The League of Beastly Dreadfuls Book 1, page 15
“We?” Anastasia echoed. “You and the mice?”
“Miss Apple and I,” the Baron said.
“You mean the librarian at my school?” Anastasia gave a little jump. “You know Miss Apple?” The idea that the dashing Baron was somehow acquainted with the meek little librarian was shocking.
“I do indeed,” the Baron told her. “In fact, I have in my possession a letter for you from Miss Apple.” He put the mouse on his shoulder. He stooped down to unsnap the brass buckles of his Mouse Murdering Trunk and hoisted the cheese wheel out. He plucked a knife from the ceiling and sawed the wheel right down the middle. The mice watched with bright interest, their pink nostrils quivering in the air. Anastasia gasped as a little black envelope popped out of one of the cheese halves and fell onto the floor.
“The wheel is hollow,” the Baron whispered. “It was made by a friend of mine, an expert cheese monger.”
Anastasia stooped to pick up the curious black envelope. Miss Apple’s neat librarian cursive curled across the front in gold ink.
Anastasia tilted the envelope, watching the ink glimmer in the fading light from the dusty window, and then she turned the envelope over. It was sealed with a big gob of blue-violet wax squished down on the flap. She had never seen anything like it, and the fact that such a fancy letter came from practical, mousy Miss Apple was bewildering indeed.
“Go ahead,” the Baron said. “Open it.”
24
The Great Cheese Caper
Dear Anastasia,
There is no time to waste. You must trust Mr. Baron von Bilgeworth. He will help you escape that unsanitary mansion and take you to a safe place. He is an ally (that is, a friend), and you can trust him completely.
I’m so sorry for the hardship you have endured. When we next see each other (soon!), I will bring some lovely books for you. Did you know there is a new Francie Dewdrop mystery? It’s titled The Clue in the Foggy Forest. And the December issue of Learning Is Fun includes a most wonderful article about pus. Did you know that pus is actually white blood cells? And—
Well, we can chat about pus later. For now, you are in Grave Peril (that is, terrible danger) and must flee St. Agony’s Asylum as soon as possible. Destroy this letter after you have finished reading it. Please don’t try to burn it, though, because that would be a fire hazard.
Sincerely,
Miss Apple
It was from Miss Apple, all right. Nobody else would deem an article about pus “most wonderful.”
“It says I should destroy this letter after reading it,” she told the Baron.
“Eat it,” he urged.
“Eat it?” Anastasia protested. “Ugh!”
“In that case,” the Baron said, “I suppose we can just tear it up.” And he plucked the letter from her hands and shredded it into confetti and tossed it over the mice. He said, “Huzzah!” The mice stared at him.
“Miss Apple suspected something was wrong when she noticed Miss Sneed dragging you down the hall,” the Baron went on.
“That’s right,” Anastasia said slowly, thinking back to that fateful day at Mooselick Elementary. “I saw her watching us.”
“And when she saw that pink station wagon peeling out of the parking lot with you stuck in the back, she just knew you had fallen into the clutches of those miserable kidnappers.”
“So you know about the other children?” Anastasia exclaimed. “You know Prim and Prude are awful child-snatchers?”
“Indeed I do,” the Baron said. “They’re scoundrels. They’re scum of the earth.” He whacked his crop against the pots and pans dangling from the ceiling. “SCUM OF THE EARTH! SCUM OF THE EARTH!” The mouse clung to his collar, tail swinging.
“Shhh!” Anastasia hissed. “They’ll hear you!”
“That’s all right. They’ll just think I’m shouting at the mice,” the Baron said. “But sometimes I can’t control myself when I think about those treacherous child-snatchers. Foul! Horrible! NASTY AS WORM POO!”
Up in the Watchtower, Prude commented, “This fellow really knows his stuff. Those mice must be shaking in their boots.”
“Mice don’t wear boots, Prudence,” Prim replied.
“SICKENING, REVOLTING, SCUM OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM!” the Baron bellowed, replacing the riding switch to his belt. “Whew! Now I feel a bit better. Anyway, as you have already deduced, those two old prunes have snatched all sorts of children. They’re seasoned old villains. I don’t want to frighten you, Anastasia, but Prude and Prim”—he glanced around warily, then continued in a low murmur—“will kill you if they deem it necessary.”
