We Went Ahead and Made Some
Dad went to bed right after supper, since he had been on morning shift. Quietly doing handiwork at the dinner table was the perfect way to kill time until our own bedtimes without disturbing his sleep. Once he was in the bedroom, I talked to Tuuli and Mom about the handiwork.
“Freida’s hair ornament is so popular that a lot of people are asking where they can buy them, so Benno asked me if I could start my winter handiwork early. He wants a lot of hairpins just like the one we made Tuuli.”
“...But, honey.”
Mom and Tuuli glanced at each other and looked at me with doubtful expressions. It was clear that while they could help, they didn’t want to do extra work at an already busy time.
That was about what I expected, so I took out two middle coppers from my tote bag as proof and clinked them onto the table. “I asked to be paid ahead on the first one. Benno will pay this much per flower part.”
Mom and Tuuli stood up immediately with a clatter and pulled the table closer to the hearth for the extra light, little though it was, without a word.
“Wait, what?” I was left sitting alone on my chair, stunned. Before I could even start to recover, Tuuli took three pairs of thin sewing needles from the sewing box and Mom brought the thread-packed basket out of the storage room. I climbed off the chair, overwhelmed at their perfect coordination.
As I weakly pulled my chair to the table, Mom spoke to me. “Myne, where’s the finished one we can use as an example?”
“Mmm? I gave it back to Tuuli already,” I said, leading Tuuli to quickly take her hairpin out of her own box. The noise she made rustling through her box made Dad call out asking what was going on, but Mom just said it was “nothing” and to “have a good night, dear.”
After getting my chair to the table, I climbed up onto it and saw that they had already finished preparing everything.
“Myne, what colors should we make?” asked Mom while rustling through the basket of thread, but the specific colors didn’t matter. All we had to do was make hair ornaments with the same design as Tuuli’s.
“We don’t know the hair colors and favorite colors of our individual customers, so he just wants us to make several of a bunch of different colors. You can just pick three different colors like Tuuli’s hairpin and make as many flowers as hers has.”
“Makes sense. How about white, yellow, and red?”
“Seems nice and cute to me.”
As soon as I gave my approval, Mom began knitting at a furiously high pace. She knew how to make the hair ornaments from prior experience, and thus had nothing holding her back. A small flower that would take me about fifteen minutes to sew only took her five minutes.
“Uh huh, the more colors to pick from the better. I think I’m going to go with white, yellow, and blue. The same colors my own hairpin has. What colors will you pick, Myne?” giggled Tuuli while picking out her favorites from the basket filled with a rainbow of colors. It seemed she really liked the hair ornament I made for her, which made me happy.
“I think I’ll go with pink, red, and green. Green flowers kind of look like normal plants, which is super cute, right?”
“Mhm. Really cute. But... Hey, Myne. How do you make these?” Tuuli, seemingly not wanting to interrupt Mom’s intense focus, scooted her chair next to mine. Since I had made Tuuli’s hairpin as a gift for her, she had no experience making the same kind of flowers.
“It’s not that hard. You just do this, and this...” I showed Tuuli how to make the small flowers while I sewed them. They were much easier to sew than Freida’s roses, so Tuuli mastered the technique in no time.
“Okay. Thanks!” Tuuli scooted her chair back to its original position and began quietly sewing.
We kept working for a while. After finishing my third flower, I glanced up and saw an overwhelming difference between how many I had made and how many were on the table. Mom had already finished enough small flowers to make an entire ornament, and Tuuli had six small flowers in front of her. Wowee. Here’s two sewing beauties for you.
Both Mom and Tuuli were sewing so much faster than me it was laughable. They were finishing flowers in the blink of an eye. Not even my history making weird arts and crafts helped me compare to their speed and the beauty of their flowers. I returned to work, resolving to take my time so that, at the very least, my hairpins wouldn’t look noticeably worse than theirs when compared.
Winter handiwork was normally something you did to pass the boring, boring time you had way too much of when you were stuck inside over the winter, which meant it usually involved a lot of casual chatter. But right now we were crowded around a dark table late at night, working purely for profit. Few words were exchanged and we all focused entirely on our work.
“All done! What now?” Tuuli’s head shot up, her expression gleaming with joy. In front of her were twelve flowers, four of each color. Plenty for a nice bouquet.
“You’re fast, Tuuli. I’m impressed. Ummm, now we just sew them to scraps of cloth, and... ah! Cloth! I forgot to include those in the budget!”
