To Share a Meal

 “Okay! Now that’s out of the way,” Katlego began while turning around, “Mona, grab that desk and bring it here. Bookworm, you too–” He suddenly stopped talking and caught the flying notebook in his left hand. Aito had thrown it at him. “–and in return, I’ll give you back your notebook.” I stood slack-jawed watching the entire exchange go down.

“Hmph.” Aito groaned and went to pick up the desk. That’s way too much confidence for one person to have! Also, what in the world is that athletic ability?! I’ve had notebooks flying at my head before, but I’ve never been able to catch one–much less with a single hand.

“Hey! Lucas! Don’t stare off into space! Move that desk too!” Katlego said. I nervously yelled “Yes!” and picked up the desk. What am I supposed to do with this now? I went to look at where the others were bringing them. They placed the desks into an L-shape near the center of the classroom. I imagine they are trying to make a table out of the desks, so I bring it over and place it in the empty slot. The others and I borrowed the nearby chairs and took a seat around the mock table. Katlego then leaned back and spoke.

“Awesome! Welcome to the Lunch Bringers Society!” Mona let out a nearly unnoticeable, exasperated sigh. Aito was still glaring since Katlego hadn’t returned her notebook yet.

Katlego stood up, placing one foot on the chair and the other on the desk, and struck a dramatic pose. In a larger than life voice, he exclaimed, “Time for introductions!”.

“Take your feet off the desk,” Mona immediately retorted. Katlego hung his head dejectedly and sat back down. The next moment, he raised his head with a smile and continued onward. He has no shame, or just doesn’t care. One or the other.

“I’ll get us started then! I’m Katlego, though everyone just calls me Lego. I’m one of the top dogs here.” That was obviously a lie, and Mona was quick to call him on it.

“He is a delinquent, nothing more.”

“You don’t have to be so mean!”

“Then introduce yourself properly.” Mona stood up and slightly curtsied. “My name is Mona Amin. It is a pleasure to meet you all.” I was impressed by how formal and straightforward her greeting was. Is she even a senior in high school? I wondered before Lego continued on, seemingly unfazed by Mona’s beratement.

“Your turn bookworm!”

“Notebook,” Aito promptly responded. Aito was still having a staredown with Lego as he grinned aloofly. I was a bit curious about why he was only calling Aito ‘bookworm’ though. He seemed to know her.

“Hey Lego, why do you call her bookworm?”

“Hmm?” Lego tilted his head quizzically. “I don’t know her, and she looks like a bookworm.” Of course that’s the reason… I made a mental note to not read between the lines whenever Lego said something. All he did was speak it as he saw it, exaggerating in some places. “If you introduce yourself, then I’ll give you back the notebook,” Lego bargained. I’m not sure whether I should be supporting or stopping the blackmail. I decided not to say anything about it.

Silence reigned for a few seconds as Aito continually glared at Lego. She then closed her eyes, like she was acknowledging the tediousness of the situation, and spoke:

“...Aito. Notebook, now.”

Lego started being more pushy. “Come on! That’s not an introduction! Try again!” Aito still remained silent, forcing Lego to resign with an “Okay, fine.” An instant later though, he opened up Aito’s notebook and tried to mimic her voice.

“I’m Aito…something! I like to write–” Lego quickly turned the opened notebook towards him and back. “–I mean draw things!” (He sounded like a boy trying to raise his pitch a few octaves.) Mona and I leaned into the drawing shown on the paper. A cliff was overlooking a town surrounded by the forest. The colors of the sky made it look like the sun was setting. There were white specks, which I assumed represented the stars coming into view. You could also see the wind blowing as it twirled around on the cliff’s edge, small leaves floating around. I was below the curve when it came to art, but even I could tell that Aito had talent.

“That’s…beautiful,” Mona and I responded asynchronously. We were both too amazed to say anything else. I wanted to express my awe at her talent, so I turned back to Aito. However, I noticed the complicated expression lingering on her face. She seemed to be slightly embarrassed at the scattered praise. Though, her eyes were a bit downcast, as if she wasn’t pleased with the work itself. Lego seemed to realize it too, as he immediately closed the book and returned it with a half-joking, half-sympathetic look.

Clearing his throat, Lego turned towards me. “You’re the last one Lucas. Take us home!” Aito still had that half-happy, half-sad look on her face. I wanted to try and cheer her up, so I tried to make my introduction a little funny.

“Hello! I’m Lucas, and I like my sandwiches with more mayo and less mustard.” The three looked at me with blank expressions. The first one to break the deadlock was Lego as he started laughing aloud.

“Haha! Dude. I mean, sure, that counts but…haha!” My cheeks were turning red. Why is he laughing like I just made a terrible blunder?! It’s not embarrassing, right? I turned towards Aito and Mona to make sure it was only Lego being weird. Mona, however, was slightly smiling while Aito was coughing to stop herself from laughing. My face became even redder as I tried to scrunch myself into a ball. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aito looking at me slightly softer, as if she was saying thanks for changing the subject. I gave her a slight smile back, but I was too embarrassed to do anything else.

