The different raiser part 14

In front of Mr and mrs. Olgay’s plant shop.

“How did it just? Why did it...?” Willow studered.

“Hey!” the cat hissed at her. “This cat is a girl, not an ‘it’ nitwit. And for what it’s worth, I just started to understand you personages this morning.”

“Mind your manners, Wild Souls!"Jessaline looked at her cat. “Wild Souls just started to talk this morning. I don’t know what caused it, but she wouldn’t eat her kibble and she started to eat our lettuce. I swooped her up immediately. I asked her why she was eating the lettuce, but I didn’t expect her to answer.”

Tomeka looked at the cat, though she couldn’t think of anything that would make a cat spontaneously start to talk.

“Why did you come to me?” Tomeka asked. “And not a vet?”

“I… I just kinda freaked out. I was gonna take her, but Wild Souls hates the vet and said she wouldn’t speak in front of them. So my next thought was to take her to one of my friends.” Jessaline stammered.

“Why is her name Wild Souls?” Willow asked curiously.

“Because when I was younger, I loved the game Wild Souls 2, and when my dad asked me what I wanted to name my cat, I said Wild Souls 2, because I loved her as much as I loved the video game. So technically her name is Wild Souls 2, but I just call her Wild Souls.” Jessaline answered kindly.

Tomeka was ignoring all this. What she was thinking about was when is Katelin going to be done with her kitchen inspection.

In order to fund Mr. and Mrs. Olgay’s shop, Tomeka and Katelin was holding a bake sale. While Tomeka’s job was to get the word out and set up the place they would selling the treats at, Katelin was going to bake all the treats from home, and then bring them to a table in front of the garden shop to sell to wandering folks on the street who may like plants, treats, or hopefully both!

But first Katelin needed to get certain licences to bake from home, (and her parents took care of that, thankfully.) She also needed to get her kitchen inspected by a professional home-based baking business kitchen inspector.

Everything about the fundraiser rode on Katelin passing the inspection, and after seeing Katelin’s dog talk, Tomeka didn’t think she should focus on talking animals right now.

“Tomeka where’s Noah?” Willow asked Tomeka.

“He’s missing again?” Tomeka asked annoyed. For a three year old, Noah sure was sly. Tomeka turned to Jessaline. “Do you mind helping us search for Noah? My mom will kill me if I don’t find him.”

“No, I don’t mind. I’ll help find him” Jessaline answered.

“As will I.” Wild Souls meowed. “That boy is smart. I like him.” and she jumped out of Jessaline’s hands and crawled down the sidewalk.

"Noah!" Tomeka yelled.

"NOOOOOAAAAAHHH!!" Willow yelled from behind her.

Jessaline yelled too, then she looked to the right if he'd wandered into the road, or across the street into the cafe.

Jess, that's extra. Jessaline mentaly told herself. how could he have pitter-patted across the street without any noise? But then she thought, maybe he wandered into the garden shop!

Jessaline walked backwards with her head turned left to look inside the garden shop. Inside she saw racks of seeds for tomatoes and onions, and in the very back Mrs. Olgay ringing up someone's purchase of flower pots. She saw Jessaline staring and gave her a uuuuhhhh hello? Wave.

Clearly Jessaline had been staring too weirdly too long.

She walked over to the restaurant right next to the garden shop and looked in one of it's two fancy windows.

"Um, Jess, what are you doing?" Tomeka groaned. Her brain was getting tired of trying to process all the weird things that were happening today. Half of them she couldn't make sense of, like why her friend was peeping in store windows or why the cat was talking or why Katelin was taking so long to get here.

"I'm checking if Noah wandered off into one of the… There he is!" Jessaline exclaimed.

She saw Tasha the restaurant worker, holding the hand of little Noah, talking to him. She was just walking him to the door, but when he saw his sisters and Jessaline staring at him from outside, and he turned and ran into the kitchen, yes the kitchen!

