To Be Frank

Mystic Cookbook Four

It was one of those days; the type where you wake up the wrong way, a strange bitterness in your body, and everything else that follows irritates you further.

It's a chaotic feeling. Annoyed? Check. Anxious? Check, check. Nothing and no one to pinpoint it on? Triple-check. Yeah, definitely one of those days.

I usually sleep in on Saturday, but today I wake up early and clean myself up quickly and efficiently before anyone else in the house has even opened their eyes. Hurriedly, I rush to pack my mistletoe cookies in my bag and make breakfast for the rest of the Chans.

Halfway through frying eggs, I hear the door close, and someone creeps into the house— footsteps so soft that I can barely hear them over the sound of the oil crackling in the pan.

No way. Was this a break-in? I had read previously that most break-and-enters happened on weekends, but wasn't it too early to be walking into someone else's house and stealing their things?

I reach over to grab my phone, but then realize that it is still charging upstairs on my bedside table. Damn it.

Pretending not to notice his presence over the crackling of eggs, I leave the pan on the stove and go to investigate, but not before grabbing another larger frying pan from the rack beside me.

Silently, I sneak around the hallway, pan to my chest. I probably looked like a fool, if the thief was watching. Damn them, making my day worse. I tighten my grip on the handle and prepare for confrontation. Let's go.

I charge into the main hall.

"Elliot?"

"Huh!"

Startled, I swing at the person behind me and whack him twice across the face with the pan before it registers that I recognize his voice.

"Frank?"

My victim is writhing on the ground, his hands over his face in pain. "Ow! What the heck, Elliot!"

"Oh my gosh, Kyle!" I kneel down and put the pan on the ground. "What the heck?"

"That's my line." Kyle turns over and drops his hand. Oh God. Blood drips from his nose and is smeared across his face— which is already bruising. "Gah. You've got to be kidding me," he says as he lets out a sharp sigh of disbelief.

"I'm sorry," I say, handing the handkerchief in the front of his bag, which he'd dropped in our kerfuffle. "We were watching Tangled last night, and some creative inspiration just hit me."

"Elliot—" he tries to give me a reprimanding look but I don't give him the chance.

"I am so sorry, Kyle, you have no idea. I thought you were a burglar!"

"Hey, Eli—"

"— I swear, if I had known it was you I would have served you breakfast, not a pan in the face—"

"Listen to me—"

"No, accept my apology, you moose!" I stop to breathe. At this, he splutters and we start to laugh. Probably not the best idea, since Kyle's nose started to spew— no, gush blood. I grabbed his bloody hand and pulled him up. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

"I think it's fractured," he says sheepishly.

"I'll get Dad."

•  •  •

"How ing de world did you eng up thinging I was a burglar?" Kyle asks. He sits on the countertop facing me as I finish making breakfast, a bandage tightly wound across his face.