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Skeletal footmen were fighting each other with
cutlasses. The whole world was in bone and it was in an uproar. It
was a little more horrifying than it sounded. Why would an entire
world of bone go to war? Who could possibly gain from
that?
    “ It certainly lives up to
its name,” I said. “The skeleton men don’t mind us?”
    “ There is treasure buried
under these bones,” Madison said. “The bone warriors are tasked
with protecting it.”
    “ What good is treasure to
us?” I asked. “Why bother digging it up?”
    “That’s why the bone warriors are
fighting amongst themselves,” Madison said.
    “ They don’t care about us?”
I asked.
    “ They’re picking bones with
each other because they’re bone warriors,” Madison
snorted.
    “ That’s a relief,” I said.
“I was getting a little concerned for a moment there. How do you
fight a bone warrior?”
    “ You smash him in the
skull,” Madison shrugged.
    “ I suppose like anything
else,” I said.
    “ I wanted to show you this
room because sometimes witchcraft is just a fizzle on Coffin
Island,” Madison said. “It can backfire the other way. There was
some serious malicious intent here but it just didn’t pan
out.”
    “ Don’t tell that to all the
bone warriors,” I said. “It seems if they hack the spine out that
ends it.”
    “ Just don’t let the bone
spiders bite you,” Madison cautioned. “The bone venom takes hours
to kill you.”
    “ At least there is something
deadly in here,” I said. “I was getting a little concerned that
something was not actively plotting to kill me on Coffin Island. We
wouldn’t want to sully the fine reputation of this institution.
You’ve got to keep those coffins full.”
    “ Thank goodness for small
painful things like bone spiders,” Madison said.
    “ It’s kind of hard to see
the bone spiders because everything is bone,” I said.
    “ Try to walk more gently on
the skulls,” Madison suggested.
    “ I wouldn’t think of
insulting the dead with anything but light treads,” I said. “This
is a nightmare.”
    “ Do you want to go back to
the library?” Madison asked.
    “ I’ll take my chances in
here,” I said.
    “ I was just kidding about
the bone spiders,” Madison laughed.
    “ Nothing can kill us in
here?” I asked.
    “ Only greed,” Madison
said.
    “ I’m too busy working on
hubris,” I said. “I don’t think that I can swing this Headmaster
job.”
    “ You don’t want to be
Headmaster?” Madison asked.
    “ You could say that,” I
said.
    “ You’re doing fine,” Madison
said. “That was a stroke of genius back there in the
library.”
    “We see what learning does for those
stitches,” I said. “Then we decide if we want to learn
ourselves.”
    “Chances are the next time we go in
there,” Madison laughed. “The library will be back upside down. The
stitches will be back in the books. And Flash will be his old
ornery self.”
    “We just don’t go in there,” I
said.
    “ Getting an education at The
Coffin Island School for Witches is probably a bad idea,” Madison
said.
    “ Something is bound to
backfire,” I agreed. “You get ignorant like the
faculty.”
    “I can’t decide if I want to tackle the
trolls in the kitchen,” Madison said. “Or the black cats on the
catwalk with the keys attached to their skeletons. There are also
some elephant parrots that need to be corrected.”
    “They all sound pretty bad to me,” I
said.
    “One won’t feed us,” Madison said. “The
other two won’t let us off the island.”
    “What about the hourglass?” I asked.
“Isn’t that the key to it all?”
    “It’s not much of a tourist
attraction,” Madison said. “You’re going to be very discouraged by
that particular piece of witchcraft. Why don’t I show you the
cauldron or the broom first? You won’t get as discouraged by your
situation. Trust me. They are both totally scandalous.”
    “I want to see the hourglass,” I
said.
    “You better lower