The Chronicles of Time - Book 2: The Book of Flames

Chapter VI: Alicia

Chapter VI: Alicia

"So, where did you come from?" Alicia asked while we were working on a dish. Well, technically it was mostly me because Alicia was just sitting right next to me, dictating the steps she had memorized. She was somewhat looking at me; sometimes her open faded silver eyes were aimed at chest and were sometimes gazing at something above my head. She never made eye contact, which was reasonable.

"San Francisco," I said.

"That's in America, right?" She asked, sounding uncertain. I wondered if she had a bad sense of geography.

"Yeah."

Then she suddenly yelped, "The pan!"

"The what?" I asked, startled.

"Pan!" She hissed.

I looked at the pan. It was smoking up a little bit on the edges. As fast as I could, I turned the stove off.

"Did you kill it?" Alicia asked, worried.

"Yeah," I said, heaving. "How did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That the pan was getting cooked."

Alicia bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. Her expression looked guilty like I just accused her for robbing a bank. "Well...It's complicated. I don't really know. I just sensed it."

"You smelled it or something?"

She nodded. "Something like that."

We made pancakes, which was something I didn't get to do back at my old school; I didn't have cooking classes there. Being basically clueless about cooking resulted in me making random mistakes. The almost-burnt pan was one of those. A quarter-dozen of eggs where wasted, a burnt crispy pancake came next; then I set a rubber spatula on fire, turning it into a dented piece of glub.

By then, every single classmate of mine were giving me looks, which I ignored. Alicia, on the other hand, was rather forgiving. "What are you doing now?" She asked.

"I just flipped it."

"Is it brownish?"

"Sort of."

"Is the spatula on fire again?"

"Um, no. Also how would you know what the color brown is? I thought blind people aren't supposed to know what a color is." I asked, trying to change the subject because I was partially embarrassed and partially curious about Alicia. Well, mostly embarrassed, but I really was curious, to be honest. I've read that blind people don't have an idea what a color looks like.

"I'll tell you once you have finished cooking, have turned the stove off and have gotten rid of anything combustible," she said coldly. Harsh girl.

Once I did all that she said, we presented our pancake to Ms. Troy, who was this small woman who liked waving around a stick. I never saw her hitting anyone with it yet, but it was surely a possibility. "Much better than the last one," she said after swallowing a small chunk of it. "But this one is still a little bit overcooked, but at least it wasn't ash crunchy. Fine. You two are done." And she waved us off with her stick.

We went back to our room where everyone else was talking and doing stuff, waiting for the last of our batch.

"Oh look; it's Miss Stick-eyes with the new guy!" Someone yelled once we got in. It was the class bully, Remi. Alicia had told me earlier about him and I noticed how he eyed me with a glint of satisfaction. New meat, he must've thought. I wouldn't be surprised if he ganged up on me after school.