C20 17. There was no promise of food

By midday we had reached the attic.

“Siri.”

“What?”

“Whoa, look, a mouse!”

And a squeaky grey little rat was tossed at me.

I unhooked the poor animal, its eyes bulging with fear, from my T-shirt and let it go back to its mission of gnawing.

“That's not funny.”

“I thought you'd be scared,” Grant said disappointedly.

“Which one of us is the little child?” I remembered his remark about my airplanes.

Among the rubbish we found a box of games: chess, go, cards. We also discovered a rare radio, which surprisingly worked when we picked up the only wave in the area.

For the next half an hour we listened to jazz and played card game Durak. We really had nothing to do.

I was afraid to go down into the cellar, but it was the only place we had not yet explored and where we thought we might find food. My stomach was already ready for pickles or jam, if there was nothing else.

But we were lucky. In the back room we came across a fridge full of tinned food. Although I embellished the ‘lucky’ part a bit.

“I told you we'd get something,” Grant's face beamed with satisfaction.

I opened the top flap – nothing but peas and condensed milk. Circul Junior pulled a frozen fish and a packet of dumplings out of the freezer.

We decided to fry some fish. None of us had ever cooked before, so we went online for help. But halfway through the video, the connection went down. We never learnt what to do after cutting off the head of a dead fish.

Then we tried pouring oil into a frying pan, adding some finely chopped red fillets and a pinch of salt, but the cooking didn't go to plan – the drops of oil bounced in all directions, my hand shook and the pan said hello to the floor tiles. As a result, the kitchen was subjected to a rehearsal of the apocalypse on a local level.

I scraped the scales off the pan and threw the burnt bits of fish in the bin.

Yeah, that was a failure.

We went back to the dumplings. Well, I kind of knew how to cook them. Especially as the instructions were on the packet.

Waited a long time for the water to boil.

“Grant, I don't want to ‘please’ you, but you forgot to turn on the stove.”

“I thought you would turn it on.”

We turned it on. The water rumbled as we waited, enjoying condensed milk with leftover breadcrumbs.

Threw the dumplings into the pot and watched with curiosity as they floated to the top and swelled in the boiling water.

“I think they're cooked,” Circul poked at something deconstructed and unappetising-looking with a knife.

“Finally,” I armed myself with a fork and, saying a short prayer to all the gods of luck and food, grabbed two dumplings at once. “Mm... unusual taste.”

Grant chewed too and shrugged. “I have no idea, I don't have a sense of taste.”

“Really?”

Circul nodded. “And I can't smell anything either. I got sick when I was little, so I haven't felt anything since.”

“I'm sorry about that.”

“You don't have to. Nature hasn't spared you either.”

“Umg?”

“You've had a bad face since birth. At least I can live with my affliction, but if I had yours, I'd be ashamed to go out in public,” he said with a sweet smile.

I clucked my tongue in disapproval. “You're so petty, you know that? Everyone in your high society seems to be ugly, so when you saw the true beauty in my face, you went out of phase and now you're talking nonsense, aren't you?”

He narrowed his eyes. A venomous smile creased his lips. “One-One. But... everything about your appearance is truly unassuming. In metropolitan circles, you wouldn't even be noticed.”

“Do you regret that fate tied you to someone like me?” I grinned and pointed my fork at him. “Listen, you'll regret those words later. Mark my words.”

“That will never happen. In a few weeks, maybe less, I'll take this chain off your neck and say goodbye, and we'll never meet again.”

“I hope it happens as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, I can't wait.”

The pile of dumplings melted away before our eyes. And when the last dumpling was left, we fought for the right to have it. Grant, like a true gentleman, would not give in to me, his guest, and I, like a hungry girl in the prime of life, resisted any thought of yielding to this callous, rude fool.

So, after thirty-three rounds of rock-paper-scissors, the dumpling was mine. I chewed it with a victorious smile.

“Winner does the dishes,” Circul Jr managed to ruin my cherry on the cake, I swallowed, unable to taste it.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon and I looked around at the mess, sighed and went to clear the table while Grant sat on the stool with his knees up to his chin. The first plate broke by accident, the second, I confess, didn't make it to the sink because of me.

Moved the shards together with my foot and announced grumpily, “Auntie next door used to say it wasn't good if dirty dishes broke in the house.”

“Do you always escalate?” Grant chuckled. “Okay, I guess today's not our day. We'll save the cleaning for tomorrow.”