The Final Exam Read Online Free PDF Page B

banging his fists on the table.
    “She once hit me with a belt,” Abernathy mumbled, staring meanly at Mrs. Wellington.
    “What?” Lulu gasped. “That is just plain wrong.”
    “It was an imaginary belt!” Mrs. Wellington snapped defensively.
    “It still hurt!”
    “Oh, really? I doubt it hurt more than being arrested at the altar after my future stepson told the FBI I was responsible for the Kennedy assassination!”
    “I warned you not to go through with the wedding! We were happy before you! You made me break my promise! You ruined everything!” Abernathy screamed before storming out of the room, his gray face now red with anger.
    “What promise is he referring to?” Madeleine inquired sensibly.
    “Oh, who knows? The man is straight out of a straitjacket! Completely nutty!” Mrs. Wellington snapped with blood-red lips.
    “Celery thinks we’re in a lot of trouble,” Hyacinth added with her usual peppy smile as the others digested the prickly situation.
    “I never thought I’d say this,” Lulu admitted quietly to herself, “but Celery’s right.”

    Early the next morning, with dawn breaking outside, Lulu woke from a ghastly nightmare of being buried alive. The young girl had been locked in a wooden coffin, lowered six feet beneath the ground, and covered in pounds of dirt. In the midst of clawing at the box, splinters ravaging her hands, Lulu was jolted back to consciousness. Almost immediately, thoughts of elevators, bathrooms without windows, and underground parking garages crept into her mind. In order to avoid such places indefinitely, she would have to move to a remote corner of the world.
    As Lulu felt herself regress emotionally, a highly derogatory chorus echoed through the bedroom. Already mired in frustration, the strawberry blond threw back her comforter and dashed across the hall to the spare room.
    “
The old lady in the wig is a pig, she’s grim and dim and full of sin!
” Abernathy and Hyacinth sang cheerfully in the extra bedroom.
    “Hyacinth!” Lulu barked. “What are you doing? You’re supposed to be helping the team, not hurting us!”
    “Don’t be mad, bossy bestie! It was Abernathy’s idea. I wasn’t so sure, but then he convinced Celery, and you know how hard it is to say no to a ferret with a harmonica.”
    “Wait a minute,” Theo interrupted from behind Lulu in the upstairs hall. “Are you saying Celery can play the harmonica? I may be interested in starting a band with you guys, although I’ll have to insist on top billing.”
    “Celery says dream on, Fatty.”
    “Theo! Stay focused! We are on the verge of losing everything, or haven’t you noticed?” Lulu shrieked before stomping back to the girls’ room and slamming the door.
    Shrouded in embarrassment after being publicly chastised, Theo returned to the boys’ room, where he promptly laid out his clothes: plaid shorts, a pastel polo shirt, and his trusty fanny pack. However, upon the removal of his pajama top, Theo froze. While not intuitive or even terribly perceptive, the boy felt something was amiss; he just didn’t know what it was….



EVERYONE’S AFRAID OF SOMETHING:
Pocrescophobia is the fear
of gaining weight.

I ’m finished!” Theo shrieked to Schmidty as he stormed into the dining room. “Destroyed! Ruined! Obliterated! Demolished—”
    “Yes,” Schmidty interrupted. “I’m quite sure I get the point.”
    “Sylvie Montgomery’s annihilated my career!”
    “But you’re only thirteen; you haven’t got a career. To my knowledge you’ve never even been hired to babysit.”
    “Um, hello? I’m a hall monitor, only the most importantjob at my school. Okay, maybe not the
most
important job at school, but definitely the most important job in the hallway.”
    “Of course.” Schmidty nodded patronizingly. “A most significant position. However, I still don’t understand what any of this has to do with Sylvie Montgomery.”
    “She was hiding in the tree outside my room and she