Bilal couldn’t stop it now, he couldn’t stop the tears, or block the pain rising from within him. Maybe it was time to let go.
“My brother… Octavius and I… we… wekilledsomeone.”
TEN YEARS BEFORE
THE BUTTON MANOR
“Today I will be teaching you all an important lesson in guts. Henry, please fetch me a pail of rats,” Mr. Button said.
The seven children, all seated at their desks, squirmed in their seats at the mention of rats.
It was midafternoon on a hot July day, and while their peers were outside soaking in the sun and enjoying cones of soft-serve ice cream, the children were indoors in one of the Manor’s “laboratories,” being shown a dissection demonstration, as was done at this time every Thursday.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” one of the children, Evie, said quietly as Henry returned with a clear bucket of pale gray vermin. They could see all the rats squished together inside, their tails tangling around one another.
The secretary was wearing a pair of latex gloves, a green tinge to his own complexion as he placed the bucket down in front of Mr. Button.
“Thank you, Henry,” Mr. Button said, and then casually reached into the bucket and plucked a large rat out from itsrestingplace.
The children watched in despair, disgust, and amazement as the old man lay the vermin down on its back and then proceeded to slap the rat on its rounded belly, before piercing through its skin with a sharp scalpel, splitting it open and allowing its insides to tumble out.
“Our lessons in dissection are meant to show you how delicate and trivial life is. This rat here might’ve been brilliant, but in the end it is no better than any of those other rats in that bucket. It allowed itself to become prey.” Mr. Button grumbled the last part out as he began to remove the vermin’s insides, gutting it out with seemingly little to no remorse, like he had a personal vendetta against this particular rat.
A small brown hand shot up into the air as Evie stood up quickly. “Can I please be excused, Mr. Button?” she said, looking and sounding like she was moments from being sick.
Mr. Button paused his surgery, lowering his brow at the young squeamish girl before him.
Evie had been a new addition to the group, as had her brother, Adam. They were the brother and sister duo that lived in the staff quarters—the only children who lived there. There hadn’t been an explanation for why they were now a part of the Buttons’ lessons. One day they weren’t there and the next they were. Of course, Mr. Button had his reasons—he always had his reasons, and those reasons very often served his own interests.
Mr. Button sighed, staring pityingly down at the girl. “If you must go, then go, but this will be the last time that you get to be excused from these demonstrations, Evelyn.”
The girl didn’t waste any time before running out of the laboratory, covering her mouth as she did.
“Anyone else want to join Evelyn?” Mr. Button asked. There was silence, so he took that to mean that the rest of the children were perfectly fine with the cruel demonstration continuing.
“Where was I…,” Mr. Button pondered. “Ah yes, gutting. With this rat, we are going to learn the art of taxidermy—who here can define what that is?”
Immediately, a small dark brown hand pierced the sky and Mr. Button smiled down at the eager face of his eldest daughter.
“Folake, do you have the answer?”
Fola nodded. “Taxidermy is the process of stuffing animals to make them seem lifelike even though they aren’t alive anymore,” she said.
“Precisely!” Mr. Button replied. “Well done.”
Fola beamed at that, smiling wide in the way she always did when she knew she would be getting a gold star for her efforts.
“Now that I have prepared the rat, it is time for the stuffing process.”
Mr. Button took the heirs (and Adam) through the long process of the art of taxidermy. Mr. Button was rather fond of these stuffed dead animals; they were some of the first things a stranger might notice about the Manor when they visited.
Once he was done with the rat, he had made the children take a rat each and attempt the process themselves.
To his dismay, not all of his heirs seemed to be up to the task.
Octavius had thrown up and then fainted after accidentally stabbing the dead rat in the neck, its dark blood leaking out from the puncture wound.
Bilal had left too much of the rat’s guts inside and ended up with a poorly sewn-together mess.
