Marcia's Madness Read online

  "I think Annie can figure something out on her own," Marcia said. "Besides, I have a headache all of a sudden. I think I need to lie down."

  That was odd. Marcia had never complained of headaches before, nor had she ever had to lie down in the middle of the day.

  And here's another thing that was odd. We looked over and saw Marcia's cat, Minx, blinking as though she'd been staring at the sun and then slouching down and covering her eyes with her tiny gray and white paws, little frown lines creasing her forehead.

  Or maybe it wasn't so odd. After all, there were certain things—like getting our powers—that when they happened to us, they happened to our cats too. So maybe Minx was sharing Marcia's headache?

  In any event, as we all hurried to do Marcia's bidding—particularly Petal—and Marcia slowly dragged herself up the stairs, spear in one hand, the other hand to her forehead, we all knew which bedroom Marcia was heading to.

  The room where she could once again be oldest of the youngest.

  There was a new sheriff in town.

  ***

  That week was a strange one for us. It was odd having Marcia in power. It was odd having Annie out of power. Who was Annie now? we all wondered. And how, we wondered to ourselves but never out loud, would all this affect our chances of discovering what happened to our parents?

  It was also a strange week because Marcia's management style was, well, odd after what we'd grown used to from Annie. Whereas Annie would give us directions and then keep half an eye on us to make sure her instructions were properly carried out, every time Marcia gave directions, she went to lie down, claiming to have a headache.

  "Is all the power getting to you?" Rebecca asked snidely as Marcia dragged herself upstairs yet again, that spear looking heavy in her hand.

  Marcia ignored her, muttering to herself something like "I wish those people in the Big City didn't have so many cars—they all whiz by so quickly."

  Marcia had been muttering a lot of strange things like that, and Minx had been making pained meowing sounds and covering her eyes. We thought about asking Zinnia to talk to Minx and find out what was going on, but we didn't want anyone to think we were crazy.

  And what was strangest of all about that odd week was that Mother's Day was coming up on Sunday. It would be the first Mother's Day of our lives with no Mommy around for us to celebrate.

  What were we going to do?

  ***

  "Hullo, Eights!"

  "Mr. Pete!" eight voices shouted.

  It was late in the morning on Sunday, and we were all still in our pajamas because we were all depressed about its being Mother's Day with no Mommy or Daddy in sight. Then our doorbell had rung.

  And there, in all his shining mechanic glory, stood Pete the mechanic.

  "The missus and I were thinking, if you didn't have anything else to do today ... that is to say..." For once, Pete looked nervous. Which was very odd, given that this was a man who could pretend he was our uncle and call himself Pete Huit at the drop of a hat and who could also wear an Armani jacket and run an evil relative out of town. Honestly, nothing ever ruffled Pete, other than one of us giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  "If you were anyone besides Mr. Pete," Rebecca said, only semirudely, "I'd be telling you to spit it out right around now."

  "Mrs. Pete and I just thought," Mr. Pete went on, "it being Mother's Day and all..."

  "You felt bad for us because we are orphans," Petal said.

  "Well, no," Pete said. "I don't believe either of us put it quite like that."

  "You want me to make Mother's Day dinner for Mrs. Pete!" Durinda said, looking flattered.

  "Well, no," Pete said. "It would be rude of me to expect that. Besides, I made the dinner myself today, it being Mother's Day and all. In fact, I've got the whole meal already in the oven at home and I just need to pick up the cake."

  "Mmm... frosting." Rebecca's eyes flashed.

  "I know!" Zinnia was practically jumping up and down, her bunny slippers flopping on her feet. "You want to invite us over to your house for the day!"

  "Yes, yes!" Pete snapped his fingers. "That's the one!" Then he clapped his hands together. "Now, um, get dressed, get your things together, and then we'll be off." He looked embarrassed as he glanced at Annie. "Oops, sorry. I suppose that, being head of the family and all, you prefer to give directions under your own roof."

  "Actually," Annie said with a calm that none of the rest of us could have mustered in her situation, "that's Marcia's job now."

