Chapter 6

Addy led Dennis down several darkened halls into a brightly lit chamber, the main kitchen. It was an impressive and monstrous room, an enormous cutting board lay in the middle of the wooden floor, two refrigerators, two stove top ovens and two basin sinks line the far wall with the windows overlooking the patio, a smaller sink and the majority of the cupboards took up the adjacent wall, and the opposite wall was made up of a dumbwaiter, a door to the wine cellar, another door to the basements, broom closets, a fireplace and cooking pots and pans hung by hooks on the whitewashed wall surface. The fourth wall was where Addy came in through the main sliding doors into the kitchen with Dennis in toll, pushing her chair along. A dining table was also backed on this wall. Beside this table table lay a young man in his twenties, he was unconscious prior and was just waking up. There was a small syringe jutting from his chest.
The young man came to a moment after Addy and Dennis entered. He sat up, rubbing his forehead and said while looking at Addy and the new arrival sleepily, 'Whoa, my little sister got a boyfriend.'
Addy tried to pay little attention to him but she was clearly amused and annoyed also by the young man's remark; Dennis was puzzled. 'Just in time.' Addy typed to Dennis, 'Meet my brother, a half-wit who is a decade older than me and a decade less mature than me.'
'Correction there, I happen to be a decade older, a decade wiser and a decade more handsome than my sister here.' Raymond grinned, motioning a thumb in Addy's direction, 'Mr. Raveley, I am the right honorable Raymond Wyatt.' Raymond extended a hand for Dennis to shake, he made no attempt to get up from his semi-risen position on the ground or take the syringe out of his chest, 'You may address me as Mister Raymond Harold Albert Frederick Timothy Wyatt, Esquire.'
Dennis didn't know how to reply to that, so Raymond continued, 'And you are to bow in my presence on one knee, order in effect this moment.' Addy barely suppressed a giggle, Dennis still didn't know how to respond, his mouth was open, Raymond grinned again and said, 'Just kidding, you can call me Raymond or just Ray, now help me up.'
Dennis pulled Raymond up to his feet and Raymond extracted the needle of the syringe from his body, wincing in the process, and held it up to Addy, 'If you keep injecting sedatives into me everything I attempt to aid your work, I just might become an addict.'
'You were distracting me.' Addy typed, looking at him maliciously.
'Only to correct what I thought was incorrect information on your part. Every host needs a fact-checker.' Raymond maintained.
'Not someone with an inferior intelligence such as yourself.' Addy typed. 'Put that transmitter on the table, so you don't have to carry it around.' said Addy to Dennis, who complied. She cranked up the volume of the transmitter using one of the many nobs on it, with another nob, she turned up the audio-reception range, so she could see what Raymond and Dennis were both saying.
Raymond didn't say anything, he smiled giddily and with buried affection. Raymond's age was twenty-one years old, but his expression spoke of a much younger, careless and naive self he had not grown out of. Dennis decided that he liked Raymond Wyatt too.
Now,' Raymond turned back to Dennis and said, 'Since you are new to the humble home of the Wyatts, I welcome your residence with uttermost zest, Mr. Raveley, and I must request your first name which has thus far eluded me.' Addy laughed and let her face sink into her hands.
'I'm Dennis.' Dennis said.
'Ah, so that's it, I remember it now! Mr. Dennis Raveley, welcome, I say, welcome to your home,' Raymond lowered his voice to a whisper, 'I know you are adopted into this family because my lonely sister wants a play date, but do not let that come between us, I always wanted another brother.' He patted Dennis on the back and then sank to the ground, unconscious. There was a syringe in his back.
'Don't worry about him, the sedative has no side-effects.' Addy said, rolling her chair away from behind where Raymond had collapsed. 'You look very surprised.'
'I thought he's an younger brother.' Dennis said.
'Many have, always after meeting me before Raymond.' Addy replied. 'When they find out I'm the younger sibling, they could never guess how old I am. Take a guess, how old do you think I am?'
Dennis, like many before him, found guessing Addy's age a strangely challenging feat, he couldn't guess by her appearance, which seemed completely off-par with her worldliness and radiating intellect. 'Are you fifteen?' He said with the most uncertainty possible in a sentence short of stammering.
Addy laughed, she was barely able to type out what she wanted to say, 'No! I'm eleven. Can't you tell?'
'You don't look...I mean appear eleven.'
'And you don't appear thirteen either.'
'I don't?' Dennis did not have time to think about how Addy came to know his age spot-on.
'You appear ten or eleven, like me.'
Dennis could think of nothing to say, his mouth fell open and stayed open. Addy covered her mouth again, her eyes bemused. 'I have to go find Mr. Quincy, stay here and when Raymond wakes up tell him to prepare breakfast, that's one thing he's ever good at, cooking. In the meantime, by all means, look around, this is where Raymond and I spend much of our time, you'll become used to it in no time.' Addy left, leaving the telecommunicator and her closed laptop on the table.
Dennis sat down on a stool and looked around. He liked the kitchen setting very much. It began to rain outside and his thoughts were just like the raindrops splattering against the window glass, he didn't know where to begin a thread of thought about this strange new environment he was thrust into. The thing he was puzzled about most now was the circumstances of his adoption, which he didn't understand at all now that he was able to put thought into it, the question was: who adopted him? It couldn't possibly be Addy or Raymond, because from what he had learned from spending all those years in orphanages, no one adopts children but parents, and where he was at the moment, he saw no parents anywhere.