Chapter 2: The Ridiculous Party

"Oh there you are Leah! Get ready quickly! We are suppose to go to the Joneskins tonight for a party." excalimed Mrs. Lehman

"Can't I stay home? I am too young to go to that party!"

"Nonsense! We must show you off and get a headstart on your debutante party."

"But I am only 11!"

"I said go get ready! Now! Besides, Peter will be there."

Leah stomped off to her room and changed into a blue flowing posh dress. She hated those parties. All people ever did was drink and act stupid.

***

"Leah! Over here!" yelled Peter, purposefully being rude to distract as many guests as possible. He had hoped that this would get him banned for life.

"Hi, Peter. By the way, it won't work," exclaimed Leah.

"What?"

"Trying to get yourself banned from here. They will only say that you are immature and need 'my' son to set you straight by 'my son's' great example. You'll be nauseated to death!"

"Well now, that sounds like a good idea. At least I will get out of being here!"

"Very funny! Now seriously, how 'bout going down to the pond with me so that we can talk in private."

"I've got a better idea. Priscilla is over there. Watch this."

Peter walked to the buffet table and grabbed two drinks for Leah and himself. He then walked over near Priscilla and hid behind the curtain when no one was looking. As Priscilla walked by, Peter stuck out his foot. Priscilla tripped with her punch flying towards Queen Jonesey. High Society always elects a Queen to rule and dictate what is in and what is out. Peter quickly got out from behind the curtain as soon as he had tripped Priscilla and walked quickly to join Leah.

"Priscilla! Watch your feet you clumsy ox!" bellowed Queen Jonesey.

"But - but" muttered Priscilla.

"No buts, you are always tripping over your own two feet!"

"I was tripped by someone."

"Nonsense! Your reputation goes before you when you enter a room. You tried to pin your last trip on Vandalia and she wasn't even in the room!"

"But someone was behind-"

"The curtain, like Vandalia was?" interupted Queen Jonesey."Now go and get me a towel." Priscilla dutifully got a towel and helped Queen Jonesey clean up.

"Peter, what should we do for an encore?" asked Leah.

"I don't know, but I am sure something will show up."

"Hey, there's David and his sidekick Mary." Leah commented.

"I wonder whatever happened to Victoria and Vandalia?" asked Peter.

"I don't know. Maybe Mary knows. Let's go ask her."

"Everybody,hic," said Queen Jonesey. "It is time,hic, oh excuse me, for the annual pin, hic, the tie on the guy contest." The butler handed Queen a glass of water. "Thank you, thank you. You know the rules. The person who, hic, gets the tie the closest,hic, to the right spot wins the, hic,I mean the $1,000,000 jackpot."

"This should be a simp to win, especially since everybody else has no sense of direction by now." Commented Peter.

"Yeah, all you have to do is beat our David, Mary and Priscilla, not to mention Isannah."

"You do know how to spoil things don't you." Peter objected.

As was customary, the Queen went first. They blind folded her and spun her around 3 times. The Queen stuck her hand out in front of her and felt her way around. People moved away from her to avoid her running into them. The Queen went out the patio door that was left open and pinned her tie onto the rose bush as she fell in. The butler and a maid quickly ran out to rescue her.

"Well, I never was good at these games." The Queen commented.

Several people had gone and missed the guy completely, pinning their tie on anything from the vase to the coffee table to their neighbor's wine glass. Priscilla's mother went next. She walked towards the same patio door the Queen had gone thru previously and kept right on walking all the way down to the pond.

"My, the guy is certainly a long way a ways. Now where is the wall? I just can't seem to find it. Now I know the Queen has a large ballroom, but this is rediculouuuusssss." Mrs. Jonesey yelled as she fell face first into the pond. Several people ran to her aid. When they had pulled her out of the pond, she had a waterlily on her head with a frog sitting on top chirping away. A fly landed on Mrs. Jonesey nose. The frog whipped out his tongue in a flash and licked the fly off her nose.

"Ah! ah! What was that? What was that? Ah! ah!" bellowed a very alarmed Mrs. Jonesey.

"It's only a frog." exclaimed Mr. Vitolio, Isannah's father.

"Get it off! Off I say!"

"He is off. He jumped down right after he swallowed the fly."

As they helped Mrs. Joneskin up to the house, Priscilla had her turn. She was determined not to make a fool of herself like her mother or any of the others who went before her. Priscilla bent down to touch her shoes after she was turned around. She crawled around looking for the wall. Paying special attention to the voices around her, she carefully crawled right to the stand holding a large potted plant, knocking it over so that the plant landed neatly on her head.

"Hahahahah" laughed Peter and Leah.

"Well, she did it for us. I always knew she was on our side." Peter kidded.

Mary rolled her wheelchair over to Priscilla. She was born with cerebal palsy. It only affected her legs. "Well, well, Miss Priscilla, I always knew you kissed the ground the Queen walked on, but I never knew it was THAT serious." Mary said sneeringly.

Priscilla picked herself up off the floor, stuck her nose up in the air and walked off. The maids cleaned up the dirt and followed Priscilla out of the room, cleaning up as they went. Bits of dirt and flowers landed on the floor as if Priscilla was flower girl dropping rose petals behind her as she walked down the aisle.