“For handiwork like this, it’s standard for families to buy their own materials, so we can just use what we already have,” said Mom, having already started to sew her flowers onto a scrap of cloth to complete the hairpin.
“...I’ll either ask Benno to pay or ask him for cloth.”
“You don’t need to go that far, he’s already paying us two entire middle coppers each.”
Um... Just how bad is the pay Mom usually gets for this stuff?
As I decided to ask Benno to recalculate our budget with the cloth in mind before we started for real, Tuuli went to the storage room and grabbed a scrap of cloth.
“Just follow Mom’s example and sew the flowers onto the cloth, making sure not to bundle up too many of the same color in one place. If you sew the flowers so the cloth beneath them is blocked from view, it’ll look like a bouquet of small flowers.”
“Mhm, got it.”
Once Tuuli finished the hairpin she had started, we called it a night. In the end I only managed to finish half of one myself, but Tuuli finished one and Mom finished eighty percent of her second one.
“Okay, here’s your paaay.”
“Yay!”
I gave each of them two middle coppers and placed their finished hairpins into my box.
“Now then, girls, run along to bed. I’ll join you once I finish what I’ve started.” Mom pointed at the eighty-percent-finished hairpin and gave a troubled smile. That wouldn’t take long at all given how fast she worked. Tuuli and I tip-toed into the bedroom, making sure not to wake Dad.
...So why were there two finished hairpins on the table when I woke up? Did you stay up late, Mom? Tuuli’s mad since she wanted to keep working too.
“No fair, Mom! How come only you get to work late!”
“Sorry, dear. I’ll be more careful next time. Now now, you’ll be late for work.” Mom apologized to Tuuli, who was puffing out her cheeks, and encouraged her on to work.
Tuuli shot back, “I’ll make lots of them when I get home!” and dashed outside. After seeing her go, I picked up Mom’s two hairpins and placed four middle coppers onto the table in their place.
“I’ll pay you now before you go to work, Mom, so I don’t forget to later. Also, I’m going to Benno’s today. If I don’t completely finish the ornaments with Lutz’s pins and get paid for them, I won’t be able to pay you two for the next hairpins.”
“Okay. Be careful, dear, and say hello to Benno for me.” As Mom put the middle coppers into her bag, her smile told me that she planned to work just as hard tonight.
The door shut and I heard the sound of a turning key. I kept waving with a smile until I couldn’t hear footsteps anymore, then sighed. Thiiis isn’t good. The power of money is simply too strong. I didn’t expect them to speed up this much. I especially didn’t expect Mom to stay up so late. If I don’t sell the finished hairpins and stock up on cash now, I’ll probably run out of coins by tonight.
“Well, peeling the trombe wood comes first today.”
I didn’t know when exactly Lutz would be coming, so I needed to get ready and wait.
First, the almost-potatoes known as potatoffels. Similar names, I know. Next, my slate, slate pens, and calculator so we can study while the wood gets steamed. Can’t forget the supply order set since I’m planning to go to Benno’s. Might as well grab my needles and thread to finish my half-done hairpin. Which means bringing a scrap of cloth and my seven small flowers. Plus other needles and thread to attach them to the pins and cloth.
Once everything was ready, I started sewing little flowers while waiting for Lutz to arrive. After finishing about two of them, I heard a knock on the door and Lutz asking if I was home.
“Morning, Lutz. So, about the pins. Have you finished any?”
“Yeah, I’ve got five. What about’m?”
“Bring them all with you. I’m bringing my needles and thread, ’cause I need to finish the hairpins while the water’s boiling so I can sell them to Benno. We already finished four of them last night,” I said, which made Lutz’s eyes shoot open.
“Wait, what?! That’s way too fast! Didn’t you say making those flowers was real hard and took a lot of time...?”
“Mmm, well, not even I thought they’d work this fast. I’m honestly kind of panicking here.”
“...Alright. You just need me to get the pins, right? Anything else?”
Yes. There was one thing that I couldn’t let Lutz forget today, under any circumstances. “What about the butter? Did you get some ready?”
“I thought I just misheard you... I’ll go get some. Lock the door and I’ll meet you downstairs.” It seemed that he hadn’t brought butter with him. That was close; I nearly missed out on eating the ideal potato. I saw Lutz off as he climbed down the stairs, then got my stuff and went outside.
“So cooold.” Our storage building was frosty cold, so much so that being outside felt warmer thanks to the sunlight. There was no place to start a fire inside the building, so we made plans to boil the trombe wood in front of it instead.
