Westbrook Academy for Metahumans: Forums

I apologize at my incredible lack of pithy -_-;

For three girls working together, the monumental task before them began with a remarkably quiet kitchen.

It had been well scrubbed; Lark arrived earlier than strictly necessary to wipe down the sink, polish the handles, scrub the floors, wash the counters, clean the ovens, scrub the burners and generally assure that everything smelled strongly of lemon 7th Generation. The food was taken out; pasta boxes stacked next to several large pots all neatly and evenly aligned. Pasta sauce was next to smaller sauce pots, lids, tomato paste, mushrooms, onions, and everything else needed for that station. Several packages of chicken were waiting, already unnecessarily divided into plastic baggies by the 5’s according to relative amount of meat on each. Every spice or seasoning that could possibly be needed was taken out and organized according to height and order along.

The small talk was small when Mia and Faige arrived; the whiteboard had been carefully been written with directions for what needed to be done with what and where it would go. Lark remained terse and prickly - continuing to organize and clean even for a few minutes after the others arrived over places that by no means still needed it, more noting the directions were on the board than actually talking.

Mia still seemed quietly troubled; she still smiled her friendly smile but somehow it didn’t quite reach her eyes. She gave a concerned look to Faige, giving a little polite smile and a wave before heading over to consider the puzzle of how to make so much for so many people. Still, a little bit of friendliness and kindness could do amazing things, Mia figured, and so she broke the silence first.

“Faige, would you like to start on the pasta sauce?”

Mia took several of the jars of spices – oregano, basil, rosemary, sage, thyme. She stopped to consider taking parsley too just for the sake for the song, giggling a little as she did.

“We’re going to add the vegetables and seasoning to make the sauce a little better, right?”

Mia headed over to the sink to wash her hands as she spoke, looking across to Faige who was doing much of the same.

“Well, we already have tomato paste and some vegetables so… why not just use that?”

It was a polite smile that Faige gave when she spoke. The kind that you give to sales clerks or waitresses when they said have a nice day and you just said have a nice day back. She wiped her hands off on the towel before heading over to the sauce pans – dumping all of the vegetables into one to make it easier to carry to the stove. The pre-made spaghetti sauce was left behind; instead she took the cans of stewed tomatoes and tomato paste. Faige debated why everything was set across the kitchen like a cooking show, debated making a cooking show joke to lighten the mood a little. She debated what a good cooking show joke would be.

“So, are we all fighting over who’s Iron Chef Italy, or, are we breaking it down like I’m Iron Chef pasta sauce and Mia’s Iron Chef chicken?”

The question was enough to break the heavy sort of silence and Faige inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

“I don’t think you can really be up for Iron Chef Italy if you can’t make lasagna… so, how about the second one?”

Mia gave a sheepish version of her smile at the remembrance of the failed dish.

“So, you’re Iron Chef chicken? Or we’re Team Italy. For the lasagna challenge you could be my sous chef, Mia.”

“I… guess, so? Sure, we can be Team Italy. Are… you making the pasta sauce from scratch, Faige?”

Faige looked down at her things, nodding and shrugging all at once.

“Aunty has a private chef. I spent a lot of time watching him cook, so, I picked up some things. Sauce isn’t really all that hard, anyhow.”

Both Mia and Lark looked over to watch Faige chop up her vegetables and begin to mix together her own sauce with at least a small amount of admiration for her effort. The awkward silence started to settle back over but it was Lark who broke it this time.

“Mother wouldn’t let me in the kitchen much. I mean, for things like making sandwiches and hors d’oeuvers and such, but, she always said that children were too messy to come into the kitchen.”

Lark had poured the spaghetti into the pot with a little bit of salt, voice quieter than its typical sound. Four burners all taken up for pasta and she wondered if it would be enough. Or if it wasn’t enough, if people would yell? Most likely they would, she figured. Pasta only required minimal attention. She focused, then, on folding napkins into little fans for place settings.

Faige looked over the kitchen and then back to Lark with a skeptical eye.

“I can see why, you’re the messiest person in the world.”

“…It is a little silly.” Mia agreed with a smile, setting the chicken in to bake. “You’re kind of... meticulously neat.”

“You’re making some… fancy herb chicken and olive oil and she’s making homemade spaghetti sauce and all I’m doing is boiling pasta. I have to do something worthwhile.” Lark gave a flippant little shrug meant to end the conversation but she kept her still puffy eyes down and away.

Still, despite Mia’s caution, Lark’s prickily attitude and Faige’s measured distance – conversation had begun and the door remained open. Sourdough was warmed and seat into neatly divided hunks on the table; tremendous amounts of pasta were boiled and strained and set into what serving bowls that could be found large enough. Several gravy boats were re-commissioned for pasta sauce and three trays of herb roasted chicken were organized into rather lovely radial flowers sat along the full table. Needlessly nicely folded napkins waited on each plate, and several cans of different types of soda waited, chilled over the course of the day. By the time the three were setting places for the football team it had even warmed into something more than just questions about what the others were doing.

