Page 8 of The Curious Incident of the Great Cookie Snackcident of 979
3. The Lady’s Guard didn’t have a protocol for the Lady moving of her own volition, only for suspected intrusions. Considering the Lady hadn’t made any provisions at all for her waking, they all assumed that She meant to sleep forever. The most likely possibility in this instance was interference.
4. This is now commercially available as “Gufi’s GoGo Juice,” available at most fine retailers. (Yes, Gufi made me write that).
5. Berne’s accent, which one might remember from my previous works, is not present. Berne’s language is accented when he speaks to me in my own tongue, but when he speaks his native tongue, he lacks an accent.
Chapter four
Abi
IN WHICH A BREAKDOWN IN LEADERSHIP LEADS OUR INTREPID GUARDS TO SEEK OUTSIDE HELP
“Still nothing?” Abi askedas she and Senka sat down to their lunch a week later.
“Nothing. You would think that after a week they would’ve figured something out,” Senka answered, opening their lunch. “I’m just not convinced that they’re actually looking. The Shift-Captain didn’t believe me, I’m sure both he and Gufi wrote that in their reports.”
“Yes, but both of our reports were very clear about what we saw. I don’t see how they couldn’t investigate it. Who knows what it could even mean! She moved!”
“I know,” they said, rubbing the back of their neck. “We should have written about the snackcident, I bet that would motivate them to clean the lake or something.”
Senka started swaying back and forth, refusing to look at Abi as they continued. “Listen, I was thinking, most of my recipes make enough for more than one person. I didn’t ask you at first in case it all tasted horrible, but maybe tomorrow I could bring what I make, and then you wouldn’t have to make your lunch. That way you could give me tips and ways to improve. I’m still not sure how my food will taste to anyone else’s palate.Ithink it’s good, but it might taste like dirt to you, and I wouldn’t even know.”
They looked at her with eyes huge and pleading, as if she could ever say no. Abi’s new affliction, her pathetic little crush on Senka, liked that idea very much. Her stomach flipped with joy at the thought that Senka wanted to do something so special for her, that they wanted their food to taste good to Abi.
They want their food to taste good to humans, notyouspecifically. And be professional, for Lady’s sake.
“I’d be happy to! Though, I hate to tell you, I’m not any wonderful food critic or renowned chef. I can tell you if it tastes too strange, but I’m afraid I won’t be giving much in the way of helpful feedback,” Abi said with a grimace.
Senka giggled, patting Abi on the shoulder, sending a now-familiar thrill through her body. “At this juncture, I’m aiming for edible, so we can start there,” they reassured her. “I don’t have any books about baking, though ...”1
“Oh! I could see if my mum has any you could borrow!” Abi volunteered, nodding her head, certain she was smilingentirelytoo wide.
“That would be wonderful,” Senka said, their wisps vibrating again. “Though, I was wondering if maybe you could show me sometime? I’m worried I will get it all wrong ...”
Joy suffused Abi like the sun after a rainstorm. Even if her feelings for Senka might be complicating things for her, she was more than happy to have them for a friend, and thrilled thatthey wanted to spend time with her. She really wasn’t certain how helpful she would be; she was honestly happy just to spend quality time with them.
As was often the case, they ate in an easy silence. Senka would ask about Abi’s family, or Abi would tell them about her night. After a short while, they turned because there was noise coming from the cavern.
Sirin and Sigfinn entered, waving at them. Things had been quiet for the last week or so after Sirin and her husband’s fertility ritual.
“Hello,” Sirin called, her voice lowered to preserve the sanctity of the room. “I’m so sorry we haven’t been by, I was quite indisposed for the last little bit and took a few days off.”
Next to her, Sigfinn raised his eyebrow ridges and smiled. They all knew why she’d been indisposed, and Abi wasn’t sure it was any of her business.
“That’s all right, things have been quiet around here since the big snackcident,” Senka said, waving her off.
Sirin frowned, looking between them. “Big snackcident? What do you mean? Did I miss something?”
“We just had a situation last week. We thought we saw the Lady move, but since no one else saw, it seems like they aren’t investigating,” Senka continued. “And it was a snackcident because in the commotion Abi dropped some cookies, and then a few crumbsmighthave ended up in the Lady’s lake.”
Senka reached over to grab Abi’s hand, squeezing tightly before tilting their head toward the researchers.
Both stared at Senka, rapt at their words. “Move? Shemoved?” Sirin squealed, bouncing on her toes and looking extremely interested.
“What do you mean move?” Sigfinn asked, his big eyes even wider than normal.
“Well, we were chatting on break, and then suddenly, she just ... twitched her arm,” Abi explained, catching on to the fact that these two might actually be allies.
Sigfinn pulled out a notebook and pencil as Sirin peppered them with a litany of questions about which arm had twitched, the time of day, the weather, the topic of their conversation, the date, and all sorts of other details they could barely recall. After telling Sigfinn to make a note to look up the moon phase on the day, Sirin stopped speaking abruptly, her mouth dropping open. She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands and Abi thought she looked like she might cry.