Chapter 94: Warm Bread

Jeffrey returned home. There were still patches of dirt on his pants, in his hair and some on his face. It looked like he had rolled around in dirt all day, which he technically did.

"Jeffrey!", Saoirse noticed him come home.

Saoirse run towards him, but seeing him covered in dirt decided against hugging him and just waved at a distance. Jeffrey ran towards her and hugged her anyway, much to Saoirse's disgust.

"Noo, Jeffrey. Stop! I'm going to have to take a shower after this", Saoirse yelled.

She was now covered in dirt as well, her hair was a mess and uncombed.

"You still need to take a bath", Jeffrey said.

Saoirse still hadn't showered after going swimming earlier that day. Jeffrey could still smell the chlorine in her hair when he went to hug her.

"So what are you and Raine up to?", Jeffrey asked.

Upstairs the sound of music could be heard.

♪♪♪♫♪♫♫♪

"woloo", "huulu"

There were some strange noises coming from upstairs.

"We don't have an attic", thought Jeffrey, "Or do we?"

The first thing kids do at their own home is look for secret rooms, explore the basement, side doors and any rooftop spaces. Jeffrey's house had none of those. Just a small back yard and a decently sized front porch for some flowers and bushes.

Saoirse seeing that Jeffrey was distracted got out of his grasp and ran away.

Jeffrey ignored her and headed upstairs.

"woloo", "huluu"

the noise seemed to be coming from his sisters room. Jeffrey turned the doorknob and saw it.

Raine was playing that cursed plastic instrument. The one that any public school program taught students.

No, it wasn't the maracas, at least those were consistent and the only thing you had to learn was rhythm. This instrument was much worse.

It could have been glass bottle blowing, harmonicas, the kazoo, even noisemakers, plastic toy clappers or a slide whistle would have been better.

In Raine's hands was a recorder.

Jeffrey had bad memories of the instrument. Memories so dark, he locked them away. The places and things the mouthpieces have seen and although they were supposedly "sanitized" with Purell hand sanitizer and sanitizing alcohol wipes.

Jeffrey forced himself to think of other things. Next to Raine was a plate of oranges sitting on her desk. She was flipped to page 2 of the 10 page music book. On it was the picture of a piece of bread with a white x and steam coming off of it.

There were other songs he recognized playing, the saints go marching in and racecar stickers.

Stacked up nearby in a piled was his old music books. Piano adventures level 1, Keith Snell classics, I've got music, John brahm's lullaby, Scarborough Derby, Russian March.

"Oh, hey Jeffrey!", Raine said noticing him come in.

"How's your day been", Jeffrey asked in a tired voice.

Raine put her instrument down carefully. Moving aside some of her notebooks and homeworks.

"Oh pretty good, finished my homework", Raine said.

They talked for a little bit, discussing some of the recent flash games and VRMMO updates.

"Did you check out Adventure quest yet?", Jeffrey asked his sister.

"Club penguin got a new update, I've been playing that", Raine answered.

Poptropica had a new island to be explored, more games were just released over the weekend and there was always more homework to be tome.

Jeffrey grabbed one of the orange slices from the plate and ate it. Raine rolled her pencil across the desk. Seeing there wasn't more to say Jeffrey took it as a sign to leave.

"Good luck with music practice", Jeffrey said leaving the room.

"I will", Raine smiled.

Jeffrey headed downstairs to see what his parents were cooking. The smell of garlic bread was in the air. Saoirse passed by him on the stairs to return to her room.

Both his parents were busy at work preparing dinner.

"Do you need any help?", Jeffrey offered. Although he had things to do, from time to time he wanted to be able to help his parents out. As his Dad always told him, "to be able to help others and make them happy is a beautiful luxury."

His Dad was sautéing some vegetables, while his mom was searing a steak.

His mom responded, "We're fine Jeffrey. Go focus on your school work"

His Dad gave a different answer, "sure you can help me get a plate for this dish. We should be done soon"

Jeffrey's mom would have given his Dad the stare, but she was a little preoccupied with the small flame emerging from the pan.

"Mom, the kitchen fan!", Jeffrey reminded her.

His Dad reached over to turn the fan on.

"phew", thought Jeffrey. "We didn't set off the fire alarm again, our neighbors are probably pretty annoyed it goes off so often at night when we're cooking."

His mom grabbed a knife and started slicing the piece of filet mignon for dinner, drizzling it with a thick gravy sauce from a small sauce pan.

Jeffrey's Dad spend way too much time reading cookbooks for Valentines day, so he had quite a few recipes and sauces prepared for them.

then the oven started beeping.

*Beep* *Beep* ... *Beep* *Beep*

Jeffrey grabbed the oven mitts and reached into the oven to pull out a tray of lightly burnt garlic bread.

"Sorry", Jeffrey's dad said shrugging his shoulders, "I forgot about it"

Jeffrey grabbing a piece started eating on one. It didn't taste too bad, just a little smoky and burnt. Still edible though for dinner.

Soon Saoirse and Raine came down from the nice smells. As if to urge dinner to cook faster, they prepared the table with dining utensils, plates, napkins, and a pitcher of water to drink.

Jeffrey's Dad cooked clear spinach and tofu soup, one of their favorite ones. Raine's favorite was the sweet bean paste and corn dessert soup, Saoirse was the wood ear mushroom and iced pear, Jeffrey's mom perfered a simple egg drop or sweet and sour soup.

Most of the recipes were actually provided by Jeffrey's grandparents, when his Dad was courting his mom. Their Dad's parents did more Caribbean food, so it took a long time before he made anything decently edible.