"You mean this?" Pete said to the Wicket. "I had on my Halloween disguise."
"In May?" the Wicket said.
"Yes," Pete said. "It's never too early to try out a Halloween disguise on the public, see how it goes over, so you know whether it's the right one for you or not."
"What're you supposed to be?" Bill Collector asked. "Myself, I never can decide what to go as on Halloween."
"I call this costume Man with a Mustache," Pete said proudly. "Do you like it?"
"Oh, yes," Bill Collector said. "Very convincing."
"But it's not convincing at all!" the Wicket shouted. "I know what I saw!" she went on. "And it was not a big person like that driving—it was a little person, like one of those!" She pointed waveringly at all of us once again.
Pete hunched over so that it looked like his body had shrunk in size, then he put out his hands as though he was holding on to an imaginary steering wheel. "Is this more like what the person you saw looked like? See, I forgot to mention, I was also trying out an alternative costume, Short Man with a Mustache."
"Oh, that's a good costume too," Bill Collector said appreciatively. "I think I may like that one even better."
"But-but-but," the Wicket sputtered.
"Gently said," Bill Collector said to her, "you, my dear, need to get your eyes examined. And you need to stop bothering this family."
With a harrumph, she marched out, and Bill Collector turned once again to Pete. "Now, about my car..."
The two men headed toward the front door.
The whole time Bill Collector had been there, from start to finish, we'd hardly said or done a thing, save for Petal fainting and Jackie telling us what elitist meant. For once, we'd realized that it was probably safest to let others do the talking for us.
And now we were safe, safe from being split up from one another—at least for the time being.
"Hurray for Aunt Jill!" we said, circling around her for a hug.
And when Pete returned from helping out Bill Collector, we hurrahed and circled and hugged him too.
***
We enjoyed a celebration brunch with the Petes, and then they packed up their suitcases. Now that the most recent emergency had been handled, it was time for them to head home.
"We'd love to stay on," Pete said, "but Old Felix is finding it a bit much."
"He just gets confused by all this space you have here," Mrs. Pete added.
"But the offer we made back in February still stands," Pete said.
"Yes," Mrs. Pete added. "You're welcome to come stay with us until your... situation resolves itself."
"It's not that we're not grateful," Durinda said.
"It's just that we feel we have to go it alone," Annie said.
"Well, except for times like today, with Bill Collector, when we really do need help," Jackie corrected.
There was a tiny gasp.
Poor Petal. As nice as the man had turned out to be, anytime anyone said Bill Collector, Petal gasped, experiencing the horror anew.
"I understand," Pete said. "Just be sure to call whenever you need us for anything."
"Oh, I do love this house!" Mrs. Pete said, giving one last look around her. "I particularly love the seasonal rooms. I swear, I think I got a tan in Summer!"
We looked at her; she did look browner.
They stepped out the door but then Pete turned back.
"You're going to have to start talking again one of these days," he said to Marcia. He gave her a light chuck under the chin and her eyes met his. "Things'll get better for you. Chin up, lamb."
And then they were gone.
***
"It seems to me," Annie said to Marcia as soon as we'd shut the door behind the Petes, "that now would be a good time for you to start talking."
"About what?" Marcia said nervously.
"Your power," Rebecca said snidely.
Rebecca may have been the one who said it snidely, but it had been on all our minds.
"What about my power?" Marcia asked, more nervous yet.
"How long have you had it?" Petal asked.
"I can't imagine getting a power," Zinnia said, "and not telling everyone else about it right away. I'd be so happy that I'd want to tell the world."
"You see," Jackie said gently, "we all know you had to have received it sometime before we found the note behind the loose stone."
"But what we don't know," Durinda added, "is how long before."
"Er, a while?" Marcia asked as much as answered, twisting her fingers as she did so.
"How long?" Georgia insisted.
"Since right before the Mr. McG handed out the big test?" Marcia asked-answered again, still twisting her fingers.
