Milrose Munce and the Den of Professional Help

by Douglas Anthony Cooper

  “Yeah, well, from what I’ve gathered it’s even worse.”

  The worn soles of riding boots nevertheless appeared in the ceiling, and Harry began to descend, inch by inch, until his U-impressed head at last popped out, graced with a nervous expression.

  Milrose Munce—who had never really warmed to any basement dweller before—threw his arms around the stunted ghost in a genuine embrace. Harry—who for his part had never considered himself all that embraceable—was taken aback, simultaneously flattered and appalled. This, however, served to blunt the recognition that he was now occupying the terrible first floor.

  “Good to see you semi-intact, Harry. Welcome to our humble, like, abode,” said Milrose.

  “Er. Yeah. Cool place,” said Harry without tremendous conviction.

  “Lovely to see you again, Harold. I’m so happy you survived. Or whatever it is that ghosts do.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  “So, what was it like?”

  “Like running up a flight of stairs, actually.”

  “Ah.”

  “Only infinitely more horrible.”

  “Yes.”

  “In fact, more like wading through a swamp with scorpions nibbling at your heels.”

  “I’m quite sure scorpions don’t nibble, Harold.”

  “Okay, but you get the idea. Anyway, we made it. And now we’re gonna get down to business and win this thing.” He set what was left of his jaw. “We can’t just phone this one in. We’re aiming for magnificence here.” Hurled Harry was beginning to take on the air of a tiny commander—a sort of crushed Napoleon—and his annoying voice was surprisingly effective in this role. “Munce? Chick? I’m talking memorable. We do this right, and years from now they’ll be telling and retelling our story: in the teachers’ lounge, at morning assemblies, in the great showers of post-game athletics. This is it, friends. Vengeance! With a capital V! Honour! With a capital O!”

  “Harry, you’re getting weirdly impressive.”

  “You only get one chance on the fields of glory,” said Harry. “Okay, well, a couple, but I seriously messed up on the racetrack.” This memory subdued him for a moment.

  “Ancient history.”

  “Right. Right. And this time … this time I’m not gonna go it alone. This time I’ve got a team.”

  “Excellent! That’s what I wanted to hear. You, uh, got our special poet on board?”

  “Sure do. Had to rough him up a bit.”

  “Of course.”

  “This Poisoned character. Any way of shutting his yap?”

  “Can’t be done, I’m afraid. I’ve been trying for ages.”

  “He read a three-hundred-page poem at me. No stopping him. It was godawful.”

  “Ah. The Flavour of Indigestion?”

  “That’s the one!”

  “He’s been working hard. Used to be only seventy pages or so.”

  “It sucks.”

  “Well, yes. So, he’s going to help out?”

  “Unfortunately. Uh, Munce? What exactly do you need a poet for?”

  “Secret weapon of mass destruction, Harry. I’ll let you in on the strategy when it’s time. But make sure he brings that manuscript. So, where do we stand now, victory-wise?”

  “I like to think we stand on the razor’s edge, staring into the abyss.”

  “Er, that’s good, right?”

  “If you like that kind of thing. Question of attitude. We won that battle in the basement, far as I can tell, pretty decisively. But Loosten’s incantation managed to do a fair bit of damage. You can feel it on the second floor: that scorpion/swamp feeling. He’s managed to make the rest of the school pretty hairy for us dead guys. And it’s one of those spells that keeps on working once it’s been spoken—gets worse by the hour.”

  “Can’t you, maybe, smite it or something? Counterspell?”

  “Who knows. Not my territory, that. I’m just working on getting you out of here before you get whacked.”

  “I do wish you wouldn’t use that word, Harold.”

  “Cured. Whatever.”

  “Right. Okay. So, we’ve got our team. Now what?”

  “Not a lot. Wait for us. But here’s the thing. There’s gonna be a lot of pressure on you to be, uh, cured before we get a chance to intervene. Just so you know.”

  “Great.”

  “And you can’t do that. It’s important. You can’t get whacked until we win this thing. Then you can feel free to get whacked all you want.”

  “Noted.”

