The Host ¤ The Next Chapter

The Host ¤ The Next Chapter: 28

The Host ¤ The Next Chapter: 28

Jenny

"Remind me why we had to wake up so early?" I groaned as I rubbed my eyes.

I blindly followed Jesse down to the first floor in the cavern, walking a couple of steps behind him. I'm sure he'd told me what we were doing today earlier, but I couldn't remember since I'd been half asleep back then. Heck, I was still half asleep now. I didn't know what job was so important that we had to wake up at five in the morning for.

"We're on kitchen duty today." Jesse replied, not bothering to turn around and look at me. 

"What does that mean?" I asked with no particular interest.

"It means we have to serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner today to everyone." He said as if I should know that already. "We work in the line with about a dozen other people at stations and scoop whatever slop's on the menu onto people's trays if they ask for it."

"Oh..kay." I hummed sleepily.

"We also have to wear hair nets." Jesse added. "And aprons."

"Great." I sighed. "Just great..."

He ignored me as we walked along. My morning drowsiness made the trip to the mess hall much faster since I forgot half the walk there. When we arrived, one of the older women welcomed us behind the counter into the back room where the food was made and servers got ready. 

We put on the aprons they had availiable. There were no solid colors. We had choices between white and blue striped, or maybe aprons with flowers on them, and other embarressing patterns. I quickly grabbed the striped apron before Jesse could, leaving him only a pink apron with a sunflower on it or a blue apron with a lily pad and a frog. He, of course, chose the least embarressing of the two---the frog.

Once our clothing was protected, we had to put on the hair nets to keep hair from falling into the food. While it was easy peasy for Jesse to slip one over his head, mine was a different problem altogether. My hair only had two settings: fluffy waves or extra fluffy waves. Today was unfortunately the ladder. It took me a good five to six minutes to shove all that radiant hair into a net.

The last step before we could go out and start servnig people was to wash our hands, then put rubber gloves on. I really didn't get the logic behind it. What did it matter if you didn't wash your hands if you were going to put gloves on? I followed their rule however. I didn't want to get in trouble with Jeb for refusing to wash my hands.

With steps one through three completed, we were allowed to go back out to the front and take our places. I was put on tatter tot distribution while Jesse was assigned on the scrambled eggs. 

Our morning started out slow, with maybe one or two people at a time in line. As the day dragged on however, more people began to arrive. By eight o'clock, The line was backed up by ten people. At eight ten, there were thirty persons waiting to collect grub.

I served each of them as fast as I could, trying to avoid eyes. Was Jeb trying to get me killed by these people? The very persons he sought to protect me from were coming face to face with me. The only reason they didn't call me out was because Jesse stood to my right as a looming shadow. Plus, the line required them to keep moving or risk getting yelled at by the impatient people located at the end.

I did my job, remembering none of the faces that walked by my station. Well, all of them but one.

"Nice hair net, freckle face." Gabbie teased, looking at me with a smart look on her face.

"Good morning to you too, Gabbie." I replied with a sigh.

"I'd like the tatter tots." she continued, "---if you can handle it."

I went to reach down to scoop some up with my gloved hand, but I paused.

"What's the matter? The job too stressful for you?" Gabbie sneered.

"You didn't say the magic word." I told her.

"What?" She barked.

"What do you say when you want something?" I asked her, waiting for her reply.

Anger broke out on her face when she understood what I was suggesting.

"Please." She growled.

"I suppose I could give you some." I sighed, grabbing a handful of tots and depositing them on her tray.

Gabbie walked down the line, grumbling to herself as she left my station behind.

"Have a nice day!" I called after her, attracting a little attention from the people sitting down and eating.

I finished out the rest of the morning serving people until the line stopped building up. I was surprised that I didn't see my aunt or uncle. I wondered if Jeb was having their meals brought to them, or they were starving themselves because they didn't want to come face to face with me. In my heart, I was hurt by their behavoir. They were the only family I had now. But then again, May was family to me to, and being away from her made my heart ache.