We deposited our stuff inside the building and went outside. Lutz stacked rocks next to each other to prepare a spot for the pot, and I lined up the trombe wood in the steamer. It got filled up in no time.
“Lutz, I think we’ll need another layer for the steamer.”
“One second.”
In the past we didn’t have to steam too much wood at once, but this time we had to steam all the materials we had immediately. We had prepared ahead of time to steam two layers at once, so Lutz got the other steamer out of the storage building.
“Should I go ahead and put the pot on the stones?”
“Uh huh, I’ll be done lining up the wood soon.” I finished putting the trombe wood in the steamers while Lutz locked the pot into place. I then used a knife to carve crosses into the potatoes I brought so they would cook better and placed them into the steamers as well before putting the tops on. Twenty minutes of steaming later and we would have delicious buttered potatoes ready (well, delicious buttered potatoffels, that is).
I started sewing flowers while the fire licked the pot from below. It took me about fifteen minutes to make each flower, so considering how long cleaning up would take, it was the perfect way to kill time while waiting for the potatoes.
“Lutz, you should make some strips out of the bamboo still in the storage building. Make their tips pointy.”
“Huh? Why?”
“What do you mean, why? So we can make sure the (buttered potatoes) are ready.”
“Huh? Myne, uh, what’re you doing?”
“I was thinking I should go ahead and cook them if we’re going to be using the steamers anyway... Do you not want any?”
“Of course I want some! Those buttered-whatevers are food, right?!”
Aaah... I see. For some reason, ‘buttered potatoes’ didn’t get translated. I figured the same idea would exist here since this world has sautéed potatoffels with butter.
The moment Lutz realized food was in the steamers, he got to work making pointy bamboo sticks. “Hey, Myne. Are those buttered-whatevers good?”
“I like them a lot. Honestly, you’ve probably had something just like them before already.”
It took longer than expected for the water in the pot to start boiling, likely due to its size, so it wasn’t until I finished two flowers that enough time seemed to have passed. It was about time to check on the potatoes.
“Okay, Lutz. Open the lid!”
I waited for Lutz to open the lid, standing on one of Ralph’s failed products for extra height with a stick in my right hand and a pair of chopsticks in my left.
“Myne, don’t put your face over it!”
The moment Lutz took off the lid, white steam burst out into the sky. Once the hot steam faded, I opened my eyes and saw yellow steaming potatoes next to the trombe wood.
I stabbed one with my stick. It slid right in without the potato falling apart, which was a good sign. I swapped the stick for my chopsticks and readied them.
“Lutz, I need a plate!”
“You think I have one?!”
“One of the flat boards will do. Also, get the butter ready.”
“You should have done all this instead of making flowers! Get your priorities straight!”
“Ngh. You’re completely right.”
I picked up the potatoes with chopsticks, put them on the board, and immediately had Lutz put the cover back on. I then jumped off the stand, wrenched open the cross cuts with my knife, and got some butter in there as soon as possible. The smell of melting butter was absolutely heavenly. My hype was building, but Lutz slumped over the second he saw the potatoes come out of the steamer.
“...What, they’re just potatoffels? I thought this was gonna be some awesome new recipe, Myne.” He was disappointed, probably due to having eaten so many of them before. They were grown in bulk around this area, so potatoffels ended up on many a dinner plate. It was hard not to get tired of them. I could understand his disappointment, considering they still had their skin on them and weren’t even prepared with a meal.
“Mhm, mhm. I know there’s a lot of recipes around here that involve eating potatoffels with butter. You don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to.”
“...I’ll have some.”
I ignored Lutz’s pouting and peeled off the skin of just the top of a potato before wrapping it in my apron so I could hold it without getting burned. I then held up the still-steaming potatoes and took a big bite. The outside part alone was fairly cool thanks to the cold air, but the inside was hot and fell apart in my mouth. It had a smoky scent due to being steamed alongside trombe wood, which gave an accent to the butter and flavored the potato in a way I’d never tasted at home.
I put a hand on my cheek and wiggled with glee over the flavor as Lutz sighed out white breath nearby and then took a bite from his. Immediately, his eyes shot open and he stared at his potato. He looked between me and the potato, stunned, and then took another confused bite. “...So good! Why?! This tastes totally different from the cooked potatoes I’ve had at home!”
“It’s ’cause I steamed them. Steaming potatoes packs them full of nutrition and flavor. Since I steamed them with trombe wood, it’s almost like I smoked them, which adds a lot of extra fancy flavor.”
