Alizarin Bubblegum opened the fridge and winced; the kitchenette in the Crystal Prep dorms may have been a bit more fancy than an average high school, but the fridge was still full of rather foul stuff. At least the bowl of meat marinating in wine, garlic, and bay leaves survived the night. Yesterday, Frosty Orange put a piece of paper that read ‘dead dove, do not eat’ on it, but Alizarin knew well that such warnings never stopped anyone when munchies striked.
“Looks fine to me.” Frosty Orange looked at the bowl Alizarin had put on the counter.
“I know your cooking,” Alizarin said. “I’ll wait for Fleur’s opinion.”
“Where is she, anyway?” Frosty Orange asked. “Damn French, they’re always late for–” She looked at Alizarin. “She’s standing behind me, isn’t she?”
“Bonjour, dickhead,” Fleur said coldly, walking into the kitchen. Since it was Sunday, she didn’t wear her school uniform, instead opting for a simple dress. Well, simple by her standards; she looked better than Frosty and Alizarin in their Crystal Prep-themed tracksuit trousers and t-shirts making them look like refugees from a flood who had been dressed by a spiteful Goodwill employee. Frosty’s top even had ‘my eyes are up here’ written on it.
“Hi, Fleur,” Frosty Orange replied. “Where have you been?”
“Washing my hands,” Fleur said. “I feel like a goddamn Lady Macbeth. Then I did some shopping.” She put a bottle of olive oil and a bottle of red wine on the counter. While alcohol was technically banned in the dorms, the first time Fleur was caught carrying six bottles of wine and an impossibly large baguette, she started complaining about discrimination and threatened to riot and burn down Principal Cinch’s car. This effectively stopped all further complaints.
“Good,” Alizarin said. “The recipe says we have to sear the meat on the frying pan now. Get to work, you have more experience with olive oil than us.”
“Why do you think so?” Fleur asked, grabbing the frying pan.
“I mean, you’re French, right?” Frosty Orange said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t grow on a farm surrounded by olive trees. Or at least a vineyard.”
“I’m from Brittany. I grew up surrounded by menhirs and depression,” Fleur replied.
“Wait, you’re British?” Frosty Orange asked. “I’d never guess from your accent, y’know.”
Fleur looked at Alizarin Bubblegum. “Do you think I can murder her with a frying pan?”
“Don’t,” Alizarin replied, picking the pieces of meat from the marinade and putting them on the plate. “We’re gonna need this frying pan so it can't be in evidence lockup at the police station.”
“Okay.” Fleur grabbed the bottle of olive oil and poured it on the pan. “You’re lucky I can actually cook.”
“Yeah, or else I’d have to reset the sign more often.” Alizarin pointed at the sign on the wall, proudly displaying two hundred and seventy-three days since the last Frosty Orange kitchen incident.
“Indeed.” Fleur took a pocket knife from her bag and opened the corkscrew. “Do you know how long I had to look for some good wine? Well, not as long as for bread, but–”
“Okay, now we’ll have to reset the ‘Fleur complains about bread’ sign,” Frosty said.
“That’s because ninety-eight percent of your bread tastes like cardboard and the rest is sold by, like, the dude on the far side of town who sometimes hangs out behind the nuclear waste dump.” Fleur shrugged. “Maybe. It’s kinda like buying crack at this point.” She opened the bottle of wine and took a swig from it. “It’s not Marsovin, but it can pass.”
“Dude, it’s 10 AM,” Alizarin said.
Fleur furrowed her eyebrows. “Do I complain when I want to sleep and Celery Stalk visits you in your room?”
Alizarin blushed.
“What I thought.” Fleur took another sip of wine and put the pieces of meat on the frying pan. “Le Rois du monde vivent au sommet…” she started to sing, turning the pieces over.
“Not this again.” Frosty Orange muttered, covering her ears right before Fleur hit the high notes.
Alizarin looked at her phone. “Now that I think about it, the recipe doesn’t call for any more wine than what we already put in the marinade.”
“Exactly.” Fleur took another sip of the wine. “You can help yourself” She opened a cupboard next to the stove. “Why don’t we have wine glasses?”
“It’s 10 AM and alcohol is technically banned in the dorms,” Frosty Orange said.
Fleur shrugged. “Do I have to mention who got drunk on jello shots after winning the lacrosse match and showed her nichons to everyone?”
Frosty frowned. “Pass me the bottle, I don’t wanna think of that.”