Anastasia, who had already known this for days, nonetheless felt a pinch of fear between her shoulder blades.
“They would use your guts for Christmas garland,” the Baron went on. “That’s why we have to be ever so careful when we escape. It isn’t just a matter of sauntering out the front door of this moldering mansion. Oh, no! They’d try to kill us on the spot. And while I’ve tangled with the likes of Prim and Prude before, it would be much better for us to sneak away unnoticed. Hopefully, we’ll be miles away by the time they realize we’re gone.”
Anastasia nodded. The League of Beastly Dreadfuls had already drawn the same conclusion. She wondered whether she should tell the Baron about Quentin and Ollie. She wanted to. Miss Apple’s letter said, You can trust him completely. But Quentin and Ollie were Shadowfolk, and she was pinkie-sworn not to spill their top-secret beans.
“Tell me,” the Baron said, “do they lock you into your room?”
Anastasia nodded again. “Every night at sundown.”
The Baron rubbed his chin. “I wonder if there’s a skeleton key around this old dump. Or I could try picking the lock. That always works for Francie Dewdrop, although I’ve never actually done it myself.”
“You read Francie Dewdrop?” Anastasia exclaimed.
“Of course I do,” the Baron said with great dignity. “Wonderful stories. She’s a first-rate detective-veterinarian-artist. So brave and clever, and all those lovely illustrations. My favorite story is number thirteen, The Conundrum at Mildew Manor. That’s the one with the skeleton key,” he added.
“Actually, Mr. Bilgeworth, we don’t need a skeleton key,” Anastasia said. “And we won’t have to pick the lock. I made a key.”
And she summarized the triumph of the Choco-Laxative and her delicious sugar key, careful to leave out mention of Ollie and Quentin’s help. She felt a little guilty taking all the credit for the combined efforts of the League of Beastly Dreadfuls, but she had to keep the Shadowboys’ existence mum.
“Ingenious!” the Baron raved. “You clever child! My hat goes off to you! Well, I don’t actually have a hat, but you know what I mean. Now, back to our escape. Let’s consider the obstacles.”
“The poodles,” Anastasia said grimly.
“Ah, yes,” the Baron said. “The guard poodles. They are a problem, aren’t they?” He shuddered. “Please don’t ever repeat this to anyone, but I have a bit of a…fear of poodles. I’m poodlephobic. I’m ashamed of it, but the fact is they scare the living daylights out of me. Even teacup poodles.”
“Really?”
“Oh, gosh, yes,” the Baron said. “Frightful animals.”
The kitchen was silent as they both pondered the problem of poodles.
“I have an idea,” Anastasia spoke up. “If you aren’t really going to poison the mice, you won’t need this cheese wheel, will you?”
“No,” the Baron said. “That cheese was for smuggling secret letters, not mouse murdering.”
Anastasia unbuttoned her satchel, pulled out a small bottle, and presented it to the Baron.
“Dr. Bluster’s Patented Sleep Preparation of Most Sleepful Sleep!” he said. “I’ve heard of this stuff! It’s supposed to be strong enough to knock a rhino on its…er. Well.”
“This is what Prim and Prude use to drug children when they go snatching,” Anastasia said angrily. “They used it on me. And I was planning to give them a dose of their own medicine! But now I have a different idea. We’ll paint the cheese with this sleeping potion and give it to the poodles. They love cheese. They can’t resist it.”
“Anastasia, you amaze me!” the Baron cried. “What a grand idea!”
“Let’s just make sure the kidnappers are still up in their Watchtower,” Anastasia whispered. “I wouldn’t want them to catch us with this stuff.” She crept over to the speaking tube, and she and the Baron both leaned close to the silver trumpet.
“Primrose?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you just adore the Baron’s mustache? It’s so handsome. So manly.”
“Prudence, you sap, of course his mustache is manly! It’s a mustache!”
“Wouldn’t he look fine with a monobrow?” Prude asked.
“Prudence, my word!” Prim snorted. “You are the silliest fool when it comes to men. You’re man-mad, you are!”
