The hidden Ingredient - Part One
Written by Jemmiah
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"Now" Tuurith Wending eyed her class of initiates, making certain that she had everyone's rigid attention before continuing, "it's very, VERY important that you follow my instructions to the letter. Cooking is an exact art. You have to use the correct amounts of the specified ingredients for this to work. There can be no deviating from the tried and tested..."
She stopped as a small arm was raised at the back of the room. The arm itself was attached to a little blonde haired boy with a rather floppy fringe that almost covered his eyes. Tuurith swore inwardly. She hated initiates and she had reason to suspect that was the reason that she'd been slated to give this culinary demonstration. On days such as this she wished she'd never decided to work in the refectory.
"Er…yeah, you. Blonde kid. What is it?"
The fringe was brushed away to reveal an impudent pair of sparkling eyes.
"I was just wondering, is all."
"Wondering what?" Tuurith felt like screaming.
"Well, if the same rancid food has been cooked in the same way for generations…"
We have a comedian here, thought Tuurith as she examined the troublemaker from a distance. He must've been about seven years old, with a smart Corellian mouth on him to boot.
"We have certain traditions in this place." She retorted. "The food is prepared as it always has been."
"But that's so boring! I s'pose it keeps the healers busy with all the stomach pumping." The boy winked.
The pink skin became even more flushed.
"Correction: Cookery is an exact and boring art." She addressed the other kids but somehow contrived to keep one eye staring straight at the boy. "What's your name, kid?"
"Dex Berlingside, Master Wending."
"Well, Dex. We'll have less chat and more concentration."
The Corellian looked hurt and turned a morose and strangely out of place expression on the bigger boy who was standing by his left-hand side.
"Next time you can ask your own silly questions." Hissed young Berlingside.
"It's not MY fault." The older lad replied tersely out the side of his mouth.
"But you said…"
Tuurith walked menacingly towards the duo armed with an intimidating soup ladle.
"I thought I asked you to hush up?" she bristled.
"OK, OK. Keep your moustache on." Dex mumbled.
"What was that?" demanded Tuurith venomously.
"I said I need to put my apron on." The boy replied innocently. "I can't tie it up at the back properly."
Tuurith sniffed.
"Should have thought of that before. You," she pointed at the taller boy, "whoever you are…"
"Initiate Jinn, Master."
"Help this little monster with his apron. If he drops scalding soup over himself I'm the one who's going to get the blame. Wouldn't put it past him to do it on purpose." She gave Dex a final glare before walking away to the front of the room again.
Qui-Gon sighed, shaking his head as he tied the tags at the back of the boy's apron. He'd known young Berlingside for a year now and found that he liked the boy, but even he had to admit that he pushed his luck too far on occasion. He was cheeky and scamp like. This endeared him to his friends. It didn't endear him to the masters. This worried Qui-Gon. Which of the masters would chose such an impudent initiate for their padawan? He didn't want to dwell on it but Qui-Gon knew that Dex was a perfect candidate for becoming a farmer on some backwater planet…
He pitied the poor plants.
Tuurith smiled with no real warmth at all as she picked up a sharp little knife.
"You are going to be split up into groups of three. I want one person to remove the skins, one to chop and the other to get the stock reheated."
"I want to dice the veggies!" Dex grinned.
She regarded Dex with a grimace. "You are not getting the knife."
"Why not?" Dex looked disappointed.
"Because you are too young and not to be trusted with a dangerous implement. Personally, I wouldn't put you in charge of a dishcloth." She waved her fingers in a vague snapping gesture. "You can go with Initiate Jinn. He can do the chopping. And that other rather sullen looking kid slinking away in the background can start heating up the stock."
Mace Windu looked balefully at Dex and Qui-Gon.
"Sith." He moaned.
"Sorry? What was that?" Tuurith said menacingly.
"I said sure thing, Master. No problems."
"Good." The distrustful expression was back on Tuurith's rather pink face. "Everyone get into threes. I'll be round to check on you to make sure you haven't set the kitchens on fire."
