Godt's POV

While we were picking the vegetables in the backyard, I told P'Tae that since he had cooked dinner for all of us last night, I wanted to be the one to cook lunch this time.

"You know how to cook?" he looked at me in surprise.

"Of course I know how to cook!" I replied, feeling a bit offended that he doubted my culinary skills.

"What are you thinking to do with these vegetables?" he asked.

"I will boil the beef pieces that are thawing in the sink," I said, "and add these leafy greens that we have here, plus the green beans."

"I saw some condiments in one of the kitchen cabinets," I continued, "I will drop in some of the dried bay leaves and crushed ginger roots."

"Okay," said P'Tae, "don't forget the onions and peppercorns."

We were both sweaty by the time we finished gathering the vegetables.

"Are you alright?" I asked P'Tae when I saw him rubbing the side of his forehead.

"Yeah, I am," he said, "just having a little bit of a headache but it will go away."

We were still going up the steps leading to the porch when we heard Bas and Copter and Tee squealing like three little pigs. 

When we stepped into the living room, I found the three of them including P'Kim on the floor playing with scrabble pieces but without the scrabble board. P'Kim was grabbing the letters from them announcing "Bars!" and "Rats!" and "Dame!"

"I formed 'bras' first!" complained Bas, "why did you have to think of 'bars'?"

"Because you are always having naughty thoughts in that head of yours!" replied P'Kim laughing out loud.

He forgot about his injured foot and stood up when he saw us walk in. In one second he was back on the floor.

Copter and Tee went over to him quickly and helped him up.

"I can cut up the vegetables and tomatoes and onions for you," offered P'Kim. "I will be sitting while cutting them anyway."

Copter grabbed the tomatoes and onions from him and said, "I will cut these up for you."

I could be wrong but somehow I was sensing some tension between P'Kim and Cop. Was something going on between them? Were they having some feelings for each other that they refused to acknowledge even to themselves?

Or maybe Copter was just feeling responsible for the accident that P'Kim suffered because he had gone off to find him when he ran out of the cottage earlier and so he was trying to make things easy for P'Kim.

Bas, on the other hand... I shook my head as I looked at the clueless kid.

I better get busy placing the pieces of beef into the pot. I poured some water into the pot and added the cut up onions and tomatoes that Copter handed to me. Then I dropped in some pieces of dried up bay leaves and crushed ginger roots and sprinkled some peppercorns into the pot. I was not yet going to add the vegetables until the beef pieces were tender.

I tried to call out to Tee to cook some rice but I saw him and P'Tae walk out of the living room and into the porch. They seemed to be deep in conversation, Tee looking very serious as if ready to cry. P'Tae had a very serious expression on his face as well. He was rubbing the side of his forehead again. His headache had come back.

Copter volunteered to be the one to cook the rice.

"Bas!" I called out, "can you please help Copter to cook the rice?"

"I don't know how," he said.

"It's okay," said Copter, "I can do it myself."

I decided that before our vacation was over, Bas was going to learn how to cook rice.