“I am not!”
“You most certainly are. My goodness, I’ll never forget how you used to moon over that foot doctor. You were giddier than a sixteen-year-old on prom night every time you sprouted a new bunion!”
“Shut up, Primrose!”
“And I’m certain you faked that case of athlete’s foot just for an excuse to talk to him!”
Anastasia dropped the speaking tube, and she and the Baron howled with laughter for a few minutes. Then they returned to the serious business of plotting the great cheese caper. Anastasia took out her dinky paintbrush and dipped it into the bottle, then started painting the cheese.
“Is there enough of that stuff to slip some into the kidnappers’ tea?” the Baron asked. “That could really help us along.”
Anastasia peered into the bottle. “It looks like there’s only enough in here for the cheese. There wasn’t much to begin with.”
“Think of all the children they’ve drugged with their diabolical peppermints,” the Baron growled. “THE SCUM! Oh, well. We’ll get past them tonight. I’ll throw the cheese to the poodles when those nasty kidnappers lock you in your room at sundown. Just don’t expect me to get too close to those fluffy terrors.” He shuddered again.
Once the cheese was painted, the Baron replaced it in the trunk and shut the lid. Several of the mice squeaked their disappointment.
“That cheese is strictly off-limits,” the Baron admonished them, fastening the buckles.
“Obstacle number two: Prim and Prude,” Anastasia said. “Now that we don’t have the sleeping stuff to zonk them, what are we going to do?”
The Baron furrowed his handsome forehead. He stroked his mustache.
Anastasia stared at him. His mustache was manly, just like Prude said. He looked a little bit—actually, quite a bit—like the strapping fellow on the cover of Prude’s book The Handsome Rogue Who Fell in Love with the Older Lady.
“I have an idea,” she said. “I know Prude’s weakness.”
Knowing your enemy’s weakness, dear Reader, is one of the crucial tenets of the art of war.
“Really? What?” The Baron snapped out of his reverie.
“You,” Anastasia said.
“Me?”
“Yes, you,” Anastasia said. “Prude is man-mad. And she likes your mustache. You heard it yourself.”
“Elderly child-murderers aren’t really my type,” the Baron objected.
“But Prude’s the one on guard tonight, and I bet you could distract her while we—I mean, while I sneak out to the back garden.”
The Baron pondered this. “I suppose I could ask her about those bunions,” he mused. He clenched his magnificent jaw. “You’re right; that’s our best bet. I’ll summon up every last bit of my manly charm to fool Prude into neglecting her guard duties.”
“I don’t think it will be terribly difficult,” Anastasia said. “You’re very charming.”
A pleased blush crept into the Baron’s cheeks. “Well,” he murmured, “I don’t wish to boast, but my mustache is rather glorious.”
“Exactly.” Anastasia did a happy little tap dance. It seemed like the Beastly Dreadfuls’ great escape was really coming together. The poodles would be snoozing, and Prude would swoon beneath the spell of the Baron’s facial hair. And once they got through the fence, Ollie and Quentin could buzz back home, and the Baron would whisk Anastasia back to Mooselick.
“All right,” the Baron said. “I’ll massage Prude’s bunions, if that’s what it takes to keep her out of the Watchtower while you pussyfoot it out to the garden. But how are we going to get you out of this nuthouse? I noticed a tricky combination lock on the front door.”
“It was designed by a master locksmith,” Anastasia said. “But don’t worry. I have another way out. A—um—a secret passageway.” She didn’t want to reveal the Beastly Dreadfuls’ real exit route. She had a feeling the Baron would declare it too dangerous.
“Secret passageway?” the Baron marveled. “My gosh, this place is the Four Seasons of spooky old insane asylums! Five stars! Now, once you’re in the topiary grove, hide behind a bush and wait for me.”
“Thank you for coming to help me,” Anastasia said. “But why did you, again?”
“DIE, WRETCHED CANKER ON THE BUTTOCK OF HUMANITY!” the Baron thundered for the kidnappers’ benefit. To Anastasia he said, “Miss Apple and I have been watching you for many years. Our main priority is your safety and protection.”
