"It's the ax murderer!" Petal shrieked as she started to run around in circles. "It's finally the ax murderer!"
"Petal," Rebecca said as Durinda and Jackie moved to put their arms around Petal and stop her circle running, "what are you talking about?"
"It's just like that ghost story they told us at camp the one time Mommy and Daddy sent us," Petal said.
"What story?" Annie asked.
"The one about the babysitter who keeps getting prank calls," Petal said, "the caller always asking, 'Have you checked the children?' But then the babysitter calls the police to have them trace the calls, and the police call back and say, 'Get the children and get out of the house—the calls are coming from inside!'"
The ringing stopped and started up again, same number displayed.
"This is exactly like that!" Petal said. "The danger is inside the house! The calls are coming from inside the house!"
"No, they're not," Rebecca said. "They're coming from the car."
"This is ridiculous," Annie said. "I'll get to the bottom of this." And then she picked up the phone, silencing the ringing.
"Hello?"
Unfortunately for the rest of us, since the only phone in our house that had speakerphone was in Mommy's private study and we were in the drawing room, all we could hear was Annie's end of the conversation.
"You're where? You did what?"
Pause while the other party talked.
Annie covered the receiver with her hand and addressed Jackie. "Run up to the tower room and check the costume trunk, see if my Daddy disguise is still there."
Jackie raced there and came back again—even when not using her power, Jackie was still faster than any of us—and shook her head.
"I can't believe you!" Annie yelled into the phone.
Another pause.
"Well, I suppose since you're already there ... just a second." Annie covered the receiver again and turned to Durinda. "Do you have the grocery list ready?"
Durinda hurried from the room and returned a moment later with a list for Annie.
"Okay." Annie spoke into the phone again. "Let's see here..." And she proceeded to read the whole list, item by item. "All right then, I guess that's it," Annie said when she'd finished. "See you soon. Drive carefully."
Annie hung up the phone, looking as though she'd been thunderstruck by something big. Like a Hummer.
"Who was that?" Jackie asked.
"And why did you read my grocery list?" Durinda asked.
"It was Marcia," Annie said, dropping down into a wing chair.
"Marcia?" six of us shouted at once.
"Yes," Annie said. "Marcia. She said she got up earlier than the rest of us and was hungry. When she noticed we were low on supplies, she put on my Daddy disguise, grabbed the keys and the checkbook, and drove the Hummer into town. She was just calling from the parking lot to have me read her the list, to make sure she hadn't missed anything."
"Marcia?"
For the longest time, that was all any of us could think to say.
"Marcia?"
Because really, before that day, Annie had been the only one of us who knew how to drive. Or impersonate Daddy.
***
"Marcia?"
We were still saying it an hour later when the subject of our wonder and confusion walked into the house wearing a man's suit, a false mustache, and a fedora, underneath which she'd stowed her two ponytails.
"Marcia!" we all cried.
"Isn't anyone going to help me carry in the groceries?" Marcia asked, wincing a little as she tore off her phony mustache. "It is an awful lot for one person to carry."
"Marcia." Annie's voice was cold as steel, and her face was turning purple with rage again.
"What is it?" Marcia asked.
"How could you?" Annie said.
"Yes," Petal said with rare force, "how could you? Annie's the only one of us who knows how to drive the car!"
"But it's so easy," Marcia said with a laugh.
"Easy?" Georgia echoed.
"Why, yes," Marcia said. "I've watched Annie do it a million times. Well, okay, maybe not a million, but enough. Why, anyone can drive a car—even Zinnia!"
(And here someone really does need to interrupt the story to say, Hey, kids, don't try this at home!)
FOUR
The rest of the weekend passed uneventfully with us studying as the Mr. McG had directed, some of us studying more than others.
It was on Monday, as we bounced our way along to school in the little yellow school bus, that Marcia dropped her bombshell. As Zinnia might say, it was a doozy.
"I think," Marcia announced, "that we should have a vote to see which one of us should really be head of the family in our parents' absence."
