Barrow Morning

Bastiaan Oakes came down Barrow Lane early, apron on, to get first pick of the Grove’s onions.

Bastiaan runs the grill at the hot end of the Beastro’s pass. They turn everything exactly once. Every Saturday they keep one good onion back at the grill, for the day somebody walks up and asks for one burnt.

It was Saturday, and Saturday is Barrow Morning. The Grove’s barrows set down along the lane, the cooks choose what they like, and nobody counts on either side. Every invitation the Grove sent out had come back unopened all week, and half the barrow-pushers were sewing costumes for tonight between sales.

The dye-yard barrow was already there, heaped with onions. Beside it the dyer, Piet Ferrabee, was hopping from foot to foot.

Every week Piet leaves the onions and comes back at dusk for the skins the cooks save at the pass. Today Piet looked as if they had left a pot on the fire.

“I need skins today, and I can’t stay long,” Piet said. “There’s a vat at home doing something it’s never done. Anouk Feld wants that lid off more than anyone in the Grove, and they’re minding it for me, keeping it shut.”

Bastiaan looked at the barrow. Peeling the whole barrow would take an hour, even at grill speed. By then the other cooks would have picked the lane clean. Bastiaan’s long Saturday breakfast would be a cold one, eaten standing at the grill.

Bastiaan sat down on an upturned crate beside the barrow and took out their knife.

“Hold the sack open,” Bastiaan said.

They peeled every onion in the barrow and dropped the skins into Piet’s sack in papery handfuls. Cooks came and went past them and took the good leeks. Bastiaan’s eyes ran the whole hour, which is only onions, and they let them run down the dark rings of their Raccoon face.

By the end Piet’s sack was full and Bastiaan’s breakfast was long gone.

“Go on,” Bastiaan said. “Before the minder gives in.”

Piet ran up the lane with the sack on one shoulder, shedding skins.

Bastiaan pushed the peeled onions back to the pass in Piet’s barrow and put the first one on the grill. They watched it, and for once in their life turned it twice, and let it burn a little, just to see.