“Great, now I’ll have to deal with a drunk Frosty.” Alizarin rolled her eyes and started mashing plum tomatoes much more aggressively than necessary, spraying tomato juice everywhere around.
“C’est la vie.” Fleur removed the meat from the frying pan and put it on the plate. Then she tossed bay leaves and chopped onions on the pan. “Frosty, prepare the garlic.”
“Okay.” Frosty grabbed the garlic press, nearly knocking the wine bottle off the table, while Fleur looked at the onions. Soon, the garlic ended up on the pan as well, followed by crushed plum tomatoes.
“What now?” Alizarin asked.
“We put the marinade in it and boil,” Fleur replied. “That’s how they do it in Malta.”
“You mean, that’s what the recipe says.” Alizarin pointed at her phone.
“And where’s the recipe?” Fleur rolled her eyes. “On the website of their airline. Frankly, not the greatest of airlines, I somehow went back to Paris via Zurich and Lagos, and it took two days. Still, totally worth it. Diving, walking around Valletta, checking out the temple of the fertility goddess in Hagar Qim, and sipping drinks from a pineapple on Comino, among other things. You should totally go there.”
Frosty Orange, who spent the last few minutes with the bottle of wine, raised her hand. “Where’s Zurich?”
Fleur facepalmed. “I should go back to Hagar Qim and pray you never procreate.” She turned towards Alizarin. “How did she end up in this supposedly elite school?”
“She was good at lacrosse,” Alizarin replied.
Fleur nodded. “I see. It’s played without a helmet, right?”
Alizarin smirked. “Of course. And leave it to an idiot like Frosty to charge at a butch lesbian twice her size and get her head cracked open,” she said in her rather horrible French.
When Fleur had first arrived at Crystal Prep, her English was rather good for France, which meant that she couldn’t understand anyone and the other students couldn't understand her. At first, Alizarin was the only other student she could talk to, because she thought she could speak French.
It was, as Fleur had told her once she stopped banging her head against the table, Louisiana creole. Nevertheless, they eventually learned each other's languages better, though Alizarin still firmly believed that grammar was for the weak.
"Well, I can tell she was an idiot even before that," Fleur replied.
Frosty Orange frowned. "Girls, you do realise that I can understand you?" she asked in perfect French, as if she was born in Paris and spent most of her life discussing the masterpieces of the Louvre in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
Fleur's jaw dropped. "Putain de bordel de merde," she muttered. "Since when do you speak French?"
"Since my head injury," Frosty replied. "When I woke up in the hospital, I scared all the nurses by yelling at them in French. Also, The Matrix was right. Swearing in French really is like wiping your arse with silk." She turned away from cringing Fleur and looked at Alizarin. "By the way, do you know your French is horrible?"
"Oh, ferme ta gueule," Alizarin muttered, rolling her eyes.
“I tried to teach her how to say that correctly, but all she got was how to speak dirty to Celery Stalk. I had to use earplugs to get any sleep, so I assume baise-moi comme un garçon Grec was super effective.” Fleur said.
Alizarin’s face turned the same shade of red as her hair. “It was.”
“Again, what I thought.” Fleur looked at the boiling contents of the frying pan. “Also, now we have to put the meat back in the sauce and add water so that all pieces are covered.” She walked to the drawer and grabbed two knives. “In the meantime, you’ll slice the carrots while Alizarin peels the potatoes.”
Frosty turned away from Alizarin, who’d been chuckling to herself since Fleur mentioned putting the meat back in the sauce, and looked at the knife Fleur gave her. “Can I peel potatoes? There’s a lot of horny girls living here, who knows where those carrots have been.”
“You didn’t have this problem using them as bait yesterday,” Fleur said. “Also, I’ve seen you peeling potatoes. You don’t peel them, you mutilate them.” She sighed. “Letting you peel potatoes violates the Geneva Convention.”
“I bought those carrots myself,” Frosty said. “I knew no one defiled them.”
“And those are organic carrots I bought from the Canterlot High weed girl,” Fleur replied. “No pesticides, artificial fertilisers, or other suspicious fluids.”
“Who?” Alizarin asked.
Fleur shrugged. “I don’t remember her name. She looks similar to absolutely no one.”
Alizarin furrowed her eyebrows, trying to remember whom Fleur meant, but after a while she shrugged. “Do I just peel the potatoes or dice them?”
“Dice them.” Fleur stirred the sauce with a spoon. “Should I add more bay leaves?”
