Chapter 17: Pizza

Noise from different games fill the restaurant and ring in my ears. Kids run around laughing, playing and having fun. Even my aunts and uncles get to play more games and win a lot more tickets to get prizes too. Yet, I have to sit at this table next to my Mommy who has a rainbow ring on her pinkie finger that matches mine. And across from us is Daddy who is wearing the blue glow in the dark vampire teeth I got for him at the prize counter. Besides the three of us sitting here, there is also a pineapple and ham pizza in the middle of the table.

The pizza - or intruder is more like it, because it shouldn't be here - is in front of me on a metal tray. There is also a pretty pink Chuck-E-Cheese cup with a matching lid and straw, filled with red soda, sitting next to me. It's just food and a drink that I'm supposed to eat and drink. Yet, I don't want to. What did I do to deserve this?

Daddy rolls his eyes at my thoughts. He takes out his vampire teeth and places them next to him on top of the table so he can talk. "Everyone has to eat dinner, we'll play some games after we eat. It's not a big deal."

"It is to me." I do a little huff. "I don't like this stuff."

"You never know," Mommy says, reaching for a paper plate that has the Chuck-E-Cheese character on it, which is a giant smiling rat with clothes and a hat. "You may like this pizza. It looks good."

I don't say anything as she gives a slice of pizza to Daddy so he can pretend to eat and serves herself one as well. I just focus on the plastic vampire teeth that are on the table next to Daddy because I really don't want to look at the yucky pizza. I feel that it's mocking me.

I keep my eye on the vampire teeth, remembering how Daddy was very amazed when I gave him those because they were a surprise from me. I was blocking my thoughts when I had them behind my back so he had no idea what I had. I told him to guess what I was hiding behind my back, he did but he didn't come close to guessing right. Once I revealed to him what I was giving him, he started laughing. I didn't want him to laugh because they were a meaningful gift. Since I'm Daddy's vampire princess, I figured he needed real vampire teeth. When he heard that from my mind he stopped laughing and gave me a big thank you hug. Immediately he put them in his mouth and didn't take them out until now. That made me very happy.

"I love my plastic vampire teeth." Daddy says, I know he is reading my thoughts. "I'll wear them after we eat."

His words are a promise. I look at him. I'm in disbelief with what I see. Daddy is holding his slice of pizza to his mouth like he's going to take a bite! That's so gross. I look away and start to think about all the games I played so far, to get my mind off of the yucky pizza.

I played a lot of games with every member of my family and won a gazillion tickets while my pizza was taking forever to cook. I didn't care though, I was having a lot of fun. Especially when Mommy, Daddy and I played a basketball game together. That was really fun. After that I talked Daddy into going up the colorful plastic tube things to slide down the big slide with me. It was so much fun. We kept climbing up and pretending to be penguins as we slid down.

After our time on the slide we raced at human speed to the ball pit. I got there first! Daddy and I began playing a game and pretending to be otters until my uncles joined us. Then our game of otters became a game of throwing plastic balls at each other. That is, until both of my uncles made a bet to see how many times they could hit Daddy with the plastic balls while blocking their thoughts from him before he had enough. Daddy didn't like that game very much. Uncle Jazz won that bet and Uncle Em had to pay up with tickets instead of money.

I was having so much fun until Mommy let us know that my pizza was done. That's when Daddy and I got out of the ball pit and he and Mommy made me come sit down with them, right here in this booth. Right here with the nasty smelling food.

My eyes go to the pizza, I glare at the yucky pizza and cross my arms over my chest. They can make me sit here but they can't make me eat any of this yucky food. I don't know why they keep doing this.

"Time to eat." Mommy places a slice of pizza on a paper plate and puts it in front of me.

Sticking out my lower lip, I look away from the pizza. It looks very slimy and very offensive. From here I can see the games. There's a big yellow SpongeBob game that I want to play. I didn't get to play it earlier because there was a big boy that was taking too many turns but now there's nobody there. I start to think about how easy it would be to crawl out from under the table, go run over to where it is and have fun. I could be speedy quick and my parents won't be able to catch me.

