IF THE BASEMENT WAS THE BELLY, THE KITCHEN SHOULD BE THE HEART

25 FEBRUARY, THURSDAY, CONTINUED

The kitchen was awashed with all the nice smells of tiramisu. It looked like they were done too. Besides the mess of bowls and sieves and measuring cups and whisks and unidentified spillages that happens when one bakes, Savy was also pouring out a mixture into a large tray of plastic cups. There were already more than three distinct layers in those cups too. Yum. I wished Tiramisu didn't have to be chilled for hours!

"Sam!" Sabre yelled the moment I stepped into the kitchen, then she immediately hushed at the sight of Ben behind me. The little human had never quite gotten over their first meeting.

"Ben!" Lizzy's turn to yell next, "Sam's MY guest, not yours!"

"Alpha is here." Ben intoned in his usual monotone.

"Don't pretend to be working!" Lizzy was unimpressed, "And don't get Sam in trouble - she's not supposed to be working today."

"She's not supposed to leave the house either." Ben shrugged.

Oh... Wait... Omo. I forgot. Maybe I should go home?

"Luna said it was okay for her to come here." Lizzy said, "Because we couldn't use the kitchen in the alpha house today."

Savy grinned, "It's funny, they're both grounded, but Sam is grounded from work while Ben is grounded to work."

I laughed, more from the relief that I hadn't accidentally broke curfew. (It would've been terrible for my plans if Mum extended my punishment.)

"That's a beta's life for you." Lizzy shrugged it off.

Ki smiled, "Is there anything else I can do for you, goddess?"

I shook my head, "Nope. Thank you, Ki!"

Ki smiled and nodded his bow at me.

"Don't worry, Ki. We'll take care of Sam and Sabre. Go back and rest." Savy promised sweetly.

I didn't need to be taken care of! But Ki's smile never wavered, "Then I will leave it to you lovely ladies, but I hope you don't mind if I borrowed the beta for a moment."

"Sure, he's useless here." Lizzy waved Ben off, "You don't have to return him."

"You are too kind." Ki beamed so that Lizzy and Savy giggled. But Ben wouldn't budge, "What do you want from me, dog. Just say it here."

Ki stopped smiling, "Very well, Beta, I need to collect the car key from you."

"Now, dog?" Ben touched his pocket, but didn't take the key out, "Someone already bought it?"

"No, beta, but I need to have the car cleaned and conditioned for viewing." Ki said.

"Harvey's selling the lambo." Lizzy informed us, "Cos Ben ignored his warning and got into homework trouble at school again."

Was this what my good beta meant by Ben needing to "learn to deal with the consequences of crossing those limits"? In that case, even though it was heart breaking, I'd better not interfere. Poor Ben. Say goodbye to the lambo. Don't be sad, there will be other fishes, I mean cars.

But I was seriously underestimating my bad beta here. As if, Ben would just let go of his one true love.

"Is the asking price still the same?" Ben asked.

"Do you mean the one listed in the sales document? Yes, beta." Ki smiled.

"Do you really think anyone would pay that much above market rate for a used car?" Ben told him.

"This was a car that once belonged to the Lorent Young Alpha and then gifted to the Night Leaf Alpha Princess." Ki explained, "There is no price tag for its historical significance."

"Whatever, Ki. It's still a rip-off." Ben finally took out what was in his pocket, but it wasn't a car key, it was a small slip of paper folded in half, "I'll just pretend I'm donating to the FAO."

Ki checked the slip of paper and looked up and smiled, his very gentle smile, "Beta, I cannot help but be surprised that a middle schooler was able to raise such a large sum of money. I believe even a normal person would need more than 24 hours to collate this."

Ben smirked, "Well, I've never been a normal person."

"Ben! What did you do now?" Lizzy was quick to go over to see what the slip of paper in Ki's hand was, "What is this?"

"What? Never seen a cheque before?" Ben teased.

"What did you do to get this, Ben?" Lizzy yelled. She snatched the cheque out of Ki's hand and waved it.

Savy took it from Lizzy, "Wow, sooooo many zerooooosss."

And then she giggled. Because I'm sure she was trying not to cackle.

"Did you do something illegal, Ben?" Lizzy narrowed her eyes at her twin.

"Our FAO cannot accept black money, beta." Ki smiled.

Ben growled, "Why would you assume I had to do something illegal to get that?"

Actually, I was pretty sure Ben must have done something illegal too.

"You never question it when Harvey hands you his cheques." Ben accused Ki.

"Harv is the heir to The Langston. Naturally, he would have access to this amount of resources." Ki answered smoothly.

Why was Harvey handing fat cheques to Ki? What were my betas up to now?

"Do you think the Langston is so great, dog?" Ben folded his arms, "If you're judging us by our dad's businesses, then wouldn't the K&K be even bigger?"

The K&K was also known as the Utility King in the Green Packlands. It's a Green Packland listed company, and a household name, but that would only be natural, since all the utility, phone, cable, and internet bills had their logo printed on it.

In every economic analysis, the Green Packlands would be criticized because the K&K monopoly over the industry was supposed to go against fair competition or something. Dad had always argued for K&K's side though. At the very start, our Green Packlands was quite a far way off from any of the main lines, and with the constant rogue threats, no one would invest in Gate City's infrastructure. It was K&K who took the risk and invested a colossal amount of money to build and run power supplies, clean water, telco lines, networks etc in Gate City, and later the rest of the inner Green Packlands.

I've always thought Dad was partial to K&K because he was loyal like that. K&K had started off with us more than ten years ago, and grown with us, and was only just passing its break even point. I think it happened last year or the year before... I remembered Dad taking Mum out for some big corporate dinner to celebrate. Beta Lucas couldn't babysit this time, because he was going too. Mum was really worried about leaving us at home, but Beta Lucas said he left his twins on their own lots of times and nothing has happened.