  “That’s all.”

  “Any, like, pointers? How to, you know, not get whacked?”

  Arabella winced with great sensitivity.

  “Sorry, can’t help. Anyway, I have to be off—gotta rally the troops. Dunno when precisely we’re going to be able to come to your aid, but look for us on the morrow.”

  “On the morrow? Where you channelling this sick stuff from, Harry?”

  “He’s a poet,” said Arabella. “It is being breathed into him from the mysterious place.”

  “Right,” said Harry, not pleased. “Catch you.”

  And with that he floated up through the ceiling.

  Harry’s martial confidence had lifted their spirits. Hope infused terror. The two spoke in excited tones for hours, and then Arabella decided that she could no longer sustain excitement (which was trying for her at the best of times).

  “I am too tired to think about this anymore,” said Arabella. “Good night, Milrose.”

  “Good night, fair and winsome nay wholesome maiden,” said Milrose, meaning to say “goodnight, Arabella.” (Words were once again beyond his immediate control.)

  Arabella gave him an odd, but perhaps appreciative, look, and Milrose met this with misty, ridiculous eyes.

  Monday arrived, fully accursed and ominous. It took a while before revealing its true nature, but yes: this looked to be a day that would move them inexorably in the direction of mutually inflicted death. Or worse.

  The first part of the morning was deceptively innocuous: a harmless—if mindless—exercise designed to nudge Milrose and Arabella in the direction of normalcy. They were made to flip through magazines, and to discuss the celebrities encountered there with loud enthusiasm. Both felt they were pulling this off quite well.

  “Isn’t that Brad fellow rad?” said Arabella, doing her very best impression of everybody she loathed.

  Unfortunately, this exercise had simply been a warm-up, Massimo announced, for the one they were now to engage in—one that would go a long way towards improving their relations with each other and the world. Today, in order to make great leaps towards normalcy, they would do a particularly intensive exercise in trust.

  “One moment,” he said, “while I retrieve the mace. Oh, and here are your blindfolds.”

  All of Arabella’s irrational self-possession drained away. She had been doing such a fine job of banishing that medieval device from her mind. As Massimo fiddled with the mace closet, Arabella stared with terror at Milrose. She produced two whole tears, one from each eye, then bowed her head so that they raced each other down the sides of her nose to join pendulously at the tip. “I’m sorry, Milrose,” she whispered. The conjoined tear quivered, and then disengaged from her lovely nose to fall horribly upon the floor.

  Milrose, who had never encountered anything like this degree of emotion in his den mate, came very close to weeping himself—and not in his traditional almost-but-not-really-sincere manner.

  They stared at each other, with tenderness and dread. And then the ceiling opened above them.

  Unseen by any of the three, who had no particular reason to be looking up, the door in the ceiling swung downward, and as Massimo turned back towards the couple, proudly bearing the mace, Hurled Harry descended heroically.

  Milrose Munce saw him first. Arabella turned to see what had inspired Milrose with sudden glee, and Hurled Harry opened his arms, palms upwards, to indicate: “Fear not, fair chick, I am here.”

  Massimo N
atica, of course, saw nothing. For he had not been gifted with the ability to see the glorious dead.

  In the wake of Hurled Harry, as if rappelling on invisible ropes, came the rest of the rotting SWAT team. Ghoul after ghoul. First in the vanguard was Third Degree Thor, a bruising Sledge wannabe who had long ago caught fire when he collided with a cheerleader twirling a fiery baton. Next came Desiccated Douglas, who had become lost during an orienteering championship in the desert. Third was Stuck Stu, master of self-combustion. And fourth, much to the excitement of Milrose Munce, was that master of general combustion, that wizard in the matter of all things that could be made to fly into molten pieces: Deeply Damaged Dave. Dave winked at Milrose, and flexed a muscle.

  Wafting down last, clearly terrified, was Poisoned Percy, clutching a manuscript.

  Massimo Natica glanced at his watch. “Ah,” he said, placing the mace on the comfy sofa, “our exercise in trust will have to wait. It is time for lunch!”

