Chapter 21: Culinary Conflict

Ein woke up and felt better. No more sick stomach. No headache. Maybe it was his Grandma's potion, or maybe it was something else.

Today was the day he would save Princess…or try anyway. He had to try. Even though Mrs. Kyoto would still be his teacher for one day--the day of the final exam, which would be the perfect opportunity to inflict humiliation and ruin on him.

He knew what had to be done in order to take away Mrs. Kyoto's power. The thought of it made Ein shudder, but no matter how long he thought about the problem, this was the only solution that he could come up with.

So he descended down the stairs, into the depths of the basement guestroom. He knocked on the door. No answer.

"Grandma? Grandma!" Still nothing.

He opened the door and--

Passed through a magical portal into a jungle?

No. This was still the basement guestroom. It was just filled with plants, vines, flowers. There was even a tiny waterfall trickling into a tiny koi pond. Statues of various shapes and sizes and cultures stared at Ein, smiling, frowning, laughing, and other types of ings as he entered.

Grandma was on a hammock with her eyes clothed.

"Grandma?" He took a step closer. "Grandma?" Closer. "Grandma!"

Oh no, she was dead. Maybe she was the most evilest grandma in the entire world, Ein still…he still loved--

"What are you doing down here, Einny-Poo!?!" Grandma catapulted herself off the hammock, and grabbed her megaphone, which was nesting in a tree, before she hit the ground. "IT ISN'T GOOD MANNERS FOR A MAN TO BARGE INTO SOMEONE'S ROOM UNANNOUCED!"

But it was just fine for an old lady to completely redecorate a boy's room without permission? No, there was no time for squabbling now. Focus. "I'm sorry, Grandma, it's just…I…I…"

"SPIT IT OUT! YOU'LL NEVER GET A GIRL WITHOUT CONFIDENCE IN YOUR VOICE!"

He looked down and sighed. "Grandma, I need your help."

"OF COURSE YOU DO! YOU'VE FINALLY JUST COME TO THIS REALIZATION!?! WHAT DO YOU THINK I'VE BEEN DOING HERE THIS SUMMER!?!"

"No, Grandma, not that kind of help. I need you to help me help my friend Princess. Her mother is going to force her to give up her dreams, and the only way to save her is to get somebody to cook at this restaurant. It doesn't make much sense, I know, but I'm begging you, could you please cook at the restaurant? Just for a little while. Until they find another--"

"I'LL HELP YOU, EINNY-POO!"

"You will?"

"OF COURSE I WILL!"

***

Ein dashed into the kitchen and--

He realized that he had ABSOLUTELY no idea what he was going to say. At least Princess was in the kitchen alone. Otherwise, he didn't know what he'd do. "Princess…uh…I have something I need to tell you."

Princess looked up at him from the floor. "Why are you out of bed? If you wanted to tell me something, you should have called. You're still sick."

"This is really, really important."

"Well then, what is it?"

"Princess, your mom--"

"What about her mom?"

Ein's face expanded at an impossible rate. That was Mrs. Kyoto's voice, and she was standing right behind him.

But, he couldn't let that stop him. He walked over to the other side of the kitchen, near his friend. "Princess, your mom is trying to destroy your dreams."

"What?" Princess said.

"She's trying to destroy your dreams. And she's not only trying, she's doing it."

"If I'm trying to destroy her dreams," Mrs. Kyoto said, "then why would I work here as a chef?"

Ein was terrified, but he turned around and faced the woman. "Because you keep your friends close and your enemies closer. This restaurant is your enemy and you'd do anything to have power over it, even if it means working here. And the only reason you're teaching that psychology class is to get to me." He looked at Princess. "Your mom's been torturing me in that class, trying to keep me from supporting you, but I'm not going to keep quiet anymore. Listen Princess, I admit it, I've had my own reservations about your dreams. I'm scared for you. I don't want you to get hurt. But I also don't want you to lose your dream and be…like this. You're sad. You're losing all the Princessness that I love. I can't let her--"

"Don't listen to what this boy is saying," Mrs. Kyoto said. "I just want what's best for you. He's trying to corrupt you."

Princess sat in silence for a while. "No, mom. Ein would never try to hurt me. Maybe you are just trying to look out for me, but so is Ein. And he's not the one who's happy when I'm sad."

"Maybe you're happy now," Mrs. Kyoto said, "but you can't spend your whole life living off a dream."

"Then why don't you support me so I can make my dream into a reality?"

Mrs. Kyoto opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Because it's not the reality that you want for me," Princess said. "It's not the reality that you want for yourself."

Mrs. Kyoto stared for a while, then trembled. "You still need me, Princess. Without me, your restaurant will fail. Then where will you be?"

"The restaurant won't fail," Ein spoke up. "My Grandma's a better cook than you any day. She's agreed to cook for us. Grandma!"

At that instant, Grandma hopped into the kitchen.

"Tell them, Grandma," Ein said. "Tell them you'll cook for us."

"I'LL DO NO SUCH THING, EINNY-POO!" Grandma said.

"But you said--"

"I SAID I'D HELP YOU! I NEVER SAID I'D COOK ANYTHING!"

"Grandma, that doesn't make any sense."

"ONLY BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT IT TO MAKE SENSE! THE TRUTH IS, I HAVEN'T COOKED A SINGLE MEAL SINCE THE DAY YOUR GRANDPA PASSED AWAY!"