As the groups all dispersed to where they should be, Mace Windu grumblingly walked over to his fellow initiates.
"I hate this." He sulked.
"Why?" Frowned Qui-Gon.
"Because every time I'm asked to do something I always get put with you two lunatics and I always end up getting into trouble. You realize that anything we do now might jeopardize our chances of being picked as padawans." He looked at Dex. "Not that you've got much chance of being picked. Who'd want you?"
"Mace!" Jinn hissed.
"I'm only telling the truth."
"Why would nobody want me?" Dex scowled. "I'm wonderful."
"Have you heard yourself?" Mace let his jaw drop.
"I bet I get a master before either of you." Berlingside smiled impishly.
"How much?" Mace stuck out his chin belligerently.
"I dunno. I'll think of something." Dex grinned as he picked up three onions and began to juggle them.
This time Qui-Gon admonished the boy.
"Put them down! If the dragon queen catches you you'll be before the crèche master!"
"No way." Dex answered. "They're far too busy to bother with the likes of little me."
"Dex, do it for me, huh? I don't want any more trouble. Not after the last time."
Berlingside's eyes sparkled with Corellian mischief.
"Oh. That." He replaced the onions on the table, turning to wave at Lydia Sheil across the other side of the room. "You'd better start chopping then."
"They need to be peeled first." Reminded Qui-Gon. "Unless you want bits of skin floating in the soup."
"Can't make it taste any worse." Dex shrugged as he sat on a stool and began to shell the onions.
For a few moments everything seemed to go without much of a problem. Mace busied himself with the stock, mumbling little blasphemies and the occasional obscenity when some minor mishap occurred. Qui-Gon felt rather relaxed. He didn't mind cooking at all, although he looked forward to the day when he would have a padawan of his own to do the cooking for him. That would be good, he daydreamed. Then he looked at Dex and hoped that the force wouldn't see him lumbered with someone like him…
A slight snuffling sound caught him by surprise.
"Are you OK?" He asked, wondering if Mace's cruel remarks had affected the boy more deeply than he'd thought.
"It's the onions…they're making my eyes all red and funny." Berlingside sniffed.
"Yeah, me too." Qui-Gon admitted. "They must be strong. And we haven't even began to cut them yet!"
Dex rubbed at his eyes.
"This is not my idea of fun." He whimpered.
"Look, I'll peel and you have the knife." Qui-Gon muttered. "But only whilst dragon lady isn't looking. Go peel those Gourals over there."
Berlingside brightened up immediately.
"Thanks Qui." He chirped, reaching for the sharp little knife.
"What do you think you're doing!?!" Mace asked indignantly as the young boy started to chop messily on the board. "Are you mad? Qui-Gon, you are going to get us into soooo much strife if she finds out that you let…"
"Don't panic. As long as we keep our eyes open we'll be fine. The moment she starts to look our way we'll…DEX! She's coming over!"
Berlingside looked up, a plan formulating in his young brain. What an incredible opportunity for some fun!
"Drop the knife!" Mace said in a shrill whisper.
"OK! I just want to finish…" Dex stopped suddenly when the knife snapped down hard against the chopping board. His eyes went big and round, a shocked expression on his face.
"What?" Jinn gulped. "What have you done?"
Berlingside let his eyes fall to the chopping board and covered one hand with another.
"My finger…" he said faintly.
"What about it?" Mace asked.
"I've cut it off."
Mace said nothing more and hit the floor with a thud.
That had torn it, thought Qui-Gon bleakly as dragon woman stormed over to see what the hullabaloo was about. Dex sat crouched over on the stool, holding his hand and grimacing with pain whilst Qui-Gon went over to see if he could help at all.
"Let me see." He urged.
Dex shook his head.
"What's going on here?" Tuurith growled.
"I've cut my finger off." Dex looked as if he were going to be sick.
"WHAT! Who gave you permission to use that knife? I thought I told you to stay away from it!" she moaned at the thought. "I am going to get in so much trouble!"
"What about his finger?" Qui-Gon insisted.
