Pick Your Poison Chapter Two: Be Careful What You Drink After a minute, the doors opened to reveal a well dressed couple. “Ah, Clark and August Aves, welcome to Hollows Manor. We’re delighted you could come,” the older man, who I assumed was Henry Hollows, told us. The older woman beside him who was wearing a sparkling white dress, must be Abigail Hollows. “We are too.” Dad responded, and nudged me. “Oh, um, thank you for inviting us, Mr. and Ms. Hollows,” I stammered out. They smiled. “You’re right on time. The other guests are here, so please come in.” We nodded and with fake smiles, entered their manor. There was jazzy music playing in the background, with the guests talking and drinking wine. There was a beautiful dining table filled with elaborate cakes and pies. I felt so out of place with my all-over-the-place fiery hair and simple outfit. “August?” I heard someone behind me say. I turned around to see my best friend, Emilia. “Em! I didn’t know you were invited!” Emilia was the daughter of another member of A&H Hollows Company, Yvette Birdsong. We had been best friends for as long as I could remember. She wore a stunning blue dress with a teal butterfly pin on her blond hair, which was pulled up in an elegant hair-do. Yeah, I should have dressed like that. “I didn’t know you were invited either! Isn’t this place great?” I grimaced. “Eh. I think I could live without it.” “Oh come on, Gust! Don’t you wish you could live in a mansion?” “Only if it was haunted.” Emilia rolled her eyes. “Okay, but you have to try the Keylime Pie. It will change your life!” And so I let Emilia carry me away in the festivities. It was still boring. I heard bits and pieces of conversations, but none of it was really interesting. “Did you hear about the new development with the managers?” “Can you believe the Hollows didn’t invite the newest members after all they’ve done?” “Richard, you want to share this with me?” A middle-aged woman, I think her name was Amber, offered a bottle of wine to a man next to her. He shrugged and held his cup up for some. “Ms. Travinska!” Emilia called to her. She turned to Emilia and smiled. “Emilia. I was just offering Richard here some wine. Too bad you’re a little young.” She took the bottle and poured some wine in her own cup, then toasted Richard and they both drank. “How are your lessons going?” She said to Emilia. “Pretty well. I’m almost fluent in German.” Emilia was by far the smartest person August had ever encountered. German was the fourth language for her to master. August didn’t know how she did it. “Smart girl,” Ms. Travinska said with a smile. “Danke,” Emilia replied. I nudged her. “Come one, let’s get out of here. I want to explore their mansion,” I whispered. “And leave the party?” She gave me a look. “What? It’s boring.” “I don’t think the Hollows would want us exploring their mansion.” “Like they’d notice. They’re too busy flaunting their wealth at everyone.” She sighed. “Fine. But if we get caught, you’re taking the blame.” “Well, I think you should at least take half.” “Not happening.” “Ok, 25 percent.” “Deal. Let’s go.” We said goodbye to Richard and Ms. Travinska, made our way through the party, then snuck off into a dark corridor. I knew that if this went badly, it might, like, slightly upset the Hollows, but it’s not like they’d fire my dad, right? I was just so curious. No one ever got to see the inside of Hollow Manor. “So where are we going?” Emilia asked. “I don’t know. Just follow this hallway and keep exploring, I guess.” “And what if we get lost?” “That will never happen.” — Thirty minutes later, we were, in fact, lost. “‘That will never happen’, huh?” Emilia said, giving me a sharp look. “I was naive, okay?!” We had wandered around, took a couple of turns, and now had no idea where we were. “What are we going to do now?” “Let’s just try to retrace our steps and make it back to the party.” “And which way was that?” “Ummm… that way.” I said, and pointed to a corridor opposite us. (Continue Below)
“You know that’s the way back?” “What? No, that was just a random guess.” “And you wonder why we get lost!” “Hey, you know I have a terrible sense of direction!” “Fine, let’s just go that way.” And so we continued on. Rain poured down the window and I heard several loud claps of thunder. “The storm is really getting bad.” Emilia helpfully commented. “I’m sure it will be fine.” “You need to stop jinxing stuff.” “Oh, like you never do that.” “Uh-huh.” Finally, after taking a few turns, and backpedaling a bit, we made it back to the party! “And look at that, I was right!” I exclaimed. We hadn’t missed a thing; the party was still in full swing. “Hardly.” Emilia was not impressed. I laughed. This party wasn’t as boring as I’d thought it’d be. But then something was wrong. In the middle of the party, was that man I’d seen earlier, sharing wine with Ms. Travinska. Richard. But he didn’t look happy. He looked a little.. scared. But it was like nobody noticed, just dancing and laughing around him. I took a step towards him. Was something wrong? Suddenly, he took a gasping breath, like he couldn’t breathe. Some people’s heads turned around, staring at him. He stood there for a few seconds, clutching at his throat. The party seemed to stop. And then he fell forwards and hit the floor, unmoving with blank eyes. Chapter One-https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1308457347 Chapter Three: I'm working on it!
