Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
If she even has one, she thought, studying the scowl on the NeverBreeder’s orange face.
“Ahem…” Claudette cleared her throat loudly to be heard over the sounds of the ovens and the clanging bowls and women pounding and mixing dough. “Head Baker Goone, this is your new worker. Her name is—”
“Don’t care what her name is,” the NeverBreeder announced, turning to face them, though she never stopped kneading the huge mound of dough. “I don’t need another worker. Send her to the butcher’s next door—they need another. Head Butcher Loone was just telling me so the other day.”
“Oh no!” Penny gasped, before she could stop herself. “No, please don’t send me there! I—”
She stopped speaking abruptly at a hard nudge in the back from Claudette.
“What did you say?” The NeverBreeder supervisor turned to glare at Penny more fully and this time she actually stopped kneading for an instant.
“I said, uh…” Penny cleared her throat, trying desperately to think how to salvage the situation. “I’ve always wanted to work in a bakery,” she said, trying to smile at the NeverBreeder appealingly. “It’s always been my dream. I loved baking back home. Why, my brownies were legendary and my sourdough bread starter was…well, all the girls in my circle asked me for some of it,” she went on, improvising as she went.
She was also lying her head off. Though she was a reasonably good cook, she’d never been much good at baked goods. Her brownies came out like miniature bricks and her one attempt at bread could have been used as a doorstop. Still, she couldn’t end up at the butcher’s shop with Skrug hovering over her all day—she simply couldn’t.
“So you can imagine how excited I was when I found out my job was to work here,” she went on, hoping like hell that the NeverBreeder supervisor was buying all this. “I mean, baking was only my hobby back home, but here at the Compound, I was going to get to do it for a living! I mean, I was just so filled with joy to find out—”
“You’re filled with shit, is what you’re filled with, Missy.” Head Baker Goone glared at her. “I don’t b’leieve you’ve ever baked a loaf in your life, no I don’t!”
She tore off a huge gob of dough and slapped it back down on the metal table with a hollow splat as though to prove her point.
“Nevertheless, the job assignments are handed down from our Glorious Leader himself,” Claudette said sternly, glaring down at the NeverBreeder. “And I don’t think he’d be very pleased if he heard you turned down one of the workers he chose especially for you, Head Baker Goone.”
“What do you know about our Glorious Leader?” the NeverBreeder scoffed, glaring at Claudette. “You don’t work at the Big House, Missy—I know you don’t! Still…” She glanced back at Penny dubiously. “I’ll give you a try. Make a mistake, though, and it’s off to the butcher’s shop you go. They’re just beside us and I can send you over there quick as a wink.”
“All right.” Penny bowed her head humbly, her heart banging against her ribs. At least she had a chance—if a very slim one—to stay in the bakery. “Thank you, Head Baker Goone,” she added, still hoping to get on the NeverBreeder’s good side—though she was seriously beginning to doubt she had one.
“You’re not welcome,” Head Baker Goone snapped. “May’bell!” she suddenly bawled at the top of her lungs. “Maaaay’beeeeell!”
She sounded like someone calling the cows to come home, Penny thought as she winced at the deafening shout. For a NeverBreeder, the little baker certainly had a deep voice. It echoed through the busy bakery and cut through the clanging and banging effortlessly.
A large, plump woman with smears of some kind of blue flour on her cheeks came rushing up, wiping her hands on her apron.
“Yes, Head Baker Goone?” she gasped, looking frightened. “What can I do for you?”
“Take this new girl and train her,” the head baker told her shortly. “She claims she’s got baking experience but I doubt it. If she’s no good, give her to Head Butcher Loone next door. Understand?”
“Yes, Head Baker.” May’bell gave Penny an unfriendly look and jerked her head. “C’mon, you. Let’s see what you’re made of.”
Feeling sick to her stomach, Penny turned her head once to wave goodbye to Claudette. She saw a look of sympathy pass over the other woman’s face, and then she had to rush to keep up with May’bell as she led her deeper into the industrial sized bakery.
Forty-Six
The minute Penny got back to the Love Hut she shared with V’rex that evening, she got directly into a hot shower.
“What a day!” she moaned, as she pressed her cheek to the cold tiles while the steaming water sprayed over her. “What a horrible, horrible day!”