Bully-Be-Gone

by Brian Tacang

  “That’s it?” she asked.

  “Point A to point B, yes,” he answered.

  “Is there a moral to this story?” she asked.

  “Hmmm,” he murmured, “I did say it would be helpful, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” she said.

  “Well, if I were to derive a lesson from this tale,” he said, stroking his beard, “I’d say it would be that you must do everything within your power to correct your own mistakes. Your happy ending, if you are indeed entitled to one, will come of its own accord.”

  “Uncle Phineas,” she said quietly, “I just don’t know how to fix my problems—by myself.” She hoped he’d offer to help, but she knew he wouldn’t. It wasn’t that he didn’t care or didn’t love her or didn’t want the best outcomes for her. He was just so staunch a believer in self-reliance that he was likely to remind her she could manage without him.

  Uncle Phineas sat up and inched himself to the edge of the bed.

  “You’re a resourceful young lady,” he said, standing. “I have faith in you, yes.”

  He ambled to her bedroom door and exited. She thought he was well on his way to the basement lab when he popped his head back in.

  “You don’t even have to have a solution straight away,” he said. “But you do have to try your darndest to find one.” With that, he disappeared.

  Millicent thought about her parents. She imagined they were cheering her on, expressing a confidence in her she didn’t yet have in herself.

  Madame Curie jumped onto the bed, nestled close to Millicent’s face, and licked it with her rough tongue.

  “Is all this fixable, M.C.?” she asked.

  The feline tilted her head as if to say, Could be, could be not.

  “Juanita isn’t speaking to me, Pollock is mad at me, Tonisha is a space case, and Roderick…never mind him. I need a friend.”

  The cat pressed her wet nose to Millicent’s cheek.

  “Yechhhh, your nose is runny. Runny nose…runny nose!” Millicent said. “Leon! Leon is home sick. He’ll talk to me.” She shot out of bed, got dressed, and made a beeline to Leon’s house a block away.

  Millicent pounded on Leon’s front door until Mrs. Finklebaum answered.

  “Millicent, come in. What can I do for you?” Mrs. Finklebaum asked.

  “I have to talk to Leon,” Millicent said, stepping inside.

  “He’s sleeping. What’s new, right? He has the flu. Vicious bug going around. Aches, fever, stuffed-up nose—”

  “I’m sorry to bother him,” Millicent interrupted, “but this is urgent.”

  “Oh. I see,” Mrs. Finklebaum said. “Upstairs and to the left. Knock first. Brace yourself. He’s covered in mentholated rub.”

  Millicent charged up the stairs, leaving Mrs. Finklebaum scratching her head. Millicent rapped on Leon’s door so hard it hurt.

  “Four seventy-five!” Leon shouted in a raspy voice.

  “Leon, it’s me, Millicent,” she said through the door.

  “Come in.”

  Millicent entered to see Leon in bed, surrounded by wadded tissues, as if he were resting in a cloud. The smell of mentholated rub made her eyes tear.

  “Pull up a chair,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  Millicent grabbed his desk chair and sat. “I need advice, or I need to talk,” she said. “I don’t know which.” She told him about the events of that morning, starting with Juanita and Pollock in the drainage hole, occasionally fanning away the smell of mentholated rub. Leon nodded, blew his nose, coughed, nodded, blew his nose, and coughed as she told her story. He ran out of tissues and asked her to get him another box from his desk, which she did. She finished by saying, “I admit it, Leon, I’m responsible for another failed invention. Bully-Be-Gone is a disaster.” On the verge of tears, she took a tissue for herself in case she started crying.

  “Gee, I wish I could help you, but, as you can see, I’m sick.”

  Millicent fanned her face. “Don’t you at least have any advice for me?”

  Leon propped himself up on one elbow. “I always find that when I’m in trouble, telling the truth helps a lot.”

  “The truth is scary,” Millicent said. “Maybe I can find a way around it.” She fanned her face again.

  “Why do you keep doing that?” Leon asked. “Do I stink?”

  “Uh, yes,” Millicent said. “Of mentholated rub.”

  “My mom must have put some on me while I was sleeping.”

  “You can’t smell it?”

  “No. My nose is plugged.”

  “I’m sorry, Leon.” She handed him another tissue, which he brought to his bright red snout. Millicent yelped. “That’s it! Your nose. That’s it!” She sprung from the chair.

