The lunch lady of hollow ridge playthrough

Turn 25 of 32

Start on lunch with the other Tammys, stations rotating, all twelve in full uniform. its pizza. same serving. after eating, the hair is still a problem along with your hands being open in the food. soon yall find a paper that shows the lunch lady hairstyle. the grey hair done in a prefect donut bun covered by the hairnet.

Lunch time comes on the dot, and the wheel turns another notch — the servers cook, and you find yourself among the serving four, standing at the line in your blue dress and white apron while the others fetch and cook. Pizza, today: big sheet pans of it, the dough pressed out even, sauce spread to the edges, cheese laid down thick, pepperoni in neat rows. It comes out of the oven bubbling and you cut it into fair squares, and every plate that comes down your end of the line gets the same — one square, a little cup of fruit, twelve times over. 'There you go, hon,' you say, handing them down, and it is very good.

But the trouble from breakfast hasn't gone away. Grey hairs keep slipping loose — you catch one drifting toward the pizza with a bare hand, and Tammy beside you is plucking strands off the serving counter, and the whole line has gone to fussing. Your hands keep landing open in the food too, flat-palmed, reaching before the utensils do, and every woman at the line is doing the same thing, twelve pairs of broad soft hands hovering over the trays. 'This hair will be the death of me,' Tammy says, tucking her knot tighter, and it comes loose again in a minute.

Then the Tammy at the end of the line calls out. A piece of paper has turned up on the office desk by the serving line — a simple printed sheet, a diagram on it, and she brings it over and spreads it flat. It shows a woman's head, drawn in plain lines, with the caption 'THE LUNCH LADY HAIRSTYLE.' The hair is pulled back smooth and twisted into a perfect donut bun at the crown, snug and neat, and beneath it, drawn on in faded yellow, sits the hairnet covering every strand.

'Well, there it is,' Tammy says, and the line goes quiet with the rightness of it. You look at the drawing and you know that bun. You have seen it your whole life over a sneeze guard. Twelve women look at twelve identical drawings, and there is not one question in the room about what comes next — only where the bun makers got to, and how soon the line opens.

The clock ticks on at 8:30, and Tammy is content.