This next chapter will show Zeke's least favorite thing: chores. There's nothing more boring than that.
Chapter 21: Chores
The next day, the morning gong sounds and as soon as it went off, everyone got out of the room and said, "Morning, master!"
"Morning, students." Shifu said.
He looked at everyone and realized that they're missing one. He looks at Po, Crane, Mantis, Tigress, Viper, Mantis, Monkey and Musaki standing there except for....
"Where's Zeke?" asked Shifu.
"He might be still sleeping." Musaki said.
Then, a door opens and out comes Zeke, yawning and scratching his back. All of a sudden, he turns around and there's the others staring at him. He gasps silently and chuckled embarassedly and asked, "You guys didn't see that, didn't you?"
"Besides close to scratching your butt?" asked Musaki.
Zeke's eyes widened and said, "I guess you did see that."
"Did you hear the morning gong just now?" asked Shifu.
"I think I have. Sometimes, I have a hard time waking up in the morning."
"How much?"
"I'm sort of a heavy sleeper."
"Well, I hope you rested up really good, because we're doing some chores today." Shifu said.
Zeke groaned softly and knew that this was something he considers the least favorite thing to do during the day, doing chores. He falls in line and gets next to Musaki and can barely look excited about hearing what he has to do.
"Now, I'm assigning you to do some chores, inside and outside as well. So, listen for your duties. Crane, you and Monkey take care of the kitchen, Mantis will handle cleaning in the small areas he can reach, Viper and Tigress will clean the dorm rooms, Po, you sweep the training room floors and Musaki can handle washing the windows, polishing the valuable items in the palace and sweep the hallway floors. Zeke, since you're new here, you can clean up my room."
"I gotta what?" asked Zeke.
"Meet me at my room as soon as possible. I'll show you what to do."
Zeke knew that there was no way out of this one, so he sighed heavily and said, "Okay."
"Does everyone understand what your duties are?"
"Yes, master!" everyone exclaimed.
"Good. I'll be outside with my flute, but I'll check in to see if this is up to its standards. Zeke, come with me."
With that, everyone dispersed to their duties while Zeke walks with Shifu to see what his duties in his room are. A few seconds later, they got to the room and Zeke was amazed to see his room for the first time. Shifu asked, "Pretty big, isn't it?"
"I'll say. This is your sancutary, right?"
"Yes, it is. Now, I'm gonna give you a few things to do. It's nothing difficult. All you have to do is sweep the floors, dust the candle holders and check to see if there are any dried candle wax and polish my flutes. Any questions?"
"Just one. How do you see candle wax?"
"If there's dried candle wax, simply pick it out with your fingers."
"My fingers?"
"It's not that difficult. Just pick them out and put them on this little jar where most dried candle wax go in. Polishing flutes, I keep some wooden flute polish along with the rest of my flutes. The instructions are in the bottle. Speaking of that, gotta pick up one of my flutes."
Shifu walks Zeke to where his flutes are and picks up the dark wooden one and shows himself out. He stops and asked, "Do you understand the instructions I hvae given you?"
"Sorta."
"I keep my brooms near the door and some clean rags for cleaning. If there's any difficulties, just let me know."
"Yes, master."
"I'll go check in on the others and see how they're doing."
With that, Shifu left the room and Zeke was completely irritated to do some of the chores. He was able to get it over with and do it anyway. He sighed and picked up the dust rag and said to himself, "Might as well do this."
He cleared up every candle in the top of the stand and he starts sweeping. A little cloud of dust comes through and he never knew that his room could be dusty. He covered his mouth with his elbow and started coughing and it caught to his nose and sneezed a little. He sighed heavily and said, "This is not fun."
Meanwhile, back the bunkhouse, Crane was washing the dishes while Monkey wiped the tables and swept the floors. Crane asked, "How you doing back there?"
"Just fine. You?"
"Every bowl is washed and all I got left are plates and spoons. Cannot believe that Po thinks that this is kinda easy."
"He works in a noodle shop. He's supposed to wash dishes and serve and cook noodles at the same time."
