The Final Exam

  “I have to agree; I’m rather surprised they haven’t burned the whole place down by now,” Madeleine said as Garrison led the group down a path strewn with scorched clothing.

  Following the trail of a singed sweater, a burned-out sock, and yet another charred shoe, the School of Fearians finally located the elusive Contrarians. Fitzy, Bard, and Herman, all of whom were noticeably lighter than usual in the clothing department, were using a patch of thick, lustrous ivy as a ladder to scale the wall.

  Sensing an opportunity to be a hero, Theo quickly corralled the Fearians into a huddle.

  “Seeing as I have been trained in covert tactical operations, also known as hall monitoring, I think it’s best if I take the lead. All I need is five minutes and I’ll have those boys spilling secrets like most people do milk,” Theo announced, brazenly cracking his knuckles.

  “Actually, Theo, I think it best for all involved that absolutely anyone but you acts as the mouthpiece for the group. And I mean that in the least offensive manner possible,” Madeleine stated honestly.

  “You’re lucky you have such a nice accent, or that would have really offended me,” Theo replied.

  “It’s not personal; it’s just that we need someone the Contrarians can relate to, and frankly, that is not you. Please know that if we were attempting to corral Macaroni, we would definitely enlist your help,” Madeleine explained nicely as Hyacinth began to bounce up and down.

  “Besties, not to toot my own horn, but the Contrarians totally love me! So what do you say? Can Celery and I do it?”

  “Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Garrison acquiesced. “They do seem to like you—probably something to do with the fact that you let Celery bungee jump.”

  “Rewarding pet abuse? If PETA revokes my membership, it’s on your shoulders,” Theo whispered angrily to Garrison.

  “I think we should let her do it,” Lulu declared boldly.

  “Oh my gosh, this is the best day ever!” Hyacinth squealed.

  “Well, except for the whole Abernathy/Toothpaste/Sylvie situation,” Theo interjected, clearly irritated that Hyacinth had been chosen as the face of the mission.

  “Now, Hyacinth, we need you to try your absolute hardest to find out what the Contrarians want in exchange for Toothpaste. It’s very important that you stay focused,” Madeleine explained seriously.

  “Don’t worry, besties—Hyhy and Celery are on the case! Hyhy started this whole thing, and Hyhy is going to do her part to end it.”

  “She’s talking about herself in the third person already? Talk about a power trip,” Theo moaned jealously.

  Fitzy, Bard, and Herman were halfway up the ivy when the purple pantsuit–clad Hyacinth arrived at the base of the wall.

  “Hey up there, besties! Celery and I are super excited to see you guys! We’re so excited we may have to sing a song! Do you guys have a harmonica with you, by any chance? Celery is really good on the harmonica; she’s kind of a ferret prodigy.”

  “The bungee-jumping ferret!” Fitzy yelled, fortuitously halting Hyacinth’s plan to sing. “We’re going moat diving! Want to come?”

  “Thanks for the invite, but I’m going to have to pass. But before you jump off the wall and most likely permanently damage your memory, I need to ask you guys a question, bestie to besties.”

  “Does that mean the ferret’s not going to moat dive either?” Fitzy wondered aloud.

  “No way! Celery doesn’t know how to swim,” Hyacinth responded before remembering Madeleine’s advice about staying focused. “Okay, so here’s the thing: we’re prepared to give you anything you want in return for the bird. That means money, food, illegal weapons, contraband, plutonium, knives, a private plane to Mexico… anything.”

  “How does she expect us to find plutonium? We’re not even in high school yet,” Theo muttered to Madeleine.

  “I wouldn’t worry; I don’t think they’re smart enough to ask for any of it up front.”

  “So what’s it going to be? Knives? Plutonium? Chocolate éclairs?” Hyacinth asked in her most grown-up voice.

  “Please say chocolate éclairs,” Theo prayed quietly.

  “Moat diving!” Fitzy hollered as he dangled precariously off the now strained ivy.

  “Wait—you guys will give us Toothpaste if we moat dive?” Hyacinth repeated dubiously.

  “Yeah!” Fitzy yelled, prompting both Herman and Bard to follow suit.