  Arabella sat gracefully on a chair, successfully preventing herself from fainting with relief.

  Massimo removed the key from his pocket and unlocked the alarmingly modern lock, which this time made the unambiguous sound of sperm whales being slaughtered. He was passed the habitual tray by the beast with beastly arms. He closed and locked the door.

  As Massimo carried the tray over to his famished Helpees, he was tailed by Stuck Stu, who had been an amateur thief before devoting himself to science. Stu quickly and deftly removed the chillingly modern key from the pocket of that swish suit.

  As always, they sat in a little circle on the floor and helped themselves to lunch. The little circle was, however, somewhat larger today. The three athletes, two science victims, and token poet gathered around as well, in various inspired positions.

  Desiccated Douglas, a parched ghoul who looked much like an unwound mummy, laid himself out next to Massimo as if posing for a fashion magazine. Douglas sucked his cheeks in, just as he’d seen male models do in order to make themselves more attractive. Now, almost anything would have made Douglas more attractive, in that he could hardly get much worse, but this sucking in of cheeks was in fact the one thing capable of making Douglas even more repulsive. Considerably more repulsive. His skin had dried and tightened against his skull—not all that fetching at the best of times—and when he sucked in what was left of his cheeks, this dried skin stretched transparent, revealing all sorts of things you really didn’t want to see.

  “Peel me another grape,” whispered Desiccated Douglas.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Massimo to Milrose.

  “I didn’t say anything,” said Milrose, smiling.

  “I thought you said pass the grapes. Or something.”

  “There are no grapes, Massimo.”

  “Well, yes.” Massimo frowned and shrugged. He resumed his lunch.

  Stuck Stu sat in a lotus position beside Massimo and mocked his every gesture. When Massimo reached for a sandwich, Stu reached for the same sandwich, but then drew his hand away in disgust, as if the sandwich were mouldy. It was difficult to imagine anything causing Stu disgust, given the great volume of disgust his presence inspired in the world. Despite having pulled himself together considerably in death, pieces of him were still missing. And lots of pieces of him—bones, for instance—were a bit too prominent.

  He burped, loudly. Massimo looked at Milrose severely. “That’s not like you, Milrose.”

  “What’s not like me?”

  “To … not say excuse me.”

  “Um, excuse me? Why would I say excuse me?”

  “For … burping.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That’s better.”

  “I mean, I beg your pardon, but I didn’t burp, Massimo.”

  Massimo frowned. He resumed his lunch. Then he looked up at Milrose through suspicious eyes. Then he resumed his lunch.

  Third Degree Thor, who was so revolting that it would not be in good taste to describe him here, sat between Milrose and Arabella and stared directly into Massimo Natica’s eyes with his own (which had melted, unfortunately, but could still manage an approximation of a stare). He licked his lips in an exaggerated manner whenever Massimo chewed.

  “Mmmm,” said Third Degree Thor.

  “Enjoying your sandwich, are you, Milrose?”

  “Not particularly. Why do you ask?”

  “Were you being sarcastic, then?”

  “I wasn’t being anything, Massimo.”

  “But …” Massimo shook his head, as if attempting to dislodge something from his ear.

  Hurled Harry cleared his throat. Massimo glanced quickly at Arabella. Poisoned Percy sneezed. Massimo glanced quickly at Milrose Munce. All very normal, said his worried expression: all very normal for people to clear their throats and sneeze. Except that these clearings and sneezings did not emit, precisely, from the place they ought to—which is to say the throat of Arabella and the nose of Milrose Munce.

  Massimo jerked a shoulder, involuntarily, as if a heavy fly had landed upon it.

  Third Degree Thor, who had an excess of athletic energy at all times, was too bored to remain seated for long in this congenial circle. He tiptoed dramatically over to the antique cattle prod. Hyper-masculine Thor was not one to tiptoe, and it did not suit his physique at all. He opened the glass cabinet, carefully and quietly, and removed the prod, then tiptoed back to stand behind Massimo Natica. To the great amusement of all, he held the prod just above and behind Massimo, and mimed the activity of sending great jolts of electricity into that immaculate head. As Thor pretended to zap Massimo, he pulled his own hair up, to make it look as if it were standing on end, while simultaneously assuming an expression—insofar as a charred head can express—of “Help, I’m being electrocuted!”

