On the night before their birthday, Eve lay in her bed, wide awake. When she was sure the household was asleep, she went over to Alexandra’s bed and awakened her. “Alex,” she whispered, “let’s go down to the kitchen and see our birthday cakes.”
Alexandra said sleepily, “Everybody’s sleeping.”
“We won’t wake anyone up.”
“Mademoiselle Dunas won’t like it. Why don’t we look at the cakes in the morning?”
“Because I want to look at them now. Are you coming or not?”
Alexandra rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She had no interest in seeing the birthday cakes, but she did not want to hurt her sister’s feelings. “I’m coming,” she said.
Alexandra got out of bed and put on a pair of slippers. Both girls wore pink nylon nightgowns.
“Come on,” Eve said. “And don’t make any noise.”
“I won’t,” Alexandra promised.
They tiptoed out of their bedroom, into the long corridor, past the closed door of Mademoiselle Dunas’s bedroom, down the steep back stairs that led to the kitchen. It was an enormous kitchen, with two large gas stoves, six ovens, three refrigerators and a walk-in freezer.
In the refrigerator Eve found the birthday cakes that the cook, Mrs. Tyler, had made. One of them said Happy Birthday, Alexandra. The other said Happy Birthday, Eve.
Next year, Eve thought happily, there will only be one.
Eve took Alexandra’s cake out of the refrigerator and placed it on the wooden chopping block in the middle of the kitchen. She opened a drawer and took out a package of brightly colored candles.
“What are you doing?” Alexandra asked.
“I want to see how it looks with the candles all lighted.” Eve began pressing the candles into the icing of the cake.
“I don’t think you should do that, Eve. You’ll ruin the cake. Mrs. Tyler is going to be angry.”
“She won’t mind.” Eve opened another drawer and took out two large boxes of kitchen matches. “Come on, help me.”
“I want to go back to bed.”
Eve turned on her angrily. “All right. Go back to bed, scaredy cat. I’ll do it alone.”
Alexandra hesitated. “What do you want me to do?”
Eve handed her one of the boxes of matches. “Start lighting the candles.”
Alexandra was afraid of fire. Both girls had been warned again and again about the danger of playing with matches. They knew the horror stories about children who had disobeyed that rule. But Alexandra did not want to disappoint Eve, and so she obediently began lighting the candles.
Eve watched her a moment. “You’re leaving out the ones on the other side, silly,” she said.
Alexandra leaned over to reach the candles at the far side of the cake, her back to Eve. Quickly, Eve struck a match and touched it to the matches in the box she was holding. As they burst into flames, Eve dropped the box at Alexandra’s feet, so that the bottom of Alexandra’s nightgown caught fire. It was an instant before Alexandra was aware of what was happening. When she felt the first agonizing pain against her legs, she looked down and screamed, “Help! Help me!”
Eve stared at the flaming nightgown a moment, awed by the extent of her success. Alexandra was standing there, petrified, frozen with fear.
“Don’t move!” Eve said. “I’ll get a bucket of water.” She hurried off to the butler’s pantry, her heart pounding with a fearful joy.
It was a horror movie that saved Alexandra’s life. Mrs. Tyler, the Blackwells’ cook, had been escorted to the cinema by a police sergeant whose bed she shared from time to time. On this particular evening, the motion-picture screen was so filled with dead and mutilated bodies that finally Mrs. Tyler could bear it no longer. In the middle of a beheading, she said, “This may all be in a day’s work for you, Richard, but I’ve had enough.”
Sergeant Richard Dougherty reluctantly followed her out of the theater.
They arrived back at the Blackwell mansion an hour earlier than they had expected to, and as Mrs. Tyler opened the back door, she heard Alexandra’s screams coming from the kitchen. Mrs. Tyler and Sergeant Dougherty rushed in, took one horrified look at the scene before them and went into action. The sergeant leaped at Alexandra and ripped off her flaming nightgown. Her legs and hips were blistered, but the flames had not reached her hair or the front of her body. Alexandra fell to the floor, unconscious. Mrs. Tyler filled a large pot with water and poured it over the flames licking at the floor.