Bloodsuckers and Blunders

by Poppy Inkwell

  Ignore the cavernous basement which resembles a scientific laboratory, truffle oil and sea jelly beans barely visible through a miasma of scented dry ice.

  Ignore the rooftop garden from which you can observe street art being created on Surry Hill’s warehouse walls.

  Ignore Sofia’s brothers and their bedrooms of rolled up socks and boxer shorts forgotten under beds.

  What we’re really here to see is Sofia’s bedroom. Entering the room is like diving into a gypsy caravan. Your first impression is of rich reds, blues, and gold. Things tinkle as you brush past. The air is heavy with incense that is clearing the air of negativity as we speak. The girls leap onto Sofia’s queen-size bed which is smothered in satin throws with velvet trim, crocheted blankets and hand-stitched cushions in brocade. It is like being swallowed by a bejeweled marshmallow. Lucky talismans litter every surface. Good luck statues cavort on a nearby shelf. The only thing missing is a crystal ball.

  The room is a far cry from the cupboard under the stairs where Sofia used to sleep, a bedroom she inherited from her oldest brother. Sofia’s new room is everything you’d expect from a person who wears lucky amulets, rubs Buddha bellies when worried, or consults the stars for glimpses of the future. Still, Alana half-expects to see a whiteboard somewhere, filled with indecipherable equations, because apart from being a devout believer in all things Alternative, Sofia is also incredibly gifted in math and the hard sciences. That’s why she and Miller, a friend of Alana’s from last year, take extra classes with Mr. Hornby. Mr. Hornby with his warm, brown eyes and permanently flushed cheeks is the first person to have swept away Sofia’s fear of numbers. Since then, Sofia has never looked back.

  “I don’t need a whiteboard, silly, I use my head!”

  It is the kind of comment that makes Miller weak at the knees.

  As the four girls inspect Sofia’s room, Emma is carrying out her own inspection. Luca Luciano is trying to remain calm as she does this. He repeats the mantra from last week’s yoga session silently in his head. He wants to close his eyes to block distractions but worries he will be unable to see what Emma is doing next. As it is, he misses his wife, Nicolette’s, frantic hand signals. The kind of gestures that say: “Behind you! The knife! She has a knife!”

  Only it is not a knife.

  It is something much worse.

  It is a hand drill.

  Imagine the next scene in slow motion. Emma reaching out to secure a screw which rises from the wall’s surface, like a pimple begging to be squeezed. Luca’s arm stretching up toward Emma’s hand drill with an hysterical: “Noooooo!” Emma’s toes gripping her high heels as she gauges the distance with one eye closed, and an overly-optimistic: “Almost there.” Nicolette’s hands as they rush to cover her mouth, and the squeal of: “Watch out, Luca!” as he dives down and away from the spinning power tool. The spinning power tool which Emma drops as she clutches air and tumbles down the stairs...

  I didn’t mention the stairs.

  There are a lot of them.

  One for every fracture in Luca’s body when he cushions Emma’s fall.

  CHAPTER 19

  Law and disorder

  Alana’s experience with hospitals had never been good. Not the quality of care, of course, which was always impeccable. But she knew she’d been too often when ward orderlies knew her name, emergency room staff greeted her with a: “What happened this time?”, and medical staff gave her mom suspicious glances. That’s what happens when you have a mom who likes to Think Big every birthday. Thanks to Luca, Emma only suffered light bruising. Luca Luciano, however, was wheeled away on a stretcher, his body bent at awkward angles like a wooden push puppet with extra joins. Mr. Luciano was yelling and screaming and possibly kicking, although it was hard to tell. When they next saw him he was much more subdued, largely because of the body cast that included a head brace immobilizing his jaw and a decent dose of morphine. His similarity to the resident patients in Nurse Cathy’s clinic sent a shudder through Alana and her friends.