"Nessie, that's not likely." Daddy says in a very low and fast tone.

The tone of his voice, even as fast as it is, doesn't sound happy with my thoughts. Turning to face him I gulp, his face doesn't look happy either. Oh pickle sticks! I should have been blocking my thoughts so he wouldn't have known I was going to escape this dinner time nonsense.

"Are you forgetting our little deal?" He wonders, putting his hand under my chin.

I do a big sigh and roll my eyes.

"Nessie," Mommy says to me. "He asked you a question."

Daddy drops his hand from my face. I then turn to look at Mommy, she doesn't look too happy either. I can't imagine why that is. Maybe she's tired of this horrible food game too.

"Well," Daddy says. I look at him. "You do remember our deal, don't you?"

"Silly, Anthony," I call him by his going out name, which is really his middle name. "I didn't forget."

Just as my grandparents and I have going out names, so does my mom and dad. Since I obviously can't call them Daddy and Mommy because they are pretending to be 9th graders, and that wouldn't make sense for them to be parents yet. I have to call Daddy Anthony and for Mommy I just call her Bella. That's because Daddy thinks it's disrespectful if I call him by his not dad name, which is Edward, but mommy doesn't see it that way, so I get to call her by her not mom name.

Daddy's golden eyes twinkle. "Then you wouldn't mind repeating our deal, out loud. Now, would you?"

I think about the deal that Daddy and I made before we walked into the restaurant. It sounded good at the time but now I wish I wouldn't have agreed to it. My part of the deal isn't too nice to keep. Well, at least it's not to me.

"That I'll get to play as many games as I want until it's time to go home." I only say the fun part about our deal.

"And?" Daddy runs his hand through his messy hair.

"And. That's it." I smile, placing my folded hands on the table.

"Hmm." Mommy puts her arm around my shoulder. "Seems like something is missing."

I do a frowny face. They want me to say more but I don't want to. Why couldn't they just go along with what I said? They already know the not fun part of the deal. Which is that I have to eat two slices of pizza and drink soda, just like a real human kid. The only problem is that I changed my mind. I don't want to eat food that's too yucky and doesn't make my tummy feel good. I wish this was up to me. If only I could choose what I want to eat instead of being made to eat things I don't like.

"Fascinating." Daddy says, I know he's reading my mind again. "Please tell me, if it was up to you, what kind of food would you eat?"

Thinking about his question, I look down at the slice of pizza that's on my plate. "Not this stuff. Or anything else I'm made to eat." I say honestly. If I could have my way I would only drink animal blood. That's the good stuff after all.

Hearing my thoughts, Daddy makes a big sigh.

"What is so bad about pizza that makes you not want to eat it?" Mommy wonders.

"Everything." I reply in a whisper that they can hear just fine but humans can't. "You guys don't really eat food or pizza. It's very slimy and I don't like it."

"Oh." Mommy says. "But what if I told you that he has eaten pizza?" She points to Daddy and adds. "It was a long time ago but he ate it and didn't complain about it."

I turn my head, my brown eyes meet her golden ones. I'm not sure what she's talking about because I have asked Daddy before what kind of food he liked when he was human and he said he can't remember. So when did he eat pizza and how would she know about this?

"Ah!" Daddy sounds amused. "Princess, would you like to hear a little story about the time the most beautiful girl in the world ate lunch with me and I tried pizza because she wanted me to?"

"Is it a love story?" I ask hopefully. I really like romance.

"Well…" Daddy sounds unsure.

"Yes!" Mommy says a little too loudly. "It is a love story. After all, pizza is the most romantic food there is." She winks at Daddy.

"Right." Daddy chuckles and nods his head.

