Dark!Laundry!Fic! The starch thickens!
Previous segments: Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, and part 5.
The background is here.
Part 6
the missing ingredient
MacGyver studied the broken and despoiled dispenser. Okay, no soap. He reached into a compartment and extracted the sole remaining unpilfered item, and grinned when he saw the familiar mule team on the packet.
Colin was watching him quizzically, with the what’s-this-crazy-guy-up-to-now expression that was even more familiar than the logo of the mule team and wagons.
“What’s that?”
“Borax.”
“As in Borax, the Barbarian Lord of Baluchistan?”
Mac grinned again and shook his head.
It was pointless, he knew. Probably stupid. It would be easier to just go buy some, or even try haggling with the old woman; they must have their own supply here, after all. But it just wouldn’t be as much fun. He hadn’t tried making his own laundry detergent since his teens . . . but there had been an especially lean period, when even the tiniest economies had carried real weight. Any effort that could smooth even a single worry line from his mother’s face had been worth it, and homemade detergent cost a fraction of what the ready-made stuff did. And the recipe couldn’t be simpler.
“If I can get a couple more ingredients . . . I don’t suppose you’ve got any washing soda?”
Colin looked blank and shook his head in turn.
MacGyver detoured past his washing machines, where the unsorted remains of the half-sorted clothes were still lying in a heap beside the empty dufflebag. He grabbed the first shirt on the top of the pile, one of the print shirts that he thought of as ‘cheerful’ and his friends mostly called ‘lurid’ or occasionally ‘agonizing’, and shrugged into it. As he was doing up the buttons, he glanced towards the counter and saw the pretty girl was still watching him. She looked faintly disappointed. Behind her, the grandmother sniffed and disappeared into the back room again.
Feeling more than a little relieved - the old woman’s sharp black gaze had felt like jabs from obsidian needles - Mac strolled over to the counter, leading with his best friendly smile. “Scuse me. Do you have any washing soda?”
“Sodah?” The girl looked nonplussed. She pointed over Mac’s shoulder, back at the corner where the vending machines were. “Sodah. Coke, Splite, loot beeah, Doctah Peppah.”
Mac realized she was pointing at the soda machine. “Um, no, sorry. I mean washing soda. Um . . . ” Aw, crap, I spoke to her in Mandarin earlier and she’s probably Cantonese. And I don’t know any Cantonese. Not that he could say ‘washing soda’ in Mandarin either. He looked past her, beyond the counter, and spotted a large, empty bright yellow box in the trash. He pointed. “Washing soda. Arm and Hammer.”
She looked, frowned, then smiled like an explosion of impish sunlight. “Oh! Ahmanhammah!”
“Yeah. You got any more?”
An odd look crossed her face - not confusion or even the usual puzzlement - but she gestured towards a doorway leading into the service area behind the laundromat. Mac smiled and thanked her, and hurried into the back, hoping she wasn’t simply humouring him. The look might have been Just-Humour-the-Crazy-Person-and-Maybe-He’ll-Go-Away.
He followed a narrow corridor that smelled of laundry soap and bleach, with an additional faint chemical whiff from the dry cleaners next door to the laundromat, and spotted a storage room off to the side. There was an extra-large industrial-size version of the familiar yellow box, between a clutter of brooms and mops and buckets and a deep utility sink. Mac snagged a spare bar of soap from the sink - the missing ingredient for his detergent recipe - and hunkered down to worry open the box of washing soda.
A sudden explosion of furious Chinese shouting, like unexpected and ugly vocal fireworks, startled him so badly he almost toppled onto the floor. For a moment, he thought he’d been busted by the Chinese grandmother, and was going to have to explain his noble intentions regarding her granddaughter as well as her washing soda. Then he realized that the sound was coming from outside. There had been a door at the end of the corridor, which had been propped open to let in the clean air from the pleasant day, and the angry shouts were coming in from the alley behind the laundromat. From the sound of it, there were two men out there, maybe more, and the quarrel was serious - possibly bad enough to turn into a real fight.