  “My nose is it?” Leon asked.

  “Yes!” Millicent nearly hollered. “Your nose is going to get me out of this mess. Thank you, Leon. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She moved forward to his bedroom door. “Thank you for your nose! Feel better!” she called out as she ran down the stairs.

  Fourteen

  Millicent ran home from Leon’s house, inspired by his clogged sinuses. She stopped before the basement lab door to catch her breath. She knew what had to be done. She had to find a way to keep Nina, Pollywog, Fletch, and Roderick from smelling Bully-Be-Gone.

  “All I have to do is find a way to plug their noses. I could put foam earplugs in their nostrils. No, too gross. I couldn’t even get close enough to them to—never mind. Unless I made a pair of extending tongs that…no.” She tapped her lips with her forefinger, concentrating. “Wait a second…” She thought once more about Leon, lying in bed, unable to smell the mentholated rub his mother had put on him, his sinuses clogged. “Yes! That’s it!” As she unlocked the lab door, Madame Curie appeared from a flower bed and followed Millicent into the lab.

  Millicent found a handwritten note on a lab table. Uncle Phineas had left it there. It said he would be at an inventor’s meeting until well after dinner. Millicent set it aside, somewhat relieved he wouldn’t be home for a while. She knew he’d disapprove of an invention that plugged noses. Inventors were supposed to improve people’s lives. But wouldn’t she make her friends’ lives better if she could get the bullies to leave them alone? Yes, she reasoned. She had work to do. She snapped on a pair of rubber gloves.

  She labored late into the night, measuring fluids, sifting powders, and mixing them together. She added them to a green bottle and shook it hard. The contents bubbled, then settled.

  Then she supplemented the concoction with her secret ingredient: Tickle Tonic. To make Tickle Tonic, she’d modified the Propulsion Lotion she used in Bully-Be-Gone by blending in every allergen she could get her hands on: dust, pollen, pepper, and dander from Madame Curie. According to her theory, once molecules of Tickle Tonic were lodged in someone’s nose, they would jiggle until only one response was possible.

  I’ll call it Hooky Spray, she thought. After all, it would be perfect for kids who want their parents to think they’re sick so they can stay home from school. Not that Millicent would ever try such a thing.

  She smiled at the bottle, satisfied. Hooky Spray would make its target sneeze, propelling Bully-Be-Gone out of both nostrils, then it would plug his or her nose. In effect, Hooky Spray would give the symptoms of the flu without the discomfort.

  “How will I know if this is effective?” she pondered.

  Madame Curie prodded Millicent’s shirt with her nose as if to tell Millicent she wanted to play.

  “Not now, M.C.,” Millicent said as she uncapped the spray bottle.

  The cat jumped at the bottle, batting it out of Millicent’s hand. It fell and rolled across the lab table.

  “No, M.C.!”

  Madame Curie chased the bottle, swatting at it as if it were a mouse. It tumbled off the table and into a wastepaper basket, where it landed top down. Madame Curie lunged into the garbage—into a cloud of Millicent’s new invention.

  “Oh, no!” Millicent yelle
d. She reached for a filtration mask and clapped it onto her face. “M.C., are you okay?”

  By then, Madame Curie had already scrambled out of the trash can, knocking it over in the process, and had wedged herself into a corner under the table.

  Millicent had never tested any product on Madame Curie. Animal testing just wasn’t nice. Besides, recently, on the television news program, 40 Minutes Plus Commercial Breaks, she saw a segment about LAMA, League Against Meanness to Animals. LAMA was an organization of activists. They went to great lengths to seek out people who wore fur coats or tested cosmetic products on animals. They did horrible things to those people. A month ago, LAMA broke into a cosmetics lab and freed all the test rabbits, but not before tying up the lab technicians and gluing cotton balls to the ends of their noses.

  LAMA had spies everywhere, so Millicent peered out of the lab blinds. She saw nothing, the street outside stood dark and empty. Good, she thought. She didn’t need a cotton ball glued to her nose.

  She turned her attention back to Madame Curie. “What a stroke of luck,” she said. She felt bad feeling good about the cat getting squirted, but now she didn’t have to find a way to try out her invention. The cat had become her guinea pig.

  She crouched under the table. “M.C., let me see you,” she pleaded.

  Madame Curie cowered on her haunches, a faint thread of mucus seeping from her nose. She let out three, tiny cat sneezes—pyew, pyew, pyew.

