It was a normal day at the Jade palace.
Po was teaching the furious five how to cook noodles.
"Tigress, can you please pass the salt? " Po was stirring the noodles, so he couldn't reach the salt shaker. Monkey wrote "salt" on the recipe, where he was recording everything they did.
Tigress passed Po the jar with white powder in it.
"Uh, Tigress, this is sugar, can't you read the label?" Po said jokingly, giving the sugar back to Tigress. Tigress quickly switched and passed him the real salt, blushing. She hated making mistakes that others could easily avoid.
"It would be great if we could have some cinnamon in this," Po muttered.
"Don't you have that in your secret stores Monkey?" asked Mantis. Monkey's stores of food weren't really secret, as they all knew exactly what he had, and where he kept all of it.
"Mhm, I'll just get it, here Tigress, can you please write cinnamon on the recipe?" He said, passing the quill ink and paper to her.
"Uhh,-" Tigress blushed, trying to come up with an excuse not to,"- my hand writing is really bad, here Viper, you write it," she quickly passed the stuff to Viper.
"Tigress, are you alright?" Viper asked, picking up the quill with her tail, and writing cinnamon on the recipe.
"Mfine," Tigress mumbled.
"Hey guys, look what I wrote in the flour!" Mantis laughed. They all looked at it.
"What's it say?" asked Tigress.
"Tigress can you seriously not read?" asked Po suprised.
"I, I just can't read his hand writing," Tigress said in a rush.
"Tigress look," Viper traced the word with her tail.
Tigress pretended to understand;
"Ooh, cool Mantis," she said with a weak smile.
All her friends were suspicious now.
"Really Tigress, what's wrong?" Viper asked gently.
"Nothing, I'm fine. Po shouldn't you be stirring that?" Tigress pointed at the pot of noodles.
"On, yeah," Po said gingerly and went back to stirring.
Monkey had an idea.
"Tigress, can you reread the recipe out loud, so we can check I haven't skipped a step?" He asked, handing her the recipe.
Tigress groaned.
"Why does everybody want me to read today!?" She burst out angrily.
"What's the matter with reading?" asked Mantis.
"I can't, " Tigress growled.
"Can't what?" asked Po, who hadn't been listening to the conversation.
"I can't read," said Tigress,
"Seriously? The great and powerful master Tigress can't read?" Po said laughing. Tigress glared at him, and he stopped.
"Didn't you learn at school? Didn't you go to school?" asked Monkey, surprised.
"I went once..." Tigress growled, telling them what happened:
Flashback
It was Tigress's first day at school, and it was break time. She was happily playing by herself, when two pigs walked up to her.
"Your not a student! Your a monster!" The bigger of the two said.
"You don't deserve to learn Kung Fu! I bet you don't have the guts hit me!" his friend added.
"I won't hit you, because I would hurt you!" Tigress said back.
"See, you are a monster, only a monster has the strength to hurt someone!" The first Pig picked up a rock and threw it at Tigress. It was a sharp rock, and it hit her on the arm, drawing blood.
Tigress growled, starting to lose control of her temper. The two pigs ran away.
She quickly calmed down, and started to lick her cut. She also found she had tears in her eyes, the memories of the orphanage resurfacing. She hated it when they called her monster. It wasn't her fault she was strong. She could control it now aswell, so they needn't be afraid.
She sighed, the others just didn't get her. Even the teacher was scared of her in class.
End of flashback
"So you bunked of for the rest of the year?" asked Po.
"No, I told Shifu, and he went and yelled at the teacher for half an hour. Apparently the teacher said a monster like me should be able to defend myself. Shifu told me I never need go back to school ever again if I didn't want to," Tigress finished.
"It' s OK Tigress we know your not a monster," Viper said, putting her tail of Tigress' shoulder.
"Thanks guys," Tigress smiled.
"Who wants noodle soup?" Po yelled.
"Me!" Both Mantis and Monkey yelled at the same time.
Tigress and Viper both giggled.
"Boys..." Viper muttered.