I'm excited to hear a love story about pizza. So excited that I don't pay too much attention to my parents having a silent conversation. I know they are by the way they are looking at each other and Daddy makes very small movements in his face, like winking or blinking his eyes at Mommy while she only stares at him. Instead of wondering what they are going on about, I wait for their secret talk to be over so I can hear about this romantic story that has to do with pizza.

After all, I always thought spaghetti and meatballs were the most romantic food on the planet. That's because that's the food in the movie "Lady and the Tramp" that the dogs eat before they kiss. I try to imagine what can be so romantic about pizza but I can't.

"You eat two slices of pizza while Daddy tells the story." Mommy speaks softly, pointing to my pizza.

"Fine." I say, not very happily.

Listening to a story about my parents is always nice. I like hearing about their love story but now I'll have to eat while I listen. That part - having to eat food - is not so good. But since this is how it has to be I pick up my slice of pizza and wait for Daddy to begin.

"Now. How do I begin the story?" Daddy acts like he forgot.

"With, once upon a time." I remind him with a giggle.

"Ah! That's right." He smiles at me. "Once upon a time (take a bite of your pizza) there was a pretty girl who was really an enchanting princess and an ordinary vampire boy. By chance they met in high school." He begins the story, talking with one sentence inside the other because he wants to make sure I eat. "One day the boy worked up the courage and asked the princess to eat lunch with him..."

Holding my pizza that I really don't want to eat, but I know I must, I look at Daddy, he points to my pizza again. Putting it closer to my mouth I listen carefully to Daddy as he tells the story, I don't want to miss a second of it. I love the way he tells stories.

"Though the Princess didn't know it," Daddy continues, reaching across the table for Mommy's hand. "The boy was fearing for the worst. He wasn't sure that she wanted to eat lunch with him but by some miracle she said yes to him."

"Well, how could she say no to him?" Mommy chimes in. "After all, he was quite charming."

Daddy smiles his crooked smile.

My parents gaze into each other's eyes. They look so in love, I like that very much. At the same time that I think they forgot about me I put my pizza back down on the plate and that's when they noticed me.

"Oh no. You need to eat." Mommy says to me.

"Young lady," Daddy says in a stern voice. "Start eating and I'll keep telling the story."

I quickly take a small bite of pizza. It's chunky and slimy, the way all human food is to me. I chew and swallow it. Before I can put the slice of pizza back on my plate, Mommy taps my shoulder, telling me to eat more. With a little sigh I do while Daddy tells more of the story about the time he and Mommy had lunch for the first time together in the cafeteria at Forks High. For anyone that might overhear, he makes it sounds like it is all pretend, only I know it's real. It's an interesting story. I take another bite.

We go on this way for a long time with Daddy retelling the story of Mommy wanting to see him eat food, which happened to be pizza. While I'm actually slowly eating my pizza and drinking my soda. I don't like the food or drink much. I'm only eating so I can hear the whole story while Mommy praises me every now and then. When he's done with the pizza story but I'm not finished eating my pizza, Daddy tells me about the time he had to eat a bologna sandwich and chips and another time when he had to eat a whole Thanksgiving meal at Grandpa Charlie's house. That's when Mommy was still human.

Daddy keeps talking. I keep chewing.

The next story is the time just before he and Mommy were married when Grandpa Charlie invited Daddy and the rest of our family over for a summer backyard BBQ. Everyone was having a nice time talking and pretending to eat, but then Auntie Alice got too excited. She ended up tossing the entire corn on the cob and a chicken leg that was on her plate, over her shoulder and into the woods when Grandpa Charlie went over to the grill to check on the hotdogs. Grandpa Charlie was shocked that the food on her plate just disappeared into thin air and assumed she was very hungry. Uncle Em had made a joke that she was so hungry she could eat a whole cow.

I laugh at that. It sounds very funny to me.

Daddy goes on with more food stories as I take more tiny bites of pizza. Some of the stories are funny and some are gross. But each of these stories have a few things in common: Daddy had to eat food at certain times even though he is a vampire and doesn't like to. And second, he sure had to pretend to eat a lot of food when Mommy was human.

