Page 38 of Horns & Heart
Chapter14
Ispent the rest of the day doing next to nothing.It was like taking a vacation.
Other than Inkiri, Nokim was the one who most readily monopolized my attention while the others prepared to leave and Lissir was out at the department store.Maybe he saw it as his responsibility to keep me entertained, and the chatty guy didn’t have a lot of trouble with that.
He brought out a cup of tea and a small bowl with his potato pudding, which he’d artfully swirled and decorated with a drizzle of honey.
He pulled out a notebook when he’d sat down on the floor next to the mattress pile.
“Do you mind if I make notes about how you like everything?”
I turned the bowl in my hands while leaving the tea to cool on the tray he’d carried everything in on.His pudding was like a little piece of art.
“Sure.Do you always do that?”
“No, but everything is so new here.There is little knowledge of the things humans eat and drink.I’ll be able to share the delicacies of this world along with the microwave and solar power.”
The prospect seemed to excite him.I couldn’t fathom that, but if me getting adventurous with dessert could help, I’d do it.I spooned up some of his potato pudding, which destroyed the pretty swirl he’d created.
“Usually, we don’t eat this sweet.”
He clicked.“Why not?When Vergis showed us how to cook them, I thought right away that potatoes would be best sweet.”
I stopped with the pudding on my spoon.“Vergis showed you?”
Nokim got all bouncy.“Yes!He knows so much about your world.I shouldn’t be surprised since he was born here, but it’s all so fascinating to have him explain.”If I was reading it right, his expression turned dreamy.“Vergis is very good at explaining.”
“He sure explained how he’d gut me pretty well.”
Nokim tilted his head.“What do you mean?”
I shook my head.“It’s nothing.”
I put the spoonful of pudding in my mouth while Nokim was still frowning at me.My expectations had been low, but the pudding was actually really nice.It was fluffy, a little like eating a cloud, and the sweetness wasn’t overpowering.There was a nutty flavor to it, and not at all that much potatoness.
Nokim leaned forward.“Your face looks funny.Is that good?”
I quickly ate another spoonful.“I like it.”
“Oh!”Nokim flipped through a few pages in his notebook.“Good.That’s good.Do you like it better than how you normally eat potatoes?”
The more of the pudding I ate, the more I liked it.The stuff was oddly addictive, like chips—hard to stop eating it once you started.That probably made sense since chips were also potatoes.
“I mean…it’s different.I really like this though.”
“You can have more.I made a big pot.Vergis said he liked it too, and if we’re leaving soon, we had better finish what we cannot carry.”
He was right, and I’d absolutely do what I could to help with finishing the food that would otherwise spoil.It was the least I could do.
“Yes, we can’t carry this.”I’d gotten to the bottom of my bowl.
Once Nokim was done taking notes in a mix of English and what had to be their language, he took my bowl and was off to get me a refill.
When he came back with that, he asked me to rank the potato dishes I knew, and we had a discussion about mashed potatoes and how those differed from his pudding.
By the time I’d eaten three servings of his pudding, he had a nice list of potato dishes in his notebook, but I was having trouble explaining what a gratin was.
“Let me show you how it’s made.”I reached for my phone, which was done charging by now.
