybe not
there,
but definitely
here,
” Basmati muttered with an accent best described as Daffy Duck by way of Jerusalem, Shanghai, and Berlin.

“Bishop Basmati,” Mrs. Wellington replied genially. “I’m sorry to arrive without proper notice, but I am in desperate need of your help.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“I thought I just did,” Mrs. Wellington replied logically.

“Just did what?” Basmati asked, curiously raising his sole eyebrow.

“I just told you I need your help.”

“But I don’t need your help.”

“Yes, I know that…”

“What do you know?” Basmati questioned a now visibly frustrated Mrs. Wellington.

“I know that I need your help, but that you don’t need mine.”

“I didn’t know you needed my help; you should have mentioned something sooner.”

“Yes, of course, you’re absolutely right,” Mrs. Wellington relented, giving in to the utter madness that was Basmati.

“Liar! You already told me that you needed my help!” Basmati responded forcefully while attempting to slam the large wooden door shut.

In a move that clearly demonstrated her desperation, Mrs. Wellington shoved her head into the fast-closing space between the door and its frame.

“Please! If my stepson, Abernathy, doesn’t forgive me in the next three days, I’ll lose everything. Well, except my looks, that is,” Mrs. Wellington pleaded feverishly with her head still jammed in the doorway. “Won’t you at least let me in so we can discuss this?”

“Let you in where?” Basmati asked, opening the door happily.

“No wonder you never married. Speaking to you is exhausting!”

“May I offer you some coffee then?” Basmati said kindly, almost normally.

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Mrs. Wellington said with a fatigued sigh.

“What would be lovely?” Basmati asked with a suddenly blank expression.

“Coffee would be lovely.”

“I detest coffee. I’ve never had a sip in my life! If you were really my friend, you would never have uttered that word in my presence,” Basmati screamed irrationally at Mrs. Wellington, shocking the students and Abernathy.

“In that case, I’ll leave,” Mrs. Wellington bluffed.

“Edith Wellington and company, won’t you please come in?” Basmati asked politely, motioning for the group to enter his eccentric residence.

The interior of the Contrary Conservatory could only be described as schizophrenic. So diverse and bizarre was the space that it nearly defied explanation. Immediately upon entering, the group was met with two large bronze statues: an elephant and a donkey. However, these were not just any old elephant and donkey; these were rivals, the mascots for the Republican and Democratic parties. Once past the animals, the children noticed the writing on
the wall, quite literally. The empty room’s floor had been stenciled with the message,
THIS IS THE CEILING,
while the ceiling stated,
THIS IS THE FLOOR,
and—perhaps most bizarrely—the walls stated,
I AM BOTH THE CEILING AND THE FLOOR, THEY ARE BUT MERE IMPOSTORS.

The group exited the room via a fourteen-foot metal tunnel guarded by two solid-gold figurines of a tortoise and a hare. Madeleine lagged behind to stare at the statues, utterly gobsmacked by the sight of such opulence at the Contrary Conservatory. She also couldn’t help wondering about the worth of such items in light of the recent increase in the price of gold.

“Forget it, Maddie, they’re too heavy; we’ll never be able to get them out of here,” Lulu joked as she grabbed Madeleine’s arm and pulled her into the tunnel.

The dark, damp, and dreadfully dreary passageway fed directly into a room known as the Hospital for Spreading Contagious Diseases.

“This is the first institute of its kind, a place built solely to aid healthy people in getting sick,” Basmati explained proudly as Theo ran ahead, desperate to exit the germ-ridden facility.

“Celery doesn’t get it—why would anyone want to get sick?” Hyacinth asked Basmati.

“So they can get better! There is nothing better than feeling well after being sick. But of course you can’t feel better if you never felt sick…”

Following the Hospital for Spreading Contagious Diseases were the Racetrack for Snails, the Atheist’s Church, the Court of Lawlessness, and finally the Standing-Room-Only Sitting Room.

“Won’t you please have a seat?” Basmati asked graciously as they entered, seemingly oblivious to the state of the room.

The moderately sized space was filled with a grand leather sofa, two matching wing chairs, and a large mahogany coffee table, only they were all overturned, with their legs facing the ceiling.

“I think we’ll stand,” Schmidty replied, surveying the furniture.

“Am I to understand that you are taking a stand against sitting in the Standing-Room-Only Sitting Room?” Basmati inquired irritably of Schmidty.

