An Incident Before Lunch

Anne:

I can't grow enough strawberries for the inn's use, not in my bit of garden, but what I can grow I save for our table. This was the first day as we'd got more than a handful of berries, and that's always special. Some would get cut up and sprinkled with a little sugar—tonight we'd eat them with crème Chantilly. The squashier ones would go into muffins.

We was all busy cleaning them and picking them over, when my son tugged on my apron. "Mam? Is this what they mean when they say as someone has a strawberry nose?" He turned his face up to me.

He'd gone and stuck a berry in his nose-hole. And he had a big grin full of mischief on his face.

The first thing as struck me, was that aside from the color, it looked right natural. He'd found one as was just the proper shape.

For a moment, we was all too shocked to say a thing. Claude and Amelié looked to me to see how's they should take it.

I started to laugh, though I wanted to cry, too, cause it was funny. He was a little boy just being a little boy. He thought of a joke, a good one, and that he could laugh about his face was perhaps the best thing I'd done in raising him. He wasn't going to turn out like that doctor said—he wasn't going to be a dangerous lunatic as was too clever. He was my good brave little Erik.

We all laughed, Sophie, Minna, my brother, my niece, and my son and me. For five minutes, we howled and hugged our ribs.

Then I straightened up, and tried to sound serious. "That was very funny. Now take it out, and I don't want you doing that again. Them strawberries is too good to waste. I'm not serving it to anybody after where it's been."

He put his hand to his face, and then wailed, "Mam—I can't get it out!"

It was stuck.

When something like that happens, he gets all het up right quick and clings on to me—like when he gets a cold. He hasn't got a nose, so the snot has to come out somewhere, and it comes out of the corners of his eyes—like it does to everyone, only instead of just a dab, all of it has to come out there. One night so much had come oozing out, and then dried, that his eyes was sealed shut. He woke and couldn't open them, and he set up a screaming as could have been heard in Paris. It's good as he's still small enough to be carried—I had to take him to the washroom and soak the crusts off with water, and he was too scared to realize at first as he could see again.

"Don't go all panicky on me, now, dearheart!" I tried to calm him, "Keep breathing deep through your mouth."

"Try blowing real hard." Claude put in. Erik tried, and all that happened was his face got redder.

"Not being helpful, Claude" scolded Amelié. "Shake your head, maybe it'll fly out." He shook it so hard I thought he'd hurt his neck. He wailed louder

"Hold him upside down." suggested Sophie.

"No! Look, love, I've got to go upstairs. I've got something there as'll have it out in a wink, only—," He held his arms up for me to pick him up. "The stairs are too narrow for me to carry you! Now, don't cry, it'll only swell you up and make it all the harder to get the berry out. See, I'm going to give you to Sophie, now, and she'll hold you. I'll be right back!"

"Don't go, Mam!" he cried as I ran for my dresser. With all the things my brothers and sisters had stuck up their noses in their time—beans, pebbles, five-sou coins, and more—I knew what was the best tool for fishing up a child's nose, or nose-hole, this being Erik. A hair pin.

I was back down, where he was whimpering a little still, and said, "Hold still." By the time I'd got all of it out, anyone would have thought as I'd only just cut his nose off then. There was mashed strawberry and berry juice everywhere, all over his face, his front, and my apron. Looked as bloody as a massacre.

"Give a good blow, now. All done! You all right?"

"It's all sore." he moaned, rubbing his face. "I wish I had a nose like everybody else!"

"If you did, you'd only be sticking other things up it, like my brother, your uncle Michel. He got one of the pawns from our priest's chess set stuck up his nose, and our Mam near died of shame over it." I told him.

"He did?" asked Erik.

"Yes," said Claude. "The family still talks about it."

"Now, you go upstairs. Wash your face, change your shirt, and get your walking shoes on, cause this is the day we bring Truffle home." I said.

"Yay!" he shouted, and clapped his hands for joy.

"You and I'll have us a walk and take some sandwiches, and when we come back, Amelié will have muffins made for us all." I sent him on up the stairs. "Don't fret now, Ame, it's a simple recipe."

Strawberry-Orange Muffins (for the modern kitchen)

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups halved strawberries.

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 teaspoons grated orange rind—freshly grated at home is best, but the dried kind in jars in the supermarket spice rack is just fine, and means you won't grate your knuckles preparing it.

2 large eggs at room temperature. You can bring them to room temperature quickly by putting them, still in their shells, in a bowl of hot water.

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 ¼ cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

Cooking spray

2 teaspoons sugar

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Combine the strawberries, melted butter, orange rind, and eggs in a blender, and process until just blended.

Combine flour, 1 ¼ cups sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Stir to blend. Add strawberry mixture and stir to blend until only just combined. Do not overbeat; the muffins will be tough if you do.

Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with two teaspoons of sugar.

Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes or until the muffins spring back when touched lightly in the center. Remove from pan immediately. Serve warm, with butter or strawberry jam.

Best fresh; may become slightly sticky if kept overnight.

A/N: The story about a child's eyes being glued shut by dried mucus is taken from my own childhood, and I have a perfectly adequate nose! I was about four. My grandmother had to take me to the emergency room.

Well, after getting 3 reviews in one night, I thought I'd better do something fast! This little vignette seemed to me as if it could stand on its own. A longer chapter is in the works.

Erik's Girlfriend: The muse of fics is… fickle. My other story which I think is also quite good (shameless self promotion, ahem!) demanded a turn. I will keep both going as long as I can.

An Anti-Sheep Cheese Muffin: the recipe in this chapter is dedicated to you, being, as it is, a muffin recipe without either cheese or sheep. What a mystifying name you have…

Anonymous: Glad you like it! Haven't I read something of yours somewhere? ;)

Sat-Isis/Suten Net: Do you really think I'm going to give the answers away already? (BEG)

Josette: Thanks! I was getting tired of all the beleaguered heroines in need of singing lessons. I was trying to do something different, and I'm glad you think I succeeded.

Lostschizophrenic: How precisely did you become lost? Can I help?

Sue Raven: Thanks! I'm blushing!