“Nah,” Alizarin said. “Then I keep finding them in my food. Even if I didn’t add them in the first place.”
“I have the same problem with…” Fleur yanked her hair idly, trying to find the right word. “Le quatre-épices.”
“What now?” Alizarin asked.
“I don’t know.” Fleur shrugged. “Small, black round thingies.”
“Allspice?” Frosty asked.
“No, not all spice looks like that,” Fleur replied.
Frosty rolled her eyes. “I mean 'allspice.' One word. Let’s not make it weird, like when that Chinese exchange student joined our baseball team.”
Alizarin fixed her glasses and sighed. “Who?”
“Yes, him.” Frosty looked at one of the carrots she was supposed to slice. “Heck, that’s a big one. No way that’s organic. The girl who looks similar to no one screwed you over, Fleur.”
“Remember that she grows them in Canterlot High garden,” Fleur said. “Hell only knows what’s going on there. Remember the Friendship Games?”
“Oh yeah.” Frosty looked at the carrot again. “Maybe we should check those carrots with some Geiger counter or something? I don’t wanna glow at night.”
“I do,” Alizarin said. “Then I could read without a lamp.”
Fleur pointed the spoon at Frosty, nearly poking her chest with it. “I have an idea. We’ll stick this carrot up your ass and see if it starts glowing. Then we’ll know if it’s safe to eat.”
“What starts glowing?” Frosty asked. “Carrot or my ass?”
Fleur rolled her eyes. “Both.”
"No, thanks," Frosty said. "My boyfriend would ask questions."
"Wait, you have a boyfriend again?" Alizarin asked.
"Yeah…" Frosty blushed. "He's on the baseball team."
"Who?" Fleur asked.
"No, not him. Watt."
Alizarin winced. "Why?"
"Not Wye, Watt."
Fleur rubbed her temples. "What?"
"Him, yes." Frosty nodded. "But I may have made a mistake. He keeps talking about his bat."
"Watt's bat?" Alizarin asked.
"It's that little animal that looks like a rat with wings but it's not important right now." Frosty shrugged. "But Watt does have a pet bat. Who in their right mind keeps a bat as a pet?"
"Hu, in his right mind, does not." Alizarin smirked.
Fleur rubbed her temples again. "My ESL brain just gave up."
Alizarin looked at Frosty and sighed. "Yeah, why would you even date Watt."
"He's better than Wye," Frosty replied. "Also, you're dating a guy called Celery Stalk while I'm dating Gigawatt. Your argument is invalid."
"Actually, his name is Picowatt. He says it's Gigawatt, but Sunny Flare hacked his file," Alizarin said.
Fleur shook her head. “Can someone explain this to me in French?”
“Un joule par seconde,” Frosty replied.
“Are you kidding me?” Fleur groaned. “Okay, nevermind, it’s about time we add carrots and potatoes. Speaking of, Frosty is still way behind with the carrots.”
“I wouldn’t be if you didn’t try to stick them up my behind,” Frosty said. “When it comes to performing under pressure, I’m like Indigo’s submersible project or Sugarcoat with a bass guitar.”
Fleur raised her eyebrows.
“Long story short, she can’t,” Alizarin said in a stage whisper.
“I guessed that from the context,” Fleur muttered. “This doesn’t change the fact that the carrots aren’t done.”
“Okay, okay,” Frosty replied, cutting the carrots quickly. “I’ll be done in a few se–” She paused when someone entered the kitchen and her knife slipped, hitting her middle finger.
“Oh,” Fleur muttered, seeing the pink-haired girl in front of her.
Alizarin smiled nervously. “Hello, Fluttershy,” she said, trying to stand between the frying pan and Fluttershy, while simultaneously ignoring Frosty’s cursing. "How's your day?"
"I'm looking for Angel, my pet bunny," Fluttershy replied. "Have you seen him?"
"No," Alizarin said.
"Je ne comprende pas." Fleur smiled sheepishly.
Fluttershy showed her a photo of a white bunny on her phone. "Mon lapin," she said.
Fleur groaned. "Why does everyone suddenly speak French?" she muttered under her breath. "No, I haven't seen him."
Fluttershy nodded. "What about you?" she asked Frosty.
"I cut my finger!" Frosty exclaimed, waving her hand and accidentally flipping everyone off.
"If you see him anywhere, call me," Fluttershy said. "By the way, what are you cooking?" She smiled. "It smells nice…"