  The doctor left strict instructions that Mr. Luciano receive only two visitors at a time. Emma took the opportunity to slip away to find the perfect gift to say sorry. It was all her fault! She should never have worn those heels. She felt terrible! The hospital was decorated with children’s drawings of brightly colored eggs and spring flowers, reminding Emma that Easter was around the corner. As if to confirm it, a life-sized bunny bounced along the corridor leading a noisy rabble of young patients. At second glance, Emma realized the children were chasing the mascot with ferocious intent. Emma cocked her head. There was something familiar about that rabbit...

  “Boris?”

  The bunny rabbit screeched to a halt and jumped back to cower behind her. The group of angry children threatened to overwhelm them both. Emma shook her head. There could only be one reason why a group of under-9s were baying for blood.

  “Okay. Hand them over,” she said.

  Former Second-Chancer and now Boris-the-Easter-Bunny threw the contents of his brightly-colored basket into the air. A shower of chocolate eggs rained down to the children’s delight. Boris snatched up a decorated egg in pink foil. Emma took it from his oversized paw to give to a child, only to be rewarded with a sharp kick in the shins. The pint-sized lynch mob let out a cry and shook their chocolate treasures in the air before retreating, victorious, to their ward.

  “A bunny, Boris?” she began, hopping and rubbing her sore leg. She was unable to continue her when-I-said-you-should-find-your-gift-in-life-and-use-it-for-the-benefit-of-others-I-didn’t-mean-this lecture, because who should round the corner but the same woman who had lectured Emma on the same day, one year ago. Only her lecture had sounded more like, “Stay away, Ms. Oakley, and KEEP away.”

  Judge Debnham!

  Even though Boris was in full-body costume, and it was unlikely the judge would be able to tell she was in violation of keeping away from the former Second-Chancers, Emma wasn’t risking it. Emma spun around and away from the click, click, click of Debnham’s sensible heels into the first door she came to (Room 38A) and slammed it behind her. Boris, not quite giving up on free chocolate, bounded off in the opposite direction.

  Emma’s heart raced as she watched Judge Debnham click, click, click past her from the safety of the glass window embedded in the door. She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes. In ten minutes it should be safe to run to the gift shop and back upstairs to Luca. But a closer look at her watch made her realize that in ten minutes the gift shop would be closed. Drat!

  For the first time since entering it, Emma looked around the room she had escaped into. It was a standard hospital room in a private ward. TV mounted in the corner, large windows, white walls, peach-colored synthetic blinds, hospital bed, white bedsheet covering patient, and a container of enormous, yellow, get-well flowers on the bedside table...

  Exactly ten minutes later, Emma Oakley, using the vase of sunflowers courtesy of Room 38A (conveniently deceased) as cover, scurried to Room 47B where Luca Luciano was lying - arms and legs suspended in midair like a broken marionette doll. Visiting hours were over. The Luciano family had gone.

  Luca’s eyes, the only part of his body he could move, stretched wide at the sight of her.

  “Luca, I’m so sorry, terribly sorry. These stupid heels,” Emma said, grimacing at the offending shoes. “I brought you a present, though -” and with a flourish, revealed the cheerful blooms. Luca’s reaction was an eye-popping series of grunts that she mistook for excitement. “Aww, I know. They’re beautiful, aren’t they?”

  Grunt, grunt, grunt.

  “I’ll put them close by so they can be the last thing you see at night, and the first thing you see in the morning,” Emma said, shoving the flowers into his face so he could get a really good whiff, before placing them on his bedside table.

  Squeal!

  Exactly three minutes later - after Alana collected her mother from the room like an errant runaway, griping about visiting hours and Mr. Luciano needing rest
- the sneezing began. Violent sneezes that racked Luca Luciano’s body and made his body spasm in agonizing fits and starts.

  Emma’s gift would have been perfect if only Luca Luciano hadn’t a severe allergy to one Helianthus annuus.

  Common name: Sunflower.

  CHAPTER 20

  A truth stranger than fiction

  The upshot of Luca Luciano’s injury was that the opening of his new restaurant had to be delayed. But delays cost money. The move cost money. Renovations cost money. Daily living costs money. And the hospital cost money too. Thus against Dr. Nicolette Luciano’s better judgement, and without her husband’s knowledge, the new restaurant opened in secret, and its reputation, like all good secrets, spread like wildfire.