While we ate the hot and tasty potatoffels, I told Lutz about how I had made hairpins with Mom and Tuuli last night. “...I’m not kidding, either. Mom and Tuuli were both sewing so fast I couldn’t believe it. It sounds like they’re going to work just as hard tonight, too. I didn’t even finish a single one. Yet another reminder of how useless I am.”
“Don’t sweat it too much, it’s just sewing.”
“What about you, Lutz? How did last night go for you?”
Lutz regretfully licked his fingers after eating the last of his potatoffel and shook his head. “Nobody cared about what I was doing. They all blew me off when I asked for help.”
“Okay. Want me to cast a magic spell on your family too?”
“Magic?”
“Uh huh. We can stop by your place after Benno pays us, I’ll show you then.”
We were done eating, so Lutz drew water from the well for us so we could drink with our hands. I then went to get the calculator, which I placed in front of Lutz.
“Mmm, okay. We finished four hairpins today. I had Benno pay us ahead of time for one, so we’re getting paid for three today, and each is worth eleven middle coppers. So, how much is he going to pay us?”
Lutz thought about the question seriously and began moving his fingers across the calculator. “Thirty-three coppers!”
“Mhm, that’s right. Good job! Okay, so you need to make twenty pins total. You made five yesterday. How many more do you need to make?”
Lutz looked troubled. As one might expect, he still wasn’t fast at doing math involving multiple digits even with a calculator at hand. Since he couldn’t reflexively do one-digit mental math, he had to tediously go through every step on the calculator, so for now I put aside the calculator and instead wrote some basic addition problems on his slate.
“You should learn this stuff first. It’s important that you memorize these basic problems so that you can answer them immediately.”
As Lutz mumbled to himself, memorizing the questions, I got back to work finishing my hairpin. By the time I did, noon had passed and the trombe wood was all nicely steamed.
“Lutz, get more water and take a step back.”
I used my sticks to drop the trombe wood into the bucket of water piece by piece. Once cooled, Lutz took them out and placed them on a nearby board. The water wasn’t flowing like in the river, so the bucket water quickly got pretty warm.
“The water’s warm now. One sec.” Lutz drew fresh water from the well, so I sat down and peeled off the black bark while waiting.
Once we had new water, we added more trombe wood. And so the cycle repeated. After all the wood was out of the steamers, I hurriedly peeled all the black bark off before it cooled down entirely while Lutz cleaned up the pot and steamers. Our work for today would be finished after we put the bark on nails to dry inside the storage building.
“Aaand done!”
“Alright, same here!”
My fingers were still tingly from handling the hot bark, so much so that the cold air felt pretty nice. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with it.
“...Huh?” I wasn’t feeling depressed. I wasn’t feeling uneasy about anything. All I felt was the relief of finishing a good day’s work. And yet, the devouring heat within my body was going on a rampage. I reflexively tensed up to try and contain the heat within me.
“Woah, Myne?!” Lutz, seeing me freeze up, hurriedly shook my shoulders.
I wanted to say “Don’t shake me, it’s hard to concentrate,” but I was clenching my teeth too hard to say anything. I reached out with my right hand to grab Lutz, and he immediately clasped it with both of his hands.
“What’s going on?! You’ve got a fever out of nowhere! Myne, are you alright?! Can you hear me?!”
I focused on the pressure from his tight grip and held back the waves of heat. I had normally contained it by imagining throwing a net around it and sucking it inside, but now it was like it was shooting tiny daggers of heat to cut through the net. ...Get back inside, already!
Out of every heat attack I had ever experienced, it took longer to push the heat back this time than any time before. I was so exhausted after the heat pulled back that I couldn’t even speak. Or stand, for that matter. I collapsed onto the ground, held upright only by Lutz, who was holding me up with his hands still clasped around mine.
“Wha? The fever’s gone? The heck is going on? Hey! Myne, are you alright?!”
“... It’s the devouring. Don’t you remember what Freida said?” I answered with a heavy sigh as Lutz looked at me, worried.
“Hold on a second. You didn’t look sick or weak at all like you normally do before getting a fever.”
“It happens out of nowhere. Normally it takes some strong emotions to come out, but lately it happens whenever my heart stirs even a little... Aaah, that surprised me.”
I was a little too shocked for the word “surprised” to be accurate, but Lutz was still gripping my hand and looking close to tears. I didn’t want to worry him any further and thus forced a weak smile.
“Can’t we fix it somehow?”