  Pete's eyebrows shot up nearly all the way to his hairline.

  "Marcia?" he said.

  ***

  It was the worst Mother's Day of our lives because Mommy wasn't there, and neither was Daddy, and yet somehow the Petes made it better than it should have been under the circumstances.

  After his initial shock, Pete said no more about the new power structure in our home, instead doing his best to make us feel at home in his home. Pete the mechanic, it turned out, made a mean lasagna, and by that we mean that it was good.

  We all enjoyed playing with Old Felix, Mr. Pete's cat.

  There was enough frosting on the Mother's Day cake for us to split it evenly, half the frosting for Rebecca, half for the rest of us.

  And Mrs. Pete didn't even mind that we hadn't brought her any presents in honor of the day.

  "I'm not a mother," Mrs. Pete said. "I'm just a woman who's lucky enough to have a husband who can make lasagna, plus, of course, I'm lucky enough to have all of you in my life."

  We all huddled in to give her a hug.

  Really, the only bad thing about the day—outside of the very big bad thing of missing our parents—was that poor Marcia was still getting those headaches.

  "Huh," Pete said as Marcia massaged her temple with two fingers. "Maybe you should see a doctor about that? After all, you wouldn't want there to be anything wrong with your head."

  ***

  When we arrived home that night, stuffed and both happy and sad, Marcia headed upstairs immediately, not even bothering to grab the spear first, while the rest of us went off to the drawing room for some after-dinner juice boxes.

  It was then that Jackie spotted the loose stone sticking out from the wall.

  "That's odd," she said. "That only happens when there's a new note back there."

  Durinda carefully removed the stone, and once it was out, we all looked inside.

  There was a new note!

  "Read it!" Petal shouted.

  "Read it!" Zinnia shouted.

  "I'll read it!" Georgia said.

  "No, I'll read it!" Rebecca said.

  "We'll all read it together," Annie instructed, since Marcia wasn't around to instruct us.

  And so we did.

  Dear Marcia,

  Nine down, seven to go. This one does take some getting used to—hope you're feeling better soon!

  As always, the note was unsigned.

  But what could this possibly mean? The person—whoever the invisible, possibly magical person was—who left us these notes only did so when one of us received her power or her gift. With the occasional exceptions, like the very first note telling us the terms for discovering what happened to our parents and that insanely confusing one about Beware the other Eights! And only once had one of us received her gift before her power: the time Georgia sent her gift back.

  So this could mean only one thing...

  Seven Eights stood with hands on hips and shouted upstairs, "Marcia Huit, you get down here!"

  And when she was down among us, groaning as she held her head, seven Eights glared at her and shouted:

  "Did you perhaps get your power and neglect to tell anybody?"

  SIX

  "Must you all shout so loud?" Marcia winced. "I already have a terrible headache."

  "Of course we have to shout so loud," Georgia said. "We're outraged!"

  "Yes," Marcia said, "but it's bad enough being me already. Oh, I do wish the people in the Big City would stop do
ing so many busy things. It's hard to keep track of it all. And all the lights in the room aren't helping my headache any!"

  "Let's all go to Fall," Annie suggested calmly, naming the most peaceful of the four seasonal rooms Mommy had created for us.

  "Good idea," Durinda said. "Fall is the most soothingly dark. You'd think Winter would be the darkest, but there's always so much glare from the snow."

  So that's what we did: we went to Fall.

  Petal immediately began making a big pile of fake crinkly leaves so she could jump in them, which was fine with us. At least it kept her busy.

  But poor Marcia was still groaning, as was Minx over in the corner. The other seven cats kept circling Minx quietly, their kitty brows furrowed in concern.

  "Betty," Jackie instructed robot Betty, "do you think you might go into the kitchen and make Marcia a nice cup of tea?"

  Betty rolled out of the room but it was anyone's guess if she'd do as instructed. More likely, she'd try to find cartoons on TV or flirt with Carl the talking refrigerator. Sometimes we did secretly wonder why, given what a great scientist Mommy was, so many of her inventions didn't seem to work quite as she'd intended them to.