Poll
The background is here.
Part 6
the missing ingredient
MacGyver studied the broken and despoiled dispenser. Okay, no soap. He reached into a compartment and extracted the sole remaining unpilfered item, and grinned when he saw the familiar mule team on the packet.
Colin was watching him quizzically, with the what’s-this-crazy-guy-up-to-now expression that was even more familiar than the logo of the mule team and wagons.
“What’s that?”
“Borax.”
“As in Borax, the Barbarian Lord of Baluchistan?”
Mac grinned again and shook his head.
It was pointless, he knew. Probably stupid. It would be easier to just go buy some, or even try haggling with the old woman; they must have their own supply here, after all. But it just wouldn’t be as much fun. He hadn’t tried making his own laundry detergent since his teens . . . but there had been an especially lean period, when even the tiniest economies had carried real weight. Any effort that could smooth even a single worry line from his mother’s face had been worth it, and homemade detergent cost a fraction of what the ready-made stuff did. And the recipe couldn’t be simpler.
“If I can get a couple more ingredients . . . I don’t suppose you’ve got any washing soda?”
Colin looked blank and shook his head in turn.
MacGyver detoured past his washing machines, where the unsorted remains of the half-sorted clothes were still lying in a heap beside the empty dufflebag. He grabbed the first shirt on the top of the pile, one of the print shirts that he thought of as ‘cheerful’ and his friends mostly called ‘lurid’ or occasionally ‘agonizing’, and shrugged into it. As he was doing up the buttons, he glanced towards the counter and saw the pretty girl was still watching him. She looked faintly disappointed. Behind her, the grandmother sniffed and disappeared into the back room again.
Feeling more than a little relieved - the old woman’s sharp black gaze had felt like jabs from obsidian needles - Mac strolled over to the counter, leading with his best friendly smile. “Scuse me. Do you have any washing soda?”
“Sodah?” The girl looked nonplussed. She pointed over Mac’s shoulder, back at the corner where the vending machines were. “Sodah. Coke, Splite, loot beeah, Doctah Peppah.”
Mac realized she was pointing at the soda machine. “Um, no, sorry. I mean washing soda. Um . . . ” Aw, crap, I spoke to her in Mandarin earlier and she’s probably Cantonese. And I don’t know any Cantonese. Not that he could say ‘washing soda’ in Mandarin either. He looked past her, beyond the counter, and spotted a large, empty bright yellow box in the trash. He pointed. “Washing soda. Arm and Hammer.”
She looked, frowned, then smiled like an explosion of impish sunlight. “Oh! Ahmanhammah!”
“Yeah. You got any more?”
An odd look crossed her face - not confusion or even the usual puzzlement - but she gestured towards a doorway leading into the service area behind the laundromat. Mac smiled and thanked her, and hurried into the back, hoping she wasn’t simply humouring him. The look might have been Just-Humour-the-Crazy-Person-and-Maybe-He’ll-Go-Away.
He followed a narrow corridor that smelled of laundry soap and bleach, with an additional faint chemical whiff from the dry cleaners next door to the laundromat, and spotted a storage room off to the side. There was an extra-large industrial-size version of the familiar yellow box, between a clutter of brooms and mops and buckets and a deep utility sink. Mac snagged a spare bar of soap from the sink - the missing ingredient for his detergent recipe - and hunkered down to worry open the box of washing soda.
A sudden explosion of furious Chinese shouting, like unexpected and ugly vocal fireworks, startled him so badly he almost toppled onto the floor. For a moment, he thought he’d been busted by the Chinese grandmother, and was going to have to explain his noble intentions regarding her granddaughter as well as her washing soda. Then he realized that the sound was coming from outside. There had been a door at the end of the corridor, which had been propped open to let in the clean air from the pleasant day, and the angry shouts were coming in from the alley behind the laundromat. From the sound of it, there were two men out there, maybe more, and the quarrel was serious - possibly bad enough to turn into a real fight.
Poll