"The healers can reattach it. And if not then he's got four others." Tuurith began to panic at the thought of what might be said about her and her level of childcare. A voice at the back of her head told her that maybe she should have thought of that before hand…
"Is it really right off?" she gulped as she leaned in for a closer look.
Dex waited until she was right beside her.
"Only joking." He grinned.
There was a pause of about seven seconds, in which time Qui-Gon thought that Mace should consider himself darned luck to be out cold on the floor. He would never see or suffer that glare that could melt plastics or corrode metals. Every child in the room cringed from its heat.
Except for Dex.
"That had you going for a bit, didn't it?" he laughed.
Tuurith responded by grabbing him by the ear.
"OW!" He yelled.
"It certainly had me going. And now it's your turn to be going…infront of the crèche master! Jia-Nu, take charge of this bunch of Sith whilst I deal with this little worm."
Qui-Gon felt the blood drain from his face as he watched the squirming Dex being dragged along by the powerful grasp of Master Tuurith Wending.
He was fairly certain that Mace's bet with young Berlingside as regarded the obtaining of a master was quite a safe one.
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Dex had the vaguest feeling of déjà vu tugging at him as he was unceremoniously hauled towards his fate. It wasn't as if all the wriggling and protesting was going to do him the slightest good, but he felt obliged to put up some sort of struggle, even if it were a futile one. Besides, he didn't want to complain too much incase his ear came off in Master Wending's hand.
The crèche masters were usually OK and willing to overlook tiny, insignificant happenings but this didn't really qualify as such. Dex knew he'd been purposefully trying to wind the old dragon up from the first moment she'd set foot in the kitchen and what was more this was only the latest in a long line of incidents all involving himself. He'd been warned on numerous occasions to behave and each time had returned to his crèche mates suitably chastened and abashed.
At least for a day or so.
He couldn't help it. His natural exuberance made him bounce with energy. The idea that anyone would wish to stop him having fun was incomprehensible to him. And why shouldn't he have fun? Why was everyone so content to churn out serious clones of each other? Why should everything be the same as it always had been? If things didn't change they stagnated.
Just like the soup, he thought with a grin…
Well, he wasn't a clone. He was Dex. What was more he was Corellian, and he didn't care what the crèche masters said. He wasn't going to stop having fun.
Ever.
Dragon pulled him along and briefly Berlingside considered taking a bite out of her hand. Then he thought better of it. He was in enough trouble already. It was difficult trying to keep up with her large and rounded stride when his own legs were so little. He felt like he had been glued to a giant Ronto. The pressure on his ear was unrelenting but even so he could see from his left hand side what appeared to be a group of knights and masters walking towards them with rather surprised looks on their faces. Some of them he recognized from when they had come to look for padawans. He could see knight Fin-Tial talking with Master Agrikka. There was Master Gideon Lee, who was rumoured to be searching for another padawan on the successful knighting of his last apprentice.
Behind them at a respectful distance came a knight in his twenties/ early thirties that Dex had never seen before. As he walked past the surprise on the man's face grew at the sight of the squirming boy being pulled by the lobe.
"I'm going to have one big ear and one little ear!" Dex panted as he tried to march along side the dragon. "And then none of the girls will want to kiss me because I'll look strange."
"You already look strange." Tuurith snorted. "Put a sock in it."
"I look handsome. All the women think so." Dex managed to get a certain amount of smugness across despite his precarious situation. "Except for you. But then again you don't count because everyone says you're really a fire breathing old dra-"
A tug on his ear caused him to squeal.
"You just don't know when to shut up, do you kid?" Tuurith snapped, nodding as she got level with the unknown knight. Dex saw him frown as he went past, but nothing was said.
As they reached the Crèche Master's room Dex felt panic well up within him. Whatever they punished him with, he'd try and take it with customary Corellian grace and dignity, but he really hoped he hadn't got Qui-Gon and Mace into trouble too…
The hand let go of his ear and pushed him steadily forwards through the open doorway. Dex swallowed as he was marched up towards a chair infront of a long desk. As he sat down, the door closed behind him, sounding his doom…