"That's crazy talk," Rebecca scoffed.
"Annie's in charge," Jackie said.
"Always has been," Durinda said, "always will be."
Annie remained silent.
"But why?" Marcia asked. "Why is Annie in charge?"
"Because she's the oldest," Zinnia said simply. "It may not be a fair system, but it's the way things have always worked in our family."
"Not only is that unfair," Marcia said, "it's also arbitrary."
"Simply put," Jackie explained to those of us who might not know, "arbitrary means 'random or by chance.'"
"Who do you think should be in charge instead of Annie?" Petal asked. "I hope you don't mean me—I'd hate having all that power!"
"Me," Marcia said. "I should be in charge."
"You?" Rebecca snorted. "You can't be. You're four minutes younger than Annie."
"And in our family," Georgia added, "four minutes is a very big deal!"
"Perhaps," Marcia said, "but Annie's mostly in charge because she can do things the rest of us can't, like pay the bills and impersonate Daddy and drive the Hummer. But now I can do all those things too."
Huh. We hadn't thought about that.
And here's something else we hadn't thought about.
From the very beginning of our troubles, if we'd been asked which Eight would be voted Most Likely to Stage a Coup, we would have guessed Georgia, with her spear obsession, or even Rebecca. But Marcia? Who ever paid attention to Marcia?
"And," Marcia added now, "we never did put it to a vote, you know, about who should be the boss of us..."
Annie finally spoke. "Fine," she said. "Let's have a vote. Right here. Right now."
Six of us gasped. We'll leave you to guess which six.
"By a show of hands," Annie said, "how many of you favor Marcia taking over as head of the family?"
One hand went straight up: Marcia's.
"How many of you," Annie said, "favor me continuing as head?"
Six hands went up.
"Why didn't you vote?" Zinnia asked Annie.
"Because," Annie said, "I would never vote either for or against myself."
"I'm afraid Annie wins," Durinda said to Marcia soothingly. "But can't you see that it makes sense? After all, even if you can do all those other things, Annie's still the oldest and we're used to her being in charge. But more important than that, Annie's still the only one of us who can be as smart as an adult when needed. Annie's still the smartest."
Marcia didn't say another word as the little yellow school bus continued bouncing us on our way.
***
The Mr. McG was waiting for us when we arrived at our classroom.
"Quick, put your things away," he said, hurrying us along. "Today is a very big day."
"What's going on today?" Mandy Stenko asked, her eyes darting to the right-hand side of the chalkboard, where we now all saw that only one word was listed under the schedule for the day:
Test.
"But the McG never sprang tests on us!" Rebecca objected, forgetting in her outrage that we only ever referred to our former teacher as the McG among ourselves or with trusted friends, never with People in Authority.
"Well," the Mr. McG said, "Mrs. McGillicuddy isn't your teach
er anymore, is she?"
"Can we have a vote to get her back?" Petal asked.
The Mr. McG ignored her and continued, "It has come to my attention that your... previous teacher was far too lenient on you. It is my opinion that you all need to be tested so that I can assess where you are in your education."
"What exactly is the test going to be on?" Will Simms asked as the Mr. McG gave a thick sheaf of papers to each of us.
"It's exactly as I told you when I warned you that you needed to study over the weekend," the Mr. McG said. "The test is on everything you've ever learned. Everything."
Eight of us plus our classmates all gasped.
This was horrible!
We'd had evil substitute teachers (Crazy Serena); we'd had underhanded principals (Frank Freud); we'd even had teachers who were mean a lot of the time with no rhyme or reason (the McG). But we'd never been subjected to this. Here was an educator who actually expected us to know things!
And who among us knew everything, or even just everything he or she had ever learned? True, as a group we were smart enough that we'd skipped a grade early on, which explained why we were only seven and already nearing the end of third grade. Jackie was exceptional at reading and vocabulary. And Marcia was equally exceptional at math and science. (We won't talk about Petal.) But everything? Honestly, Annie was the only one of us who had a chance at knowing everything because she was the only one of us who could be as smart as an adult. Plus, she was the one who had spent the most time studying over the weekend.
