door.
Approximately half the size of a basketball court with a shiny wooden floor, the room could easily have passed for a regular
gymnasium. It was the contents of the room that greatly set it apart. An entire wall was devoted to leather-bound books, each
covering a different phobia, everything from acarophobia to zelmmiphobia. Upon sight of the books, Madeleine felt a bit better,
more at ease. If Mrs. Wellington had read all these books, she must know something.
“Are the books properly secured in case of an earthquake?” Theo asked.
“We don’t have earthquakes in Massachusetts.”
“Actually in 1965 …”
“Stop right there, my chubby fact finder. The event you are referring to was not an earthquake. It was more of a hiccup or
belch, but definitely not an earthquake.”
“And you’ve read all those books,” Madeleine asked hopefully.
“ ‘Read’ is a strong word. I prefer ‘scanned,’ ‘perused,’ ‘osmoted’ …”
“Osmoted?” Madeleine inquired.
“Oh yes, that’s when you garner information through osmosis. It’s very scientific.”
Outside of the wall of books, the room was rather peculiar-looking, with multiple booths, each dedicated to a different fear.
There was a fire booth, where one would sit in a temporized glass box as flames erupted around it. There were life-size dolls,
clowns, science fiction-esque creatures, bubbling pots of tar, buckets of simulated vomit, a quicksand sandbox, a massive
ant farm, an aquarium filled with creepy critters from the sea, a knife block, puppets, a bathtub, a coffin, stuffed animals,
vats of cough syrup, barrels of glass eyes, skeletons, a dentist’s chair, a high school cafeteria table, needles, and much
more.
“Mrs. Wellington? Has that been used?” Theo said, pointing to the coffin.
“Used? Dear misguided, morbid Chubby, they aren’t like toasters you pick up secondhand from a garage sale. They are buried
in the ground with dead people. I suppose you could dig them up and remove the dead person, but I imagine the smell to be
ghastly.”
“What exactly are we going to do in here?” Lulu asked with mounting trepidation as she perused the selection of claustrophobic
possibilities.
“For today we’ll just do some imaginary exercises.”
“Imaginary exercises?” Madeleine asked curiously.
“Yes. If used correctly, imagination can prep you for a great deal of life’s hardships. Garrison is to imagine he is submerged
in the bathtub, slowly becoming used to the sensation of water. Lulu and Theo are two peas in a pod, or rather coffin, learning
to accept confined spaces and mortality. And as for Madeleine, well, you are to embrace being covered in four large and hairy
but fake spiders. On the count of three you are to close your eyes and imagine your predicaments.”
Each of the four children told themselves that they would do no such thing. They yearned to think of anything other than what
Mrs. Wellington had told them to, but oddly the more they tried to resist, the harder it became. By the time Mrs. Wellington
said three, Madeleine’s body was electrified with fear at the thought of hairy, albeit plastic, spider feet on her arm. Lulu
felt a sudden surge behind her left eye as she experienced the breath-stifling darkness of the coffin. Garrison began to sweat
as he fought the image of water encapsulating his body. Of course, the more he sweat, the realer it became, damp clothes and
all. Theo actually showed the greatest ability to control his mind. Perhaps it was his slightly hysterical personality that
allowed him to jump from subject to subject in his mind.
While at first terrified by the thought of being in a coffin, he soon wondered how long he had to go without sunlight before
developing rickets. As rickets rhymes with crickets, Theo quickly began thinking about the outbreak of Indonesian crickets
that caused flulike symptoms in humans after biting them. Theo had meant to follow
Approximately half the size of a basketball court with a shiny wooden floor, the room could easily have passed for a regular
gymnasium. It was the contents of the room that greatly set it apart. An entire wall was devoted to leather-bound books, each
covering a different phobia, everything from acarophobia to zelmmiphobia. Upon sight of the books, Madeleine felt a bit better,
more at ease. If Mrs. Wellington had read all these books, she must know something.
“Are the books properly secured in case of an earthquake?” Theo asked.
“We don’t have earthquakes in Massachusetts.”
“Actually in 1965 …”
“Stop right there, my chubby fact finder. The event you are referring to was not an earthquake. It was more of a hiccup or
belch, but definitely not an earthquake.”
“And you’ve read all those books,” Madeleine asked hopefully.
“ ‘Read’ is a strong word. I prefer ‘scanned,’ ‘perused,’ ‘osmoted’ …”
“Osmoted?” Madeleine inquired.
“Oh yes, that’s when you garner information through osmosis. It’s very scientific.”
Outside of the wall of books, the room was rather peculiar-looking, with multiple booths, each dedicated to a different fear.
There was a fire booth, where one would sit in a temporized glass box as flames erupted around it. There were life-size dolls,
clowns, science fiction-esque creatures, bubbling pots of tar, buckets of simulated vomit, a quicksand sandbox, a massive
ant farm, an aquarium filled with creepy critters from the sea, a knife block, puppets, a bathtub, a coffin, stuffed animals,
vats of cough syrup, barrels of glass eyes, skeletons, a dentist’s chair, a high school cafeteria table, needles, and much
more.
“Mrs. Wellington? Has that been used?” Theo said, pointing to the coffin.
“Used? Dear misguided, morbid Chubby, they aren’t like toasters you pick up secondhand from a garage sale. They are buried
in the ground with dead people. I suppose you could dig them up and remove the dead person, but I imagine the smell to be
ghastly.”
“What exactly are we going to do in here?” Lulu asked with mounting trepidation as she perused the selection of claustrophobic
possibilities.
“For today we’ll just do some imaginary exercises.”
“Imaginary exercises?” Madeleine asked curiously.
“Yes. If used correctly, imagination can prep you for a great deal of life’s hardships. Garrison is to imagine he is submerged
in the bathtub, slowly becoming used to the sensation of water. Lulu and Theo are two peas in a pod, or rather coffin, learning
to accept confined spaces and mortality. And as for Madeleine, well, you are to embrace being covered in four large and hairy
but fake spiders. On the count of three you are to close your eyes and imagine your predicaments.”
Each of the four children told themselves that they would do no such thing. They yearned to think of anything other than what
Mrs. Wellington had told them to, but oddly the more they tried to resist, the harder it became. By the time Mrs. Wellington
said three, Madeleine’s body was electrified with fear at the thought of hairy, albeit plastic, spider feet on her arm. Lulu
felt a sudden surge behind her left eye as she experienced the breath-stifling darkness of the coffin. Garrison began to sweat
as he fought the image of water encapsulating his body. Of course, the more he sweat, the realer it became, damp clothes and
all. Theo actually showed the greatest ability to control his mind. Perhaps it was his slightly hysterical personality that
allowed him to jump from subject to subject in his mind.
While at first terrified by the thought of being in a coffin, he soon wondered how long he had to go without sunlight before
developing rickets. As rickets rhymes with crickets, Theo quickly began thinking about the outbreak of Indonesian crickets
that caused flulike symptoms in humans after biting them. Theo had meant to follow
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