How I Met Hena Chakelithp

Chapter 4. Slurping the Stew

We walked inside. Hena's eyes traveled to my simple homemade bookshelf.
"What are those?" she said, pointing.
"The bottom shelf is stuff like fables, laws, and scripture," I said. "Religious stuff. The second is reference. The third is novels and...well, any kind of stories. The top shelf is my notebooks and diaries so that's off limits. But you can read any of the other ones."
"Thanks," Hena said. She shuffled through the books on the third shelf until she found a thick novel titled "The Wreck of the Ambassador".
"That one's a romance about this guy whose ship gets wrecked on an island." I pointed out. "He meets this woman on the island and they fall in love."
"Cool." Hena said and started reading it.
At that point I spotted Kudika the dragon flying toward the house with a deer in her claws.
"Sorry, I need to go prepare venison," I said.  "You can come and watch if you want, but the process of skinning and gutting a deer is not for the faint of heart."
"Uh, no thanks," said Hena. I didn't blame her.
I went outside to prepare the deer. I hung up the skin on an iron pole to dry. I hung up the meat to smoke in the smoker for a few days. I threw the organs into the ocean to attract fish. I boiled the sinews to make draw-strings and ribbons out of. I took the bones inside to boil and make knives from. I checked the sundial on the way back... 7:00 already!
"I should start making dinner," I said to myself.
As soon as I had a fire lit, I put a pot of stew on. It had venison, rabbit broth, sage and rosemary.
"That soup, or whatever you're cooking, smells really good," Hena said.
"Thanks," I said as I added leeks and potatoes.
"Where do you get all this food?" Hena asked.
"My garden," I said. "and from hunting."
"What do you grow in your garden?" Hena asked.
"I grow potatoes, cabbage, spinach, corn, wheat, apples, berries, bamboo, and all kinds of herbs."
"That must be a big garden."
"It's normal for around here."
"Cool," Hena said. "Why do you grow bamboo?"
"Firewood." I said. "It grows incredibly fast and doesn't have much sap, so I always have a good supply and it's easy to burn."
"If it grows so fast, why isn't the island covered with it?"
"I grow it on a tiny little island off the coast of this one so it can't spread to the rest of the island."
"That sounds cool."
"It is. By the way, tomorrow's my thirteenth birthday."
"Well, happy birthday, I guess."
"Thanks."
I poured the stew into bowls and put them on the table. Then I opened the cabinet and took out a corn muffin wrapped in paper. I spread raspberry jam on it and handed it to Hena.
She stuffed it into her mouth and ate it all in one bite. Then she looked down at the jam on her hands.
"Just lick it off," I said. "I'd be hungry too if I hadn't had a good meal in days."
She licked the jam off and started to slurp her stew with an intent expression on her face.  Then she immediately stopped, looking very embarrassed, as if she'd realized that what she was doing was impolite.
"You can slurp the stew if you want. I don't care," I said dismissively.
"Let's slurp together!" she said.
We immediately started slurping again and in a few minutes we were done. Hena was looking very sleepy and satisfied.
She stood up and held out her little finger. I had no idea what she was doing.
"It's called a 'finger snatch'," she said. "We hook our fingers together. It's something we do in my country. People say it when they accomplish something. Even if it's really small, like finishing a meal really fast."
I hooked my finger with hers. I liked her.
"Srarori?" she said suddenly.
"Yeah?"
"In my country we don't have dragons."

What??????
"What? I can't imagine life without dragons!" I was so surprised. But then again, the homeland of all dragons, the Wastelands of Utiiq, was on our island, so I couldn't really think how dragons could get anywhere else.
"Well," I said, "we're going to end up running a lot of errands and visiting some people together, so you're going to need to learn how to ride."
"Ride?" she said, wide-eyed. "A dragon? That's so so cool! When?" Her expression changed to excitement.
"We can start tomorrow if you want." I said.
"Tomorrow? Yeah!"
"All right," I said. "I'll wake you up tomorrow and teach you to ride a dragon."
"Awesome!" she said. I really liked her. I was already beginning to see that there was far more than meets the eye when it came to her. But mostly, I was glad that we'd just met and we were already friends.