Whittling Confessions

It was a dark and stormy night… well, as stormy as a clear evening with absolutely no clouds in the sky could be. I was fiddling around with some streamers, wondering how I could put them in the rafters… only, the house didn’t have any rafters.

“Tonight is going to be perfect!” I told my two year old golden retriever, Bella. She was always so happy, so I felt that I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t judge me, but I couldn’t say the same about my friends.

I twirled my long, brown hair with my finger as I thought about how well the party would be. All of my friends would be there, heck, even my enemies would be there! My new neighbor, Bethony, insisted  insisted that I invited the whole town, despite my small house.

When I refused, however, she said that she would be more than happy if I held the party in her humongous house! You should have seen the size of that thing! It was huge! I could fit a hundred elephants in there with some room to spare! I didn’t, of course, because, well, why would I?

I did fit the whole town though, which, by the way, was two thousand people! Well, not everyone came; some people were busy, and the town’s children didn’t come, and those with babies or young children couldn’t come, or hired babysitters, who couldn’t come because they had to babysit.

Now I was alone in this one giant of a house all by myself… except for my BFF, Rhena, and Bethany, who wanted to help out with all the decorations, and hide all of her good furniture…

“Hey, Amy, where should I put this pinata?” I nearly peed myself in fear as Rhena came around the corner, her blond, curly hair looking like medusa, the snakes ready to strike!

“JEEZ LOUISE YOU SCARED ME!” I yelled at her. She just smiled with her pearly white teeth and pointed at the rainbow paper mache horse hanging from a string in her right hand.

I breathed in slowly and let my hair lay back down. “Hm…” I thought hard.. Well, as hard as I could, which wasn’t very hard, “I think the indoor balcony would be a good spot,” I said after thirty seconds.

“Hmm… good thinking! And how low to the ground should it be?” Rhena asked.

“Make them reach.” I replied in a dramatic tone.

“You got it, boss!” Rhena chuckled and disappeared back around the corner she came from.

“Now…” I squinted at my right hand at held up the rainbow strings of tissue paper I was holding, “Where to put the streamers?” I looked around but saw nothing. Higher, I thought, so I looked up, and there was the perfect place for them.

The lights! Above me hung the most wonderful lights I have ever seen, hanging from a wire and some chain three feet above my head. Now all I needed to do was find a ladder; but one that wouldn’t scratch the delicate hardwood flooring of the lounge.

I’ve got it! I ran to my garage and came back two minutes later with a four foot ladder and some tissue paper. I placed the tissue paper evenly in four spots on the floor, the same size as my ladder legs and placed my ladder on top.

I carefully climbed up the ladder, remembering my fear of heights. But as long as I didn’t look down, I’d be fine. Streamers in hand, I kept my gaze on the dark light above me. 

I had the lights off, so I didn’t burn my retina, and it was dark. I had just enough light coming through the small windows on the far wall to my left to see what I was doing two feet in front of me, but the rest was completely smothered in darkness.

I was high enough to reach the light now, so I gently wrapped the streamers around the light. The ceiling was five feet up, so if I grabbed onto the light, the chain would probably send white dust straight into my eyes, and I did NOT want that to happen.

I heard a faint clunking sound coming from the room to my right, but I didn’t think much of it. I should have looked. The light was three inches above my face, so I didn’t look away, thinking I was going to bonk my head on the bulb.

“Amy?” I heard the light voice of Bethany coming from the doorway. FLICK! The lights came on. It looked like a thousand suns were burning their flashing lights into my eyes. I tried to blink but I could still see the light!

Trying to get away, I looked away and and lost my balance. My ladder flew out from under my legs and I tumbled to the hard ground. “My eyes!” I cried out in pain, “I’m blind!” I tried to focus my eyes but all I could see was white.

“Sorry!” Bethany called from across the room as I rubbed my eyes. “I was just going to tell you that the guests are here.”

I immediately forgot the burning pain and white spots in my vision and rushed to the door. Sure enough, there were nicely dressed people from all over town waiting to get in.

Some people were admiring the house, and others were talking amongst themselves. I open the door excitedly and the first couple I see are my parents.

“Hello!” They kindly greeted me. My mom was wearing a fancy green dress and my dad was wearing an old, worn out blue suit. My mother noticed me eyeing my dad’s suit and whispered to me, “I told him not to wear that.”

“Hehe, go get something to eat,” I said as Rhena ushered them to the snacks bar. As people flooded in the door and admired the house, I spotted my uncle heading towards me with his pretty girlfriend, Cindy. Ugh, why him? I thought grimly as I quickly pasted on a warm smile.

Cindy was wearing a sparkly red dress with her curled brown hair flowing down her shoulders. If a random person who didn’t know what was happening walked in, he would have thought she was the one having the birthday party, not me.

    “Hey, if it isn’t my twenty five year old niece!” My uncle, who was wearing a nice blue tux, said, his arms open wide for a hug. When I backed away, he brought them down again and looked at me expectedly.

    “Ya’ got anythin’ for me?” he asked, rubbing his hand as if asking for money. I glared at him and furrowed my eyebrows.

