Stealing Flowers Read Online Free PDF

I thanked her for the lesson.
    “You can’t very well thank us for
everything, Christian,” she said. “From the clothes, to the food,
to education, to everything, all you would do is thank us and feel
guilty. It won’t do. No more thanks. It’s enough that you are here
and that you put what opportunity this gives you to good use. We’re
here for you to make sure you succeed, that you are happy. Can you
understand that?”
    It took all my self-control not to thank
her. Una’s supper was soft boneless chicken-breasts cooked with
honey Dijon mustard, cashews, and mandarins. I asked about each of
the other dishes: Wild rice, fresh corn on the cob, broccoli-heads
in white cheddar sauce and black bean soup, all of which I had
never tasted before. A bowl of salad was in the middle of the
table, but it looked like they weren’t going to make me eat rabbit
food, as Lloyd called it.
    I’d my first glass of red wine and it was
nearly the foulest drink I’d ever tasted, but fortunately they also
had a glass of cold apple juice at my place and I swallowed this in
one enormous gulp to wash away the taste. Stan laughed at me.
    The black bean soup was repulsive to look at
and I was disgusted to see Sally eating it like it was Campbell’s
tomato soup, but I did taste it and it was fine, but the thought of
it was too much for more than one spoon full. I tried the corn and
ate several mouthfuls, however, it appeared that the chicken had
been deliberately destroyed for the sole purpose of embarrassing me
and making me appear as though I was going to be too much trouble
to the Tappets.
    For a moment, I wondered if Una had done it
on purpose. The most detestable mustard anyone thought to ever
create had been thrown in great dollops on top of it so that even
if I’d thought to have more than a few bites, I just couldn’t. The
rice had little pieces of sticks in it. The broccoli was hard, and
I’m sorry to say, the sauce smelt like puke. None of this stopped
the Tappets from eating it like it was manna.
    “Is this tomato juice?” I asked and pointed
to a tall glass of red liquid beside my empty glass of apple juice.
Stan nodded and I tried this. I hated it also and wondered what I
would drink now to get the foul tastes out of my mouth. I was
horrified, when halfway into the meal, Una sat beside me to eat. I
thought she was going to make me finish my plate like they did in
the halfway homes. Even if you gag, they make you finish it, but
after a few moments, she looked at me, rubbed the top of my head.
“What would you like to eat?” she asked. I flushed completely red.
“It’s okay, my full-grown child,” she continued. “You’re not used
to our ways and I see you’ve tried everything on your plate. Kraft
dinner?”
    I nodded. Within five minutes, I’d a
steaming plate of macaroni and cheese, another glass of apple
juice, and one of my favorite foods, Heinz Ketchup. After supper,
we cleaned up together and had vanilla ice-cream with chocolate
syrup while we watched a program on television in the living room
in which at the beginning a naked woman walks into the ocean. That
was my favorite part. She had a very nice figure.
    Outside of the fact that I had seen little
television, what immediately got my attention was a tall thin man
with a moustache and thick curly hair over his ears. He had kind
intelligent eyes and a very natural smile. He held up to the
cameras a tiny square device. He talked for a few minutes, but I
didn’t really listen, I was looking around the room.
    Although I didn’t know it at the time, I sat
in a Wassily chair. Its chrome-plated frame was made of
steel-tubing which held a grey-canvass seat and arm rests. Sally
sat in a similar one beside me. They’re still in the mansion today,
although they’ve been refurbished a number of times. Love seats,
sofa chairs, matching couches, and a Chippendale mahogany chair,
were arranged together around the television. Huge vases with grey,
silver, light