Little Sparrow

Chapter Twelve

"You're really bad at that."

"It's harder than it looks!" William exclaimed, somehow sending a piece of carrot across the table. I watched it roll to the edge and almost fall onto the floor but somehow it just managed to teeter on the edge.

"It's not," I said.

"The girls right, Master William. I thought you'd be good at this," Mrs Langdon said, laughing a little.

"Baking doesn't involve chopping. This is new territory."

After taking the cakes out of the oven and leaving them to cool, William and I went in search of something else to do. With nothing appealing to us, we returned to the kitchen in hopes the cakes had cooled enough for us to eat them. They had not. Instead, Mrs Langdon informed us that there would be guests joining us for luncheon and that her plans had to change.

Since we had nothing else to do, I offered our services to make sure everything got done in time and William seemed more than happy to agree. The only issue being that he was not all that good at chopping things and kept sending vegetables flying across the table. I had swapped with him several times and he still could not manage to do it right. I refused to give him my potatoes and instead made him chop the carrots. That proved to be a disaster.

From across the table, Shelia watched us. She caught the carrots when the rolled across the table and rolled them back so William could have another good. When she found out we would be helping prepare luncheon, she did not seem all that pleased but. After a while, she warmed up to the idea when she found out how much needed to be done in a very short space of time. That, and watching William chop vegetables was quite funny. I had never seen anyone mess up so many times.

"How are you so good at this?" William asked, watching me peel a potato and not slice it, not sending it rolling across the table.

"You're too heavy-handed with it."

"I don't know what that means."

"You're being too aggressive when you cut into the carrot, don't push too hard and keep your other hand on the carrot so it doesn't roll."

William looked at me and then back down to his carrot, squinting and rolling his head to the side. He grabbed the knife off the table and one of the freshly peeled carrots that he had yet to attempt to chop. I watched him put the knife onto the carrot, keeping his other hand on both edges just like I said. This time, he used a lot less force and manage to split the carrot in half without sending it flying across the table. He looked at me and grinned, clearly pleased with himself.

I had spent almost the entire morning in William's company, no doubt part of Mr Atkinson's plan, and it certainly appeared to be working. He did not seem like the type of person I had created in my mind, someone who would do what my foster family did. In fact, he came across as a bit of a simpleton at times and often appeared to be amused by the smallest of things. He seemed harmless, far harmless then I first thought. If he could not cut a carrot without doing it wrong, I doubted he could do anything else.

Despite that, I was still in two minds about the whole adoption thing and whether or not it would be a good idea. William seemed nice and the Atkinson's had been welcoming, even their staff did not seem all that bad, but none of that could stop the small voice at the back of my head. It may not have been as loud as it once was, but it was still there, and I had a feeling that making this decision would be a lot harder than I first thought.

Had the Atkinson's been the villains I thought them to be, deciding whether or not to be adopted would have been easy. Them being nice just made it a whole lot worse since I still did not feel like I could trust them entirely even if their persona said otherwise. Everything would be a lot easier if people were black or white and not a mixture of either. It would certainly make decisions easier if that were the case.