Santi: The Devil's Pioneer

Chapter 28 - Chided Children

A loud ringing shrieked throughout the room. A rooster clock c**k-a-doodle-doo its way to Emily’s ears.

Kiki, who was sound asleep on Emily’s bedroom floor on a mattress, frightened at this unusual way to arise from napping, shriek at the sounds. Like a little girl, he screamed.

Emily, who was lying on the spacious bed, with satin silk for a nightgown, grabbed a pillow underneath her and pushed it over her head, clearly used to all the shrieking sounds early in the morning.

Suddenly, the door bursts open syncing perfectly with the rooster alarm clock that perched its head over the bed.

"Rise and shine, girls!" A man's voice echoes through the room. "Today is another day of worthless school, studying for something we might not even pursue or maintain later in life. But whatever, that’s life. We’re forced to go to school, anyway.” A cheery voice screams.

He starts grabbing the covers over both room occupants, and Emily shuffles, trying to continue her slumber.

Kiki, uncomfortable and not used to being tended to by Emman who clearly knew it best to shout around, knowing they were all hungover, grabs back his blanket.

Santi enters the room with a toothbrush in her mouth, looking to and from Emily on the bed and Kiki on the floor. She realizes she had missed a wild night. Damn blisters. She stares at Emily who was still grappling with the bed covers as Emman desperately tries to get her out of bed.

"Oh my God, Emily. What will it take you to just for once do as I say? Just once, huh. Can you just for once do as I say?" He gives up trying to fight for the bed covers, exasperated.

"It's too damn early in the morning for you to be this-" He gestures with his hands, cupping one over the other, curling them into a fist, his mouth not knowing the words to say.

"Handful. I'm a handful and I know it, okay? Just settle down? We'll get right out." Emily finally sits up on her bed, eyes clearly cloudy, letting out a yawn here and there.

She turns to Emily who remained in the door entrance brushing her teeth as Emman exits the room.

"Now can you see what I go through? That’s just one of them. And that's just 7 hours into the day. He's not half done with his antics." She mutters as she gets up and sloppily makes the bed.

Santi tries to help out, smoothing the corners, still with a brush in her mouth.

“Doesn’t that get too minty or hurt?” Emily asks after they make the bed, kicking Kiki’s mattress as they leave the room seeing as he wasn’t even attempting to fool them into believing he was awake. The fool was asleep all the way through.

As Emily mentions that they weren’t supposed to last until it hurt, Santi rushes to the kitchen sink, getting rid of all the minty fresh toothpaste in her mouth. She takes a mental note to brush for only one to two minutes, not twenty.

“I can see you’re all prepared. You’ve washed up and all,” Emily remarks as Santi emerges from the kitchen, mouth clean and fresh.

“Yeah, I woke up early. The cold shower also helped with the bruises and blisters.” She answers, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Well, you were pretty tired from last night. You crashed early, too. I hope you didn’t mind finding the boys when you walked out of your room. They stayed over. The rain was drenching last night.”

“I didn’t mind. Just a little surprised, that’s all.”

“Emman!” She calls out, and Emman appears from the living room. “Make us breakfast, please. And wake Peter and Kiki up. We don’t want to be late. Santi, if you don’t mind, help him. I’m sure you can cook better than him, anyway.” She says dully and heads onto the bathroom.

“E, before I forget, do you mind if I borrow more uniforms? The one you lent me yesterday was a little filthy.” I asked, shyly, before she closes the door.

“And don’t forget her jacket. Grumpy sent her to detention yesterday for not wearing one.” Emman adds as he heads to the kitchen.

“Sure, babe. Will get you one after my bath.” She said, smiling.

I head on over to the kitchen to try and aid Emman in cooking. Although, I doubt I’d be any use as I had never before cooked in my entire eternal life. Unless you count grilling human bodies on open flames as cooking. I have some experience in that area.

“So, what’s cooking?” I ask with hands on my hips.

“Nothing,” He says dryly.

“Well, no need to be rude. I told you I didn’t mean to stare. I was just looking at the embroidered letters by your leg.” I snap.

“I didn’t mention that at all. I’m not even upset about that, you tool,” He retorts, sighing and returning to whatever it was he was doing.

He stood by the sink with the water running, his back turned to me so I couldn’t see what he was doing.

“Then what are you mad about?”

“Emily can be so forking bossy sometimes. He forgets that I’m older than her.” He says, pouting his lips like a child.

“What a child,” I remark at his behavior, shaking my head at him with a laugh. “She asks you to cook breakfast for the gang and you think she’s bossy? How about I cook breakfast and you don’t eat? Since you obviously don’t want to be ordered around.”

“You act like our mom,” I laugh even harder at this comment. Evidently, he was also spoiled and babied as a child.

I stand closer to him, staring at his eyes with intensity and a smirk.