When Tomeka saw this she admediatly ran inside. "Mrs. Tasha I am so sorry! Noah is always getting lost and when he walks off I don't hear a thing! Usually I find him but sometimes he finds me! I'm telling you, he would be the perfect ninja."

Tasha laughed. "Well he just ran into the kitchen, so let's go get him before he can disturb the cooks."

As the girls walked inside, Tasha said, "uh- you can't bring that cat in here."

Wild Souls let out a low meow, and without speaking Jessaline could tell her cat was annoyed by this.

"Oh okay I'll leave her outside."

Tasha tilted her head to the side. "You sure you don't wanna stay outside with your cat?"

"Oh no no, I...trained her to stay in places when I'm not around. I'll meet you inside." Jessaline lied.

"Alright." Said Tasha and then closed the door.

As soon as she closed it, Wild Souls hissed slashed a paw at Jessaline.

"Hey!" Jessaline quickly dodged the hit. "What did you do that for!?"

"Liar, Liar, you did not teach me to stay anywhere." Wild Souls meowed.

"I know I know, but I had to tell her something. Listen. Can you stay here, in front of the store, while I go get Noah?" Jessaline asked her cat.

"Fine. but you'll owe me." Wild souls hissed.

Jessaline rolled her eyes. "What do you want?"

"Cooked beef. And a nice plate of it when we get home."

Now it was Jessaline who said fine.

"Thanks." was all the cat said before turning to face the street, people-watching.

By the time Jessaline walked into the restaurant, Tomeka and the others were already heading into the kitchen outback. There was one couple at a table near the front with their kids and even a grandma. Jessaline darted into the kitchen.

Now, Jessaline had had food from this place in particular for so long, she knew the menu like she knew her best friends phone number. Jessaline's grandfather drove trucks for a living for the long term, so he spent months on the road at a time. On his first or second day back home after a trip, he would take Jessaline to get Lindsy’s, where they would order take-out for the whole family back at home. They had done that for years.

But never had Jessaline ever, seen inside the kitchen, where all the food was made.

Usually she saw someone's head pop over the back counter and hand one of the two cashiers a food tray like magic, but now, the uncooked food was real.

She could see it.

She could hear it.

She could smell it.

All that was missing was the taste.

She saw one person peeling the bok choy, and one person stirring it in hot oil with garlic in a hot pot, over a gas oven.

She saw someone pouring oil in a pan, then turning up the heat on the stove, then turning around and starting chopping tofu.

She looked at someone next to her frying rice, with string beans, chopped carrots, and peas.

And the sounds! All you could hear was the roar of steam and oil. With the ocasional loud stirring and yelling to one another.

The space was tight, but everyone made it work.

As she took everything in, she sucked in her cheeks and made a fish face. She was used to always having a lollipop in her mouth, but when not, she felt less awkward by just squishing her lips to be pebble sized and making a fish face. She may have looked awkward to others but she no longer felt like that as she looked around alone in an unfamiliar kitchen.

If I barely have space in here, I don’t know how Tomeka and the others stood in here with space.

“Jessaline! Don’t just stand there! C’mon!” Tomeka called from all the way to the right of the kitchen.

It turned out Tomeka had been looking to see if he’d crawled onto counters, Willow was searching in cabinets in case he was playing hide and seek, and Tasha was asking other staff if they’d seen a little boy run through here, all of them saying sorry to all the chefs they had to squish by. But Jessaline had been so absorbed by the scenery, she didn’t notice that everyone was right here, even in that tight space.

“I think I know where he is.” Tasha said. “Barde said he saw him go into the desserts kitchen.”

“Wait, you have a kitchen… just for Desserts!?” Jessaline asked as they went to the very back of the shop.

“Well, desserts and appetizers, but yeah, basically.” Tasha smiled. She seemed to enjoy this tour of the kitchens she was giving the kids.

“It smells so good in here, it makes me want to buy some food!” Willow said looking around the room.

“You get used to it.” Tasha said to her, smiling.

