Chapter XIII: Mrs. Uno and Harvey McKenzie
Harvey had never really been good at much of anything without a ton of practice, first, unless, of course, it was creative writing, which he was a natural at—and that wasn't arrogance and high-self esteem talking! There were plenty of skills in life that he just plain and simply didn't have. He was especially crappy at Math, and he was even worse at Science. His English, however, was way above average, but his History was maybe a little okay. Where he had always thought that he'd shone the highest was in his more creative abilities—specifically writing and making his own stories.
Well, for his family when he was a cute, chubby toddler (as much as his dad adamantly insisted that he wanted Harvey to be more science and business savvy like him, Aaron still thoroughly enjoyed his son's stories and even gave him a chance when he'd written new ones)
The fact that he wasn't going to get to indulge his great passion for the literary arts had made him very upset when he had to deal with it on sign-up day, and even now, Harvey was more than a little anxious. He'd already been researching the school's literary arts classes to see what types of teachers would be ideal for him while he was a student here.
But I guess that'll have to wait.
Harvey looked around Mrs. Uno's Culinary Arts classroom with some small level of disinterest. He was still overwhelmed with everything that had changed for him after Medusa's experiments turned him into the very thing his dad raised to despise (it was so strange, being a mutant, but it was all the more nerve-wracking when he had no clue what his powers were!). Still, somehow this room seemed to hold the least amount of distinction for him, despite it being the most different structurally.
Unlike the other classrooms that he'd been in thus far (three, before lunch), this room was easily doubled in size. Instead of the familiar yellow hues that had theoretically informed the color scheme, Mrs. Uno's Culinary Arts lab seemed to take on a style of its own. It was a bright, almost blinding white and divided distinctly between the "classroom area," where they were sitting now, and the "lab area" on the other side with the various ovens, appliances, and cookware set up en masse.
Plenty of his fellow students were mutants that he recognized from Freshman Orientation, but there were some unfamiliar faces speckled throughout her seated classmates. Some of them were older and loved the culinary arts more than the air they breathed, as evidenced by their, erm, figures.
"A good rule of thumb around here is that if someone loves food way too much and is with either Mrs. Uno or Chef Stuffum, chances are they're gonna be kinda fat."
"Don't listen to her—that's awful advice, Kuki!"
Kuki had said it in jest at some point over the weekend, and it meant as a joke (at Rachel's expense, no less!), but Harvey was finding some grain of truth to what the oriental mutant had said.
After all, they were all just so BIG!
Anyway, Harvey was more or less surrounded by sixth-graders like himself. Harvey felt this was more comforting because, as an intro class (and indeed, one of Harvey's first classes ever in a field he didn't feel confident in), so that way, Harvey didn't feel he was held against the same measuring stick as his elder classmates.
With that in mind, it was easy enough for him to tell that Mrs. Uno herself loved her job as a culinary arts teacher.
"Okay, kids, listen up—we're about to get started!"
Mrs. Uno clapped her hands together, sending ripples up her wobbling arm wings and down to die in the ample amount of belly beneath her chest. She was a large woman; this much was obvious. Harvey couldn't help but compare her to his late Gram-Gram, Mel Loud, to which Mrs. Uno fell short, but only slightly. She was round all over, with a soft, squishy belly that rolled over her waistline. Harvey noticed that his teacher was broad and round, equally chubby in every area of her body. Her face was round, with a thick second chin that flexed and lowered as she opened her mouth to speak. What Harvey also noticed was that his teacher seemed to be growing a third one, as well.
"Welcome, welcome, welcome to Culinary Arts—my name is Mrs. Agatha Uno."
"Hello Mrs. Uno," the class droned in unison, a touch of pleasure and excitement from the upperclassmen.
"Oh, Gawd, I love that." Mrs. Uno tittered, her prodigious paunch bouncing over the waistband of her too-tight slacks, "Easily my favorite part of being a teacher."
She folded her hands over the outermost swell of her stomach pleasantly, which sounded a loud growl. Somehow, even the ever-naïve Alice doubted that that was Mrs. Uno's favorite part of her job.
"Today, we're going to hit the ground running with an elementary lesson on kitchen safety and following instructions." the fat, British woman waddled over to her desk and grabbed a stack of papers. "We're going to do a little ice-breaking, get to know each other a little..."
The class purred to life in quiet disrespect of the already hum-drum "first day" routine. Harvey felt as though he had already done as much ice breaking as he was going to do today—and most of them with the powerful mutants he picked on and bullied at Muerte, to boot!
"All while we have our first lesson." Mrs. Uno corrected excitedly, a smile dimpling her chubby cheeks, "We'll be making sugar cookies today, and I'm going to walk you through every step, then while we wait, we'll come back and we'll..."
A nervous smile spread across Harvey's face—cooking already? He had barely ever touched the microwave, let alone the oven, at home, and now they expected him to be able to keep up with everyone else in the class? He'd never baked anything before in his life!
Taking a big boy breath, Harvey got out of his seat with the rest of the class and headed towards the oven for their first hands-on lecture.
