I needed a little courage to be able to show Ms. Cameron my fabric glue. Since it was an item that eliminated the need for sewing, I was worried that she might think I wanted to cut corners.
“You can apply it like this, then set it with an iron,” I explained as I demonstrated. “This way, it won’t come off, even after washing the garment.”
Ms. Cameron silently thought with her arms folded across her chest. She was usually always smiling, but today she had a stern look on her face.
“May I try it myself?” she asked.
Ms. Cameron took the gluestick, applied the glue onto the edge of some fabric, folded it over, pressed it with an iron, then tugged the fabric to see if it would come apart.
“My, it really is fused together. It doesn’t look like it has affected the other side of the fabric at all... You’ve come up with an impressive item!”
I’d thought she was going to scold me, but to my surprise, she complimented me! Perhaps the stern look on her face was a result of her taking my demonstration that seriously.
“Of course, I do think it is best to properly overlock pieces with sewing, but there are many students who aren’t too confident about sewing.”
The Burns Trading Company was going to start selling the fabric glue as well, but in order to have some to use before the Festival of Verdure, I gave Ms. Cameron some samples. Otherwise, some students weren’t going to be able to finish their gowns.
“I’m going to need those magical irons as well,” Ms. Cameron remarked. “I’m sure the small ones will be useful for working on details.”
She’s buying the irons too! I guess it’s hard for noble ladies who don’t have ironing experience to use those heavy charcoal-filled ones and press out all the seams.
All the overlocking and hemming work that was left for the students had now become easier, but Princess Margaret and many others still had much more sewing ahead of them.
As for myself, the first-years’ pieces for the music club recital were done, and I’d thoroughly practiced my accompaniment for the glee club’s musical, so I spent all of my free time holed up in alchemy club.
We’d finished our freezer, so I was currently working on making lots of ice cream. I’d use the ice cream maker here and there, but I mainly just used household magic to speed things up. Magic was especially useful for stirring the batches swirled with strawberry jam, because it produced a beautiful marbled effect.
“This should probably be enough,” President Caesar said.
We had six containers of ice cream in our freezer. Each container held two liters of ice cream, which was forty servings. We were planning to serve everyone two scoops—one of the milk flavored ice cream, and one of the strawberry—so we had a total of 120 servings.
“What if it isn’t enough?” I asked.
“We’re only going to make a hundred tickets, so once we’re sold out of those, it’ll be done,” he replied, laughing off my worry.
It appeared that the remaining twenty servings were going to be for friends, family, and others, since we wanted to give some to the maids helping us out as well.
President Caesar had all the unused egg whites delivered to my house, which I was going to have Eva make meringues out of.
On the day of the festival, I wouldn’t be able to come to alchemy club in the morning because I had my music club performance and glee club accompaniment.
“The ice cream is going to be rock hard after sitting in the freezer, so you must take the container out a bit before you want to use it,” I cautioned the other members. “Also, I’m going to be busy with rehearsals the day before the festival.”
After that, we prepared some signs for our events. Unlike last year, this wasn’t going to be a plain exhibit in a classroom. We created several wooden signs that read “Bicycle Test Rides” and “Ice Cream Taste Testing.” We also added some drawings to the signs, which I mainly handled.
“You’re good at drawing, Patience,” President Caesar commented.
Once the signs were done, we prepared a schedule for the bicycle rides, a reservation sheet, and tickets to buy ice cream. Making all of these reminded me of the festivals I’d participated in during high school and college in my previous life, and I felt quite nostalgic.
It was decided that the first-year students and I would be performing in the morning slot of the New Composition Recital. Princess Margaret was going to play in the afternoon.
“Lady Margaret, I must be at alchemy club after noon. Will that be all right?”
President Albert just laughed.
“I bet Lady Margaret is going to be in the auditorium the entire day. Most of the other members, including myself, will probably be doing the same, so you have nothing to worry about.”
Princess Margaret actually had a different idea though.
“I’d like to try that ice cream thing you came up with,” she said. “Why don’t we skip the theater club’s performance and go eat some ice cream?”
President Albert, Rupert, and several other members all seemed interested in trying a new dessert.
“I’ll have some tickets set aside for you,” I said.
Samuel overheard us.
“I’d like to eat some ice cream as well,” he chimed in. “It was very delicious.”
All the other members turned their attention to Samuel.
“You’ve had it?” Daniel and his other friends asked with burning curiosity.
“I tried some at the Granger house,” Samuel revealed. “It was cold, sweet, and incredibly delicious.”
I ended up agreeing to secure tickets for everyone in music club. We’d been thinking the taste testing would be a simple affair, but we now realized that Samuel and his friends would tell their classmates about it, as would the other music club members.
“At this rate, we won’t have enough,” President Caesar commented.
We’d nearly sold out of tickets already, so I rushed to make four additional containers of ice cream, and our freezer was completely stuffed. We also made additional tables and chairs.
“These eighty servings will be for selling on the day of the festival,” Caesar said. “We might not have time to wash all of the dishes, so we should also make extra bowls and spoons.”
The classroom space had access to water, so we’d planned to have a maid washing the bowls and spoons, but it looked like they were going to be too busy scooping and serving ice cream. It was truly a detriment that I couldn’t join until the afternoon.
“After lunch, Princess Margaret is going to come try some ice cream,” I reported. “Would it be possible to reserve a table for her?”
“Sure,” President Caesar said approvingly. “You know what? Maybe we should take reservations for the taste testing too. We don’t have to do it for all the tables, but we could designate a few as reservations only.”