A Real Pickle by Jessica Beck Read Free Book Online Page A

request.  “If you’ll join me outside in the hallway, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
    I could see that Moose was about to protest, but I didn’t want to get any of these people in trouble.  “Come on, Moose.”
    “Victoria, you know how I get when I’m hungry.  I’m liable to snap at anyone in sight.”
    I knew that it was true enough.  
    Once we were out of the kitchen, I asked, “Humphries, what are the chances we can get something light to snack on?”
    “You can have whatever you’d like,” the man said.  “I need you to go through me, though.  We have a specific regimen here, and it would make all of our lives easier if you’d adhere to it.”
    “Fine,” Moose said.  “I know when I’m beaten.  I’ll have a cheese sandwich and a glass of milk.”
    “What would you like on your sandwich?”
    “Cheese and bread,” Moose said, and then my grandfather looked at me and asked, “How about you, Victoria?”
    “That sounds good to me,” I said.
    “Very well.  If you’ll wait in the dining hall, I’ll see that you’re served immediately.”
    “I’d be happy to,” Moose said with a hint of exasperation in his voice.  “If I only knew where exactly it was, or anywhere else in this forsaken place.”
    We really did need to get some food into him.  “Don’t worry about us.  We can find it,” I said.  “You take care of the food.”
    Humphries nodded, and then he pointed to the right.  “Keep going ten feet, and then take a right.  You can’t miss it.”
    “Don’t be so sure,” I added with a smile. “We’ve gotten lost before.”
    “You get used to it after awhile,” the chief butler said.
    “I don’t think we’ll have enough of an opportunity to do that,” I said.  “After all, we’ll be gone again in three days.”
    “True.  I’ll rejoin you shortly,” Humphries said.
    Moose started walking, following the directions we’d just gotten, and sure enough, we took the suggested turn and entered the grand dining hall.  There were chairs enough for forty diners, and I wondered how often the table was filled with guests since Curtis had taken over.  As it was, Moose took a seat at the head of the large, dark oak table, and I grabbed a seat beside him.  Place settings had already been set, and I wondered if Moose and I were about to eat cheese sandwiches on the finest china I’d ever seen in my life.  A pretty young brunette came a minute later and cleared our settings away, replacing them with less ornate dishes and silverware.  It wasn’t that the new things weren’t fancy; they just weren’t as elegant as what had been there before.
    Soon enough, our sandwiches and glasses of milk appeared in another minute, and Moose and I shared a bite together in the silence of the large dining room.  I was going to have a hard time breaking myself of whispering in the manor.  There was just something about the cavernous rooms that suggested I should constantly be aware of the volume of my voice.
    “Pretty fancy,” I said as I took a bite of my sandwich.
    “I don’t know.  I’ve had better.”
    “I wasn’t talking about the food.  These settings are ritzy.”
    Moose shrugged.  “I don’t care if they brought our sandwiches wrapped up in paper towels.”  He took another big bite and then chased it with a large gulp of milk.  “At least the milk’s cold.”
    “I’m pretty happy about that, too,” I said as I joined him.  “What do you make of all of this?”
    “The food, or our surroundings?” my grandfather asked me.
    “Enough conversation about the food, okay?  I’m talking about Trane Manor.”
    “I like the name Pickle Palace myself,” Moose said with that wicked grin of his.
    “That doesn’t surprise me in the least, but we should stop calling it that before it gets to be a habit.  This place really is ostentatious, isn’t it?”
    Moose finished his sandwich, and then he looked around.  “You know, I’ve never been all that