[REGULAR] Muffin Deathglare! (Janice + Pierrette) [FIN]

[Kaze Taco]

Ah, the best period of the day had come 'round again: Home Economics. With the buttery, sweet teacher and the large windows sending in gorgeous peals of light that danced across the desks like brownies waiting to assist eager little housewives and husbands in making their projects.

At least, that was Pierrette's disposition as she jingled into class, those same flecks of light darting off the metal of the charms around her waist.

She immediately went past her desk and into the back of the room, where the kitchen and sewing areas were. With all the pots and pans out, it looked like they would be cooking today!

Pierrette could hardly contain her excitement, and was bouncing on the balls of her feet. If only the teacher would hurry up and get there, she could begin improving her cooking skills!  

[cibarium]

Baggy, angry eyes seared across the tables and chairs of the room as Janice skulked through the door, wearing a glower that could curdle milk. The worst period of the day had arrived... home economics class. She still couldn't believe she had to waste an hour of an otherwise academically upstanding day absorbing the outdated trophy wife propaganda a course such as this tried to force down her throat. It was disgusting. It was VILE.

She had nearly made a shouting match with the principal and the academic advisor about how this course was apparently a necessity, how she couldn't just test out of it like she had with other classes she felt were a waste of time. Oh, no, there was too much "hands-on" activity for that.

Janice would rather cut off her hands than deal with this. This wasn't why she was in high school. But she would stick her neck out, grit her teeth, suffer through it to keep her perfect record perfect... end up succeeding like she had everywhere else. This wouldn't be the class to undo her. She would win out against this homemaking monstrosity if it killed her.

A bouncy red corkscrew of hair caught her attention as she stalked further into what she fully felt was the belly of the misogynistic beast, and she couldn't help but be drawn to the bubbly personality wearing it. The poor soul... clearly disillusioned, probably dreaming about the man she was going to serve someday or some other similarly idiotic, self-defeating fancy.

Smoldering mucky eyes locking on the younger girl's shining greys, she spoke.

"You seem excited."  

[Kaze Taco]

The glare could curdle milk. It could make babies cry. It could make Lucifer piss his pants.

But it couldn't stop Pierrette's bouncing. Misogyny hadn't entered her mind, not in the least bit. In fact, she hadn't really thought about boys or men. What she was thinking of was improving her cooking skills so she could make "super-cute" baked goods, and improving her sewing skills to make "super-cuter" charms.

"Yes!" she said in her thick, very French accent, "I'm very excited to be here. This is my favorite class, after all." Pierrette gestured to the room, "Here I can learn to get better at some of my favorite things. I want to be a great stuffed-animal seamstress, and someday make a cake that's above average!"

If it weren't for her enthusiasm, her awkward English would be sticking out like a bone in a messy fracture. But her enthusiasm was certainly there, and didn't seem to dwindle in Janice's presence.

She just noted: "You really don't look excited..."

She offered a smile, "Have a bad case of the 'Mondays'?"  

[cibarium]

Her expression went disturbingly blank, nothing moving besides her eyes as they watched Pierrette bob on her heels, hair springing with bright liveliness, the girl absolutely overflowing with excitement. Janice was, quite plainly and obviously, unphased by such a display of cheerfulness. If she were nicer, and less respectful of the concept of personal space, she'd probably reach out and ruffle the poor exchange student's hair. Offer a fake smile, and assure her those were wonderful things to wish for. The very thought crossed her mind, but instead she continued merely watching.

There was only the slightest twitch of the brow when Pierrette finished with that last phrase - she hated that sort of thing, it made her want to clock the girl over the head with a stapler. She briefly regarded her hand, slowly wiggling her fingers, as if imagining such a cool weight in it, ready to be used as a bludgeoning device--

--but she was veering off-topic with that. Crossing her arms and letting a smirk flick across her features for a brief instant, she replied, "I guess you could say this isn't exactly my scene... I don't like such blatant enforcement of archaic gender stereotypes being part of a public school curriculum, and there's better ways I could be spending my time right now."  

[Kaze Taco]

The first sentence she got. Then she was completely lost. Then, the last part she could understand. This could plainly be seen as she started out nodding, then her eyes slowly got wider and her smile disappeared.

