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Verdy was baking cookies.

She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she had stumbled across a recipe for triple-chocolate cookies and decided that she was going to make them. According to the recipe. Which had in a footnote ‘makes 100’.

Now why hadn’t she seen that before she loaded in more than half the ingredients. Sure, 6 tablespoons had seemed like a lot of cocoa, but hey, they were triple chocolate cookies.

Right.

Muttering to herself as she mixed in the chocolate chips (dark, then light) she tried to think of where she could share them. Maybe at work, although she didn’t know if Slate liked cookies, she decided to note the outcome in her blue notebook, reserved for notes on the boss.

Perhaps she could drop in on the Alchemist and check up on him, he seemed like a cookie-kinda guy.

Even with those ideas, and the fact that she would share them with Andrea of course as well as eating some herself, left her with roughly 70 cookies. At least. The thought of throwing any away after using ingredients politely requested off the cooking staff made her tremble. Street kids do not throw away food.

Perhaps she would just leave some on a plate in the kitchen and hope some of the kids took it upon themselves to sample them.

Dobbing the cookie dough onto the cooking tray she placed them in the oven and sat down to watch them. The recipe said “11-15 mins” but she wasn’t about to let them burn.

In nine-and-three-quarter minutes the cookies were wafting a delicious scent at her, and her fingers itched to grab them out and eat them, still warm and slightly squishy.

Soooo tempting

Verdy was inspecting the package of paper carefully. It seemed like it would be good for making side-notes on, or writing lengthy notes that didn’t fit in any of her five coloured notebooks’ categories (red for learning secretarial things; blue for notes (all innocent!) on her boss, because it was the colour of his eyes; green for things she really ought to know about her work; yellow for taking notes from clients or purple, yet to be decided but a really pretty shade.) with 250 sheets of loose-leaf she was sure she would be fine, the thin blue lines were faint enough not to draw the attention away from the words written on them, she opened the package carefully to feel the texture of the paper, hmm, soft but not slippery, good for neat wr-

Cwuh-thump.

The paper, blue lines and all flung up in the air and rained down on her and the young woman she had crashed into. Her packaged suit skidded across the floor before hitting the leg of a shelf and exploding its expensive filling across the floor. The shoe-box bounced once on her foot (for sensible shoes those things were damn heavy) before dumping its contents out for all to see. Had she not been so startled she might have made a fuss, as it was she merely pouted for a second at the mess before looking up at the other woman.

“Sorry! Are you ok?”

~~ “No!”

The woman snapped at her, kind of like a dog kicked one too many times, Verdy could almost see the ears going back and the canines ready to tear into the flesh of bare arms. She almost regretted wearing a T-shirt, but damn it, it was spring and she was shopping, far too hot for jumpers.

Now the doggy-lady was apologising and claiming the blame. Verdy grinned at her, sharing is caring.

“That’s ok, it was kinda my fault too, I was feeling my paper… and that came out weirder than it was meant to…”

Pulling herself to her feet she brushed her bloodstained jeans off a bit and offered a hand to the blonde woman. She feared for a moment for her bare wrists and arms before mentally scolding herself, this woman was no dog, just having a bad day.

“Here.”

The woman reached for her hand, then drew back, as if Verdy was the one about to do the biting.

Maybe it was a bad week.

~~ “I… Sorry it's just... I don't like to touch… People. I'm Elli.”

Verdy glanced more closely at the woman’s face, there was no tinge of green. Not even a tiny bit, and she was fairly sure Andy would have said something about having a sister with a mutation like her own. Then again, this woman wasn’t wearing gloves or sunglasses, so maybe she carried a different touch-activated mutation. Or was a germ-o-phobe.

Judging from the fact she touched the ground to push herself up, that one was a ‘no’. She smiled at the young woman.

“I’m Verdy.”

She would have held out her hand to shake, but she didn’t particularly feel like scraping slime, or worse, acid from her palms if this non-touching girl was a mutant. Instead she bent to pick up her suit, a little awkwardly. She should have brought her backpack, instead of leaving it safely in her room at the mansion.

~~ “Sorry again, let me help you clean it up."

She smiled and looked up at the girl, with her help it shouldn’t take too long. She glanced up and caught the soft smile on the woman’s face. It really changed her, from someone fearful and almost fear-inspiring, to pretty, if a little sad. Verdy grabbed a black shoulder bag, sporting a swirl of grey and white smudges off the shelf and began piling her items into it. Something she should have thought of before.