  But, miracle of miracles, robot Betty rolled back a few minutes later while we were all standing around Marcia wondering what to do. In Betty's pincered fingers she carried a cup of tea. It was a good thing that it turned out she hadn't bothered to heat the tea, because instead of placing it in Marcia's hand, she dumped it over Marcia's head.

  "That's not helpful, Betty," Marcia said through gritted teeth, her twin ponytails and bangs now dripping.

  "At least it stopped you groaning," Rebecca said.

  "Maybe now you can tell us what your power is." Annie paused, an expression on her face that was different from what we'd seen the past few days. Ever since Marcia had staged her hostile takeover, Annie had seemed subdued, depressed even. But now there was a new light in her eyes, an intelligent curiosity. "And maybe you can also tell us," Annie added, that intelligent curiosity still there, "how long you've known you've had it."

  "I don't know! You can't expect me to know the exact moment!" Marcia was outraged, and acting mighty suspicious. "You know how these power things are when you first get them. It's not always some kind of instantaneous thing like a light bulb going on over your head when you suddenly realize, 'Now I've got it!' Sometimes it's more gradual."

  "Huh." Georgia looked dumbfounded. "My ability to turn invisible was pretty instantaneous."

  "So was my ability to freeze people," Durinda said.

  "Mine too," Jackie said. "One minute I was my regular self, and the next—poof!—I was faster than a speeding train. It's not the sort of thing a person fails to notice."

  "Well, Annie's power didn't come upon her instantaneously," Marcia said defensively. "If I recall correctly, it was more of a gradual realization of what she could do."

  "True," Annie said. "And now it's all gone, or at least the specialness of it is."

  "But what is your power?" Zinnia asked Marcia eagerly. To Zinnia, getting powers was like getting presents. There was always a mixture of joy and sadness in her whenever someone received hers: joy at the idea of presents in general, sadness that she still had to wait until August for her turn.

  "Oh!" Marcia grabbed her head again. "There goes the eight o'clock train!"

  "I think I've figured out what Marcia's power is," Rebecca said knowingly.

  "You have?" we all said as seven heads snapped in her direction, even Marcia's sore one.

  "Yes," Rebecca said. "Marcia's obviously gone crazy. She's seeing things and hearing things that aren't here. So that's her power: the power to be insane."

  We wouldn't have quite put it that way, but it did seem that Rebecca might have something there.

  "Is that it?" Jackie placed a gentle hand on Marcia's shoulder. "You're seeing things and hearing things that aren't in the room with us?"

  "Yes!" Marcia cried.

  "You keep mentioning the Big City," Annie said. "Is that where the things you're seeing and hearing are from, all the way over in the Big City?"

  "Yes!" Marcia cried again.

  "I think, then," Annie said, "your power must be that of superior hearing and vision, almost x-ray and telescopic vision. And what's more, you can't control the images and sounds bombarding you."

  "Oh dear, this is serious," Durinda said as we all thought about what Marcia must be going through: the first of us Eights to get a power so overwhelming it could actually turn on her and cause her physical pain. "This calls for a cookie."

  ***

  Daddy Sparky and Mommy Sally kept us company in the dining room as we ate our soothing snack of chocolate chip cookies. Durinda had even dimmed the lights so that nothing would add to Marcia's headaches.

  "Poor Marcia," Petal said, for once thinking of someone's worries other than her own.

  "Poor Minx," Zinnia said. "If Marcia is in pain from all the images of the Big City bombarding her, what do you think Minx must be going through? I wonder what visions she's seeing..."

  "Why don't you ask her?" Rebecca suggested snidely, only to roll her eyes a moment later when Zinnia did.

  We watched as Zinnia crouched down beside Minx and whispered in the cat's ear, then placed her own ear next to Minx's mouth so she could hear the cat's reply.

  Zinnia patted Minx on the head before rising to her feet.

  "Minx says," Zinnia said, "that there are too many dogs in the Big City. That if city dwellers had more cats than dogs, it wouldn't be so bad, but as it is now, it's just too much racket and barking and panting and seeing big dogs drool."