  Brothers was the new restaurant’s unofficial name. It swiftly became the hip hangout after a hard night clubbing. Celebrities snuck in through side doors and enjoyed intimate dinners and late night snacks. The Young and Beautiful disappeared behind the smoky glass famished and reappeared replete. The secret behind all this success was as baffling as it was unlikely... Sofia’s brothers were the new chefs.

  Sofia’s five older brothers, Carlo and Monte, (university studies deferred), Dmitri, and the twins, Pepe and Bob, had never had much time or respect for their father’s revolutionary methods of cooking. That he was known throughout the world for making culinary inroads in unchartered territory did not impress them. Theirs was an almost Neanderthal attitude to food. Me hungry. Me eat. You cook. Only now it was, You hungry. Me cook. You eat. With the important addition of, You pay.

  The menu at Brothers was dictated by the basic tenet that empty stomachs need filling. And what better way to fill them than with comfort food? In their father’s lavish new restaurant, equipped with all the accoutrements and extra cutlery associated with Fine Dining, the five audacious cooks served up dishes like macaroni and cheese, fudge brownies, and deep fried chicken, only they renamed them, Garbo Load, Chocolate Rehab, and Death Wish. The sumptuous surroundings heightened the meals’ appeal as the diners’ stomachs took nostalgic trips down Memory Lane and remembered the pleasures of home cooking.

  Money began to trickle in. And then it poured.

  The sounds of success were muted from the upstairs living space where Luca Luciano was slowly and painfully recuperating, but not even the soundproofed walls and being two floors up could conceal the vibrations of a jackhammer. Curious, Luca navigated his way down the stairs with all the grace of a tank. The body cast allowed minimal movement of his shoulder and leg joints, and from his torso wafted the unmistakeable stench of unwashed flesh. Luca despaired of his nose ever recovering. He clutched at the bedroom wall, spun counterclockwise down the hallway, and then thudded step by step until he reached the lower level, panting. When he arrived he could not believe what he was looking at.

  People were lounging and laughing and drinking from recycled jam jars and eating... What were they eating? It looked like the kind of meals his wife sneaked to the kids when they were little. The quick fry-ups and stodge his sons begged for after he’d served up exquisite delicacies created in his lab. His eyes took in the clientele and saw that there were more than a few familiar faces in the crowd. Familiar, and some of them famous.

  “...I’m luhving the juxtaposition of uber-luxury and cuhmfort food which elevates the concept of the-body-as-temple and, by virtue, transforms the home...” A voice was declaring over the babble in the restaurant. Luca knew that voice. He knew it belonged to an obnoxious bow tie, flamboyant fedora hat, and sparkly suspenders. He knew it was celebrity foodie Pakiri Sabantham, as sure as he knew the size and shape of the birthmark on his wife’s back. A food review by Pakiri Sabantham could make you or break you, in this fickle industry, and it was for this reason Luca and his team had been known to agonize for weeks before deciding what to serve. And yet what was Sabantham eating now? What was that on his plate? Was it? Could it be? Was Sabantham really eating a French fry sandwich? Luca smacked his hand on his forehead and keeled over with the weight of the cast, but not before hearing his wife call for an order of “Roadkill” and a “Brickie’s Special.”

  Luca Luciano found out it is possible for a day to go from bad to worse.

  Ex-Second-Chancer Boris had ditched the rabbit suit and Moved On. He applied to Brothers and got the job. The job was as the Gofer. Boris was required to go for this and go for that: errands, deliveries, anything required. To Luciano’s surprise, Boris, the long-haired, leather-jacketed lout (first impression) turned out to be a handy person to have around. He could source almost anything and got the best prices for the best produce. His only little quirk was a rubber chicken, which went with him everywhere. It was a useful item for demonstrating asphyxiation, if Sofia’s family had but guessed.