Monkey takes a last-minute check to see if the table is polished and sees himself there, which he can tell that it's clean as a whistle. He grabs the broom and sees if there's some dust left and sees a little bit of it and sweeps the small parts of it. He looks around and sees if it's clear and it is clear. He said, "Table and floors are squeaky-clean."
"Almost done with the plates and spoons, thank goodness." Crane said.
A few minutes later, Shifu walks in the kitchen and sees it as clean as a whistle. He takes a look on the floor, puts his finger on the floor to see if there were still dust there, looks at it and nothing is on it. Then, he walks to the table, puts his finger on it, but Monkey stopped him quickly.
"Don't put your finger on it, master. Just used some of that fresh table polish." Monkey explained.
"Right. Sorry. Looks pretty decent, Master Monkey." Shifu said.
"Thank you, master."
Then, he went over to the kitchen sink and sees the bowl, spoons and plates are all squeaky-clean. He looks at Crane and said, "Good job, Master Crane."
"Thank you, Master." Crane said.
"You two did an excellent job on cleaning the kitchen. Head over to the exercise room and see if it needs cleaning."
"Yes, master."
Back at Shifu's room, Zeke looks at the floor and sees that it's clear and then, sees dried candle wax sticking out. He sighed heavily and tries to pick it out. Picking them out for him was kinda difficult for him to take, but he did what he was supposed to do and one by one, they were taken out and he sees the jar and there are lots of dried candle wax and puts them in there.
Zeke sighed and said, "Okay, got the floors swept and the candle wax picked. What next? Dust off the candle holders. Shouldn't be difficult."
He picks up a rag and polishes all of the candle holders there. He asked himself, "How many candles do Shifu have, anyway?"
"I'm guessing over 90-something candles."
He turns around and sees Musaki coming in. Zeke asked, "What are you doing?"
"Shifu sent me to check on you. Wonders how it looks like."
He comes in and looks at the floors and it is as clean as a whistle, sees the candle holders and they're all dusted off. He looked at Zeke and said, "And you said chores are the least thing you can do."
"The only problem is I do it so well." Zeke said,
"There's nothing wrong with that."
"Try being asked to do chores for 2 hours."
"Oh, believe me, I've done it before. So complicated, but I did it anyway."
"You're lucky."
"Well, I have to get back to the bunkhouse. Already dusted off every valuable item from the Sacred Hall of Warriors inside the palace. I mean, who would've thought that you can actually polish off Master Flying's Rhino Armor anyway and that vase that has the entire Tenshu Army inside there."
Zeke was surprised at how many items that they have there. He asked, "Are those for real?"
"Yeah, they're for real. The most difficult thing to clean was the Invisible Trident of Destiny."
"How can you clean it? It's invisible."
"Your guess is just as good as mine."
Musaki walked off and Zeke sighed heavily and moved on to cleaning the flutes. He looks in this one cupboard and there were 35 different flutes in there.
"What?" he asked softly.
"I gotta polish all this? How many flutes can you polish?"
He picks up this flute polish bottle and read the instructions to see what he does first. He picks up the flute and used one drop of polish in the rag and starts polishing it. After that, he looks at it and sees that it's polished. It was one down and only 34 more to go. He sighed heavily and said, "Why must I do this?"
Shortly after that, Shifu came back in and sees Zeke laying there on the ground. Zeke gets up and sees Shifu there. He said, "Hey, so what's up?"
"I came back to see how you've done." he answered.
He looks at the stand and sees that there's no dust in it and that it's all swept and then, he looks at it again and he can barely see any dried candle wax in there. After that, he sees the candle holders have been polished and then, he looks at all of his flutes and there were all squeaky-clean. He looks at Zeke and said, "I gotta say, this is the best work you've done."
"Chores is pretty much my weakness." Zeke said.
"Well, you can polish one more flute."
He hands over the flute he used and then, polishes it very quickly and all of a sudden, it's squeaky-clean. He was amazed at how he did it and said, "Very quickly."
"Thanks. So...that's it? I'm done?"
"Yep."
Zeke sighed heavily and quickly ran out of the room, just happy as a clam that he was through with doing chores. Shifu stood there and chuckled amused like and said, "Teenagers these days....can't live with them, can't live without them when it comes to chores."
Zeke is happy that he's through with chores. Stay tuned for more of this cool story!