With heavy sighs, we picked up our pencils and bent our heads to the test.
***
"Annnnnd... time!" the Mr. McG called out. It seemed to us that it had been a week since we'd started taking the test, but a look at the clock on the wall revealed that only two hours had passed.
Still, a two-hour test? Our new teacher was evil!
Didn't he realize we were just little kids? We mean, it's not as though we were in college or anything.
"Please put down your pencils," the Mr. McG instructed, "and pass your test sheets to the front of the room."
When we'd done as he requested, he had another announcement to make.
"You may all take recess now," he said, "while I grade your papers. So enjoy your fun while you can." He paused, then added darkly, "And then we'll see what we shall see."
***
Outside in the play yard, we tried to take our minds off our troubles by hanging upside down on the jungle gym, which was not easy to do. The hanging-upside-down part was easy enough, but taking our minds off our troubles? We shuddered every time we thought of that two-hour test.
"Did you see all those questions?" Zinnia asked.
"Yes," Petal said. "I was so busy counting how many there were, over and over again, I forgot to answer most of them."
"What state is St. Louis the capital of?" Georgia asked.
"I'm pretty sure it's still Missouri," Mandy Stenko said.
"Oh dear," Georgia said. "But I put down New Orleans!"
"New Orleans isn't a state!" Rebecca said. "It's a country!"
"No, it's not." Will Simms corrected her, but in a nice way. "It's a city in Louisiana, but I for one can certainly see where Georgia would make such a mistake. See, both St. Louis and New Orleans are known for music-jazz, specifically—so even if the geography isn't quite the way Georgia imagines it, it should be."
We all paused to beam at Will. He was so good to us.
But then he spoiled it all by saying, "I really like our new teacher!"
"You what?" Jackie was shocked; in fact, a little outraged. She was always the most even-tempered among us, but even she couldn't possibly condone a teacher who sprang surprise two-hour tests on us!
"But I do," Will said. "It's kind of nice for me, after all these years, having another male in the classroom."
Huh. We had never thought of that: the idea that there might be a loneliness factor for Will in being the only boy with nine other girls plus a female teacher.
Still, that was not a good enough reason for Rebecca.
"Honestly, Will," she said, for once disgusted with our favorite boy in the world. "If you want male companionship that badly, we could buy you a boy puppy!"
We continued to hang upside down from the jungle-gym bars, most of us not even noticing that the whole time we'd been out in the yard, Annie had said nothing about the test.
Neither had Marcia.
***
The Mr. McG stood at the head of the classroom, our fate in his hands.
Okay, maybe we were being a little dramatic about it, but we did want to know how we had done on that test.
"This has all been very revealing," the Mr. McG said as he began handing back tests in an arbitrary manner. "Some of you aren't quite as smart as you probably think you are." He placed a test face-down on Mandy Stenko's desk and we heard her gasp in horror as she turned it over. She'd gotten a big B- with an 83 next to it.
"Some of you did quite nicely indeed," he went on, placing a test on Jackie's desk. We couldn't see what it was but she looked happy when she turned it over.
"Some of you have peculiar minds." He placed a test on Rebecca's desk before moving on to Petal's. "While some of you..." He merely shook his head as he placed the graded test on her desk. Poor Petal. When she turned it over, she instantly burst into tears.
"As a group, you really could use quite a bit of work," he said, proceeding to place tests on the desks of Durinda, Georgia, Zinnia, and Will.
"In fact," he said, placing the final tests on the desks of Annie and Marcia, "only two of you did work that I would say was in any way superior."
Annie turned her paper over first and we could all see the big A+ with the 99 next to it.
Well, of course Annie had done the best. She was the one who'd studied the hardest, plus she was the smartest.
