There Was No Salt in the House

There was no salt in the house. Of all the bloody things to be short of, it had to be salt. It seems so inadequate but so useful too - a kitchen staple that every place has hidden somewhere. Whether it's squirrelled away right at the back of the dingiest cupboard, next to the age-old spice containers, coated in layers of flour and sugar crystals that have been spilt as a result of use for cooking ventures. Or kept in fancy diamond-cut glass shakers standing on a marble kitchen countertops next to identical pepper mills. But for some reason, this place seemed to be the sole exception.

And Niska couldn't work out what the hell she was going to do.

She was stood in one of the poshest houses she'd ever been in, hands on her hips and brows furrowed at the mess she'd made in this swanky kitchen. Everything from the cupboards had been tipped out and thrown over every sideboard and counter in the place in her trademark style of organised chaos. Dishes, bowls and other forms of crockery Niska couldn't even begin to name sprawled the marbled countertops next to individual bags of porridge oats that drunkenly leant against boxes of Pitkin's finest tea bags. A congregation of jam jars and condiment bottles watched her from a safe distance atop a fawn oak dining table - the same colour as the cabinets. Egg cartons lay smashed on the tiled floor and various cartons and bottles of juice clumped around her feet, desperately trying to scale up her leg to escape this mess. It looked like a tornado had stripped through the kitchen, but still managed to group things together during its tumultuous rampage. Not that she cared about it, no - please, it wasn't as if it was her own kitchen. What she really cared about was trying to find

Maybe this place was too lah-di-dah to be seen with something as common as salt in their fine manor house.