Sweet Tooth

Hard Candy

Part II

Hard Candy

                Emily was alone in her room with her door closed, it was after ten o’clock, her parents were downstairs, and her sister was a door down from her snoring. She had propped a chair against her door just in case anyone tried to come in. She couldn’t risk anyone coming in and finding the candy she got from the Tooth Fairy. She pulled the single piece of candy out of the pocket in Annie’s dress.

                Emily slowly unwrapped the purple wax paper that covered the candy. As she did so, Annie’s single button eye seemed to stare at her accusingly. Although the wax paper was purple, the candy inside was a very bright red, besides that there was nothing special in its appearance. It was an oval shape, just like many other hard candies. Emily looked up at Annie again whose stitched smile seemed to be trying to tell her something, perhaps warning her.

                The candy seemed to reek of the same sugary sweet stench that surrounded the Tooth Fairy’s hideaway. She had a big sweet tooth as her mother always liked to say, but the smell just seemed too sweet.  After several moments of deliberation, Emily decided that she should at least taste the piece of candy.

                Her red tongue came from her mouth and hesitantly licked the smooth surface of the mysterious candy. Immediately after the first taste, she popped it in her mouth, and began rolling it around savoring the decadently sweet flavor. She was sure that this was the best candy she had ever had. It just seemed to be so perfect. Her mouth was enveloped in the sugary sweetness; she even thought she could feel the sugar in her blood stream. The sweetness was all consuming; she had never experienced anything like this, she couldn’t even feel her bed beneath her, it felt like she was floating, on a sugar coated cloud of ecstasy.

                Before she knew it, the bean sized red candy had shrunk to the size of a pea, and then it was gone. She didn’t know how long she had been lying there consumed by the sweetness, but after a while she felt herself floating back down to earth. She drifted off to sleep quickly, but in her few moments of clarity she knew that she had to have more.

                Once again Amanda prepared a breakfast for two. Samantha was already in the kitchen by the time Emily came down. Samantha had her blond Hair hanging down past her shoulders.

                “Mom pleeeeeaaase, let my friends come over tonight, Sheila is going out of town for Halloween so we wanted to do something for Halloween tonight.” Samantha was thirteen, eight years older than Emily, and the age gap defiantly aided in their minor sibling rivalry. Samantha was constantly picking on Emily, but she was mainly just trying to toughen her up. She knew that Emily got bullied at school, and she hoped that if Emily could defend herself against her, then she could find the strength to stand up to the bullies.

                Samantha looked at Emily for a second, just long enough to acknowledge her presence, and then she rolled her eyes and went back to begging her mom. “Mom, we are just gonna watch movies and tell ghost stories and stuff, we won’t make any noise . . . pleeeeaaase Mom.”

                “Okay fine,” Amanda said agreeing partially just so she could go on making breakfast unhindered, “But everybody goes home at nine. . . “

                “But mom the movie we wanna watch doesn’t go off till ten,” Samantha protested, cutting off her mom.

                “You heard what I said Samantha.”

                “But mom its Friday.”

                “I don’t want to have any angry parents knocking at my door, so they leave at nine or they can’t come.”