106. This Chapter Is About Pickles
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"Oh boy," I said aloud to myself, staring up at the ceiling, "am I in a pickle."

"Did someone say pickle?" Poly's head poked out in the doorway,  a wicked grin widening on her face. "Mmm, what I would give for some pickled cabbages for dinner!"

Lifting myself up from the floor of Rosa's room, I gave her a wicked grin of my own back. "Oho? Is that a plea for my amazing, scrumptious, the-king-would-hire-me-as-top-chef-if-he-ever-tried-this pickled cabbages I hear?"

"Why, I believe it may be so!"

I burst out laughing at Poly's poor imitation of a high and haughty voice, straight out of Mother Lily's high society romance novels.

"I'm sold!" I crowed. Giving her an exaggerated, lavish bow, I deepened my voice to sound like a butler. "Pickled cabbages for my lady, coming right up!"

I swooped her up and carried her downstairs to the kitchen as Poly laugh-shrieked into my ear, and we began setting up the kitchen in preparation for some intense pickling to begin. Everyone knew that he who pickles must pickle at great amounts. And Rosa's family was huge, which meant it would have to be extra great amounts. And why not? I had no shifts or any other plan today, and I was waiting for Rosa to be done with school so we could start discussing our next steps in greater detail. I had lots of time to spare.

While I was counting the amount of cabbages in Rosa's house, rolling around as they were, Ryan peeked in from the backyard, his mouth forming an 'o' of surprise. He must have remembered he needed to be angsty or something, though, because he dropped his expression to something more sullen when I grinned at him. 

"Hey Ryan!" I called to him cheerfully nonetheless. "Mind running a little favor for me?" And before he could complain, I added, "I'm about to pickle some cabbages, and you know what that means."

I could see the gears in his mind turning-- when we had pickled cabbages, that usually meant we'd have it with some kind of meat...

He was out the door with the pocket money in seconds.

I chuckled. Oh, Ryan. That boy was such a softie, hiding his heart of gold in layers of fake thorns that didn't even sting. He was too nice for that, though too bad that all his sisters knew it, too.

Watching him go, I swallowed back a sudden lump rising in my throat.

Wow. Can you believe it? We could, we could just go and buy cabbages now if we didn't have enough. In fact, we were about to start pickling cabbages for fun, rather than out of necessity. That still felt so... strange, at times. Like I was dreaming.

Pickled cabbages used to be what we made because the cabbages we got at the end of every market day on lowered prices were always the older ones, the slightly withered ones on the cusp of going bad. It had been our effort to hide the stale taste of old cabbages, our way of making it last longer.

But gone were the days of counting our carrots and trying to make them last longer! Gone were the days of getting the cheapest cuts of meat at the butcher's, slicing them real thin so that they wouldn't be as tough to chew on! Gone were the days of smoothing back Ruth's hair, telling her of course you can have a little more, and it's actually perfect because I ate too much lunch today so I can't even finish all this anyways. We could send Ryan out to get more if we needed more, and--

And they'd actually be fresh.

"Pickled! Cabbages! Pickled! Cabbages!" chanted Roly, Poly, and Becca behind me. (When had Roly gotten here? In fact, when had Becca gotten here?! I thought she'd gone down the street to play with the neighbor kids! But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised-- everyone knew that where food was, Becca was. That was what Rosa would call the hidden law of mathematics.)

I walked towards them and squeezed their shoulders one by one, affectionately, apologetically. They blinked up at me, still whisper-chanting their happy mantra.

"You know what? That's it. I'm going to learn a lot more recipes that are way tastier than pickled cabbages."

Roly gasped. "Way tastier?! Like, like...!"

"Like cookies!" cried Becca.

"Uhh..." I'm sorry, Becca, but sugar was still way too expensive. I couldn't raise their expectations too high. "Um, more like, like, uhhh, like, uhh.... Like, like barbecue!"

"Barbecue!" they exclaimed, and they started prattling away to each other about how great the barbecue had been last time. Meat had also been precious to us, too, especially such quality meat like we'd had last time. I pretended to go recount the cabbages to hide my rising tears again.

The next time I saw Auntie Dela, I vowed to the cabbages, I would ask her to teach me a bunch of recipes. Her fanciest, tastiest, most nutritious dish I could make with the freshest ingredients available. And then I'll make them these deserving kiddos a huge, delicious feast. I would.

"Barbecue. Barbecue. Shrimp!" they sang behind me as I pretended to wipe sweat away from near my eyes.

Yes. I would learn how to make them something absolutely mind-blowing. Something much, much better than pickled anything.


