My friend Mariane was the first to see them. She said she was quite intrigued and she came straight to tell me.
Vernon was hot, all the girls thought so. Abilene was quite strangely pretty. She had red lips, dark brown hair and yellowish eyes, like a cat.
At first I thought that they were together. But they were brother and sister and that made me glad.
They were new to town. Their aunt was opening a café here. We were quite glad, because our little town had only two public eating places, and we were getting bored.
Mariane and I decided to befriend Abilene. Partly because she seemed pretty lonely, and partly because her brother was awfully good-looking.
She turned out to be quite friendly and kind of sweet. She invited us to visit her house after school. Mariane and I were quite enthusiastic, because that meant seeing Vernon.
The 'house' was above the café so we had to use a stairs to go up. The staircase was quite dark and it smelled of wet dog.
"I'm so sorry about the smell." Abilene said. "My aunt likes to dry things in here." We said that it was okay and we went to Abilene's room.
It was a very small room, because each family member liked to have their space. Mariane and I stood around, not knowing where to sit.
Abilene dropped her bag on her bed and sat on the floor. Mariane and I sat down too and we looked around awkwardly.
Then, "Hey you girls want to try one of my aunt's recipes? They're really good." Abilene looked at us expectantly.
I panicked. I wasn't hungry, but I didn't want to seem rude. I looked at Mariane. She pursed her lips. "All right, but we're still kind of full from lunch."
Abilene shrugged. "That's okay. C'mon." She rushed out and Mariane and I followed. Abilene led us downstairs into a narrow hallway.
"Aunt Francesca! Aunt Francesca!" Abilene shouted. My ears stung from her roar. Mariane giggled. A figure emerged from a cupboard.
I gasped. I couldn't help it. Aunt Francesca was a sight to behold. She was tall and skinny with dark red lips and orange hair. She was wearing a fuchsia dress and purple platforms. I shuddered.
"Why hello!" Aunt Francesca said, red lips parting into a smile. "Hello." I squeaked. Mariane waved, obviously speechless.
"These are my friends, Mariane and Louisa. We go to the same school." Abilene said. Aunt Francesca grinned a big red grin.
"Fabulous, my darling. How do you do, ladies?" Aunt Francesca peered at our faces. She smelled like cabbage.
"Fine." I gulped. Mariane nodded. Aunt Francesca laughed and moved away. Abilene rolled her eyes and walked to a big yellow door.
"Follow me." she said. "Aunt Francesca has made some cake. Would you like some? It's absolutely gorgeous." I turned to look at Aunt Francesca. She was nodding furiously.
"All right." Mariane said. I nodded. We went through the yellow door which led to the kitchen. It was bright and colourful. Aunt Francesca went to the fridge and pulled out a container.
"Here we are ladies." Aunt Francesca opened the container and pulled out a cake. It had purple frosting and brilliant blue sweets all over.
Aunt Francesca cut slices for us and squirted lovely big puffs of whipped cream on top. It looked and smelled wonderful.
Abilene gave us forks and and she started to eat. "What flavour is this?" Mariane asked politely. Aunt Francesca smiled at us. "Blueberry Violet." she said, putting the cake back into the container.
"You mean the flower?" I asked. Abilene laughed. "Yeah! It's really good." I shrugged and took a forkful.
"It's delicious." Mariane said, showing purple teeth. I tasted the cake. It was absolutely wonderful. The cake was so soft and fluffy.
"It is lovely." I agreed. Then I felt something in my mouth. It was soft, like the cake, but it was sort of furry. Was it a petal? Making sure no one was looking, I spat it out.
What I saw gave me a stomach ache. What in the world was this? It looked like a piece of clumped fur. I touched it and shivers ran up my spine. I sniffed it and wrinkled my nose.
"Something wrong, Louisa?" Aunt Francesca asked. Should I tell her? I wondered. I looked up at her. She looked dangerous. "Nothing, nothing at all." I said.
By now I had lost my appetite. Should I continue eating the cake? I looked at Aunt Francesca again. She was chopping a piece of meat with a large cleaver.