A few minutes passed, all the while Lego never stopped laughing. Lego then composed himself and turned towards Aito, “I’m sorry for taking your notebook. You can have some of my lunch.” As soon as he said that, Lego’s eyes went wide and started shimmering. I don’t like where this is going. I leaned further back in my chair. “Actually…” he began “...why don’t we do a taste test? That’s the perfect way to start off the LBS!”

“LBS?” I asked with confusion.

“Lunch Bringer’s Society.” Oh, so he’s actually making this a real thing. I looked at Mona and Aito once again. Mona crossed her arms and simply said, “Fine.” Aito shrugged like she didn’t care and went to pull her lunch out.

“Great, we’re all in agreement! I’ll go first.” Lego grabbed his lunch out of his bag. Wait a second, I didn’t even get to respond to that!! Since when is the majority a single vote?? I was slumping into my seat, but I wasn’t going to stop the taste test. I was curious how they tasted.

“Oh right. Before we do this, are there any foods you can’t or won’t eat?”

“Nope.” “Not for me.” “No.” all three of us responded.

“Ok then! Here’s my lunch for today!” Lego pulled out two small containers and opened them up. Inside the first, it looked like there was an omelet on top of a slightly darker meat paste. It smelled like beef, but it made my eyes slightly water. The other container contained a mix of vegetables which was covered in some kind of red sauce. After a few moments, Lego passed out some forks. We took a slice out of the omelet meat paste as Lego explained the dish.

“This is called bobotie. It’s made of–” and he went on to list the ingredients. I would’ve listened more, but the main thing about the dish was it was really, really, spicy. It was so spicy that I grabbed the water bottle in my lunch box, unscrewed the cap, and drank half the bottle in a fraction of a second. Aito seemed to be having just as much trouble with the spice as she drank from her water bottle too, albeit less than me. Mona, on the other hand, seemed to be having no troubles at all and was enjoying it. I guess she eats spicy food more commonly than Aito and I. Because of the spiciness, I couldn’t really comment on how it tasted. The vegetable mix more or less resulted in the same thing. Lego said it was something called chakalaka, but I was too busy drinking my water to listen to anything else.

“If this is how you two react to spicy foods, I believe I should go next.” Mona pulled out a medium-sized container out of her bag and opened it up for us to see. Inside was a weirdly shaped piece of bread that was cut on its side. It was stuffed to the brim with finely diced vegetables and thinly cut meat, all marinated in a mix of different seasonings. Once again, Aito and I both succumbed to the spiciness, although it was slightly better than Lego’s food. Maybe that was because my tongue was still swollen from the previous barrage. Mona called it shawarma placed inside a pita bread. I’ll search for what shawarma and pita bread is later. I didn’t really care for Lego’s food as it was way too spicy, but Mona’s looked like a good sandwich.

Aito was next in line as she pulled out a flattish, rectangular box. She pulled off the top to reveal the box was partitioned in two: breaded meat on top of white rice on one side, a salad on the other. She then went on to describe the contents:

“Bento.” She pointed at the breaded meat, “Tonkatsu.” Then the white rice, “Hakumai.” and finally the salad, “Salad.”

“Umm…what kind of salad?” Lego asked in a slightly confused tone. I think he was wondering the same thing I was: why Aiko called the white rice not white rice.

“Cucumber.”

“Ah…okay.” Lego seemed genuinely stumped on how to respond to the promptness of her answers. Instead of dwelling on it, we each took a bite of the breaded meat. It tasted like…pork. It is pork. It can only be pork. The confusion on my face grew even more, less than when the white rice was called ‘hakumai’, but still somewhat noticeable.

“Why didn’t you just say that it was pork?” I asked Aito. She merely grunted, as if explaining the meal was too much effort. Katlego and I put our heads down and groaned internally. We pretty much gave up then and moved on.

Finally, it was my turn to show off my lunch. I reached down and pulled out the two sandwiches. “Here it is: bread, mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and some kind of lunching meat.” I didn’t know what type of lunch meat since my dad always made them after I was already asleep, but it was probably ham or turkey.

“Ah, so these are the famous mustard sandwiches,” Lego teased. My face immediately turned red as I remembered what happened only half an hour ago. All three of them took a quarter off one sandwich and popped it in their mouth.

“It tastes like a normal sandwich,” Mona simply stated.

“Kind of disappointed, I wanted the extra mustard,” Lego mentioned.

“Too much cheese,” Aito prompted. Why is she the only one who complained? Also, why would she complain about the single slice of cheese?!?!? I brought my head back down and took a bite myself.

“There’s definitely too much mustard,” I quietly muttered to myself.

After a while, we finished our own lunches, making short conversation with the occasional sarcastic comment from Lego, aggressive retort from Mona, and a quiet “Hrm” from Aito. The bell rang a minute or two after that. We moved the desks back to their original positions as the kids began pouring into the classroom.

“Let’s do this again tomorrow,” Lego said happily as he returned to his seat. Mona slightly smiled while Aito nodded her head as they returned to their seats. I exclaimed “Yes!” as well. It was fun. Well, besides the mustard anyways.