    “Go party.” I said sternly. He rubbed his bald head as if he was disappointed, but nudged Cindy, grabbed her by the arm and said, “Com’on, let’s go get some wine.”

    I was happy he left, but noticed I was still wearing a t-shirt and my jeans. I’m going to change, then come back down to talk to my guests. I thought. I had put my dress in the guest bathroom upstairs, so I went to go retrieve it.

    I was changing in the bathroom when suddenly I heard voices coming from the room beside. I listened intently, intrigued by all of the whispers.

    “This’ll kill ‘em. I little bit of this and it’s good-night forever.” I was shocked, that was Bethany’s voice! I kept listening, searching for what she might want to kill.

    “But that’s poison,” said a male voice I didn’t recognize. It might have just been a townsfolk. “Are you sure that’s the right way to do it?”

    “Well, I don’t want blood all over my house, plus, I put a little in the food. They’ll never know it was coming. They’ll all be dead by tomorrow night.” Bethany said to the mystery person.

    I stifled a gasp by covering my mouth. I took a few deep breaths and waited until I heard the sound of the door in the other room close and footsteps leading away from the door.

    Spooked, I ran down the stairs (fully dressed) and saw the food bar a few meters away. I almost screamed when I saw my guests holding plates full of the poisoned food.

    I have to tell someone! My mind raced as I thought of the one person I could fully trust, Rhena. I spotted her amongst the crowd of people standing in the living room, talking to Bethany.

    I sauntered over to her, trying to make it seem like everything was completely normal, as if I knew nothing of Bethany’s plan to kill everyone.

    “Hi, Bethany!” I greeted her, “could I just borrow Rhena for a quick minute, something about the…” I had to think of a reasonable excuse, or she might’ve questioned me. I started to sweat a little. “About which wine we should serve with dessert.” I blurted out, not releasing how good it was until I had already said it.

    My tone of voice would have given me away if Bethany was an inch smarter, but she just smiled and said, “Sure thing, I’m gonna be by the drinks table if you need me!”

    I dragged Rhena away to a roomy closet and closed the door. Rhena turned on the light and asked me, “What are we doing in a closet?”

    “SHHH” I shushed her. I didn’t want anyone to know we were there. “Ok, so,” I drew a deep breath in, “SoIoverheardBethanytalking tosomedudeabouthowshewasplanningtokillusallbyputtingpoisoninthe

food!!!” I said very quickly. I panted for breath.

    … Rhena slowly blinked at me. “What?”

    I took a slow breath in. “I overheard Bethany talking to some guy about how she was planning to kill everyone at the party by poisoning the food.” I calmly yet scared at the same time.

    Rhena’s eyes opened to the size of large saucers. “What? We have to stop her!”

    “How?” I said, alarmed and afraid.

    “I don’t know, anti poison or something?”

    “You call the cops, and I’ll tell everyone at the party.”

    “Good idea,” Rhena said, “I’ll get right on it… except my cell phone’s in my car, which is parked right outside.”

    “And mine’s in my house. You go get yours and call the cops, and I’ll go stop this madness.”

    Rhena nodded determinedly, opened the door, and headed for the main entrance. I headed towards the food table at a fast pace.

    “Hi, Amy, I-” My mother walked up to me holding a sandwich on a plate. I smacked the plate right out of her hands in a bout of rage. My mother gasped. “Well, I never!” She started. I stopped her by putting a hand in front of her face and jumped up onto the food table.

“Everyone!” I shouted when it was completely silent. “This food has been poisoned!” As a result, many people dropped their plates and spit out the food that they had been chewing.

“Traiter!” shouted one man from the back of the crowd. “You poisoned us!” The rest of the crowd started spitting and cursing at me, saying stuff like, “Why?” and “I never trusted you from the start!” and “So that’s why you invited the entire town!”

“No, people listen!” I gently tried to get everyone to listen to me, but it wasn’t working, so my rage kicked in, and I made the loudest whistle I have ever made in my entire life.

The crowd was silent. “It wasn’t me!” I reasoned. “It was her!” I pointed to Bethany at the back of the crowd. All eyes turned to her.

“Amy,” Bethany looked shocked, “What is this about?”

“You poisoned the food!” I shouted at her in rage. “I overheard you when I was changing in the bathroom upstairs! I heard it all, about how you were going to kill them all! How you had put the poison in the food! About how we would never know it was coming!”

    The crowd started spitting and yelling at her until she yelled, “QUIET!” She waited until the room was so silent that you could hear a pin drop.

    “Amy, is that what you’re going on about? That was me talking to my boyfriend about the mouse situation. I put poison in some peanut butter and left it out for the mice.”

    I was still mad. “Then why were you whispering?”

    “Because I didn’t want everyone to know that they were partying an a mouse infected house.”

    I felt hot with embarrassment. “Oh…”

    Lights and sirens came from outside as Rhena entered the house, along with about ten policemen. I chuckled with embarrassment as Rhena called to me, “I called the police, like ya’ asked me to!”

    I could feel everyone glaring at me as I rubbed my neck, chuckled, and looked away. “Hehehe…”