The Bird Land Big Band took a break. The dancers, red faced and perspiring, headed for the punch bowl.
Whatever they were smiling about, Throckmorton didn’t want to see. Whatever they were laughing about, he didn’t want to hear.
He wanted Annaliese to come back—now!
That’s all he wanted; his yearning was like a terrible thirst.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar finger hooked Throckmorton’s ear.
A split second later, a woman (who he realized was Annaliese’s Aunt Prudence) pulled the chair out from under him. Suspended in air, Throckmorton watched one of Cupid’s tulle wings fall to the floor.
Aunt Prudence marched across the empty dance floor and set the small chair, with Throckmorton in it, against the wall. From the sidelines, he watched with disbelief as, one by one, the sock-monkey-sized tables were cleared, dismantled, and carried away.
Soon, a single row of forty-one sock monkeys lined the far wall. Apparently the dancers wanted more room to dance. The sock monkeys were in the way.
Fortunately, Throckmorton, Ebenezer, and Miss Beatrice were set upright in chairs right next to one another.
Other sock monkeys were less fortunate. Sir Rudyard lay on his back, splayed across Dame Lorraine’s lap. Captain Eugene’s face was wedged between his knees. His captain’s hat and Dame Lorraine’s mink stole had fallen to the floor.
“Look over there,” said Miss Beatrice sadly.
Piled in the corner were the eight phony sock monkeys, ditched by their thoughtless keepers. Now Throckmorton wished that he’d been a little nicer to his former tablemates.
A short while later, Aunt Priscilla and Aunt Pansy walked past.
“I’m afraid this party is getting a little out of hand,” Aunt Priscilla complained.
Aunt Pansy flashed a cold smile at a loud bunch gathered around the punch bowl. “Those Midwesterners—they’re not as dull as I thought.”
Meanwhile, up and down the long row of sock monkeys, their anger gathered like thunder clouds before a storm.
Throckmorton’s wrath was the first to erupt. “Where’s Great-Grandmama?” he shouted. “I demand to know why we’re being treated like—like—second fiddles!”
“Shush,” cautioned Miss Beatrice. “The humans might hear you!”
“I don’t care!” he shouted even more loudly.
“We’re the guests of honor!” Dame Lorraine shrieked at the dancers. “You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for us.”
Bolstered by his cousins’ bravery, Captain Eugene cursed the mortals. “Avast! Ye scallywags! Ye scurvy dogs!”
But alas, no matter how bitterly the sock monkeys mumbled or how loudly they grumbled, their voices weren’t heard. All their years of silence in the presence of humans had been unnecessary.
Throckmorton was at the end of his rope.
Why should hand-sewn sock monkeys listen to keepers who never listened to them?
Time crept on.
Planted like wallflowers, the sock monkeys watched and waited.
Sometime later, a woman wearing a white chef’s hat rolled a large serving cart with wheels onto the stage. On the cart stood a monstrous, majestic three-tier cake, dotted with candles and decorated with swells of white frosting, red hearts, and pink roses.
Great-Grandmama’s descendants surged toward the stage.
The band played the first few bars of the Happy Birthday song, hoping to coax the ninety-year-old birthday girl to come forward.
But Great-Grandmama failed to appear.
“Throckmorton, there’s no other explanation. Something’s happened to her,” said Miss Beatrice. “I’m really quite worried.”
Throckmorton agreed.
Something had happened.
Something bad.
Rumors skipped up and down Sock Monkey Row: I saw Uncle Fred spike the punch . . . No, I saw Aunt Prudence spike the punch . . . No, it was Cousin Willy . . . Great-Grandmama must have drunk too much punch . . . Uncle Ray put poison in the punch . . . and so on and so forth.
Evan and two of his cousins appeared now and filled the space right in front of Throckmorton’s face.
“I’m not kidding,” Evan asserted, too loud for Throckmorton not to hear. “That’s what Annaliese told Teddy.”
“I don’t believe you,” said the taller of the two cousins.
“She saw the diamond with her own eyes,” Evan insisted. “It was huge!” He moved his finger up, down, and across his breastbone. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Throckmorton’s heart raced.
Annaliese must have spilled the secret about the diamond she’d placed in Ebenezer’s heart. Had she also confessed that their mother, Olivia, was intended to receive Ebenezer?
Throckmorton strained to hear more.
“Evan could be right,” said the shorter cousin. “Didn’t you hear what Great-Grandmama said? The sock monkeys are going to make us rich!”
Evan smirked. “See . . . that’s what I’ve been telling you.”
The human cousins exchanged conspiratorial glances.
With arms spread across one another’s shoulders, the three boys headed back to the punch bowl.
“Wait until I tell my dad,” the tall boy told Evan.
“You’d better not,” Evan warned. “Remember: It’s a secret.”