  “Contrarians, we, the School of Fearians, consider this to be a legally binding, albeit verbal, agreement,” Madeleine said litigiously before grabbing hold of the ivy.

  “Maddie, what are you doing?” Garrison inquired, his face wet with perspiration.

  “I’m doing whatever it takes to save the school. What are you doing?” Madeleine replied pointedly.

  “I’ll tell you what I’m not doing: jumping in a moat!”

  “What’s the matter? You afraid?” Fitzy laughed uproariously.

  “He’s afraid! He’s afraid! He’s afraid!” Bard and Herman chanted, perfectly in sync, before abruptly returning to abject silence.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, he is afraid. He is absolutely petrified of jumping into that moat. But so what? We’re School of Fearians; it wouldn’t make much sense if we weren’t afraid of something, now would it?” Theo boldly defended Garrison.

  “What’s your mascot, the chicken?” Fitzy called out before erupting into a cackle.

  “Actually, we don’t have an official mascot,” said Hyacinth, “but I’d like to take this moment to nominate Celery, who also happens to be the world’s first bungee-jumping ferret.”

  “Excuse me, Hyacinth, but if anyone is going to be our mascot, it’s Macaroni,” Theo argued. “Not only does he have seniority, he has a much better personality.”

  “No way! You guys are the chickens! Bock! Bock! Bock!” Fitzy taunted as he pulled himself atop the soaring fortress wall.

  “Bock, Bock, Bock,” Herman and Bard grunted, smirking.

  “Don’t bock at us! We’re not chickens!” Garrison responded, his competitive nature rising to the surface. After years of playing sports, he had come to view taunts as a warm-up for an excellent game. At that moment, adrenaline rushed through his system, priming him to prove Fitzy and the Contrarians wrong by any means necessary.

  The School of Fearians broke into two groups so as not to overstrain the ivy. Garrison and Lulu scaled the vines first, followed by the remaining three. Worried his weight might rip the ivy off the wall, Theo insisted on going last. At least that way, if he fell, he wouldn’t crush anyone.

  The top of the wall was dreadfully narrow, leaving barely enough space for the children’s feet. And while the Fearians swayed with nerves, the Contrarians remained the epitome of calm, cool, and collected. Of course, after years of hazardous behavior they were desensitized to danger.

  In a desperate bid to ignore the bubbling mass of water beneath him, Garrison counted the treetops on the skyline. However, even with his eyes averted there was no avoiding the moat’s noxious odor, an unpleasant reminder of the water’s proximity. Without any viable means of escaping the impending jump, Garrison forced himself to confront the monster at his feet. A strange and powerful disconnect took hold, separating Garrison’s mind from his body. The world appeared to be a movie, something he was watching from a distance. He didn’t care that barbed wire crawled dangerously along the wall’s exterior, because he wasn’t actually there.

  Minutes passed as Garrison stared calmly at the bubbling water below. Then, in an abrupt shift, his body and mind realigned, bringing reality into sharp focus. This was not a movie. Garrison was watching his own life. There was no escaping the fact that he was the boy standing atop the wall, preparing for the enemy to swallow him whole.

  “This is going to be so cool!” Fitzy screamed, electrified by the idea of moat diving.

  “Hyacinth, I realize you were put in charge of this mission, but I’m going to have to step in on this one,” Theo explained authoritatively b
efore turning toward the Contrarians. “As the resident safety expert, or ‘safepert’ for short, I would like to inform you that hitting the water from fifty feet or higher is equivalent to landing on concrete.”

  “How high is this wall?” Fitzy asked with sudden interest.

  “I estimate twenty, twenty-five feet.”

  “Are you positive?” Fitzy pressed on. “Because landing on concrete really sucks; that’s how I broke my leg last summer.”

  “How high up were you?”

  “Only three or four feet, but we were going about twenty miles an hour.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t jump out of a moving vehicle,” Theo said with sudden concern.

  “Is a motorcycle a moving vehicle?”

  “Something tells me Fitzy is not going to do well on the SATs,” Lulu mumbled snidely under her breath.

  “Why would you jump off a motorcycle? Was it on fire? Were you about to drive off a cliff?” Theo asked suspiciously.