  Millicent got an idea. The Robotic Chef had a microphone in the lab. She ordered a scoop of tuna. “Scooooop of tuuuuunaaaa,” she said, enunciating as clearly as she could. Seconds later, a scoop of tuna on a saucer appeared in the chute through which meals were delivered.

  “How about that?” Millicent asked no one in particular. She’d expected any food except tuna.

  She placed the tuna on her desk and waited. If her potion worked, then Madame Curie wouldn’t smell the tuna and would stay hidden. The cat eventually fell asleep under the table.

  The next morning, Millicent showed up a few minutes early to first period with Hooky Spray in her pocket and only one plan in her head: getting within firing range of Nina, Pollywog, and Fletch. She didn’t know yet how she’d pull it off.

  She eased into her chair, deep in thought. Mr. Templeton, her English teacher, stopped writing on the chalkboard.

  “Millicent, you’re early,” Mr. Templeton said, fluffing his skirt. “I can always depend on your hunger for knowledge.” He gave a spin, his dress mushrooming big and black. “Guess who I am today.”

  “Ermengarde Rhimehoggen,” Millicent said, barely looking up. “Masonville’s renowned poetess—born 1879, died 1932.”

  “Can’t pull the taffeta over your eyes,” Mr. Templeton said.

  It was the first Greats of Literature day of the school year, which occurred once a month and for which Mr. Templeton dressed as famous authors. Today, his outfit consisted of an expansive hat decorated with stuffed birds, much like the hats Ermengarde wore in her day, along with an authentic, puffy-sleeved, turn-of-the-century dress dotted with matching fabric rosettes. Millicent glanced at his back and saw he was too big for the costume. An eye-shaped opening where the buttons were unable to close revealed his white T-shirt. She smiled, then got back to scheming.

  Tonisha’s seat was in the next row to Millicent’s right. Beyond that, another row over and back one seat, was Fletch Farnsworth’s desk—perhaps near enough for Millicent to squirt him with Hooky Spray.

  Students began to file into class. As soon as most of them caught sight of Mr. Templeton, they laughed.

  Tonisha walked in and exclaimed, “Ermengarde Rhimehoggen! My favorite.” She sat at her desk, clasping her hands. “Oh,” she said, noticing Millicent, “I didn’t see you. Today is going to be spectacular, isn’t it?” Millicent looked into her eyes and saw a stranger.

  Fletch walked into the classroom and howled at Mr. Templeton. Tonisha grinned as Fletch shuffled past her. He paused, took a deep breath, and blushed. “Hi, Tonisha,” he said. Tonisha mumbled something back, then whispered to Millicent, “Today is going to be better than spectacular now that my Fletchie is here.”

  Millicent’s stomach churned. She thought she might barf. Fletchie? The same person who used to reach across the aisle and unravel your headwrap?

  “Settle down, everyone,” Mr. Templeton said.

  “Tonisha, I have to talk to you after class,” Millicent said.

  Tonisha waved at Fletch.

  “Pssst, Tonisha,” Millicent said.

  Tonisha giggled at Fletch, who swooned at her, his nose poked high.

  “Hey, Tonisha,” Millicent said, louder.

  “Order!” Mr. Templeton boomed. He stared Millicent down over the top of his glasses. “Millicent, I’m surprised at you.” Millicent faced front. Mr. Templeton pursed his lips and continued. “This morning I will read Ermengarde Rhimehoggen’s poignant poem ‘My Heart Is a Delta and You Are a Boulder Blocking Its Left Ventricle.’” He hoisted himself onto a high stool. “Discussion to follow.” He began reading in a soft, lilting voice.

  Millicent had been looking forward to Mr. Templeton’s impersonations. While other students laughed at him, Millicent understood he was creating an illusion—a sense of being in the presence of a literary giant. Today, she had a more important agenda. She glanced at Tonisha in time to see Fletch pass her a note. Tonisha reached back and took it. Millicent imagined it said something nauseating like “You’re cute” or “I like you” or “You smell good.”

  Tonisha unfolded the note, read it, sighed, and fanned herself with it.

  Millicent gulped. She had to put a stop to this. She reached in her pocket and pried the cap off the bottle of Hooky Spray with her thumb. How could she get near enough to Fletch to mist him? She spied the pencil sharpener mounted to the wall near his desk. Impulsively, she raised her hand. “Mr. Templeton?” she asked.

