No Freedom

Chapter 3

I made an early start to my day, waking up before daybreak and threw on a navy blue dress, black flats, and brushed my hair. I then pulled a clean apron out of my closet and headed down to the bakery to open. I quickly made a few crepes for breakfast, ate mine, ran the others up to the family floor, and opened.

A few customers trickled in, the light outside barely getting brighter. A few streaks of lightning split the sky as the clouds poured down on everyone walking around. I chuckled to myself, rolling out cookie dough.

Patrick ran out, "Katie! Can I cut cookies?" He yelled, arriving to pull at my skirt.

"Sure," I laughed, setting up a stool so he could reach. The boy carefully selected a few Thanksgiving themed cookie cutters and set to cutting the dough. Once he had finished, I balled it back up and helped him roll it out. Once all the dough had been used up, I put the cookie pans in the oven and set to helping Momma make some puff pastry.

(A/N: If you all haven't noticed already, I consider myself a baker and a cook. You might be able to tell based off of my terminology and knowing my way around a kitchen (shown in the characters). Anyway, I'll stop chatting a let y'all continue.)

Once Momma and I had had finished the daunting task of constant folding and adding butter, we took two dozen mini pie pans from the cabinets, making a boarder around the edges and bottom of the pans with the pastry. We then made roses out of peach slices in the middle. (The dish is called Peach Roses. I've heard it tastes really good and is very lovely to look at.)

Momma slid the roses into the oven as I went to take the orders of a few customers that had walked in. A few minutes later, the timer on the oven dinged and Momma was taking orders. I ran over, throwing on an oven mitt and pulling the pans out of the oven, placing them on the stove. After about twenty minutes of cooling, I pried the pastry out of the mini pans and placed them in the glass display cabinet.

The Newsies came in around noon this time, it was only Albert, Elmer, and Romeo. I rinsed my hands off in the sink, grabbing a pad and pen before heading over. "What would ya like?"

"Would ya like to take a guess?" Elmer joked, brown raised playfully.

"Sure. How 'bout a water for you, Elmer, and three specials?" I tried, racking my brain for what they usually order.

"Spot on," Elmer grinned, getting a light whack from Albert. "Hey!"

I chuckled, "I'll get it for ya." Albert sent me a concerned look and I shook my head, blowing it off. I prepared the dishes, giving Elmer a bit of whipped cream on the side. Once the dishes and water were ready, I carried it all over to them. Elmer's eyes widened with excitement as he saw the whipped cream.

"Yay!" He yelled, dipping his finger in and tasting it. "This is so good!"

"Thanks!" I smiled. "I'll be back over in a bit." I headed off to tend to another customer, delivering a coffee and bagel to him.

"Katie!" A girl with blonde hair and green eyes waved me over.

"Hi, Jill!" I grinned, running over and giving her a hug.

"How's the...you know?" She asked, holding my arms.

"It's fine," I sighed. And just like that, my nose started bleeding. "Hold on. Can you take care of that table of boys?"

"Sure, honey," Jill grinned, taking over for me as I headed upstairs. I used up three cloths and my nose was still bleeding.

"I hate the colder months," I muttered angrily, using another cloth to stop the bleeding. Thankfully, the fourth cloth worked. I cleaned my hands, swapped my apron, and threw the bloodied cloths into the laundry basket. I ran back downstairs, going back and fourth between tables and incoming customers.