Red Mudcakes

Once we had our share of food and fun, we headed back towards the west river. The moment he saw us, Kelp started to jump up and down in joy. I guess guarding the basket was too boring a task for him.

Picking up the basket, the three of us headed back to the village. When we reached, Jenny's mother was waiting for us with a bowl of mashed up red berries, another bowl filled with powder, and three round tin boxes. The moment Jenny saw her, and started waving her hand wildly, she stood up and grabbed the tin boxes.

When Jenny reached, she abandoned the basket right in front of her mother. Seeing this, her mother shook her head as she sighed.

"Jenny is such a wild child I sometimes don't know whether to be happy or worried with how much energy she has. By the way, she told me that you also cook! Do you want to exchange a couple of recipes? Or I could teach you some recipes."

Looking at her smile, I reached out my hands to help her bring everything in.

"If you don't mind, that is."

"It's fine. It's not like these recipes are anything too unique in our village anyway. And besides, more cooks mean more food to share."

Wiping her hands on her apron, Jenny's mother took the dried mud out from the basket. Although the mud used to be a nice turquoise in color, once it was dried, it turned a much darker green almost like the color of moss.

"First, we take the mud and knead it into a much thinner and flatter form."

Taking some mud into my hands, it felt much warmer than before. It's temperature was close to that of touching a piece of cold metal. Then following Jenny's mother, I used my hands to knead and flatten the piece of mud. Once we turned them into flat saucers the thickness of several pieces of paper, Jenny's mother used her hands to scoop some of the mashed red berries.

"Next we take some mashed red berries. We need to mash and mix these with rain powder first in order to neutralize the toxins. I've already done that for this batch so you can be at ease and touch them with your bare hands. The rain powder, which is grinded from the inner bark of the rain powder tree, or the umbrella tree if you want to use its official name, is a form of detoxifying powder that is effective on almost every poisonous plant on this planet."

"Its old name used to be 'God's Blood' due to an old legend that the tree gained detoxifying properties due to God's tears raining on its roots when He saw his people suffering from poison. Nobody really believes that legend nowadays but some adults and children will still refer to the rain powder tree as God's Blood, so do not be shocked if you hear it from them later on."

Applying the red berries onto the mud, Jenny's mother then folded the mud around the berries and then continued mixing them.

"Then we spread the red berries onto the mud and mix them thoroughly together. After that, we put them into the tin boxes and let them freeze for about 1 hour. And then we are done."

Kneading and mixing the ingredients together, we watched as the green colored mud lightened in shade and slowly turned into a very eye-catching red in color.

"Red berries have very strong properties in relation to dyeing and staining so they are sometimes also used as body paint, paint or even drawing materials. I still have some more leftover, so we can do a little bit of art on you before you go back home."

While I was focusing on making one red mudcake, Jenny's mother had already done two of them and was fitting them neatly into the round tin boxes. I imitated her as she pressed down hard on the mud mixture and flattened them very tightly into the boxes. Then taking our three tins, we went towards the back of her house to where there was a little trapdoor made of wood. She opened the trap door and placed our tins inside.

"Beneath the ground is incredibly cold, so we use it to store and freeze food. Now we just need to chill them for a while. You can go play with Jenny and do some body paint. I'll call you guys once they are done."

Closing the trap door, Jenny's mother fiddled with her own terminal before shooing me back into the house. The moment I stepped in, I saw Jenny running over with a bowl of mashed berries in her hands. Her fingertips were stained red and the corners of her mouth had little red streaks on them. She used her red stained hands to capture mine, and dragged me to the dining table, inviting me to sit down.

On the table were wooden sticks with slightly blunted tips. Picking one up, Jenny dipped them into the mashed red berries and used them like art brushes. In small and large strokes, she managed to draw a beautiful flower on the wedge between my thumb and finger. Glancing at her own hands, I could see that she was incredibly busy herself while we were making the red mudcakes.

Intricate patterns snaked all the way from her fingertips to the top of her shoulders. Like vines, there were flowers blooming and curling all the way up her arm. But flowers were not the only patterns, there were animals with hooves and wings, birds perching on the vines, wolf-like creatures chasing smaller animals, and even Kelp sitting on his butt with a very silly look on its face.

Speaking of Kelp, even it was not spared from Jenny's artistic talent as its entire body was covered with markings. Even its small curly tail was not spared.

Feeling the cool wooden 'pen' on my skin, I watched as Jenny pursed her lips in concentration as she drew on my arm. Her wooden pen bobbed up and down as her squiggles started to resemble objects and organisms. Once in a while, she would take a small break and wipe the sweat off her forehead, before diving right back into her drawing. And not having the heart to ruin this serene scene, I surrendered my arm to her whims.

When her mother walked in on us, she didn't say a word and only shook her head with a smile before retreating to her kitchen.

Finally, when Jenny was satisfied with her artwork, she put down her pen and broke out into an ear to ear smile. Followed by an ear splitting amount of words. Like someone had hit the unpaused button on her words.

"Ah right! Can we take a picture!"

Suddenly bursting out, Jenny didn't even wait for my answer before she was pulling up her personal terminal and posing. Giving out a short sigh, I smiled and leaned on her shoulder, repeating her pose.

"Also, add me as a friend so that we can talk over our terminals!"

Pulling up her terminal, Jenny showed me to the inbuilt messaging application and taught me how to add her as a friend. Then sending a text message of a small girl smiling and waving hello, she giggled beside me.

Sending a simple text 'Hello' back, we both played around with the apps before Jenny's mother called us to eat the red mudcakes.

After a long soak in the cold, the cakes instead of shrinking like they would in my previous world actually puffed up instead. Creating a nice curve at the top with very small air holes, it seemed that soaking in cold water would actually count as baking in an oven in this world.

Jenny's mother turned over the tins on her hand, catching the cakes as they nicely fell out of the tins, and handing them over to us.

Inspecting the cake, it really was identical to a baked cake in my previous world. It was just quite cold. Taking a bite, the soft and creamy texture of the cake was what first shocked me, after that it was the fact that it's mildly sweet taste managed to cling to my tongue for a couple minutes after I swallowed.

I closed my eyes to savor the taste. Sweet but not overtly so, and right as its taste faded there was a slight tang at the end that made you want to take another bite. Before I knew it, I had finished the entire thing!

Opening my eyes in disappointment, as if waking from a sweet dream, I was met with Jenny's mother's smile. Then followed by Jenny's own obnoxious smile.

A little embarrassed, I pulled my personal terminal to act a little busy and froze. On the top left, it said that it was currently 20. Looking out the window, the sky was being painted in a fantastic orange color with the tops of the sky already fading to black.

Noticing my stare, as if she could read my mind, Jenny's mother told her to say goodbye and escorted me out of her house. She raised her hand to point to her right.

"Walk straight down that direction and you should be able to reach your house. If you ever get lost, just walk towards the sea and follow the beach line. Have a safe trip home!"

Waving goodbye, I immediately broke into a run the moment I walked out of their sight.

Sazzy was going to kill me!