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Her mother was always telling her that money couldn't be made when sitting holed up in her room her whole life, but what her mother hadn't taken into account was that living with her fingers on a keyboard had made her a desirable candidate for more than a handful of jobs. Stories on social media or worlds outside of the island told interesting stories of things called “courtrooms” where people with very similar jobs did... well, something very similar to what she did for a living, but on the island, without any crime to police and no justice to dish out, the only use for a transcribe was to caption the boatload of video information produced on and broadcast over the wonderful island-wide web. It paid little per video, maybe, but it was definitely enough to pay rent, but when fingers moved as fast as her's did, transcribing could be done nearly twice as fast by she as it could by her rivals in the business. Maybe she wasn't a successful IT Tech like Parker or a phenomenal chef like Percy, but jobs like that required stepping too far out of her comfort zone – both literally and figuratively – and were more trouble than they were worth. That, and they didn't leave her enough time at the end of the day to catch up on all of the cute cat videos she may have missed in the earlier hours. There just wouldn't be enough time to give all of those virtual kittens all the love and attention they deserved.[break][break]

Penny had only just began to start on her latest cute animal video marathon, in fact, a video feed on the left of her screen and her cursor hovering over the submit button over to the right when the sound of the door swinging open followed by loud, aggressive clatter invaded the once quiet abode. Beyond the fact that she knew that Percy wasn't going to be home until after dinner tonight, it was pretty obvious that the source of the noise pollution was none other than Parker Park. The two boys had distinctly different footsteps, for one, and while neither were exactly quiet people, there was a different energy to their clutter and clatter. Tonight, though, Parker sounded especially aggravating, even through the door. Anyone not used to him might have been tense, scared even – to her, though, all she could imagine was that someone had made him pricklier than usual at work that day. It happened nearly four days out of the five day week. In hindsight, maybe she should consider changing what she called the “usual” to the outlier. The best thing to do in these situations was to feed him, usually, but Percy's absence for this evening posed a problem all by itself. Everything she, herself, attempted to cook on that oven turned out purple and slimy, even when she didn't use anything in her batch of ingredients that could turn the finished result into a sickly violet hue, and now that she thought about it – crud! Hadn't she been put in charge of ordering some fresh groceries online? Percy had been complaining about a lack of eggs...[break][break]

Guilt hit her like a hammer, and she'd just started typing in the URL for the highest quality grocery store (that delivered, anyway) when she heard words shouted through the walls of the apartment. “Penny, get out here, I've got some amazing beef.” Amazing beef? There was a difference between types of beef? They all tasted the same to her... Still, curiosity got the better of her, and as soon as she'd pulled up her website, the blonde switched her monitor to off and meandered out of her hidey hole, off to see what on earn her roommate could have been talking about. Sure enough, a smell unlike any kind of beef, cooked or otherwise had made wafted into her nose, dragging her closer to the source of the scent and the one hunched over it. Looks like takeout wasn't the desired option for tonight. Gracious, Penny couldn't even think of the last time he'd taken it upon himself to whip up something edible for the afternoon's consumption. “Where did you find that?” she found herself asking incredulously, staring at the mystery meet and its unfamiliar packaging with a scrutinizing eye. They didn't often stray from the usual when it came to grocery shopping – but then again, if it tasted half as decent as its smell was indicating, she'd have a hard time complaining about its mysterious appearance in their home. (Up until they found out it was poisoned later. Icing on the cake.)[break][break]

Penelope stood, half hidden by the wall, and watched him work his magic on both meat and noodle, oddly more interested in this than those aforementioned kittens that needed oogling over. It was a very different experience from watching their other roommate cook – but then, watching Percy was like watching something out of a cooking television series. … For kids. Bombastic, everywhere, colorful, and maybe sprinkled with some glitter, who knew? It was a wonder how someone so airheaded and childish could mix up something that could rival the work of a professional chef. This, though, was so... normal. Almost like watching her dad cook up a meal after school. Nostalgic, almost. She watched as he snuck a piece of the finished meat (chuckled as he yelled loud enough in excitement to stir the neighbors) and folded her arms over her chest, grinning cheekily as she teased: “Wow, Parker, you almost look like you know what you're doing.” Despite the words, though, she couldn't help but eye the beef herself, mind just now processing how hungry she, herself, had become. Was it too much to ask for a small slice herself? “How long 'til this is ready, do you think?”