Page 76 of My Tiny Giant
Cupping my jawline, he nuzzled the side of my nose. “Cheer up, my giant woman. It’s going to be a good morning. I promise.”
Even if it was to be his last.
The morbid thought shot through my brain like a bullet, jolting me to sit up straighter.
“Let us enjoy this breakfast.” Agan searched my eyes, imploringly.
He stood in front of me, strong and healthy. Smiling. Taller than he was yesterday. This could be a good thing—it had to be.
He had obviously made his decision, and I was not going to spoil it for him.
I made an effort to pull myself together and forced a smile in return.
“I can’t wait to eat that shell, Agan.”
He laughed, his features relaxing with relief.
“You don’t eat the actual shell, Eleven! Just the mollusk inside it.” He kissed me on the mouth quickly then jumped off the bed. “Helix, I’ll need your help in the kitchen.”
Yes, he was now large enough to jump off the bed instead of climbing all the way down from it.
It had to be a good thing.
* * *
G REEN VINES WITH PINK and yellow flowers on my small patio looked like splashes of color against the crisp winter morning sky outside the glass.
“I can’t wait to hear what you think about the ozeah shell.” Agan placed his elbows on the table, gazing at me expectantly.
Due to his increased size, he no longer needed to sit on the table. Instead, I’d placed my suitcase on one of the chairs, and he sat on it, high enough to eat with me.
While he and Helix had been busy in the kitchen for the past hour, I’d hastily put together a new pair of pants for him from the remaining black fabric we’d bought at the mall. The pants I’d made earlier were way too small for him, now. His old leather pants hadn’t grown with him, either.
Helix’s drone placed a long covered tray in the middle of the table.
“Watch this,” Agan urged me, excitedly. He even bounced on his chair a little, like a child about to open a birthday present. The thought made me smile.
The drone lifted the cover off the tray, revealing a large, curved shell in the middle. Steam rose from the dish. Suddenly, iridescent swirls of bright colors twirled along the spiral of the shell’s surface.
“Wow...” I breathed out in awe. “How is it doing that?”
“When you first get the shell out of the ocean, it’s pale yellow,” Agan explained. “Once cooked, the heat changes its color to deep purple. As it cools out of the oven, it goes through all the spectrum of the rainbow. It’s going to do this for hours, now, until its temperature reaches that of the room. It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the mesmerizing colors as they curled, changed, and danced along the textured surface of the shell.
“Agan. It’s simply spectacular! I’ve never seen anything like that before. Thank you.”
He leaned back, with a happy smile curving his lips.
“I wanted you to see this. I knew you’ll like it.”
“How do you eat it?”
“Like this.”
He grabbed two utensils off the table. With their curved ends, he hooked the cooked flesh of the mollusk inside the shell then pulled. It came out in one piece, like a long, slightly curved yellow sausage, tapered on one end.
Helix’s drone had already placed one small, elongated tray in front of each of us. One end of the tray held a small dish with creamy sauce.