Do Fish People Eat Pancakes?

“You have fish people here?” Karl gawked at the blonde girl bouncing at the cast iron wood-burning stove in the castle kitchen.

Jenny threw a grin over her shoulder. “Fish people. Fox people. Flying fox people. Fox people with horns. Centaurs. Dragons too, apparently, though that’s a new development.”

She scooped the frying disc of batter out of the skillet and flipped it over onto a waiting plate with a plop. 

“How many can you eat?”

“How many can you make?”

“I can make many.”

“Many means how many?”

“Many means massive amounts.”

“I like you.” Karl accepted the steaming plate and breathed in the butter-sweet aroma of the perfectly crispy, fluffy masterpiece of a pancake waiting for him to devour it. He reached for the carafe of maple syrup on the counter and splashed a good amount of it all over the pancake.

Jenny giggled and turned back to her skillet. “Everybody likes me. Except Barb. I don’t think she likes me very much.”

“That’s because she’s a grouch.” Karl chewed the pancake with delight and a groan of happiness. The savory, saltiness of the butter it had been fried in gave it a crispness on the outside, but on the inside the pancake was like a cloud that melted on his tongue. 

Jenny poured out three more discs in the hot skillet, spattering and sputtering in the generous quantity of butter she’d melted.

“You should feed her pancakes.” Karl swallowed and reached for the foamy glass of fresh milk Jenny had given him earlier. 

“I don’t know if she likes pancakes.” Jenny paused and turned back to him. 

“Well, then she isn’t human.” Karl took another bite and smiled happily. 

The longer the pancake soaked in the maple syrup pooled on his plate, the sweeter it became. The syrup infused every fluffy bite with musky, woodsy, tangy awesomeness. They didn’t have maple syrup like this in San Francisco, or if they did, nobody bought it for him. 

Did it honestly take visiting another dimension to find maple syrup like this?

Well, if that was the case, he’d visit more often. He’d brave fox people—with or without horns and wings—and fish people galore if he could have Jenny Mitchell’s pancakes every morning. 

Karl blinked. “So. Fish people.”

Jenny spun, snatched his plate, and whirled back to the stove, flipping the fresh steaming pancakes onto the plate. 

“Fish people.” She handed it to him. “Well, more like vampires. Vampire fish people.”

“How are they vampire fish people?”

“They live underwater, and they have teeth.”

“Teeth?”

“Sharp, pointy teeth.” Jenny poked his arm with every work. “They’re not very nice.”

“Why not?”

“They eat people, Karl. That’s where the vampire part comes in.”

“Oh.” Karl doused the pancakes with more syrup. “You should give them pancakes.”

Jenny tilted her head, hair like sunshine spilling over her shoulder. “Do fish people eat pancakes?”

Karl shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

Jenny leaned on the counter with her elbows. “I don’t know.”

“They’ve got to like pancakes, Jenny. Everybody likes pancakes.” Karl bit into a chunk of his new pancake, after he’d drowned it in syrup. It tasted like happy late mornings after a long, restful sleep. 

Jenny’s face went slack. “Not everyone.”

Karl swallowed, staring at the glint in her widening eyes. Not everyone ate pancakes? 

His heart thudded in his chest. 

“You’re right,” he whispered. “Not everyone.”

Jenny’s jaw dropped. “Barb.”

“Barb.”

“Barb’s a fish person!” 

The door to the small castle kitchen banged and groaned as it swung open, and Barb Taylor herself marched inside, towel around her shoulders and sweat beaded on her brow. 

She swiped a mason jar out of one of the open cabinets and filled it with cold water from the sink, gulping it gratefully. She rubbed her sweaty hair with the towel, darker than its normal flame red color, and glared at them.

“What are you two doing?” 

Jenny grabbed Karl’s plate and thrust it in front of her. “Pancakes!”

Barb drew backward with a snarl. “I see that, Jenny.”

“Eat some!”

“Was Karl eating those?”

“Eat!” Jenny shouted. 

Barb set her glass down on the counter with a thunk and turned on her heel. “I’m not touching anything Karl has breathed on.” She walked out of the kitchen, and the door swung shut behind her.

Jenny turned wide eyes to Karl. “She didn’t eat the pancakes.”

Karl held out his hands with a whimper. “But I will.”

Jenny handed the plate back to him and scratched her chin. “She didn’t eat the pancakes, but she doesn’t have sharp teeth. Or gills. Or live underwater.”

Karl took another heavenly bite of pancake, soft and springy and soaked through with maple syrup. “So where does that leave us?”

Jenny nodded and went back to the stove, dropping more butter into the hot skillet in a chorus of pops and crackles. “Barb’s not a fish person. She just doesn’t like us.”

“Her loss.” Karl finished the last bite of pancake and held up the syrup carafe. “Got more syrup?”

Jenny beamed. “Lots.”

“How much is lots?”