I forced the cake down my throat. It now felt like glue, a sweet sticky painful glue. When it was finally in my stomach, I felt like throwing up.
I looked at my watch. "I think I have to go now." I said. I hadn't seen Vernon at all, but I didn't care. I wanted to escape. My stomach was queasy.
Aunt Francesca's face fell. "That's a pity. I was going to make some soup." I shook my head. "I'm sorry. But I really have to go." I made my way to the door.
I put my hand on the handle and turned it. "NO!" Aunt Francesca screamed. I jumped. Aunt Francesca ran over to me and smiled apologetically.
"I'm sorry. That's the pantry. The back door is here." She opened the door and I went out.
"Bye dear. Come again soon." Aunt Francesca waved and I ran home, throwing up on the way.
Many days passed before I would allow myself to visit Abilene again. It was the opening of the café, and Mariane had pleaded with me to come.
Almost everyone in town showed up for the grand opening. When the ceremony was over, everyone was given a complimentary dish for the day.
The food was fabulous. I was so happy that I didn't find any clumps of hair in my soup.
Later, as the adults talked, the teenagers went out to hang. Mariane and I were really glad to see Vernon. He was soooooo hot.
Mariane and I liked to sneak looks at him and then giggle like a couple of babies. The only bad thing was that Vernon was always flirting with Gail Andrews, a random girl in town that no one had really noticed before.
Up until now I hadn't noticed how pretty she was. No wonder Vernon liked her. Mariane and I were pretty jealous about it though.
The next day, adults were exclaiming about how great the food was in Aunt Francesca's café. In school, students were talking about how Vernon and Gail Andrews were together.
A lot of the girls were quite upset to hear this, including Mariane and me. Hot, beautiful, gorgeous Vernon was going out with invisible Gail Andrews?
All the girls decided to drown their sorrows in ice cream sundaes in Aunt Francesca's café. We agonized over the loss of another hot guy to some stupid girl.
We ate and ate, determined to gain weight and be sad forever. When everyone had finished their sundaes, we all went home, feeling better.
The next week, we found out that Vernon had dumped Gail Andrews and he was now dating the most popular girl in school, Katie Grey.
Gail Andrews came with us to Aunt Francesca's café and we drowned her sorrows in hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows on top.
"Stupid Katie Grey stole Vernon from me!" Gail Andrews wailed. We commiserated with her and then we went home, feeling angry with Katie Grey.
All the girls wanted Vernon. Abilene always rolled her eyes when we mentioned him. "He's just a stupid mindless boy." she said.
But that made us like him more. It made us feel sorry for him, for having such an unkind sister. We all wanted to be the girl in his life.
One day, when we found out that Vernon was onto girl number 6, Laura Finch, we decided to go visit our cry café and eat some chocolate cake and maybe have some bacon sandwiches with extra fat.
On the way there, I met Abilene carrying a box. I stopped to talk to her.
"Hi Abby." I said.
"Hey Louisa." she said.
"What do you have in your box?" I asked.
"Oh, um I found some kittens at the side of the road and uh decided to save them."
"Oh that's sweet. May I see them?"
Abilene nodded and opened the box, revealing six adorable kittens, mewing noisily. I gasped in amazement and stroked an orange, yellow and white kitten's head.
"Oh, may I have this one?" I asked. "It's soooooooo cute!" Abilene looked at me doubtfully. "Will your parents allow you to keep it?"
I nodded madly. "Yes yes yes!! Please, Abilene." I petted the tiny kitten's head. Abilene thought for a while.
"Alright." she said. "You may take it." She smiled at me.
"Oh thank you thank you thank you! This is wonderful, Abby." I picked the kitten up and stroked it.
"Could you please tell the other girls that I'm going home? Thanks Abby." Abilene nodded and we parted ways.
I walked home, gently stroking the kitten. It was beautiful, beautiful. I named it Abby, after Abilene. I was so happy! I knew Mam and Pa would allow me to keep it.