  “My uncle was taking me for a spin on his bike when I suddenly remembered it was my grandpa’s birthday. And he gets really mad if you forget his birthday, so I jumped off the bike to go call him.”

  “That is a disturbing story on many, many levels,” Theo replied matter-of-factly, shooting his fellow School of Fearians a concerned look.

  “But Fitzy, surely you’ve done this moat dive before?” Madeleine asked in a most professorial tone.

  “Nope.”

  “I see,” Madeleine said, nodding her head. “But you’ve checked the depth of the moat?”

  “Nope.”

  “Fitzy, you do realize that if the moat is too shallow, you could wind up paralyzed and unable to move your arms or legs? You’ll be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life,” Madeleine cautioned.

  “Unless, of course, there are advances in stem-cell research,” Theo corrected her.

  “Theo, now is not the time for scientific sidebars,” Lulu interjected.

  “Wait a minute—you’re saying I could be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life?” Fitzy repeated with palpable concern.

  “Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. Thank you for finally listening,” Madeleine replied gratefully.

  “No way! You’re making that up!”

  “No, Fitzy,” Madeleine reassured him, “I most certainly am not.”

  “But I risk my life all the time, and nothing ever happens…”

  “Well, you’ve been extraordinarily lucky, but at some point everyone’s luck runs out. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Are you saying my luck could stop right now, like with this jump?” Fitzy asked, shocked.

  “Anytime you do something reckless, like jumping into a moat, you run the risk of sustaining extreme bodily harm that could permanently stop you from leading an active life,” Madeleine stated emphatically.

  “Then I’m not jumping!” Fitzy screamed with uncharacteristic panic, clearly petrified by the idea of being immobile.

  “Me either,” Herman and Bard seconded, agreeing with Fitzy, as they always did.

  “Have you guys really never considered the possibility of grave bodily harm before?” Madeleine asked in amazement, to which the Contrarians shook their heads.

  “I just never thought that it was possible to have too much fun, so much fun that you can’t ever have fun again,” Fitzy explained, scratching his head. “I’m still pretty young; I can’t spend the next fifty years sitting down… no way! I haven’t even climbed Everest yet!”

  “This feels like the perfect moment to impart a few Theoisms to you,” Theo said. “Number one: don’t skimp on the mayonnaise; it’s a pivotal part of building the perfect sandwich. Number two: the world isn’t a playground, so you need to get the facts before you decide to do something. Number three: if you are feeling sad, eat a fried potato product and your mood will improve—french fries, hash browns, home fries, Tater Tots… any of them will do.”

  “While I can’t speak to the mayonnaise or potato platitudes,” said Madeleine, “Theo is certainly correct about getting the facts before doing something bonkers like jumping into a moat. Now, it just so happens that I have the facts in this case. The moat is twenty feet deep, and contrary to what Mrs. Wellington claimed, absolutely piranha free. There’s nothing more dangerous than a few warm-blooded salamanders in there.”

  “How do you know all this?” Lulu asked suspiciously.

  “Schmidty mentioned an underwater scuba expedition that occurred last time they visited; something to do with a missing diamond earring,” Madeleine said as she grabbed Garrison’s left arm and signaled for Lulu to take his right.

  “Wait! I’m not ready!” Garrison exclaimed with an excessively pale face.

  “You can do this,” Lulu stated confidently, squeezing his clammy hand.

  “No, Lulu, I can’t…” Garrison trailed off, ashamed of his own weakness.

  “Come on, don’t you want to show me your doggy paddle?” Lulu jested in an effort to lighten the mood.

  “I’m not ready… it’s all happening too fast.”

  “Garrison, I believe in you. I always have,” Madeleine said sweetly before planting a peck on the boy’s tanned cheek. “But trust me: none of this is happening too fast.”

  The kiss electrified Garrison, drowning him in adrenaline and excitement. In fact, so distracted was the boy that he didn’t even notice when he became airborne. Madeleine and Lulu had rather deftly brought Garrison off the wall with them. But now, as he hurtled toward the murky water, his exhilaration morphed into panic.

  EVERYONE’S AFRAID OF SOMETHING:

  Cleptophobia is the fear

  of stealing.