"You have no idea." Daddy says, hearing my thoughts. "Now keep eating so we can go play games."

"Yay!" I cheer. I like that thought about playing games.

"I'm proud of you." Mommy says to me. "You're half way done with your first slice. Then you just have one more to go."

I gulp as I take another bite of food. I chew the slimy bit and swallow it, knowing that I have so many more bites to go. Thinking of playing the SpongeBob game I begin to wish that there was an easy way out of this dinner time thing. Of course Daddy heard that and reminds me of our deal. I roll my eyes.

I don't care for the texture of pizza. But I don't have a choice, so I keep eating.

My parents begin to have a conversation that's all their own while I eat without saying a word. I don't listen to what's being said, it's boring so instead I count the amount of ham and pineapple that is on the pizza. It's thirty pineapples and twenty pieces of ham that are on the rest of the pizza that's in the middle of the table. I take another bite from the slice I hold.

"Is that pizza any good?" Auntie Alice excitedly bounces over. All of us look at her.

I swallow the mouth full of pizza. "It's interesting. And that's all I will say."

Since we are at a restaurant with people around. I say the word "interesting" instead of "disgusting" to be polite. Daddy taught me that.

"At least she's eating it." Mommy and Daddy speak at the same time.

Auntie Alice smiles and nods her head.

Taking another bite of pizza and getting closer to the crust, I roll my eyes just a teensy-weensy bit. Every member of my family - well, all except one - think it's so great when I eat human food. I don't understand why. After all, it doesn't taste good.

"Dear brother," Auntie Alice says to Daddy. "I need your tickets now. Please." She holds out her hand in front of him.

Daddy does a question face, with one eyebrow up. By the way he looks curious and confused. I'm sure that she's blocking her thoughts from him. I wonder why.

"Why do you need my tickets now?" Daddy wonders. "Why not just wait till we're getting ready to leave?"

"Once Nessie is finished eating we're going to play more games. We'll have more tickets then." Mommy points out.

Taking another bite of pizza, I wonder why Auntie Alice wants Daddy's tickets. After all, she was the one that was telling me it would be better to wait till we have more tickets to get prizes.

Auntie Alice shakes her head at Daddy. "Why fight me on this? Just trust me and give me your tickets."

With a sigh Daddy stands up. Without a word Daddy empties out his pockets, giving her all of his tickets. He has a lot of tickets because it's mine and his tickets put together. Auntie Alice smiles as she takes his tickets.

"Bella, come with me just for a second. Please?" Auntie Alice is bouncing up and down now, like a very hyper bunny. "I really want to show you something."

"Okay." Mommy draws out the word as she stands up.

Auntie Alice loops her arm around Mommy's. In one second flat they walk away from the table, arm and arm in the direction to where the prize counter is, with Auntie Alice talking Mommy's ear off while she just listens. They look funny because Auntie Alice is in a rush and pulling Mommy, who's so much taller than her, to where she wants to take Mommy. And Mommy just lets her.

Automatically I take another bite of pizza while I wonder what Auntie Alice is going to show Mommy.

"It's a lava lamp that's in the shape of a high heel shoe. She plans on winning it." Daddy laughs, reading my thoughts.

"Oh!" I saw that when she and I were at the prize counter." I say as I remember how that sparkly thing looked. "She's going to get it?" I ask.

Daddy nods his head and smiles, tapping his index finger to his forehead. That's his way of telling me that he saw it from her mind.

Of course she would want that for a prize. After all, she likes all things that go with fashion, like a pair of giant gold scissors that hang on her wall, a giant white high heel shoe chair and lacy curtains that have small high heel shoes all over them that's in her and Uncle Jazz's room. I giggle. I think my aunt really likes high heel shoes. Maybe a little too much.

Daddy starts laughing which only makes me laugh more. I guess he finds what I am thinking silly.

"She does seem to have an obsession with high heel shoes. Doesn't she?" Daddy questions with a laugh.