This kitchen was just as small as the last one, except no one was cooking in it. This room had counters only in the back of the room and contained two stoves, and one island counter down the middle of the room.

Tomeka heard something shift behind the island.

She quickly rushed behind it to find her brother Noah crouching behind the island and laughing.

“You finally found me!” Noah said joylessly.

Suddenly, Tomeka felt angry. “That’s what this was? A scary game of hide and seek!?”

“No.” Noah said honestly. “And it wasn’t scary. I wanted some food, so I came in here to get some.”

“Why didn’t you ask us first!?” said Willow.

“Us!?” Tomeka turned to Willow. Last time Tomeka checked, she was the eldest sibling, watching over a nosy eleven year old, and a sneaky three year old.

“If I asked, you wouldn’t let me go.” Noah answered Willow’s question.

“That’s right, and with good reason.” Tomeka grabbed her brother's little hand.

“We’re so sorry.” Tomeka apologised to Tasha again. “I’m just glad there were no chefs in here for him to disrupt- wait, why isn’t anybody cooking in here?” Tomeka asked.

“Because, we only cook dessert and appetizers at night to go with dinners. The chefs should be here soon to prep though.”

“Do you guys ever cook dessert early? Specifically tomorrow morning?” Tomeka said wondering what was in those high cabinets above.

“What are you getting at?” Tasha asked. It was obvious Tomeka was beating around the bush.

“Well, tomorrow Katelin’s gonna bake some treats for this fundraiser we’re having, and I could just imagine her cooking here. It would be in the morning, so she would get in no one’s way, and we could easily bring the food back to the front of Mrs. and Mr. Olgay’s shop next door!” Tomeka brainstormed.

“That’s not a bad idea.” Tasha answered. “I could ask the general manager if she’d let you two cook back here for a da-”

“No, No, that’s fine,” Tomeka said, a bit sad the idea wouldn’t come into play. “We already decided she would cook from home, and her kitchen is getting inspected today.”

As Tasha started to ask Tomeka and Jessaline about the fundraiser, Wild Souls grew impatient.

Her tail wavered low to the ground, Wild Souls was clearly annoyed.

“Where are they?” Wild Souls growled low-ly to herself. She knew if she talked to loudly, it would probably scare the entire block, and she took pride in that. “Either the boy’s been cooked along with the entrees or he’s made it to Tanzania by now.”

After two minutes, Wild Souls couldn’t take it. “That’s it, I’m going in!” she meowed and waited for the next person to walk up to the restaurant.

Someone with a red uniform that read LINDSY’S was looking at their watch while speed-walking over to her. Wild Souls quickly noticed that the logo over her head read the same as the symbol on the shirt of the women heading over here. Immediately, Wild Souls’s eyes were on her like glue. As soon as the lady opened the door Wild Souls swooped in, unashamed. Though she did glance back at the women to see her reaction.

At first the lady had just glanced at the cat and kept moving, in a rush. But then she stopped with a jolt and stared dead at the cat, mouth agape. “STRAY CAT!!” she yelled to anyone who could hear.

The one family who were sitting at a table looked down at her, their eyes glued to the orange-furred wonder.

“Didn’t your mom ever tell you it’s rude to stare?” Wild Souls meowed before her pursuit for the kitchen.

She continued to sway away but her eyes widened and she turned to see the even more shocked faces of the people behind her. A mug could have fit in the mouth of that chef. Then the chef was shrieking, which made Wild Souls jump about two feet in the air and scramble for the kitchen.

Jessaline and the others heard the screaming and looked straight down the hall to the main part of the restaurant. Jessaline’s cat ran to her and hid behind her feet. She looked scared.

“What’s going on?” Tasha asked the Lindsy’s employee who had let Wild Souls in, who turned out to be Euglema

“THAT CAT CAN TALK!” she yelled.

Tasha’s eyes widened and looked down at the cat.

“The Kentil experiment.” she muttered.

“What!?” Jessaline yelled. “What’s that!?”

TO BE CONTINUED