We all stared at her as the truth dawned on us.
"You got your power, your power of x-ray and telescopic vision, before the test," Annie said in a voice empty of all emotion.
"Yes?" Marcia asked-answered.
"And did you use it to see the test answers on the Mr. McG's answer key?"
"Yes?" Marcia asked-answered.
So that's how she'd outscored Annie!
In a way, this made us feel good. Our universe, as confusing as it often was, had tilted back to what we'd come to think of as normal. It was fine for others of us to be smart, to be as smart as we could be, but none of us could be smarter than Annie. In the absence of our parents, we needed to have one of us take the reins.
But it also made us feel bad, because it meant that one of us was that thing no one should ever be: a cheater.
There was no anger or resentment in Annie's voice, only a deep sadness, as she said what the rest of us were thinking:
"Oh, Marcia."
ELEVEN
Monday morning, before the Mr. McG had even had a chance to begin roll call—a practice we always thought was very odd, since with only ten of us in the class, it was obvious who was there and who wasn't—Marcia raised her hand.
"Yes, Marcia?" the Mr. McG said.
"I have a confession to make," Marcia said, "and I need to make it to you and the entire class."
At home, we'd talked about the difference between the lies we'd told to save ourselves—like saying the Petes were our aunt and uncle—and cheating. We'd concluded that cheating was wrong, no matter what the reason, and that Marcia would have to tell the Mr. McG what she had done.
But none of us had ever imagined she'd confess in front of the whole class.
"And what do you have to confess?" the Mr. McG asked now.
"That test you gave us?" Marcia said. "You know, the test about everything?"
"I well remember giving it," the Mr. McG said.
"Well," Marcia said, "I did know a lot of the answers already. I even knew most of them." She paused before continuing bravely, "But on the ones I didn't know, I, um, cheated."
There were two gasps in the room then, one from Will Simms and one from Mandy Stenko. Well, the rest of us had no reason to gasp. We Eights already knew about it, and the Mr. McG just wasn't the gasping type.
"Oh!" Mandy said. "That's practically criminal. You'll probably get expelled for that."
Leave it to Mandy to immediately leap to the worst possible outcome for this. But of course it's what we all feared: that Marcia would get expelled.
"But that's not possible," the Mr. McG said.
"Oh, I'm fairly certain it is," Mandy said. "I've read the student-conduct handbook backward and forward, many times. You could even say I've memorized it. And it specifically says on page seventeen, paragraph two, in the third sentence—"
"I didn't mean that," the Mr. McG said, cutting her off. "I meant that it's impossible for Marcia to have cheated. I had the answers locked in a drawer, and I keep the key to it on me at all times."
"But it is possible," Marcia said quietly, not looking away from his questioning gaze. "I did cheat. I was able to see the answers."
The Mr. McG stared at her for a long moment and then he let out a low whistle. "Oh. I see. Mrs. McGillicudd
y—my wife; your principal—did tell me a few... things about you Eights, something vague about your parents and something about Georgia being able to make herself invisible, but I thought she was just talking crazy talk, as she sometimes does."
"You mean one of you used your powers for personal gain?" Mandy was outraged.
"Shh!" Will tried to quiet her. "No one else is supposed to know about their—"
"It's okay, Will." The Mr. McG stopped him. "It appears that everyone, at least inside this classroom, knows all about the special talents of the Eights now."
"I suppose you have to expel me," Marcia said with a brave sadness.
"That all depends," the Mr. McG said. "Of course, I'll have to throw out your perfect grade and retest you. If I do that, will you promise not to cheat?"
Hope entered Marcia's eyes as she answered, and we don't mean asked-answered, "Yes!"
"But what about the future?" the Mr. McG wanted to know. "How can I be sure you won't cheat again?"