In Harvey's defense, he had warned everyone about his utter lack of confidence in the area of Culinary Arts. It just so happened that, as it turned out, he had been right all along—he would have been much better off if he had never set foot in Mrs. Uno's kitchen.
It had been the first time in years that Mrs. Uno had allowed a student to take home the majority of their project, even on the first day. The fact that Harvey was (in his mind) shamed for by either of his classmates, who had aced Mrs. Uno's lesson. When Harvey came home to his dorm, blubbering unintelligibly and holding two paper plates sandwiched on top of one another, Rachel, Kimberly, and Mushi raised their eyebrows in concern for the bucktoothed teen.
When Harvey took the top plate off and showed them just how bad they turned out, their concerns for the boy only grew.
"Aw, Harvey…" Rachel stroked Harvey's heaving back as he sobbed into his pillow after he ran into his room in shame, "It's not... it's not that bad..."
"Yes, it is—I was so embarrassed!" Harvey hugged the pillow tight and sniffled, "Y-You should have seen how everyone was laughing at me, sis!"
"Harv, nobody was laughing at you." Mushi smiled pleasantly, ruffling Harvey's hair, "This is a private school, that kind of finger-pointing, name-calling, laughing-at-new-kids junk is back at public school."
"Mrs. Uno was laughing." Harvey blubbered, looking up (and boy was she not a very cute crier) "S-she said…she said that it was good that it was my first day!" he sobbed harder as he pressed his face into Rachel's massive chest.
"Ohhhh..." Rachel couldn't help but laugh a little as Harvey cutely buried his head into her pillowy breasts, "It's okay—you'll get better."
"On the upside, ya made somethin' that even Mrs. Uno couldn't stomach, an' I heard she's quite the prize hog when it comes t' her job!" Kimberly offered with a sympathetic rub of her roommate's shoulders, "Dat's gotta count for somethin', right?"
Harvey let out another ugly blubber.
"Don't you worry bro, it's just your first day." Rachel cooed as she got back on her feet, Harvey's bed letting out a relieved squeak.
"Oh, look, Harvey, I'll tell ya what I'll do…I can be yer tutor after classes!" Kimberly offered, knocking the wind out of Harvey.
"You... you'd do that?" Harvey mewled, "A-Are, you sure?"
"Of course, I will! After all, I am an expert in the culinary arts and a real wiz in the kitchen." Kimberly folded her hands on top of her belly as it hung off of her body, "Besides, I'm yer roommate!" Kimberly said in a kind, warm, almost motherly tone of voice. "What else am I here for, but t' help you out?" She asked before Mushi grinned slyly.
"Besides, I heard a rumor that Kimberly's a freakin' culinary fanatic," Mushi said with a row in her eye. She pinched the overfed, plump Texan's round stomach as it pooched softly beneath her uniform's blouse, grabbing more than two and a half inches of belly fat between her forefinger and thumb, "You see how big she is? I think that Kimberly probably wouldn't be so big if she didn't love to eat her Texas goodies!"
"Ya'll ain't got no right talkin' 'bout my weight like that!" Kimberly snapped, shocked and appalled, "This is all my Ma's doin', she wants me to be her idea of the perfect Texan housewife!"
Mushi stuck out her tongue while Rachel and Kimberly tittered happily next to Harvey, who couldn't help but smile. Just having friends to talk to (for once) had made life a little more carefree already. It was just so frustrating to not be good at something. And, being in a new place with so many new people, so far away from home, it was not easy for the bucktoothed rich kid.
He was lucky to have a sister like Rachel, and even more fortunate to have friends like Kimberly, Mushi, and Joey.
"Yeah, it'll be great!" Kimberly pulled him up by the shoulders, "I'm free after classes, so I can help ya bake, and then we can all hang out after!"
"Oh, wow, this is so nice of you." Harvey hugged his sister and his friends in a tight group hug, pressing himself hard against his friend's still-buttoned uniforms, "Thank you so so soooo much, Kim!"
"Oof!" Rachel squeaked,
"Yer stronger than ya look, bub!"
As she let them go, Kimberly's fluff settled back into place. The western blonde let out a shallow puff of air and gave Harvey a tight squeeze back before waddling up to his feet.
"Okay, first thang's first, I'll go show ya'll how t' use the oven." Kimberly said with a little clap of her hands, "We won't bake anything, but it's jus' plum daisy t' know these things jus' in case of an emergency everhoo, you know?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Harvey sniffled, "I'm coming!"
And once Harvey and Kimberly were out the door, leaving Rachel and Mushi alone in Harvey's bedroom, they both let out a deep reluctant sigh.
"Just when we thought we were free of temptation." Rachel said with a rub of her enormous butt.
"Now, there's two of them," Mushi said as she trembled at the thought of a bigger, pudgier waistline.
Meanwhile, Kimberly gets to work on tutoring Harvey—but it's a long road ahead for the two roommates.
