"Er-er-er!"
You know those old cartoon-like movies where it always shows a rooster, crowing to the morning and perfectly silhouetted by the rising sun?
Uh. . .no.
Despite the fact that the inside of the Campbell's house didn't look they were the Beverly Hillbillies, they actually lived on a farm. And they had a rooster.
Yes, had. After an unfortunate incident with a frying pan, our dear friend is no longer with us.
I wouldn't be either, if Mrs. Campbell knew how her frying pan came to be flying through the air in the direction of the wretched beast.
She was a tough woman. Despite the fact that she may have looked all frail and middle aged, the truth was she reminded me more of Buffy the Vampire Slayer then Ma Ingalls.
Anyway, after she discovered the curious death of her rooster, she borrowed a new one from a neighbor until she could buy another. I could see why the neighbor hadn't been too sad to see this one go. It seemed to have something wrong with its internal time clock, and was crowing every hour.
Grr.
This time, I couldn't even sneak off and do away with the replacement. Turns out, Mrs. Campbell was serious about me helping bake bread.
Rebecca and her eleven-year-old sister, Mary, had cornered me. I was already in a really bad mood. Last night was still on my mind, I was wearing one of Rebecca's extremely uncomfortable and incredibly long and poofy dresses, and my hair had been brushed, pulled, and finally braided so tight I could practically hear my scalp screaming in agony. So all in all, I was really not in the mood to get covered in flour while trying to bake some nasty old bread.
Unfortunately, I didn't have much of a choice. When I calmly explained to Rebecca that not only did I not know how to bake bread, but I was not interested in learning, Mrs. Campbell looked up from her mending. As un- terrifying as this may sound, I knew the look said "Bake or Else". I could just imagine what Marco would say if I got us kicked out.
So I baked bread.
"I just. . .stick my hands in?" I asked Rebecca warily, looking into the bowl of mush in front of me.
"Like this." Rebecca reached in, grabbed the blob in her bowl, and started rolling it in flour. Then she started kneading it, pushing and pounding at it with her knuckles.
I dreaded the moment when she said "Your turn."
I gingerly took out half the mush. Somehow my dough had turned out a lot more soupy then Rebecca and her sister's. I hoped rolling it in flour would firm it up a bit.
I dropped my mush into a pile of flour. I guess I dropped it from a little too high up, because it landed with a soft thud, and clouds of floor puffed up underneath it, covering me in white.
Four went up my nose and in my mouth. I sneezed, and even more flew. I could feel it, stuck to my face, and clinging to my eyelashes. Mary was trying to cover her laughter in a ladylike way, but only succeeded in snorting. Rebecca didn't laugh, but she did take my hunk of dough from me, and handed me hers instead. Feeling a little relieved, I kneaded the dough, imitating the way I had seen them do it. It was surprisingly comforting.
When the dough had been kneaded, it was put into pans and covered with cloths. I didn't know why. Rebecca said it was so the dough could rise, which gave me a mental image of the dough rising out of a grave. Night of the Living Bread Dough. . .right. "You mean it rises all on its own?"
"The yeast does it."
Hmm. Come to think of it, I did remember hearing something about that in science. Something about the reproduction of yeast cells. Oh well. At least Marco wasn't around to--
KER-BANG!
I spun around. Marco had dumped an armload of firewood into the--the. . .the, uh. . .firewood holder thingy. When he saw me, covered in flour, and probably still having a puzzled look on my face from trying to figure out the Night of the Living Bread Dough mystery, I could tell he was just itching to say something. He didn't though.
Damn. That must mean last night wasn't some dream my subconscious sent to make me be nicer to Marco. Well, if he wasn't going to say anything, neither was I. Besides, once I thought about it, there wasn't much I could say to him. Yeah, he was wearing these knee-length pants that brought the word "capris" to mind, but I was the one with about five pounds of petticoats. And, ok, he had what looked like a small branch, leaves and all, stuck in his hair, but mine was in dorky pigtail braids. So all in all, we were about even.
"Rachel, when you're uh, done, I think we need to talk."
Hah! He wanted to apologize. Good, because I sure as hell wasn't going to go first.
When Marco had gone back out to do whatever kind of chore Mrs. Campbell had sent him on, Mary nudged me. "Go," she whispered, making sure her mother wasn't looking. She untied my apron and tried to brush some of the flour off me. It was pretty much a lost cause. I was surprised Mary was doing this, though. So far I had sort of bonded the most with Rebecca, even though she had seemed a little stuck up and aloof. Now, however, she was glaring at me like I had just stabbed her mother.
I shrugged. I could worry about Rebecca's evil glare later. Or better yet, find a way home and never have to worry about it. Thanking Mary, I tiptoed to the door, trying to avoid Mrs. Campbell's hawk eyes (and considering I actually know how good hawks can see, saying someone has hawk eyes is saying a lot). Once outside, I celebrated me freedom a little too soon, before I realized I had no idea where Marco was.
I headed for the barn first. The hope of catching him milking a cow or something equally glamorous was too tempting to pass up. I was delighted when, entering the barn, I found him mucking out a stall. What the stall had previously held-a cow, a horse, whatever-wouldn't make a difference. I knew from my time with Cassie that mucking was an unpleasant (and smelly) chore.
"Well, well, well," I said, not bothering to hide my amusement. Afterwards, though, I wondered if that was wise-he was after all, the one with a pitchfork.
Marco glanced up at me. "That was fast."
"Yeah, Mary--"
"It doesn't matter." He cut in coldly.
"Say what? I know you didn't just interrupt me-"
"Yeah, I did. So what are you going to do about it?"
We glared at each other. So much for thinking he was planning to patch things up. "What did you want to talk about?" I purposely avoided his question.
"Paul Revere. Last night. That means the first battle of the Revolutionary War is today. Whatever the aliens sent us here to do, I bet it has something to do with that."
"I don't like wars." I instantly felt stupid for exposing myself, but it was true. I'd seen too many of them the time we'd followed Visser Four through time with the Time Matrix. Fighting the Yeerks was one thing. I wanted all of those evil slugs to die. But humans killing humans was just plain wrong.
Marco's eyes softened for a second. "Neither do I." The cold look came back. "But I want to get out of here. And if that's what it takes. . ."
"How do you even know that's what we're supposed to do?"
"You think it's just a coincidence they sent us to this day, this year?" he said in a DUH voice.
"Oh." I said. "Well, you're the smart one." I clamped my teeth down on my tongue. Damn! Where had that come from?
But I let my poor tongue go when Marco looked at me and said. "No. I'm the really, really stupid one."
"What?"
"Never mind. Just forget it."
But I knew I wouldn't.