"Because I give you my solemn vow not to," Marcia said solemnly. Then she smiled. "Anyway, as of Sunday, June first—less than two weeks away!—my, um, ability will disappear. Well, sort of. At least, it will go into hiding. Only Annie's outlasts her month consistently, and that's because hers is just natural. Oh, and Jackie's still fast, just not like a train."
The Mr. McG shook his head, as though trying to remove nonsense out of one ear that someone had poured into the other.
"Sounds good enough to me," he said at last. "I'll retest you tomorrow morning. And be sure to study." He tossed a piece of chalk in the air with one hand, caught it behind his back with the other. Perhaps he wanted us to see that he had hidden talents too? "Okay, class, open your notebooks. Today we're going to begin our study of Japan, focusing first on the rise of anime."
We opened our notebooks and sat back in our seats, feeling vastly relieved. Marcia wasn't going to be expelled!
We realized then that, just like with Bill Collector, maybe the Mr. McG wasn't as evil as we'd suspected him of being. Maybe he just wanted us to learn things. Why, under his guidance, we could practically feel our brains growing!
In honor of our newfound positive feelings for the Mr. McG, we all spent the rest of the week studying really hard.
Finally, we'd found an educator we could respect.
***
The following Monday was Memorial Day.
It was a somewhat sad time for us. It being a day of remembrance, we were remembering and missing our parents.
We were lounging around the drawing room, since we had the day off from school, feeling rather sorry for ourselves. All except for Marcia, who was again nowhere to be seen.
Then, into the silence, came two achingly familiar voices that we hadn't heard in a very long time.
"Annie, I love you," Mommy's voice said.
"Annie, I love you," Daddy's voice said.
As we sat there in shock and awe, we heard Mommy's and Daddy's voices say the same thing to each of us in turn, except Marcia.
"Where is that coming from?" Zinnia asked.
"If those turn out to be ghosts, I will be scared," Petal said. Then she smiled. "But it is nice, being told that I am loved."
"Marcia Huit!" Annie bellowed. "Get in here!"
A moment later, Marcia was with us, red-faced.
"You finally got your invention to work, didn't you?" Annie asked severely.
"Yes," Marcia said nervously. "I thought everyone would like it, but maybe I miscalculated?"
"Like it?" Annie thundered. Then a huge smile broke across her face. "Are you kidding me? I don't like it. I love it."
"It was practically the best present ever," Zinnia said.
"I have to admit," Rebecca said, rubbing her eyes with her sleeve impatiently, "even I got a tear in my eye."
"Oh!" Marcia looked relieved. "I'm so glad!" Then she got more serious. "Annie, I've been meaning to tell you..."
"Yes?" Annie said.
Marcia took a deep breath. "I hereby formally return the leadership of the family to you."
Rebecca snorted. "That's a laugh! I'm pretty sure we all knew that that had already happened."
Apparently, Rebecca had already recovered from feeling sentimental.
"Thank you," Annie said to Marcia without sarcasm, as though Marcia had had some choice in the matter. "But I'm curious. Why the need to make a formal transfer of power now?"
"Because I thought about it," Marcia said, "and I realized I don't deserve to be in charge. It was too much for me. I guess I just realized that I don't have an original idea in my head, not when it comes to leadership. I'm only good at following the blueprints of others."
"Are you kidding me?" Georgia said, sounding genuinely surprised. "But you thought up that amazing device from which we can hear Mommy's and Daddy's voices!"
"But it didn't work when we needed it most," Marcia said.
"So what?" Even Rebecca had to admit it worked just dandy now.
"And it is lovely," Durinda said, "hearing them again."
"Yes," Marcia said. "But it was Annie who saved the day. It's not even her month, and yet she came up with the brilliant plan of calling in the Petes."
"Who cares who came up with what or whose power was used?" Zinnia said.
"Exactly," Petal said. "I'm just glad we were saved."
"But it was Annie's power saving us again," Marcia said. "As for my power—ha! A fine power it turned out to be! All it did was nearly get me expelled."
