Alice and I went back into the family room and sat together on an armchair. Peter and Linda were talking about the cost of parking in Limerick, compared to Dublin and Cork. If they kept on like this I was sure I’d get so bored I’d fall fast asleep. (And with a bit of luck, I might sleep so long that when I woke up this totally awful night would be over.)
Soon Peter started to seem restless. He was jiggling his feet, and re-arranging himself on the couch. He opened and re-tied his shoelaces three times, and twice he took off his watch and put it back on again.
Linda didn’t seem very happy either. She was fiddling with her glass, running her finger around the rim making it hum softly.
Besides the orange juice, the toilet paper, the shower-curtain-mould-cleaner, and the cost of parking in every city in the western world, they’d talked about the weather, tennis, gardening, and then the weather again.
Finally Peter sniffed the air like a puppy-dog trying to find something it had lost. Luckily there was still a strong smell of rashers and sausages.
‘Something smells nice,’ he said.
‘That’ll be dinner,’ said Linda. ‘Alice and Megan are cooking tonight.’
‘Yum,’ Peter said. ‘I can’t wait. I’m so hungry you wouldn’t believe it.’
Linda gave him a funny look.
He smiled at her.
‘I haven’t eaten since lunchtime – I’ve been saving myself. Don’t tell me what we’re having – I want it to be a surprise.’
Now Linda looked really puzzled. She gave me another what’s going on? look. Suddenly Linda reminded me a bit of my mum – a thought so scary that I had to jump up and race back into the kitchen, where she couldn’t see me. Alice raced after me, and as we went I could hear Linda’s voice behind us.
‘Peter … would you … er … I mean maybe … what I’m trying to say is … would you like to stay for something to eat?’
Peter’s ‘yes’ sounded very strange and quiet. The poor man must have been totally confused. As far as he knew, he’d been invited for dinner since earlier in the day, so why on earth would Linda be asking him again? Still, he’d been Alice’s dad for over twelve years by now, so if he had any sense he’d have figured out that she must have had something to do with whatever was going on.
Anyway, I didn’t have time to worry too much about it, as Alice grabbed me and gave me a high-five that made the palm of my hand sting like crazy.
‘Told you,’ she hissed. ‘Told you they’d crack. Now let’s get dinner served before they cop on. You go in and call them.’
I went back into the family room. Linda looked very cross.
‘I think I need to have a word with you, Megan,’ she said.
‘Sure,’ I said, trying not to sound scared. ‘Maybe later though, I’m kind of busy right now.’
Linda took a long, deep breath. She looked crosser than I had ever seen her before.
‘Now is good for me,’ she said.
I couldn’t think what to say, so I pretended I hadn’t heard her.
‘May I show you to your table?’ I said.
By now both Linda and Peter were looking like there was something very fishy going on, but neither of them said anything – they just got up and followed me into the dining room.
I know we weren’t planning to kill anyone or anything, but all of a sudden I felt like what Alice and I were doing was very wrong. I tried to look brave as I waved Linda and Peter to the table, but my hand was shaking so much it spoiled the effect a bit.
Both adults looked at the table, so beautifully set for two, and they spoke at once. ‘Why aren’t you girls eating?’ they said – almost like they’d been practising.
I had actually been rehearsing the answer to this, but my words didn’t come out as smoothly and as easily as theirs had.
‘Er, I mean… Em… actually… well… you see… Alice and I were really hungry, and with all the food around we couldn’t resist… so we ate earlier, and Rosie was tired so we fed her too and put her to bed … … so it’s just you two now.’
Peter and Linda looked at me like I was totally crazy, but at least they sat down without asking any more awkward questions.
Just then Alice came in carrying the plates of salad. She put one in front of each adult.
‘My speciality,’ she said. ‘Salad á la rashers and sausages. Eat up before it gets cold…er.’
Linda and Peter didn’t look very impressed, and I didn’t blame them. The lettuce had gone all limp and floppy, and the rashers and sausages were covered in thick, white grease. Still, they obediently picked up their knives and forks.
