Miss. Peregrine woke up sore and stiff from the couch's old cushions. Her neck hurt and felt the urge to pop it which she did. She sat up thinking about her dream of the train station, she let her head hang and sighed as she had done so many mornings before. Through the window, Miss. Peregrine felt the rising sun, making the spare room across from her bedroom uncomfortably hot as it did not have air-conditioning like the rest of the house.
She walked across the hall and into her bedroom and stood at the threshold, her charges still slept in her bed, as it was fairly large, all of the children, save for Enoch, slept beneath the covers their heads sharing pillows and sleeping shoulder to shoulder. She crept into the room and tucked Hugh's arm back into the blanket. Making sure that he wasn't awake, she slunk into the closet and picked out her clothing, purposeful to avoid what her illusions wore and nothing too flashy as she had to speak with Mr. Stewart later on that day.
She walked into the bathroom and changed, not taking a shower as she might wake one of her children. She walked out wearing the definition of casual: a blue plaid shirt unbuttoned showing a white tank top underneath, a pair of faded capris-jeans and red high top converse shoes. She kept her hair in the braid that it was last night knowing that if she let it out now that it wouldn't have the curls she wanted during the day.
She indulged herself in her cup of coffee while watching the morning news. The news anchor was balding and had, Alma noticed, a lovely, pregnant woman sitting next to him.
"Good morning this is the Today Show, I'm Matt Lauer…"
"And I'm Savanna Guthrie." The woman next to him smiled at the camera her face glowed and her white teeth shined.
Alma sat listening to them talk, later they were joined by two more people, at which point Alma realized that she'd finished her coffee and began to make the children breakfast, today, it was pancakes with either bacon or sausage and scrambled eggs as she listened to the television in the background.
She heard someone stirring around upstairs, thinking it was Claire as she was normally the first child to wake up in the morning, as it turned out, it was not. Miss. Peregrine sipped a newly brewed cup of coffee, completely black, as she didn't take cream or sugar. She turned around and was surprised to see two identical children, it was the twins, resulting in Miss. P. thinking of her late night. The twins stood in the kitchen and then sat at the island on the stools. Miss. Peregrine poured them a single cup of milk, mixed it with chocolate syrup and added straws to which they squawked in thanks.
"Your welcome, dears." Miss. Peregrine smiled her lovely smile as she turned back to the stove and sprinkled chocolate chips into a fluffy looking pancake that she flipped out of the frying pan and back in. Miss. P. was a fairly good cook, never burning the food and never was it undercooked, but her deserts, her deserts were by far the best.
Sometimes, she made delicacies like: crème brûlée, apple pie, sugar cookies and chocolate filled croissants.
Today, her pancakes were of different shapes some were stars, hearts, flowers, suns and plain circles as she intended to make smiley faces using whipped cream and fruits.
"When you two are done with your milk, go and wake the others." She told them, as the twins didn't really want to, they sipped their milk slowly and when they were fully awake, they scooted the chairs out and ran back upstairs.
A few minutes later, Emma walked downstairs and begun to set the table for breakfast.
"So, are you going back the the neighbor's today?" she tried to seem not at all interested, only making conversation.
"Yes, I need to tell Mr. Stewart that the window will be replaced at about 2'oclock this afternoon." Miss. P. told her, knots began to twist in her stomach.
"Mind if I come?"
"Actually, I need you to stay and help watch the children…"
"But, Miss. Peregrine, I don't like you going over there!" Emma interrupted, she knew that she was being rude and difficult but the truth was, she knew that something happened and she didn't want to see her mother hurt.
Miss. Peregrine turned around to face Emma as she had been cooking, making sure the eggs weren't burned and quirked an eyebrow, "And why is that Miss. Bloom?" she asked, giving the girl a look that could kill and completely ignoring the scolding that Emma should have received about being rude, little did Miss. P. know that Enoch and Jake were outside the door listening in.
"I just…I don't know." Now that the topic had come up, Emma wasn't ready for it, it was too early, Enoch took that as a queue to walk in and find that the kitchen's atmosphere was one of distrust as Miss. P. couldn't quite grasp what was happening to her charges as this wasn't the first time Emma asked about the man that lived next door.
Sometimes, during the day when Alma looked out of the window, or when she watched her charges play in the yard, she'd see different women walking out of his house looking like they had a massive hangover, their hair was a mess and they wore clothes that one would most likely wear when one had a late night.
"Miss. Peregrine? Emma? Everything okay?" Enoch asked, but knowing full well that the two were having something of a disagreement.
"Yeah, Enoch everything is fine." Emma told him as she walked out of the kitchen into the dining room, plates in hand. Miss. Peregrine sighed and turned back to her cooking, one of the pancakes burned.
Of all the times I needed to be at the top of my game…she thought angrily.