Page 42 of In A Faraway Land

New Life Skills

Flicka von Hannover

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to.

It was just all the dials and buttons and things.

Flicka stared at the darned contraption, as Rae would have called it. She glanced up at Dieter, who was trying to be bland but the smug was showing through. “So you just put the clothes in there.”

He opened a tiny drawer. “The soap powder goeshere. It will beep when it’s done. When it beeps, you take the clothes out and put them in the dryer, which is the box on the top. This is just a small unit, meant for apartments. Usually, the machines are separate and sit side-by-side.”

The machine swished. “So, the clothes just flop around in the water for a little while, and that’s what it calls clean?”

“That’s how your housekeepers havealways done it.”

“Oh, no. I’m sure they did something else. I’ve always had very good staff.”

“They ironed or steamed the wrinkles out, probably.”

“It’s going to bewrinkled?”

“Probably not much. Your ‘costume’ felt like polyester and rayon.”

“This is weird. I can’t believe you know how to do it.”

Dieter laughed. “I do laundry all the time. I’ve been doing my own laundry since I was seventeen.”

“You did your own laundry in the military?”

“Of course.”

She rounded on him. “DoesWulfieknow how to do laundry?”

“Absolutely. I remember his first weekend in the barracks. I had to show him where the soap went, too. In his defense, a lot of the conscripts didn’t know how to do their own laundry, but they learned.”

She glared at the machine, willing it to clean her costume well. “Well, Iguess I’ll just have to figure this out.”

Dieter smirked at her. “Tomorrow, I’ll teach you how to clean the bathroom. Wulfram learned how to scrub toilets in the military, too.”

Sometimes, Flicka missed the princess life.