The Truth of Past and Present

Chapter 12: I work in the kitchen and threaten someone...with a frying pan

"Rise and shine, kid! Breakfast will not make itself! Up and at 'em!" A loud, raspy, loud voice broke into my dreamless consciousness like a sledgehammer. I opened my eyes.

"Wadser, when you said early, I didn't know you meant before daylight!" I croaked.

"Your new life awaits, missy. Get your makeup on and come down. Breakfast rush begins in an hour, and we have all the food to make in that time!" Wadser strolled out of my room, completely awake and humming a tune.

I groaned and rolled over and over until I fell out of my bed. A very effective wake-up strategy, if you can convince yourself to do it. I put on a royal blue tank top, a pale green sweater and some black slacks, then dragged a comb through my hair, brushed my teeth, and did my makeup. Once my look was complete, I stumbled downstairs and met Wadser in the kitchen.

"Good, you're here. Take this," he handed me an apron, "put your hair back, and make a batch of crescent moon buns. Make sure to multiply the recipe by 6," he called over his shoulder as he stirred a pot of oatmeal. "It's the weekend!"

Thankfully, as a baker, I was good at multiplication. Funny that even though our society is so advanced compared to that of the Ancient Ones, our ancestors from the Lost Planet, we still use their forms of study. But now, we have made it even better. We have Astro calculus and  Biochemistry and Galactic Linguistics and Biorobotics and Astrono-geography.

"Careful, missy! You don't want to overflow the mixer!" 

I was jolted out of my wandering morning-thoughts by Wadser's warning. I had been shoveling way too much flour into the bowl, and I was about to turn on the hi-speed. Oopsie.

In an hour, I had corrected my mistake, baked all 138 of the rolls, and made about 3 other different pastries which I set out on the counter, steaming hot, just as the cantina opened for the day. As the customers came and went, I watched in fascination, like a scientist watching live cells under a microscope. Each person or alien was different, and almost all of them knew Wadser. He laughed and joked with each one, asking how their business was going and how soon he could meet someone's kids. 

I was mesmerized. These people were so open and friendly to each other, and they took an interest in one another's lives! The kids at AT were hardly like that. Compared to these lower levelers, they were...stiff. One-dimensional, shallow, and unlively, like paper dolls.

Except Marissa.

Stop thinking about her, you can't cry your eyes out when you're making bread, it can't rise, I scolded myself, though I didn't know that for sure. I took out whatever emotion I felt on the dough, kneading it into a smooth ball, forming it, and putting it into the oven. It wasn't even 9 AM, and already we had to prepare for lunch.

"Psst!" I heard a voice from the wall. Daniel!

"Daniel, what are...where are you?" I hissed, looking towards the wall, which was devoid of doors.

A finger poked out of the vent. "Here! How's your first day?" the vent opened and he stuck his head out.

"It will be great if I'm not caught with a wanted fugitive!" I whispered back at him. "What are you doing?"

"I'm hungry."

I sighed. "Of course." Boys are always hungry. I grabbed a few rolls, opened the vent cover, and handed them in. As I closed it and went back to work, I heard loud smacking and grunts of pleasure. Pig.

Then the noises suddenly stopped. "Wait a minute...are these like those cookies you had yesterday? Am I poisoned? Wait, no, am I about to mutate? What about-"

"You are about to liquefy whatever brain cells you still have up there," I muttered. A sputtering and spitting noise emanated from the vent.

"What!"

"Relax, Captain Paranoia," I told him as I kept working. "It's not contaminated. The cookies I made yesterday did have something in them, but it was just an over measurement of Qada spice. Puts 'em out faster than any sleeping powder. Best of all, it's untraceable, so it'll take some time for the authorities to realize what had half their force in Snoozeville."

There was a sound of applause from the vent. "Daddy's girl is a born schemer! I'm so proud." Fake sobs, again from the vent.

I was getting pretty tired of talking to a vent. "Listen, hotshot, please leave me alone while I'm working, you're distracting me!"

Wrong thing to say, I am sooo going to regret that one.

 "I distract you, princess?" Daniel poked his head out and wiggled his eyebrows at me. "Have you fallen for the handsome stranger?"I hated it, but I couldn't stop myself from blushing. "Maybe it's meant to be." He winked at me with such a look on his face I wanted to punch out his lights.

"Quit it, you!" I struggled to regain control of my tongue.

"Alas, fair maid! Methinketh I cannot cease being so drop-dead gorgeous!" He had a wolfish grin on his face.

I had had enough. Drop-dead gorgeous? As if.

"Methinketh you give yourself way too much credit, Bighead."

"The maiden is helpless under my gaze." He stage-whispered.

That was it. 

"Listen, jailbird, I just rescued you from certain death yesterday! I am not a helpless maiden, and don't you forget it! Now get back in your room or so help me I will drag you out of there and whack you upside the head with a frying pan, and I won't care who sees!"

I heard nothing more from the vent that day.

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. I took the role of waitress for supper, and had some interesting interactions with some of the patrons. Some were short-tempered, some were drunk, some were short-tempered and drunk. A few were a little grabby, if you know what I mean, but I had been introduced to the guard at the door, and he was always watching out for trouble. A few of my special cookies during our break, and he and I were immediate friends. 

Fist, as he called himself, was as big as my former bodyguards, if not bigger. He was human, but according to his size, he must have had some genetic manipulation done at some point. Whether illegally or if he had been in service, I didn't ask and he didn't tell.

Anyway, any time he saw me being harassed or bothered by the more...unsavory customers, he would saunter over and stand behind me, arms crossed. Either the antagonist would apologize and calm down, or Fist would grab him by the nape of his neck and toss him out the door. 

Thankfully for Wadser's business, the patrons would pay before sitting down to their meal, and they paid for anything extra immediately.

It was different for me to have someone else look out for me. I mean, I had had bodyguards recently, yesterday, in fact, but they just stood back and made sure I wasn't kidnapped or targeted by terrorists. I generally had to fend for myself when I got into a situation, and my kung fu would usually have been enough.

Usually.

Now, I was in the real world, and my training was not enough. These guys didn't play by the rules of Martial Arts, they were street fighters. Believe me, I tried to take one man down, and ended up smashed into a table. Fist pounded the guy and sent him out the window, but not before I had received a wake-up call.

The day ended well, and I got my first day's wages. I was tired, but I was still awake, and so was Daniel. That was all I needed.

At 10:00 PM, I knocked on Daniel's door and entered his room. He looked at me questioningly. I faced him.

"Teach me how to fight."