Page 51 of Carnal: The Beast Who Loved Me

“Okay. There’s everything I need to make a version of pigs in a blanket.”

“What is that?”

Rosie smiled. “Well, usually it’s a little sausage baked inside bread, but we’ll be using ham instead of sausage.” Rosie pointed to the giant cheese wheel on the wood island. “And adding some of that cheese.”

Razzle nodded. “Sounds good and eating with hands means less clean up.”

“I like how you think,” Rosie said.

“Do you need help?”

“Maybe. Check on me in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”

Rosie thought it unfair to expect people in their mid-teens to be responsible for the next generation, but they seemed to be rising to the challenge without complaint and Rosie admired that. At the same age, virtually, she’d been a pain.

Rosie set out necessary ingredients and realized what a job it would be to cook for so many people. When Razzle returned, Rosie asked her to pick out four helpers besides herself and come back quick.

She didn’t have any experience with baking, so, while the boys were getting the fires going in five wood stoves, she called up a memory from a great-grandmother detailing how to make biscuits from scratch and cook them in a wood stove oven. Fortunately the stoves were well constructed for temperature control, though not as exact as modern ovens.

She organized an assembly line and soon the assistant cooks were chatting happily while cutting out biscuits. Once the bread was in the oven, she set up a new assembly line for cutting out single portions of ham and cheese, which would go inside split biscuits when they were ready. When the first batch of biscuits came out of the oven, Skirmish grabbed one off the cookie sheet.

“Wait!” Rosie shouted as he repeatedly tossed it up into the air and caught it. “Until that cools off. It could burn you.”

He laughed and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. Speaking around cheek-filled biscuit, he said, “This is good!”

Without thinking, Rosie picked up an empty cookie sheet and smacked Skirmish across the back. She knew it wouldn’t hurt him, but hoped it made a statement.

“Serene put me in charge, while everybody’s gone. You have to do what I say!”

The kid laughed even harder, but said, “Yes, ma’am.” When he finished the biscuit, he said, “Are you gonna send Carnal after me?”

“What? Why would you think that?”

“’Cause, you know.”

“No. I don’t know. Why would you think that?”

Rosie looked at Razzle. “Because people are saying that Carnal is claiming you.”

“Claiming me for what?” Razzle’s eyes widened. She looked at the two other girls she’d picked as helpers and the three of them instantly turned into a giggle huddle. “Razzle?”

“Claiming.” She waved a hand. “It means making you his forever female.”

Rosie looked down at her flour-covered hands. “Oh. Well, your sources are questionable. ‘People’ have got that wrong.”

She looked up in time to see Razzle and her friends giving each other a look while the boys smirked. To Skirmish, Rosie said, “No. Carnal will not be ‘coming after you’.” She huffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

The wood stoves heated up the school kitchen so that Rosie was dabbing perspiration from her temples. “Let’s get these kids fed.”

Her version of pigs in a blanket was a hit and, as Razzle had said, the kids, building, and clothes stayed clean. The worst of the mess was in the kitchen as a result of cooking with flour. When everything was clean and put away, Rosie turned to Razzle. “What do we do now?”

“We find ways to occupy the kids. If their parents aren’t back by bedtime, we’ll bed down here.”

Rosie looked around. “How does that work?”

Razzle pointed at a wall of cabinets. “Bedding for lock down.”