Remember When ↠ l.p.

A surprise

"I'm telling you," I say through a half-full mouth of food. "I don't know how you do it mother. I made a lot of food today and I barely could manage getting it ready. How do you cook almost twice the amount of food that I did today and make it look much easier?!"

"For one thing, I've had years to practice the dishes and learn what cooks fastest and what can be left to go a few minutes over. I've also had your help and help from Aunt Charlotte several years, which makes things much simpler. I think you'll find it gets easier the more hands are at work in the kitchen and the longer that you do it. Practice makes perfect...or something remarkably close to it." She laughs so hard that the loose strands of hair escaping her bun bounce around her face.

"I don't suppose you have a list of tips and shortcuts lying around anywhere that I could borrow, do you?" I ask jokingly. "That'd sure cut down on some of my practicing."

"Always rushing ahead with you," she sighs "have some patience and see how that works out for you." She pats my leg underneath the table. "She wasn't always so eager to cheat on hard work," she confides in Liam, turning over to where he's seated on the other side of her. "she was a great student, never had any trouble in making her do her homework and get projects done on time."

"Honestly?" Liam asks in slight shock. "Never had any projects in late or homework overdue?"

"Well homework was a different story," admit mother "she always did it though. Except for one paper she wrote off as ridiculous and refused to do it."

"It was!" I remind her. "It was pointless and a waste of effort. I still stand by my decision to not write it." The assignment the teacher gave us had no relevance to what we were being taught and was utterly boring. I think he ran out of an assignment that week and needed one or something, it was indeed ridiculous. Several of my friends decided to boycott it along with me.

"Still, that's quite impressive!" Liam congratulates me with a smile and quick tip of an imaginary hat. I nod in acceptance and take another bite of my turkey sandwich. It's leftovers tonight and probably for the following few days.

Around the table everyone is enjoying leftovers that have heated up by Mother and I and from the looks of it, enjoying it nearly as much as they were this morning. I did manage to save a pie especially for tonight, seeing as we had a pumpkin pie for lunch I saved an apple pie for Thanksgiving supper as a treat.

It's not the only treat that we'll have for tonight however, we put the branches on the fake Christmas tree I have and a strand of lights. We're going to finish decorating it after we eat. The girls are excited because they were promised they could put all the ornaments they want to on the tree as well as the crowning jewel, the angel atop the tree's zenith.

"This mash could be a bit smoother." Louis comments thoughtfully as he examines his fork-ful of food before chewing it slowly.

"It was a box mix." I tell him with a slight frown.

"Stop! Don't ruin the illusion!" he returns my frown before stuffing his face with another bite of potatoes. I take that as proof that despite their dubious smoothness the mashed potatoes are tasty enough. The rest of dinner is teasing comments from in between moments of silence spent eating. Harry joins in along with the rest of us, but saves his truly savage comments for Liam or Louis. He's in rare form tonight and even makes a comment about Louis's hair that I'm sure he'll be regretting later. I've left Liam in charge of the drinks since I don't drink and haven't for a while. So I'm not sure what Harry's been drinking nor how much of it he's had, but it seems to be affecting him a little bit. He stumbles a little getting up from the table, enough to raise my hackles a little and make me push the remainder of my food around on my plate.