Snippet

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Longer than average snippet today, just because I felt like it! Still from my steampunk LT3 story.

I struck up a conversation with Jessamyn, the baker's daughter, a young woman near my own age who'd been making pastries since she could see over her mother's counter. Jessamyn and I had grown up together and even though our interests made it difficult for both of us to be out of doors or see each other much, we often fell right back into conversation as though we'd only just left off.

She rolled out dough with a pin the size of her forearm, flour on her cheek as she chattered on about the young gentleman who'd stopped by three times in the last week and was working his way through the various flavors of puddings she concocted. Her cheeks flushed and I teased her, saying maybe it wasn't really the sweets he was so interested in. She swatted me away, but asked me of my own recent adventures.

I told her about the professor.

"You're working with Lippett?" Her round green eyes widened and she stopped rolling long enough to stare at me. "What's he like? Is he ancient? Is he completely nobbed like we thought?"

I shook my head. "He's younger than I thought. The way people talk about him, you'd think he was twice as old as our fathers, but he's only about as old as your uncle." Jessamyn's uncle, youngest of that generation, was about nineteen when she was born, and that put him in the same general age range as the professor, I thought. "He's a presser though. I mean obviously he's jemmy, I mean, you can't be a professor without being smart as a whip, but he's hard to keep your temper around."

One of the reasons it was so easy to talk to Jessamyn was that she understood. I didn't have to explain to her like I would my sister or father that presser meant irritating, as in he presses buttons, or that jemmy meant someone of intelligence.

She snorted. "It's hard for you to keep your temper around most anyone, Oliver. Even me when we were younger."

I shrugged my shoulders and tried to reach for a pastry. Fast as lightning, her hand whipped out and rapped mine sharply. "Ow! Cogs, Jessie, your hands are faster than your mother's now!"

She grinned smugly at me. "Been practicing, for the likes of you!"

For all her teasing though, she gave me a plum pudding to take along and I bid her farewell. The lunchtime hour was ending and I was due back at the professor's.