Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88235 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Lorn answered her question by leaning across the table and hissing at her, “Quick,” he whispered, this time with no trace of a stutter. “It’s an insult not to take a bite before it melts away again! Hurry!”
“Oh—okay.” Quickly, Vicky snatched up the tiny cake and took a bite. The cake was real, all right—dense and moist and sweet and spicy. It melted on the tongue and yet had a lovely chew to it. “Mmm!” she murmured in appreciation, taking another bite. “This is good.”
“Professor Lornah always d-does the best lectures,” Lorn said, with apparent pride. “She gets asked to speak m-muh-more than any other professor here.”
“I can see why,” Vicky said, taking another bite of the cake. “Delicious.”
Beside her, Chain was enjoying his cake as well. In fact, he finished his off in two bites.
Vicky, on the other hand, wanted to savor hers. She took tiny nibbles but she had barely eaten half of the delicious little cake when Professor Lornah stated that she hoped they had all enjoyed the delicacy but now they had to move on.
As she began to speak about something that sounded like a cross between a jelly donut and a stuffed potato, the remains of the honey cake abruptly melted away from between Vicky’s fingers, making her sigh in disappointment.
“Oh, too bad! I didn’t know it was going to disappear,” she whispered.
“D-don’t w-worry,” Lorn told her. “Sh-she’s j-just getting started.”
And indeed she was. The next cake popped up on a gorgeously scrolled limestone platter and this time Vicky was determined to eat it all. She was really hungry and the honey cake had been barely more than an appetizer.
This cake, however, had a much stranger texture than the last. Vicky bit into it anyway to find that it was, indeed, very like a cross between a stuffed potato and a jelly donut, but the bright jelly inside it tasted strange in her mouth. It had a weird meaty flavor and it felt oozy and strange against her tongue.
She swallowed and decided to take a closer look before she bit down again. To her surprise and disgust, she saw that the filling inside the potato-donut-cake was moving. Suddenly Professor Lornah’s voice caught her attention.
“…filled with the immature larvae of the bleck tree-hopper of Nissa Prime,” she was saying, gesturing to the potato-donuts everyone seemed to be eating. “It’s a lovely dish and it seemed to jibe nicely with tonight’s theme and location, since we are lucky enough to be hosted by the University of Insects and Arachnids.”
Larvae? Those are larvae in there? Vicky looked with dismay at the squirming filling of her donut. But I ate that! I ate a bite and swallowed it!
No wonder it had tasted meaty.
Vicky’s stomach rolled and for a moment, she was sure she was going to be sick. But she couldn’t do that, she reminded herself. She was supposed to be making a good impression and puking up the bug stuffed pastry she’d just eaten wasn’t going to do that. In fact, it was likely to mortally offend their hostess.
Get a grip, she told herself sternly as she placed the bug-bun back on her plate and looked pointedly away from it. Just get a grip, Vicky. Hang in there—you can do this!
This mental pep talk helped a little and Vicky felt her stomach settled just the tiniest bit. But she was determined to be more careful with the next dish. Whatever it was, she was going to cut it open before she took a bite, that was for sure!
The next dish, however, wasn’t cuttable—not unless you were really fast with a knife, Vicky thought in dismay as she saw what fizzed into existence on the plate in front of her.
“This coin-sized cake is sweetened with the sap of the Xao tree and served using the long-legged tushings which live and hunt upon its bark,” Professor Lorhan said. “The tushings are trained to run right up one’s body and place the cake inside the eater’s mouth. Truly, it is a remarkable accomplishment on behalf of the cake-artisans.”
On Vicky’s plate, a huge hairy, purple and black spider with a leg-span that was bigger than the plate itself suddenly appeared and rushed towards her. On its hairy back was a small white cake but Vicky was not paying attention to the “prandial delights” Professor Lornah had spoken of earlier. She let out a terrified squeak and shoved her chair back from the table as fast as she could.
The enormous purple spider with the cake on its hairy back ran right up to the edge of the table. Then it lifted the cake and raised it with it’s two front legs— which ended in sharp-looking pincers—as though offering it to Vicky.
“It’s all r-right,” Lorn hissed beside her. “It j-just wants to run up and p-put the c-cake in your m-mouth. Just let it, Professor Victoria.”