Chapter 117 - 118. Shitake
Chapter 117 – 118. Shitake
Mirai ate a lot. She said she had never eaten such food before. I often cooked fast food for them. Sometimes I made pasta with instant spices. It was because my schedule was still a mess.
"The day after tomorrow I will be home late. There is a meeting, so you have dinner out. but don't go home too late, okay. Remember that night hour policy!" I warned them. "Winnter, please take Mirai for dinner before seven, okay? I will leave some money for lunch and dinner."
"What time will you be home, Sis?" Mirai asked.
"Perhaps at seven or at eight. I will be home." I had to go home fast from Vio's or they would suspect me, especially Winnter
"What kind of meeting that takes so long ours?" Winnter didn't easily believe my reason.
"There is a teacher hat will take a leave, so the other teachers have to replace her in the class. And there will be a school anniversary by the end of the year later." I made excuses and lied a bit.
"That is still sometime later. Why is it discussed in a meeting now?" Again, Winnter sounded to doubt my words.
"I don't know. I'm not responsible for the schedule," I just came up with excuses.
After breakfast, I left for work. I didn't know what made Winnter suspect me. Or did she know if I followed her last night? Or was that because of something else?
During school, I could not really focus on my work. In my break time Mickey came to me. I didn't know he could reach my school, then he said, "I am a smart and loveable cat. How can I not be able to come here?" he said proudly. "Remember Tha, I have ever come to your home in Euron and that is much farther than this school," he said so proudly.
I didn't know what else I had to do to face this fatty animal, I just smiled widely. If he was a lump of flesh without bones. I just needed to warm it up a bit until it was no longer fat, then ate it up.
Fortunately, Mickey visited me during break time. "I have forty-five minutes only and right after that I must go back to my class," then I ate my lunch. I was a bit in a hurry because there were some papers of the end of the year competition that needed to be examined.
"That girl went out last night," Mickey said without me asking that. I said nothing for I had known that. "Actually, it was not the first time, but I didn't tell you. I am sorry." I stroked her fur to comfort him. He loved it.
"No, that's okay," I replied to him with my mouth full. I didn't want Mickey to know about last night, I was following Winnter and whatever happened last night. I knew that I could not stay at home too long to keep an eye on them but Mickey the tubby did. "Mickey, can you do me a favour?"
I assigned Mickey to keep an eye on them both. He had to know where ever they were going, whatever they were doing because he had more time to be with them. Besides, so far no one knew I could communicate with that cat so it would make things easy to use him as the watcher.
"You are hiding something from me, Tha. What is it that you know? Do you suspect them?!" I put down my spoon when Mickey brought that issue up.
"I can't say anything right now Mike. I need some information from Vio tomorrow. I promise I will tell you all I know after that." Mickey nodded in understanding. He got down from the table and left. I had to come back as the break time was almost over. I still had classes and some work to do. I was thinking about something that would strengthen my assumption about Winnter.
…
I asked a friend to accompany me to buy mushrooms. I remembered Hana ever gave extra plants to the rice she cooked and it smelled very nice. Too bad I forgot the name of that mushroom.
Perhaps it would be easier to look for it in the forest because I am familiar with that plant. It grows in certain kinds of trees and in a certain places of the forest. But in the supermarket, I believed I would get confused.
"As I remember the colour is brown like button mushrooms," I tried to explain to my friend.
"Shitake? My mom usually puts some when the rice is almost cooked," she said, "You know, we have to leave the rice for thirty minutes after its cooked in a rice cooker, right?" cooker?!."
"Sure I do know it, I cook every day. It was just I forgot how many times I ate rice cooked that way, sprinkled it with shitake on top of it." Hana would cook such rice for me when my mood was bad. So I always remember her cooking anytime I am in that mood". It smelled good several times. "It smells sweet and I think it has a forest scent".
She hit my arm lightly and said, "I can't follow how your mind works! Let's go home now before it's too late. I am afraid of going home late at night." Nodded and we crossed the street and walked toward the bus stop.
…
I went home with three bags of woven straw containing shitake. She asked me to buy dried shiitake so that it would be serviceable. She told me that I just needed to add a little to make my cook smell good.
"Sis Tha, what have you bought?" Mirai shuffled my shopping bag. I directly put the mushroom in the cupboard.
"Help me arrange all of this stuff in the fridge, okay?'' That little girl was enthusiastic, unloaded the shopping bag and put the vegetables, fruit, and some stocks in the refrigerator. "Call Winnter. I bought some pudding for us all."
"Sis Winnter is out," Mirai continued.
I checked the watch, it was almost nine at night. "Where is she going?" Mirai shrugged and continued enjoying the pudding.
Mickey gestured to me to follow him. After hearing him and assessing the possibility that might happen, I called Erick and asked him to come to my house to accompany Mirai . Erick would come around nine though.
"Mirai, please keep an eye on the house while I am out. close all the doors. Brother Erick will come here." I walked out through the back door because the front door was not safe from the police patrol.
…
"I saw her. She went out at seven and was in a hurry," Mickey told me. I put him in my arms so that we could walk faster.
"Why didn't you follow her?!" I am a bit upset now. "I asked you to get as much information about what they are doing, right?" I was almost sure that my assumption was almost proven.
"I followed her, but she walked so fast!" Mickey made excuses.
"Do you think she knew she was being followed?" I felt Winnter started feeling suspicious if she was watched.
"So what? She was just followed by a cat anyway?" Mickey took me were the last time he followed Winnter, but I was thinking about another place.
I stopped breathlessly when we finally stopped at an intersection with the lights still on, the last time Mickey saw Winnter. I wanted to go to that place, but it was pretty far from that place. "Mike, we split here" I took out Naar's knife. "Listen, when there is danger, call your stone bird. We will be separated here."
"And, what about you?" Mickey looked worried to me. "You don't have anything to protect yourself." It sounded like an insult, but it was fine with me. I was not offended.
"Mike, I have the Manjis who are ready to help me anytime." I tried to convince him, then I showed off my knife. "I am not weak!"
"Tha, this is not good. I can feel it. Have you heard of something?" Mickey sounded panicked.
"Just do what I said" I chose to ignore his questions and stressed on my words, "Don't try to fight back unless it is an emergency. Run and hide. Remember we are here to collect information, not more than that" then I ran to that place and left Mickey.
I thought I knew where Winnter was and what she was doing. Even though I had taken the direction quite far from that place, somehow my feeling thought me that I had to go back, and I had to go back right now.
My destination was the playground near my old school, the same place where it happened It was the place where the Zie shooting took place. It was where Winnter met the shadow creature when I followed her that night.. I felt like she was distracting us by guiding Mickey's tracking ability, so the cat brought me to a place that was far from the park.