The Cherry Blossom Tree

Cherry Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

I had never set anything on fire before, whether it be by accident or on purpose.

Apparently there really was a first time for everything, I thought, leaping away from the foot high flames with a cry of shock.  My fingers shot to my forehead, checking to see I still had my carefully shaped brows.  My face was hot to the touch, and I couldn’t decide if the heat was a result of having my nose too close to the flames for comfort, or embarrassment at earning myself the undivided attention of everyone in the room.

When Mom had suggested the three of us enrol in a cooking class held twice a week in Fort Sangrey, both Annabel and I had laughed.  We’d genuinely thought she was joking.  When she didn’t join in, our chuckles died away and we both immediately started making excuses as to why we couldn’t possibly do something so insane.

None of us had ever cooked a meal before in our lives.  The closest I’d ever come was watching our chef Marco work his magic in the kitchen, and Annabel’s experience with cooking started and ended with her dating a chef.  Now between us, we had miles more experience than Mom, whose only knowledge of food came from eating it.

We’d been living off microwave meals and two minute noodles for the entire three weeks we’d been here.  Even Gryphon had turned his nose up at the state of our pantry when I’d dragged him inside for lunch one day while he’d been working on our porch.  The very next morning he’d arrived with a picnic hamper courtesy of Mrs. Scott, who’d prepared a lasagne and salad for all of us.  

I had no idea where Mom’s sudden interest in home cooked meals had come from, but I had to admit the idea of freshly cooked vegetables made me salivate in anticipation.  Of course, just because I was intrigued by the idea of better nutrition didn’t mean I wanted to actively participate.  There was a reason I didn’t meddle in the kitchen, and I was demonstrating my lack of skills spectacularly.

“Ma chérie,!” Jean Claude exclaimed, rushing over to my work station.  He was ringing his hands either side of his head, big brown eyes as wide as I’d ever seen them.

Muttering in French under his breath, he turned my stove off, snatched the bag of flour from the adjacent bench top, and doused the flaming frying pan with it.  A white cloud of dust rose between us, and I coughed around a mouthful of it.

“What are you thinking?” Jean Claude cried, indicating the bowl full of water I was holding.  I’d been about to put out my own fire, thank you very much.

“Water on a grease based fire?  Do you want to burn my kitchen to the ground?” he continued, taking the bowl from me and returning it to the sink.  He spoke like I was a particularly slow child, and annoyance started to flare in my chest.

Okay, so I hadn’t known I was about to make the situation worse.  He didn’t have to treat me like a complete idiot.  I’d made it perfectly clear at the start of the class that I couldn’t so much as boil an egg.  It wasn’t my fault he thought I was some hilarious joker and had set me up at a work station to make beef bourguignon.  I couldn’t even pronounce the dish, so what made him think I could freaking cook it?