“Is the kangaroo going in now?”
I smiled. “You mean theroux.”
She crinkled her adorable little nose. “That’s what I said.”
“It is not.”
“Maybe kangaroos are secret ingredients.”
“Not in this household.”
She helped sprinkle flour into melted butter, watching the mixture thicken with fascination.
“This is science,” Billie reported.
“Much of cooking is.”
“Bianca should know all about it.”
I nodded. “She probably does.”
“Bianca knows too much. Sometimes facts fall out of her because there’s no more room inside her.”
That was far too insightful for a five-year-old.
“She is full of invaluable knowledge.”
Billie considered that. “CJ is full of fake facts.”
“Stories,” I corrected.
“What am I full of?”
Mud. Questions. Longing. Fire without any fear of what might burn.
“Discovery,” I finally said.
The answer pleased her. She dropped a star anise pod into the cauldron and whispered, “Real stars.”
I let her believe it.
When Conrad returned with CJ and Bianca, the kitchen smelled of rich stew, fresh bread warming in the oven, and the lingering scent of a mud adventure. Billie stood on her chair in her black sheet-robe, dropping carrots into the cauldron one at a time. I tried to be dignified in mine.
The back door opened, followed by voices and laughter, as the kids carried their prizes into the kitchen.
Conrad stepped in and stopped dead in his tracks. CJ bumped into him from behind. Bianca peered around his arm.
Billie lifted both hands. “We’re making a beef potion!”
Conrad gave me a quizzical look.
I stirred the cauldron. “It’s stew.”
“We put a kangaroo in it,” Billie announced.
“We made a roux.”
“There are real stars in it,” she exclaimed.