“Let’s hang back here,” Garrison whispered to
Abernathy, Lulu, Hyacinth, and Madeleine. “Probably best not to get too close to this guy.”

Theo, on the other hand, charged full speed ahead, squeezing in between Schmidty, Mrs. Wellington, and Basmati.

“I hate to be nosy—actually, that’s not true; I’ve always enjoyed being a bit of an amateur sleuth. Anyway, bottom line: Did you really marry a lima bean?” Theo asked curiously, pondering the legality of a legume nuptial.

“Mister Theo,” Schmidty interrupted, “I implore you to use some common sense, or at the very least think before you speak.”

Ignoring Schmidty, Basmati stepped closer to Theo, bent down and positioned himself mere inches from the boy’s face, and whispered, “Did you marry a lima bean?”

“No way! I don’t even like lima beans. I could see myself with a french fry or grilled cheese sandwich, maybe, but never a lima bean,” Theo replied most illogically.

“How dare you talk about my wife that way?” Basmati bellowed angrily into the boy’s round face.

“So you
did
marry a lima bean?” Theo replied with the zeal of Sherlock Holmes solving his first case.

“Absolutely not! Everyone knows lima beans are gold diggers!”

“Oh, enough about lima beans!” Mrs. Wellington hollered. “I need your help with my stepson! Please, Basmati!”

“Is the boy married to a lima bean your stepson?” Basmati asked, motioning to Theo.

“I already told you, I didn’t marry a lima bean! I’m not even old enough to get married,” Theo huffed under his breath.

“No, Theo is not my stepson. Although I’m flattered you think I’m young enough to have one his age. I knew that do-it-yourself face-lift would work,” Mrs. Wellington said with a satisfied smile before turning solemnly toward Abernathy. “No, my stepson is that man over there.”

The simple act of Mrs. Wellington pointing at Abernathy elicited an irate grunt from the man. Standing between Hyacinth, Madeleine, and Garrison, Abernathy exposed his teeth, narrowed his eyes, and emitted brutish animal sounds. The ferocity of the noise instantly
depressed Mrs. Wellington, causing a pathetic frown to take hold of her face.

After explaining her terribly dire predicament to Basmati, Mrs. Wellington pursed her lips and prayed the man would agree to help.

“We’re a dying breed, Edith Wellington. The need for schools such as ours remains, yet we continue to disappear,” Basmati said sadly. “I wish I could help. I honestly do, but I have a much bigger problem. They’ve stolen Toothpaste…”

“We can buy you more toothpaste,” Mrs. Wellington declared assuredly.

“Toothpaste is my canary. He’s the only one in the world who disagrees with everything I say. And you know how much I need that. Every morning I wake excited to say ‘hello,’ only for him to respond ‘goodbye.’ But now Toothpaste’s gone. They came in the middle of the night and took him.”

“He named his canary Toothpaste,” Hyacinth scoffed quietly to Lulu.

“You named your ferret Celery; you’re hardly in a position to judge,” Lulu whispered before turning to catch an engrossed Theo grabbing Basmati by the arm.

“Who took him? The Mafia? The CIA? The FBI? The Bermuda Triangle?” Theo questioned Basmati absurdly, instantly intrigued by the animal abduction.

“No, my students—Fitzy, Bard, and Herman! They didn’t like my lessons, so they stole the one thing I care about. Toothpaste is my sole weakness. They’ve promised not to hurt him as long as I let them do whatever they want. I even gave them matches.”

“But what if they eat him? I mean, Fitzy drinks hair spray. I wouldn’t even be surprised if he had eaten his own arm in the womb. If you know what I mean,” Theo babbled.

“Celery doesn’t know what you mean,” Hyacinth said as she and the others crept closer.

“Neither do I,” Lulu seconded, “but it sounds gross.”

“I think it’s something to do with Fitzy having eaten his own flesh,” Madeleine said with a look of disgust. “Honestly, Theo, such a comment is highly distasteful, even for you.”

“I didn’t mean Fitzy
actually
ate his arm. I just meant he and his cronies seem weird. I wouldn’t put a little bird barbecue past them.”

“I think I understand,” Basmati said grimly as he
looked into Theo’s brown eyes. “You know something, don’t you? Did you help them? Did you kill my bird? You did, didn’t you? You’re a bird killer!”