Chapter Eleven
1
Dinner was almost ready in the Dyebuko Manor. Everybody sat at the huge marble table that stretched more than fifteen feet long. Two servers, Samuel and Judd, prepared the creamy broccoli cheese soup. Mrs. Dyebuko sat at the table, explaining to Thelma when she asked where Mr. Johnson got off to that, he received a phone call from his wife saying there was some sort of emergency and he needed to fly to New York City right away.
“It is so unfortunate that he had to leave so soon… and before the food as well,” Mrs. Dyebuko said.
“Indeed!” Agreed Mr. White, who was listening in on the conversation.
Mrs. Dyebuko shot a hostile look at her daughter when she and Ivan Harvey entered the house again just in the nick of time. It was moments before the food was about to be brought out. Everybody had already been seated at the table! She watched the two take their seats in silence and soon join in on the conversations around them.
“Well,” Mrs. Dyebuko said after a minute, “I better go see what is taking the servants so long on getting our soup out here.” She rose from the table, and walked into the kitchen while she heard Thelma say in the background how she had not seen Mr. Johnson leave the wine cellar after going in there with Mrs. Dyebuko. This made Mrs. Dyebuko smile suspiciously, as she walked into the other room to hurry about her newly made servants, Samuel and Judd.
2
The soup came in eloquent bowls that sat on silver platters and were carried by the two servants who were both wearing black tuxedos with white shirts, and cobalt blue ties. All the guests were exceedingly impressed and felt like they were dining in a castle with the king and queen! The soup was delicious! No one who sat at that table ever ate anything like it before that night. They ate their soup at a slow pace, enjoying every minute of it, talking amongst each other.
“Why, I do declare!” Gracey exclaimed. “This has to be the best soup I have ever had the pleasure of indulging in. Who is responsible for making this scrumptious treat?”
“I did, Miss Yancy,” Latianna said with a proud smile upon her face.
“Why you must be no older than sixteen! Such an amazing cook for your age, you are. Tell us, did you make anything else that we shall have the delight of eating tonight?” she asked, truly astonished at this girl’s cooking ability.
“Yes ma’am, I made the dessert,” Latianna said, feeling rather proud of herself. She could not remember the last time someone complimented her on her fine cooking skills. Her parents did not care about it. All they wanted was their stupid blood, not the fine food that Latianna had learned to cook over the years in order to sustain herself on something other than blood.
“Well I am looking forward to it with growing anticipation. Mrs. Gretta will sure be happy to have you in her home ec. class.”
“Oh, Latianna is not going to attend school. She graduated early,” Mrs. Dyebuko said with one her of famous – or rather infamous – fake smiles.
“Oh, how astounding!” Miss Yancy said, truly amazed at the child that sat before her eyes.
“You see, I am a school teacher,” Miss Yancy said to Latianna with a smile.
“English no doubt, you speak in a rather grandiloquent manner,” Latianna said, hoping to impress the English teacher. She liked to do this, impress people. It was the only time she truly felt she was cared about. When she impressed people, they held her up in this light, even if it was merely for a few measly hours before her parents murdered them all.
“You're a very smart girl, Latianna, I am sure that your parents are very proud of you.”
“We are indeed,” Mr. Dyebuko said. The words stung Latianna like a bullwhip. Lies, all of what he said were filthy, dirty lies. Proud of her? They were never proud of Latianna a day of their life. The only time they might actually be proud of her is if she were to kill Ivan. But that was not going to happen, so therefore they would never be proud of her.
“Well, if everyone is done with their soup, I will be happy to go bring out the salad with my special homemade dressing. It is a recipe for a loon lake dressing passed down from my great-great-grandmother. It is truly delicious. In all my years of cooking for people, I have not once met a person who didn’t just fall in love with this dressing, then ask me for the recipe later that night!” Mrs. Dyebuko said with a smile and a false look of reminiscent joy. Latianna knew that her mother liked to give this speech every time they had a dinner party. She always made some awkward comment about her great-great-grandmother's loon lake dressing. Latianna rolled her eyes, though no one but Ivan caught her. Ivan chuckled and squeezed her hand under the table, and Latianna noticed Ivan's mother looking rather annoyed at Ivan's chuckling.
