Sacha watched with a mixture of happiness and amusement as Hannah kept darting back into the kitchen to check on the stew. She'd asked Sacha, right at the beginning, how long it'd have to cook for, and Sacha had told her an hour, and Hannah flat-out hadn't believed her.

"An hour?"

"An hour." Sacha resisted telling her that that wasn't even particularly long. "Just make sure you check on it, make sure it's okay" she'd said. "Stir it so nothing sticks." Now here was Hannah, getting up every two minutes to go stir the pot.

"I better just go check on it" she muttered again, and Sacha nodded and chuckled to herself when Hannah was gone. She'd made some cook out of Hannah! Look how much pride she was taking in her food!

"How's it looking?" she asked when Hannah returned.

"It was bubbling a bit hard, so I turned it down" Hannah replied. She furrowed her brow uncertainly. "Is that right?"

"Yeah, that's right" Sacha said. "Just nice and gentle, otherwise the meat will get tough."

"Cool." Hannah smiled. "I thought so."

"You're getting the hang of this" Sacha smiled. "Soon you'll be able to cook meals for Shelly. You won't even need me here."

"Yeah." Hannah thought about this, and beamed. "You could go out for the night, I could cook her a romantic meal . . . Wow, imagine that!"

"Gees . . ." Sacha looked at her and giggled. "You are so smitten!"

Hannah blushed deeply. Sacha couldn't remember ever having seen Hannah blush before. "I just . . ." Hannah began. "She's just . . ." She groped for words, looking around the room as if they might be written on the walls, or on the ceiling. "I better go see if the stew's okay" she said.