The worm world was turned on its head with Modern Vermeologist's publication of "She Smelled of Lilies: Love on the Palouse," Taffy's paper detailing the mating rituals of the Giant Palouse earthworm. The preeminent oligochaetologist Dr. Herschel Yetsinberg was forced to retire in shame, 15 years after declaring the species extinct, and Dr. Yetsinberg's lab assistants, the brothers Igor and Homer Vaslinsky, were found dead in an apparent murder-suicide.
Taffy was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oslo and invited to appear on Good Morning America. She couldn't go to either event, of course, having been grounded for a month for the cross-country crime spree she and Myrtle had embarked on. Taffy stomped and whined but her father would not relent.
Myrtle, meanwhile, was happy the authorities had only found out about their domestic adventures - their time in Shanghai, Casablanca, and Ouagadougou had not been discovered so far.
Myrtle's marketing genius kicked in, and, to capitalize on Taffy's newfound success, she started a line of Taffy Black-endorsed products - t-shirts with caricatures of smiling worms, white dreadlock wigs, backpacks, toasters, even a lily-scented perfume.
One afternoon in late August they were sitting on Taffy's porch, the farthest Taffy was allowed to venture from her bedroom. (Myrtle had not been grounded - in fact, her parents had only noticed her absence enough to think that she was finally doing her own laundry and feeding herself.)
"Wow, Taff," Myrtle said, "can you believe school starts in a week? Just think, in a week we're finally going to be in high school."
Taffy looked at her hands. "It seems weird," she said.
"Weird? What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean, we've done so much these last five months - slept under the stars, been chased by dogs, married Maasai warriors, made great scientific discoveries, committed god-knows-how-many felonies. Compared to all that, high school seems a little..."
"Terrifying?"
"Exactly."
"Well," Myrtle said, "I don't know about you, but if I'm not homecoming queen I'm going to die."
Taffy smiled ruefully.
School started and things seemed to be going well. The girls had been kicked out of only one class by the end of the second week. One day, however, the other girls at school found out that the Taffy Black perfume they were all wearing was derived from essence of worm - "Eww!" they shrieked, "eek!" - and Myrtle's chances of becoming homecoming queen were shot.
"You really couldn't have been queen anyway," Taffy said, trying to console her. "Freshmen can't be queen."
"Shut up," Myrtle said.