Then Marcia turned her paper over to reveal that her grade was an A+ as well, beside which was the only three-digit number any of us had scored:
100.
Marcia had received the highest score in the class.
FIVE
Marcia waited until the little yellow school bus had deposited us back home and we were inside our house before requesting:
"A re-vote," she said. "In light of what happened today, I think we should have a re-vote to see which one of us should be head of the family."
Who would have suspected that one of our own might stage a hostile takeover?
"I'm just curious," Rebecca asked, "why this sudden grab for power?"
"There's nothing sudden about it," Marcia said. "The way things are around here—it's been bothering me ever since Annie made me switch rooms."
We knew what she was talking about.
Before our parents' disappearance, our sleeping arrangements had been the following: Annie, Durinda, Georgia, and Jackie—the four older Eights—in one bedroom, with Annie being the leader of that bedroom; Marcia, Petal, Rebecca, and Zinnia—the four younger Eights—in the other bedroom, with Marcia being the leader of that bedroom. The two bedrooms were connected by a bathroom we all shared.
But after our parents' disappearance, Annie had switched things up a bit. She'd sent Durinda to be the leader of the bedroom with the three youngest and took Marcia into the bedroom with herself, Georgia, and Jackie, where Marcia was then the youngest. Annie's reasoning had been that since everything was so changed, Rebecca might torment Petal and Zinnia, and Durinda—being the second oldest of us all—was in a better position than Marcia to keep things under control.
Of course we'd been aware that this bothered Marcia, because she'd said so many times, but this much?
"And another thing," Marcia went on. "I don't particular like being the middle child. It stinks."
"But you're not the middle child," Georgia said. "There'd have to be an odd number of us for that to be true."
"Georgia's right," Jackie said. "You're not the middle. You're the fifth of eight."
"And you're
the fourth," Marcia said to Jackie. "So we're both in the middle, the boring middle. I hate being one of the two middles, don't you, Jackie?"
Jackie looked puzzled by this. "No, not at all. I like who I am. I'm perfectly happy with my position in life."
"Ohhhh," Marcia said, "you're impossible."
"If you ask me," Rebecca said to Marcia, "your reasons are silly."
"Still," Durinda observed, "after what happened at school today, she does have a point..."
"Are we going to have a re-vote or aren't we?" Zinnia asked.
"Yes," Petal said, "I'd really like to know sooner rather than later if there are going to be changes around here because I have to go to the bathroom."
We all turned to Annie, who hadn't spoken yet.
"Fine," Annie said.
"Great!" Marcia said. "All those in favor of me taking over?"
Seven hands shot up.
"Well," Marcia said to Annie, "I guess I don't have to ask about votes for the opposition since we all know you never vote for or against yourself."
Just like that—so quickly!—big change had come to the Huit household.
"I'm sorry," Durinda said, placing a hand on Annie's shoulder. "But I'm sure you understand. If it were only that Marcia could pay the bills like you or impersonate Daddy like you or drive the Hummer like you, it wouldn't be enough. But she did score higher than you on that test today."
"It's okay," Annie said bravely, brushing off Durinda's hand. "I do understand. And I'd have voted the same way you all did if I were the sort of person who ever votes against herself."
"Great," Rebecca said. "Now that we've all enjoyed a touching moment, will someone tell me what we're all supposed to do next?"
Instinctively, six heads turned to Annie. She always told us what to do when we got home from school. But as six of us looked at Annie expectantly, she looked over our heads to Marcia.
"Oh, right," Marcia said. "Durinda and Jackie, make us all a snack. Georgia, get the mail. Petal, go to the bathroom. Rebecca, try not to offend anyone for the next hour. Zinnia, feed the cats."
"Would you like me to get the spear for you?" Georgia offered.
"Yes, that would be nice," Marcia said.
"But what about Annie?" Georgia wanted to know after she'd returned with the spear and handed it over. "Aren't you going to tell her what to do?"
Marcia's Madness Page 3
