"It's cranberry salad. The lumps are whole
cranberries; the bumps are pecan nuts; and the white
stuff is sour cream." And, boy, was it good! It had bits
of pineapple, too.
"We don't like lumpy-bumpy stuff."
"Carrie," said Chris, "I get tired of what you like
and don't like--eat!"
"Your brother is right, Carrie. Cranberries are
delicious, and so are nuts. Birds love to eat berries,
and you like birds, don't you?"
"Birds don't eat berries. They eat dead spiders and
other bugs. We saw them, we did. They picked them
out of the gutters, and ate them without chewing! We
can't eat what birds eat."
"Shut up and eat," said Chris, with a mouthful. Here we were with the best food (even if it was
almost cold) since we'd come upstairs to live in this
hateful house, and all the twins could do was stare
down at their plates, and so far hadn't eaten a single
bite!
And Chris--he was demolishing everything in
sight like the prize-winning hog at the county fair! The twins tasted the mashed potatoes with the
mushroom gravy. The potatoes were "grainy" and the
gravy was "funny." They tasted the absolutely divine
stuffing, and declared that "lumpy, grainy, and
funny."
"Eat the sweet potatoes, then!" I almost yelled.
"Look at how pretty they are. They're smooth because
they've been whipped, and marshmallows have been added, and you love marshmallows, and it's flavored with orange and lemon juice." And pray to God they
didn't notice the "lumpy" pecans.
I guess between the two of them, sitting across