In a flash, her digital dictionary was out, and her fingers were flying across the keyboard. Still, the translation was very rigid, and didn't seem to fit with the girl's expression or tone of voice.

She closed her eyes for a moment and bit her lip before looking at Janice again.

"I'm so sorry, I'm not that great at English yet," she apologized, "But, you would rather be somewhere else, right? I can understand, lots of people have many different hobbies. Is that what you were saying before?"

Her smile came back, but it wasn't as, well, sparkly.

"What kind of things do you like to do?"  

[cibarium]

The taller girl watched with muted interest as the girl fiddled with her pocket translator, propping an elbow on the back of her hand and loosely gripping her chin in her fingers. If it hadn't been evident a few seconds ago, it was now plain as day she was dealing with an exchange student... she'd heard something or other about a girl from France joining Meadowview, and what a mystery it was she hadn't gone to Crystal instead. Apparently that school was a bit more accommodating with that sort of thing.

"You're good enough at English to start a conversation with a native speaker," Janice replied, raising an eyebrow and smirking again. "It is pretty obvious you're not from around here, but..." and she chuckled lowly, "don't worry. You'll pick up on the local language eventually - if you want to survive, that is."

She regarded the question with a slow blink, tilting her head. "Typical elementary language class question... if you want an interesting answer, I run a music group with a few other students here. Meadowview Jazz Club. You... may have seen posters or flyers around campus, we're trying to get some new talent in--"

"Oooookay, class!" the aforementioned buttery, sweet teacher loudly crooned, swiftly interrupting all the little conversations taking place in the room. "Time to get started, so let's partner up! Gogogo!"

Janice's gaze rolled back over to Pierrette, smoldering decisively; her head jerked in the direction of an empty work table. She'd already found her partner.  

[Kaze Taco]

Why hadn't she gone to Crystal? There were many reasons. One of the easiest would be to say that money was an issue. Crystal Academy was a very prestigious school where money talked instead of, well, other things.

The answer that Pierrette usually gave was, however, that she wanted to live in a real Destiny City house. Dorms were dorms, with a bed and a window. A home, though, had real people and a real family.

That was the answer she gave.

"Oh, jazz?" Pierrette's eyes got wide again, but this time it was from amazement instead of confusion, "I haven't listened to that much jazz, but I have seen a few posters for your group..."

Pierrette listened to the teacher speak with the attention of a child listening to Santa Claus, then gave a quick hop to the empty work table that Janice had pointed out. At least she was obedient, right?

"Today," the rotund teacher continued, "We are going to be making bran muffins! They're pretty easy if you put in lots of love and dedication. Now, the ingredients are set out in front of you, but I want you to do all the measuring yourself, okay?"

Pierrette's face paled. If it was one thing she hated, it was the Imperial System of measurement.  

[cibarium]

"You're missing out, then," Janice replied a fair bit of earnesty in her tone. "It's such a wonderfully flexible genre. And our group... well, we're the best jazz players you'll hear in a hundred-mile radius, to be honest. You should stop and listen sometime, the rehearsals are open. We like having audience members to work with." She was actually becoming friendlier the more she talked on this subject, and for good reason: she had incredible pride in her work as a musician.

Unfortunately, her countenance soured once again as the teacher detailed the lesson plan for the day. "Bran muffins..." she seethed under her breath, "You can't be serious..."

This. Was. Ridiculous. And yet, she knew this was just the beginning of her suffering...

"Get the ingredients," she snapped at her still-unnamed partner, already beginning the task of neatly lining up measuring cups and spoons. Her hands worked quickly and fiercely, independently of her eyes, which were practically burning holes into the loopy, overtly feminine text that comprised the instruction sheet. "I'll measure everything. You mix, don't forget to spray the pan."  

[Kaze Taco]

"Y-Yes, Miss..." Pierrette was about to ask her name, but looking at those eyes... Pierrette decided to just get the ingredients. Flower, sugar, butter, milk, multi-bran chex... with her arms full, Pierrette hobbled over to the table and sat the bags down. After glancing at them for a moment, she decided to arrange them in order from shortest to tallest-- the butter being the shortest, of course.

