13 The Loud Family

Chapter 13 THE LOUD FAMILY "Eeeekkk!" Pep screamed. "It's them!" Coke turned to grab for the door handle. It was locked. They were trapped. Again. "Well… well… well," said Mrs. Higgins. The bowler dudes smiled and laughed their stupid laughs. Each of them had a club, like the kind policemen carry. They hit the clubs rhythmically into the palm of one hand. "How did you get in here?" Pep demanded. "The question isn't how we got in here," Mrs. Higgins replied. "The question is how are you going to get out?" "Good one, Mrs. H.," the mustachioed bowler dude said, chuckling. Coke looked around quickly. They were at the very top of the pyramid-shaped building. He could

see the Lake Erie waterfront and the sky through the glass windows surrounding them on all sides. The only exit was locked. They were outnumbered. He had no weapons, while both of the bowler dudes had clubs. There was an electric guitar sitting in a stand on the floor. But what was he going to do, hit somebody over the head with it? It was a bad situation. Pep couldn't help but marvel at Mrs. Higgins. One day she was working as a paid assassin for Dr. Warsaw. The next day she managed to get a job working in the public relations department of the Chicago Cubs. And now she had somehow talked her way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Maybe she was right—she did have good people skills. "That wasn't very nice what you kids did at Wrigley Field," Mrs. Higgins said, wagging a finger at them. "The fans were very upset that the Cubs forfeited the game." "It was your fault!" Pep shouted. "You told us there was a bomb in the dugout! You gave us those

T-shirts! You almost got us killed!" "I'll try harder this time." "Good one, Mrs. H.," said the clean-shaven bowler dude. Both bowler dudes laughed and slapped the clubs into their palms. There would be no way to overpower them. "What are you going to do now," Coke asked, "blow up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?" "Heavens no!" Mrs. Higgins replied. "I love rock and roll. Put another dime in the jukebox, baby!" One of the bowler dudes flipped a switch on the control panel, and heavy metal music filled the studio. "Ah, Megadeth," Mrs. Higgins said. "My favorite slash metal band. And I can really relate to this album—Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good." The bowler dudes chuckled. "Good one, Mrs. H.," they both said. "Stop saying that!" Mrs. Higgins scolded them. "It's annoying."

"Yes, Mrs. H." "You kids like loud rock music, don't you?" she asked sweetly. "I'll just turn this up a little." She turned a dial on the control panel, and the music got louder. Both bowler dudes took earplugs out of their pockets and stuck them in their ears. "You're smart kids," Mrs. Higgins continued. "I'm sure you know that sound travels in waves through the air. You can't see them, but you can feel the vibrations." "We don't need your boring science lesson," Coke spat. "You're right, Coke," she agreed. "I don't want to bore you. I want to kill you." "Good one—" "Shut up!" Mrs. Higgins hollered at the bowler dude, causing him to stop talking instantly. "I told you we shouldn't have come in here!" Pep said to her brother, tears running down her face. "You should listen to me for a change!" "Don't bicker, kids," Mrs. Higgins said. "It will all be over soon."

She turned the dial again, and the music got louder. "The human ear is a marvelous organ, isn't it?" Mrs. Higgins said. "Sound waves enter the outer ear like a funnel, and they shoot through the ear canal to vibrate the eardrum." "We don't care what you have to say!" Pep yelled. But Mrs. Higgins kept right on going. "There are three tiny bones in your middle ear, and they intensify the vibrations and deliver them to the inner ear. That's where the cochlea is. It looks like a little clamshell, and it's filled with fluid. The sound waves make the fluid move. There are thousands of tiny hairlike cells in there that connect to the acoustic nerve, which sends electro-chemical signals to the brain. And that's how you hear things. Isn't that interesting?" "No!" Coke shouted over the music. "Oh, I'm terribly sorry," Mrs. Higgins said. "I was boring you again, wasn't I?" She turned the dial, and the volume went up some more. The music had became uncomfortably

loud. "Turn it down," Pep said, putting her hands over her ears. "Did you say turn it up?" asked Mrs. Higgins, giving the dial another twist. "Sure." "No, I said turn it down!" "Can't hear you," shouted Mrs. Higgins. "It's quite noisy in here." "Turn it down!" Coke screamed. Mrs. Higgins turned the dial the other way, and the volume went down so low that the music could barely be heard. The twins took their hands off their ears. "But Coke," Mrs. Higgins said, "I thought you liked your music loud." "Not that loud," he replied. "You know all about decibel levels, right?" Mrs.Higgins asked. "The sound of human breathing is about ten decibels." She turned up the volume on the control panel slightly. Megadeth's "The Skull Beneath the Skin" was playing.