Everybody agreed that it was time for salad and Mrs. Dyebuko started to move the empty soup bowls onto the silver platters. When Mrs. Dyebuko was done stacking the bowls, there were two silver platters to carry off to the kitchen.
“Oh dear!” she exclaimed. “I know this is just terrible of me to ask of a guest, but is there any way I could get someone to help me carry this second platter to the kitchen?” she asked, glancing around the table. Several people offered and Mrs. Dyebuko acted flustered.
“Well, how about you Ms. Hanly?” she said finally, smiling and thanking everybody.
“Most certainly, Mrs. Dyebuko, I’m happy to be a helping hand.”
She followed Mrs. Dyebuko into the kitchen, happily holding a silver platter in her hands.
3
Mr. White studied the rich manner of the mansion and the Dyebuko’s personalities carefully. He had a hungry thirst for knowledge. Being a librarian and all, he figured it came naturally. He found the Dyebukos quite interesting and was very interested in getting to know Latianna a little bit better. Someone with her smarts would surely be well read. Perhaps he could recommend a few good books to her, get her involved at the library and influencing other kids to read more. Maybe, he could even find her a spot on the Teen Advisory Group: a group of teens who meet every two weeks and brainstormed for brilliant ideas for extraordinary activities and programs for the library to host. Mr. White was always on the lookout for someone like that. Kids like Ivan, whom he noticed Latianna was already fairly smitten with. The more he got kids to read, the happier he was.
“So, Latianna, what sort of books do you like to read?” he asked, sparking a conversation. He was beginning to feel bored with an odd sort of sense that something big was about to happen. The calm before the storm, he thought, and the suddenly had no idea why he thought that. But his subconscious knew why...
“Well, I read a lot. I’m a pretty classic kind of girl. I love novels such as Gone With the Wind, and Jack London’s Call of the Wild.”
“Have you ever read Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island?” Mr. White asked curiously.
“Yes, but I do prefer his novel, Kidnapped, as opposed to Treasure Island,” Latianna said.
“Oh yes, that one was quite good,” Mr. White agreed.
“No doubt you are a big reader,” Latianna stated.
“Yes, well, when you work in the library all day long you don’t have much of a choice but to know good literature when it surrounds you constantly,” Mr. White said with a half chuckle.
There was a sudden crash from the kitchen, and then silence filled the room. Mrs. Dyebuko called out that everything was okay. Everybody went back to his or her conversations, and Latianna, seeing that Mr. White was staring off into space, sparked up a conversation with Ivan who was secretly holding her hand under the table. Her mind buzzed and she could hardly comprehend what she was saying, much less Ivan. She knew that everything in the kitchen most certainly was not okay, and the idea that she could have prevented something from happening was enough to drive her nearly insane.
Mr. White might have been the only one at that table who saw Mrs. Dyebuko drive Ms. Anna Beth Hanly’s car out of the driveway. He did not make mention of it though. He figured there would be
a good reason for it. Moreover, why give Thelma Garder something more to comment about if he could avoid it all together.
4
Mrs. Dyebuko came out of the kitchen a moment later. She explained that there was a bad accident in the kitchen. Ms. Anna Beth Hanly sliced her hand on a knife badly and needed to rush to the emergency room immediately. But, not to worry she was certain it was not too terribly bad and it would not leave Ms. Anna Beth Hanly scarred for life. After a minute of talking about how horrible that was and how everybody hoped she would make a quick recovery and it not be too bad, the old conversations picked back up again while they waited for the servants to bring out the salads. Leaving only Mr. White suspecting something suspicious, for he would have sworn on his life that he did not see Ms. Anna Beth Hanly in the car with Mrs. Dyebuko when he casually looked out the window earlier. Nevertheless, he did not bring anything up at the table. He did not bring it up for two reasons: one being a fear a of humiliation and two a self-doubt of what exactly he saw when he peered out the window just a few moments ago.
5
The salad came soon enough. Samuel and Judd brought it out, again on silver platters. The salad seemed even more delicious than the soup. Everybody asked for the recipe for the Loon Lake salad dressing. Mrs. Dyebuko gladly and willingly gave it out to everybody at the table, having full faith that it would never leave the mansion. She successfully gave it out to hundreds of people in the past, maybe even thousands since they had been in the dinner party business. Yet, not one person other than her that was alive still knew the recipe.