  The Luciano’s were glad to employ Boris, the Imbécile (going by the embroidery on his leather jacket), for the lucky rubber chicken alone because it always guaranteed something extra “on the house.” But he had other redeeming qualities, like the ability to think on his feet, not ask questions, and accept cash-in-hand below the minimum wage. So when Boris saw Luca Luciano in his body cast, unconscious, he did to him what he did to all deliveries: transferred him to the basement.

  “More weird stuff,” was his philosophical take on the matter.

  Thus it was to the sound of a jackhammer (the answer to the mysterious vibrations) that Mr. Luciano gained consciousness, propped up against five shelves of toilet paper. Luca’s sons were putting the finishing touches on a “Brickie’s Special.” The dish moved upstairs via a dumbwaiter and then the chefs - his sons! - started on the order of “Roadkill” by jumping on a motorbike (designed to move on the spot), and running over a plate of food. In the laboratory side of the kitchen, Luca’s startled gaze fell on a boy whom he had never seen before. The boy had weird eyes that threatened to fall off the sides of his face and odd glasses. Luca was not to know that the boy was one of Sofia’s classmates. He was not to know the boy had an IQ of286. Nor could he have any idea the boy’s heroes included the scientist Humphry Davy (inventor of the miners’ safety lamp), who was well known for testing chemicals on himself to the point of choking (!) while calmly monitoring his heart rate.

  All Luca saw was Four-Eyes running around the room fanning his mouth. Then his eldest son, Carlo, dipped a spoon into the same pot and swallowed a spoonful. Within seconds he began to do the same. Monte and Dmitri followed suit. The twins, Pepe and Bob, joined in the fun.

  Sofia watched her five brothers and Miller run around - yelling, swearing, and sweating - with arms folded against her chest. Then she rewrote the evening’s specials:

  When Luca Luciano woke up the next morning, back in his comfortable bedroom, he heaved a sigh and chuckled silently to himself: What a strange dream...

  CHAPTER 21

  The heart wants what the heart wants

  While Sofia spent the first three months back at school juggling multiple roles - maitre d’, marketing manager, bookkeeper - Maddie focused on one thing. A chair. This was not the storytelling chair of her little brother Troy’s kindergarten teacher. Nor Mrs. Snell’s electric chair of electrocution fame. (Execution assignment due: Monday.) Maddie had her sights set on the First Chair in the Middle School Orchestra. A role reserved for the best violin player. Concertmaster. Right-hand wo/man to the conductor. Soloist.

  (Soloist!!!)

  There was only one problem.

  Alice.

  Maddie became obsessed with violin practice now that there was Alice, two years her junior, playing almost the same grade, and with special permission to join the Middle School Orchestra. Twelve-year-old Alice with her deathly pale skin, Goth gear, and freakish fingers that made arpeggios look effortless. Even Troy’s excited descriptions of school couldn’t distract her. Or the fact that Cassy, her younger sister, had pretended not to move from her makeshift bed in weeks.

  Maddie practiced violin first thing in the morning and last thing at night. She practiced in between bites of lunch,
all weekend, and in her sleep. She did everything humanly possible to be the best violin player she could be. But would it be enough? Enough for The Chair? The chair of her dreams? Maddie wasn’t sure. The Year Ten violinists were moving on to the Senior Orchestra next year and making room. Room for New Blood like Maddie who had been waiting for what seemed like forever. Maddie, who had never wanted anything more in her life.

  But there was only one problem.

  Alice.

  “Any idea,” Alice asked Alana during music one day, in a voice that put Alana’s teeth on edge, “if that guy, Flynn, is taken? I heard you and he are a bit of an item.”

  Alana watched Alice’s tongue emerge with the lightning flash of a lizard’s. An image of Alice’s teeth sinking into Flynn’s neck came unbidden to mind. It made Alana’s protective instincts thrust into overdrive. (NOOOOOOO! KEEP AWAY! MINE!) So she began a tirade about Flynn and his “lame” taste in music, his loser of a brother, and less-than-masculine pursuit of ballet. All said with a knowing smirk and snicker. Alana was proud of her thespian performance, until...