That being said, though, I was still in quite a pickle myself.

And it was all because of Lindent.

Lying was a tricky thing to do. Not only did you need to convince yourself in the moment that your lie is the truth, but one moment-- one small moment-- could be enough to crash down your front and reveal your true identity as a liar. And that meant that not only did I need to convince myself I wasn't suspicious of Lindent (when I very much was!!!), I would have to act as I usually did around Lindent at all times, so that he wouldn't be suspicious of me being suspicious of him, because why would I be suspicious of him if he had nothing to be suspicious about me?1this is suspiciouception

I sighed secretly into the dishes as Becca prattled on about what she'd done yesterday with her friend-who-she-said-she-didn't-like-but-seemed-to-blush-whenever-she-saw-him next to me.

"And then, and then, ugh, Ryan came over..."

"I'm home!" hollered Rosa from the doorway.

"Rosa!" I cried, turning around. Good! Someone to take my mind off of the seemingly eternal cycle of suspicions!

"Rosa!" squeaked Ruth too from somewhere to my left. "Rosa's home!"

Ryan rolled his eyes. "She was home two days ago, you know," he said pointedly.

He was ignored.

Ruth dashed past me and scrambled to give Rosa a big hug. "Rosa! You're home!"

"I am, and it smells like pickled cabbages in here!

"We just made a bunch!" Poly bounced, then accidentally hit herself on Ryan's elbow. They both yelped, then glared at each other.

"Well, guess what I have!"

Becca gasped next to me. When I turned to look, Ryan was leaning forward too, his elbow long forgotten.

Under their expectant gazes, Rosa flourished a little beige package that they had all come to know very well by now. "Cookies!!" they cried in unison, and I had to laugh at the sheer enthusiasm in their voices.

"But wait!" Rosa shouted, and the kids came to attention automatically. Pft-- they looked like mini soldiers. "Filian and I am going to go upstairs. If you want these cookies, nobody is allowed to even touch a foot on the staircase! Do I make myself clear!!"

Ohh, so that's why Rosa had brought the ammo cookies today. We couldn't have kids squeezing in and out of the tiny hallway upstairs and risk having them overhear our discussion. Huh, that was smart-- I hadn't thought about that at all.

"Why, what are you going to be doing up there?" Roly asked, her eyes shining in a mixture of suspicion and interest.

Before Rosa could reply, I hefted her up from where she sat on the counter and brought her down. "Mathematical functions, I'm afraid," I sighed. "Rosa wants to discuss her math homework with me. Apparently it's a very important project." 

A faint look of disgust replaced her spark of interest. "Oh," she said, very deliberately.

"Well then, seeing how the dishes are done, the cabbages are pickled, Mother Lily's at my place, and the math freak is here--

"What did you call me?!"

"--I'll see you all in an hour!"

I patted Becca on the shoulder as I passed by, pretending not to see her sympathetic gaze. Horrified murmurs drifted up the stairs while I followed Rosa up to her room. 

"Did you hear that? They're having a secret discussion about math. Math!"

"Poor Filian. Having Rosa for a friend."

"Poly, you'll never do that to me, right?!"

"I won't, but will you?!"

I shut the door behind us, chuckling. "Nobody's even going to think of coming up here now."

Rosa was already lying on her belly in her bed, her sheets of paper already out and scattered about. She rolled her eyes. "You'd think you just told them we were going to eat poop for fun, the way they reacted."

"Yeah, well, I'd rather eat poop for fun than spend an hour discussing math functions, so..." I shrugged innocently. "I guess it's a good thing that was a lie?"

Rosa gasped in mock horror, though from the way she was still lounging around, I could tell she wasn't actually offended. "Filian, I am utterly disappointed in you! The little ones I can excuse, but how could you not know the beauty of numbers by now? Why, your very own pickled cabbages recipe was perfect because of none other than me and my experiments to find the perfect ratio!"

"True, but who was it that was forced to eat thirteen meals of pickled cabbages and pickled cabbages only for five days straight?" I shot back. And I had! It was a horrible, horrible five days!! I hadn't been able to look at a cabbage and not feel queasy for weeks afterwards!!

"Touche!"

With that, I settled on the ground and got serious.

"Alright, so we still have a little under four weeks before the next ball, and we need to discuss what we'll do for the most lacking part of our upcoming plan.... What?" she asked, when she saw me hold up a hand.

"Before we begin, just a small question," I said, pickles still on my mind.

"Shoot."

"Tell me. Do you know if government officials attend balls?"

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