That was the first time I was left in charge. And guess what? Nothing happened. Savy and I ate the dinner the Pack House Kitchen sent over, then we did our homework, watched TV, and went to bed... about two hours later than when Mum and Dad were around, but its not like they ever found out. At any rate, we didn't burn down the house, end up in hospital, or jail... nothing happened.

Anyway, everyone owned the K&K. It's one of those stocks that adults bought because it was stable or something. Don't look for at me for stock tips. I know next to nothing.

"Our dads own K&K too, but I don't have that kind of money." Lizzy pointed out, "Ben, I don't even have a cheque book!"

"Me neither." Savy looked at me.

I blinked. Why would a high school student need a cheque book? I shook my head, "Don't look at me. All my wealth lately consist of the $20 in my wallet."

I didn't even have any savings like before. What I did have was lost in the fire, and well... Come to think of it, Mum and Dad stopped giving me my allowance - it was just the constant magical $20 in my wallet every day.

"Yeah, sure, Sam." Ben smirked.

The girls laughed like I made a good joke.

"But seriously, Ben." Lizzy said, taking the cheque back from Savy, "If you don't tell me where you got this, I'm showing it to Dad."

Ben groaned, "Do I have to tell you everything?"

"No." Lizzy was an expert at handling Ben, "You can just tell Dad directly."

"Alright, fine. I earned it." Ben said.

Lizzy was unconvinced, "Doing what? Shoveling snow like your stupid best friend?"

"Well, at least he's an honest guy." Ben said.

"Ben!" Lizzy waved the small piece of paper, "I'm really going to tell on you."

"Okay, okay!" Ben said, "But I really did earn some of it, the rest I won. I took part in some coding competitions, and then I used the money I won to open a programming business. I write software, and it turned out I'm really good at it. The pay's really good."

"Really?" Lizzy asked. If the coding competition was coding malicious viruses, or if the programming business was selling malware, I could totally see BenX doing it.

"Yes." Ben said.

Lizzy looked at me, "Sam, is Ben telling the truth?"

I had no idea. Who knew what Ben did in his free time? But I didn't sense any lies, so I nodded, "He's not lying."

Lizzy narrowed her eyes at her brother, and then handed the cheque back to Ki. I guess she was going to accept that.

Ki was less accepting, "Isn't beta too young to own a business?"

"Mind your own business, Ki." Ben grumbled, "I just do it freelance."

"Well, remember to file your taxes, beta." Ki smiled.

"I'm a still a dependent." Ben argued, "I don't even have a tax account."

"Don't worry, beta. I will be sure to report the loophole to Harvey." Ki promised.

"Dog!" Ben growled.

But Ki had already let himself out.

"I am not paying taxes." Ben folded his arms and sulked, "If I'm too young to open an investment portfolio, I'm too young to pay taxes."

Ben could be stubborn like that.

The girls had gone back to the Tiramisu. It was just another day at the Beta House.

"You're not telling, Dad, right?" Ben asked.

Lizzy shrugged, "Yeah, okay. But if Dad finds out, he's going to blow another fuse."

Ben chuckled, "Don't worry. As long as you don't tell him, he won't find out."

"Okay," Savy wiped her hands on a clean damp towel, "We're done for now. We'll sprinkle to chocolate flakes on top before serving. Help me get this in the fridge Lizzy."

But the fridge at the Beta's house was unlike the fridges in the Alpha House. It was double doored and huge, but the similarity ended there.

"Uh oh." Lizzy said when she had opened the fridge.

There was a very nostalgic feeling about this fridge... that's right, it looked just like our fridge before Ki.

"I don't think the tray would fit." Lizzy said.

That much was obvious. The fridge was completely stuffed.

"We could just put the tray outside in the snow." I suggested. Savy and Lizzy gave me a look. What? I mean, who needed a fridge when there were snow wolves in town?

"Maybe we could see if we can throw out any of the stuff to make space, and then put them in cup by cup?" Savy suggested.

This suggestion wasn't because Savy liked to throw away good food. Some of the containers were clear, and some were in clear bags... so we could all see that some of the items here were no longer safe to consume.

Lizzy wrinkled up her nose, "Okay."

Five minutes later, Ben had retreated to the other side of the kitchen.

"I think I'm going to gag!" Lizzy said as she opened up another tupperware and emptied the brown liquid content into the bin, "I was quite sure this used to be meatloaf."

Savy and I helped her pull out the random items - I was particularly lucky at finding the really bad boxes.

Sabre was in charge of scrapping the remaining food out into the bin, "It really stinks. It's worse than poop."

But she was just a human. If she thought it stank - we were suffering WAYYYYY worse.

"You should've just put it outside like Sam said." Ben commented from behind his hand.

Bell also covered his lower face with his hands when he was shy. But Ben wasn't being shy now. It was just that stinky.

Lizzy was in no mood to entertain Ben's attitude, "If you can't take the stink, get out of the kitchen!"

But 10 minutes later, Lizzy tied up the garbage bag, and Savy could put the entire tray of tiramisu cups into the fridge to chill.

"You better run if you want to catch the garbage truck." Ben warned his sister, "It's Thursday."

"Oh no! Did we miss the truck?" Lizzy panicked at the thought of living with the black bag of food gone horrifically wrong.

"Not yet." Savy checked her watch, "Looks like they're running late today."

"That's lucky." Lizzy said. She hoisted up the black bag and took it outside.

We watched Lizzy put out the trash.

"The beta house is terrifying." I grinned, "Your basements have skeletons, and your kitchens have mutant foods."

"What skeletons?" Savy asked, nonplussed.

But Ben laughed, "You don't know the half of it."