I'm laughing so hard that I can't answer him. But he knows my answer anyway because he can use his extra hearing and hear what's in my mind. Sometimes I like it when he reads my mind before I speak because it's like a secret conversation, but that's only sometimes. Other times I don't like it because he knows what I'm planning on doing before I do it.

"Well, you seem to be in a good mood." Uncle Jasper sneaks up on me. "Is that any good?" He points to my bit of pizza I hold in my hand.

"Want to try it?" I ask, holding out my slice of pizza that is almost all gone.

"No thank you." Uncle Jazz tweeks my nose. He places a small round clear container of Dip 'N Dots ice cream in front of me. I stare at the container, there's pink and blue dots in it. "It's cotton candy flavor. It might be good." He shrugs his shoulders.

"Thank you." I say too quickly.

Awesome, but I don't really feel that way. Holding my pizza in my hand and taking another bite because I have to, I look at the ice cream. Great. More food for me to eat. I'm not that happy about that even though I know my uncle was trying to be nice and bring me something that kids are supposed to like. But I don't. Why does my family keep doing this to me?

"Well, now," Uncle Jasper says as he sits down next to Daddy. "I was sure I would find Alice over here."

"Nope. She took Bella to go look at the prizes." Daddy explains.

"She had a very important high heel shoe that's really a lava lamp to go look at." I want to be in on this conversation too.

"Oh." Uncle Jazz looks amused. "So a lava lamp was more interesting than her and I playing games, like we had planned?" He chuckles.

"She left you for a high heel shoe?" I'm trying to picture why she would want to go look at the lava lamp shoe instead of playing games. That doesn't make sense to me.

Uncle Jazz and Daddy both laugh at that. Both of them act like I told a funny joke when I didn't.

"Yup. But she'll be back." Uncle Jazz smiles at me.

I smile back at him. "Are you sure you don't want to try this?" I wave the crust of my pizza around.

I'm really determined to not eat the crust. It's too much bread and I don't want any more pizza anyway. I want to go play games already. When will I get to play games?

"I'm very sure." Uncle Jazz tries not to make a face at the food I have to eat.

"We'll play games when you're done eating." Daddy takes the crust from my hand and places it on a napkin. "Now drink some soda. Then eat another slice of pizza, here's a skinny one." He plops a tiny slice onto my plate.

I make a face but do as Daddy says. While I drink my red soda that is too sweet and not yummy at all, Daddy and Uncle Jazz start talking about arcade games that used to be popular a very long time ago that they used to play in arcades. I don't know what games like Pac-Man, Tapper and Frogger are and I'm not really listening anyways. Instead, I'm singing the theme song for Muppet Babies inside my head while I think long and hard about what I'm going to do.

Daddy is too into his and Uncle Jazz's conversation to pay attention to what's going on inside my head. But just in case, I keep thinking of the cartoon's theme song so my thoughts are safe. While they continue talking and Daddy looks at me every now and then, as I sip on my soda. I begin to get a very great plan. After I have had enough I quietly put my drink down.

I wait a little bit until Daddy is not looking at me to put my plan into action. I keep my eyes on them as their conversation switches to another video game I have never heard of. Suddenly Daddy turns around and looks over his shoulder, like someone called his name, But I didn't hear anything. Uncle Jazz seems curious about what Daddy is looking at, he looks over that way too.

With both of their eyes not on me it's time to put my great plan into action. I see my chance and I'm taking it.

As quiet and as slippery as a fish I slid out of the booth without making a sound. With my feet on the rug and Daddy and Uncle Jazz not looking at me, I move one foot in front of the other. Being as fast as a lion cub I run away from the food I don't want to eat and onward to the games I want to play.

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Thanks for reading. :)

We are finally getting to the end of this little story. There are only three more chapters left. Since the remaining chapters are already written, the rest of the story will be updated this week.

Amber hopes you enjoyed this chapter. Please leave a nice review for her. :)))