Latianna started talking with Ivan again. They talked about normal things for fear of certain ears listening in. They talked about music, school, books, activities, and sports. They learned a lot they never knew about each other. By the end of eating the delectable salad together, they felt closer to each other than ever.
Ivan laughed to himself and, when Latianna questioned why he was laughing, he explained that their relationship was backwards. Usually people got to know that sort of stuff they had been talking about before they kiss and promise to run away together. Of course he said this low enough for only him and Latianna to hear, so they both laughed about it.
Next to come was the appetizer. Before they could eat that though, the salad bowls needed clearing. When Mr. White saw that Mrs. Dyebuko was going to have difficulty again caring both silver platters of salad bowls into the kitchen, curiosity got the best of him. He knew something fishy was up, he just did not know what. So he was the first one to volunteer to help.
“Why thank you, Mr. White,” Mrs. Dyebuko said with a smile.
Latianna was sad to see him go into that kitchen. She was sure that once he left for the kitchen he was not coming back. He seemed like such a nice librarian too. She wondered what would become of Gracey. She wondered what excuse her mother would make up to make it believable that he would leave right before the appetizers. She gripped Ivan’s hand tightly as Mr. White passed by and walked into the kitchen with her mother.
“We’ll get our turn, Latianna, don’t you worry,” Ivan whispered comfortingly to her. She was worried for just a second that her father overheard Ivan say that. But when she looked at him, he was deep in conversation with Mrs. Thelma Garder.
6
Mr. White set the silver platter down on the counter and turned to face Mrs. Dyebuko, who then looked at him as if he were the appetizer. That was when it all clicked for Mr. White. He was fully aware at that moment; of what the Dyebukos were… They were the family of vampires he'd been looking for, trying to figure it out. He wondered if Ivan knew.
“Mrs. Dyebuko, I do think we should be going back out to the company now,” Mr. White said, loudly, knowing that someone would hear him say those words.
“Of course,” Mrs. Dyebuko said with a sneer, she knew very well that Mr. White knew, but she also knew that she could not do a single thing about it. “Let me just tell my two friends to bring out the appetizers,” she said and walked away.
Mr. White rushed to the door as quickly as he could without causing a scene. He thought and thought fast. He had to find a way to get out of there with Gracey safely, without being eaten alive first. He sat down next to Gracey and engaged in a conversation with her about nonsense. He was not even fully aware of what he was saying as he carefully and subtly slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and set an alarm on it to go off in three minutes. He did not even need to look down at what he was doing. He knew how to text on a cell phone just as well - if not better than - the high school students knew how. No one even caught on to what he was doing other than talking with his fiancé.
Mrs. Dyebuko came out of the kitchen followed by Judd and Samuel. They were carrying small plates of appetizers for everybody. On those plates, were the most delicious looking appetizers anyone had ever seen. There was a small thin piece of baguette bread on the bottom. Then a smooth and creamy looking white cheese sat on top of the bread, and to top it all off a small pile of chopped red tomatoes with seasonings resting on top! Everybody's mouth started to water at the sight of it. Just as everybody was ready to eat, Mr. White’s cell phone’s alarm went off. Of course, only he knew that it was an alarm, everybody else thought it was ringing.
“Oh excuse me,” Mr. White said, glancing at his phone. “Please pardon me, it’s my sister.” He got up and left the table, going just outside on the porch where he pretended to talk to his sister... just in case the vampires were listening.
He came back in with a very dull look upon his face.
“Honey, what's wrong?” Gracey asked in a concerned tone.
“My sister got in a terrible car accident, she needs me to drive to her house and look after the kids for her while she is in the hospital overnight,” Mr. White explained. The whole table was full of “oh I’m so sorry!” remarks.
“Well, excuse us, so terrible that we have to leave so soon,” Mr. White said, grabbing Gracey’s arm before she could protest.
“Yes, please pardon our hasty exit,” she said.
“Of course… a family emergency… how… tragic,” Mrs. Dyebuko said. Mr. Dyebuko agreed and Mr. White along with his fiancé left the dinner party, just like that.