Dinner at the Watermans

The glasses clattered on the tray I was trying to balance. My jittery steps threatened the lives of ten vessels, each one veering to the left and right like drunken stowaways. These glasses, kept prisoner, were determined to fall off and escape. Like any good sea voyage story, someone had to throw themselves overboard.

I had just managed to prevent accidental dining death by involuntary tray suicide when Michael burst into the room. I heard a tiny mew escape my lips as I watched ten drunken sailors fall to their parquet death.

“Oh god, sorry…I’m so sorry,” I heard him splutter.

I stood for a few minutes, staring at the shards of crystal splayed out on the floor. The contents of each glass made up approximately ten-fifths of my lousy server’s salary. I was in for a poor month. As I crouched on the floor, trying to pick up the dismembered bodies of my crew, Mrs Waterman swept in, her powdery stench engulfing the scene. I kept my head down, waiting for the inevitable.

“Janice Walters, we meet again. It was last year’s Waterman Fest when I last found you, mopping up cranberry blood off the floor, I believe?”

The salty wash of tears down my cheeks dribbled onto my lip. I didn’t look up.

“Michael, could you please call the catering company and ask them for a replacement? Not of the glasses, you ignorant fool. Of this graceful specimen staining my floor with her blubbing.”

“Mom, it was my fault. Janice, please stop crying. Get off the floor and come into the kitchen.”

Every year, the Waterman family hosts their traditional Waterman buffet extravaganza. Every single year, I force myself into my scratchy white shirt and cheap polycotton trousers and grovel for the few cents I’m allowed to earn at these dinner parties.

I am an Ulid.

In this place, we have three clashes of being. Wellids, Halflids and Ulids. You can guess the pecking order. Born into an Ulid household, I had no chance of becoming wealthy, recognised or even acknowledged by a Wellid.

The Watermans, the most famous Wellids in our atmosphere, were tanked in cash. The dinner party was their yearly “Look how rich we are” family fiesta. No expenses spared. Carved flesh sculptures, ice mountains flowing with the preferred tangerine hooch these cretins got pissed on and a dessert fire. Sugar spirals set alight and shaped into candies resembling animals, boats, houses – the artistry was increasingly monstrous at each event.

Michael grabbed my arm and tugged me back into the kitchen, where I was safe from the Waterman haze for a few minutes. He nodded at the book resting on the kitchen counter, held up four fingers and walked back out, grabbing a sugar spun insect on the way out. I shuffled over to the counter, flipped to page four and found a small transparent packet of blue powder cowering in between the pages.

He couldn’t be serious.

I grabbed it, tucked it in my trouser pocket, wiped my face in the mirror and went back out to hack off bits of sculptured flesh for the party guests. I retched at the smell of carved watermelon pork. Ulids only eat what is left behind after the stores are raided by Wellids and Halflids. This means a largely vegan diet, peppered only with the occasional egg or leftover cheese. We become expert mould scrapers by age 3.

As I waited for the next flesh hungry guest to come to my station, Mr Waterman sidled over and slid his hand on my waist, winking at me.

“It’s OK, love, you know how to make up the extra cash. Same as every year.”

I tried to smile, but the look of abject disgust made me look like I’d had a stroke. Every year, Mr Waterman expected “favours” from unfortunate Ulid server girls. Not this year. I patted my trouser pocket fondly. I knew what I had to do. This year would be the dinner party to top all Waterman dinner parties.

The evening wore on and the party guests became rowdier. Buckets of vile smelling tangerine liquid were shipped in and poured down the throats of Wellid women. The drunken smiles on everyone’s face meant trouble was coming.

We expected the annual family fight any minute now. Michael looked at me with a sense of urgency. I skipped out the room, strode to the dessert station, grabbed the packet of powder out of my pocket and emptied it into the sugar funnel. Javon, the dessert station manager, gave me a tense smile, grabbed a ladle and stirred the powder into the caramelly goo. It dissolved quickly, leaving no trace of colour.

We grabbed the trolley and wheeled it into the centre of the dining hall. The 80-odd men and women crowded around us, shouting out names of creatures they wanted to eat.

“Sugar moose!”

“Sugar tower!”

“Sugar Ulid!”

The violence with which the word “Ulid” was hurled out made me wince. We were weevils in their sugary mess. We had no rights, no recognition and no way to protect ourselves against their laws. Except now.

Javon pulled the ceremonial twirler out of the fire and with a count of “eh, hoe, ehl!”, twisted and whirled a moose out of the spinning caramel flying everywhere. As it took shape, the gasps and squeals from the audience became louder as the final antlers set into caramel stone.

Mrs Waterman was always the first to receive her sugar demands. Her bulging waistline threatened her dresses each year and each year they survived her greed. She stood in the centre of the hall, ready to address the crowd. I inhaled sharply, not wishing to stay.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Wellids and well, family Halflids, who I let in because we let you treat us for maladies, I present to you this year’s first sugar creature, the Moose. May it bring us prosperity, more wealth and an even more opulent party over the next 12 moons!’

She opened her foul jaws, exposing her green tongue and fetid yellow teeth, and took a huge bite of the antler in front of her. Clacking her teeth together, she chewed and slavered, her slobbery jaw dripping gobs of saliva over her chins.

We watched, transfixed, as her face changed colour. The putrid green mottled as patches of blue appeared, first on her forehead, then her cheeks then finally her lips. Her body turned a shade of deep indigo. The powder only took 30 seconds to work. A pig of a man to her left squealed when he realised what was happening.

“ARAASSHAAAA!!!!”

The crowd of people in the dining hall ran towards the exit doors. They couldn’t go to the server’s entrance for fear of being touched by an Ulid. The crush of people trying to get through one door halted immediately when the guests saw that the door had been barred from the outside.

Arasha. A toxic tuber grown in the Ulid squats, when ingested as a powder, will first turn skin blue. As the poison makes its way into the gut, the body bubbles from the inside. The final reaction of the undetectable Ulid treasure causes an internal explosion. When someone explodes, their flesh splatters anyone in a 5-mile radius, causing a chain reaction of blue slaughter.

Growing up in the squats means immortality for an Ulid. We’re exposed to the tubers from Day 0. We are forced to eat them when we have nothing else to eat. Our mothers build up our immunity the day we are born. Blue splatters are the only way we can protect ourselves. Arasha is a banned substance, but no one comes into the squats. We are untouchable in every way.

I winked at Michael. We’d been feeding him tubers since he was a baby. The Ulids knew their time would come and they needed a Wellid to save them from their lives of slavery. Michael was it. We ran to the server’s door, shoved it open and hid as the room became a blue warzone of exploding Wellid. Javon doubled over, heaving in disgust. Michael slid down the wall, staring blankly at me. I slammed the door shut and latched it, preventing anyone from trying to escape the melee.

“You knew damn well this day was coming, Michael. Please do not sit there and stare at me like I’m some savage!”

Michael gazed at me for two seconds then giggled. He laughed louder, donkey braying until he couldn’t breathe. I joined in, wiping the tears off my cheeks with balled fists. Javon stopped hurling and howled. After 5 minutes of untameable cackles, we stood up, dusted ourselves off and walked back into the kitchen.

“Nothing quite like a family dinner, eh?” I smirked.

“Dear Janice, nothing quite like saving the human race,” Javon grinned.

We raced out of the house and into our van, dreaming of how our lives could change.