The Sorrows of Chef

Chef’s eyes bulged at the sight of this sudden Annabelle. He never wanted to see any of the children in his kitchen; it was a nasty shock to wake up from a pleasantly saucy dream with one of the worst of them practically in his lap.

“Qu’est-ce que vous faites ici, ma p’tite gamine affreuse?”

“Je suis en train d’exécuter une mission, pour Madame.”

“Speak en Anglais – your French it is of the worst!”

“D’accord, Monsieur, mais c’est meillure que l’anglais lequel vous parlez.”

Chef only growled, so Annabelle pushed on, edging her way toward the sink, away from her sister. “Mother would like to know if you still have sufficient potatoes for Bettina’s mash. How many days before we need more?”

Chef clutched at what little remained of his hair.

“Hélas,‘las! Pourquoi est-ce que j’ai assumé cette fonction-ci? Autrefois, j’aurais pu être chef de la Tour d’Argent elle-même!!”

“No doubt you wanted to see the world, and make its most intelligent children happy with delicious desserts.”

This was too much for Chef. Up he sprang, mustaches bristling. Annabelle jumped back and brandished the small saucepan. Chef stopped, as quick as he had started, staring at the pan, and then at the still swinging hook whence it came. Mirabelle, crouching behind the pastry table, listened to the awful silence.

Annabelle slammed the pan down on the stove. “This fell down,” she said, “and I caught it.”

“Attention! Veuillez prendr’un peu d’soin avec ma marmite!”

Mirabelle leapt up from her hiding place, scrambled up the front of the larder shelves, and grabbed the marshmallow tin, as Chef cradled his little copper pan.

“Potatoes!” said Annabelle.

“Get out of my kitchen, get out get out!”

Annabelle balled up her fists and put them on her hips, as Mirabelle crept behind Chef, into the dumb waiter. “Potatoes?” she said.

Chef ran a weary hand over where his hair used to be.

“Anozher 3 weeks, if I do not use them for anyzhing else!”

“Merci, Chef,” Annabelle smiled, and curtsied, and left the galley.

She found her sister in the great room. “Ga ‘s illiank!” she said, through a mouth full of marshmallow.

“You were brilliant, too!” Annabelle helped herself to the tin, and they went to find their brother.

After that they spent and hour testing the new weapon with Gerhardt, trying to propel marshmallows into each other’s mouths at increasing distance, then trying to hit the mountainside from the garden. On top of the ship, watching a marshmallow arc infinitely through the Himalayan twilight to become one with the snow and rock below, Mirabelle remembered.

“We should be looking for it!” she chided her sister.

“I entirely forgot,” Annabelle admitted, joining her at the rail.

“You’ll never find a marshmallow from here!” said Gerhardt.

“We’re not looking for marshmallows!”

“Then what?”

The girls’ eyes met for the briefest of moments. “Never you mind, is what,” Annabelle said.

“We’ll tell you when we find it,” added Mirabelle, “if you finish the crossbows you owe us.”

“You two and your secrets!” Gerhardt pelted them with the remaining marshmallows and went back to his room to work.

This story began with On Grandmothers. The last episode was Assault on the Galley, and the next is Faeries, Helpful Siblings, and Other Mythological Creatures.