BXBX NOVEL Chapter 799
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In the end, Lily didn’t really get any more information. Subtle questions about the matron was mostly met with confusion. The matron was the matron as far as Watcher was concerned. Even pinning down how old the matron was didn’t seem to be in the cards. The again, kids weren’t exactly good with those kinds of things if they didn’t know the answer off the top of their heads. Still, Kat was a big hit with the kids. As they headed off to the orphanage, the smaller kids were all smiles.
Actually, that was the one bit of information Lily had managed to gather. The truth was that technically both buildings were part of the orphanage. One of the buildings held the few older kids at was treated as sort of a halfway between living on your own and living in the orphanage. The kids there were still checked up on quite regularly, but they were expected to provide their own money for food, keep the place clean, and get along with each other. The matron or one of the staff would come around once every third day or so just to make sure nothing major was happening and leave the teens to it.
Part of Kat wanted to ask them a few questions as well, but she decided to head to see the matron first. They’d put that off a bit already and had some context so they weren’t just going in blind. Perhaps it wouldn’t feel necessary. Then again... if those teens were expected to provide money for food, it was entirely possible, even likely, that they wouldn’t be home at the moment. Assuming it wasn’t a weekend or whatever the equivalent was.
It was only a short walk to the orphanage and Kat lead the charge, knocking heavily on the wooden door to the front of the building. A few moments later it was opened a crack and a younger girl with black hair done up in pigtails peaked out at them. “Hello? What are you here for?” though it was a bit muddled. The girl seemed to be missing a few teeth at the moment and Kat could hear both versions overlapping a bit.
“Hi, we’re here to see the matron,” said Kat gently.
.....
The girl nodded and threw open the door before sprinting down the hallway off to the side. The entrance was a very small room with a reception desk and basically nothing else. As the pair followed down the hall, they could see that the ‘wall’ behind the reception desk was barely qualified to be such. It was just a line of planks with some wallpaper over it. Behind it was a large dining room with two big tables taking up all the space, there wasn’t even space to walk between them, the two middle rows of chairs pressing against each other.
Luckily there was some space to one side, and the girl was running along it. Little feet pattering against the smooth stone floor. She stopped at a door and knocked before yelling, “MATRON SOME GIRLS WANT TO SEE YOU!”
There was a slight shuffling of sound behind the door that Kat could hear, it sounded a lot like a knife cutting into something just before one large ‘thunk’ and a pause, “Are they looking for me specifically and is it one of the children or some adults?”
The young girl turned around and looked at Kat and Lily really hard for a few seconds, “I think they might be adults?”
“What?” yelled the matron.
“I THINK THEY MIGHT BE ADULTS” answered the girl, loud enough to be heard by the matron this time. Hopefully.
“Ah, alright dear they can come through and you can go back to playing,” said the matron.
“OK!” cheered the girl who bolted past Kat and Lily without a care in the world. Kat and Lily shared a glance and opened the door to reveal a rather cramped kitchen. A large oven took up most of the space in the corner, with an ‘island’ bench that didn’t really leave much space for walking and a counter top. A sink was pressed up next to the door outside and seemed to be fed with a house instead of a normal tap. The room was completely filled with cupboards in every bit of spare space.
The matron was in the middle of carving up a leg of ham. Presumably for some sandwiches considering the loaves of bread sitting nearby and an assortment of vegetables sitting in a few crates. It looked to be mostly lettuce, with a few tomatoes and other things.
Kat and Lily could now understand why Watcher couldn’t give an age for the matron. She looked an odd mix of mature and properly old. Her hair was beautiful. A chocolate waterfall that extended to her shoulders with a slight wave to it and a few lone streaks of silver that showed her age. Her arms were muscled, veins starting to show but not a wrinkle in sight. Her legs were covered by the grey dress she wore, and revealed nothing... but her face was another matter. Only her eyes were bright and lively. The rest of her face had a huge number of wrinkles all pulled and drooping. It really was an odd sight, and Kat was guessing that wasn’t entirely natural.
“Well dear, oh sorry, dears,” said the matron as she turned around to see her guests, “I’m just doing up some lunch for the children. If your business is urgent you can speak now or you can wait till I finish,”
Kat glanced at Lily and stepped forward. “Actually, if you don’t mind I’m happy to help with prep. I grew up in a place like this and helped out whenever Gramps let me... which was... not as often as I’d like but my skills haven’t rusted,”
“If you want. Get started on the bread. Keep the slices to about 2-3cms. I’ll be putting on plenty else so they don’t need to be extra thick. Still, can’t have them too thin or else the sandwich will fall apart. Bread knife is in the third draw just to the right of the bread,” said the matron even as she turned back to her own work.
Kat opened the drawer and found three bread knives. Shrugging she grabbed the first one and got started, quickly slicing her way through the pile of bread and not worrying about using her extra speed for it. This meant it took only a few minutes to slice through all three loaves of bread. Kat let the knife drop, “Ok done,”
The matron paused in her slicing to look over at Kat. She raised an eyebrow at the sight of the perfectly sliced bread that was in fact, done. The matron was expecting perhaps Kat had finished just the first loaf, but to see everything done instead was quite the feat. “I see... well in that case get on the lettuce. Don’t bother with the first layer or two, you can put that into the scrap bin under the sink. We’re not so short on it we need to ration. Just make sure to wash it all and then separate it,”
Kat nodded and got to work on her new job. There was a lot more lettuce than bread and she quickly found that while she could use enhanced speed for it, she actually had to be a little bit careful. Apparently, the small layer of demonic energy that helped stop things from just falling apart didn’t interact all that well with layers of lettuce she was trying to separate. Sure she was still faster but it wasn’t blindingly fast this time.
While Kat was making quick work of the lettuce Lily was standing off the side awkwardly. There wasn’t really that much space in the kitchen, and even if she was confident enough to help, which she really wasn’t, Lily knew well enough that she’d take up too much room in the kitchen if she set up her own cutting station. Well, that or she’d get in Kat’s way. See, Kat was running around the kitchen isle, because there wasn’t enough space to sneak behind the matron.
So Lily could either use the spot on the bench filled with bread, the kitchen isle Kat was constantly running through, the spot where the matron currently was or perhaps the place where the crates of food was stacked. Really there were just no good spots so she just stood in the corner making herself as small as possible... in human form. Lily let her hand smack into her face and transformed, now truly taking up only a small amount of space.
Taking a glance out at the fast working pair of matron and Kat, Lily decided that if she couldn’t help, she could make sure not to collapse later by sleeping now. So she just curled up into a nice little ball and let herself drift to sleep. It wasn’t even that hard to tune out the constant stream of water or the slight sounds of a knife carving into pig flesh. Little weird with advanced hearing, but not that hard to tune out.