Alice and I went back into the kitchen, but we lurked near the doorway and listened as our guests ate. For a few minutes all I could hear was the scraping of cutlery, and the squeaky sound of soggy lettuce being chewed – not very pleasant sounds, but at least it meant things were going sort of OK.
Just then there was a sudden, horrible shriek.
‘Euuuurgh! What is it? It’s so disgusting. Get it away from me!’
Alice and I ran back into the room. Linda had jumped up and away from the table, and was cowering in the corner like there was a monster in the room. Peter was poking at the remains of her salad. Finally he found what he was looking for.
‘It’s just a slug,’ he said.
‘Just a slug,’ repeated Linda in a high-pitched voice. ‘There’s no such thing as “just a slug”. It’s revolting.’
Peter spoke softly.
‘Well, it’s not particularly pleasant, I’ll admit that. But it won’t hurt you. Slugs are perfectly harmless creatures. Anyway, there’s only one thing worse than finding a slug in your dinner.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Linda.
Peter laughed.
‘Finding half a slug.’
Linda wiped her mouth frantically with the back of her hand, but she did give a small giggle, which vanished quickly as Peter poked a bit more and said,
‘Oh dear, speaking of half-slugs….’
Linda looked like she was going to faint.
‘I’m joking!’ said Peter, but she didn’t seem to hear him.
She grabbed a serviette and used it to wipe her tongue, saying stuff like ‘grossest thing ever’ and ‘I’ll have nightmares about this for weeks.’
Alice raced over and grabbed both salad plates.
‘Well, that’s starters finished. Please take your places again, and main course will be here before you know it.’
Linda sat back at the table without saying another word. She was a bit pale. I wondered if she was in shock. (If I was really a Guide, I’d probably have known about that kind of stuff, but since I wasn’t, I decided to ignore it.)
Back in the kitchen, Alice dumped the salad and slug remains in the bin, then turned to me.
‘OK. So you were right again,’ she said. ‘Maybe we should have washed the lettuce. We’ll know better the next time.’
I made a face.
‘There won’t be a next time, Alice. I can promise you that.’
Alice shrugged.
‘Whatever. We haven’t time to go into that now. Let’s forget all about those stupid salads and move on. Now it’s time to put the lasagne in the micro––.’
She stopped and slapped the palm of her hand to her head.
‘But of course you don’t have a microwave, do you?’
I shook my head.
‘Not the last time I checked.’
Alice grabbed the lasagne packets and headed for the back door.
‘I’ll have to run home to heat these up. I’ll be as quick as I can. You just go in there and keep them entertained, and whatever happens, don’t let them find out that this is a set up.’
Alice was gone for ages. I tried every topic of conversation I could think of (including shower-curtain cleaners), but everything seemed to end after one or two sentences. Peter kept looking at his watch and saying how late it was getting, and Linda had a strange look on her face that I couldn’t make any sense of.
In the end, out of desperation, I went to my schoolbag, got my tin whistle and my book of songs and started to play. At first Peter and Linda seemed interested. They tapped their feet, and they even clapped at the end of the first two tunes.
By the third tune, their smiles weren’t quite as bright and the foot tapping had come to a sudden end.
By the time I heard Alice coming in the back door, I was on the tenth and last tune in my songbook. (That’s ‘Edelweiss’, and it’s really hard.) I kept missing notes, and making mistakes. When I got to the end of the song, there were plenty of scuffling noises from the kitchen, but still Alice hadn’t appeared. Linda was trying to hide a yawn, and Peter looked as if he had fallen asleep. I decided I’d better play the chorus again.
I was playing the chorus to ‘Edelweiss’ for the fifth time when Alice finally appeared, holding two plates.
‘It’s an awful cheat,’ she whispered as she went past. ‘These lasagnes are a lot smaller than they look on the packet.’
She was right. Each one looked about the right size to fill up a not-very-hungry baby hamster, (who hadn’t had a slug and salad starter).
Alice dropped a plate in front of each of our guests. Linda and Peter both brightened up at the sight of the food, so I escaped into the kitchen for a while to catch my breath.
It was turning into a very, very long night.