  "Oh, brother," Georgia said.

  "Minx further said," Zinnia further said, ignoring Georgia, "that if it weren't for the distraction of the headaches, she'd stage a hostile takeover of the kitty portion of our household just like Marcia did with the human portion. She says that Anthrax now lives in fear of this, the possible loss of power."

  "My," Rebecca said to Zinnia, "Minx did manage to get an awful lot of words in, considering how short a time she was actually talking to you."

  Almost any other Eight would have been offended by this, but Zinnia merely shrugged. "Sometimes it just works that way. Sometimes the cats say a little and I understand a lot."

  "Oh no!" Petal said suddenly. "If Marcia can see all the way to the Big City, then that means she can see through walls. And if she can see through walls, surely seeing through clothes must not be a big challenge for her." She gasped. "Can you see my underwear?" Then she ran and hid behind a chair.

  "No one can see your underwear," Durinda reassured her.

  "And if they could," Rebecca said, "they wouldn't care."

  "I think Marcia's power is awesome," Zinnia said admiringly.

  "I do too," Annie admitted. "And I'll tell you something else."

  We all turned to her.

  "If we can just harness Marcia's power," Annie went on, "if we can just find a way to control it better, I'll bet we can really use it to our advantage."

  ***

  When we were younger and needed to solve something, Mommy would tell us to put on our "thinking caps." We suspected that she did this sometimes just to get us to be quiet for fifteen minutes so she could concentrate on whatever needed concentrating on at the moment. Still, we'd rather liked the idea of there really being thinking caps on our heads, and we pictured them looking like French berets in different colors. Annie's was always purple, Durinda's green, Georgia's gold, Jackie's red, and so forth, each Eight wearing her favorite color.

  So that's what we did now. We all put on our thinking caps, trying to come up with a solution to the problem of Marcia's power being too big for her to bear.

  "Try to block out the white noise," Durinda suggested.

  "What's white noise?" Zinnia wanted to know.

  "Is there such a thing as black noise?" Petal asked.

  "White noise is too complicated to explain," Jackie said. "Think of it as too much sta
tic on the radio. It keeps you from properly hearing the song."

  "Pretend," Annie advised Marcia, "that the world has shrunk down to the size of one thin dime."

  "Or pretend," Rebecca said with a snort, taking off her invisible thinking cap and hurling it to the floor in disgust, "that none of us are acting like crazy lunatics. Honestly, Annie!" She snorted again. "Pretend the world has shrunk down to the size of one thin dime—like that's ever going to work."

  "But it is!" Marcia sounded excited and not at all like she was bothered by a headache. "If I really concentrate my energies on just one spot in the Big City, I can block everything else out!"

  Zinnia went over to Minx, bent down, and whispered in the cat's ear.

  We saw Minx shrug her kitty shoulders as if to say Why not? I've already tried everything else. Then she squinted her kitty eyes, and a moment later, we swear, it was like a peaceful smile came over her face.

  "One of these days," Georgia said to Zinnia, "I may just start believing you can do what you've been claiming all along."

  "Don't worry," Rebecca said to Georgia. "If that day ever comes, I'll hit you over the head and knock some sense back into you."

  "I think I've got it!" Marcia sounded even more excited now.

  "What are you seeing?" Jackie asked.

  "I'm seeing a woman in an apartment in the Big City," Marcia said. "She's in her kitchen, and she's making liver and onions!"

  "Eeeuw." Petal shuddered. "Can't you turn the world into one thin dime somewhere more pleasant?"

  "I know where Marcia should focus her vision," Annie said.

  "Where?" We all turned to Annie.

  Annie went to stand behind Marcia. Then, placing her hands on either side of Marcia's face, she gently turned Marcia's head toward a particular direction.

  "Try," Annie said to Marcia, "to see through this wall of our house and through the wall of our neighbor's house so you can tell us what's going on there."

  Oh.

  It was so perfect, it was beyond perfect.

  Ever since the Wicket's return from her wild-goose chase in Beijing, we'd wanted to learn what she was up to. And now, perhaps, we would find out.