After that unnecessary task was done, Pierrette walked back over to get the muffin pans and the bright "PAM" spray can. She closed her eyes and sprayed the entire thing, her hands becoming slick as the substance got on her, too. With a frustrated squeal she sat the pan down on the table and ran over to the faucet to wash her hands.  

[cibarium]

It was most likely a good thing Pierette silently obeyed the older girl's orders - as per the teacher's advice she had dedication by the boatload, but was tragically lacking in love. Instead, there was only fury. Lots and lots of fury. There was going to be concentrated anger in every bite of these bran muffins when they were finished.

The careful arrangement of the ingredients lasted all of half a split second before Janice got to them. She unwrapped the butter sticks with one hand while scooping sugar with the other. Half of everything needed for step 1 had been thrown into the mixing bowl by the time Pierrette was done with washing her hands, and the other half quickly accumulated in cups and carefully balanced measuring spoons, everything rigidly precise.

It seemed like as some sort of coping mechanism, she was regarding this more as some sort of chemistry lab than a cooking class.  

[Kaze Taco]

Watching Janice work the ingredients was like watching Chernabog work the ghosts and ghouls in "Night on Bald Mountain". Pierrette stood there, her eyes wide and frightened, a wooden spoon her only defense. This girl was different from any of the others she had met here. Her fury was oozing out of her like a poisonous gas, and it took all of Pierrette's bubbly personality to ward it off.

With every tbsp of rage that Janice dumped into the concoction, Pierrette tried to saturate with love when she started mixing. She hummed as she stirred and whipped the butter and sugar until it almost started sparkling. Whether she would be able to combat Janice's fury was unknown, but Pierrette would do her best to try to make up for Janice's lack of love.  

[cibarium]

The humming made Janice's eye twitch noticeably, her lips peeling off into a grimace. If Pierrette had thought she looked intimidating before, she was starting to look progressively more so as the measuring and mixing went on. It wouldn't be much of a stretch of the imagination at all to say that her expression was borderline psychotic. Her supply of hatred appeared to be bottomless.

These were going to be some very confused bran muffins.

"Finally..." she growled, as soon as the batter had been neatly, perfectly poured into the baking pan. "Now all that's left is to play the waiting game for a while, and then we can get the hell out of here." Without a second thought she whisked the pan away and shoved it in the oven, looking all the while like the thing was full of cockroaches.  

[Kaze Taco]

Pierrette just stared in some horrible mixture of awe and horror as her lovingly-mixed batter was practically thrown into the jaws of an iron giant.

She stood there, in fight or flee mode. She wasn't sure whether she should run out the door and weep for her muffins elsewhere, or whether she should stay and brave this woman's fury.

She may be a fool, but at least Pierrette's cowardice didn't win her over this time.

"I'd like to hear your band come and play sometime, if you don't mind," Pierrette decided to play it safe and go back to a subject that she knew the other woman enjoyed.  

[cibarium]

Janice had since fished a small paperback out of her bookbag and appeared to be more interested in it than Pierrette, but she still answered the girl's question while her eyes darted over the test.

"Good, we appreciate every fan we get," she said, casually, as if she already knew the younger girl would enjoy her band's music. "As I said before, we have open rehearsals in public venues unless we're working on album material... usually the park when it's warm enough outside, but we'll probably be relocating soon enough since summer's almost over. Probably to the Corner Cafe in the plaza, they have a decent stage and acoustics..."

Still not taking her eyes off the book, she leaned down and reached back into her bookbag, pulling out a colorful flyer and handing it out to the girl. "Here's some more information..."

Well, at least this girl's name was present on there, under the header "Director / Clarinet."  

[Kaze Taco]

"Janice..." Pierrette read the name out loud, then looked at the girl reading. How could she halfheartedly socialize like that? It was strange, but she was so scary that Pierrette didn't want to question it.

"I don't know a lot about music, but I'll go. My name is Pierrette G--"

Had Pierrette spent that long reading the pamphlet? The timer was buzzing, and Pierrette ran over to take the muffins out of the oven. They looked perfect, a little too perfect, like a science building. Too pristine, too unfeeling...

Well, at least they didn't lunge out of the oven with teeth bared. Pierrette put on an oven mitt and pulled them out before working to put them on the cooling rack.

"I can take care of the rest of this if you want, if you have somewhere else to be," Pierrette nervously offered.