“Again, don’t you remember what Freida said? The cure or whatever is really expensive. Benno said the same thing.” The blood drained from Lutz’s face as he paled, and I went on, “Well, that’s how it is. Let’s go to Benno’s so I can make a little money to try and fix this.” I thought to myself that if the heat got any worse I probably wouldn’t be able to contain it, but I just kept smiling.
Lutz let go of my hand, gritting his teeth, and turned around. “I’ll carry you to the store. That’s... That’s all I can do.”
“What do you mean, that’s all you can do? You help me out all the time doing lots of things.”
“Whatever, just get on already!” urged Lutz, his voice trembling a little. I pretended not to notice that and got onto his back, but I could feel the tears dripping down his cheeks and onto my arms.
I genuinely felt bad. In my Urano days, I had been so focused on books that I didn’t have any friends that would have cried for me like this. And despite having read so many books, I didn’t know what to say to him.
...You’re just too nice, Lutz. You stay with me no matter how much of a useless waste of space I am. You accepted me even though you know I’m not the real Myne.
“You don’t need to feel guilty, no matter what, even if the devouring kills me. It comes out of nowhere and nobody can stop it. And... I’m not going to let it beat me yet. I still haven’t made a book.”
I heard Lutz sniff, but he didn’t answer.
We arrived at the store just as Mark, looking worried, and Benno, looking frustrated, were leaving. It seemed that the guard had gone inside to get them after seeing me on Lutz’s back.
“Haaah... Good grief.” Benno let out a sigh as he walked up to me, then immediately hefted me up and literally tossed me in Mark’s direction.
“Bhgyaaaah?!”
“Oof?!” Mark thankfully caught me, but still. What was Benno thinking, tossing around an exhausted sick person like that? Before I could complain, Lutz looked up from the ground for the first time since we started walking here.
“Lutz, come with me to my room. Just Lutz.” And before Lutz could say anything either, Benno jutted his jaw in the direction of the store, brows furrowed.
His momentum having grinded to a halt, Lutz vanished into the store with Benno. He turned back to look at me once out of worry. His face was a mess of tears and snot.
“Ah, Lutz...”
“Lutz will be fine. More importantly, did you come here to discuss something? It’s cold outside, let us talk inside.” Mark, still carrying me, walked into the store and prepared warm tea for me. I warmed my hands and body with it while discussing the sale of the hairpins we just finished.
“Oh, Lutz. Did you finish talking with Benno? Look, look! They bought the hairpins we made!” I was worried while waiting for Lutz to come out, but when he did, he looked calmer than before despite his puffy eyes. He smiled a little after seeing the money I was holding out to him.
“Woah, that’s a lot of money.”
“I think we’ll be fine for two or three days with this much.”
“Just two or three?”
Lutz had calmed down enough to chat casually. I sighed in relief. I don’t know what Benno said to him, but I would have expected nothing less from the master of diplomacy.
Speak of the devil, Benno followed Lutz out and shrugged like nothing had happened at all. “Now’s not the time to be chatting. If you’re done here, hurry on home and sleep, Myne. Lutz told me you’re not feeling well.” Benno gestured us away, then remembered something and added onto what he had said. “Mark, go with them. Bit dangerous for kids like them to be carrying that much money around.”
“Understood, sir.”
He had paid us in all middle coppers to make it easier for us to pay Mom and Tuuli. Thirty three coins would clink and clang quite a lot while we walked. Just holding a few in our hand wasn’t a problem, but the sound of clanking money would make we pre-baptism kids stand out a lot. The risk of being mugged was far too high. It was best to just entrust Mark with the money and leave it at that.
Mark exchanged a glance with Benno, then picked me up along with the bag of money.
“I-I can walk on my own, Mr. Mark!”
“I would be more quick to believe you if Lutz had not carried you here. Please be a good girl and for the sake of everyone’s mental health, allow me to carry you.” In other words: “You’re sick, so shut up.”
I had no argument. With my head hanging, I stopped flailing my arms and legs.
On the way back, I talked to Mark about what we were doing with our winter handiwork and did my best to explain it in a way that Lutz would fully understand as well. This could be considered part of his apprentice training.
There were three things Lutz would have to do to ensure getting his family’s help went smoothly. One, he would need to record on a board how many pins each of them carved. Two, he needed to hide that board somewhere safe to prevent anyone from messing with it. Three, since Lutz was getting four middle coppers as a handling fee per pin, he needed to add those four together on the calculator to keep the total in mind.
Lutz said he didn’t feel great about fussing over money when his family was involved, but Mark assured him that learning to do business with one’s family was an essential part of the path toward becoming a proper merchant.
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