Mary went next. She was very good at this game. They twirled her wheelchair around three times and she was off, right to the guy. She pinned the tie on his nose, pulled off the handkerchief and exclaimed,"No! I never miss! Why I always reach that high!"

"It's okay," David said trying to comfort her. "You probably grew an inch in the trunk."

"Stupid trunk!" exlaimed Mary.

Peter walked to the starting line and held his hands out, sizing up the level the neck of the guy was at. They blindfolded him, spun him and he took off, one foot in front of the other. Carefully, he raised his arms. He made sure that they felt like they were the exact height he had placed them earlier when he had sized up where the neck was. He then placed the tie neatly upon the neck. He whipped off the blindfold and leaped up into the air yelling,"Yes! And the square succeeds where no man has gone before!"

Leah was blindfolded and spun. She walked quickly to the poster before they had the mind to remove Peter's tie. She felt up to where Mary put her tie and then felt down to Peter's tie. She placed her tie right on top of his. Grinning from ear to ear, she removed her blindfold. The Queen exclaimed,"Well, it looks like we have two winners. Both of whom never have won before. I will reward each with $1 million because I think that that is only fair."

Priscilla complained, "But they cheated! They used the ties on the guy to find his neck!"

"They didn't cheat! They were just more clever than you!" The Queen responded. "Maybe, we should play a different game next time."

"Oh, no! Never mind. I will beat them next year!" Bragged Priscilla.

"Attention everyone! May I please have your attention! It is time for our last game, 'a thousand plus zero'!" the Queen said eagerly. "Now you know the rules. Everyone stand up! Sorry kiddies, this one is for the adults only. You may sit down."

"Come, Isannah. Let's go upstairs to my room where old two wheels can't come." said Priscilla. Priscilla and Isannah left the room and ran up the stairs.

"Now, everyone put in a thousand dollars." continued the Queen. "Let the bidding begin. Do I hear 2 glasses? Do I hear 3 glasses? Okay, 3 it is. Now every one, drink three glasses of your beverage. Everybody still standing? Good! Now, everyone put in $10,000. Do I hear 2? 3? Okay, we stopped at 2 this time. Everybody drink 2 glasses of your beverage. I see some people have fallen down. Okay, everyone put in $100,000 into the kitty. Do I hear 3 glasthses? No? 2 glasthses then. Okay, 2 it is. All of you who are sthill sthanding, drink 2 glasthses. Now, everyone, including you all on the floor. Put in $1,000,000. You know it your penalty beca beca will you loth, uh, not win. Do I hear 2? Do I hear 3? I do? Do I hear 4? 4? Okay, do I hear 5? No? Thath'th good. Okay, drink 2 I mean 3 NO! 4 then. Well you know."

The two last people standing both drank 4 glasses then fell over onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. David, Mary, Peter and Leah thought the whole thing was disgusting. A man rolled over and tried to get up. He couldn't even manage to get on his hands and knees. He looked up at what he thought was a lady but turned out to be a vase of flowers on a stand, and asked it to dance. Another man rolled over and said to the lady next to him, "I thhik it thyme to go. I mean time." She merely rolled her eyes and then tried to find her husband. She gave up trying to move and plopped back down onto the floor and passed out. David, Mary, Peter, and Leah had the same idea at the same time. Let's take the money. David and Peter both made a beeline for the cash. Leah spoke up and said, "Why don't we split the money 4 ways?"

"Okay," said Mary, Peter, and David in unison. Mary and Leah rushed to join the others at the table and started counting money as fast as they could.

Leah then spoke with an idea, "Just sort your money into 2 piles. Peter and I will share ours, and you two can share yours. I think we will be able to count it faster that way."

It took them some time to count the money. The butler and maids were so busy cleaning up, that they didn't even notice the children counting the spoils. The money was put in, in the form of checks. This made it much easier in one way, and much harder in another way. How were they going to cash the checks without anyone knowing? By the time they were done, they had $55million, 50 thousand dollars between the two pairs. This meant that everyone would walk away with $27 million, 525 thousand dollars!

"David, how do we cash the checks?" Peter inquired.

"Well, if you have a swiss bank account, just tell them that you need the checks cashed incognito per rules of the game. And do mention this game. They will know exactly what you mean." David responded.

"You mean you've done this before?" asked Peter.

"Yes, I have. I used to have to come to these parties as very young child. We had 100 couples attending back then too. Of course my parents were married back then." said David.

"What happened? I mean to your parents?" Leah asked.

"My dad got a life and my mother lost her's. Not that she ever really had one, mind you."

"What do you mean?" asked Leah.

"What he means," said Mary. "Is that his mother is a total loser and never knew which end was up and never knew how to properly take care of him in the first place. She is always leaving him alone to watch himself. His dad on the other hand, always made sure David had a babysitter or went with. And, his dad knew how to dress! He wore the swank suits while his mother dressed like a clown on stilts!"

"You can say that again!" added David.

All four of them decided to leave a message with the butler and then started to walk home. They only lived two miles away, so it really wasn't that far.