“Boy, if I was your mom, cooking wouldn’t be the only thing you’d be doing around here. If I was your mom, you’d be serving me because you came out of my v****a, your bench. You better serve me better than the eight sets of stitches I had to receive trying to push your big ass head out.”

Maybe I was a little too intense for the role.

“O-okay, mom.” He answers, frightened, and picks back up the pan he was washing earlier.

“Good boy,” I chuckle and sit next to him at the counter. “So, what are you cooking?”

“Eggs are the only thing I know how to cook. Unless you can cook something?” He gestures by holding up the pan to me.

Declining it with an immediate rush, I answer, “I have never cooked before.”

“Your entire life?” He asks, shocked. But continues to settle down the pan in the stove and lights it up. “Fetch me eggs from the fridge, please. Get me five.”

I courteously do as he says, taking four eggs in one hand. Midway through the walk to the other side of the kitchen where he was stationed, I feel the egg start slipping from my fingers. In an attempt to save it from dropping, I clench unto it tighter.

Guess what happened?

It broke in my hand. All four eggs smashed together in my tiny human hand form. Yellow yolks dripped from my fingers. I scrunch my face up in disgust of the smell. Emman notices this too late, and rubs his forehead with his hand, chuckling.

“Eggs are fragile,” He utters with a laugh. Walking over to me as I stood frozen in my egg-filled circle on the floor, he reaches for the one egg on my other hand that wasn’t broken.

“Throw the remnants, wash your hands thoroughly. The smell tends to linger.” He tells me after cracking the last egg on the pan, letting it sizzle.

“What about the mess?” I ask, still afraid to move from my spot.

“Housekeeping comes around Thursdays, anyway. They’ll clean it up.”

“Do you always rely on others to clean up your messes?”

“Well, do you want to clean your mess up?” He turns around to me, tilting his head and smiling mischievously.

“No, not these eggs,” I tell him. I surrender to their posh lifestyle and rid myself of the eggs and their smell, making sure to rub all the corners of my fingers.

Eggs were nasty when uncooked. Guess you learn something new every day.

“Should I get you more eggs?” I ask once I had finished washing.

“You sure you can handle them?” He asks with innocent forking eyes. I smack the back of his head which made him flinch. “Don’t hurt the chef or else you won’t be getting any of this.”

I grudgingly left him to the stove and make my way to attempt to carry over four eggs once again. This time I made it with success. I hand them over to him and take a peek at his masterpiece on the pan, only to find myself frowning at his dish.

“That’s burnt,” I comment.

He laughs sheepishly in response.

“Emily, Emman burnt the eggs!” I shout when I hear a door open and close, expecting it to be Emily emerging from the bathroom.

“What are you two kids rambling on about?” It was Kiki who enters the kitchen, letting out a yawn.

“We’re debating whether Santi here would be a better cook than me.”

“You’re not even good. How would you be better than anybody?” Kiki answers, approaching the cooking station to have his eyes wide open at the burnt eggs.

I wasn’t even exaggerating when I tell you it is burnt. The edges are literally black and crispy. The yolk was almost a pastel yellow in color. There were little parts of the egg white that weren’t burned to a crisp.

“You can’t serve that crap,” Kiki taps him on the shoulder. “Let me cook, and you’ll see how a real man does it.”

“You’re a Greek who can only make Greek dips. Your tzatziki and fava don’t impress anyone, Kiki.” Emman counters.

“I’ll have you know, my yiayia specifically requests for my dips every Thanksgiving dinner.” He chortles, grabbing the pan from Emman’s hand.

“Hey!” He calls him out like a child as his toy was taken away from him. But Kiki shushes him up and he pouted like a five-year-old on the counter space beside me.

“First, you scrape off the burnt eggs,” He says looking directly at me, trying to teach me how to cook. I chuckle at his actions as it made Emman sulkier in his seat beside me.

“Putting the pan back on the stove, you set it on medium heat. High heat is for boiling. You’re not boiling your eggs. You’re frying them. Jot down notes, Emman.”

“Whatever,” He growls out, disgruntled by the sudden power grab.

Emily suddenly enters the room with a powdery white substance on her face. Looking at the group we made in the kitchen, she raises her eyebrows at us.

“What are you doing? This isn’t Masterchef. I didn’t tell you to take thirty minutes to cook forking eggs.” She chides, seeing the eggs on the counter, uncooked. “And none of you ever thought to wake Peter up? It’s a quarter past seven, you dum-dums. I will not be late for school. I have an afterschool project that I cannot miss for another detention.”

“How about Santi’s clothes?” Emman manages to interject between sentences.

“It’s in your room. Get your asses changed.” She says in a scary tone which made us all scramble out of the kitchen, laughing.

“I still hear you laughing!” She shouts back and we run off individually.

I run to my room seeing a pair of school uniforms neatly laid out for me. Putting it on in a hurry, afraid to be called out by Emily again, I walk out of the room.

“I’m ready to go to school,” I say with excitement, leaving the apartment along with the others.