Aside from mutations, nobody is born with natural talents. As much as Harvey liked to protest that he was just a natural at storytelling and passing to subpar at just about everything else, the truth of the matter was somewhere in between. Harvey was passionate about writing, and he loved to create stories. It had been a dream of his ever since he was a plump toddler to one day have a line of successful novels under his belt, and he'd worked tirelessly at perfecting the craft that he cared about the most.
Finding himself at the bottom of a new skill was very frustrating for someone like Harvey, who put a lot of pride in his abilities as a writer and an overall creative person. He knew what he had to do, but it just didn't feel as easy as it did with writing.
Scratch that, Harvey was starting below the bottom of the culinary ladder. Everyone else in the class had been able to skate by without any outside tutoring from super-helpful, über-friendly roommates.
And they indeed never started any fires.
"Okay, so the most important part of cookin' is makin' sure that when it comes out, ya can chew up that grub," Kimberly told Harvey patiently as she morphed her doughy arm into a fire extinguisher to put out the fire of Harvey's dish. "An' not use it as charcoal…" She said as it burst into flames again, and she extinguished it.
Kimberly had maintained a pretty good disposition throughout it all, even though Harvey was very much working against the grain. She had helped him through the basics like safely using the oven and appliances, what he should do in case of an emergency, all sorts of things. And then, after that, she'd helped him with some essential recipes, mostly things that they'd already covered in class like cookies, brownies, cupcakes, et cetera, so as not to overwhelm the boy.
"Now, Mrs. Uno only 'as lab days twice a week so for the other three days, ya'll are going to be workin' wit' me! Don't that sound like the bee's knees?"
And Harvey would bob his head and smile awkwardly, anticipating his latest screw-up. However, he had never had an unusually high opinion of himself after being transmogrified into a mutant. His belief in his ability to cook anything edible was deficient even lower after the fire, which Kimberly swiftly had contained adequately while making sure the smoke alarm wasn't set off.
But still—he'd started a fire.
"Aw, c'mon, Harv, it ain't that bad." Kimberly rubbed circles along the narrow spread of Harvey's shoulder blades as he hunched over another failure, "Ya'll should've seen me when I first started back awn mah fam's ranch. Trust me, ya'll are going to get better!"
"Yeah, mate, I mayn, at layst thiies one's nawt inedible." Joey smacked his lips as he lapped up the chocolate sauce from the whisk, and later his claws when he began to devour the batter, "Bahttah's praetty dahmn good!"
"Thanks, guys…" Harvey sighed, "I appreciate you helping me out. I've never gotten a C before..."
"Oof…Mrs. Uno giving a C?" Rachel said as Joey began slurping directly from the bowl, "That, like... never happens."
Harvey's exaggerated, completely unprompted, formerly retired, but still ultimately adorable "Stop or I'm Gonna Cry" face welled up on a dime, prompting laughter from Rachel, Kimberly, and Joey alike as the former ran to hug the poor crybaby new mutant.
"Awwww!" Rachel cooed, "It's going to be okay. We're going to help you get that grade up!"
"aRe YoU sUrE?!" Harvey warbled, teary-eyed
"Of coahss, we weell, mate!" Joey laughed, "Just…focus on the fahct thaht yaw hahvin fun weeth yoah friends and fuymily! thaht's the maowst impohtahnt paht of whaht weah doin' heah!"
Harvey sniffled, his chocolate brown eyes watery.
"Rachel, ain't yah hahvin fun?" Joey asked the chesty, bottom-heavy teen from across the room as he all but practically caked himself in chocolate.
"Mmhmm!" she burped, "Oh yeah, bro, if nothing else, this is at least good for a laugh, right?"
Harvey sniffled and squeezed back tears. The sting of his latest defeat in the arena of Culinary Arts wasn't the worst thing in the world. He knew that much already. It was frustrating to have to work so hard at something he didn't even want to do for the rest of her life, only to fail at almost every turn.
But hanging out with Rachel, Joey, Kimberly, and Mushi (before her roommate yanked her out to have a study date) so much was nice. They were all elegant in their way, and Rachel had been giving him tips from her time in the same class, and Kimberly was even giving Harvey even more pointers from her experience in the kitchen.
"Trust me, mate, in nao toime at ooll Keembuhly ovah heah's gawnna mayke yah a regulah Gohdawn Rahmsay." Joey boasted as he licked the chocolate off of himself.
"Is Harvey even legally allowed to say the f-word?" Rachel joked as she giggled at the picture of Harvey hosting something similar to Hell's Kitchen.
The two of them threw their heads back at Harvey's expense as she let out a meek little whine. The time he'd spent at the Institute so far had been nothing but challenging; new faces, new challenges, and a whole bunch of things that he just wasn't any good at by himself — managing his homework schedule by himself, having fun with his friends, being so far away from home.
He didn't know who he was anymore, a lot of his sense of identity that went lost when he'd become a mutant, but Rachel, Kimberly, Joey, and Mushi had helped him get through the thick of it.
Even if he wasn't having a lot of fun…it wasn't like he wasn't having any fun.