I just skimmed the early chapters of Murder on Paralon, and found that I have to continue this silly thing simply to have more interactions of Peter and Rose.
Bunter was in the kitchen, and he spoke to a girl with copper hair and skin of bronze. She looked no older than fourteen, and there was a depth in her eyes that could only be seen in the eyes of the very old, and the very young. It took her while to notice him, as she was dreamily cutting up a cucumber, but she smiled at him as she looked up.
“You are Scowler Wimsey.”
“One of my uncles calls you Lord Peter.”
“I am glad to hear that.”
“So I wanted to do the same. But Sergeant Bunter said I should better call you Scowler Wimsey.”
“Did he?” asked the scowler-lord, with a sideways glance at his valet.
Bunter sat on the kitchen counter, munching on a sandwich that, judging from the noise he made, most definitely contain potato crisps. It was a marvellous sight, and sound, and immediately disarmed Lord Peter.
“That's right,” said the girl. “It's morning. And you have a monocle.”
“Yes…indeed. And who are you?” asked the monocled man.
“A conundrum, or an enigma. She forget which,” answered Bunter in her place, but the girl ignored him.
“My name is Rose Dyson. I used to live in Oxford, with my uncle.”
“The one who calls me Lord Peter?”
“No, not that one. I have many uncles.”
“Oh, yes, it is. Uncles are a very pleasant thing to have. Would you like to be my uncle?”
“Bunter said you'd love to! Do you want a sandwich?”
“Not…if you don't like crisps,” she said, but her face betrayed her hurt feelings, and Peter accepted a very crunchy sandwich instead.
He sat down on an old, comfortable chair. Much more comfortable than the one he had fallen asleep on. The kitchen was very modest and cosy. It was, in a way, disappointing to find that, of all rooms in the resurrected Library of Alexandria, the kitchen was the most pleasant to be in.
He had, of course, no idea of all the rare and ancient books (some of them cookbooks, of course) stored in the cupboards, nor of the identity of the girl in front of him. All he knew was that the kitchen was delightfully, yet underwhelmingly common, and the sandwich astonishingly good.
“Would you also like a waffle?” the girl asked, almost pleadingly. “With blueberries?”
“Very much, thank you,” said Peter. “But how should I be your uncle? I am quite sure, we are not related, and I suppose it's too late for me to become your godfather.”
“I don't understand,” said the girl as she scooped whipped cream on his plate. “I have a plentiful of relatives, and I have both God and Father. I merely asked if you would like to be my uncle.”
“Well, in that case,” said Peter, as he received his waffle and blueberries and thick whipped cream, “I'd love to.”
The girl beamed, and there was a hint of a smirk on Bunter's face.
“Tea?” asked the girl. Tea, of course. It wasn't proper tea, found Peter, but a sweet, hot beverage from a strange-looking can, that smelled and tasted like boiled fruit candy, and to which the girl added another load of whipped cream before he could intervene.