  “Yes, Millicent?” Mr. Templeton replied in his Ermengarde Rhimehoggen voice.

  “Um, may I sharpen my pencil?”

  “Whatever for?” Mr. Templeton asked, dropping his impersonation. “I’m right in the middle of a poem.”

  “It’s—it’s so rich with meaning, I feel like—uh—like I have to take notes,” Millicent lied.

  “In that case, sharpen away,” Mr. Templeton said, beaming.

  Millicent got up and walked toward the pencil sharpener, her palms sweating. She circled around Fletch’s desk. Her plan was to sharpen her pencil with one hand while aiming her Hooky Spray at Fletch with the other. She stuck her pencil in the sharpener. Whrrrrshhh. She extracted the green bottle from her pocket. Whrrrrshhhh. She pointed the bottle at Fletch. Whrrrrshhh. She bit her lip. Whrrrshhh. She squinted. Whrrrshhh. Her forefinger tensed. Whrrrshhh.

  “Millicent!” Mr. Templeton boomed. “It must be a nub by now.”

  Millicent was so startled by Mr. Templeton, she inhaled sharply as her finger clamped down on the atomizer top, not realizing she had it facing the wrong way. A pouf of Hooky Spray assaulted her nose and open mouth. “Oh, no! Oh, no!” She gagged. She stomped in place, waving her hands in front of her face.

  “It’s only a pencil,” Mr. Templeton said.

  Millicent let out three huge sneezes. “AAAH-CHOO! AAAH-CHOO! AAAH-CHOO!” She felt her sinuses fill until she could hardly breathe. “AAAH-CHOO,” she blasted again. Oh, dear, she thought.

  “GROSS!” shrieked a girl sitting nearby.

  “NASTY!” screamed another.

  Millicent put her sleeve to her nose. Tonisha stared at her, aghast.

  Mr. Templeton shot out of his chair. “Millicent,” he said, “you are to go home immediately before you make everyone sick.”

  “No,” Millicent said, her voice muffled by her sleeve. “I’m fine.”

  “Get your things and go home. Now,” Mr. Templeton demanded.

  Millicent returned to her desk and clumsily gathered her books, papers, and backpack, trying to keep her sleeve over her nose the whole time. “
Meet me by the fountain,” she managed to whisper to Tonisha before leaving English class red-faced.

  Tonisha arrived at the Winifred T. Langley Memorial Fountain within fifteen minutes, brandishing a wooden hall pass.

  “I had to wait until the hubbub died down before I got permission to leave,” Tonisha huffed. “That was mortifying.”

  “Do you have a tissue?” Millicent asked.

  “You almost got me in trouble,” said Tonisha rolling her eyes.

  “I had to talk to you,” Millicent said, which was partly true.

  “About?”

  Millicent swallowed hard against the truth coming out. “Fletch,” she blurted.

  “What about Fletch?” asked Tonisha, looking concerned.

  “He—it—” Millicent stuttered. She didn’t know how to approach the subject. How could she tell Tonisha that Fletch’s affection wasn’t genuine? If she told Tonisha the truth, she ran the risk of breaking Tonisha’s heart. After all, Tonisha believed Fletch liked her and, for some unknown reason, Tonisha liked him back. If Millicent didn’t tell her the truth, Bully-Be-Gone would sooner or later wear off and Tonisha’s heart would be broken anyway. Then there was Hooky Spray. Millicent could wait for another chance to use it on Fletch. She decided Tonisha deserved the truth. “It’s not real. Fletch doesn’t really—”

  Just then, Fletch appeared, a hall pass in his hand.

  “Hi, Tonisha,” he said shyly.

  Tonisha suddenly became coy, batting her eyelashes, her hands clasped behind her back. Millicent frowned. What was Tonisha trying to do? Make her ill?

  “Hi, Fletch.”

  Fletch and Tonisha locked eyes, oblivious to Millicent’s presence. A full minute went by before Fletch saw Millicent sitting there. “Oh, hi, Millicent,” Fletch said.

  Fletch never said hi to Millicent unless it was attached to the word “freak.” She was immediately suspicious. “Hi, Fletch,” Millicent said reluctantly, fondling the green bottle in her sweatshirt pocket. If she could only get him to lean closer.

  Fletch smiled at Tonisha, turned toward Millicent, and said, “That was pretty funny, what you did in class.”