I'm New Here [Jasmine]

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Henry had done some asking around. He'd applied to a lot of jobs around town. He didn't want to get a job, but he knew he needed to, and with the fear hanging around town there weren't a lot of people willing to hire. How long before everything was destroyed by the coming army, anyway? In the end, only the bakery had an opening for someone.

He'd only been working for a week at his new job, so he wasn't really good at knowing the names of everything or where all the different items were kept. He was still confused by the cash register and how that technology even worked. It had been a long day with a really busy lunch hour, and he was more than a little flustered, even though everything had settled down now.

When the door opened again, he managed to force on a small smile. "Hi, welcome to Shake and Bake. How can I help you?"

Hopefully she wouldn't ask for anything too complex. He wasn't sure he could handle that right now.

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Jasmine stepped in the door. She had been craving something sugary, but she had little money of her own to buy it with. "Um... can I just have a cupcake?" she asked the kind cashier. He looked rather familiar.

"Do you go to the school?" Jasmine couldn't help asking. She had heard that there were a few people around that didn't go even though they could. She had a feeling he did go to school, but at least she was meeting someone new.

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"Uh..." Henry looked into the row of baked goods and tried to pick out a cupcake, but somehow there were different categories. "What kind of cupcake? Cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla, red velvet...why would you want fabric as a cupcake?"

He looked up at her next question. "Yeah. I'm Henry. I guess you're at school too, then? Nice to meet you."

Frowning at the cash register, he glanced to see if there was a cheat code for cupcakes. "Hey, could you do me a favor and just tell me what the price tag says on those cupcakes? I don't want to have to walk all the way around the counter again." One of these days he'd make a cheat sheet for the register. It would certainly save some time.

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Jasmine pointed to one. It was brown and kinda sparkly with red icing. "Um... I think that's cinnamon and strawberry icing. The price is $2.99," Jasmine said. She pulled out a little bit of money. She placed her money on the counter.

Jasmine smiled. "Yes, I do go to school here. My name is Jasmine. It's very nice to meet you too," she said. Henry seemed nice enough. Maybe they'd be friends at some time.

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He punched in the price. That sounded about right, $2.99. Not that Henry would really know if she had been lying, but she seemed pretty trustworthy. "Thanks," he said. He pulled out the cupcake and put it into a bag, wrapping it (fold two times) and passing it across the counter.

"Okay, um." He looked over the cash. He was having some trouble figuring out change, but he could probably figure it out. Eventually.

He looked up at Jasmine. "Well it's nice to meet you, Jasmine." He stuck his hand out to shake, which was when he realized that he wasn't actually wearing gloves. "Aw, shit!" he said, pulling his hand back and staring at it.

"I'm so sorry," he said, looking at his hand, then at the bag. "They told me to always use gloves, but I just keep forgetting...I'm sorry." He took the bag with the cupcake in it and unfolded it, looking inside, then looked back up at Jasmine.

"Look, I'm supposed to throw this away now," he said, looking back and forth a few more times. "I'm supposed to always wear gloves and if I don't then I have to throw it out, but I don't know if you...I mean, I was told we should never throw away food, and it seems really stupid to do that now. I promise I just washed my hands...No, you know what? I'll give you another one."

He pulled on the little plastic gloves and got a new bag and a new cupcake, folding it over and handing it to her. "You can have that one, and if you want the other one you can have that, too, don't worry about the cost. I just...I'm new here. And I mess up sometimes. Sorry."

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Jasmine smiled. She hadn't had a cupcake in a long time. She was going to grab the bag when Henry noticed that he wasn't wearing gloves.

He seemed really worried about it. Where Jasmine was from, no one wore gloves when handling food. Gloves were a thing for the wealthy. There wasn't even rubber to make the rubber gloves from.

"It's fine," she said quietly, but Henry didn't seem to notice. He just kept worrying about the cupcake. He got her a new one and wrapped it up and gave it to her.

Jasmine laughed. "In Agrabah, no one wore loves when handling food. It doesn't bother me at all. I guess I should thank you for the free cupcake then," she said. This was better than she had thought it would be.