“But why?” Anastasia asked, more puzzled than ever. “I’m not rich or important or special. I’m just a normal kid. Even,” she mumbled, taking into consideration her freckles and flatulence, “a slightly below-average kid.”
“Ah, but that is where you are wrong, Anastasia,” the Baron said quietly. “You are very special. You see—”
At that moment, the door swung open, and Prim and Prude stuck their fluffy heads into the kitchen.
“How’s the murdering going?” Prude asked.
“Splendidly,” the Baron boasted. “Behold my vanquished enemies.”
Anastasia, like the old child-snatchers, looked down at the floor. Dozens of mice lay on their backs with their pink toes sticking in the air.
“How wonderful!” chirped Prude. “It looks like you’ve been very busy.”
“I have been,” the Baron said. “I’ve killed quite a few of the nasty rotters.”
“It seems a shame to interrupt your good work,” Prim said, “but Nice Little Girls must be in bed before dark, you know.”
Anastasia glanced at the Baron. His eyes were hard as glass. “Run along, Reginald,” he said coolly. “May you dream of dead mice.”
25
Into the Mercurial Garden
ANASTASIA WAITED UNTIL the kidnappers clunked the chain on the other side of the door to Room Eleven. Then she sprang into action. She flung open the doors of her wardrobe, dredging out Mr. Bunster and looking him straight in the eye.
“This is it, Mr. Bunster,” she said. “The night of our big escape. The Great Cheese Caper. The Daring Escape of the League of Beastly Dreadfuls.”
Mr. Bunster’s black button glinted.
“Be brave,” she told him. “Even little rabbits must be brave.” She shoved him down into her satchel, cushioning Ollie’s music box. She froze, her hand still jammed in the bag. Thinking very hard, she pulled out her sketch pad and ripped one corner from the tear-streaked portrait of Fred McCrumpet. Her pencil was just a stub, but she managed to scratch a few words onto the scrap. Then she folded it into a tiny origami frog. She put the frog at the edge of the wood shelf at the bottom of the wardrobe and pressed his rear end down. The paper amphibian tiddlywinked into the wardrobe’s lightless depths, and she closed the doors after him.
Reader, if you ever find yourself in a gloomy Victorian insane asylum surrounded by a forest of dark trees, and you happen to discover an origami frog in the wardrobe of Room Eleven, go ahead and unfold it. There’s a note written inside. The note will tell you that the two sweet old ladies knitting in the glass tower upstairs are plotting to add your bones to their garden, so you should start planning your escape. Keep your eyes peeled for just such a note, Reader! It could prove the difference between life and death.
Anastasia stared at Mr. McCrumpet’s portrait for a moment, brimming with hope. Perhaps she would even be back in Mooselick in time for a big McCrumpet waffle breakfast! She replaced the picture in her satchel and checked her watch.
It was time to act.
She rummaged in her pocket for the most splendiferous jawbreaker in confectionary history. The sugar key sparkled in her hand like something magical. Click. Click. Clunk. Anastasia slid the magnet across the door until she heard the telltale thunk. She laid her hand on the doorknob.
It was cold and smooth beneath her clammy palm. Her heart was beating so hard that she could feel her pulse throbbing where her skin pressed against the metal. It was easy to imagine that she was actually feeling the house’s heartbeat. She thought of that second night in the asylum, cradled in the child-shaped hollow of her cot and crying for her dead parents and fancying that the house wept with her, too.
She shook the memory away and opened the door.
She locked it behind her and pulled the chain back through its metal track. She scrunched her eyes, waiting for her pupils to drink in the dim light in the corridor. She couldn’t, of course, carry a candle through the mansion as she made her escape. Fortunately, after all the weeks of creeping through the nooks and crannies and armpits of the ancient asylum, it seemed like her eyeballs were adapting to darkness.
“Am I glad to see you!” Ollie piped up.
Anastasia started. “Shhhh!” she hissed. “Ollie, we have to be quiet.” She let out a deep breath. “Crumbs, you surprised me! I can’t see you at all.”
“Anastasia? I’m still worried about the poodles,” Ollie said. “I’m actually not sure I could bite a poodle. I like dogs, even vicious guard poodles.”
