Second Floor Common Room, Wednesday Afternoon

[arsenicmauls]

Gert's hands were washed. Her hair was tied back. There was a steady stream of Black Friday sale ads playing in the background, courtesy of a radio that wouldn't turn off. (They still made radios?) And Gert was standing at the kitchen counter with a printed-out recipe and all the ingredients she needed for potato pancakes, plus a few extra spices

Comments

[makemyownway]

"I smell free food," Cade said hopefully. "Right?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Right and wrong," Gert said. "It's tomorrow's free food. But you can taste-test if you're willing to come up with constructive comments."

[makemyownway]

"So 'needs more salt' yes, 'tastes like ass' no?" Cade ventured.

[arsenicmauls]

"Maybe Evan will be cool with 'tastes like ass' in relation to his cranberry sauce, but for the potato things, definitely not," Gert confirmed.

She scooped a couple of very slightly charred, but perfectly edible potato pancakes onto a plate and passed it to Cade. "Bon appetit. I hope."

[makemyownway]

"Make them less black," Cade offered immediately before digging in.

[arsenicmauls]

"Thanks," Gert said, very dryly. "The burning them was definitely an intentional presentation choice."

[makemyownway]

"Because the Pilgrims wore black or something?" Cade teased.

[arsenicmauls]

"And carried the black plague," Gert volunteered. And then, "Look at you, all up on Earth history. Did you accidentally catch a glimpse of a textbook?"

[makemyownway]

"I caught that cartoon with the dog that serves all of the bald kids' ungrateful friends toast," Cade said.

[arsenicmauls]

"It's good that you got your information from a reliable source," Gert said, nodding.

[makemyownway]

"Well, the dog didn't talk or anything," Cade said, "because that would be stupid."

[arsenicmauls]

"You know there's a horse on this island who teaches a class, right?" Gert checked. "You have interesting standards for what you'll believe."

[makemyownway]

Cade shrugged. "Back home we call talking dogs Bothans and they lie a lot."

[arsenicmauls]

"Okaaaay." Gert was definitely going to make use of that information somehow. "Well, here we put them in cartoons as a widely recognized symbol for something cute that can't be killed off without people sending angry letters to the writers."

She shrugged, then clarified, "That's an actual news item today, not a random example."

[makemyownway]

Cade blinked. "Wait, what?"

[arsenicmauls]

"Some talking cartoon dog was killed off and there's a petition with twenty thousand signatures to undo it." Democracy in action!