A smile was drawn on the cook's face, as if those hard times were already too far away to reach him.

"You've peeled enough sweet potatoes, now start cutting them into squares and put them in that empty box"

Ricardo and Lucas nodded to the cook and set off to cut the sweet potatoes.

Ricardo, who already had enough experience as an assistant, used some barrels and a board that were in the kitchen to form a table supported on one of the walls that had some loose nails already prepared to work as an additional support for the table.

Then, between the two of them, they carried the box with sweet potatoes to the wall where their makeshift table was and began to cut them.

Unfortunately for the cook, these two boys were too friendly with silence to propose topics to talk about, while they carried out the monotonous task

And to top it off, they decided to assemble the table using the nails on the right wall, which made them have their backs to him, leaving him marginalized as if he were an outcast in the kitchen.

*Knife falls and squares of fish come out*.....*Knife falls and squares of fish come out*

In order not to feel so isolated, the cook had to raise a topic of conversation again before these queens of silence, but to his surprise the one who started the conversation this time was Lucas.

"Now that I notice it, Ricardo, you have hands without calluses, it's quite rare for a sailor, isn't it?"

"Ha, ha, ha... Didn't he tell you his full name? That boy had never cooked in his life before coming aboard this ship" The cook replied, happy that the kitchen is getting lively again.

"Why?, does his last name have something special?" Lucas said something curious.

"My name is Ricardo Montes Iglesias" replied Ricardo with a certain pride

"Huh?... Do you have a double last name?" Lucas asked in disbelief.

"Indeed, the cabin boy is from the Montes de Las Cuevas" Said the cook, containing his laughter at the joke that had occurred to him "Ha, ha, ha..... this fat cook has a nobleman cutting the sweet potatoes... ..Hahaha"

"But I don't understand why you got on this ship being a noble, who aren't rich? Why come to the sea and risk your life, having everything already armed at birth?" Lucas said, unable to believe that in this world there is a person who sends everything to hell to be able to cross the oceans.

"Is it because he wasn't all set up at birth....maybe?!" Ricardo said with some anger as if he had already had this conversation hundreds of times, "It's not that easy to be born noble you know..."

"What's more, you could say that I'm in the same position as you and they expelled me from my house" Ricardo said angrily, it was clear that he still hadn't overcome the issue in these months on board.

"At first you think you have everything easy and that everything is at your fingertips, but then you grow up and reality comes to ruin your life"