Melody's cooking skills are excellent when compared to other housewives but after eating Pata's food...
I feel like all my compliments are just empty husks of what they once were. This makes me feel somewhat guilty. However, once I remember the taste of Pata's cooking the guilt just fades away.
Quinn and Cassidy on the other hand seem to be in heaven as they shovel food into their mouths. Their cheeks look like those of a hamster as they adorably struggle to swallow it all down. Melody scolds them with a smile on her face and whips out her old camera to take some pictures.
As the meal draws to a close we engage in some casual conversation until the topic of my job comes up again. I awkwardly try to evade revealing too much lest I blurt out something I shouldn't. To divert their attention away from my job I decide to ask about the girls' progress in school.
"So, how's school? Are you doing alright?"
Cassidy winces and quickly looks down trying to dodge Melody's gaze. I think they had some tests last week so something probably didn't go as planned. For a moment silence permeates around the table until Melody has had enough.
"Look here Cassidy, if you don't tell him I will. Hiding your grades is not going to make them better and we can't help you if you stop talking to us."
Cassidy remains silent as an internal struggle is visible on her face. She hesitates a while longer but then she rallies her courage and looks into my eyes.
"I got 20% in my German exam."
"That's quite something. How did that happen?"
She dramatically throws back her head and covers her eyes with her hand.
"I don't know what possessed me to chose German as my secondary language curriculum. The language is complicated to no end. They just link words as they please to make monster words that no one can read, they randomly assigned one of three genders to every word forcing us to use three different articles just for basic words, and to make it worse, they have four cases which can change the article even further!"
That was one heavy rant if I've ever seen one. She didn't even stop to take a breath in between. I'd heard that German was a language that made learning a tough job but Cassidy had always done well when it came to studying.
"Do you need my help with studying?"
"Dad, you don't know the first thing about German and I don't think you can learn in one day."
"I could help you if you wanted."
Out of nowhere, Quinn offers her help. She's always been quite secretive about what courses she took but all her teachers I met had constantly been praising her so Melody and I decided to let her do her thing. But despite all that I didn't think she had taken German.
"What do you mean? You didn't take German! I've never seen you in class."
Going by Cassidy's mildly pissed off reaction Quinn really hadn't taken German. So why was she offering to help?
"I took Latin as my secondary language curriculum. Latin has six cases four of which are the same as the ones in German also many words in German come from Latin so I reckon I could give you a tip or two about their genders."
"You chose to learn the dead language?!!"
"Cassidy, please don't call it that in my presence. Calling a language dead just because it isn't spoken anymore is just something the uneducated thought of because they were jealous of how important Latin is."
"I've never seen something from Latin be used in my day to day life."
Cassidy was being stubborn again. Quinn meanwhile had the expression of a cat that had just caught a mouse.
"Remember when you were complaining the other day about how you didn't understand why you had to write q.e.d. next to your final solution in math? That's short for 'quod erat demonstrandum' or translated, 'which was to be demonstrated'."
Well played. I have no clue if what she said is the truth but based on how confident she sounded it wasn't a lie. Cassidy looks like she is about to throw a tantrum so I have to interject.
"Now now, both of you should calm down. I think it's a good idea for you to study together. You can both learn from each other."
Cassidy still looks mad but I know that she wants to improve and if someone can help her it's probably Quinn. The problem is that Quinn doesn't really learn anything from this. If she says that now I will be in trouble.
"Fine, I'll treat it as vocab practice."
The surprise on my face must be showing because Quinn smiles at me and continues.
"Our teacher has a special rule that if we know words from another language derived from the words we had to learn we get bonus points. I usually favor using words from French but German will also do."
"There are teachers who do that?"
"Our teacher does and we all think it's a great idea."
"Does that mean you can get more than 100%?"
"As an official grade, we can't but it's good for the ego and motivation."
Having more than a hundred percent would be strange. But if it motivates the students to go the extra mile that rule does make sense. And if it gets the girls to study together that's even better.
Melody announces the end of dinner and the girls scurry off to their room to get their study materials. While the girls are busy studying, Melody and I enjoy some coffee while we keep talking about inconsequential stuff. I feel a sense of tranquility that I haven't felt in a long time and I wish I could just freeze this moment and stay here forever. Alas, once the big mission is over I'll have to go back to work.