  Massimo Natica, sensing that something was behind him, turned to look. Luckily, Thor had the hairtrigger impulses of a crack jock, and he quickly moved the cattle prod so that it remained behind Massimo’s magnificent head.

  What Massimo did see was that the glass case in which the prod was usually kept was open and empty. He looked piercingly at Milrose Munce.

  “Where is the cattle prod?”

  “I’m not sure. Where did you leave it?”

  “I did not take it out.”

  “Well then, it must be in the case.”

  “Does it look as if it’s in the case?”

  “Yes.”

  Massimo swivelled his head sharply. And there was the antique prod, lying where it was supposed to lie. Thor had not managed to close the glass door, however.

  Massimo Natica turned back to Milrose and pointed an irate finger. “The case is open!”

  “That’s not the case.”

  “What do you mean? That is the case. It’s where the cattle prod’s always kept!”

  “No, I mean that’s not the case. That the case, in this case, is open.”

  Massimo did not turn to look back at the prod. No, he knew very well what he would see, as his hallucinations were becoming predictable. He closed his eyes tightly and shook his head, as if attempting to dislodge a small tumour from his brain. And then, with a look of sad resignation, he turned very slowly to look at the case, which was of course now closed.

  Third Degree Thor was standing beside the glass cabinet, triumphantly, his hands spread before him as if he were an Italian chef exalting the veal Milanese: “Look at my exceptional performance!”

  For once, Milrose Munce was not at all annoyed by Thor’s tendency to brag. He snorted.

  “Why are you snorting?”

  “Um …”

  “You did snort! I heard it! It was you, snorting!”

  “Why yes it was, Massimo.”

  This silenced the Professional Helper completely. The last thing he expected was that the snort would be acknowledged by Milrose Munce.

  “So, it was … your snort.”

  “Precisely as you said. You called it perfectly.”

  “Oh.” He paused. “You’re sure
now?”

  “As sure as the prod in your case.”

  “That’s not an expression!”

  “Pardon me. I was being inventive. An old family trait, in fact, invention. My great-great-grandfather patented a device for exploding pimples. Very economical, as it required only a pinch of gunpowder …”

  Massimo Natica was so confused that he did not think to insist upon an answer to the initial question: namely, why this snort.

  For the next few minutes, the ghostly army did nothing but laze about. They gave Massimo time to calm himself, and to dismiss the recent peculiarities as something he had perhaps imagined. The mind is good at this, when faced with what it very much does not wish to believe.

  Hurled Harry was proving a freakishly talented tactician. For this was precisely the thing to do: allow Massimo to regain his sanity, so that the next assault would again wrench him but good. It’s far less wrenching to go from insane to slightly more insane. No, Harry had it all figured out: he wanted Massimo Natica’s brain to swing like a pendulum—from reality to nightmare and back again—with him, Harry, holding the end of the rope.

  Milrose was truly impressed. This fit well with his own stroke of tactical genius, which he welcomed the opportunity to reveal to Hurled Harry, their commander-in-chief. For Poisoned Percy, nervously clutching his manuscript and not yet joining in the fun, would be the cherry on top of the cake, the froth on the cappuccino, and the straw to break the camel’s back.

  Much remained to be resolved. Although Harry had been briefed regarding the exercises in trust and bodily destruction, none were sure what precise exercise Massimo had in store for this afternoon.

  “This afternoon,” said Massimo, “we shall leave the blindfolds off.”

  This would have been a relief, except that it wasn’t. In some ways it was better not to see the doom that was rushing down upon you like a blind and leprous bull.

  “Now, you are to stand face to face.”

  Milrose and Arabella, despite themselves, were soon standing face to face. Unfortunately, the ghouls had also paired up: Dave and Douglas, Stu and Harry, Thor and—although Thor’s expression suggested he was clearly not happy with his draw—Poisoned Percy.