Part I, XXI

  John Nevir walked up to the table, muttering to himself.

  “You put us on red alert?” he asked me.  I smiled and tried not to cringe.

  “Yes,” I said.  “A moose was about to ram us.”

  “Oh.  I thought we were about to die.”

  “I… am sorry to hear that,” I said carefully.

  “We are out of celery now,” he told me.

  He thought he was going to die so he used all the celery? I wondered.  “Pity,” I said out loud.

  “And I mixed up the salt and the sugar.  I’ve straightened it out, though.”

  Goody.  “How nice.”

 “I wouldn’t recommend you try the tea,” he continued.  “But I changed the bread to dessert.  So you won’t have anything to eat the soup with.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be just fine,” I told him, trying to be reassuring.

  “I’ll go get it for you now.”  He walked away.

  “We need a new cook,” Batnter decided.

  “No, we are not getting a new cook,” I said.

  “But he–”

  “If we ask for another cook we’d be stuck with someone that makes horrible food,” I said.  “At least this guy is a good cook.  Mental problems or no mental problems.”

  Nevir walked out with bowls of soup.  He put one in front of me.  There was a lot of celery in it.  I dared taste it.

  It was really good.