So mastered was a bit of an overstatement. The splashings of his feet may have been acceptable from a four or five year old, but people always seem more judgmental the older you are when you learn something. Except maybe lawn bowls or something like that.

~~“Am I truly doing this right?”

She blinked away the pool water only to cop another few rapid-fire splashes. Sucking in a breath in a second’s pause she ducked under the water and with a quick kick and paddle popped up on the other, splash-free, side of her young boss.

“Almost. You need to straighten your back a little more so your feet go underwater. Can you feel how bent you are in the middle? That’s why your feet are splashing so much. Here, suck your belly up here.”

'There'

She pressed at his tummy slightly above his belly button. If it worked his back would stop doing an upside-down cat stretch and his feet would kick him along from safely underwater. Leaving her face splash-free, despite the fact she could open her eyes happily underwater the splashings always felt different and forced her eyes closed.

The young man was not a bubble blower. In fact, currently he looked more like a cat desperately trying to keep its ears from getting wet. For the shortest of moments she considered dunking his head underwater, but decided that not only was it mean and uncalled for- no matter how funny- it served no real purpose. Besides which, dunked cats usually came up claws swinging, and so far she liked this young man. Strange manner of talking and all.

Or perhaps especially.

A particularly big splash to the face cut that line of thought off nice and fast. She shook her head to clear the water from her eyes and sneezed once, twice, three times. Sneezing whilst swimming by far was one of the strangest things. Your body is crushed for a moment as all the weight of the water presses in on you, then it is as if you are weightless, you zoom to the top of the water- sneeze- and are normal again. Repeat three times and voila, Verdy.

All this was completed in less than a second and she wiped her eyes and nose with her hands in an effort to clear those post-sneeze-tingles.

“S’cuse me.”

She observed him for a moment more and nodded. He would not drown now even if he got startled out of a stroke. Being towards the side left the wall an option if water instead of air was inhaled.

“Good job, you have mastered the art of doggy-paddle. Ready to move onto a stroke?”

Abdominal pains are back again, been into the hospital today, still have no conclusive answers, should be seeing the doctor tommorow, to get a referral to the hospital for a laproscopy (where they cut a hole in your belly button and have a look to see what they can see with a little video camera)
This miiiiiight effect my posting
Also school is being... difficult...
But we shall see.

Verdy smiled at the pattern of bubbles heralding the boss’s return to the air. His goggles still perched atop his head in the scruff of his now sopping hair. Deciding he didn’t seem to be one of those people who automatically started gasping as soon as the water touched over their head she began sculling back a little, to where she had to tread water to keep afloat.

“Yep, if you put your head into the water and blow bubbles through your nose water won’t get in your sinuses. Plus it sounds cool.”

Sinuses seemed the smart kind of word the boss was so fond of, her use of it wasn’t condescending, it was a friendly integration of a word she possibly wouldn’t have used when talking to someone else. She watched him closely. There was a distinct difference between unskilled paddling and the flails of a drowner. There would be no deaths today, nor- she hoped- any other day they decided to go swimming.

The water felt nice against her skin. True, it wasn’t the same as the water of the ocean (kind of like comparing a magestic eagle in flight and a feather-quill) it lacked the feeling of life, and power. The feeling of buoyancy, not constantly dragged by gravity, she decided she really had to come swimming more often. True, she was a little out of practice, and she probably couldn’t make the same times she used to, but the feeling was the bit that mattered.

Somewhere inside she resolved to choose better drinking buddies. Rather than calling a cab and checking up on her in the morning to see if she was ok, he was hoping she would get squished. She grinned at him.

“Ok Mister Rupert, bye Flipsy-dog.”

She considered puking on his couch before she left to give him something to really hate about her but common sence, and a strong stomach, denied her that. Then she’d just have to walk home all smelly and not feeling any better.

“Have fun with your hangover tomorrow. Hope you remember me.”

Perhaps it was just the alcohol but she was fairly sure she liked this man, for some inane reason… Which she couldn’t quite remember right now. Oh well.

Her elbow was being scooped and she was shovel/shooed out of the apartment. Pausing for a second to blow a kiss to the bigot and his pet she zig-zagged to the elevator. The stairs, while heathier, seemed like a dangerous idea and she had no intension of granting Rupert’s death-wish. She would pay him back yet.

And double check the road before she crossed it.

Whistling happily she inspected the keys with squinty eyes, perhaps she should sit for a while and have a drink of water before she continued with her do-gooding.