Lark had the idea of dressing like serving staff and stood out making sure that members of football and cheerleading heard about the pre-game dinner and went chasing down people with Faige to make sure they got the memo; first through the halls, then in front of the cafeteria later.

Go Mustangs! Pre-Game Spaghetti Football/Cheerleading Dinner!

Menu:

Salad

Herb roasted chicken with olive oil
Spaghetti
Homemade marinara sauce
Sourdough bread

Donuts by Krispie Kreme


Mia took the time to make a menu as best she could with her arm in a cast – carefully drawing on the white poster board what was being served at the dinner. She set it up on an easel from the art room so people could see as they came in.

Dinner Presented by: Faige Harrison, Lark Lowell and Mia Cobol

Mia’d convinced them all to sign at the bottom after a little bit of urging and after a little bit of decorating, she was certain that was the best part.

[Thank you Mia and Lark for the help and feedback!]

The Home Ec. room was spotless. Not just clean, but spot utterly spotless with that distinct smell of bleach mixed with "lemony fresh" still lingering in the air. Faige wondered if Lark was damaging her respiratory system with all these cleaning chemicals.

She walked in followed by a couple "volunteer" students she'd rounded up from the hallways carrying a ridiculously large amount of beef, veggies and the various canned accoutrements one needed to to make chili. Lark was already waiting for her when she arrived, instructing her helpers to "just stick it on the floor" before being promptly interrupted by Lark who had already sussed out places for everything to go. Faige rolled her eyes in a good natured manner at Lark's odd mannerisms. It didn't even rub her the wrong way today, nothing could, her mood was far too good to be brought down by something so simple.

Mia wandered in shortly thereafter, issuing a small wave to the other girls. Small talk came easier this time than it had the last time they tackled this endeavor. Mia's concentration seemed elsewhere, from the moment she'd walked in she was already consciously compartmentalizing free floating thoughts but luckily there was nothing overly heavy lingering in the minds of the other two girls at the moment.

Faige explained that they would be making two pots of chili, one meat and one vegetarian. Chili because it was October and cold, not because Espinosa was Mexician and liked it. Wait... Cu--

"Cuban." Mia corrected her, Faige grinned.

"Totally Cuban."

She fell back into explaining how the two pots were going to be separated and labeled, mentioning how silly the football team was going to think having vegetarian chili available was but it was the polite thing to do.

Lark may as well have been whistling as she chopped. Faige expected her to break into show tunes at any given moment and she was thinking of Matt incessantly. "I wonder if puppy likes the red peppers more than the green..." "Puppy looks so cute in his letterman..." "I bet he's in study hall right now--"

Mia was just trying to block out the "puppy puppy puppy" from one side as she emptied can after can of diced tomatoes with sauce into one of the pots. From the other, Faige was thinking about the bot that Syd was going to roll out for her today. She was thinking about the game tomorrow and the band. She was worried about Brodi and thinking about when she was going to call Ryker next. The constant barrage of thoughts was difficult, but not intolerable.

"It's a shame you can't serve with us." Faige said, starting to put veggies into the pot with ground beef as they came off the Lark assembly line.

"Yeah... well Chase and I don't do very well in the same room." Mia sighed, lining up the various spices beside her own pot.

The mention of Chase caused a pang of guilt to rise into Lark's sea of happiness. She sighed, pausing her chopping and said "Poor Chase."

Faige flicked her wooden spoon like a dismissive hand. "Everything will be back to normal soon." she said optimistically. "Then Chase will be okay again yeah? And your hair will be white. Mia" That was added as if it was important, maybe it was. Fae's eyes widened as it only now seemed to dawn on her "Hey! Everyone's a redhead today!"

Lark laughed, flipping her hair with her hand. "Yeah but you're not a -natural- redhead Faige, so you're cheating."

The trio stepped back from the pots after they'd been lidded and were all happily bubbling away, Lark already washing her hands in the sink. "Should we make rice or have crackers or something?"

"Maybe both." Mia nodded, searching the cabinet that she knew the rice was in.

Mia volunteered to get the rice sorted while the other two girls got the serving station set up down in the caf. They'd done that silly "let's dress like waiters" thing again this week at Lark's prodding. The word had been spreading all day that there was chili tonight but Lark and Faige were still flagging people down just to make sure.

Mia took it upon herself to draw up a poster board just like the one she'd made previously for the spaghetti dinner. It read:



Go Mustangs! Pre-Game Chili Football/Cheerleading Dinner!

Menu:

Chili Con Carne **spicy
Vegetarian Chili **mild

Italian bread
White rice
Crackers

Cupcakes by Paragon City Cupcakes

Dinner Presented by: Faige Harrison, Lark Lowell and Mia Cobol

Once that had been finished, Mia retreated for the evening leaving the serving to Lark and Faige.