"Are you kidding me?" Annie said. "It was your power that enabled you to see the Wicket writing that letter to Social Services. It was your power that enabled you to see Bill Collector arriving at our house so early. Honestly, Marcia, if it weren't for you and your power, we'd never have known of the coming danger in the first place. If it weren't for you, nothing I did could have saved us."
A slow smile spread across Marcia's face. "I really did do all that, didn't I?"
"Yes, yes." Rebecca yawned without bothering to cover her mouth.
"Shall we have lunch?" Durinda suggested.
***
After lunch, we decided to spend some time outdoors working in our garden.
"I'm parched," Durinda said, wiping her wrist across her forehead after we'd been digging in the dirt for a few hours.
"No one our age says parched," Rebecca said.
"I don't care what anyone else says," Durinda said. "Would anyone like some lemonade?"
Whether any of us would ever use the word parched no matter how old we got, lemonade did sound good right around then.
We followed Durinda into the house and even helped cut up the lemons. But when we went to the dining room to drink it, we saw that something had been draped over the back of Marcia's chair.
"That must be your gift!" Zinnia cried.
Marcia lifted it carefully from the chair's back and held it up for all to see.
"Ooh, I see your favorite color must be purple too!" Durinda said.
"It's a cloak," Georgia said, adding, "I think."
"What's a cloak?" Petal asked.
"It's a loose outer garment," Jackie said, "so it's neither a coat nor a cape but something sort of in between."
"It looks like it would be great for concealing things," Rebecca said. As Marcia tried it on, she added, "If it were only dark and plaid, you'd look just like Sherlock Holmes. Maybe we need to get you a funny hat."
"Now you see?" Annie said to Marcia. "We're not the only ones who think you and your power helped us out a lot this month. Obviously, whoever leaves these items for us thinks you're worthy of a gift too."
"Thanks." Marcia beamed at Annie.
And we could see that, at least in that moment, Marcia was pleased with her station in life, perfectly content to be who she was.
"Ooh!" Zinnia cried. "If Marcia got her gift, there must be a new note!"
When we raced into the drawing room, we saw that Zinnia was right. Since it was Marcia's month, it was her privilege to remove t
he stone and read aloud the note that had been left for her there.
Dear Marcia,
Ten down, six to go—splendid! And as you can tell, I still have those stellar math skills you always comment on! let's see, though. If the first five of you have knocked the first ten items off the list, which of you will have to knock off the eleventh and twelfth?
And that was it. As always, the note was unsigned.
But we did think long and hard about that last line of the note, and then seven heads slowly swiveled in Petal's direction.
Oh no.
Petal was next.
TWELVE
The next day we were back in school again, still pleased with our new teacher. And that afternoon, we were back home again, pleased with just about everything.
We were mostly pleased that the end of May was now in sight.
"I'm just glad that the madness of this month is nearly over with," Georgia said.
"Yes," Rebecca said darkly, "but I fear next month will be even worse."
"I hope June never comes!" Petal said.
Was there ever an Eight who wanted her power less, even though it meant getting a gift too?
Still, we were all glad to have May nearly over with, glad we'd avoided possible disaster with Social Services.
True, we still had many questions hanging over our heads. We could almost picture them up there, millions of tiny question marks, twinkling like stars in the night.
Okay, maybe not millions, but enough.
And so many of those questions didn't even have hints of answers yet, wouldn't have until August.
But for now, it was enough that we had one another, that we were still together, and that we were back to the state of what passed for normal in our world.
"Okay." Annie clapped her hands together. "The end of the school year may be in just a few weeks, but we all still have to do homework until then. Petal, you shut off the TV. Zinnia, you feed the cats. Durinda, you make us a snack. Jackie, Marcia, Rebecca, you get the homework sheets out of the backpacks. And, Georgia, you go get the mail. We haven't had any since Saturday, what with the holiday weekend, and there should be some bills in there. I do not want to be late paying the bills."
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