The next day at school, I asked Abilene if Mariane and I may go to see her kittens. Abilene looked at the floor and didn't say anything.
"Oh, sorry. We're not going to take any. We just want to see them. May we, please?" Abilene shook her head.
"They, uh died." she said softly. "Oh no! That's horrible!" I said. "Oh, I'm sorry, Abby. I didn't know. I'm so sorry." I patted her on the back and she nodded.
We decided to go to our cry café and go have some chocolate sandwiches. We ate and talked and soon we started talking about other things and we felt better.
Soon, the year passed. Abilene, Mariane and I were all best friends. Life was pretty good. Vernon was now a notorious heart breaker.
We all thought him evil and horrible. One girl had actually been found dead a few days after we had visited our cry café to lament over the dangerous and hypnotizing boy. We all supposed that chocolate couldn't even mend her broken heart.
As for me, I stayed away from him as much as I could.
One day, a got a phone call from Mariane. "Vernon asked me out!" she squealed. "Are you serious?" I was absolutely shocked.
"Please tell me you said no." I said. Mariane giggled. "Of course I said yes. He is soooooooo cute!" I was shocked. How could Mariane do this? Didn't she know the evils of dating Vernon?
The next few days were awful. Vernon and Mariane were going out? I couldn't sleep. He was going to hurt Mariane, I knew it.
A week went by, then two. Mariane was gushing about how Vernon was taking her to the school dance. I was horrified. Mariane had been my best friend for years and years. I didn't want to see her hurt.
Then, the expected happened. Just a day before the dance, Vernon dumped Mariane. Mariane cried and sobbed and wept and bawled and screamed.
I kind of felt sorry for Mariane and so I took her to our cry café. We ate lots of chocolate and cream and smack-talked Vernon. Then we went home quite satisfied.
As I was doing my homework that night, I received a phone call.
"Hello?"
"Hello, may I speak to Louisa?"
"Ye-es, this is she. Who is this, please?"
"It's Vernon, Abilene's brother."
SHOCK!!
"Yes, what do you want?" I asked coldly.
"I was wondering, um, doyouwanttogotothedancewithme?"
"Excuse me?"
"Do you want to go to the dance with me?"
"No."
"Please? I really like you."
"No."
"Why not, Louisa? You're usually so nice."
"Are you seriously asking that question?"
"What? I'm just asking you to the dance."
"You're sick."
"Huh? How?"
"Don't act so innocent. Leave me alone, please."
"But--"
"Goodnight, Vernon."
I hung up. What did he take me for? I gritted my teeth and forced my mind away from him.
The next day, I went to the dance with Mariane and we observed the dancers and couples. I saw Vernon dancing with Francine Moore. He was talking and she was giggling flirtatiously.
"What a freak." I muttered.
The day after, Abilene wasn't at school. I was wondering why the whole day. She didn't answer my calls and her house appeared to have visitors. Hmm...
I puzzled over it until I saw the newspapers the next day.
A certain café had been shut down after being inspected due to suspicious activity. Apparently, instead of using normal ingredients, they had been killing various other animals for meat, such as cats and dogs because they were cheaper.
At a recent health inspection, carcasses of kittens, dogs, mice, goldfish, and various birds were found in the storage. It was said that the various animal furs and feathers had sweet and delicate tastes, enhancing the flavours of cakes, beverages and ice cream.
The café had been closed down because of hygienic and health reasons. "Some people could've actually died, because of the chemicals used to slaughter these animals." Inspector Percy Holiday said.
Suddenly, it all came back to me. The hair in my cake, the wet dog smell in the hallway, the door in the kitchen, the girl dying, the kittens in the box. I felt sick.
All these weeks, I had been consuming-- pets. I gagged and ran to throw up.
I knew I was never going to feel the same again. I couldn't believe I actually befriended Abilene and used to have a crush on Vernon.
Now, people tell the story of the brother and sister who came to our town long ago to anyone willing to listen.
"We first saw them in school. Vernon and Abilene, they were called..."