"That's not true. You cooked the day when Destiny--"

"I MERELY SERVED THE FOOD! I COOKED NOTHING!"

"But then who--"

"YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT, EINNY-POO!"

No.

It couldn't be true, could it?

Though he did remember his daydream. There were smells, weren't there? And movement.

"It seems you've failed her again, Einstein," Mrs. Kyoto said. "Why don't you do everyone a favor and leave my daughter to me."

Ein looked at Princess. She seemed so lost, and he had the power to save her.

"No," Ein said. "I won't leave her alone. I'm going to be the chef for this restaurant."

"You?" Mrs. Kyoto laughed. "You need to know a lot more than how to microwave a burrito."

Ein faced the kitchen and its tools. Its instruments. He didn't know the names of all these objects, but they all seemed familiar to him somehow. He approached the food and the instruments and began, knowing that Princess's fate was in his hands.

He didn't understand this.

Usually when he was put under this kind of pressure, this kind of…test, he panicked. His face puffed out and he sweated and his mind swam around in his skull until he fell over out of dizziness. But not now. Somehow he knew how to boil water. He knew how to dice, and splice, and chop, and on and on and on and--

Before he knew it, there were pots and pans boiling and sizzling. The oven blazed. And the room smelled like a smell he'd loved his whole life.

He felt so…peaceful. He almost forgot that everyone was looking at him. Maybe it was simply because he was doing something away from all his own personal pains. All he really knew was that cooking this food was exactly what he needed right now.

Grandma started serving the food. She gave some to Princess, and Sunflower, who had joined them at some point. They ate. And they seemed to liked it.

"I didn't know you could cook, Ein," Sunflower said.

"Neither did I," Ein said.

Grandma approached Mrs. Kyoto with a plate. "EAT UP, LITTLE LADY! YOU NEED TO PUT SOME MEAT ON THOSE BONES!"

Mrs. Kyoto reached out, and almost touched the plate. But she brought her hand back to her side, and said, "You're making a big mistake." And she left.

***

Ein wanted to get some answers from his Grandma, about how he was able to cook all this, but she'd disappeared somewhere, so he'd have to postpone such questions until later.

He watched Princess eat for a while. It was good to see her devouring again. Somehow, it made him feel even more joy, knowing that it was his food that she was eating.

After she was done, he sat down beside her. "How was it?"

"Great, Ein. Thank you." She had tears in her voice. "You're really going to cook for us?"

"Yeah. At least until you can hire a real chef."

She smiled, but then her brightness faded. "I hope my mom didn't torture you too bad in your class."

"Nothing I couldn't handle."

She smiled again. Then she pulled a chocolate bar out of her pocket and began eating.

Ein cooked the food, and the townspeople ate the food. Somehow, when Princess told him what needed to be prepared, he knew what had to be done--like there was a magic recipe book lodged inside his brain. If the restaurant really was haunted, then the ghosts must have been happy. They never knocked over pots, or made his knife slip, or anything. Ein didn't make any big mistakes, for once, and it felt good.

Soon, the restaurant closed for the day. The excitement of the townspeople seemed to linger in the air, even after they left. He heard their joyous rumbling. Maybe it was the ghosts talking, or the reverberations of Ein's memories of the day.

"Thank you for your help, Ein," Sunflower said. "See you." She entered her office and closed the door.

Ein and Princess walked home.

"There's something that I don't understand," Princess said. "My mom knew that you were part of the reason why I didn't go to college. Otherwise, she wouldn't have gone after you. But how did she know about it? I didn't tell her. You didn't tell her. Oh, and she also knew about Chucky saying no to me, and I hadn't even told anybody. How did she know all this stuff?"

"One time after class, she told me that she knew about what I'd done because someone reliable had told her. She said it was somebody neither of us knew."

"I wonder who that could be."

Ein shrugged.

"Oh my gosh," Princess said. "I just realized. You still have your final exam."

"Yeah."

"And you still did this?"

"Yeah."

She hugged him and said, "I wish I were as brave as you."

Brave. Right. Then why was he so scared?

***

Ein found Grandma sitting at the couch, watching TV, eating delivery pizza.

"Grandma, I need to--"

"SHH!" She pointed at the TV. "I NEED TO KNOW IF HE'S GOING TO FINALLY TELL HER HOW HE FEELS!"

"But it's just--"

"THESE THINGS ARE IMPORTANT! WAIT UNTIL THE COMMERCIAL!"

So Ein waited. And waited.

Finally, an advertisement appeared that was trying to sell cars with cowboys. Ein had seen this ad before. It was so stupid. Most guys didn't want to be cowboys anymore. The ad would've been better if it'd shown some cowboys riding, then the car speeding by the horses, and inside there was a guy who put on his sunglasses. Then the ad could've said, "A New Breed," or something like that.

He shook his head, and cleared the thoughts. "Grandma, how was I able to cook all that food?"

"YOU'RE MY GRANDSON!"

"What does that mean?"

"IT MEANS WHAT IT MEANS."

"But it really doesn't make any sense. How can someone start cooking like that? I need to--"

"WHAT YOU NEED IS TO STOP WORRYING AND JUST COOK!"

"But I--"

"QUIET! THE SHOW'S BACK ON!"

"But--"

"QUIET!"

And he was done.