  I guess that means we’re going together!” Hyacinth said cheerfully as she grabbed Theo’s pudgy white hand. “By the way, if we get married, I really want to go to Niagara Falls on our honeymoon!”

  “Way to make it awkward! I haven’t even asked you to marry me yet. Wait! I didn’t mean yet, I meant… oh, forget it. Let’s just jump already.”

  In an uncharacteristically responsible move, Hyacinth had left Celery safely on the ground with Macaroni. After Celery’s bungee jump, she felt it best that the ferret avoid all extreme sports, at least until she got her motion sickness under control.

  Meanwhile, the warm, bubbly water enveloped Garrison as his body fell weightlessly away from the world. Separated from Madeleine and Lulu, he saw nothing more than a haze of white. A powerful confusion took hold, jumbling the very foundation of his brain. He could no longer tell which way was up. How long had he been in the water? Was he even still alive?

  Frightened, Garrison tried to scream, causing his mouth to fill with copious amounts of water. As the boy began to choke, four soft hands grabbed hold of him and pulled him to the surface. Once he was safely out of the water, Garrison immediately started coughing, expelling large quantities of liquid.

  “You’re fine,” Lulu said with a smile as she and Madeleine helped Garrison back to dry land.

  “Actually, I’d say you’re more than fine—you’re fantastic!” Madeleine declared sweetly, prompting Garrison to look away, overwhelmed by the sentiment.

  “My skin hurts,” Theo warbled as he broke the water’s surface with a grimace. “That was worse than a belly flop; it was a body flop! Even my earlobes hurt.”

  “That’s weird; I feel fine,” Hyacinth said cheerfully.

  “Listen, about this whole marriage thing,” Theo said to Hyacinth. “I know I’m a catch; I mean, I get it. I’m good-looking, kind, and a hall monitor to boot; who wouldn’t want to marry me? But sadly, I just can’t commit to anyone—not right now, anyway.”

  “Relax, I was joking,” Hyacinth replied. “I would never marry you. Well, at least not as long as Celery’s alive. She would have an absolute fit; she might even try to assassinate you. Oh my gosh, I could totally see Celery dropping arsenic in your food!”

  “What is wrong with you? Why do you sound so cheery when talking about my demise at the paws
of that darn ferret?” Theo huffed as he swam toward the moat’s edge.

  As Theo and Hyacinth pulled their wet bodies ashore, Garrison, who had finally caught his breath, managed to crack a smile. From Madeleine’s kiss to the near drowning, he had never experienced a rush of adrenaline quite like that in his life.

  Fitzy, Bard, and Herman still stood atop the wall, looking down at the group. Even after watching the School of Fearians survive the jump without sustaining serious bodily harm, the Contrarians still appeared greatly rattled by the idea of moat diving. Fitzy’s pasty, freckled legs shivered as he contemplated being immobile for life. Now that the idea had been firmly planted in his head by Madeleine, he was incapable of shaking it. But at the same time, he had no intention of stopping the fun, as that would be worse than death. And so, after Fitzy gave a quick nod to Bard and Herman, the three Contrarians jumped off the wall. However, there was a notable difference in the boys’ demeanor as they fell: none of them made catcalls or pumped their fists in the air.

  After they’d jumped and then emerged from the moat, the eight soggy and unbelievably stinky children lounged on the banks, allowing the sun to wash over them. For the Fearians, this was a well-earned respite on the road to recovering Toothpaste. Having already completed their end of the deal, they were momentarily excused from all responsibility. But the relief was short-lived: suddenly the sound of a man shouting jolted the Contrarians and Fearians alike.

  “No!” the man screamed, his voice echoing through the trees, obscuring the origin of the sound.

  “Yes!” Sylvie Montgomery hollered emotionally in response, her voice also reverberating greatly.

  “That sounds like my grandparents. Do you think they followed me? They can travel pretty fast with their walkers,” Fitzy asked genuinely.

  “I can pretty much guarantee that those aren’t your grandparents,” Garrison stated confidently.

  “Are they your grandparents?”

  “No, my grandparents are dead,” Garrison answered bluntly.

  “That would make it even cooler: zombie grandpa!”