Excerpt: The Mad Scientist's Cook

When I was fourteen, all I wanted to do in life was to work at my parents’ inn.

“You want to work here the rest of your life?” My cousin Maria asked, doubt and disbelief, and yes, a little bit of scorn staining her tone. She grabbed another potato from the bin and started peeling.

“Why not?” I grabbed a new potato of my own. “All my friends are here. All my family’s here. Pretty much all my very favorite people in the world are here. Why would I ever want to live some place else?”

“You’re so dull,” Maria said. “I know I’m not going to work here the rest of my life.”

“Really.”

“Truly. Next time the gypsies come, I’ll pick out the prettiest one and we’ll fall ever so hopelessly in love. And despite our families’ protests, we’ll be married in a meadow under the moonlight. And we’ll have all kinds of fabulous adventures, and years later, when I’ve seen all the world has to offer and I come back to Corona-“

“You’ll drag along your twenty- seven children and you’ll have a hook for a hand, and you’ll say ‘Oh, Rosa, you were right as always! I never should have run away with that gypsy lad! Oh woe! Oh sorrow!’”

Maria flicked a potato peel at me. “I think my hook will look rather fetching. And that’s what you’ll tell me when I come back. You’ll say ‘Oh, Maria, what a fetching hook, with the filigree and the cloisonné and the, the-“

“Bouillabaisse?”

“Ha,” Maria said. “Your jealousy over my fabulous hook will nearly consume you. ‘Oh, Maria,’ you’ll say. ‘If only I had gone on adventures with you instead of staying home with my twenty- seven children, I could have such a glorious hook for a hand! Alas, for my poor cruel fate!’ And then, your head will explode.”

“From envy?”

“From envy. If only you had left Corona to have some adventures.”

“Why do your stories always end up with my head exploding?” I asked.