The house didn’t taste like candy to Suzie. But then again, she thought, you can never trust your taste buds.

Just take her mother’s coffee, for example. Suzie had taken a sip of it one morning when her mother left her mug unattended to hang out the clothes. To her, it tasted bitter and terrible, yet she watched her mother drink it day after day, sometimes several times a day, always savoring it as if it were the some delicious elixir.

And while Suzie did not excel in reading like Royce, her older brother and three-time spelling bee champion, she knew enough to make out the words “Candy House” on the box that her father had given to her as a present. So when she bit into the first wall and it didn’t tast sweet at all, she assumed it was some adult flavor that she would learn to love later in life.

As to why she took a second and third bite, she wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe Suzie felt the need to mature quickly in order to step out from the shadow that Royce had cast over her, Royce who pretended to be a grown man at the age of eleven, Royce who could laugh out loud at books without any pictures. Or maybe she was just hungry.

Whatever her motives were, Suzie managed to eat two entire walls before laying down, clutching her stomach which was painfully full of pulp, and wondering if this was how her parents always felt after a meal.

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